Mods to the rescue: Steam Workshop::Real Time Combat Log, with combat sound
Kruggsmash released his first story with Premium! Fortress “Nökortorad” which translates to “Deadbody”.
Formerly occupied by dwarves. Now fallen ruins, occupied by the undead and the bloodthirsty cyclops which destroyed all previous inhabitants.
Kruggsmash’s art style is well complemented by the new tileset. It’s like the tile graphics somehow stood up… not sure how to describe it.
I’ve never tried reclaiming ruins of fallen fortresses so this is an interesting variant of normal DF. If you don’t understand what people like about DF his videos are a great way to experience DF’s emergent stories.
thanks! will check it out when i get the courage for a new game.
I think I may have to abandon my latest fortress.
I had a second invasion with a mix of frightening creatures called night something, maybe experiments?, along with their leaders and creators and while my cage and weapon traps were able to deal with most of them, the huge night experiment giant spiders just ran right by my defenses and slaughtered everybody! I believe there were like 20+ invaders in all with maybe 4-5 of the giant spider experiment things. I need to get more creative with my trap system. I did manage to have my fort all sealed up at the beginning, but the invaders didn’t seem to go away after a really long time, so I kept save scumming to see if various strategies would work and then opening up the drawbridge. I spent an awful long time building a successful (so far) fort, so I wanted to at least learn what worked and didn’t against strong opponents like that.
My best outcome was I had all of my military squads stationed just past my line of traps (I had like 30 each of cage and weapon traps). I had maybe 8 dwarfs in each squad with a melee one and crossbow/marksman one (my total dwarf count was in the 60s). The melee squad was fairly well trained with many talented and proficient fighters across many skills. Most of my archers were well trained also as they had been training for years. When I lifted the drawbridge, instead of waiting for the enemy waves to move past the traps first, my military all charged out immediately to fight just outside my main gate. This time, I actually managed to kill the entire invading force, but in the process lost most of my military, I believe, so I reloaded. That was my best outcome. The one above didn’t work as the large night just ignored my traps, which sucked, as I had all my dwarfs hiding deep underground.
I believe I was near the end of year 4, so had plenty of time to build stone fortifications, but I didn’t really have a solid plan and didn’t start them. I had just found my first cavern and lava finally, so there was no time to build any magma type defenses. I have never tried that before, so may need to explore that too. I also really want to try those marksman kill zone type defenses you can read about, although I am not sure how much it would have helped in this case. I guess I figured my traps would be enough along with my military to clean up any that got past them.
Still, I am not sure I am cut out for a game like Dwarf Fortress in the long run. I get attached to what I work on and I know it is just a matter of time for most players to have to abandon their fortresses, and that should be part of the fun. I realize you can turn off combat, and tweak your game start to help your chances of success, but I want to experience as much of the game as I can, and get more successful as I continue to play. I am just not sure I am learning fast enough to keep pushing through the many years of fort development to see if I can survive. I probably have a couple more tries in me, as I enjoy the main game play loop, but it takes me too long still to get past those first few years. I suppose it will get easier with time and experience, though, and each start has new challenges and surroundings and resources to adapt to that it can still be enjoyable. There is always the next fort and the chance that this will finally be the best one yet!
That came for my buddy’s fort. According to him, the moment it reached his fortress it reverted to a naked human who was chased across the landscape by a macedwarf and summarily owned.
“Okay”
I’ve been away from the game for years and was wondering if adventure mode ever received the attention they had talked about? The roguelike mode he described is damn near the perfect RPG in my eyes and I want to play it.
I’ve been messing around in fortress mode out of habit. Years of minecraft have given me a new appreciation for the building aspect and I’m just enjoying painting fortresses while letting my imagination run wild to the tune of trap music blasting at about 120dB.
I know there is no shortage of beginner/tutorial/let’s play videos out there since the release, but I really enjoy Ic0n’s channel. He plays in a slightly different style than other folks, and his presentation is usually very laid back and easy to listen to.
