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[Tynan]

     Greetings all gamers. Hope you had a good New Year. I would like to get into this game, but I know there is an enormous investment of time involved as far as learning to play efficiently with all the commands. So I just have a few questions:
     Is the game designed with the idea that your fortress/mine/colony/whatever will eventually fall, no matter how hard the player tries? What I mean is, is it possible to run a colony forever until the end of Time?
     Is it possible to rid the entire map of all Evil Colonies/Armies? Could the game not be "won" in this manner?
     I just don't want to dive head first into this and spend weeks playing if there wasn't the slightest (even remotest) chance that I could maintain and defend a colony successfully until, well, I guess until the game Year rolls back over to zero? If this is impossible, then why bother playing?
     I thank everyone for their time in reading this.

[Skorpion]

1. No. It's designed so that you CAN keep a fort running indefinetly, if you overcome the challenges it throws at you. Most forts end up being abandoned due to inefficiency or player boredom.
2. Not yet. Next edition, possibly. And no. DF has no 'win' condition.
3. The game will never end itself for you. Not in the current edition. Again, you can't win. There is no endgame, only faliure or continued success.

It does, however, get rather pointless when sieges become no threat, everyone's happy all the time, and you've run out of challenges. But that's your call.

[Beanchubbs]

You can easily have a fortress that will never be destroyed by anything, but there is no Fun^tm in that. You can, indeed, destroy every evil sentient in the game, but that really isn't winning. There really is no "winning" this game, but QuantumSawdust could be considered to have won the game with Flarechannels. http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=43679.0

Edit: ninja'd

[Sphalerite]

n the current version, it is possible to play a stable fortress forever if that is your desire.  In fact, mere survival is almost too easy once you learn the game.  However, a major new release is due soon which may change that.

[atomfullerene]

You can run a colony forever.  It's actually pretty easy once you get the hang of it.  The old countdown to doom thing isn't in the game any more, and even when it was you could avoid it by not mining adamantine.  Seiges can be walled out, and fortresses can be self sufficient.  Actually your biggest enemy is an ever decreasing framerate....as fortresses get bigger and more complex, they run more slowly.  This can be dealt with somewhat by using good design and keeping the number of animals and dwarfs low.  But in short yes, and there are some very old forts.  But I think most people don't do this.  I personally tend to build until I have achieved the fort I was aiming for, and then start a new one.

You can get rid of all your enemies, but it takes quite a bit of doing and isn't really needed.  You have to play several games in one world and go crazy with adventure mode. 

Give it a shot, its fun!  Also there's a new version with lots of cool features coming up very soon.

---triple ninja'd

[assimilateur]

Technically, you could play a fort indefinitely. Food, as in cultivated crops and raised livestock, is a renewable resource. Same goes for trees and wild edible plants.

Other resources, namely minerals, are not renewable, but you can expect to always have enough stone. Ores, not so much, unless you mod the game in a way that makes them more common (if you're interested, I can give you details on how to do this). You don't need those to last indefinitely in order to survive, but you do need them in order to make anything worthwhile. Watching your dwarves eat and drink for years is going to be boring unless they're also producing interesting things out of metal or stone.

As far as stone is concerned, that can be replaced by glass, at least for most uses. As long as you have sand and magma, the latter being an infinite heat-source for furnaces, kilns, smelters and forges, you are going to be able to produce glass furniture, walls, jewelry, etc. for years (real time, not game time).

Dwarves can die of old age, but live pretty long. They do reproduce, however, so them going extinct is not a concern, unless by catastrophic means.

As to depopulating potential attackers, I'm not sure. I think I've read that it was possible, but I haven't experienced it myself. Note that I'm talking about fortress mode here, as in adventure mode it is definitely possible, but unbelievably tedious.



Now, most importantly: the above is all academic. Believe me, you are not going to play a fortress indefinitely. You might get bored with your layout, or your site's features, and want to try something new. Hell, even if you never got bored, surely you would want to start a new game whenever a major update comes along, wouldn't you?

