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Yes, they are an easy means of getting legendary dwarves.

91 (32.7%)

No, it's in the game and no one says you have to use it.

54 (19.4%)

Who cares play however you want.

133 (47.8%)

Total Members Voted: 274

Voting closed: August 13, 2011, 06:26:01 pm

[Sandrew]

As it is an (presumably) unintended effect of the game mechenics that you exploit in order to create super soldiers, I would consider it an exploit. That said, I really don't care if you use them or not. Play the game however you like and all that.

[malimbar04]

I think they are without question by definition an exploit.  They are an unintended way to give you a huge advantage in the game you were not meant to have.  It would be like if through a coding glitch wooden training weapons had the same strength as steel. Two other examples of 'exploits' in the game would arguably be buying sand at embark and certainly be 'save scumming'.

That said, given that its a single player game the only person it affects is 'you', so I could care less if people use them and would not 'judge' them for it.  That said I do roll my eyes at arguments claiming they are somehow legitimate and not exploiting the games coding to give yourself an advantage, makes me think that they deep down feel that they are doing something somehow 'wrong' and need to justify it somehow.

My only problem with this is that he had to explicitly make spear traps affect your own dwarves. This has no real purpose except hurting your dwarves... or training them. And considering you don't get that effect from other possibly masochistic traps (cage traps), it doesn't seem to serve any purpose BUT training.

[Person]

It just seems that the problem is cloth being too strong. Material values probably need tweaking when a wood ballista bolt can't get through. As for exploits, quantum stone dumping seems pretty much required to make a stockpile properly if there's little soil. Since all you could do otherwise is
a)haul it outside, massive waste of time and resources. or
b)Mine a stockpile for the stone, and that makes more stone.
And even if they did become dangerous, it'd be free doctor training too then.

[G-Flex]

It just seems that the problem is cloth being too strong. Material values probably need tweaking when a wood ballista bolt can't get through. As for exploits, quantum stone dumping seems pretty much required to make a stockpile properly if there's little soil. Since all you could do otherwise is
a)haul it outside, massive waste of time and resources. or
b)Mine a stockpile for the stone, and that makes more stone.
And even if they did become dangerous, it'd be free doctor training too then.

There's a soil layer almost everywhere, though, so I've never had a huge problem with stone-hauling, especially if you don't care about all of it being hauled away immediately. You could also actually use the stone, turning it into crafts, blocks, and other things that store more easily.

[UberNube]

I don't really see the point of labeling them an exploit. There are lots of things which are unbalanced in DF, (cage traps, trap corridors, whips, farming, fishing, various trade goods, cave-ins, walls, moats, badgers, etc... ) but ultimately the choice of whether to use these features excessively (or even at all) is up to the player. Some people enjoy building vast megastructures but don't want to have to deal with sieges etc. This is fine. Other people love embarking in a terrifying glacier with only a pickaxe and a barrel of booze and fending off megabeasts using only a group of quickly-drafted peasants with spears. This is also fine. Nobody decides how the game should be played other than the players themselves (and to an extent Toady). There are as many ways to have fun/!!FUN!! as there are players, and suggesting that there is a 'correct' way to play is simply incorrect.

I personally have never fully built a danger room before, since I'm playing on a laptop and fortresses often die an FPS death before the military system really gets going. In my current fort though I'm into about year 5 and am currently training up a military force the traditional way. I have got the main entrance to my fort across a bridge with some layers of traps though, since I quite like this fort and my military can only cope with so many enemies at once.

[simonthedwarf]

Once you get the knack for producing a good military, you don't really need to use danger rooms.

Armor and equipment material seems to be equally important.

My 10 steel clad dwarves fought off two elf ambushes and three goblin ambushes in a ROW just now.

1 guy got his leg cut open. Boo-hoo.

[Makigall]

Its impossible to exploit a single player game in which you have modding rights.  The better description would be, does the option of a danger room let everybody play how they'd like to play.  And the answer is yes.  Its there if you want it, ignore it if you don't.  Do you want to be able to tame exotic pets?  Please check your raws.  Would you like to train that giant badger for war?  Raws.  Would you like it so that elephants don't graze, maybe make it so they feed on the flesh of their victims like in days of yore?  Raw files.  Would you like there to be wandering packs of terrible monsters?  Raw files.

