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[TheCheeseMaker]

I have never, ever, in the history of dwarf fortress, lost because I ran out of food. I started playing around 32, and food, after the first three months or so, was never a problem.

Overall though, 40 was the most broken and bug-ridden version of the game.  It also was one of the most vital to the continued success of the game.  Was it as fun as previous versions? No.  Is it what makes all future aspects, like invasions amd embark scenarios, possible? Absolutely.

[PDF urist master]

One thing I really liked from version 40 was the inclusion of priority lists, automining and Designation priorities. It made channeling and Mining a lot more efficient, convenient and safe. This was adding late into 40.x but it was such a nice feature.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

I died of food loss in the very first version. Quite a few times, actually.

[Urist McVoyager]

I've had one fortress die of starvation. The rest? Settle in soil and dig out a farming chamber. Set a few people to fieldwork and you'll have enough crops to keep going in food and booze forever. Long as you don't cook the plants. It takes a little bit of micromanagement to run at first, but once you set it, you'll be good to go. That's not including the surface and cave plants you can harvest.

Version .40 wasn't bad, it just didn't have as much to do as the current one does.

[Untrustedlife]

I am playing 38.11 and I recommend everyone goes back to experience !FUN! such as ambushes/kidnapping and food resource management. Without these aspects and the above mentioned other issues the game reallly was lackluster. These major issue should have been addressed before moving on to new content. Especially given the time between updates.

Everett the siege/morale issues were fixed in 42.01
also:
http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:World_activities

[dennislp3]

On the topic of food...if you all want a better challenge you should look at my new mod I am making to fix the whole...infinite food issue.

I will be releasing it Saturday (possibly Friday) in conjunction with the new update.

I suggest posting to get an update when its released and even contributing ideas and suggestions if you can!

Crimson Crops

[Veroule]

The food system has been broken since the 2D days. You can still make your dwarves cook alcohol if you know what your doing, so food is easily unlimited. Start with a good supply of turkey hens, since they have the highest egg count. Bring lots of plump helmets. Place your kitchen, brewery, and nest boxes such that the brewery is between the kitchen and nest boxes; then allow cooking the drinks. Ideally your brewery is directly next to the kitchen. Finally do not use any stockpiles for drinks so that they stay in the brewery and place the meeting area on the kitchen side as insurance against interrupted cooking tasks. Place a meat and fish stockpile anywhere farther away from the kitchen and meeting area than the brewery; I tend to use this same pile for the finished meals.

It took me 6 years (my miners got distracted by all the metal on the way) to set up a melting zone on a glacier so I could bring water to the spot I wanted to make a farm. In that time all my plants were obtained from trade, and prepared meals were my primary trade supply. When I got the farm started I had 600 drinks and 4000 meals available. I had to start throwing the meals down the volcano so I could train my cooks to be better.

[TheFlame52]

0.40 was like the basement of a house. Not pretty, doesn't do much by itself, and is full of bugs, but without it we couldn't have the rest of the house. World activation allowed everything in 0.42 to happen.

[Evrett33]

0.40 was like the basement of a house. Not pretty, doesn't do much by itself, and is full of bugs, but without it we couldn't have the rest of the house. World activation allowed everything in 0.42 to happen.

I dont understand the metaphor. The issues that have lasted for the year .40 has been out were classified as bugs not parts of new systems. New content should wait until old content is working. And I think its a bit early to say the sieges are fixed yet since this release has only been out a week or so and cant be played by the majority of the playerbase due to lack of quality of life 3rd person utilities. In my experience with 42 the dwarf civs have been completely mascaraing the goblins civs within the first 300 years. Helping the armies marshal themselves better doesn't help if they get decimated early on defending their overrun homelands. I consider myself a role player who's play will greatly benefit from taverns and temples but I really dont wan to wait another year and find out ballet and animal training were the priorities rather than balance and general game play.

[MrWiggles]

There isn't really general gameplay with DF though. It Aims to be a Fantasy World Simulator. Having ballet, and songs, bards, and kids playing make believe is equally important to being a theif or being a bounty hunter or monster slayer.

[Max™]

The rapist is updated, what more do you need? I prefer the dfhack manipulator, and don't even both with fort mode without dfhack but adventurer mode is wonderfully fun with or without toys.

[Ysyua]

0.40 was like the basement of a house. Not pretty, doesn't do much by itself, and is full of bugs, but without it we couldn't have the rest of the house. World activation allowed everything in 0.42 to happen.

I dont understand the metaphor. The issues that have lasted for the year .40 has been out were classified as bugs not parts of new systems. New content should wait until old content is working. And I think its a bit early to say the sieges are fixed yet since this release has only been out a week or so and cant be played by the majority of the playerbase due to lack of quality of life 3rd person utilities. In my experience with 42 the dwarf civs have been completely mascaraing the goblins civs within the first 300 years. Helping the armies marshal themselves better doesn't help if they get decimated early on defending their overrun homelands. I consider myself a role player who's play will greatly benefit from taverns and temples but I really dont wan to wait another year and find out ballet and animal training were the priorities rather than balance and general game play.

I suspect the metaphor was more about the basement (i.e. world activation), not the bugs in the basement. I think part of you knows this too. Also, bear in mind DF is a labour of love by a single programmer. It isn't even out of alpha. When you agree to play DF, part of you has to recognize that everything you see is a work in progress. And 40.01 was a huge bit of progress. Putnam already said this though.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

0.40.01 was the most important update in the history of the game, but people complain about it incessantly and only say minor things from it were important because for some reason when they play dwarf fortress they want to play something else

I expect other developers work the same way but at a different timescale. If they committed themselves to fixing every single bug as the game developed instead of actually completing features, maybe the game will be released in perfect condition. But the release date would be extended by two years, funding would shit out and everyone would lose their jobs. For Toady the stakes are infinitely higher. If he commits more time to ensuring every release is a playable, bug-free instance of the game, he'll die of old age before the game reaches 1.0.

I'd also set aside your expectations of balance, or whatever you expect that to mean in Dwarf Fortress, and enjoy the ride a little.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

Bravo! *claps*

Well said.

[sirvente]

In terms of groundwork for later features .40 was a very good thing. In terms of new content it was and still is kind of hit or miss. The dialogue system is strange and hard to navigate, the new quests are non-intuitive, I believe we've still got lingering problems from how Toady redid plants, Dark Fortresses are FPS blackholes, Mountain Homes often generate with sections that are completely inaccessible from the rest of the fort, bandits often don't behave like they're supposed to resulting in things like your muggers following you like lost puppies and putting up little resistance as you hack them to pieces in their camp. Really the problem is we're passing into a strange middleground between gamism and simulationism that doesn't have the structure of the first or the depth of the second so things are a bit weird and arbitrary, it'll get better in a few releases when Toady gets more factors into how the world operates.

[Evrett33]

Out of all the excuses for DF problems this is the one that bugs me the most. DF is no longer one person's garage project. Its has grown far beyond that and has 100s of contributors. You cant stuff the jack back in the box every time you want to excuse lack of progress.