Post by: Ruhn on February 27, 2013, 04:23:42 pm
Rules
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Once everyone is finished we take a vote for best fort + writeup combination.Contestants with Submissions
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Mishrak | Article (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=123408.msg4096035#msg4096035) | Fort (http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=7475)
Flabort | Article (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=123408.msg4088646#msg4088646) | Fort (http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=7466)
HavingPhun | Article (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=123408.msg4094894#msg4094894) | Fort (http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=7472)
Vjek | Article (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=123408.msg4069420#msg4069420) | Fort (http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=7430)
Kon | Article (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=123408.msg4075492#msg4075492) | Fort (http://dffd.wimbli.com/download.php?id=7445&f=The+Blanketed+Sacks.zip)
Thatdude | Article (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=123408.msg4081124#msg4081124) | Fort (http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=7456)
Gigaz | Article (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=123408.msg4074131#msg4074131) | Fort (http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=7442)
Ruhn | Article (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=123408.msg4095978#msg4095978) | Fort (http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=7474)
Contestants
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Hermes | Resigned due to internet (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=123408.msg4093982#msg4093982)
Pufferfish
Giver99
Mushroo
RockBiterSon | Resigned due to crash + time over (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=123408.msg4093686#msg4093686)
Fluoman
Laularukyrumo | Resigned due to 10 LEVEL AQUIFER (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=123408.msg4080377#msg4080377)
Brewster
Grand Prize Voting
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Awards
Grand Prize: Best Overall Fort & Writeup/Article =Thatdude
Quick Reflexes: Best Fort in under 10 hours (waiting for short submissions)
World Wonder: Best Mega-project =Vjek
Ancient Secrets: Best Fort on an old PC (waiting for old PC forts)
Survive This: Best Fort in a dangerous area {Flabort vs. HavingPhun vs. Mishrak vs. Gigaz}
I see no reason to limit embark or worldgen either. Just as long as it's Vanilla DF with or without a Tileset. 10 hours, 10 years, whichever is less, or whatever you feel like as long as it doesn't exceed that time frame. My whole point was to illustrate that, in the same 10 hours she spent beating her head against the game, a moderately experienced and somewhat informed player (Me) can make a viable and fun fort.
We should put ourselves on the clock, so that it's not "10 hours unpaused" but 10 hours played, which includes time worldgenning, designating things, planning, etc. I'd say the only time it doesn't include would be preparing the write-up, as that will take a bit longer.
Q & A
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Girlinhat on February 27, 2013, 04:29:21 pm
Because everyone plays at a different FPS, I'd say to change it to a 9 year limit, with shorter times allowed, as most people die within 3 years or so.
Post by: Zealord on February 27, 2013, 04:33:37 pm
Post by: Mishrak on February 27, 2013, 04:39:38 pm
I will also spell out "Dwarves Love Ars" in some funny, special way. Either in obsidian, or magma, or glass blocks. Depending on the embark.
[edit]
I'm planning to use Lazy Newb Pack and Dwarf Therapist, as well as the Ironhand Tileset. This should be on vanilla, otherwise though.
Post by: Ruhn on February 27, 2013, 04:46:55 pm
At 100 FPS, 10 hours is just shy of 9 years.I see your point. We could modify the rules so that 10 hours is the absolute maximum, but participants can submit a fort sooner. If there is amazing progress after only 2 hours a short fort may even win the crowd.
Because everyone plays at a different FPS, I'd say to change it to a 9 year limit, with shorter times allowed, as most people die within 3 years or so.
Post by: Oaktree on February 27, 2013, 07:31:48 pm
Since it was my idea (in part), of course I have to participate. Sign me up. I'll work on it Friday/Saturday.
I will also spell out "Dwarves Love Ars" in some funny, special way. Either in obsidian, or magma, or glass blocks. Depending on the embark.
[edit]
I'm planning to use Lazy Newb Pack and Dwarf Therapist, as well as the Ironhand Tileset. This should be on vanilla, otherwise though.
Why not spell it in minecart track and have carts madly spinning around the track tossing rocks or water into an arena full of captured creatures?
Post by: hermes on February 27, 2013, 08:04:08 pm
Post by: Itnetlolor on February 27, 2013, 08:10:33 pm
Let's not forget, some people play at different gameplay rates besides FPS rates as well (we have planners, CODs, Project-oriented, and etc. that might sign up for this).
Post by: MarcAFK on February 27, 2013, 08:21:52 pm
At 100 FPS, 10 hours is just shy of 9 years.Does anyone still manage 100 fps after 9 years?
Because everyone plays at a different FPS, I'd say to change it to a 9 year limit, with shorter times allowed, as most people die within 3 years or so.
I find by end of year 2 i get framerate down to the 30's, and this is on a brand new i7.
At the rate i play i might get 4-5 years out of 10 hours.
Post by: flabort on February 27, 2013, 08:35:29 pm
If, and if, I have time on the weekend, we'll see.
Post by: MarcAFK on February 27, 2013, 09:14:59 pm
Ten consecutive hours? :(I think you're onto something, my last long weekend i didn't manage to find 10 hours for Dwarf fortress, i may have blown 16 odd hours on the forum though.
If, and if, I have time on the weekend, we'll see.
Post by: HavingPhun on February 27, 2013, 09:16:53 pm
I might sign up for this. Around years 4 and 5 I get around 90(45) fps. If I use the heat tweak from dfhack I get around 100(55).At 100 FPS, 10 hours is just shy of 9 years.Does anyone still manage 100 fps after 9 years?
