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[Wellincolin]

This is like deciding to learn how to fight by standing in front of a punching bag and swinging clumsily until you feel confident, and nothing else.  You take the technique and reflexes you picked up there, and try to apply them to a deliberately moving target which is also attacking, and you're going to get knocked around so hard and fast you'll forget what year it is.

That was a damn fine analogy, couldn't think myself on anything better.


I agree, you play the way you want, but I strongly disagree about there being "no cheat". The game wasn't intended to be played this way by Toady, the creator, and that defines cheating. Of course, since this game doesn't have a defined goal or objective, this is often not called cheating, rather exploiting, which basically is defined by using a real, legitimate feature, implemented in the game, but in a way to break the game/take advantage. A good example are Danger Rooms which are considered a strategy by many, but Toady himself said it is an exploit and will be fixed

I enjoy the game much more by playing it the way it was meant to be played, that's why I play 100% vanilla (except for graphics, they are still vanila-ish, CLA graphics pack).

[Noobazzah]

I'd say that the best way to learn quickly is to embark on some neutral savage biome with invaders and such on. Just read the wiki quickstart guides to learn the basics. Getting half of your population killed by your first ambush is part of the game, and by making the game easier you lose the rewarding feeling of finally running a succesful fort after a lot of hardship. My first fortress achieved max population and great wealth and is still running, even though it's population once dropped from 80 to 10 (you can quess what killed them). So with luck you don't even have to start a new fort before you can handle the basic gameplay.

[Wellincolin]

IMHO, the best way to learn is playing. Everyone (including Quietust) are still learning from every fortress and from other's fortresses.

The only real standard learning gap is getting used to the controls/menu/interface. It takes some time and when you finally master it, there is something new released or something. Once you get to know all of the commands, it's all about experience.

[Askot Bokbondeler]

This is like deciding to learn how to fight by standing in front of a punching bag and swinging clumsily until you feel confident, and nothing else.  You take the technique and reflexes you picked up there, and try to apply them to a deliberately moving target which is also attacking, and you're going to get knocked around so hard and fast you'll forget what year it is.

That was a damn fine analogy, couldn't think myself on anything better.


I agree, you play the way you want, but I strongly disagree about there being "no cheat". The game wasn't intended to be played this way by Toady, the creator, and that defines cheating. Of course, since this game doesn't have a defined goal or objective, this is often not called cheating, rather exploiting, which basically is defined by using a real, legitimate feature, implemented in the game, but in a way to break the game/take advantage. A good example are Danger Rooms which are considered a strategy by many, but Toady himself said it is an exploit and will be fixed

I enjoy the game much more by playing it the way it was meant to be played, that's why I play 100% vanilla (except for graphics, they are still vanila-ish, CLA graphics pack).

as a fierce detractor of danger rooms, i have to disagree with you. vanilla df is hardly "the way it was meant to be played", we are talking about a buggy alpha here, it can both be too difficult even when using exploits, or too easy even without using any. i also find using steel and adamantine very exploity for example
using mods can, and will, improve the gameplay. in my game i set dwarves to have 10% of their vanilla learning rate, lowered the yield and increased the growing time of most crops, disabled edibleness of organ meat, lowered egg yield, lowered the stats of steel and adamantine, but i kept military skills learning rates intact, removed all minerals but iron, gold and silver and made them spawn on every layer. i feel the game i play is a better game than vanilla df. it's an opinion, and many may, legitimatelly, disagree, but toady is not concerned with balancing the game yet, that's a beta stage thingie, so any attempt to balance it yourself will probably result in a better game

basically what i mean is, you have no right to feel superior to anybody for not playing the game like you do, you use graphic packs after all, that's for sissies

[Sutremaine]

It could work for getting a lot of stuff, but I don't think it will buy time for learning anything useful.  Anything you learn will be so far removed from legitimate conditions as to have no relation.

Well, you can learn the interface, and how to work the individual parts of the game. If you've been exploring the health and military systems with no pressure, then when you do need to get them working immediately due to sudden emergencies or a difficult embark you can just set them up without having to learn their basic functioning at the same time.

I think just turning invaders off and not embarking in an evil area is enough to learn the game. You don't get invaders wandering in and slaughtering everyone, but you still have to deal with your dwarves' needs and the low-level everyday troubles of the fort. If you can't deal with those and leave the invader option on, you'll spend less time learning and more time going through the setup process because you got butchered by goblins again.

