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Total Members Voted: 249

[Dave1004]

I know I'm going to sound like an ignorant bigot, but...How in GODS NAME do you play this game?

I downloaded this version http://www.mediafire.com/?zwjbqzfgdad , because it had a graphical "upgrade", instead of being unreadable bunches of letters and numbers, it had small pictures. Kay. So, I started a game, all that...And what? What do you do?

The menu makes no sense. I have like "hotkey A" for "Announcements" and stuff. I don't know what to do, and I can't properly look up. We have a mainly dial-up connection, and it's took roughly 10-15 minutes to load up this single page. Who knows how long it'll take to post? Videos are obviously impossible, and until I go in town (Fat chance! Three feet of snow on the roads, not counting the 10 foot drifts on the sides), I'm hard up for luck...

Any help for a stupid noob would be GREATLY appreciated. Thank you. Thank you!

[FrostDust]

Basic hotkeys:
Space to pause/unpause.
K to look around (move the x cursor on top of areas of interest with arrow keys)
V to view creatures/buildings (similar to K, but usually gives you options to do things with the creature/building)
D to designate areas for dwarfs to do things (mining, chopping trees, etc.)
B to place a building (you'll need to have the components already assembled. For example, you'll need to craft a bed at a workshop first, and then use the Build menu to place the bed in a room)
Z to check out your fort's status & stocks.

Beyond that, check out: http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/DF2010:Quickstart_guide.

I don't know how long articles from the wiki will take to load for you, but see if your browser has an option to disable image loading. Also, since you'll probably be looking at that often as your start out, it may make sense to save the pages to your hard drive, so you can look up info without using dial-up.

[3]

Firstly, that's a very out-of-date version of the game. You should get a graphical version of the current game version.

This tutorial is another good one, although it doesn't cover world generation/embarking (as it's written with a pre-generated world in mind).

[ThirdSpartacus]

Oh but the ASCII characters only immerse you further into the game. o_o

As for how to play, make extensive use of the Wiki.
Once you get the hang of the controls, this game will entertain you for... ever.

And ever. 0_0
And ever. ^_^

[Dave1004]

Thanks guys! I'll try and get my parents to drive into town, maybe get some groceries. The internet there is highspeed, so I'll look at the links and stuff. I really appreciate it, I love games like this, but it's so hard to learn how to play...

Thanks again! Will post when I have "proper" internet.

[Sutremaine]

The quickstart guide for 2010 strikes me as being incomprehensible to a complete newbie, as it talks about doing things but doesn't say exactly how to do them. I'd recommend going back to the 40d guide with its premade fortress and precise instructions.

There are many changes between 40d and .31, true, but the basics remain the same. If you know how to butcher, gather plants, farm, and brew, you'll live long enough to learn the rest of it.
The major differences:

*Military. This is completely different between the two versions. Don't bother with learning the details of 40d's military system.
*Animals. Some animals in .31 are grazers, which means they need to eat vegetation to live. Bring dogs, they don't need to eat and they don't need nest boxes to breed.
*The underground. In 40d certain features were dotted around the area you could embark on. In .31 they're layered underneath it, which means fresh water on almost every map (sometimes caverns will be dry, but this is rare). This won't concern you unless you choose to play with the old version for a while.
*Burrows. These aren't in 40d at all. Burrows are activity areas for your dwarves, telling them where they can take jobs and where to go in case of a player-triggered alert state. Burrows also tell military dwarves which bits of the map they should be defending.

[DrKillPatient]

I find the ASCII to be easier to use, actually. Hard to look at at first, but the symbols start to make sense once you know what you're doing (enough to know what's going on, at least). Graphics packs make DF look too cluttered for me. You might want to give the ASCII a try again, once you've learned the basics.

As for tutorials, I used this one to pick up the game. Also a somewhat older version, but new enough. It uses a graphical tileset if you prefer that.
Here's a PDF version-- I figure that it's better for you than a webpage since you just download this once:
http://afteractionreporter.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/the_complete_and_utter_newby_tutorials.pdf

[mipe9]

You could also look at captnduck's tutorial videos on youtube. IIRC, he just started a new tutorial with version.. 31.24 IIRC (current is 31.25).