The only thing I see a "fix" for danger rooms doing is adding one more option to the custom world generation menu.  Its like how mineral wealth is, you can decide exactly how much variety of metals you'll see.  Its hard to really say what's an unintended design feature, especially since we have so many options for modding the game to precisely how we want it.  I think danger rooms are indicative of other problems, specifically the complexity of military screen as compared to other fort features and how unforgiving poorly skilled medical dwarves are.  I think if there was some way to train my hospital that isn't a complete crap shoot or makes more sense than picking some poor fool to drop of a bridge over and over I'd be more inclined to have fun with building a military.  Same goes for the military screen, between picking uniforms, getting dwarves to wear their uniforms, setting up a barracks, setting up a schedule and cross training them in something else so they don't get bad thoughts from going off duty, it would probably be a lot of fun.

Compared to the rest of a forts functions though, I find these things to be a chore.  So I skip them.  I also have skill rust turned off.  All female dwarves start as level 2 armorsmiths and all males start as level 2 weaponsmiths when a random dwarf gets a mood I end up with golden warhammers instead of limestone earrings.  I have no exotic pets in my game.  I gladly make anything I have in abundance trainable into a war animal as long as it seems cool.  And my women and babies have beards.  I have Fun. 

Feel free to tell on me for exploiting.

[G-Flex]

Its impossible to exploit a single player game in which you have modding rights.  The better description would be, does the option of a danger room let everybody play how they'd like to play.  And the answer is yes.

Not really. The bizarre skill curves in the game (of which danger rooms are one example) do prevent people from playing the game in certain ways. This isn't the fault of danger rooms specifically, but the flaws in the system creep up on you unless you specifically avoid them, which restricts playstyle.

Do you want to be able to tame exotic pets?  Please check your raws.  Would you like to train that giant badger for war?  Raws.  Would you like it so that elephants don't graze, maybe make it so they feed on the flesh of their victims like in days of yore?  Raw files.  Would you like there to be wandering packs of terrible monsters?  Raw files.

Sure, but it would be nice if those things were actually fixed. It would be nice if the dungeon master were fixed, and grazer eating habits were fixed as well. Yes, we can partially ameliorate these problems by making the DM unnecessary or editing the raws for certain grazers, but we can't do so entirely, nor does that mean they shouldn't be fixed in the base game.


It makes sense for players to play the game however they want to, but it also makes sense to criticize some of those things for poor design or implementation. Yeah, I can mod PET_EXOTIC into just PET, but dammit, I'd still like to see the DM fixed and useful. And yeah, I can "not use danger rooms", but those aspects of the system which make the danger room possible (which are more useful to discuss than the danger rooms themselves) are still going to affect play.

[malimbar04]

snip (wrong thread)

[Darth_Karl]

Currently there is a misconception that "training is too slow" and I wonder how much of that has to do with the fact that the default embark has no military dwarves.

Absolutly nothing. The game should not be focing you to:

1. Bring a military dwarf along at embark.

2. Not lose him till you get some good trained dwarves up

3. Start a military somwhere in the first 6 months to avoid him rusting.

Getting a decent military up without danger rooms and without a good military dorf to start the ball rolling is proving to be a REAL headachefor me ATM. And it's shouldn't be this hard. yes it shoudl take longer, but where allready on the verge of 2 years training an no one has better than level 5 in any skil. And thats a marksdwarf who started with a couple of levels. Most don't even have 1 skill level.

[Nil Eyeglazed]

Currently there is a misconception that "training is too slow" and I wonder how much of that has to do with the fact that the default embark has no military dwarves.

Absolutly nothing. The game should not be focing you to:

1. Bring a military dwarf along at embark.

2. Not lose him till you get some good trained dwarves up

3. Start a military somwhere in the first 6 months to avoid him rusting.

Getting a decent military up without danger rooms and without a good military dorf to start the ball rolling is proving to be a REAL headachefor me ATM. And it's shouldn't be this hard. yes it shoudl take longer, but where allready on the verge of 2 years training an no one has better than level 5 in any skil. And thats a marksdwarf who started with a couple of levels. Most don't even have 1 skill level.

This strikes me as off.  The game doesn't force you to bring a military dwarf along or to build a danger room.

It doesn't force you to embark on a location with siegers.  It doesn't force you to embark on evil or savage biomes.  It doesn't force you to open up the caverns.  It doesn't force you to not build traps.  It doesn't force you to not wall off.  It doesn't force you to not catch cavern creatures in cage traps and use them against siegers, or vice versa.  It doesn't force you to not build a marksdwarf tower where your dwarves are invulnerable to everything except for ranged attacks.

