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[Frogwarrior]

I just figured out a new approach to playing the game: A giant booze party. With only one rule:

NOBODY DOES ANY WORK.

This means nobody, anywhere, does any labor that could create an item that does NOT have those parentheses around it meaning "imported object."

NO digging, not even in dirt. NO woodcutting. NO crafts. NO hunting, NO butchery, NO fishing, NO cooking, NO planting/gathering, NO brewing.

The only things you are allowed to do are: Build a depot and trade at it, build beds and roofs for sleeping and a chair for bookkeeping if you're a wuss, set up a hospital and tend to wounds (with tables and traction benches if you're a superwuss) (also, sutures and bandages don't count as items unless you're REALLY dwarfcore), do military things like spar at a barracks (which had BETTER be defined at a bag that YOU DIDN'T MAKE!) and chase off monkeys, build chairs and tables and a roof for a dining hall if you're a SUPER-MEGA-ULTRA-WUSS, and get hammered 28/12.

In order to survive, you will have to trade other imported goods. Meaning unless you CHEAT and disassemble the depot, you'll have to trade clothing. Clothing which will have to come from dead dorfs. Meaning, you'll have to either wait for dorfs to start dying (the hard way) or your starting dorfs will have to realize there isn't enough to go around and bump off some migrants to get things started. ("Hey, can you deconstruct that staircase? The one holding up a floor right over your head?" "Sure thing!")

Eventually, you'll need to amass enough wealth to come out ahead in scrums against goblins, meaning you'll have to trade for armor and weapons as well as food and booze, carefully managing your two main resources: dwarves and tradeable goods, one of which can be "cashed in" for the other, the other of which can only be renewed through migrant waves and, eventually, perhaps, babies.

You can also allow yourself to build artifacts, meaning you'll have to keep some of everything handy (TRADE for them!) in case of a mood.

[fudgejudge]

I now know why games are divided into 'casual' 'hardcore' and 'dwarf fortress'.

[Acperience]

You have to somehow get all those beds and things without building workshops too apparently.

[Frogwarrior]

You can't trade for beds. Thus, you can only get them by wussing out and building them. Same goes for all furniture except bags.

Buildings, though, aren't really "items;" you can build a depot, or a construction, or a support, or even workshops. Just so long as you don't make anything that shows up on the Stocks screen without those parentheses.


I should really do a community fort with this challenge; see how long I last ^__^

You can also allocate starting points however you wish; naturally, taking much of anything except cheap meat and booze is probably a bad idea. (Plump helmets, also known as the only plant you can ever use with this challenge (NO brewing, milling, or cooking!), cost twice as much as the cheapest meat.) It might be a decent plan to either save any migrants with significant weapon skill or embark with some weapon skill, and buy a weapon or two from the first caravan, to get you a head start into having some chance of surviving your first goblin attacks.... honestly, that's going to be a major part of the challenge, equipping a military with nothing but bought armor and weapons. Of course, after your first goblin attack you'll have plenty of goblinite to trade and no shortage of weapons.

But forever you will be forced to consider how much to request from the liaison - the more you request of a given item, be it food, booze, weapons, or armor, the more they'll bring (and the greater chance of having some higher-quality specimens in there), but the more each item will cost from your perpetually meager supplies.

[HungryHobo]

If you upped your starting credits in the worldgen options it would be quite doable.
make sure to equip all your starting dwarves with a full set of copper or bronze armour, shields and axes and set the population limit low you could get some serious caravan action going trading all the goblinite.

also make sure you're in a world with lots of goblins.

Can mechanisms be brought on embark?
They can't be traded for I know that.
If they can be brought on embark then bring some training spears and set up a danger room for all your dwarves as well since they're going to have to fight for everything they'll have.

marksgoblins and lashers could still be a massive pain though.

[LordSlowpoke]

I'll go further and embark with nothing at all and destroy the clothes.

How, you ask?

Elf slaves.

[Frogwarrior]

Mechanisms can't be embarked with or traded for. And traps make things too easy.

Some sort of stiff sparring regimen, for everyone, may be an absolute essential for survival.

Which means if you want marksdwarves, make sure you take good care of anyone who comes in with any marksdwarf skill, because training takes bolts, and bolts aren't cheap.....

Also, you can totally trade with the elves. Really, you don't need any more enemies.

[Internet Kraken]

Don't build walls, get killed by goblins.

I fail to see how anyone could pull this off with invaders turned on. Because even a squadron of elite wrestlers can't do much against armored goblins riding jabberers and escorted by troll kill squads.

[Kamamura]

Pffft, that's all seems a bit soft and elfy to me. Allow me to up your challenge - all that you mentioned, plus you have to embark naked, broke and... dead!. You can only use those dwarfs that manage to rise from the dead plus migrants. How about that?

[Frogwarrior]

Oh, you can build walls.

And who says you need unarmored wrestlers? You can buy as much armor and weapons as you want from any caravan...

[Swivelguy2]

Is hunting "work?" Cause I'd call that "play."

[Xenos]

just put all of your points into sand bags.  these will multiply in value upon embarking.  Trade for what you need, wash rinse repeat.

[Frogwarrior]

just put all of your points into sand bags.  these will multiply in value upon embarking.  Trade for what you need, wash rinse repeat.

Ooh! That's a great idea... you get one free bag for each unit of sand, right?
That's the best idea I've heard yet! And they're light, so you don't have to worry about overloading animals. And some of them might be GCS silk too... Thanks! That should really help, and not require me to commit.... Murder.

Although you'll need to put a lot of points into food and booze, too, to make sure you always have enough. It would be sad for anyone to go hungry, and even sadder to be sober.

Sadly, when buying sand from the caravan you pay for the bag too, so it will only work in the beginning. After that, it's careful management and murdering all the monkeys all the way.


(Hunting is OK, training military skills and all.... but NO BUTCHERING.)

[Mohreb el Yasim]

i think an other version of this would be (more easy tougth) that are allowed to work if they like to do something.
he likes pick: mining,
she likes beds bed making (not other thing)
is he nuts of plant fabrics, let him do things from that (as no one will prodeed it before you need to trade for primary materials and he surely would not like to trade his art so it will be useless )
and so on ... (they all like a food and booze but it should not count for an excuse to make them cook ... )

[Frogwarrior]

A fun idea, but I wouldn't even call it a variation on this challenge. Basically, if you do it that way, then before long you'll be able to do anything you would be able to do in a normal fort, which is kinda against the point. Arbitrary restrictions are the spice of complete and utter Fun. ;-)