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Author Topic: Big forts kill the fun  (Read 22342 times)

NinjaBoot

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Re: Big forts kill the fun
« Reply #45 on: February 10, 2012, 06:12:04 pm »

Also, from what I gather is that big forts turn out to be boring because at a certain point you've made sure all entrances are covered, you have a decent-to-deadly military on duty to respond to any threat, you have traps galore, and not even FB's or Titan's stand much of a chance. 

Even at this point, even if you terra-form the whole map to look badass or more to your liking, the end-result will still be the same, baring a FB with secretions/dust attacks. 

The only real threat to forts like these are going to the circus and inviting the clowns to play.

On a side note, it would be interesting to see that once your fort gets to a certain size (or becomes the capital), you would be able to have the choice to choose 7 hardy dwarves to embark and start a new fort.  In this way you would not be ending your current fort, as it would turn over to AI control, but merely moving on to another fort to continue to expand your civ's reach or something. 

Either that or having the ability to launch raiding parties/sieges against other civs.
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bombzero

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Re: Big forts kill the fun
« Reply #46 on: February 10, 2012, 06:16:05 pm »


On a side note, it would be interesting to see that once your fort gets to a certain size (or becomes the capital), you would be able to have the choice to choose 7 hardy dwarves to embark and start a new fort.  In this way you would not be ending your current fort, as it would turn over to AI control, but merely moving on to another fort to continue to expand your civ's reach or something. 


toady's current plan for changing the abandon option is to have a 'retire' option, but this will only be once we get history happening outside of our control.
(god can you imagine how profoundly far reaching our actions may become then?)

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Broseph Stalin

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Re: Big forts kill the fun
« Reply #47 on: February 10, 2012, 06:34:35 pm »

I find I have the most fun and Fun when I'm just starting a fort. 90% of my forts are abandoned after two to three years from boredom.

wierd

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Re: Big forts kill the fun
« Reply #48 on: February 10, 2012, 06:55:34 pm »

Hmm... I prefer to disable invaders, become super fat and delicious as a target while disregarding the military, then suddenly "oops, I accidentally eldritch horrors!"

In short, I build complex, elaborate and easily escapable death traps, then assume all will go well. Then have Fun when something goes wrong, and the fortress becomes the new clown HQ.

I find that totally undisciplined "military" dwarves provide the greatest amusement.
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Newbunkle

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Re: Big forts kill the fun
« Reply #49 on: February 10, 2012, 07:15:39 pm »

I prefer smaller forts by far. I like nicknaming my dwarves and paying attention to their progress, but it gets harder as the population grows. It's much more fun when something horrible happens to One-Eyed Pete than Random Dwarf 154.
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Randy Gnoman

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Re: Big forts kill the fun
« Reply #50 on: February 10, 2012, 08:22:13 pm »

Dwarf Therapist helps a lot, but large immigrant waves are still really obnoxious.  I have to go to the border and assign every dwarf as it comes in, or if I'm feeling lazy just give them the "immigrant" job title to deal with them later- and that's the easy way.  Otherwise I'm stuck sifting through pages and pages of ill-managed dwarves later fixing their job assignments.

A low population cap solves that problem, and makes it easier to avoid massive casualties (both because the management is easier, and because you don't get sieges).

But... it's fun to have a horde of stoneworkers to rapidly detail the massive new dining room you just dug out, with your crack team of miners, to provide a central meeting place in your newest apartment complex.  It's also fun to have some dwarves set aside specifically for the kinds of !!science!! that you wouldn't want to practice on your regular workforce (like- how many broken bones does my bone doctor have to mend to become legendary?  I still haven't gotten one there- it is, apparently, a lot- many more than my test patients can survive, since they always eventually fall on their heads).

The very best fortresses are the ones where you put in the effort to have a large fortress that runs smoothly- even though sometimes it feels like you're hardly making any progress at all, because you spend a whole play session paused organizing your labor force, in the next session you can bust out a whole new building complex like nothing- and that's really satisfying.
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Sorcerer

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Re: Big forts kill the fun
« Reply #51 on: February 10, 2012, 08:57:08 pm »

ooh! you should try what i did once!
set up a fort with a grand hall with beautiful rooms all the craftsmen got their own dedicated workshop and a magically filling stockpile below.
I had something like 40 dwarves in my "main" fort, everyone else (some 80 dwarves) were burrowed to a second set of walkways that crisscrossed the fort, but never actually interacted with the main fort. there was literally no interaction between the two groups, outside the odd time when one dropped off a log to the carpenter's stockpile or some extra food to the kitchens.

