Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[peskyninja]

Same here.

[fijkus]

   The issue here is that we don’t really see the ‘Mountainhomes’. All we see in Fortress mode are a group of Jamestown-esque settlers, motivated to move away from the presumed safety and comfort of home for who knows what reasons, trying to survive and thrive in an unsettled colony.

   Personally, though, I put DF to be roughly between 1000 and 1400 AD if we’re comparing it to our history. We might even be able to push it as far as 1600 AD, though beyond that you start seeing things like the proliferation of black powder weapons.

[Babylon]

   The issue here is that we don’t really see the ‘Mountainhomes’. All we see in Fortress mode are a group of Jamestown-esque settlers, motivated to move away from the presumed safety and comfort of home for who knows what reasons, trying to survive and thrive in an unsettled colony.

   Personally, though, I put DF to be roughly between 1000 and 1400 AD if we’re comparing it to our history. We might even be able to push it as far as 1600 AD, though beyond that you start seeing things like the proliferation of black powder weapons.

You are putting it in the age of steel, it doesn't really belong there.  Only dwarves have access to steel and it is kind of a super metal. 

[Eric Blank]

It pretty much was a super metal as far as the pre-industrial world was concerned. You can't exactly make decent bronze longswords afterall.

I consider the most appropriate time for it to occur to be the dark ages or earlier, but it's true that it doesn't fit at all on our timeline. An upside-down fantasy game devoid of the fantastic and graceful and filled with the horrible and insane, trapped pretty much in late bronze-age/early dark ages european society is more like it.

[Owlbread]

I would put DF as a mixture of the Old West and Medieval times. Medieval kingdoms are sending out pioneers to colonise new lands and dig for precious metals and such.

[Putnam]

I would put DF as a mixture of the Old West and Medieval times. Medieval kingdoms are sending out pioneers to colonise new lands and dig for precious metals and such.

I don't see how that's as much a mixture as "just the medieval times"

[Ghills]

I would put DF as a mixture of the Old West and Medieval times. Medieval kingdoms are sending out pioneers to colonise new lands and dig for precious metals and such.

You need to study some more history.  From 1000-1400 AD kingdoms all over the world were basically all about colonization (i.e., killing the other dudes and taking their land).  Except for China, which figured they already had all the awesome parts of the world and weren't really interested in the rest.

[Armeleon]

You need to study some more history.  From 1000-1400 AD kingdoms all over the world were basically all about colonization (i.e., killing the other dudes and taking their land).  Except for China, which figured they already had all the awesome parts of the world and weren't really interested in the rest.

Thats perfectly true. Especially the part where they were killing everyone and taking their land. Which is exactly why it's NOT like dwarf fortress. In dwarf fortress, they are already dead. Like the Old West. Its sad, but by the time of the settlers most of the native tribes had begun to die out.  Sort of like goblins do in dwarf fortress.  We aren't actually invading another dwarven fort and taking it over. Though that IS a cool idea...

[daggaz]

I think its set in the distant future.  The dwarves are basically advanced zerg colonies.  They arrive in small numbers, dig in underground, and immediately begin stripping the land of all valuable resources which they consume in a massive orgy of breeding, quickly outpacing any local life forms.  To make matters worse, waves of zerg immigrants quickly begin appearing onsite and immediately join the cancerous conflux of the dwarven fortress.  Soon, everything is dead, and the mountain home dispatches small bands in all directions, to begin the process anew until the face of the world is stripped bare and the entire planet is one festering, pulsating catacomb of dwarfdom. 

Just wait until they discover rocketry.  The Protoss have no chance. 

All your forts are belong to us.

[Owlbread]

I would put DF as a mixture of the Old West and Medieval times. Medieval kingdoms are sending out pioneers to colonise new lands and dig for precious metals and such.

You need to study some more history.  From 1000-1400 AD kingdoms all over the world were basically all about colonization (i.e., killing the other dudes and taking their land).  Except for China, which figured they already had all the awesome parts of the world and weren't really interested in the rest.

I already have, mate. It just doesn't feel like that to me though. I know colonisation has been going on for hundreds and hundreds of years, I just think it doesn't feel like killing people and stealing their land. As Armelon said, they're already dead. We're just moving in.

I would say the game has a greater affinity with the pioneers of the old west than, say, the imperialism of the Mongols or the Normans and Saxons coming to the British Isles and taking what they wanted.

[Loud Whispers]

I would put DF as a mixture of the Old West and Medieval times. Medieval kingdoms are sending out pioneers to colonise new lands and dig for precious metals and such.

You need to study some more history.  From 1000-1400 AD kingdoms all over the world were basically all about colonization (i.e., killing the other dudes and taking their land).  Except for China, which figured they already had all the awesome parts of the world and weren't really interested in the rest.

I already have, mate. It just doesn't feel like that to me though. I know colonisation has been going on for hundreds and hundreds of years, I just think it doesn't feel like killing people and stealing their land. As Armelon said, they're already dead. We're just moving in.

I would say the game has a greater affinity with the pioneers of the old west than, say, the imperialism of the Mongols or the Normans and Saxons coming to the British Isles and taking what they wanted.

So is this like an advanced Polynesian civilisation taking over an empty world?

[orius]

So is this like an advanced Polynesian civilisation taking over an empty world?

On that note, building moai seems like a pretty dwarfy thing to do.

[dwarfhoplite]

I would like to see DF in ancient Greek style where every city/polis was a country on its own

[MAurelius]

I second the moai.

[orrey]

I get more of an antiquity than a middle age/dark age sword and sorcery vibe from the game. Which is weird considering all the elves and dragons and such running around, but there's a few reasons.

Dwarven Pantheons, Gods which belong to "spheres", resembles an ancient indo-european model.

Megaprojects made out of stone, such as grand statues, towers, and tombs were a reality. They also used much more of the natural landscape in their architecture, things like Abu Simbel, the tombs at Persepolis, or the Ajanta Caves in India look much more suited to being built by a dwarf than a typical medieval castle, for example.

Migration, as some people have noted, was really prevalent, especially around the Mediterranean. Particularly the Greeks, where a group of people would head off and found a new semi-autonomous city state.

All the notable industries in dwarf fortress were present, except for advanced metalworking.


I'm not really going to argue its designed with that time period in mind, 800BC - 400AD or so; you can see Toady using medieval towns for reference in the next patch.  It's fantasy after all, drawn from a bunch of different sources, but its still fun to compare.