January 2019

More Dwarf Fortress

stargrace January 20, 2019 No Comments

We started with 7 – and now we’re up to 116 Dwarves living in the fortress. Some interesting things have transpired and I’ve been having a lot of fun learning how to cope with each situation.

First, if you’re not using the sound pack that comes with the lazy newbie pack I highly recommend it because you can hear when things are happening even if you can’t see it because it’s on a different layer. My game pauses and I can typically figure out what’s going on.

Like when Traellan was taken over by a mood. It could be good or bad. He became inspired (so to speak) and had a deep desire to create a masterpiece. Except I didn’t have all of the pieces he required, so he was going to go insane and probably destroy my whole base.

I ended up locking him in his room, and he has been “missing” for a while now. I’m making sure the dwarves don’t go in so they don’t find the corpse and get upset over it. I think it’s working.

I learned how to designate rooms. I have proper bedrooms now. A dining area. A hospital (that no one uses yet). I learned how to mark animals for slaughter after our second winter which was really important because they were running out of food. They’re getting water from some place, but I have no idea where. I have not figured out farming yet at all. I have a mayor now (yay) but also (boo) because they want a huge amount of fancy things that I just can’t seem to supply them. They also mandated that we make catapult parts.

Why? Who knows, they’re the mayor and that’s all that matters.

I dug down a few layers of earth to create stock piles and zones and workbenches but I like being able to see everything all on one level. The elves are visiting right now, I’m wondering why they’re ignoring all of the trees that I cut down that are surrounding my trade depot area…

I do have one possessed dwarf who will probably go insane and finish off this rendition of the base because he wants too many items for his masterpiece that I can’t supply (or figure out). That’s OK, I think soon I will be ready for another attempt, and my second fortress will be bigger and badder than the previous rendition. I’m honestly surprised I’ve lasted this long.

Getting Stuff Done in Dwarf Fortress

stargrace January 19, 2019 No Comments

I haven’t managed to watch any more videos on Dwarf Fortress to learn my way around, but I did spend some time navigating menus in order to solve a few simple mysteries. I know how to read the history or thoughts of my dwarves who are actually complex beings with long life stories. Some have dreams of starting a family, others are materialistic and want to own things. All of them enjoy drinking and get angry if they don’t use cups. Go figure.

I also managed to figure out how to create craft stations. I have a carpenter area, some stills for brewing, and a kitchen. I learned how to assign tasks to those areas, and then realized all of the food we had harvested was rotten so meals couldn’t actually be made.

I did make some beds, and doors! My dwarves now have bedrooms. Some more extravagant than others as I had no idea what I was doing when I was learning to mine and create all this. Whewps.

I learned refuse should go outside, and cats kill a lot of critters in your base. I created zones for certain things, and stockpiles for other certain things. I learned to read the red messages in TINY font at the bottom of the screen to see what is going on when someone freaks out, and that if you look REALLY close, you can see everything happening, but it happens REALLY fast.

Now that I’m getting into the game a bit more I’m absolutely loving it. Of course this is still very much scratching the surface of the game. I’m playing on an easier path with pre-determined stats so I can learn and figure things out. Aside from rats and hamsters, no one has died. I am afraid the elves are not a fan of me because I cut down a LOT of trees, but it hasn’t become an issue.. yet.