Because everyone plays at a different FPS, I'd say to change it to a 9 year limit, with shorter times allowed, as most people die within 3 years or so.
I find by end of year 2 i get framerate down to the 30's, and this is on a brand new i7.
At the rate i play i might get 4-5 years out of 10 hours.
I also second Itnetlolor. Since even the newer cpu's have trouble running at high fps'. Just about everyones cpu's run at different speeds. So for one person 10 hours could be 7 years, another could be 5, another could be 2 or less. There are DF players that have older and slower pc's.
Also is there a due date decided yet? Is there a sign up date or as long as we had it in on time. Maybe with a few exceptions.
Post by: flabort on February 27, 2013, 09:42:19 pm
I also second Itnetlolor. Since even the newer cpu's have trouble running at high fps'. Just about everyones cpu's run at different speeds. So for one person 10 hours could be 7 years, another could be 5, another could be 2 or less. There are DF players that have older and slower pc's.
Heh. You're not kidding. First computer I ever played DF on, I was shocked when, 3 days into my first fortress, summer arrived and I realized there were seasons to the game. Not kidding. 10 hours wouldn't have even gotten me through 1 year on that rig. Fortunately, now I have a MUCH better more recent computer.
Post by: Gentlefish on February 27, 2013, 11:01:04 pm
This may give me an excuse to finally build me green glass pyramid.
Also, are we using any embark? Is there to be a standard?
Post by: PotatoOverdose on February 28, 2013, 03:18:27 am
My current fort is sitting at year 7 (pop cap set at 50, actual pop of 80) on a 3x3 with most of the surface covered in blood, ichor, vomit, or some combination of the three and I'm sitting pretty at a stable 89 fps.
I must have a super computer as well. ???
Post by: Zealord on February 28, 2013, 06:25:12 am
I find the three year fortress death claim rather dubious tbh. Even when I played at a popcap of 200 on 4x4's I never suffered fps death on year 3 on my laptop.
My current fort is sitting at year 7 (pop cap set at 50, actual pop of 80) on a 3x3 with most of the surface covered in blood, ichor, vomit, or some combination of the three and I'm sitting pretty at a stable 89 fps.
I must have a super computer as well. ???
Same here, even on a 4x4 embark with 150 dwarves running around sharing blood with everyone I get to a stable 70 FPS
What does it depend on then?
Post by: vjek on February 28, 2013, 10:13:47 am
EDIT: Ok, going for 10 years, myself. I'll make the best (IMHO) fort I can in 10 years of in-game time, and post it on DFFD.
Post by: Giver99 on February 28, 2013, 10:37:15 am
I have a super computer! :P
Post by: Mishrak on February 28, 2013, 10:58:41 am
I see no reason to limit embark or worldgen either. Just as long as it's Vanilla DF with or without a Tileset. 10 hours, 10 years, whichever is less, or whatever you feel like as long as it doesn't exceed that time frame. My whole point was to illustrate that, in the same 10 hours she spent beating her head against the game, a moderately experienced and somewhat informed player (Me) can make a viable and fun fort.
We should put ourselves on the clock, so that it's not "10 hours unpaused" but 10 hours played, which includes time worldgenning, designating things, planning, etc. I'd say the only time it doesn't include would be preparing the write-up, as that will take a bit longer.
Also, what deadline do we want on this? Should it be next weekend (March 10th?) so the dust hasn't settled on the Ars article yet? Or should it be a little longer, as that may not matter as much?
Post by: Mushroo on February 28, 2013, 11:03:44 am
Post by: Ruhn on February 28, 2013, 12:31:54 pm
How about we have 2 different divisions? 10 Realtime Hours, and 10 Game Years. That should minimize some confusions, as well as any bickering about the rules between the groups. Submissions should include preferred FPS settings to be listed.Sure, if we have enough submissions then creating divisions for the voting sounds fair.
Let's not forget, some people play at different gameplay rates besides FPS rates as well (we have planners, CODs, Project-oriented, and etc. that might sign up for this).
Personally I probably have the game paused 50% of the time planning every little thing, might not even make it to year 5.
(OP has been updated)
Post by: Ruhn on February 28, 2013, 01:03:16 pm
So, what's criteria for best fort? I'm tempted to join in, but I'm not going to if it's simply monetary gain or best trap hall.Judging will be done by the community at large via Poll. The purpose I had in mind is to get the most advanced fort to show what an experienced player can do in 10 hours, as a contrast to someone brand new who might be only able to build a still. If that takes the form of a mega-project, 3z of traps, lava fun, or creating 2000 socks it is up to you.
This may give me an excuse to finally build me green glass pyramid.
Also, are we using any embark? Is there to be a standard?
Embark: anything you want. Doing something great in harsh surroundings will look all the more impressive.
(sorry for 2x post, I will add a Q&A section to OP)
Post by: Kon on February 28, 2013, 01:10:35 pm
Post by: HavingPhun on February 28, 2013, 03:31:14 pm
Post by: Mishrak on February 28, 2013, 03:33:01 pm
Also, re: the date poll that was just put up. Time is of the essence, before the dust settles on this article. Lets not go two or three weeks before we get these out. I'm voting Monday the 11th for submission deadline, and by that Friday (15th) we've got voting wrapped up and can submit it to them before the weekend.
