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[Martin]

Ok, the zombie GCS turned out to be impossible to kill. It was in my main stairway shaft, had one leg, and after a season fighting it with axedwarves had to revert. In its place I got a few gobbo ambushes. They're tougher than I remember in 40d, which I'm attributing to dwarves not turning into The Hulk after a year of training. The upside is that they seem to run off more easily. Military is running smoothly. I've taken 3 deaths - one baby (combat), one injury which didn't get treated in time and he died from infection, and one fey mood that I could never sort out.

Oddly, the pathing bugs are almost nonexistant finally, the military is working well, and otherwise it's feeling an awful lot like playing 40d in terms of stability.

Traps seem to work better, in a sense. They do less damage since it seems you can dodge a trap attack, but I've yet to have one jam. Maybe that's just dumb luck, but the problem with relying on traps for siege defense is you need to make zillions of them just to cover all the ones that jam.

So, with plenty of food and trade goods, housing coming along, a military that doesn't totally suck, I think it's time to go find magma and get rid of this fuel issue.

[Martin]

And then it crumbled to its end. And just when I thought I had this under control.

Yeah, there are a lot of things different from 40d. Strategies that were absolutely bulletproof are mostly worthless now. The new material interactions nerf traps quite a bit - but I don't think they jam any longer, so that helps (they killed about 40 gobbos without jamming which never would have happened in 40d). That traps now trigger the combat rules means that they can be avoided, jumped away from, etc. In 40d, this fortress would have been impenetrable from the surface except for the random, easily killed megabeast.

Taking a civilian casualty every month for 5 months due to ambushes resulted in a tantrum spiral. Time to rethink this design.

[Jim Groovester]

After digging down for a little bit, I was beset by zombie troglodytes. I put everyone in squads and sent them to deal with the problem.

It took two civilian deaths and several in game months to equip somebody with an axe to dispatch them.

I then made the mistake of designating a hospital zone. So now I have eight dwarfs resting, one of whom is the doctor, and the other two are now fighting a zombie troll. I have no idea where the axe went.

I haven't been this frustrated since I first learned how to play DF. It really is a whole new game.

[Martin]

The axe was probably stuck in one of the trogs. I find the axes get stuck a LOT. Thankfully, they come out easily. The military stuff is getting better. There's one screen that I haven't yet figured out how to navigate the list - the usual selectors don't work - and I though it was broken. It's where you schedule defending a burrow and you need to select the burrow. Fortunately the mouse works very well in the military screen. I don't think there's much (if anything) specifically related to the military screen that's broken. My dwarves would get weapons, armor - they'd go where I scheduled them, they'd train (but not spar) and several were legendary fighters or axedwarves. Didn't save them from insanity, though. It's less direct than the old system in that usually fighters would instantly do exactly what you want. Now they might head over and get a piece of armor on the way.

What's great about the new system is that you can have multiple squads and give them different attack targets, so you can put your ranged units on one group and your melee on another, and if the groups move, your orders move with them. No constantly reselecting stations. And no having everyone wander off of station to go watch the squad leader drink a beer.

Overall, I think once the bugs are sorted out, this is going to be a much more balanced and challenging game.

[Kipi]

It's the little things that make this version much harder. Previously, siegers and ambushers only showed up in the first few weeks after the start of a season - now they show up any time. Used to be you could know by the end of the first month if the coast was clear and then let your dwarves go out and clean up a battlefield. Now, not so much...

I think that applies to everything incoming outside your map as well. I have even had a situation where  caravan came just before end of the season, left during next season and was immediately followed by another caravan. Same goes with the immigration as well (I think).

Also, anyone noticed that you need bigger farming plot to support the same population than in 40d? In the previous version 5*10 plot was more or less enough to support bigger population, and it even produce some extra for storage, but not with even plot as big as 10*10 I don't get even close same amount of spare plant.

[Moontayle]

And then it crumbled to its end. And just when I thought I had this under control.

Yeah, there are a lot of things different from 40d. Strategies that were absolutely bulletproof are mostly worthless now. The new material interactions nerf traps quite a bit - but I don't think they jam any longer, so that helps (they killed about 40 gobbos without jamming which never would have happened in 40d). That traps now trigger the combat rules means that they can be avoided, jumped away from, etc. In 40d, this fortress would have been impenetrable from the surface except for the random, easily killed megabeast.

