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[kefkakrazy]

So, I went on a long hiatus from this game for a variety of reasons. I have not played it, nor have I really followed closely the development, since around the time minecarts went live.

Has anything really, really crazy been added since then?

[Arcvasti]

hMMM, where to start. This is all for 40.xx, which is the only release since the minecart one. A bunch of long-running bugs that made life difficult were fixed. E.G., you can actually use bins semi-properly now, apparently. More cool stuff happens on world gen. Adventure Mode got some neat stuff[Running, jumping and climbing] added and a bunch of more interesting[Although mostly more obtuse] conversation options. You can claim things, lead uprisings and surrender to people, although none of these work as intended right now. Sieges and such are now processed realistically[Which, due to a pathfinding error, means you don't get that many of them. Confirmed fixed for next release]. You can "retire" fortresses instead of reclaiming them, which leaves them active as NPC fortresses in the same world and you can reclaim NPC fortresses that have been destroyed, although this is usually very very dangerous. There are multitile trees which yield oodles and oodles of wood when lumberjacked. The main big thing is that the world keeps doing stuff when you're in Fortress Mode, although its kind of abstract and buggy right now. This does reduce FPS by a fair bit, but that should be fixed next release. Blunt weapons can destroy body parts by "pulping" if you hit hard enough and you can cut off people's heads by going for the neck, which is a seperate bodypart from the head, which is no longer severable. There are probably more, because its a huge release, but I think that's the basics. Next release, which will be Soon^[TM] will have multicultural fortresses, performance stuff, fortress visitors, usable mugs and fixes to a lot of the above problems and more besides.

[Bumber]

Here's most of the DF2014 stuff:

There's way more to DF2014 than what was added in 40.20. First and foremost the 40.01 highlights (paraphrased):

World activation!
Fortresses can be retired and unretired.
Site maps for dwarves, elves and goblins.
Multi-tile trees and lots of new plants. Fruit and flowers. Leaves that fall in little clouds.
Various movement changes. Climbing/jumping/sprinting in both modes. Adventure mode has a stealth rewrite. Movement and combat are separate now.
Tracking information in adventure mode.
Different levels of conflict.
Combat moves take place over a period of time now. Catching an opponent's attack. Get information about what attacks your opponent is doing. Quick/heavy/etc. attacks and multi-attacks.
Rumors of incidents can be spread, and the rumors need to be spread before you gain reputation (good or bad).
You can travel through tunnels.
Conversations have been redone. They no longer have their own screen, but run along with other actions, and there are many more options.
Some experiments with procedural items, though the new demon-type sites are still quite un-fun now.

Lots of bug fixes. Declaring ownership of sites in adventure mode. Pulping body parts. Equipping companions. Fleeing in terror. Inevitability. Emotion/stress rewrite. Harvesting fruit from trees. Gelding (neutering). Breeding requires proximity.

Saves are not compatible. Sieges are unfortunately all but non-existent in the current version. Undead and werebeasts, on the other hand, are much more deadly. The new adventure mode quest log fills up with useless information and you can't tell which beasts are still alive or not. Killing sentients, even bandits and vampires, will upset people and they will spit at you. DFHack now has a plug-in (Text Will Be Text) that allows you to combine ASCII and graphical tile sets as well as display multiple Z-levels at once.

[PatrikLundell]

During the 0.40.x cycle job allocation has been rewritten. This is mostly an marked improvement, with wonkiness on multi level mining as the main drawback. Several kinds of jobs have priorities, so you can use priority 1-7 (can be used to work around the mining issue). Building of walls/floors, etc. are no longer mason/carpenter jobs, but goes as a new general work entry so anyone can do that (if not disabled). A side effect is that the LIFO build order is out the door, so e.g. wall segments are built based on some kind of proximity rather than designation order (and that's one area where there aren't priorities, although that wouldn't really help for that purpose [but there would be other uses], since every dorf will pick up building jobs).

I wouldn't say sieges are all but non existent, since I tend to get them (not sure if any fortress played for at least 5 years has gone completely without). I've never seen a mount, though (haven't picked a fight with elves or humans, though), and ambushes are probably completely gone at the moment.

[Skullsploder]

Undead are no longer HP based and are capable of beating legendary fighters to death quite easily. Undead are practically impossible to kill with spears/bolts. Dealing enough bruising/chipping/cutting/tearing damage to a body part will pulp it, rendering it unusable but still attached. Pulping the head or upper body prevents the corpse from being reanimated as a zombie, and instakills every creature. Zombie heads without bodies are indestructible in combat and must be DFhack'ed away or cage trapped. Same goes for some types of chitin, and hair. Enemies can climb walls in fortress mode. Creatures die from tissue damage rather than bleeding when exposed to high heat (fire or magma) so undead can now be killed with magma/dragonfire etc. Sieges are far from frequent or guaranteed, but once you start getting them they do eventually pick up to 34.11 proportions. Embark next to a necromancer or two for !!FUN!!.

