This is a random jumble of things that are either thoughts, or insurmountable problems now, for my wife and I.
1) Everyone knows the military is broken so I will just take a few kicks at a dead horse to see if anyone else is having these particular problems...
During goblin sieges, Marksmen shoot, but they do so while climbing over the fortifications, down the walls, across the dry moat. They then run
and stand directly on top of their targeted gobbo. All other military Dwarves do this as well, but it is most irksome with ranged units...
This happens all the time...
So, my wife and I just made new fortresses (as you do) and had a ragtag band of marksmen to deal with kias and flying squirrels, with the intention of just ignoring sieges....
Too bad for us, as siegers can now just climb walls and come inside your fortress...
So we started some new fortresses (again), This time we went to town on training dwarves on their preferred military profession. We don't normally do this, in the four or so years of playing we have never once been able to get a military to do anything other than ward off a few mega beasts. As far as we can tell, it's impossible to train up Dwarves to be good enough to fight goblins, without exploits. By the time the goblins arrive in the second winter, the best we've done is talented armor users and less than high master in any weapon. Goblins climb the walls and decimate all steel clad military units
like they are naked.
2) War Animals apparently lose their senses, the don't see thieves and goblins and just stand there. They don't react when being killed by thieves or goblins. War animals are useless now, except for that masterwork pot of prepared dog intestines.
3)Hunters love to engage deer in hand to hand combat, And they love to stand on top of their quarry and shoot bolts into their hooves and legs, all wile getting kicked and bitten.
4)Trees are now the bane of our processors, and we cut them down as fast as they grow... Heavily forested areas are unplayable.
5)Since the 0.40 release we have never once made it far enough in a fortress to breach a cavern (I hear the trees there are a problem)... if its not unkillable goblins, its frame rate death.
I'm playing on an old laptop with Amd Turion TL-58 1.90ghz so I don't expect a fortress of 200 dwarves on a 16x16 embark.... But, I am in my second autumn of a 2x2 embark with a population cap of 20 dwarves, flat terrain, sparsely wooded, and I am already down to 60fps and falling...
My wife is faring much better on the i5 asus, but trees are still the devil. We've looked at piles of entries on improving performance, and have figured out some of our own, but it's getting silly on how much you need to be aware of performance wise just to play 3 seasons of this game.
We love the new trees, but god dammit man, these trees require a processor each to properly account for every fruit, nut and leaf. I swear that each leaf makes it into legends, and each nut and fruit is forever etched in the memories of our dear dwarves.
We love that goblins can climb walls, and that they are terrifying opponents, but this is out of control. Please fix the military if you are going to require us to use it. We have played this game for so long hoping the military would be fixed, and we see that it did get fixed. But, it seems the wrong military was fixed, the goblins didn't need fixing as much as the dwarves... Traps are no longer very effective.
We have yet to build a mine cart... or a nest box... or a beehive... or geld... or milk. We want to do all these things, but it's all over too quick.
Dwarves get cave adaptation almost immediately, the ENTIRE FORTRESS is usually covered in vomit after a big outdoor hauling job..
Animals spend 100% of their time running around and ignoring their pastures, we kill every single animal now and drown the pets because they are more trouble alive than dead.
We love the new emotions... but i'm sure its causing the pasture issues and the war dog impotence.
We love that Dwarves use bolts more reliably, and can pick up hand fulls of them now.
We love auto mining, priorities for designations, and force build at the workshop
We love the gardening, and fruit picking, and cherry blossoms, but not at such a cost.
We hate that this as this game gets exponentially better and more playable, while on a quantum level, it gets exponentially worse and more unplayable.
A new fortress every morning now, and I feel like an smack addict complaining to the dealer that they are cutting the dope too much... I know you don't care, and I hate you for it. You know I will be there next release, updating my saves and manually inputting offsets into dwarf therapist, giving you my money... And dying a little inside when the frame rate drops another notch, and the dwarves slowly get blunter while everything else gets sharper... You do realize that I play this game through the Dwarves, right? I need them to be able to interact with the virtual environment competently. This isn't an art project for me, this is a game, and hobby that I enjoy, or more accurately now; A game I am going to great lengths to TRY and enjoy... I'm all butthurt and stuff....Feel my impotent rage in all its flaccidness and anticlimax....