Post by: Ruhn on February 28, 2013, 06:43:26 pm
The OP has been updated with some Q&A, as well as possible secondary awards we will vote on after the Grand Prize is given out.
Post by: Big Bear on February 28, 2013, 07:41:09 pm
Hopefully, these fortresses will showcase not only advanced fort designs, but a lot of the typical DF moments that we've come to expect as well. I think a lot of people just think of DF as a building game with ASCII characters and difficult UI, and they think, "Well, if I wanted to build something, I could just go play Minecraft. It's easier to learn, and it has 3D graphics, too!"
I imagine you'll get a chance to show them that DF is so much more than that. I can imagine them reading about the WTF-inducing moments that we take for granted, such as:
"...And then I decided to build a pressurized magma cannon in case the goblins come back, but the dwarf assigned to it turned into a were-kangaroo and just attacked my poor furnace operator. Looking at the combat report, I see that the beast latched on to his eyeball and shook furiously, tearing the tendons! He got to the hospital in time. On the other side of the fortress, my alligator farm is going well, and.. Good lord, some necromancer is raising the dead, and our supply of cow hair has come to life, and is strangling our broker!..."
;D
Post by: HavingPhun on February 28, 2013, 09:30:56 pm
Good luck to everyone! :D Wish I had time to participate, too.Thank you for this. It reminded me of some fun things I can do.
Hopefully, these fortresses will showcase not only advanced fort designs, but a lot of the typical DF moments that we've come to expect as well. I think a lot of people just think of DF as a building game with ASCII characters and difficult UI, and they think, "Well, if I wanted to build something, I could just go play Minecraft. It's easier to learn, and it has 3D graphics, too!"
I imagine you'll get a chance to show them that DF is so much more than that. I can imagine them reading about the WTF-inducing moments that we take for granted, such as:
"...And then I decided to build a pressurized magma cannon in case the goblins come back, but the dwarf assigned to it turned into a were-kangaroo and just attacked my poor furnace operator. Looking at the combat report, I see that the beast latched on to his eyeball and shook furiously, tearing the tendons! He got to the hospital in time. On the other side of the fortress, my alligator farm is going well, and.. Good lord, some necromancer is raising the dead, and our supply of cow hair has come to life, and is strangling our broker!..."
;D
Post by: Itnetlolor on February 28, 2013, 09:44:01 pm
EDIT:
Nevermind. Provided one of my ‼Stupid Dwarf Tricks‼ works as I intend it to, then I might work on that instead.
What exactly do I have in mind? Magma/obsidian tube fort. Provided the proof of concept works, it will have a front door, and not a topside access hatch. Armok-willing, this should work; and if it does, it will rock.
Post by: vjek on March 01, 2013, 01:28:58 pm
This took me about 3 hours today, and 7 hours yesterday.
Notes/Comments
used advanced worldgen to generate the world I wanted, with 1 civ.
used finder to find shallow and deep metals
Set pop-cap to 30 (ended up with 48 max, 4 died: 1 unknown, 1 of old age, 2 to ex-noble mandate murders)
Personal Goal: each dwarf shall have... (all masterwork, studded & encrusted, wherever possible)
-a gold well (metal gold chain, metal gold bucket, metal gold block, metal silver/native gold mechanism)
-metal gold cabinet
-metal gold chest
-metal gold table
-metal gold throne
-metal gold statue
-bloodthorn bed
-metal gold door
5x5 room layout.
7 items around, adjacent to walls
1 door
need legendary miner prior to mining gold.
need legendary gem cutter/setter for encrusting (later)
need legendary metalcrafter/blacksmither for metal object quality
new clothing must be made available
-- started early spring 176 - site name "Whippedraced"
embarked with peasants, picks, axes, meat, wine, underground seeds.
assign labors.
dig out storage area in soil
designate trees around wagon to be cut down for logs
build carpenters workshop out of logs
build wooden door to block entrance from animals
dig out tree farm layer to improve mining for later
designate stockpile in storage area
desginate meeting area in storage area
deconstruct wagon
construct two chairs (one for broker, one for bookkeeper)
build chairs in storage area, build offices and assign ownership
designate above ground pasture area for animals
designate all trees above ground to be cut down
designate soil level to be dug out for tree farm
designate all surface plants to be harvested
build 20 barrels to store food/plants
breach and seal cavern layer
dig out dormitory
build & place beds in dormitory
build above ground farms for berries and rope reed
build wall around above ground farms
extend central staircase downwards to cavern floor
build walls around central staircase
dig down to warm stone, dig exploratory shafts
build magma forges, magma smelter
desginate bar/block stockpile near magma infrastructure
smelt tetrahedrite
build well components
build craftsdwarf workshop, mechanics workshop, clothier workshop
designate workshop room
designate bedrooms
designate underground water supply path
build magma garbage pit
process rope reeds
build grates on downward water path
smooth water path for engraver skilling
pave water path to prevent tree growth
build bridge in water paths as emergency shut off
build levers
tie bridges to levers
divert part of the brook
flip levers to open bridges, starting water flow into fort
create well inside fort
smelt tetrahedrite, make copper blocks, melt copper blocks, to increase blacksmithing
make wooden blocks and dump them, to increase carpentry for bloodthorn beds
cut all gems, cut several dozen diorite for working on gem setting, encrust all masterwork bloodthorn beds
make 48 each of trousers, shoes, shirts for the fort as replacement clothing
dump all old 'XX' worn clothing
place first 32 bloodthorn beds
build & place first 32 gold wells, with silver mechanisms
build 32 gold doors
decline all trader offerings, as I can build everything myself
decline status/colony increase to speed up liaison interaction
build gold tables, thrones, statues, doors, cabinets, chests, encrust as much as possible, 64 of each furniture
have jewellers cutting and encrusting during building
place all furniture
build diorite paved roads in main meeting area
rebuild hospital area with new beds/chests
restock drink supply
-- ended late winter 185
Spoiler: Living Quarters Screenshot (click to show/hide)
Ultimately, it would have been better to move everything down to the magma level to be closer to the furnaces, and minecarts probably would have sped up the ore and furniture movement, but I didn't test that.