If you want to embark on a location with sieges and deal with them exclusively with melee fighters (or unprotected marksdwarves) trained up from nothing, with no teachers, that's called challenge mode.  It doesn't strike me as right to limit yourself like this and then complain that it doesn't work.

[Mushroo]

Currently there is a misconception that "training is too slow" and I wonder how much of that has to do with the fact that the default embark has no military dwarves.

Absolutly nothing. The game should not be focing you to:

1. Bring a military dwarf along at embark.

2. Not lose him till you get some good trained dwarves up

3. Start a military somwhere in the first 6 months to avoid him rusting.

Getting a decent military up without danger rooms and without a good military dorf to start the ball rolling is proving to be a REAL headachefor me ATM. And it's shouldn't be this hard. yes it shoudl take longer, but where allready on the verge of 2 years training an no one has better than level 5 in any skil. And thats a marksdwarf who started with a couple of levels. Most don't even have 1 skill level.

I'm not talking about "forcing" anyone to play the game in a certain way (far from it if you read my earlier post). Rather, I'm saying that, in my opinion, if the "starting 7" included a military leader, then beginner players would have a glimpse of the possibilities of the military system and would be more inspired to learn its complexities.

Sorry you are having trouble training your military... I won't respond in detail because I don't want to derail the thread. I'll just say that there are some very good guides on these forums and the wiki, if you do a little research and set training up correctly, you'll have a badass military soon! Good luck.

[Makigall]

Sure, but it would be nice if those things were actually fixed. It would be nice if the dungeon master were fixed, and grazer eating habits were fixed as well. Yes, we can partially ameliorate these problems by making the DM unnecessary or editing the raws for certain grazers, but we can't do so entirely, nor does that mean they shouldn't be fixed in the base game.


It makes sense for players to play the game however they want to, but it also makes sense to criticize some of those things for poor design or implementation. Yeah, I can mod PET_EXOTIC into just PET, but dammit, I'd still like to see the DM fixed and useful. And yeah, I can "not use danger rooms", but those aspects of the system which make the danger room possible (which are more useful to discuss than the danger rooms themselves) are still going to affect play.

Alpha version gameplay is usually full of bugs and certainly not as full of a game as we currently have.  And not free for the playing.  And not almost fully moddable.  I think for where it is in development, 31% complete, things are fine as they are.  There's a playable game without any crippling bugs.  Things will get better.  I just bristle at the idea of there being exploits in this game, since if it isn't fun for you to play dragon fortress, then why would you make dragons playable?

I think as is dwarf fortress is fun.  With some raw modding I get the game a lot more enjoyable for me.  And I enjoy hearing stories of other people's forts including the mods they make to theirs.  I think if someone feels that there's an exploit in this game they need to reevaluate what their idea of Fun is and try to focus on having more of it.

[G-Flex]

I think for where it is in development, 31% complete, things are fine as they are.  There's a playable game without any crippling bugs.  Things will get better.

I agree, but part of things getting better is us making it clear what we think needs to get better. I don't expect DF to be in better shape than it is at this moment in time, but I do expect it to improve, and that means pointing out what needs improvement.

[krenshala]

Currently there is a misconception that "training is too slow" and I wonder how much of that has to do with the fact that the default embark has no military dwarves.

Absolutly nothing. The game should not be focing you to:

1. Bring a military dwarf along at embark.

2. Not lose him till you get some good trained dwarves up

3. Start a military somwhere in the first 6 months to avoid him rusting.

Getting a decent military up without danger rooms and without a good military dorf to start the ball rolling is proving to be a REAL headachefor me ATM. And it's shouldn't be this hard. yes it shoudl take longer, but where allready on the verge of 2 years training an no one has better than level 5 in any skil. And thats a marksdwarf who started with a couple of levels. Most don't even have 1 skill level.

Steps needed to create a well trained militia:

• Pick 4 random dwarves with zero military skills.
• Assign them to a squad, with one being the militia commander
• Provide them with weapons and shields (but not armor) and assign them a barracks at which to train
• Train them for six months nonstop -- they will be level roughly 4+ in their assigned weapon, shield, and dodge (on average) and 6+ in fighter
• Give them copper mail, copper helm, leather boots and gloves, and train them for another three months -- at this point they will be level 6+ in their weapon/shield/dodge, level 10+ fighter, and at least level 4 armor user ... one might have reached legendary fighter if he has aptitude
• Send them out to kill two elven ambushes and they probably won't even take damage -- you should get at least one named warrior
• Another twelve months of training (3 months on, 1 off) and they will all be legendary warriors, even if they aren't yet weapon-Lords (and most will be)