[armadilloHD]

It took me a couple of forts, about 4 to finally learn everything I had to do, like learning you actually need a military besides fortress guards.  Defenses really don't need to be all that complicated honestly.  If you can limit the entrances of your fort to one, you can just train up a small militia and put their barracks there and have them train wrestling 24/7. 

[Tynan]

     Lots of good responses here. Thanks folks!
     I guess if I wanted to aim for a specific goal, it would be to capture (cage) one each of every kind of Legendary monster.
     Also, let's say I build up a fortress to where it's basically self sustaining. Knowing where the fortress is, could I then save, exit, and start a game (in the same world) as an Adventurer (say Human), and then go visit my fortress and see it active? That would be very cool. If not, I'm still playing the game definitely.

[Retro]

     Lots of good responses here. Thanks folks!
     I guess if I wanted to aim for a specific goal, it would be to capture (cage) one each of every kind of Legendary monster.
     Also, let's say I build up a fortress to where it's basically self sustaining. Knowing where the fortress is, could I then save, exit, and start a game (in the same world) as an Adventurer (say Human), and then go visit my fortress and see it active? That would be very cool. If not, I'm still playing the game definitely.

To the latter: Yup! Sort of, it'd be abandoned. Though Adventure Mode has a bit of a different interface. (edit: didn't notice the word 'active')

To the former: You're definitely going to want to beef up your megabeasts and end worldgen early if you want one of each type - they get killed quite a lot as time plows ahead.

[assimilateur]

Knowing where the fortress is, could I then save, exit, and start a game (in the same world) as an Adventurer (say Human), and then go visit my fortress and see it active? That would be very cool. If not, I'm still playing the game definitely.

I'm not sure if they'll survive, I'll have to test it. Regardless, just make sure to backup your save files, because you can't normally start a game new game in a given world. You have to abandon your fortress first, which is irreversible (you can return to it, but with a new party of dwarves), before starting another fortress or an adventure.

[jarathor]

I'm sorry to point out that you can't leave your fortress running - when you abandon your fort, it falls into ruin, the dwarves die or leave (although some may be left behind - I know invaders will stay behind, but I'm not entirely sure about dwarves), and all of your items are scattered across the map. You will be able to look at all of your engravings though, and if you're lucky you might run into one of your dwarves somewhere else in adveture mode.

[assimilateur]

I'm sorry to point out that you can't leave your fortress running - when you abandon your fort, it falls into ruin, the dwarves die or leave (although some may be left behind - I know invaders will stay behind, but I'm not entirely sure about dwarves), and all of your items are scattered across the map. You will be able to look at all of your engravings though, and if you're lucky you might run into one of your dwarves somewhere else in adveture mode.

That's a shame. I just got back from trying to test this, having abandoned I then asked a mayor not far from Citybowels, my fort, about the surroundings and sure enough he mentioned it. That led me to believe that it would continue to function.

EDIT: I've finally reached my fort now, after losing several adventurers on the way, and I can confirm what the above poster (as well as the one following this post) said: forts are depopulated when you abandon them.

There is one good thing you can do with a fort after abandoning it: loot it for equipment.

[ed boy]

Just remember: losing is fun.

[Beanchubbs]

Your fortress will not continue to function. Levers work and buildings still remain, but there are no dwarves there. The only dwarves I've seen stay once I leave a fortress are ones that are berserk. This is unfortunate, as many forts of mine I would love to see survive, but I just get too bored with.

[Lost Requiem]

It's all a matter of "What do YOU want to do?" The point of the game is to do what you want 'cause a pirate is free there is no real objective. Build a super fortress, a walking deathtrap for invaders, a zoo, a fortress on the water, in a bed of lava, under the sea, kill nobles for sport, play kobold football (yet to be implemented), whatever you want to do!

Inevitably, yes, your fortress will not survive *As with all empires*. One day, your pissy noble will demand that adamantine shuttle to the Andromeda Galaxy, the Hammerer will kill a legendary dorf, and cause a tantrum spiral that will cause wanton destruction, unstoppable fires, and the death of everything you know.