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[Riemann]

Just started my first game and so far most of it has been awesome. Ran into a real problem though. Things were going well. Had bedrooms, dining room, just hit the river etc...

Then a rhesus macaque which does not show up in the global unit list stole nearly all my food in the space of about 5 seconds. Over 30 Plump Helmets gone. Now I'm doomed come winter.

Does this happen often / is supposed to happen?

[Toady One]

It might have been several?  They should only take one stack, but yes, the game is a nightmare.  You eventually pick up various tricks.  Keeping food well indoors, shooting the things, etc.  There might be some helpful posts here.  The manual sure isn't useful for this.

Riemann...  Seattle...  programmer...  sounds like me 7 years ago.

[JT]

My most successful fortress endured an attack of 5-10 mandrills every third or fourth season.  They would kill at least two dwarves and then make off with a stock of food -- plus they would loot the bodies of the people they killed.

I got pissed by the middle of the third year and started maintaining a very strong military presence: plus, my fort now has marksdwarves behind fortified walls who guard the entrance.  The last mandrill attack got routed. ;-)

[Toady One]

As farm as 'peaceful' and 'serene' type maps go, (aside from unicorns) all of the curious thieves like mandrills, macaques and raccoons do not trigger a "savagery" check (large predators like bears do), so they still appear on any map as long as the biome checks out (although less frequently than before).  Perhaps this policy is questionable.  In fact, I should probably tease apart the differences a bit instead of just having large pred vs not large pred and use a numeric level.

[ August 14, 2006: Message edited by: Toady One ]

[Riemann]

Rightyo. Darn things scampered off before I could take em down.

Out of curiosity, what language / SDK is Dwarf Fortress written in? I've got sidetracked into doing a lot of UI programming (including Flash of all things) in the last couple years but stuff like this still interests me quite a bit.

[Toady One]

I'm writing in C++ (well, mostly ++) with OpenGL and the FMOD sound library, using the sometimes bad sometimes good always old MSVC 6.

[Riemann]

Nice. MSVC is a kickass tool. We are all .NET at work but for non managed code 6 is still well worth using.

[JT]

I've always hated .NET.  I'm not sure why.

[Toady One]

I never actually managed to get the profiler working in MSVC 6.  Somebody told me that it might be having OpenGL trouble, but I didn't find anything about it.

[Aquillion]

It would be nice if we could build wooden fences or walls outdoors...  Somewhat different from the rewalling req, but related.  Of course, large creatures and enemy armies would have to be able to break them down...  and maybe some things could tunnel under them.  I wonder how that would work?

[Toady One]

Can all of the really annoying ones hop or destroy a fence anyway?  Maybe the unicorns would be kept out by it.

[Aquillion]

A fence might at least slow them down a little and keep some things from casually wandering in.  Oh, and it would keep your dwarves from being spooked by, say, a deer just on the other side of the wall, which is a big plus.

And a monkey that jumped over the wall easily on the way in might have more trouble getting out when it's weighed down by several tons of your food...

But really, now that I think about it this idea is sort of silly given that dwarves are supposed to be moving below ground for protection anyway.

[ August 14, 2006: Message edited by: Aquillion ]

[JT]

Well, it's not that silly, given that part of the planned bloat is to allow for Elf and Human towns as well.

[Toady One]

I guess if a dwarf builds a wall outside, the other dwarves could call that dwarf "Hill Dwarf!" and say things like out of Next of Kin "You may talk mountain, but you ain't mountain!"  Then...  tantrums and insanity.

Edit:  speaking of interface nightmares, you notice how some of the buildings in human towns have multiple stories?  Won't human town mode be fun.

[ August 14, 2006: Message edited by: Toady One ]

[Ancient_Sleeping_Dude_Rei]

I'd rather see the wizard arc first, that's going to be wicked!