The Guide: Runnin' Ur Fotress!
Or, how I learned to stop wo- PTTG Cancels write: interrupted by Carp.
Congratulations! You've just been selected as the anthropomorphic representation of the collective Dwarven Will that will drive the creation of a mighty symbol of Dwarven Might; the Fortress! You, the Overseer, will tell the dwarves what needs to be done, crafted, forged, killed, or all of the above, and they, your loyal servants, will ignore you and go get smashed on mushroom juice.
So let's get started!
World Gen:
Histories of cupidity and elven eating contests.
After starting Dwarf Fortress (be sure to pay close attention to the opening cinematic; otherwise none of the storyline will make any sense.), select Create new world and go take a nap. This will take a while; whole continents have emerged from the sea in the time it takes DF to create a game world.
If you want to get in character, you can play the Word Gen Drinking game, wherein you take a shot every time a region is rejected and three shots when it generates a rational region name- i.e., not something like "The Throbbing Spikes of Pregnancy". Take two for each form of the word "windy" in the worlds name. Nothing better than the Windy Winds of Windiness.
After the landscape is created, then history will form. From the earliest years of sentient existence for as much as a thousand years, wars will rage and elves will eat whatever they can get their hands on. You may notice that despite a thousand years of war and construction, technology never advances. This is Due to the massive brain damage caused by drinking booze out of mugs made of lead and mercury ore every day.
If you're lucky, World Gen will eventually end, and you can begin creating your fortress. What better way to start than...
Embarking:
Your first mistake.
Ask any real-estate professional what the three most important elements of a real-estate transaction are, and he'll say "Location, location, location." Now ask him what 2 plus 4 is; he'll say "Location, location, location." This is a major factor in the housing bubble collapse.
Nonetheless, choosing a good place to Embark to in DF is a defining element of your game. Let's overview what every fortress needs:
- Well sized area: go for one tile per GB of ram you have in order to have good performance.
- The right temperature: Start your first fortress in a Temperate area; or you may experience frozen or burning dwarves, or both.
- Surface Water: Dwarves don't drink it, but it's needed for caring for wounds and for drowining elves with.
- Trees: The area must be thickly wooded, so that you can have a good supply of timber with which to annoy the elves with.
- Plants: Harvesting surface plants is an excellent way to ensure that your Announcements menu is constantly full of "Urist McHerbalist cancels gather plant: Interrupted by butterfly.x30"
- Mountains: How could I have forgotten! Make sure there's at least a few levels of terrain variation; who ever heard of dwarves in the plains?!
- Cave River: In order to allow you to release cave plant spores and collect underground plants. Also, frogpeople leather.
- Chasm: Dumping and Batman Bone Bolts. Remember: bottomless pits are for losers.
- Magma Tube: You already have more trees than Canada, but you need magma for dealing with traders. Also, Fire Imp Leather Boots are an excellent cure for athlete's foot. Required for significant steel production.
- Flux Stone: Limestone or Marble; these are required for the production of steel. Note that these are mutually exclusive with Magma, as they are metamorphic rock which does not associate with Igneous magma.
- Neither good nor evil: Evil monsters normally all die out too quickly, and noone has ever survived the wrath of the Unicorn.
- Close to Humans, Elves, and Goblins: So that you have plenty of victims.
Statisticians have calculated that there is a 0.00000000001% chance of an area like that existing, so you may have to generate multiple worlds in your search. But once you HAVE found the perfect location, you can select it and-
Oh, wait, make sure you're coming from a Dwarven Empire with something other than cats to embark with, so cancel and start a new game and... tab... select "The Banner of Babies" as the empire... then find the location again- wait, was it southwest of that lake or was it the other mountain range? That river that has the swamps? Anyway Once you've found that one-of-a-kind perfect, perfect location, then embark and...
Select your equipment and Dwarves!
This is an important part of game play as well; take care to make sure that your inital seven dwarves will have the skills and equipment they need to survive for the first few years until you get thousands of immigrants and legendaries. Let's see how:
First, look at the Dwarves Screen. Go through each dwarf and pick the skills you want them to have. Here's one starting skill set;
- One Miner, naturally.
- One Cook with brewing, cooking, milking, and cheese making skills
- One siege engineer.
- One peasant that the others can berate
- One Clerk, who will keep track of the many millions of felsite crowns you will carve.
- One Mayor and manager, so that you can use the Orders screen.
- and one Trader, so that you can negotiate well with the first traders.
Now, let's look at what you want to bring;
First, get rid of the axes and picks, because a real dwarf can just chew his way through the rock. Then, make sure to bring as many anvils as you can, because the caravans always short-change you when you want to buy more later. Spend the rest of the points on booze.
Ready? GO!
Oops, too late. Forgot to change the name. Too bad, now we're stuck with Lidodosed, "Wastedbin", founded by "The Sculpted Rag".
Strike The Earth:
In the Face!
[To be continued?]
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