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[ChaoticMushroom]

Hi. Semi-introduction thread, and to avoid the risk of posting this in the completely wrong place I'll make it DF-general related.

I just recently really got started playing Dwarf Fortress. I had tried it once before, but I didn't bother looking at the wiki or anything, just brought up the game and couldn't make any sense of it, so I left it. This last time, I actually looked at the wiki, downloaded the LNP, etc, and I'm glad I did. Immensely enjoying it so far. Started lurking the forums and the community looks fun.

Something I learned about myself from playing Minecraft has definitely carried over, though. I'm terrible at designing things that both look good and work well. I tend to get a little bit past the first caravan (which I always have nothing worth trading to them, so I get little to nothing from the caravan) then slowly run out of food during the winter because I either fail to plant anything by then or somehow manage to lose the food I did plant.

Anyway! Very fun game and I look forward to joining the community.


EDIT: As a note, it's not that I run out of food and my dwarves start starving, or anything. It's just it gets down to very low levels, no booze, and I tend to get bored and abandon ship around there.

[WaffleEggnog]

Well, im glad Dwarf Fortress is getting more popular.....ish. Anyway, welcome to the Bay12 community. You will quicky figure out that we are all on several types of drugs and are all insane mad scentists in our labs on a huge steampunk computer..... so, as I said welocme . Jokes aside, the Bay12 community is the single best online community that I have ever had the plesure to be a part of. S'yeah.

*Please note that on any other forum you would be shot down for doing this*

[GreatWyrmGold]

I am not on drugs!
And my steampunk computer keeps overheating and burning down much of the town, so I've stopped trying to fix it by court order.

[Wellincolin]

I particularly think perfeccionist designs are for elitists. My fortresses are a big mess usually, plenty of unused stockpiles or multiple stockpiles for the same stuff, Z-levels don't make sense at all, mixed workshop types and eventually workshops leading to workshops (because I always begin with a cross-design, when I need to expand I can't go diagonals so I build a corridor from that workshop leading to another) and I can enjoy the game fully.

There is NO design that can make the game unplayable. Even if you do make a perfect design, it is very likely your dwarves won't use it the way it was intended, plus, when you get dozens of dwarves it is impossible to micromanage them all. You'll just think about the fortress as a whole and they'll go and do stuff for you (dwarf therapist is mandatory if you wanna labor them correctly).

All in all, I recommend that if you're not good at designing layouts, just don't. Do whatever you feel like, and when you see it's not working, fix it as possible. If not possible, well, you can always just build walls or wall in that particular part and pretend it never did exist on the first place, or just build a random stockpile (it's never enough).

You'll get good at it eventually, trust me.

[ChaoticMushroom]

Thanks for the replies. And yes, I realize in most places I'd just get scoffed at but after lurking here a bit I didn't think this community was the type.

And yeah, so far I've been trying to keep everything atleast somewhat tidy, but I think that's just not in my nature. Rooms end up asymmetrical, there's a garbage dump on every floor that I visualize as being stacked to the ceiling with random bits of stone,  etc.

Took me a couple days to realize dwarf therapist made things much, much easier.

[Donuts]

Welcome to Bay12 bro, where kitties drown, EA gets murdered, and psychopaths run around loose. And elves get chopped like liver.

[WaffleEggnog]

Oh, I have very important question to ask you. Do you have any particular skills that would be usefull to, oh I dunno, help colonize Mars?

[GreatWyrmGold]

Or staff a Lunar resort? Same project, different stages,

[ChaoticMushroom]

Oh, I have very important question to ask you. Do you have any particular skills that would be usefull to, oh I dunno, help colonize Mars?

In return for beating him at poker, a crazy bug -eyed conspiracy theorist taught me to speak Martian.

[WaffleEggnog]

Oh, I have very important question to ask you. Do you have any particular skills that would be usefull to, oh I dunno, help colonize Mars?

In return for beating him at poker, a crazy bug -eyed conspiracy theorist taught me to speak Martian.

Im just going to go ahead and re-direct you here; http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=113434.0

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

Oh, I have very important question to ask you. Do you have any particular skills that would be usefull to, oh I dunno, help colonize Mars?

In return for beating him at poker, a crazy bug -eyed conspiracy theorist taught me to speak Martian.

Which species?

By the way, welcome to the thread!  Beware of spoilers.

[misko27]

I particularly think perfeccionist designs are for elitists. My fortresses are a big mess usually, plenty of unused stockpiles or multiple stockpiles for the same stuff, Z-levels don't make sense at all, mixed workshop types and eventually workshops leading to workshops (because I always begin with a cross-design, when I need to expand I can't go diagonals so I build a corridor from that workshop leading to another) and I can enjoy the game fully.

yeah, I feel you here. I just can't have a super-organized fort, no matter how hard I try. My ADHD won't allow it. It strikes a balance, between intense chaos, and perfect order. It'd be closer to order if there were fewer old clothes everywhere, but he, what can you do.

Welcome to the Forums. We hope you enjoy your stay.

Oh, I have very important question to ask you. Do you have any particular skills that would be usefull to, oh I dunno, help colonize Mars?

In return for beating him at poker, a crazy bug -eyed conspiracy theorist taught me to speak Martian.

Im just going to go ahead and re-direct you here; http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=113434.0

Hey, nice to see that we are finally recruting people before they realise what we're up too. Waffle, I am appointing you to the recruting commision.

[donfuan]

as stated, your fortress doesn't need to be perfectly designed. if you just follow some basic rules, everything is fine - e.g. design you fort more vertically than horizontally. Just keep in mind dwarfs move up & down a z-level as fast as moving 1 tile in any horizontal direction, so stupidly large floors in one layer will slow your little dwarfs down drastically. And keep stockpiles and the workshops using stuff out of them closely together, there isn't even the need to start the whole stockpile management with "assign to workshop" etc. to get a smoothly sailing fort going. cheers

[i2amroy]

Alternatively you can build your entire fort on 1-2 levels horizontally and it's the same as building it on a vertical 1x3 staircase (assuming you have a 3 wide corridor leading everywhere). Placing stockpiles directly above or below workshops can save immense amounts of time int he long run though, allowing your forts to look neater while still having access to all the various materials.

In general though, one of the first things that you learn in Dwarf fortress is that unless you are one of those people who  spends more time then they ever will playing and designs their entire fortress beforehand then you will probably not have something that is functional as well as looks nice, and even if you do plan it all out you will probably hit a cavern someplace and ruin all of your planning, so the best thing to do is just start building. After all, if you absolutely don't want an area any more you can wall it up, and even use dfHack's "reveal flood" (IIRC) command to hide what was on the other side of the wall again.

[brainfreez]

chaoticmushroom , you better run away from this kitten blood soaked butcher house and never look back , because once you try the drug , there is no way back .