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Total Members Voted: 66

[crekit]

Apart from this discussion, OP needs to learn how to use dwarf therapist/burrows to make his broker do the stuff he want him to do.

*FACEDESK*
Godamnit, why didn't I think of that!
*FACEDESK FACEDESK*

[612DwarfAvenue]

Apart from this discussion, OP needs to learn how to use dwarf therapist/burrows to make his broker do the stuff he want him to do.

*FACEDESK*
Godamnit, why didn't I think of that!
*FACEDESK FACEDESK*

Pfft, i don't use them 3rd-party stuff, those are for Elves. A real Dwarf plays as-is, and still makes it fucking work right!

[Naros]

Apart from this discussion, OP needs to learn how to use dwarf therapist/burrows to make his broker do the stuff he want him to do.

*FACEDESK*
Godamnit, why didn't I think of that!
*FACEDESK FACEDESK*

With that argument, you shouldn't be using a PC. Just draw in the sand with a stick!

Pfft, i don't use them 3rd-party stuff, those are for Elves. A real Dwarf plays as-is, and still makes it fucking work right!

[crekit]

Apart from this discussion, OP needs to learn how to use dwarf therapist/burrows to make his broker do the stuff he want him to do.

*FACEDESK*
Godamnit, why didn't I think of that!
*FACEDESK FACEDESK*

With that argument, you shouldn't be using a PC. Just draw in the sand with a stick!

Pfft, i don't use them 3rd-party stuff, those are for Elves. A real Dwarf plays as-is, and still makes it fucking work right!

Burrows are not 3rd party.

[Bricktop]

Apart from this discussion, OP needs to learn how to use dwarf therapist/burrows to make his broker do the stuff he want him to do.

Except that under a lot of definitions Dwarf Therapist would be considered cheating....

[acetech09]

To the rail breakaway about DT: The only thing I really use it for is managing large groups of labors. If I could use a DF UI panel to select multiple dwarves and edit their labors simultaneously, i'd use DT alot less.

To the cheating discussion:
This is a singleplayer sandbox game. Play with it as you wish. I'm all for modding the game to give you free masterwork candy armor if that's what you enjoy.

But don't go bragging about how your army of only 10 dwarves butchered an army of 150 clowns without mentioning that you edited the raws to give your dwarves free candy armor/weapons, given your dwarves superhuman attributes and all legendary skills. I'm fine with people cheating for a megaproject, as long as I know their achivements have been achieved one way or another.

[Rose]

cheating or not, making a legendary adventurer and biting people's arms off is fun as all hell.

[Necro910]

Apart from this discussion, OP needs to learn how to use dwarf therapist/burrows to make his broker do the stuff he want him to do.

*FACEDESK*
Godamnit, why didn't I think of that!
*FACEDESK FACEDESK*

With that argument, you shouldn't be using a PC. Just draw in the sand with a stick!

Pfft, i don't use them 3rd-party stuff, those are for Elves. A real Dwarf plays as-is, and still makes it fucking work right!

[Rose]

off topic, but I love the way you people mangle quotes.

[Shinotsa]

off topic, but I love the way you people mangle fix quotes.

On topic, the real question is why do you CARE if other people think you're cheating OP? Yeah cheating isn't exactly subjective, but fun certainly is. If you like to play doom with god mode on and punch those bastard archviles to death then it's your game. Whether fixing a bug with an exploit or fixing a battle with an exploit, the only thing that really matters is whether or not you have fun or not.

That's something I love about this forum. We have this concept of dorfiness, but each person does his or her own thing. If you think it's dwarfy to trade with elves then go ahead. If what results from the trade makes a good story then we'd love to hear it, even if it does involve positive relations with those filthy hippies.

[Mickey Blue]

That's just it though.  The only thing using a cheat in a single player game will do is deprive you of the satisfaction of doing something the hard way, assuming there was any satisfaction to be had in the first place.  What is being missed out on is what needs to be under inspection.  If a cheat just bypasses a lot of tedium, or shortcuts through something that would only have ended in frustration, it isn't that bad.  It's up to the individual to decide what is too tedious or frustrating.

I agree, which is why I said more or less that, however that doesn't make it not a cheat.  We've been calling things like this "cheats" since games have been around, long before multiplayer was common, the fact that some people don't want to here to me sounds like they just don't want to be labeled in that way cause of their own hangups about the word itself. 
 

Dwarf Fortress also differs from games like Doom in that it has no clear objective, no predefined goals, and no dictated methods of play.  The methods one takes to accomplish what they set out to do is up to as much interpretation as the goal itself. 

Sure, but some things are still clearly exploits.  Saying "I have a goal of not using traps" doesn't make traps 'cheats' when speaking generally, but manipulating your saves in such a way that you can effectively reverse time or using the flawed mechanics of a danger room to make your soldiers very powerful very quickly is. 

"Cheat" implies that something is being taken away or is being denied.  If a person is only cheating themselves, they are the only one who can determine if what happened was cheating.  We can't accurately say he was going to have more or less fun if he didn't save scum.