[Alastar]

I agree on the ANSI version being easier to use after you get used to reading the matrix. The game throws a lot of information at you, and the characters have a clarity you don't get with tiles that are small enough to be useful.

The interface is unintuitive and makes some routine tasks unnecessarily difficult... this may be a bigger barrier than the complexity of the game itself. However, there are some external utilities around, Dwarf Therapist for easier labour management is one that I can't recommend enough.

[Dave1004]

Hey all, just checking in quick. Thanks for all the help and tips, I'll try and get that download when I can! I don't think that I'll be able to ever read ASCII...I don't know why, but small, cluttered symbols just look like a big stew pot of confusing blurs. I think I need a stronger glasses prescription...

I hope I can understand this game. It's so boring without anything to really do out in the "sticks", so I try and download all games that I can play without internet.

Will be back, probably tomorrow. Neighbor (albeit ten miles away neighbor) is going to clean the roads with his snowblower, so we should be able to wheel it out. Running low on ketchup...

[Avo]

Dwarf fortress IS difficult to learn to play. Its pretty hopeless to try to learn it without a tutorial, however a few short tutorials later and some browsing of your friend the wiki and you will be dumping goblins off cliffs by the cagefull in no time!

Oh and you cant ever completely fill a cage

When in doubt, check the wiki. If the wiki doesn't know, ask the forums. When the forums cant answer you !!Science!!.
http://df.magmawiki.com/

or alternatively you can just !!science!! from the start. This usually results in !!Fun!!

[Lytha]

Any help for a stupid noob would be GREATLY appreciated. Thank you. Thank you!

You must read this newbie tutorial http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=31928.0 (the tutorial itself is here: http://afteractionreporter.com/2009/02/09/the-complete-and-utter-newby-tutorial-for-dwarf-fortress-part-1-wtf/ ) and play along with it.

Part 1 is for instance aptly called "WTF", and will match your current state of DF proficiency quite well.


Your complaints sound very much like my first reaction after my first embark. Did at least something funny happen while you were staring at the screen? Like a kitten adopting the butcher for no obvious reason?

[obeliab]

Yes, it is definitely difficult.

The After Action Reporter one mentioned is a great tutorial.  I also read through Sephur's guides when I was learning, but man there's a lot of ads and junk there.  Frankly, I find graphical tilesets to be a little much to look at, but it all depends on how hard you find it to mentally translate g's and D's into goblins and dragons.

[Dutchling]

I find the ASCII to be easier to use, actually. Hard to look at at first, but the symbols start to make sense once you know what you're doing (enough to know what's going on, at least). Graphics packs make DF look too cluttered for me. You might want to give the ASCII a try again, once you've learned the basics.

As for tutorials, I used this one to pick up the game. Also a somewhat older version, but new enough. It uses a graphical tileset if you prefer that.
Here's a PDF version-- I figure that it's better for you than a webpage since you just download this once:
http://afteractionreporter.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/the_complete_and_utter_newby_tutorials.pdf

This one is the way I learned it! you can do it with the current version, although you'll need to learn the military somewhere else because it is outdated in the tutorial, but the wiki page of the military is very useful. Just rememberer that your first 5 fortresses won't last a year and the next 5 won't last longer than 5 years because of you incredibly stupid you are without knowing it

[Reelyanoob]

This one is the way I learned it! you can do it with the current version, although you'll need to learn the military somewhere else because it is outdated in the tutorial, but the wiki page of the military is very useful. Just rememberer that your first 5 fortresses won't last a year and the next 5 won't last longer than 5 years because of you incredibly stupid you are without knowing it

Me too ! I downloaded DF several times over 12 month period thinking 'this time I will learn to play'. The best attempt all I managed was to chop down some trees. 'Now What' i thought and tried to build a bed etc, no luck!

Then when 31.18 was out I decided to give it another go, but this time looked for tutorials. I read "the complete and utter newby tutorials" (HTML version), and it was all go from there.

After the tutorial, I just use magmawiki a lot to look up specific things I need to know, eg stone types, production inputs and outputs etc.