rezaf
2041
As with the woodcutter before, I wasn’t trying to do anything out of the ordinary. I would have been content with the drafted soldiers being listed as such and actually bothering to go to the storage and grab themselves their assigned gear. Either this doesn’t work at all or is way, way, WAY too complicated, even by DF standards. I’m guessing it’s just a little buggy and a minor release or two will fix the most glaring issues. Well, maybe hoping would be the better word. :p
I think I’ll quit until a first bugfix release is out at least.
rezaf
It’s more complex than the old way, but doesn’t seem much more UI-weird than the average DF system. If anything, the old method was trailing considerably behind others.
The new system allows for part-time soldiers and being able to establish routines and standards without micromanagement. The interface could use some improvement - but that goes for everything here.
Once you leave behind the old hard-activation system, I think you’ll find it to be a much-needed improvement.
Sepiche
2043
Been having a blast with the new version so far. I started one fort to figure out some of the new features and started a second one once I figured out some of my mistakes. So far my second fort is going great.
As I was making my initial dig to setup my main hall I accidentally ran into the underworld, but fortunately I hit it in a good spot where I could wall it off for a bit and not be threatened. After I got my basic facilities setup I was able to dig an opening to the underworld and setup a drawbridge so I could cut myself off from it if needed. It’s really, really handy to have that underground area there so far though. There’s a ton of arable land, trees, berries, and one of my gatherers even stumbled across a magma pipe that I’m getting ready to turn into a magma source for my forges. It’s basically like a wilderness area that you can access underground. It really makes it impossible for surface sieges to cause you any problems at all.
The new military screens are fantastic so far too. They are pretty daunting when you first see them, but once you start playing around and getting the basics figured out it becomes a really great tool for managing your fort in emergencies. So far I haven’t needed it too much, but as I was getting ready to open the magma pipe to my forges a cave alligator saw one of my guys and it attacked my lower gate. Thankfully one of my immigrants was, in addition to being a master chef, a pretty good hammer dwarf. Just in case I had put him in charge of my militia and set him up with a small squad of the few dwarves in my fort that were tougher and had some combat skills. I was able to activate them and with the new management tools I could give the squad a specific target (the alligator) instead of just pointing them at a location and hoping for the best. It’s all just a massive improvement on the often frustrating military aspects in the previous version.
Once my forges are online I’ll start producing some equipment and really get my militia rolling.
There are still quite a few bugs in there from the look of it, but to be honest I’ve only ran across a few of them. The only major one is that I can’t get the hunter I brought in my initial team to hunt. I figured out that in the new version I needed to assign him bolts from the military screen, but even doing that and turning him off and on hunting hasn’t seemed to have any effect. I’ve still been able to get the fat I need for soap from slaughtering extra animals of mine, but it’s still a little frustrating.
Combat seems a lot more interesting too. I just got raided by some troglodytes and had a few desperate fights. I had one citizen have to wrestle with a troglodyte for a few minutes while the militia grabbed its gear and came to help. He survived with only a bit of bruising thanks to my militia commander showing up and smashing the trogs skull. After that I killed a few in the halls, and then sent my squad of 5 out to kill 3 trogs I saw standing in the caverns. Turns out there was 6 of them and they are a lot tougher in packs. My dwarves attacked, but my commander was knocked down and injured early in the fight along with another of my dwarves who got a few joints broken. The rest of the dwarves managed to win after a bit of a crazy melee, but during the fight one of the trogs stayed on my commander and kept strangling her. I managed to finish them off and everyone lived, but I’m pretty sure the commander will die… she’s being rushed to my hospital where hopefully my doctor will be able to help, but he’s a rookie and my commanders description said her throat was torn open so I’m not optimistic.
I really love that you can view the detailed battle reports now by hitting ‘r’.
baruk
2044
It’s somewhat unintuitive, check out the recently updated wiki:
http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/Military
An Arsenal Dwarf! Uniforms! Ah, the game of games is new again.
There are still quite a few bugs in there from the look of it, but to be honest I’ve only ran across a few of them. The only major one is that I can’t get the hunter I brought in my initial team to hunt. I figured out that in the new version I needed to assign him bolts from the military screen, but even doing that and turning him off and on hunting hasn’t seemed to have any effect. I’ve still been able to get the fat I need for soap from slaughtering extra animals of mine, but it’s still a little frustrating.