Negative, while I guess to each their own I think "cheat" generally means breaking the rules to give yourself an advantage.  When you cheat on a test you break the rules of the test to score higher, when you cheat at a game you break the rules to make the game easier.  Most people also include exploits in games as cheats in that you circumvent the rules due to flawed mechanics.  Cheating has nothing to do with having more or less fun (though it can lead to both).  Example; in Warcraft III I most enjoyed the challenge of the maps where as my brother most enjoyed the story.  He used the invincibility cheat to get through the levels fast so he could see the story play out, it was more fun for him that way, I would have had less fun had I done the same.  That doesn't mean that for him it wasn't a cheat and for me it was.

People not wanting to admit that they are cheating is a distinct possibility, but it is not true for all cases.

Only in that some people simply don't understand the term or, for whatever reason, are applying it differently here than in every other game I've ever heard of.  "Cheat codes" have been terms used for games since.. Well since games.  That some people refuse to admit that there are things you can do in DF that amount to cheating (exploiting bad mechanics, save-scumming, etc) to me says they either don't understand the word or they don't want to admit that they cheat.

Except that under a lot of definitions Dwarf Therapist would be considered cheating....

This I disagree with because DT doesn't give you an advantage by 'breaking the rules' but rather makes play more streamlined and simple (and this coming from somebody who no doesn't use it).  You can do exactly what you can do in Dwarf Therapist in Dwarf Fortress (unless things have changed since I've used it), it just takes longer and is more of a pain.  I can either pause the game and open DT and adjust all my dwarves jobs or I can pause and run through every last dwarf and do it.. There is no in-game advantage to either option, only that one saves time and effort.

[Zarhon]

I once had a horde of 30+ giant bats flying outside my fortress (they came from a chasm that was connected to the outside, then started breeding like rabbits). After they slowed my FPS to a crawl I decided to slaughter and/or capture them all. I tried killing them normally, but my crossbow dwarves couldn't hit anything and my melee were useless.


I got frustrated and ended up modding the damn things by removing the [FLIER] tag. A rain of bloody bat limbs ensued as my military tracked down and exterminated every last one of the little mofos.

I even managed to capture a few, so I did a bit more modding, which soon resulted in a "Giant War Bat" breeding program.

Cheating? Yep.

Justified? Probably.

Fun? DEFINITELY.


As for save scumming I'm guilty of it. Most of it tends to be due to my love of symmetry, hatred of non-smoothable/non-engraveable mistakes in my rooms, or annoying engineering goofs (obsidian generators, pump stacks, dining-hall waterfalls...)

[Rose]

really, anything that falls outside of the intended mechanics of play counts as cheating.

[Zarhon]

really, anything that falls outside of the intended mechanics of play counts as cheating.

The intended mechanic of DF is losing !!fun!!. Meaning everyone is cheating. 

[Starver]

Slightly late to the thread, and acutely aware of possibly relevant Ninjaing (or contrapuntal Samuraiing) after the message I read that sparked this reply, but...

Insofar as Doom's godmode, useful for wandering around a level in a leisurely manner, I found, getting an insight as to the layout, looking for hidden bits[1], but saying "Yeah, I completed Doom while invulnerable" was not a bragging point.  Even "Yeah, I completed a Doom level in half the par time, while invulnerable" isn't a bragging point.  Especially if you've cheated yourself a full set of keys, from the start.

Savescumming is something I have a lot of potential to do, for I habitually set up the full seasonal saves.  But usually the only thing I might use it for is to go back and re-embark, exactly as I originally embarked (without having to re-find the exact spot) in order to build the entire fortress again, but this time one tile to the left!!!.  The second reason I might go back to seasonal saves (or an actual user-generated save) is when I'm trying something out (a novel layout of drawbridges and levers and things, maybe), and I deliberately note that "What happens from now on in is going to be erased from history, and things redone as if they had never happened".  Very rarely will I even consider bringing a save back, just because I missed a caravan departure time or somesuch.  (I'm fairly good at making sure those events don't occur, of course, so maybe it's just not the imperative it might once have been).

In almost all cases, the savescumming is (by accident or design) accompanied by having to micromanage a godawful lot of stuff all over again.  Never[2] have I used it to spam exploratory tunnels and then re-do from the start knowing exactly where to head, without all the other (wasted, useless or even downright dangerous) effort being spent.  But, in the same way that making a trial run of a Doom level with [God-mode, no-clipping or whatever] then leads to multiple serious attempts in full on hardcore mode, I would consider it perhaps a shortcut to gaining experience, but in no way ruins the "true run".  (Which, in DF, may be the first fortress embark where it is all honestly single-timeline, or deviations at least are in good faith... But that depends on your personal values as well.)


My current fort has enough self-imposed restrictions (single rock-type block walls, etc) that I could probably even justify losing some of the other difficulty, given the addition of my own task-list that I need to obey.  That may well be more relevant.  The game is what you make of it.


[1] Using the map-revealing cheat was far more cheaty, given you could then home in on hidden bits far easier, or at least knew there was a bit that leverontheothersideofthecomplex might open.  But the best ones were essentially time-coded, so you still needed to hop and skip across the top of a complex layout of tall pillars to get there before it closed, so maybe it was just poor level design that allowed such easy pickings...

[2] Ok, so not recently.  I know I did it once or twice, a long time ago, and even then I was considering it more 'learning' than 'beating the program'.