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[Laterigrade]

So I’ve been playing DF with a texture pack for a year or two, and while I’ve never done any spectacular feats of engineering, I’ve had forts that survived several years until my crappy old computer could no longer handle them, and it’s been pretty good. My muscle memory is developed to the point where I can barely tell someone what to do to build, say, a weapon rack; that’s as it should be.

But with the new release, it may well be some time before the packs are portable etc. — so how hard is it to learn ASCII? How much does it limit you when you’re still learning? And what are some techniques you guys used to learn it?

[Bumber]

It's mostly not that hard. Just use the look command to check what stuff is until you get familiar.

The only real problem are creatures since they share symbols. Both geese and goblins are 'g', for example.

[Shonai_Dweller]

Hint: "An vile force of darkness" are not geese.

[Ziusudra]

Canadian geese are.

[anewaname]

When I switched to ASCII, I turned off the d_init.txt setting "VARIED_GROUND_TILES".

[Stormfeather]

I'd also say it wasn't hard at all. Of course, I'm coming from the vantage point of having learned it years ago so I might not remember any struggles, plus with the advantage of having played Nethack for years before that. So if you didn't basically learn to read ASCII in that context from way back, I have no clue how hard it might be.

To be honest though, I had more trouble learning what various commands did, the whole concept of switching between Z levels, digging vs. channeling, constructing versus digging features out, etc.

[SpeardwarfErith]

I'll repeat the general consensus by saying that it's not hard to learn, but I disagree with anewaname about turning off varied ground tiles- I think they make the ASCII much prettier. I can also give some details about the actual process of learning to see ASCII.
At first you will have no idea what's going on, and you will need to use [k] all the time to figure out what things are. You will see the game as a bunch of letters and symbols, even as you consciously know what more and more of them are supposed to signify. Then, more or less all of a sudden, everything will click, and you will truly see what is going on. Once this happens, you stop seeing symbols and knowing in the background that they are supposed to be e.g. ores, but start seeing ores and knowing in the background that they are actually just symbols. As soon as this happens you can start playing ASCII comfortably. This process took about a week for me, but I started playing with ASCII right from the beginning so YMMV.

[delphonso]

Perhaps the hardest part of using ASCII over texture packs is noticing shallow holes - the type punched through by falling logs, etc. I've noticed these are much easier to catch with a texture pack on. Just be mindful of this problem and you can find them easy enough.

I recommend using [FONT:curses_800x600.png] in your init file (not d_init). It makes the ASCII a little more square, and a little bigger. For me, this was enough to make me comfortable with it.

[Shonai_Dweller]

And there's a whole selection of ASCII sets of various shapes and sizes to be found on the wiki. Most are just plug and play. I like Taffer.
https://dwarffortresswiki.org/Tileset_repository

So choose a decent colour scheme, an ASCII set that looks good on your monitor and you're all set. Playing in ASCII isn't the same as "putting up with the default settings".

Colour schemes: https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Color_scheme

[Bumber]

I recommend using [FONT:curses_800x600.png] in your init file (not d_init). It makes the ASCII a little more square, and a little bigger. For me, this was enough to make me comfortable with it.

That's the rectangular one. Square is "curses_square_16x16.png".

[Ant]

I use mouse wheel to zoom in and out- age tends to do a thing on my eyes, so even 16x16 curses tend to be pretty small on my monitor. Zooming in also slightly reduces the amount of information on screen at one time, easier to absorb. Downside is that I need to be pretty fast on the moving around potential crisis points, like that yeti in my trade depot and another breaking the doors in the summit entry point...

[Salmeuk]

It's not hard but it requires patience. Use the 'k' look command and play small forts until you get the hang of it. Despite what people say there is very little chance that you will confuse creatures with one another, since the context of their appearance is the biggest factor in identifying.

An added perk of ASCII is that it is much faster to understand large swaths of objects, since you are just reading a character rather than interpreting pixel art.

Also, you will definitely want to search around for a new tileset. I recommend a square tileset at least a 16x16 or larger, especially if you have a newer monitor. Oh! and you can change the color scheme for ultimate customization and moody fortresses.

[Loud Whispers]

Use (v)iew and loo(k) liberally, it doesn't take any time at all to get used to it. First time I looked at DF I quit in frustration, but when I came back to it I found it was surprisingly easy to learn what was what

[takatana]

Easy peasy. I don't think it's harder than learning a tileset, personally.

[Mohreb el Yasim]

I would also recommend to take first cla-s graphic set. It is Ascii with a little help for creatures. Then take Ascii in on full scale in a second time. It is already updated to DF2020...