I would have gained considerable time if I had skipped the "one well per room" idea, but I hadn't done it before, and it turned out great. I wanted to put in a waterfall per room as well, but I wouldn't have had enough time to do that and get all the furniture made.
Skipping encrusting would have taken far less time, as well.
I was a little too concerned about getting enough cloth for clothing replacements, that turned out to be easy with rope reeds.
If I had to do it again, I would stick with rock and wood crafts instead of metal, as this eliminates the need for the forge/smelting except for chains for the wells. Primarily this is because it takes so long to train up blacksmithing to legendary, while training up carpentry and masonry is trivial by comparison. But I wanted to see if it could be done with metal furniture, so I guess that was worthwhile.
I put off creating booze for a while, and I think that caused some delays, as dwarves were pathing to the river to get water, when it would have been faster for me to setup a booze industry right away from above ground crops dedicated to the task.
The actual building of the metal furniture took years, by far the longest task in the overall timeline.
40+ of the dwarves are Ecstatic, so I consider that success. Also, 4.3M in created wealth, not bad.
The layout definitely isn't my standard, but I had very few z-levels to work with, so that's how it turned out. Normally I don't build rooms of any kind in soil layers, but ended up doing that this time.
Once I had built the shaft downwards into the cavern, I sealed it up and didn't use them. Ended up with two FB's down there, but no other surprises.
I ended up building too many rooms, given the marriages and such. I wasn't sure how many dwarves I'd end up with, but I had planned for 64 rooms, and made it to 64 rooms. Could have gotten away with 32.
A fun challenge, looking forward to seeing the other entries/results! 8)
NOTE: I see the pop-cap rule was added, and I understand completely if this invalidates my entry. Good luck to everyone participating!
EDIT:
I've tried this challenge again using only stone, cloth and wood instead of magma forges and metal. It's been much faster. The second time around, I was able to place ALL masterwork furniture in 32 rooms in under 5 years. This second fort has 39 total population. I'm going to try a waterfall and well in each room before the deadline. If I make it in time, I'll update my submission on DFFD to be the new fort. Busy week though, I might not have time.
One thing I did have to check on the wiki was whether or not cloth ropes counted as 'chains' in game, and they did. This means no need for a forge before you build wells or rollers for minecarts.
As far as performance goes, my FPS never drops below whatever I set it at, in all the games I play. 100, 200, even 500. This is primarily due to the way I generate my worlds, the sites I embark on, and restricting population. I've had 27 year old fortresses running at 500FPS. And this is with vanilla DF, with temperature, weather, everything like that enabled. Certain specialty sites (like 40 tile-wide rivers) and draining volcanos and such obviously have an impact on FPS, but a typical/average fort, nope, all good here.
Post by: Mishrak on March 01, 2013, 01:46:13 pm
Look at all that gold!
It's probably not a huge deal to stray from the pop cap, depending on what your goal is.
Post by: Giver99 on March 01, 2013, 02:21:25 pm
Post by: RockBiterSon on March 01, 2013, 03:01:54 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I assume that dwarf therapist is allowed? It's in the lazynoob pack, yet I wouldn't call it in theme
Quote
new players probably don't know this optionMaybe I'll limit myself by not using the handy 'roles' system built into the latest version.
Fps is a large problem for me in past forts. In my latest I got stuck around 20 fps after clean-up from a goblin seige. I'm not very good at controlling fps. My computer is a five-year-old dell laptop, that as I am typing this is whirring loudly even without anything running in the background. It often emits frightening clicks and whirs that sound like it's dying. I'm not sure how to find out all the stats about its performance, if anyone would walk me through that I'll try for the ancient machine category too.
Oh, and btw this is my first forum post. I made an account just to give this a try.
Post by: Mishrak on March 01, 2013, 03:07:45 pm
Post by: Fluoman on March 01, 2013, 03:48:04 pm
And boy, I'm going to marathon that. Ten hours straight ftw 8)
Post by: Thatdude on March 01, 2013, 04:19:08 pm
Let's see where this goes.
Post by: Gigaz on March 01, 2013, 05:15:27 pm
Post by: Ruhn on March 01, 2013, 07:12:34 pm
Gold & masterwork sets the bar high for the rest of us. (I'm giving it a try too, 2 hours in so far)
I know many players like to reduce the pop cap; it is discouraged but not an instant DQ.
My computer is a five-year-old dell laptop, that as I am typing this is whirring loudly even without anything running in the background. It often emits frightening clicks and whirs that sound like it's dying. I'm not sure how to find out all the stats about its performance, if anyone would walk me through that I'll try for the ancient machine category too.Wow, sounds like lots of !!FUN!! even when DF isn't running :D
(( Right-click computer properties, and it will show your CPU speed and RAM. ))
OP has been updated with Vjek's submission and the new contestants.
