Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Dogar]

Don't get me wrong, I quite like the game, but one gripe I have is how smooth sailing everything has been so far.  I even tried setting my fortress in an evil infested tundra, but my dwarves were only ever bothered by the occasional harpies, which were easily dispatched by the war dogs.  There's been the occasional ogre or two, but they're no problem if I just make sure none of my dwarves go plant picking when they're around, and as for the goblins, they seem to get easily dispatched by traps.  Is there much of a gameplay challenge to DF, or is it like Mincraft where you can simply thwart all enemies by blocking the entrances with blocks (or traps, in this case)?

[Girlinhat]

DF, despite its reputation and daunting atmosphere, is actually rather easy once you wall yourself in.  Thus, don't wall yourself in.  Sure, it's a player-made restriction, but try cutting your traps in half, and seeing how well you fare.  Try using no cage traps, and only weapon traps.  Try using no traps, and just soldiers.  The game gets real challenging real fast once you let go of traps.

Failing that, get Fortress Defense mod.  Many of the creatures are [TRAP_AVOID], fly, and throw fireballs.  It's made to test the limits of the dwarven warrior spirit, with 500+ enemies on the screen only midway through.  Your full legendary adamantine clad axedwarf will fall, simply from the sheer number of enemies you have to face.

Also, the common player method is megaprojects.  Do something large and above-ground.  Building up is several magnitudes more difficult than digging down.

[Scruga]

Is it possible to enable or disable the fortress defense mod on an existing fortress?

[The1stlogman]

Is it possible to enable or disable the fortress defense mod on an existing fortress?

No, the biggest part of the fortress defense mod is that it adds a ton of new creature civs, all of which are hostile and attack constantly. But to HAVE creature civs, they need to be generated first, which means creating a new world with the Mod enabled.

As for game difficulty, you might have to shake it up a bit! Try producing a ton of valuable steel or gold items, to increase goblin sieges (which increase in severity when wealth increases). Or, attack the elves/humans to get massive elf/human sieges (elves bring fun things when they invade and also attack INVISIBLY!!!). Or, try digging down...deeper. There are complex cavern systems that have some really nifty things and some really dangerous things in them. You haven't seen difficulty till you get Megabeasts, Titans, and most importantly, interesting FB's. (Forgotten Beasts).

[Girlinhat]

You can selectively edit out FD civs.  Like, remove the frogmen but keep the stranglers.  Removing the high-tier enemies can make it much easier than default, but more difficult than vanilla.

Request gold, silver, platinum, aluminum, and iron+flux from the caravan every year, as well as their ores.  Every year, make the platinum and/or aluminum into goblets, and buy more.  Use the excess to make furniture for your dwarves.  You can buy one platinum ore for a few hundred dorfbucks, and make three goblets that are several thousand dorfbucks each, even more-so if if you buy three diamonds (especially if you get 3 black diamonds, 3 red diamonds, 3 white diamonds, etc), and encrust the goblets.  You can buy out entire caravans with one cup.  The wealth this generates means that you'll be sieged very hard and frequent, and if you're using a display case mod, you can use the spare goblets to decorate bedrooms and hallways for added value and bragging rights.

[thegoatgod_pan]

I think I like DF for the player-defined difficulty aspect of--safe forts are east, but not fun, and producing fun forces you to be creative--e.g. I can think of 2 or 3 perfect traps but what's the point; whereas setting up a trap that is causes serious issues is priceless

[ledgekindred]

It's all about the player challenges.  I will use no traps for this fort.  I will have no military for this fort.  I will never let a dwarf die in this fort.  etc. 

Even in the most smooth-sailing fort, if you dig into the caverns, things can quickly get Fun.  Especially if, as The1stlogman said, you get some really interesting Forgotten Beast with syndromes.

My current fort has around 220 dwarves and children (I set the pop cap relatively low but the suckers still breed like rabbits) and I've done my best to make sure no dwarf dies.  In 12 years I've only lost ~20 dwarves, most of which were very early on in the fort.  I have a legendary military and more food, booze and craft production than I can handle.  But when I see the FB notice pop up on the screen, I still panic, because I know that just the right combo could doom my fort.  Everything goes into lockdown and my military all get put on high alert at the entrance to the caverns and I cross my fingers because if the military somehow goes down, that's it.

So if you are finding things too easy, get rich and dig deep.  Thing will get better.

[elf-fondling human]

Get through to the HFS, then see how easy it is. If you can colonize the Circus, then congrats.

[SmileyMan]

I'd rather grow pointy ears and live in a tree than use a trap!  Which is probably why I think the game is really hard.

[Jingles]

In 12 years I've only lost ~20 dwarves,...

Oh man.  By year 12 I generally have over 100 dead dwarfs, probably closer to 200 I would think.  Maybe I should start to care about them more.  Sure would help with the ghost problems...

[ferok]

Mod out the mechanics workshop.

Have fun!

[Jingles]

Mod out the mechanics workshop.

Have fun!

Sounds boring...  Just cause you can make traps doesn't mean you have to.  Loosing levers, pumps, gears, windmills and waterwheels etc. just ain't worth it.

[ferok]

Mod out the mechanics workshop.

Have fun!

Sounds boring...  Just cause you can make traps doesn't mean you have to.  Loosing levers, pumps, gears, windmills and waterwheels etc. just ain't worth it.

Pumps don't require a mechanism.  Losing levers creates all kinds of fun on it's own, making water / magma working that much more !!FUN!!, while preventing all kinds of other tricks like rerouting baddies based on a pulling a bridge (although you can still accomplish the same thing forbidding hatches).

[hitto]

You need to try the Masterful Fortress challenge if you wanna make a TRUE mountainhome.

It's very simple : Dump/melt every non-masterful item you own. Cloth, metal, beds, I said *every* one of them. Then, replace said items. Repeat.

[Dunc]

Play without projectile weapons.

For me it always turns into me selecting whole waves of migrants and turning them into unarmoured spearmen and sending them into the fray with no regard for casualties. Every battle I lose dozens of dwarves that nobody cares about because nobody is attached to them.