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[Ayeohx]

Man, I love this game, some would call it addiction I just call it love for my little digital dwarves that live in my computer.  But last night I had an event that caused me to roll back my game save (something I rarely do).  Here's the short version.

- My jackass mayor mandates 3 platinum items to be created.  Since we have no platinum we blow it off.
- In retribution Mayor Jackass throws a single mother into jail.  Awesome.  Now I've got a baby crawling around aimlessly.  Obviously this isn't going to end well.
- I spot the newborn stuck in a murky pond dying of thirst.  Not one of my dwarves help.
- I frantically build ramps for the baby to get out.  Nope, not happening.  The baby can't swim back up from the bottom.
- I notice the bottom of the pond is flush with my decked out dining room.  I command them to dig through the wall.  Water and mud pours into the room.  I find it funny that there's an artifact floodgate in the corner of the room on display.  Hope it helps you selfish bastards.
- The baby makes it out!  Still, no dwarf is stopping to help the poor thing.  WTF?!?!?!
- I make a plan:  Spring mom from SingSing.  Unfortunately I don't have a clue how to do it.  I stop using the cage as a jail.  No go.  I move the jail, still not working.  Finally I get it:  Hook a lever up to the cage!  Haha!  Success!!! The door swings open!
- The mother goes running for the child.  Five freakin squares away she is struck down!!!!!  What the hell?!  Who did that?!
- The baby crawls towards it's dead mother.  Three squares away the body is carted off and the baby is left dying of thirst and hunger.

This just totally sucked.  To make matters worse one of my more evil dwarven guards, a mother herself, kept bringing her own baby into the jail while the convict's child drowned outside.  Oh, and I was up till 7am trying to fix this mess.  With a big meeting the next day at work.  So no, I'm not at all addicted.

[LegoLord]

This is why we make death traps for nobles.

But yeah, a single dwarf isn't so valuable.  Unless it has legendary skills.  That's kind of how things were at one point.  Well, one person died, there'll be plenty more where she came, right?

DF simulates that to an extent.

[Ayeohx]

Is there a mod I can do to make orphan survival a bit more possible?  Also, I need to get a better picture of the lego robot in your avatar picture.

[LegoLord]

Is there a mod I can do to make orphan survival a bit more possible?  Also, I need to get a better picture of the lego robot in your avatar picture.

1)  Not that you can download (at least that I know of, maybe a hack utility can do it), but adding [NO_EAT] and [NO_DRINK] might help.  But that'll make all dwarves not need food or drink.
2)  So do I.  Sadly I am not too knowledgeable of photography.

[dragon0421]

If you don't assign a fortress guard or sheriff you can ignore mandates. They seem like a placeholder anyway.

[HideousBeing]

Just enjoy the beauty of dwarf fortress. Expect that baby to throw itself off a large cliff when it finds out it's mother has died. into magma. hopefully.

[Kishmond]

Not that babies are useful in any way at all...

[Retro]

Not that babies are useful in any way at all...

Oh, I beg to differ. Military mommas need all the protection they can get.

[carebear]

Not that babies are useful in any way at all...

Oh, I beg to differ. Military mommas need all the protection they can get.

Meatshield!

[Shima]

The true beauty of DF isn't that it's so wonderfully, deliciously messed up, but rather that it messes up everyone it touches, too.

I always try to make sure that I recruit whole families unless someone is useful!  The wife has an extra shield and an automatic berserk button for battle, and if she or her husband dies, they have an equal chance of getting depressed or just not caring!  Less tantrums that way, OR, the best tantrums EVER, depending on how emotionally dead that are.

[Hectonkhyres]

Not that babies are useful in any way at all...

Well, as things go natural-born dwarves (as opposed to dirty immigrants) tend to grow up into godlike, legendary creatures. All social skills way into the legendary territory (including the liar skill which only children ever seem to acquire), farming trained way the hell up, all the stats crazy high. When they finally grow up, they are buzzing along so fast they master whatever skill you throw them at in little time at all.

Children are great. The only reason to have immigrants after the first couple years is so you can sift out thinks like weaponsmith or armorsmith, things that are too expensive to train up, or for cheap cannonfodder.

[Neonivek]

Well this is in no where a defense for the poor gameplay but I feel compelled to add

Dwarf Fortress is still in Alpha and not all that playable as it is.

I am still here not for what it is now, because I'd be gone LONG ago if this is what I thought DF would be like, but what it will eventually be.

So yes, the game is early in development so it is still a grabled mess. Yes saving Orphans is in the Dev notes. Yes the game has a huge amount of overzealous fandom who take every small success and blows it out of proportion and turns every failure into a success. So you may not enjoy listening to hype talk too much (I don't generally but I ignore it)

[BurnedToast]

Not that babies are useful in any way at all...

Well, as things go natural-born dwarves (as opposed to dirty immigrants) tend to grow up into godlike, legendary creatures. All social skills way into the legendary territory (including the liar skill which only children ever seem to acquire), farming trained way the hell up, all the stats crazy high. When they finally grow up, they are buzzing along so fast they master whatever skill you throw them at in little time at all.

Children are great. The only reason to have immigrants after the first couple years is so you can sift out thinks like weaponsmith or armorsmith, things that are too expensive to train up, or for cheap cannonfodder.

Immigrants will train up to legendary stats via social skills at the same rate children do, plus you don't have to wait 12(?) years for them to grow up and they can haul stuff for you in the meantime.

Children and babies are useless except as arrow catchers.

[alfie275]

Try making dwarves born as children, should increase survival rate a bit.

[LegoLord]

Yes the game has a huge amount of overzealous fandom who take every small success and blows it out of proportion and turns every failure into a success.

Just two things about that, though:
1)  Often, the critics who come onto the forum to complain (seriously complain, I mean, like awhile back with the guy whose main argument revolved around how annoyed he was that milking wasn't in yet) are just as bad as the overzealous fans, waving insults at the creator (who has kindly provided DF and other games for free, on top of quitting his job to produce these games) and generally making no effort to look into just how well the development process is going(assuming it's bad without evidence), even though the link to it is right along the top of the main page of the website.  This counterbalancing the zealous fans' trollish insults to critics (calling them spambots, trolls, etc.).
2)  The game's motto is "losing is fun!", and always has been since the beginning, when this looked like a small project.  Of course people are going to take failures and look at them happily.