Post by: Mushroo on March 01, 2013, 07:19:33 pm
Post by: Fluoman on March 01, 2013, 08:36:23 pm
Oh god, year 2 4-squad elf ambush followed by undead siege.
Well, that was fun.
Post by: flabort on March 01, 2013, 09:55:43 pm
Edit: This is how it's going:
Spoiler: Day One (click to show/hide)
Post by: Fluoman on March 02, 2013, 03:49:50 am
I did Fortress One in 3 hours and 13 minutes and it was destroyed by outside forces. Do I reclaim and save it and submit it, or do I still have 6 hours and 47 minutes to do a better fort?
Post by: Mishrak on March 02, 2013, 08:25:45 am
Post by: Fluoman on March 02, 2013, 09:50:13 am
Post by: hermes on March 02, 2013, 10:47:42 am
War Horse Fortress
With the impending nerfing of fast quadrupeds by the Great Toad, Mosus decided to lead an outpost in tribute to their prowess by relying on them entirely for the defense of the dwarves in her charge. The fortress was to have no guard, militia, armour or weapons save the axes for felling as many small trees as possible. Horses were to be brought and bred and were expected to defend the dwarves with their fleet hooves and quick lives.Spoiler: Year One (click to show/hide)
[I just changed horses to be war trainable for this, if that invalidates my entry that's OK, I'm enjoying this so far.]
3 hours in so far. I'm gonna be lucky if I get past year three.... *gulp*
Solid 100fps.
Post by: Mishrak on March 02, 2013, 11:02:55 am
Post by: Kon on March 02, 2013, 03:20:43 pm
The Age of Myth, Year 1050
One year completed, but has taken nearly 7 hours starting from using Find to find a good site:
Find: Flux, shallow metals, deep metal
Found: Freashwater Swamp, Warm, Heavily Forested, Thick, Calm
I haven't made a story of it, but may do that after the 10 hours are up. I'm not concerned that it has taken so long, considering that I've accomplished a lot in one year.
After one year, FPS is at max (I set max to 80)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
1st Year Summary:
Squad of two has been sparring frequently and have copper axes and copper armor.
Four bedrooms below barracks with two assigned to squad.
Hunter has five kills and is gaining XBow skill (proficient marksdwarf).
Magma forge room is ready for magma to be let in below forge room.
Have dining room and bedrooms dug out near magma forge room for smiths.
Initial marksdwarf patrol routes, above entrance, level z+1, behind fortifications, are ready.
Fortress is secure with war dog at entrance - can raise fortress drawbridges using levers in main dining hall and safely shoot enemies from above.
Main dining hall has been smoothed.
Farm plots above and below ground.
Plenty of food and alcohol.
17 dwarves: 8 content, 8 happy, 1 ecstatic.
Post by: flabort on March 02, 2013, 04:08:58 pm
I should probably abandon and try another fort to submit. ::)
Post by: hermes on March 03, 2013, 03:59:55 am
Post by: Thatdude on March 03, 2013, 06:12:40 am
Post by: Gigaz on March 03, 2013, 08:30:34 am
I used phoebus graphics, the dwarf therapist and soundsense, nothing else.
I chose a site with a waterfall, woodland and shallow metal/deep metals in a scorching climate. I also had a necromancer tower nearby.
I started with:
2 Miners
1 Carpenter/Mechanic
1 Woodcutter/Engraver
1 Stonecrafter/Brewer
1 Grower/Mason
1 Grower/Axedwarf
All skills were chosen carfully based on the dwarfs personalities. Besides food, seeds, picks and two axes I took with me a set of copper armor, some threads, bituminous coal, sand bags and leather. I Also had three cats and three dogs and I was blessed with a Yak couple which surely suffered a lot in the scorching climate.
The fortress strived and I was able to play from Granite 1, 251 to Moonstone 11, 253. Two years, nine months and eleven days. In the end I accumulated 120 dwarfs (including a mayor and a baron) and 1.03 million dwarfsbucks of wealth. My FPS was 100 in the first year, then it went down slowly to about 60 at the end of the ten hours.
Special features of the fortress include:
- The Great Urist Dam and Lake Urist which is only to about 3/4 filled at the moment.
- 84 personal rooms, one for each dwarf or dwarf couple. Each room with a door, a bed, a mudstone cabinet and chest and a gem window through which the dwarf can see into the fishy depths of Lake Urist. The rooms were engraved by my two legendary engravers.
- Two big noble quarters with silver furniture and gem windows. Only smooved, no engravings.
- A power plant which produces 800 Urist*tile²/tick³ power. I use only 370 for my minecart-based fog generator and the millstones.
- A necromancer-based shooting range which does not work at the moment because I accidentally placed an undead instead of a necromancer behind the windows.
- Tons of copper arrows and armor and quite a few captured goblins and undeads. Also a minotaur child and a goblin who is also a weresquirrel.
File: http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=7442
Saved in ASCII graphics.
Post by: HavingPhun on March 03, 2013, 10:50:21 am
Post by: flabort on March 03, 2013, 12:13:42 pm
Spoiler: Day 2 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Day 3 (click to show/hide)
I won't be abandoning after all. :)
Post by: Kon on March 03, 2013, 06:27:46 pm
The World of Cyclones
The Age of Myth, Year 1050
One year completed, but has taken nearly 7 hours starting from using Find to find a good site:
Find: Flux, shallow metals, deep metal
Found: Freashwater Swamp, Warm, Heavily Forested, Thick, Calm
I haven't made a story of it, but may do that after the 10 hours are up. I'm not concerned that it has taken so long, considering that I've accomplished a lot in one year.
