Just watch this guy! amazing at making tutorials, and never swears!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAPJodcPJLA&feature=kp
Please don't advice that guy to new players learning the game.
He's no doubt a nice guy and an interesting youtuber. But he's totally inadequate to
teach other people how to play the game.
I have absolutely nothing against people putting whatever they please on youtube. But when a series is clearly targeted at inexperienced players, I expect the author to have a flawless knowledge about the basics.
Wich clearly isn't the case here.
Wrong information and generally bad advice I've stumbled upon in the first four videos:
He starts messing up right from the embark, missing the F1-F2-F3 keys. Everything he searched for is right there, but he doesn't check different biomes.
He also gives a very sketchy explanation about evil/savagery.
Embark points allocation is terrible. No big deal for experienced players, but newbies need to optimize their embark, to avoid the most common problems.
Really bad advice:
- Miner/architect (epic waste of 5 levels).
- Woodcutter/herbalist, debatable choice but not terrible.
- Dedicated carpenter seems like a waste, at the beginning he just has to do a few beds and a few bins.
- Same dwarf is both planter and brewer. Can work, but new players often get in trouble with food/drink shortage. Having the same dwarf doing both things doesn't help in this regard. I'd actually advice a new player to disable every labor from the planter right from the start. The carpenter could easily double as a brewer. These two jobs don't need a 24/7 dedicated dwarf in the beginning.
- Dedicated doctor. Totally not necessary in a newbie-friendly embark. Also, competent leader. Why?
- Bags, ropes, cloth, buchets, splints, crutches, wheelbarrows. He's wasting an atrocious amount of points on useless stuff. Remember this is aimed at new players, wich should get rid of that garbage and take more seeds/food/drinks.
While he digs the useless gigantic rooms, he could use the idle dwarves to set up a temporary dormitory and temporary dining hall (or simply build a couple chairs and tables in the hallway). New players are often screwed by unhappy dwarves, but a lot of negative thoughts can be easily avoided.
The wtf "dump everything" in video 3. WHY? That's downright wrong informations about stockpiles.
That's also an incredibly dumb way to employ the beginning seven, wich could be doing WAY more useful stuff. Like, you know, making fucking beds and chairs.
He goes about miasma as if it's some kind of fortress-ending ebola cloud. Fine, miasma is bad. Too bad his dwarves are still sleeping on the floor and eating under the rain.
HOLY SHIT THOSE FARMS. Seriously. That's like a combined 20x20 farm. Two 5x5 plots can easily sustain 100 dwarves, provided he has one or two dedicated planters. Wich he doesn't, because his planter is also a brewer and is also hauling a million boulders BY HAND for absolutely no reason. Remember he also wasted 50 embark points on a wheelbarrow but isn't even using it.
Tanner shop right next to the butcher shop (fine). Too bad they will haul the fresh hides all the way outside to the refuse stockpile, because he didn't bother fixing the settings.
All those "food-related" workshops next to the farm of doom. It quickly goes from 'highly debatable' to 'wtf is he doing'. A fishery? WHY? Also, how does he plan to organize the stockpiles for those workshops if they are all thrown together in that room? Why is that farmer shop there? It needs to be near the appropriate stockpiles, not next to the farms.
He disabled hauling labors from the miners (fine). Too bad they are sitting idle after digging the gigantic rooms, while important dwarves are still dumping the million boulders. You know, the dwarves that should be making beds and chairs and starting the food business.
First migrant wave. Only at this point I realize how awful this series really is. It's pretty obvious he has all the priorities wrong in a new fort. But really. First migrant wave and he didn't build a single bed or chair or table. He didn't produce a single unit of food or drinks. The main problems for new players are food, drinks and happiness, wich he's completely ignored, for more than an entire season, in a NEW PLAYERS TUTORIAL.
Bridge over a stream to get migrants across. Ugh.
Coati men stealing food because he didn't set up a temporary food stockpile inside. You know, because STONES MUST BE DUMPED.
That gigantic stockpile, holy shit. A temporary stockpile to get everything inside is fine. But that monstrosity? Are you really teaching new players to organize their industries like that? That kind of stockpile gets usually filled 3/4 by wood and gems. How is a new player supposed to keep track of his production with that...thing? He isn't even using barrels or bins. Every single crafted item will occupy a tile. Every single food item will occupy a tile. What when it's full? Dig another wtf-room to make another stockpile like that? What about teaching people how to get a properly organized working area?
"We notice two very dangerous things". Well no shit sherlock. You didn't produce a single unit of food or drinks so far and now are surprised because you have no food?
Promptly followed by "let's make a second brewer". No shit again, really. That's why don't make your planter YOUR BREWER. Because one has to plant and another one has to brew. Also, gj making him go all the way down TWICE for every single brewing job.
And now one of the best parts. Let's spam a hundred workshops in the same room with absolutely no regard for logic organization.
-YAY second carpenter shop. Why? Do you want to export beds?
-Mason shop actually makes some sort of sense. Now what about giving him easier access to the giant pile of stones you hauled for two entire seasons?
-Second mason shop. Ok, makes sense again. Except he doesn't even know WHY he wants a second mason shop. High quality stone furniture should be made by a dedicated mason (wich isn't hard to level to legendary, my mason is usually the third of fourth legendary right behind miners and the first planter). The second shop will eventually be used for blocks.
- Mechanic, ok.
- Metalsmith forge right in the middle of that mess. Ugh. Metal industry should be fueled by magma sooner or later, unless he wants to keep cutting hundreds of trees forever, while dodging ambushes and sieges. It surely shouldn't be right in the middle of that mess of a dozen other industries.
- Jeweler. Ok, I guess. What about giving him his own stockpile of gems? You know, a stockpile with BINS right next to the shop. A single bin holds a metric fuckton of gems, so a simple 5x5 stockpile is enough.
- Craftdwarf, ok.
- Leatherwork. See jeweler.
- Cloth industry. Considering his absolute disregard for happiness, he probably doesn't realize the importance of clothing. But it needs to be properly organized with dedicated stockpiles.
- Soapmaker. Because why the fuck not. Soapmaker shop in season two.
Basically the result is a horrible mess of a room full of workshops, all taking AND putting shit from/to the same godawful stockpile. Great way to teach people how to set up an efficient fort.
Ok, enough. Can't watch more of this. Sorry if I went off on a tangent, I just wrote things down while watching the first episodes. Hopefully there are some bits of advice in this wall of text.
But seriously, again, I have nothing against the guy. He probably makes excellent videos about other games.
But he's hopelessly inadequate to teach other people how to play dwarf fortress.
Actually, the first episodes are an excellent example of what NOT DO TO in a new fort.
You don't want to waste two seasons to clear giant rooms for no reason.
You don't want to neglect food production for two entire seasons.
You don't want to waste hundreds of embark points on useless garbage.
You don't want to set up your industry in an unintelligible orgy of workshops.
You don't want to completely disregard the happiness of your dwarves. Can't see the values, but they are all yellow on therapist, probably very close to unhappy. A single accident could probably end with dwarves punching each others at the end of season 3. They've been sleeping on the floor, probably annoyed by noise, eating without chairs and tables, under the rain, for two entire seasons.
He does a decent job at explaining some parts of the interface. But really, really terrible videos to learn how to actually play the game.
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Topic: My Newb Experience (Read 1616 times)