Let me say, as a vanilla purist, I don't think there is any reason for *anyone* to feel embarrassed about how they play the game. It's *your* game. Do what you like. DFHack and DT represent years of work by people trying to improve the game. It's like feeling bad for putting chocolate sauce on your vanilla ice cream. If you like chocolate sauce, then go for it!
The only thing I, personally, react negatively to is the idea that the game is unplayable without DFHack or DT. I get even more upset if I see demands from people for Toady to include DT in the main game. I *like* vanilla. I *don't like* chocolate sauce. I want my vanilla without chocolate sauce :-) I sometimes feel like its a shame that a lot of people don't try vanilla. They get sucked into the idea that DFHack and DT (and fancy tilesets with TWBT) are necessary for the game. They never get to see the vanilla game and therefore miss some of its nuances. Every once in a while I think it's worth discussing the idea of trying vanilla and working through the difficult bits to see where it takes you. However, since Kruggsmash plays vanilla (though doesn't use all its features), I think more people can see that it's a viable option and there is less need to sing the praises of vanilla.
Anyway, as a vanilla user, I find the u screen practically useless when the fortress gets above a certain size. I use j a lot more often to see what dwarfs are doing. But it means that you need to find a different way to keep track of groups of dwarfs. In the past I've made squads and occasionally had meetings -- i.e., the dwarfs in a particular squad all get stationed to a particular location. I then look through them that way. Lately I've been trying to organise my dwarfs by familial groups and have family members live near each other, forming neighbourhoods. I then try my best (without burrows, which are a PITA) to incentivise the dwarfs to stay in their neighbourhoods. I assign workshops using the P menu and so their job is there. I turn on and off various hauling options so that I don't have the entire fortress hauling wood when I cut down a tree. I give them personal temples and dining rooms, etc, etc. It's working *fairly* well, but it's hard to set up, as you can imagine.
However, it's stuff like this that I find engaging about the game. If I had a functional u menu, it would make it *much* easier to treat the game like a typical RTS. The dwarfs just become units of production that I shuffle around and try to optimise. Instead I'm working by butt off trying to arrange things so that the dwarfs stay together with their families -- all because u is broken ;-)
Still, like I said, my goal is not to tell you how to play the game, but just to shine light on the idea that there are other ways to play the game in case it might not have occurred to you. It is easier, by far, to use DFHack, though :-)
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Topic: Any way to organize the /u/ menu? (Read 1100 times)