After one year, FPS is at max (I set max to 80)Spoiler (click to show/hide)
1st Year Summary:
Squad of two has been sparring frequently and have copper axes and copper armor.
Four bedrooms below barracks with two assigned to squad.
Hunter has five kills and is gaining XBow skill (proficient marksdwarf).
Magma forge room is ready for magma to be let in below forge room.
Have dining room and bedrooms dug out near magma forge room for smiths.
Initial marksdwarf patrol routes, above entrance, level z+1, behind fortifications, are ready.
Fortress is secure with war dog at entrance - can raise fortress drawbridges using levers in main dining hall and safely shoot enemies from above.
Main dining hall has been smoothed.
Farm plots above and below ground.
Plenty of food and alcohol.
17 dwarves: 8 content, 8 happy, 1 ecstatic.
Take Break 3rd Granite 1052 Early Spring
Resume 2:31 pm 3/3
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Stopped playing on 2nd Opal, Mid Winter, 1052
Total time: One year, 10 months (started counting after 1050 year world gen over, but before using 'Find' to find a site with flux and metals - ran 'Find' over entire 'large region.')
FPS still at max of 80.
Population 53
Happiness: 1 Fine (in military), 8 Content (6 military and 2 babies), 20 Happy (7 from recent migration wave), 24 Ecstatic.
Have flux, tetrahedrite, and galena only.
Military: 2 squads of 4 each
Patrol routes Above East of entrance and Above West of entrance behind fortifications.
Repelled small ambush of goblin lashers with one squad of axedwarves and one squad of marksdwarves.
Military has copper armor, shields, and battle axes, wood crossbows, and copper bolts.
Great Magma Forge chamber with 3 magma smelters and 2 magma forges:
Metal Bars: 325 copper, 215 silver, 228 lead, 2 iron, 1 steel, 49 charcoal, etc
Hospital with 6 beds and 2 traction benches - hasn't been used.
Two moods: an ashen bracelet and a copper right gauntlet => a legendary armorsmith.
Two dining rooms - one a level above the Great Magma Forge chamber for smiths and a main dining hall that has been smoothed and has two levers for two drawbridges at entrance.
Bedrooms for military one level below barracks. Bedrooms for smiths two levels above Great Magma Forge chamber.
Mistakes:
If I was going to count world gen, I would have chosen much less than 1050 years.
I could have sped up finding a site if I had not chosen a 'large region' and ran 'Find' over the entire region.
Spent a lot of time paused, but that is how I always play.
I had FPS capped at 80. That's where I usually set it, but should have increased it for this competition.
Ran out of wood several times.
Too slow making wood bins.
Too slow making clothing.
Final thoughts: I varied little from how I usually play, other than rushing and worrying about running out of time. I did put more of an emphasis than usual on getting my military running very early on, and I believe that I did quite well to get my military where it is after only one year and ten months. Military is not only prepared for ambushes, but prepared for a siege. I intentionally did not train my military in marksmanship since I have found that dwarves train crossbow skill very quickly once they begin repelling ambushes and sieges. I prefer to initially have them train in melee skills to raise shield, dodge, and other skills and attributes. Had no problems with hunters hunting or marksdwarves equipping bolts and firing at enemies. No equipment problems with military. By the way, currently only one of the two squad is assigned bolts. At the moment, no hunters are assigned the hunting skill and hunters have no bolts assigned to them. This is because I had just prepared for a possible ambush as the dwarven caravan was about to arrive. I do have a 'Danger' alert and associated 'Danger' burrow to call in dwarves from outside if necessary.
http://dffd.wimbli.com/download.php?id=7445&f=The+Blanketed+Sacks.zip (http://dffd.wimbli.com/download.php?id=7445&f=The+Blanketed+Sacks.zip)
Post by: Ruhn on March 04, 2013, 10:05:23 am
Some ideas of things to include in articles:
- jokes
- notes of anything you had to lookup in wiki or forum
- thoughts you had along the way about your fort (this post from Thatdude is a great example!)
Hill titans suck. Just over 6 hours in and a webbing hill titan has sparked a massive tantrum spiral that has so far killed half the fortress and isn't showing signs of slowing. Hopefully with less dwarves there'll be less bad thoughts from not having their own personal rooms :P. I also always forget how messy above ground forts can become. My meeting hall is just covered in blood, abandoned clothes and puke and I feel that using dwarf hack to clean it up would be cheating (following that new players wont know about pop cap, they wouldn't know about df hack).
Post by: flabort on March 04, 2013, 09:24:59 pm
especially where the dorf dashed out for the axe.
Oh, yes, and another thing. :P He didn't dash OUT for the axe. He dashed IN with the axe, after being TRAPPED outside. I thought it might improve his survivability.
Post by: vjek on March 04, 2013, 09:32:28 pm
Post by: HavingPhun on March 04, 2013, 09:55:56 pm
I shouldnt have wood problems now. I surrounded a decent sized area with a canal and filled it with water. I will build my second row of walls soon. Now I want to focus on training my military. Getting adamantine and iron armor and weapons. I have several large deposits of magnetite. The admantine tubes seem to go down pretty far. I dug through the center. But I don't want to dig too far yet. I will probably have an assault on hell as my grand finally. If everything works out I am going to design this fort to kill demons and clear hell. Lots of cave ins and adamantine.