I’ve been looking for more edited down summary videos and haven’t found any yet. Kruggsmash was good, maybe a bit wordy, but I don’t feel like going back to the ASCII ones at this point. Everything else I see is tutorials or 4 hour let’s plays (part 1 of 22). No one has time for that.
I want to enjoy the new version vicariously — and quickly.
this guy’s voice is annoying as fuck but it’s probably the closest thing to what you want. start playing, when you don’t understand something, hit this page up for what is (usually) a 5 minute-ish tutorial on one subject. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcOt9GXNrkgiFBTcz_kMycm6fvnYsn9XG
No, I wasn’t very clear. I’m looking for stories or edited down gameplay to watch. I don’t want to install the game because I probably won’t come up for air for a hundred hours.
I find his voice nerdy but not particularly annoying. He sounds like he really knows the DF ropes so I bookmarked a few of his recent tutorial videos for the steam version because i really want to play this game but was always scared off by the extremely daunting UI and controls with no mouse input in the past but I think it’s time to finally take the plunge. I only wish the Steam version was the complete version with Adventure mode but i understand that’s down the pipeline. I wish there was a conquest mode (or mod) where you could play DF as a 4X type game and expand your kingdom with your army of atomic super dwarves and conquer da world! insert evil Bela Lugosi Bride of the Monster laughter here
Just in case you or anyone else doesn’t know, there’s a touch of this even just in fortress mode due to the world being simulated. You can:
- Send out military squads (legendary killing machines clad in all steel or better of course) out to other sites to conquer or subjugate them (or raid them for artifacts and the like). The dwarves leave for a while and then you see a report of what happened while you keep playing your fortress.
- Defend your fortress from the inevitable counter-attacks.
- Once it’s going well enough, you can retire your fortress and then start a new one in the same world (with the same civilization) and your previous fortress and dwarves keep getting simulated in the background under AI control.
If you do these, your civilization will expand over time and each fortress you add will have slightly better starts / trading available due to the starting civ being stronger each time and neighboring enemy civs being weaker.
My understanding is they are going to make improvements to armies, sieges, and some related areas in the next couple of years (maybe).
No, I haven’t. Looks interesting. Will likely check it out once it gets out of EA. I feel I’ll have my hands full just playing DF Steam-version in standard build-mode :D
heh, sounds like a 1000+ hour prospect lol
the most exciting news is this one:
I seem to be getting a large percentage of children in my forts. I am up to 29 total population and 14 are children! One of my favorite game events is when migrants come, especially early on, and I get excited at checking the skills of all of my new little buddies to see what I can specialize in! When I get 10 migrants and 8 are children it just bums me out. It also seems to take a super long time for them to mature into adults to develop real skills and I don’t think I have had a fort last long enough for that to happen yet (I am assuming this happens eventually). I mean they are good at hauling and placing traps, doors and furniture, but I sure seem to be getting a lot of them!
One of my new favorite things is the wheelbarrow! I had never used them before and now I just assign a few to each stone stockpile near my workshops and let them fly. They can really move hauling stones with those things. I really need to try mine carts one day.
The other is using the work order system. It sounded like it was available before, but it took the Steam version before I actually used it. After a year or two, I normally have 30+ work orders going making sure I am good and stocked with anything I need handy. It is quite a nice feature.
Another thing that seems to be happening, at least with the two forts I got 2-3 years of progress in, is that I get bard/performer explosion. At some point, it will just be a random bard or two that want to come to visit and perform in my temples and taverns. Eventually they ask to join my fort and I figure I need a couple to keep my tavern folk and temple frequenters happy. Before long, though, they seem to be coming in faster and faster and in a recent game an entire band of performers came to visit. In year 3 I easily have 15+ performers including bards and it may be nearing 25 now. I guess word gets out that I give the performers in my fort an easy life of eating, drinking and performing! Maybe I better start putting a pick in their hand or drafting them into my military! I am curious if that would have any detrimental effect once they join.
Did you craft an Xbox in your fort? That might be what is drawing all the children to your fort?
So, uh, how do you clean up gander vomit off the fortress floor?