...Should probably link to the game's website.

http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/

The guy making the game is constantly updating with dev notes. Some of them are pretty awesome:

"05/03/2010: While I was working on the adventure mode screens update, Scamps ran into the room and jumped up on my arm so that he was hanging from it briefly with his front claws. That startled me and I swung to the right, knocking my desk and banging my knee into my tower. Somehow that popped the case open, and when I looked down my computer was laying open on its side with my phone sitting inside of it on top of the motherboard next to a spinning fan. It seems fine, though. I guess the memory is in perpetual danger though, from falling phones and stuff. Scamps, who was crouched right next to the scene with his little tail wagging, got a ten minute timeout."

Last time I played DF, I was ready for a nice, long game. I had high hopes, and the name of my fortress reflected that - Moonshot. Certainly ambitious and prideful name, but not without cause, for within my settlement were all the resources a Dwarf could hope for; flux and sand and water, and, best of all, not one but two magma features.

Unfortunately, they were both exposed and my wagon ended up right between them.

Moonshot ended pretty damn quickly. I was swarmed with imps, fire- and magmamen within minutes. It was all over before I could even react.


It was goddman hilarious, wish I could run that fortress again, ar har har har

i liked dwarf fortress and everything, but

a) i was really bad at it

b) some of it seemed needlessly complicated for no real benefit

c) buggy shit

but i should probably return to it sometime :X i was using the phoebus tileset, i don't care if that makes me a lameoid

Here's the Lazy Newb Pack if anybody wants it.
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=59026.0

I've been reading Dwarf Fortress threads for at least a year and a half now - Let's Plays and discussion threads alike - to the point where I could actually bitch about the bugs and shit without ever having actually SEEN THEM.

So I downloaded the lazy newb pack last night, may God and all the saints preserve me

>>127
first fortress starved to death because, although i had set up a proper underground farm with irrigated mud and set it to grow plump helmets in every season and had plenty of plump helmet spawn in my embark loadout, my farmer decided he would rather fuck around being idle all day instead of actually farming
he had all the farming labours activated so i don't even know wtf that was about

second fortress the farm worked just fine and everything was going swimmingly until my attempt to dig out bedrooms opened us up into an underground cavern and a troll got in and ate everyone

>>127
yessssssss join us

my fortresses always get their shit ruined by a siege or forgotten beast because i am really bad at making the fucking military system work

I HAVE LITERALLY NO IDEA HOW TO MAKE AN ARMY HAPPEN D:

i also haven't found any metal ores except nickel, platinum and gold, you can't even MAKE weapons out of those as far as i can tell, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa goblins are invading aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

>>302
i was following 5ippycup's (or something like that) youtube tutorials. it's really fucking complicated and still doesn't work terribly well

>>306
I started out watching 5ippycup's tuts but he was talking too much and I got bored :V

>>302
imported a bunch of metal bars, made some fucking weapons (all i've found on my own map so far are gold and nickel, not v good for weaponmaking)

CURRENT PROBLEM: my TEN THOUSAND CAGE TRAPS LINING THE ENTRYWAY plan, devised as an alternative to not having any military, has worked.

it has worked too well.

I now have ten ((goblin cage))s and some of those are really nice cages. Is there any way to kill the goblins and reuse the cages?

>>315
http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/DF2010_Talk:Cage#What_to_do_with_caged_goblins_by_nickbii

>>315
i think there's a way to let the goblins go so your guys can beat them up, but it's incredibly complicated (like everything else in dwarf fortress).

lolol nvm, tantrum spiral just killed my fort

shout-out to zuglar logemuthir, who just single-handedly murdered 23 dwarves while i tried desperately to remember how people dealt with berserkers in the LPs i've read

(i guess i could have paused it while i did this but eh, everybody keeps saying losing is fun)

>>322
another dude just went berserk, but he went into a room with a door so i locked the door

maybe he'll starve to death in there

NOW WITH SCREENCAPS! (annotated for those unfamiliar with whichever tileset i have installed, it's the one that comes default in the noob set - Mayday?)

irrelevant floors skipped
i know my layout is ugly but this is my 3rd fortress ever and i'm still learning

and here's 10 flights down on the dormitory floor, scene of many murders which are now covered by miasma

FFFFFFFF-
This thing just raped me good.