PS: The reason I had wood problems was bacause I had a range of undead outside ready to shatter peoples skulls. But now I have the area outside more secure. I have a necromancers tower nearby. Hopefully they will send sieges.
Post by: flabort on March 04, 2013, 11:54:09 pm
Spoiler: Day 4 (click to show/hide)
So yeah. Not enough time to try my trap design idea, but more success in taking this fort then I thought I'd have.
Post by: Mishrak on March 05, 2013, 09:44:52 am
Will that also be the conclusion for voting on the submission deadline?
Post by: laularukyrumo on March 05, 2013, 09:53:49 am
So I decided to park myself in a Joyous Wilds swamp. That happened to be scorching. I've never actually played a Good region before.
Fairly uninteresting in the first minute, but I noticed when I unpaused, I was chugging along at 8fps. From start. In a swamp. I've never had that problem before. It might have something to do with temp... I tried disabling it and reloading, but it doesn't seem to be helping the situation. FUCK.
edit: DFhack command "immolate all" worked, brought me up to 60fps at the expense of all the trees being dead. I don't like that option.
YOUR SETTLEMENT HAS BEEN ABANDONED
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
ROUND TWO, ENGAGE
So the fortress of Yellowwheel, situated in the neutral, yet savage, Shrublands, is now under construction. First thing I notice? Snow. Snow everywhere. I keep forgetting, "temperate" really means "fucking freezing". I'll be lucky if this shit melts in time for, well, ever.
The second thing I notice is all the god damn bugs. And I don't mean the savage wildlife. I mean FUCKING BEES EVERYWHERE. Naturally, while I'm getting my minecart stockpile and logging operations underway, I send the miners to go exterminate the colonies via cave-in flavored justice. Fuck yeah, justice.
Then the badgers showed up.
Post by: Ruhn on March 05, 2013, 10:44:05 am
So the fort entry deadline is tomorrow, March 6th.Yep, I'll end the poll and announce the deadline in about 34 hours.
Will that also be the conclusion for voting on the submission deadline?
Post by: HavingPhun on March 05, 2013, 03:12:45 pm
Signing up or handing in? Do the forts have to be uploaded and done by midnight march 6th?So the fort entry deadline is tomorrow, March 6th.Yep, I'll end the poll and announce the deadline in about 34 hours.
Will that also be the conclusion for voting on the submission deadline?
Post by: Mishrak on March 05, 2013, 03:17:27 pm
Post by: HavingPhun on March 05, 2013, 04:30:50 pm
March 6th is the cutoff for new entries. Meaning people participating (signups). Right now we're voting on the date still for fort submission, but that vote ends on March 6th also. Sorry for the confusion.Its ok. Thank you. I was going to rush to finish up 6 hours tonight. :)
Post by: Brewster on March 05, 2013, 06:55:59 pm
Now just need to figure out my main goal.
Post by: laularukyrumo on March 05, 2013, 07:06:47 pm
In my defense, ramp patrol is important to keep unicorns out, and I really fucking hate bees.
Oh well. At least the aquifer is only 1z deep, it'll be done in no time. I've got enough wood to last me approximately a while, DEFINITELY until we hit the caverns, and I can probably even burn some for charcoal--which I'm gonna need to do, as I was unable to bring coal with me.
Anyway, while I wait for the miners to finish, I've declared war on boulders. I'm smoothing every single fucking aboveground stone I see, because, they're ugly and get in my way. And I don't recall but I -think- they have a random chance of dropping a stone, which is gonna be nice, so I don't have to use wood to seal up the aquifer. No clay, for once--it's all loam and peat. Which, frankly, is a first for me. I sort of forgot DF actually had legit soil.
All right. Got the ramps dealt with, got the first stair channeled out... oh hey migrants. Sweet. Now I have an army of stone-murderers and pump operators and wall builders. Excellent. We might see stone before winter. Maybe. Hopefully. I should get a trade depot and some spiked balls made so I can buy out the caravan when it shows up.
FUCK. Two children and a fish dissector. God dammit. Okay, so I have ONE stone-murderer/pump operator/wall builder. That's one more than I currently have, you lazy fucks.
Ran out of booze while micromanaging the aquifer. Lol. At least I have plump helmets.
Animals are giving birth now. Time to cage the cats. That fish dissector? He's a cat slave already. I know who I'm drafting first.
On second thought.... He has a preference for Wagon Wood. Hahahahaha. Oh man. I forgot about that. WELP. Guess who's not allowed to be a noble?
EDIT: I actually think his wagon wood preference makes up for both the cat-loving and him being "extremely quick to tire." He probably isn't the best candidate for pump operation. I've gotten several "Cancels Operate Pump: exhausted" messages already. I -hope- I can put him to work in the pump gym to get that fixed, but it's unlikely to happen.
fuck
(http://i1307.photobucket.com/albums/s599/LaularuKyrumo/Yellowwheel001_zpsc5ceceeb.png)
Bloody hell. The first safe z-level below the aquifer, and we've got iron, BUT IT'S UNDER A SECOND AQUIFER. That's it. I'm gonna go nuclear on this shit. I'm building a drain to the caverns, then strip mining THE ENTIRE FUCKING Z-LEVEL.
Post by: laularukyrumo on March 05, 2013, 09:04:53 pm
I got frustrated and popped a quick DFhack reveal. Ten layers of aquifer, with varying patches of dryness.
Fuck it. I'm bowing out. Good luck y'all.
