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[Akoto]

So, I've been toying with adventure mode lately, something I haven't done in several versions. I'm glad to see that it has been considerably advanced, but I remain adventurously lost.

What I found to be an attractive scenario was starting as early in time as I could, in an era where great powers of all sorts are still about. Dragons, colossi, titans, demons, Hell, the lesser stuff, so on and so forth. Assuming I grew powerful enough to take such things on, then hunting them down seems like fun. Become a power in my own right, so to speak.

However, all I've managed to do is get lost on even the simplest of quests. I learned tonight about shift+T, which I'm sure helps a lot with actually getting to where you need to be. That may solve one issue. However, what about the wider world? If you don't build and then abandon a number of fortresses, is there really much for you to see? Are those great powers and access points to places like dark fortresses or Hell out there even still?

When roaming around on my own in search of such stuff, I generally find a whole lot of nothing, even mundane creatures. I did once find my way to a goblin fortress, and though I was able to access a few buildings there, nothing was inside any of them. I figured I'd finally have found a demon, given that they tend to rule goblins, but no such luck.

I am a sad newbie in an era of legendary beings. Help me to become a demipower, O wise ones!

[golemgunk]

I actually open a text file when I play so I can write down the names of people and places I want to find, since it gets hard to keep track of specific things once they get dumped to the information screen.

In terms of places to see, it's really more about the journey right now. Starting earlier in history might actually give you less to do, due to the lower numbers of night creatures, bandits, vampires, were-things. The demons live in the slade towers at the center of goblin sites, but it can be hard to get there just because of how heavy the lag gets. If you do get there though, I've heard you can find an underworld portal in the lower levels. 

The real thing to do in adventure mode nowadays though is try to find a hidden vault. It's hidden on the world map and you likely won't hear about it from villagers, but you can find its coordinates if you search the xml dump of your world's history (the coords read from the top-left of the world map). I don't want to spoil what's there if you don't already know, but it's the place to go when you're ready to face stronger enemies.

[peasant cretin]

mikekchar has some very useful thoughts about beginning Adventure Mode play. His comment in its entirety is worth reading.

But an excerpt in particular would be good to highlight:

Also, one thing I think is really common is to play the game too fast.  When you first start out, get a hold of your surroundings.  I believe the key is "W" (I don't have an adventure game handy).  From there you can get a lot of information.  There is a map that will show you your surroundings.  Move the cursor around to get an idea of the areas.  Adventure mode has the concept of named regions (usually forests or plains or whatever).  Your adventurer will be familiar with the ones nearest to you.  Move the cursor around to see what they are all called.  Next in the same W screen, you can hit "b" to get a look at the beastiary.  This lists all the animals you might encounter and what region they are in.  Again, your adventurer only knows about the ones near their starting location at first.  Go through each of the animals to see where they are located.  Take note of animals that look like they might be dangerous and consider starting off in calmer areas.  Finally, you can have a look at the people you know (p???  I forget).  My advice is to walk around in your starting area and try to meet those people.  It will give you practice with the game and give you an idea for your layout...
(My EDIT: removed some text here for clarity)
Last piece of advice is to take it slowly and enjoy the small things of the game.  My first 10 games or so were wandering around randomly until something killed me.  I didn't really find it that fun.  DF adventure mode is more about exploration and experimentation IMHO.  Try to get an internal story going in your head and see if you can advance the plot.  This will make it a lot more fun.  Peasants are fairly hard to get started because you are not strong enough (and don't have enough equipment) to do any quests that people send you on.  If you want to play that side of the game sooner, then start with a demi-god.  When you get better at the game, start downgrading to hero and then peasant.

[Akoto]

I appreciate the advice.

Taking from that quote, I sort of already have my story. The character is a godslayer looking to become a power in their own right.

However, taking from another post, I kind of hit a paradox there. By starting early on, when there are a lot of megabeasts, I may end up in a world with less people and fewer things like necromancers/vampires/werebeasts.

What's one on a quest like mine to do? Oy.

As for the vaults, I know what you're referring to from the wiki, but I don't even know how to read the XML file to find where they're located. No worries there, even if I wanted to peek!

[peasant cretin]

Just a random, roundabout potential answer (not sure if this'll be helpful, or just blowhard noise):

In terms of questing (irrespective of world age), I break the game down into generic phases: early, middle, and late game. And so I'd fit the quest type into those phases. Early game is the journey from level 1 (novice) shield/dodge defense to level 6. Middle game is bringing defense up from 6 to level 11. Late game is level 11 to 15 (Legendary). Everyone has a different way to measure what goes where and when.

Combat is first about stats (your defense is what keeps you in the fight and preferably should be equal to or better than your opponent), second the tick count per attack along with Murphy's Laws of Defense, and lastly your position versus their position.