[kefkakrazy]

Enemies can climb walls in fortress mode.

So, from my understanding, this applies to dwarves, too? They'll attempt to path using climbing or jumping, and occasionally cock it up and die horribly? Excellent.

[Bumber]

Enemies can climb walls in fortress mode.

So, from my understanding, this applies to dwarves, too? They'll attempt to path using climbing or jumping, and occasionally cock it up and die horribly? Excellent.

And the cats. Oh, the cats! Hanging out wherever you don't want them!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

And the Windows Updates. Oh, the Windows Updates! Giving the restart prompt right as you're pressing the space bar in the middle of a reply!

[mushroom_ff]

While this subject is up, let me add on. I'm in the same bout as the original poster, and want to get back into DF.
Only thing, is there (that we know of) any impending major updates coming in the next little bit,that would want to make us wait a tad bit longer, before we dig back in?

[Bumber]

While this subject is up, let me add on. I'm in the same bout as the original poster, and want to get back into DF.
Only thing, is there (that we know of) any impending major updates coming in the next little bit,that would want to make us wait a tad bit longer, before we dig back in?

The next update contains fort mode temples (vampire/werebeast curses) and taverns (using mugs and goblets, potential death by alcohol poisoning), as well as scholarly (libraries/teaching/writing) and performance (dancing/poetry/music/festivals) stuff.

The improved zones that temples and taverns use will allow us to assign rooms to positions (like the mayor.) Books can change the readers ethics somewhat or contain knowledge (doesn't do anything yet, IIRC.) Visitors for the taverns and libraries, as well as multiracial forts. A bug that was affecting traveling armies' ability to cross rivers will be fixed, which should help improve siege frequency. I think that's all of it so far. No telling when it will be ready, but it looks like Toady's in the bug fixing phase, which probably indicates sometime soon.

[mushroom_ff]

Thanks for the info.

I really like the temples/tavern ideas. Still, with my playing habits, a new fortress probably won't stand very long anyways. 

[omega_dwarf]

This does reduce FPS by a fair bit, but that should be fixed next release.

Really? I'm looking forward to that, then. (I was already looking forward to all the new super cool sh** and bug fixes, esp. that siege bug.) Do you happen to recall what will cause the increase in FPS? Bug fix, or something?

[gchristopher]

While this subject is up, let me add on. I'm in the same bout as the original poster, and want to get back into DF.
Only thing, is there (that we know of) any impending major updates coming in the next little bit,that would want to make us wait a tad bit longer, before we dig back in?

The 40.X bug where invaders don't show up is pretty severe. I never saw ambushes in several fort attempts. Undead still die reliably in trap hallways, but many have reported that the military is a lot less of a useful option.

There's also some problems with the "stress" psychology system as a game mechanic. Some dwarves will go insane no matter what because they're predisposed to not handle it. You could call that "realistic," but the proportion is far too high. Also, most dwarves will be spammed by hundreds of unhappy thoughts every time they see a refuse pile that contains rotting parts. The result is a lot more tedious micromanagement than previous versions.

On the plus side, there were a lot of great bug fixes that others have mentioned. The living world feature is very cool in theory, and will someday lead to nifty new gameplay options, but right now about all it does is eat up FPS, add meaningless reports about the outside world that you're still not really interacting with, and maybe keep animal populations from crashing completely?

Still, I'd recommend waiting for the next version, where maybe the more severe issues with 40.X are resolved. I can live with the wonky stress levels because Therapist at least keeps track of them for me, but the issues with sieges ruin a lot of the fun because goblins and kobolds are effectively missing from 40.X

[PatrikLundell]

My experience differs somewhat from gchristopher's.
I haven't played pre 0.40.x version, but I tend to get both goblin and black tower sieges (although the latter seem to run out of bodies after a few attacks), but you ought to embark reasonably close to the enemy and not have juicy alternate targets closer, especially not in between you and the invaders (both of which make real world sense).
I have yet to get a dorf go bonkers due to stress, but I try to get sapient bodies out of the way ASAP and cage invaders to strip and magma dip (or atom smash) them rather than chopping them into bits that will have to be hauled by stressed up dorfs (killing enemies manually is a backup measures for when the morons camp in my fortress entrance or totally fail to find the fortress).

[omega_dwarf]

Most dwarves will be spammed by hundreds of unhappy thoughts every time they see a refuse pile that contains rotting parts.

This may not be what you're talking about, but I know a lot of people who would also be (myself included) if they stumbled upon a giant semi-organized pile of decaying body parts, which is what many refuse piles actually end up being in forts.

That being said, there is a glitch where seeing any part of a dead body makes the dwarf feel like they saw the original creature's death.