Taking a civilian casualty every month for 5 months due to ambushes resulted in a tantrum spiral. Time to rethink this design.

This is why I've moved just about everything inside and down a few z-levels. My main burrow for holing everyone up in one place is 10 levels down. The primary barracks is set up 5 levels down. The military is quick to respond to any and all issues. So far. I really really need to find magma so I can get a proper second squad set up. 50 z-levels down and no dice so far. I'm dreading the pump stack I'll need to get this puppy running.

[Jimmy]

Fingers crossed the next few weeks releases will see improvements to the military training system and a fix for the zombie issues. Once that's done I can really get cracking.

[Moontayle]

Fingers crossed the next few weeks releases will see improvements to the military training system and a fix for the zombie issues. Once that's done I can really get cracking.

At the very least I want my guys to stop holding training sessions on things they're only dabbling in.

[Neyvn]

Why bring to Magma to you, take yourself to the magma...

My Fort (after we get a military bug fix. Fucking Dwarfs wouldn't drop their training gear even after picking up their new Copper weapons, Ugh No you can weild TWO Training Axes in one hand, WHY ARE YOU PICKING UP THE COPPER AXE WITH THE HAND HOLDING THE TWO TRAINING AXES!!! ARGGGHHH DROP THEM, FUCKING GIANT ZOMBIE TOAD IS RIGHT THERE... NO DROP THE TRAINING AXES........... Fuck it...)

Anyway, My fort will be built in the caverns, travelling down and down untill I hit Magma, each Cavern before the Magma will be an outpost that will be sealed if 'Taken'. Forcing the Invaders to regroup and return to the main Stairwell...

First floor will be a Marksmen Station (still open to accommodate to the rules). Second a Gauntlet of Siege weapons. Which should be fun in themselves due to the fact that any Marksmen that was able to pull back will be able to continue firing from their new positions. And if that floor is taken, which would be fun as hell if they do. We have the Final Floor (being the Third Cavern if there is one) the Final Stand. A Defensive trap that will allow the Dwarfs to move about and engage in hand to hand...

So it should be interesting...

[Moontayle]

Jackpot! It's not all that far down, at least nowhere near the level that the Sparkgear guys are dealing with.

[bmaczero]

Okay, I'm ready to try this again with more zombie killing. 

[barconis]

Training and normal weapons are interacting in ways I didn't expect -- if you equip both regular and training weapons, equip the regular ones first so that they'll be used in combat. Whichever's highest in the list gets used. Although I'm not sure what use training weapons are, since I almost never have anything other than individual training.

I'm stalled in the middle of year 3 right now due to a crashing issue. I think it might be related to trying to bury a corpse that's outside the burrow you're restricted to, but I haven't been able to tune it down fine enough to prove that. Is there a way to turn on some kind of debugging dump? I just get the 'dwarf fortress has stopped working' popup from Vista.

[bmaczero]

Hey, I got non-zombie wolves!  Yay!  Go kill 'em, Zefon!

"Zefon Akurdodok, Marksdwarf, has drowned."

Aw f...

[Martin]

Farm plots don't seem to support as much of the fort, but I think that's because the whole job system is a little slower, not because the output is worse - and a little slowdown on picking up jobs (along with the occasional pathing problem) really adds up.

I didn't run into trouble with the training weapons, but my military grabbed all the metal stuff and the woodcutters were out there knocking down trees with wooden axes. I need to file that bug because, well, you just can't do that!

Regular wolves are FAST. I miss the days when a unbelievably agile dwarf could chase down a cheetah. I've yet to catch a snatcher. Get used to losing children.

[Moontayle]

I find a Bull placed on a leash at the entrance deters snatchers.

My military is fast enough to catch up to wolves and thieves. I've seen them chase down a few. Mainly because the last few thieves got spotted by the Bull got bugged pathing or something because they would go about fifty steps away, then come back, then rinse and repeat forever. Of course, 6 of the 10 are Legendary through self training.

Found the second cavern (after finding the magma, strangely). I have my guys doing a sweep of it all, clearing out zombies with a vengeance. These little fuckers don't take prisoners. The find spam is annoying as fuck but at least it doesn't pause you every time now. Still need to sweep the first cavern but since that's where the antmen reside I'm holding off a little until I tap that one.

Finally clearing out the last vestiges of the initial fort setup. Having a blast. About halfway through Spring of Year 4.