Anyone got tips for dealing with these horrible things? I think I might have nightmares tonight...

>>1284

SWEETDREAMS.

I come to you with a tale, friends
A tale of dwarf fortress.

The mountain sparkled with rare gems
The halls were carved of aluminum
(We filled our mouths with cinnamon)
Word of our rare riches reached widely
Migrants from the mountainhome mingled
And soon the great engravings of our walls
Made home to 45 souls.
Yet of iron, weapon-metal, we were poor
And our wapentake could muster merely poor things:
Copper hammers, leather armor
No fit armament for fighting-men.
We traded what we had for what was brought us
Yet still we were rich in beauty, poor in strength
And the tale of our treasure gave goblins pause.

45 dwarves had we, when the green-skins, death-dealers, came.

New migrants came in the heat of battle, yet only half of them reached our doors
Their blood spilt, joining the rivers of our own
A crimson moat that beat about our shores.

When the goblins finally withdrew from their first attack, we had but 17 dwarves:
16 migrants
And a single soul who'd been amongst our first 7
A founder, who had made his friends, and lost them there upon those battle-fields
His once-companions carrion-feed, crows' dinner.

I looked at his thoughts and preferences screen and it said he does not really care about anything anymore. Dwarf Fortress has PTSD coded into it.

He came into a strange mood shortly thereafter.
He withdrew from society and sat in his room for a season.
At the end of the season he trudged slowly up the stairs and took a leather workshop
Wherein he made his artifact:
A simple vest, plain and unadorned.
He named it "Boredmatch the Silent Monastery":
A name evocative of the silence which now filled these halls,
Our dwarvenhome where once he and his friends had walked,
Now hollowed to a handful of strangers.
My heart wept for him.

The next caravan from the mountainhome brought cold respite: iron weapons by the score, for which we traded trinkets, mugs and crafts made rich by the mountain's sparkling blood. When the goblins returned, we would be ready.

They did return.

Our sole survivor, our battle-scarred elder, his mind worn down by crushing loss, took arms and strode to meet them
and the goblins retreated before him
without exchanging blows, they left
Craven cowards, retreating beyond the edge of the map.

When they came a third time they brought crossbows.

Once again our depressed hero ventured forth, but they shot him. He fell as he walked, and lay where he'd fallen, beneath a tree, beside a pond.
The goblins left him and advanced upon the fortress.
Again and again the dwarves attempted to reach him, to bring him back inside, to nurse him to health:
He was their hero, he held their respect.
Yet each dwarf who dared met fate by goblin-bolt.

He died where he lay, he lays still where he'd fallen, beneath a tree, beside a pond.

Perhaps in some great eternal mountain-home he digs and carves alongside the many friends he lost...

I'm having trouble figuring this game out. I can't. Get. The damn. Stairs. To work.

No farms! No hunters, no butchers. My dwarves are getting mighty tired of eating plants.

ALL MY FRIENDS PLAY THIS. I think they're all secretly masochists.

>>1313
Are you designating a down stair on one level, and then an up stair on the exact same spot a level below? Or you can do up/down stairs to go both ways, but you still need to have designated it on both levels, not just one.

Personally I do not like to use up/down stairs - I always build Stair Halls with two sets of stairs in them - because if you just go with up/downs dwarves can trip and fall down the stairs and they'll just keep falling down ALL of them all the way through your entire fortress and then end up hurt and it's bad times.

Farming: http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/How_do_I_build_a_farm%3F

For EVERYTHING I really really suggest you get a copy of Dwarf Therapist if you don't already have it, so you can make sure you have hunting/fishing/butchering and other jobs enabled (I've been spoiled by using the Lazy Newb Pack from the start, so I ONLY know how to do that through DT, I have no idea how you enable and disable labors through the actual game menu). Once you have a dwarf with fishing enabled, or a dwarf with hunting enabled and a crossbow and some bolts for him to hunt with, the dwarf should automatically go out and start finding you some food without your having to tell him to do anything.