The one bug I’ve been having is the “no animals or fish at all” bug - so I would be happy just to SEE animals. I’m probably going to restart my current fort (4th try now) - which is so upsetting because I just now got my flooded farm. My next try will bring along several cows and I’ll make my fisher/hunter dwarf into a milker/cheese/herbalist/butcher dwarf to provide early food. I’ve also learned to create my flooding antechamber and farm chamber before my living quarters, and right at the same time I make carpenter, mason, and mechanic workshops (no more making one of my 3 miner dwarves a part-time mechanic). If I do this, then I will probably be able to plant by late spring and early summer.
I’m still having great fun, though!
Otherwise I’m only a little thrown by having to press ESC a little more to unpause. Also, I am using a laptop and I need to figure out which keys to re-map to go up and down in menus, since I don’t have a keypad + and - key. Anyone know what that is called?
[SECONDSCROLL_UP:KEYDB]
[SECONDSCROLL_DOWN:KEYDD]
[SECONDSCROLL_PAGEUP:MINUS]
[SECONDSCROLL_PAGEDOWN:PLUS]
Those are the changes I use for the scrolling. I too am a bit annoyed with all the extra ESC pressing. I was so used to just hitting Space to exit out of everything.
Yeah, I’ve noticed the new need for pressing ESC myself. Having learned the UI so long ago, I’m finding it gets in the way more than I thought it would!
Rebound my exit back to space- and we are back in buisness.
Thanks for the link on the new military- my dwarves were outfitting themselves with whatever weapons were closest- usually training weapons.
Only problem ive had so far aside from the irrigation needs is the no animals or fish syndrome. It was really annoying the first two times, but since ive resigned myself to a cold mountainous climate it hasnt hurt me much.
rezaf
2050
Thanks a bunch. I had visited the wiki recently, but the military wasn’t then updated. I was indeed missing the Arsenal Dwarf.
Easy once you know it, but as usual, DF is very stingy with giving feedback/hints in the actual game.
rezaf
Does anyone else feel like this version’s got way too much ‘candy’ in it? Too many minerals, too many gems, migrants race into your fort within a single season and they’re usually uber-skilled, too. I’m worried these might not all be bugs.
yeah… I saw that too- every starting position Ive been in so far has had bitumitous coal, gems, or ore within 50 squares dug. Usually my fortresses dont span much deeper than 4 or 5 z levels, should I rush down to maybe 10 below to get some action? or would I get killed too quickly?
I have absolutely no problem with the increased amount of coal, gems, and minerals. It is a welcome change from embarking on a map only to find that there are no gems, minerals, and coal.
I do have a question - is there any special reason, with the Z-levels and the constant presence of lava and adamantine, to embark on the borders of mountains anymore? Or is is perfectly acceptable to now embark in relatively flat forests and still expect to have the cornucopia of coal, gems, and minerals?
This.
I do have a question - is there any special reason, with the Z-levels and the constant presence of lava and adamantine, to embark on the borders of mountains anymore? Or is is perfectly acceptable to now embark in relatively flat forests and still expect to have the cornucopia of coal, gems, and minerals?
Hard to say, but from my own experience it seems the latter.
The increased migrants is I think an intentional change. I kinda like it myself.
As far as minerals go I think what changed is the entire world seems to automagically have a sedimentary layer instead of it being a little more rare. In the old version you could reliably get most of the minerals by looking for those and building a fort, but they are all over the place now. Not sure if that one’s intentional or not, but I don’t mind it too much either.
Wolff
2056
Just noticed default worldgen seems to be Large Island, there is also an option for for large region in “create new world with paramters” noticing way less aquifiers and water, but could just be my seed/gen. Fair warning world gen is much slower.
Must be you, when I gen half my locations have aquifers!
Wolff
2058
Even using the non-Large Island choice?
OMG do medium region
I fiddled with minimum good regions (nil) and other evil-making paramaters and still ended up with some mirthful spots. It bugs me that I can’t make the evil volcanic hell I want!
Will that eliminate the aquifers, or did you find something fun?
I really should have passed on a world gen I made to you… granted it was all evil swamps and forests but it was a good 85% evil.