[weenog]

I don't see that getting pounded into a greasy meat paste interferes with learning the interface.  The information it gives back to you might be rather unpleasant, but does that matter?

Building a surface farm plot with invaders turned off teaches you the buttons you need to press and the outputs you need to understand to build a surface farm plot.  Building a surface plot with invaders left on teaches you that, and that you need to wall it or channel and roof it if you don't want it to be an alternative entrance they can exploit.

[Noobazzah]

Surviving the first ambushes isn't very tricky, as long as you have a door and maybe some traps. One may lose a few woodcutters and such of course, but just waiting until they get bored or until a human/dwarven caravan arrives and kicks their asses is enough. Then you're forced to actually start planning your defences. I also agree that modding can make the game a bit more enjoyable and challenging or just a bit more diverse. But I don't think that steel is that OP, especially when nowadays you only have a 25% chance of actually getting boulders and ore from mined tiles. My latest embark gave me 20 units of dolomite in total, which was almost enough to outfit a single dwarf. Naturally digging deeper might give me more of the stuff.

[gestahl]

basicly, do you think that taking as much stuff with you as you can when you embark [with advanced world generation set to maximum number of points], insta-abdandon, and then repeat fourty or fifty times is an efficient way to play.

i've tested it and it seems everything stays in the wagon [not sure about food or livestock though], just wondering if more experienced players consider it to be a good way to set up a fortress quickly giving more time to figure out the basic features [like farming] and a start on learning the more advanced stuff before a fortress starves to death or gets slaughtered by goblins.

40-50 times is way past overkill. Even unoptimized Play Now embarks don't, supply wise, usually have trouble making it to winter, if not indefinitely untill their eventual bloody end. It's a bit different if you know what your doing already and are abandon/reclaiming four or five times to get a jump start on dwarfpower, or if your uping the embark points to start with highly skilled dwarves (you can edit embark profiles to start with higher then lv5 in a skill, but at high cost).
Is this a good way to learn? No. Is this a good way to start your goblin bone tower to house your elf soap cistern filled with kobold blood? Sure.

[Wellincolin]

Modding is completely different. Even while making the game arguably funnier for most people (I don't care at all, I'd rather just play vanilla because it's a lot easier to get the game going), it isn't the way the game is originally meant to be played. Funnier or more complex, more content etc, is not what defines the way the game was meant to be played originally. Even though Toady means to eventually implement this or that, vanilla is the way the game is meant to be originally played on it's present state.



I don't know... The game is already exploitable enough, you can indefinitely multiply steel, bug entire caravans to take all their stuff for free with no penalties whatsoever, etc. I find those to be particularly not funny, but I know people that play using all of the infamous exploits and hacks, such as danger rooms, steel multiplying, lots of dfhack's commands and have lots of fun with it. I just don't see the point at all, specially with invaders turned off. If you think it will be better for learning about the game itself (commands and interface aside) you're mistaken.

You could just play it the early game on because it won't be much different anyway. You shouldn't be lacking resources until you upgrade to steel industry, which is already in it's essence, mid-game (by industry I mean large scale, at least enough to keep on repeat) and then you can just multiply steel.

I mean, besides wealth, having "resources" doesn't make much of a difference to the game at all until you have at least some dwarves. I seriously think your concept of in-game development for DF is a little flawed.

[assasin]

vanilla is the way the game is meant to be originally played on it's present state.

right, than why are the raws so easy to modify?

I mean, besides wealth, having "resources" doesn't make much of a difference to the game at all until you have at least some dwarves. I seriously think your concept of in-game development for DF is a little flawed.

i tried to install dfhack [and dfusion] in order to fix this, but it keeps crashing. the reason i have for not using mods is quality control, the very few i have installed have all crashed in one way or another.

[assasin]

I was messing around with the world gen data file and I found something kinda interesting.

Not sure how to post a picture. but on the embark screen I see at the bottom:
Pts:  21447116313

and next to the steel battle axe entry I have. [2712]

so that problems fixed. now I need to figure out how to get more dwarves at embark.

[toomanysecrets]

So when your fort reaches max population every dwarf can have at least 13 steel battle axes!  21 BILLION embark points lolololol

[Noobazzah]

Mod them so that they all have 13 arms.