hi everyone
i thought rather than start a new newbie thread id tag along to this one
ive been playing DF on an of for a week now and thought id briefly share my experience with you and ask couple questions
So i was open minded about this game because i played a game called Angband when i was younger and loved it to bits. An all ASCII graphics dungeon crawl for those of you that dont know and is potentially closest to DF's adventurer mode (though i havent tried this yet).
So anyway first night i struggled insanely learning how to do the simplest things and then decided using the wiki
e to get me started was a good idea. made up a world and chose an area relatively safe, tree-y etc etc. got into it a bit then realised the availability of the LazyNewb pack which came with interested me because it had some mods to change the graphics in the game and dwarf therapist (which i use now!). As i downloaded it with dwarf fortress, i figured id generate a new world and start again.
This time i was a bit more open minded as to my starting position but for some reason couldnt find a suitable starting location using the find. I relaxed a load of the constraints (im sure thats why ive had so much fun so far
) and picked somewhere a bit jungley/rocky i thought it was temperate (but might be colder as everything freezes over in winter), perhaps relatively safe (that might have been one of the conditions i relaxed
) or not but unfortunately no river.
Anyway here is some of the fun ive had so far (this is from memory but should be 99% ok).
1. Heart attack when i saw a lower case red 'd' circling some of my dwarfs in a corridor (Angband reference - little red 'd's are not baby red dragons!) After i checked it really was a pet dog of one of my recent migrants i relaxed and allowed my miners to keep digging...
2. No natural water anywhere, all the pools started frozen over, not many animals wondering around so was instantly stressed about food and water (or beer). Fortunately i survived to my first spring and everything melted. *phew*
3. Lets try to make some underground muddy farmland. Carefully dug out my channels and a hall way near a largish pool of stagnant water... and dug through.... WHOOSH!! Slightly underestimated the amount of water, quickly put a door in place and dug out the room a bit more, then channeled. A near miss i think. Still all my dwarfs in tact. Walled up the now empty pond in the (vain) hope it would refill in future seasons. It didnt. Well at least i now have a lot of muddy ground i grow plump helmets on. Ugh bored of plump helmets.
4. My first invader! A kobold thief. Fumbled through making a squad of an architect, presser, stone detailer and chamberpot emptier and i think one of them had a crossbow and some bolts. Fortunately all he had to do was shoot straight and got him. Boom my dwarves are invincible! 2 minutes later another kobold thief... that one got away (i think) (but without anything?).
5. My poor donkey starved to death. What i have to set my animals to pasture? OK then. Donkey to the garbage pile with you. *brushes off hands* For good, right?
6. So the next season i hear all my dwarfs screaming and cancelling their jobs outside, left right and centre. What's going on? Would you believe... an undead donkey?! OK so this time i meticulously set up a squad of my best fighters (just by skills, i dont know how to set them to train yet - next job of mine) and send them out... What a fight! Unfortunately the rotting donkey took chunks out of my dwarfs. Donkey dead a second time, into the garbage pile.
7. One of my dwarfs died - i think it had something to do with not being able to feed him water when he contracted donkeyrot on the arm. So he went to the garbage pile.
8. Not long later screams again.... Whats going on? Donkey the 3rd AND my dead dwarf hanging loose outside my fortress. OK... so whats going on... i built my fortress somewhere where the fog raises all the dead bodies? That isnt fair! The squad goes out nervously then spots a "human necromancer trader". Aha, at least its not the weather conditions. I think on that day he was certainly a necromancer and not a trader. Dwarfs pile in several die just taking down the undead dwarf, i make them retreat. All pile in to the meeting room for some beer and expect the worse.... they wait... and wait... and wait... and peek outside... and all is calm.
9. The tantrums started. Donkey nightmares. Lost loved ones. One went berserk and was killed, but not before he severely injured another. Another went delirious stumbling around... down to 4 dwarfs. Desperately wondering what i can do to turn it around...
10. Another kobold thief. Fortunately he walks into my miner near the entrance and he mined his brains out. I then noticed some kind of undead beasty wondering around (I guess a remnant from event 8?) so in a blaze of glory, fuelled by the bloodlust of the kobold victory i send the dwarfs out to fight and they win! If they're all going to die and have tantrums they may as well kill some things on the way...
11. Migrants appear after this last slog of almost 2 years! About 40 of em... more than i know what to do with, werhoo!! I send them to work. All should go well from now on right?
12. Attack of the (muharhar!) WERE TURTLE!!! squeaky bum time for the dwarfs. I notice a wolf has been torn to pieces on the edge of the map, but cant see the turtleybeast. My dwarfs run out to find it... nothing seems to happen. Perhaps it is rolling somewhere around on its shell oh well. Fun averted.
13. A funny mood... so one of my dwarfs decides to take over a workshop and gibber away for an eternity. A bit of wood and a bone i think he used and made a pretty crown. No idea who has it or where it is but good for him and now i have an awesome wood crafter
the first nice thing to happen yet.
14. Farming seems to be working now... stone crafting working now... but no metal mined yet. So i dig down a bit. But whats this? My brewer has been chatting for ages - no beer left... plenty of plants... and what, my wood has run out noone is chopping my trees? what is going on?! This is the challenge im wrestling with now and i dont have long until 50 dwarfs die of thirst :<
I think its because i only own 1 axe and the dwarf who has it is busy braiding his beard. So im focusing him on woodcutting to see if that helps...
Then i might be able to make some barrels (for booze) and other things again.
But the number of barrels isnt the problem. Its what they are full of! Plump helmets, grizzly bear biscuits (id love to try one) and a gazillion stone masterpieces. So my dwarfs are all on the verge of death because ALL the barrels are full of shaped rocks and mushrooms?! GAH!!!! So im going to try and dump whats in them and hope they get reused for booze. im tweaking the max barrels in the stock piles in the hop the dwarfs have enough sense to realise they need beer...
And i also have a dwarf in another funny mood, but he isnt saying what he wants and hes just sitting in the dining room... How do i know how to help him?!!
So if i can avoid mass dwarficide from a lack of beer and start chopping trees again id like to:
- help the dwarf in a funny mood (dont want him to die)
- train some military up
- dig down and around to either find some natural water and metal
- learn how to use and build traps
so what do you guys think? id love to hear some of your stories too from when you started out