Ahh, good times. I should do that again
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Chilton

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Re: Big forts kill the fun
« Reply #52 on: February 10, 2012, 08:57:50 pm »

definitely agree my current fort is up to 150 and im really starting to wish i had set a lower popcap! i liked 80 dwarfs my fort was efficient and good at 80 dwarfs 100 was really starting to push it and now that i have 150 its a constant battle to keep them all employed i went from 2 idlers to 30 in 2 migrant waves! the good thing i guess is that if i can work out how to make this mess work then smaller forts will be a lot easier to optimize later.

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Elifre

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Re: Big forts kill the fun
« Reply #53 on: February 11, 2012, 12:02:24 am »

Dwarf Therapist helps a lot, but large immigrant waves are still really obnoxious.  I have to go to the border and assign every dwarf as it comes in, or if I'm feeling lazy just give them the "immigrant" job title to deal with them later- and that's the easy way.  Otherwise I'm stuck sifting through pages and pages of ill-managed dwarves later fixing their job assignments.
Try sorting them by migration wave once you get a new group, and then check to see what their skills are like. It makes assigning jobs for the new workers rather simple and easy, especially since you can click on read to see the entire group before they even show up at the edge of the screen.

Also, when sorted by migration wave, you can click the skill boxes associated with waves to assign that job to every dwarf in that group. Want another twenty farmers? Easily done.
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Kofthefens

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Re: Big forts kill the fun
« Reply #54 on: February 11, 2012, 12:32:03 am »

I have the pop capped at 50. Then, I get more dwarven babies. It's rather effective, I have 100+ dwarves in my current fortress. This allows me to get dwarves at a steady rate, providing a story for each with family lineage. See my sig for some stories.
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bombzero

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Re: Big forts kill the fun
« Reply #55 on: February 11, 2012, 01:00:08 am »

I have the pop capped at 50. Then, I get more dwarven babies. It's rather effective, I have 100+ dwarves in my current fortress. This allows me to get dwarves at a steady rate, providing a story for each with family lineage. See my sig for some stories.

hmm, i might try this one, 50 sounds like a good number of immigrants, and it would be nice to have only 10-12 family lineages in my fort compared to the 40 children running around.
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miauw62

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Re: Big forts kill the fun
« Reply #56 on: February 11, 2012, 04:07:49 am »


On a side note, it would be interesting to see that once your fort gets to a certain size (or becomes the capital), you would be able to have the choice to choose 7 hardy dwarves to embark and start a new fort.  In this way you would not be ending your current fort, as it would turn over to AI control, but merely moving on to another fort to continue to expand your civ's reach or something. 


toady's current plan for changing the abandon option is to have a 'retire' option, but this will only be once we get history happening outside of our control.
(god can you imagine how profoundly far reaching our actions may become then?)

Do you realise how laggy things would become then?
I think toady will do a once-a-year or once-a-season history gen if you enter fortress mode.
atleast, that seems the most logical for me.
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Twisted Mansions

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Re: Big forts kill the fun
« Reply #57 on: February 11, 2012, 08:00:11 am »

I like large numbers of dwarves in my fortress, for I like having to deal with whatever comes up. If I have migrants that are useless. They either end up in the military or a job where there is less dwarves doing. Most of the time if I dont find them soldier worthy they end up working the farms and those jobs. 

My only problem with large numbers of dwarves right now if the FPS drops. If it weren't for that I would enjoy it much more. If you try to make the game easy then it ends up being no fun. I would suggest just rolling with it and if you fail, fail hard!
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NinjaBoot

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Re: Big forts kill the fun
« Reply #58 on: February 11, 2012, 04:53:01 pm »


On a side note, it would be interesting to see that once your fort gets to a certain size (or becomes the capital), you would be able to have the choice to choose 7 hardy dwarves to embark and start a new fort.  In this way you would not be ending your current fort, as it would turn over to AI control, but merely moving on to another fort to continue to expand your civ's reach or something. 


toady's current plan for changing the abandon option is to have a 'retire' option, but this will only be once we get history happening outside of our control.
(god can you imagine how profoundly far reaching our actions may become then?)

Do you realise how laggy things would become then?
I think toady will do a once-a-year or once-a-season history gen if you enter fortress mode.
atleast, that seems the most logical for me.

By the time he releases the next-next version of DF in 2020 (DF2020), we should have the computing power to hopefully run it!

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Couchmonster

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Re: Big forts kill the fun
« Reply #59 on: February 11, 2012, 07:37:26 pm »

But thats the point of DF! Growing until you cant handle the number of dwarfs you have, then watching it all go downhill. If that isn't the poing of DF, then i don't know what is.

...

besides killing elves with magma.

The point of DF is whatever you want to be the point of DF.
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