Just a loose sketch of the power spectrum: the strongest bandit is a lvl 11, while the rest are likely under lvl 6. Night trolls are level 6s, while Urlance Woolsbane confirmed bogeymen are 9s. It's useful to feel out where everything else is. Some creatures don't have any skill stats, but get by on their attributes, like 3 of the 4 semimegabeasts.

[Akoto]

Maybe the easier questions to ask would be these:

1. I want to role-play an adventurer who, in the course of his journey, becomes a godslayer and a power in his own right. From dragons to demons, angels to the depths of Hell, he's done it all. Of course, the 'doing it all' part will be the fun part, but the big question ... What year should I stop the world's development at in order to ensure I have plenty of dragons, colossi, demons, titans, and whatever else to fight while also maintaining a healthy balance elsewhere?

2. I like the fact that animal men have been made playable, but it's an obvious disadvantage that they (with a few exceptions) can't use a lot of equipment. Are any of the animal man species considered to be especially powerful, setting aside the elephant man and his obviously great strength? Maybe my mighty godslayer won't hail from one of the dominant races!

[peasant cretin]

I only play dwarf, so I can only offer an answer to the first query.

Larger worlds, by default setting, will have more megabeasts/semimegabeasts/titans/etc than smaller worlds. If you're willing to use advanced world design, you can add to the beast count yourself.

The longer the history, the higher the level of ruin, intrigue and beast death. 250-550 end years in large worlds will give a good balance of history and beast count. 1050 year ends are arguably more interesting than any other if the world is large. A larger world allows for a richer history to develop if given the time. There will also be a high instance of masterwork items the longer your history. But longer histories also offer more clutter. The smaller the world, the greater the affect of history on beast count, and certain things just don't develop.

Note: In a vanilla unmodded game, dragons do not reach max size until year 1000.

[Akoto]

Wow. I would imagine, by the year 1050, most dragons (and everything else of legend) would be dead. I don't even do forts past year 200 or so. Sometimes, going beyond that even crashes me.

[Infinityforce]

I appreciate the advice.

Taking from that quote, I sort of already have my story. The character is a godslayer looking to become a power in their own right.

The REAL god of DF is pain, avarice, greed, misery, industry, toil, challenge, overcoming, success and celebration.

[Akoto]

Okay, new question!

My dwarf has a longsword and a shield. When I press q, he draws the sword in his left and the shield in his right.

He's been in a few fights since, as his home city is connected right to caverns, but there's an oddity in those battles. Even though he's drawn his sword, he doesn't use it. Granted, he's won all of the fights by punching, but that's... not exactly the goal.

Any idea why he isn't striking with the longsword? Am I missing a command, here? The syntax for everything is still quite complicated after so long without playing adventure mode. Gonna be hard to become a power in my own right if I can't use a sword. Thanks!

[peasant cretin]

If you're using direction keys for combat, everything is auto-attack. It's sort of a lottery. If you use shift + (a) to attack you should get this menu which gives you 3 choices:
(click thumbnail to expand)

Once you choose, this is followed by target selection:
(click thumbnail to expand)

Then lastly type of attack, and attack speed modifiers:
(click thumbnail to expand)


Not sure what's missing here.

[Akoto]

I did use the direction pad to attack, and it defaulted to brawling for combat even when I had the sword drawn. I did not use a menu to attack, so that could certainly be the problem.

Is combat with a weapon that much of a nuisance, though? Do you have to go through those menus each and every time you want to swing a weapon?

[peasant cretin]

When you auto-attack, attack type will also be based on level of escalation; it felt the situation was a brawl, you brawled. If it was lethal, your character would have included his/her weapons, and then targeting would be based on armor level and opportunity. This is to say you'd have less control over the result.

If you want to target specifics, you'll end up going through those menus. It's what helps you win close fights cleanly. Adventure Mode's more granular than Fort Mode from the single action standpoint, as it's less about overall management, and about a single unit's activities.

[Akoto]

Well, if it things brawling with a saltwater crocodile is more reasonable than smacking it with my longsword, I guess there's not much I can do about that.

[mikekchar]

Escalation is somewhat important in adventure mode because it determines if your opponent will allow you to retreat.  Starting with brawling is always the safest way to go because if you find out that you are outmatched, you can usually run away.  If you start by hacking with your sword, it will become a fight to the death.

Having said that, I almost never use the d-pad for fighting.  Fighting is really tactical in DF.  Check out the kisat dur thread for details, but if you use the d-pad you are practically giving up all hope of a reasonable defence.  If you get multiple opponents, you will be destroyed almost for sure.  One thing I should point out is that many injuries *never* heal, so avoiding getting hit is crucial.  I have an adventurer who got scratched on her eyelid and it is now infected.  She may very well die from it.

The nice thing is that the combat system is really fun once you understand how everything works.  Especially against heavily armoured or skilled opponents, it can be a real puzzle to determine how to avoid getting hurt while at the same time slowly dismantling your opponent.  Unfortunately, there are a lot of key presses (as always in DF...).