Post by: Thatdude on March 06, 2013, 07:49:14 am
So how things went:
Year 1: Embarking and settling.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Year 2: Expanding and exploiting.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Year 3: Titans and terror.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Year 4: Recovery and Remembrance.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Final stats
Dwarves: Alive: 87 (all except babies with their own house) Dead: 67 (All with a grave and an engraved slab except the last death).
Wealth: 489 187 (157 994 in architecture, the majority).
Only 1890 exported (lol) 119667 “imported” (mostly stolen but yeah).
Number of blocks made: 3464. Only 70 were unused by the end.
End date 21st obsidian, 129. Almost 4 years after we embarked (in 126).
The final save! (http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=7456)
If I can I'll upload images of the fort at the end of each year if anyone at all in interested. I have to say this was fun to do. I like having a set goal to work towards even if a large part of DF is setting your own goals to do. Really sorry but I didn't keep track of what my fps was like though it was pretty high throughout.
EDIT: Spelling, grammar and a few things to make it make a little more sense. Hopefully.
Post by: Gigaz on March 06, 2013, 08:23:28 am
Post by: Ruhn on March 06, 2013, 12:29:33 pm
I got frustrated and popped a quick DFhack reveal. Ten layers of aquifer, with varying patches of dryness.I had no idea they could go that deep. :(
Nice submission Thatdude, I lol'd a few times. That artifact statue came at just the right time.
OP updated!
Post by: Thatdude on March 06, 2013, 03:17:31 pm
What was your FPS?
-snip-
Really sorry but I didn't keep track of what my fps was like though it was pretty high throughout.
I edited that on the end a little after posting sorry.
Post by: Mishrak on March 07, 2013, 01:19:50 pm
I've got some work left to do on mine, but it should be ready in time. I'll probably go right down to the wire to polish the write-up some, as I have a fun (I think it's fun at least) story I want to tell. I just need to work out how to do it.
Post by: HavingPhun on March 07, 2013, 09:52:49 pm
Post by: Mishrak on March 07, 2013, 10:29:05 pm
Post by: Ruhn on March 08, 2013, 12:22:04 pm
I'm just short of 3 hours in on mine. It's a little tricky finding more than 30 or 40 mins of time to plop down during the week. It's progressing well, although I forgot to actually cook food and my dwarves were starving despite having 150 livestock, woops. So I fixed that but lets see how we do. First year is coming to a close. I should be able to get a lot hammered out over the weekend (which I have no choice because monday is the 11th!)Yeah for real, I'm gonna have to sink some hours in tonight and tomorrow.
Post by: HavingPhun on March 08, 2013, 02:42:54 pm
A 1 eyed giant kaola arrived. Beware its webs! I was going to throw my decent military at it but then it killed my outpost liason and half of the caravan. A swordsmen with the caravan killed it but they left with fear. Kept a bunch of things outside. I would grab them but I don't want to keep my fort open for undead assualt.
I dug out 72 new bedrooms. Now they need to be smoothed and furnished. Also built a huge throne room off to the side. I'm not going to get a king but I did it for fun. Probably not smoothing that. have 8 out of 10 full sets of iron armor forged. Ill have two squads of five. 1 as melee and one as ranged. 3 dwarfs have died of failed moods. All of them so far have not gone berserk luckily.
5+ undead eagles have come in and pestered my masons building walls outside. No one got hurt except some bruised muscles and a bruised liver. I got all the migrant waves safely inside. I think thats it.
Post by: flabort on March 09, 2013, 02:15:32 am
Spoiler: Day One (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Day 2 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Day 3 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Day 4 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Day 5 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Summary and Pictures (click to show/hide)
Edit: My save. (http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=7466)
Post by: Thatdude on March 09, 2013, 01:12:43 pm
Post by: flabort on March 09, 2013, 01:58:11 pm
And yes, it is down stairs above the tiles.
Let's see what ratio our deaths were at. 67 dorf deaths and 132 total to... mine was 77 dorfs dead, 337 total dead.
1:1.149 dorf deaths, 1:2.553 total deaths, and 1:4.000 other deaths. :P
No, really, counting the deaths that weren't dorfs, I have exactly 4 times as many as you.
I'm impressed that you made an above ground fort, though. It looks fairly nice (and yellow. I didn't check, but was that orthoclase, gold, or some bright wood?).
Post by: HavingPhun on March 09, 2013, 07:19:35 pm
Post by: flabort on March 10, 2013, 01:28:41 am
I used photobucket for my pics. If that means you need to sign up, go ahead, and you may need to sign up for DFFD as well, and oh, my save took overnight to upload on a good internet, so it may be rather slow, ESPECIALLY on dial up. Man, it's been so long since I was stuck with dial up trying to load flash games.
Post by: HavingPhun on March 10, 2013, 11:49:51 am
I don't think it's possible to upload a save any other way then zipped. Or 7z'd (7-zipped), Rar'd, or otherwise compressed. If it is, then color me surprised.Its 23mb in a zip file. rars seem to work better so i will use those. That will only take a few hours. Its the only internet I can get here except crappy satelite internet. With limited usage that costs alot.
I used photobucket for my pics. If that means you need to sign up, go ahead, and you may need to sign up for DFFD as well, and oh, my save took overnight to upload on a good internet, so it may be rather slow, ESPECIALLY on dial up. Man, it's been so long since I was stuck with dial up trying to load flash games.
Post by: RockBiterSon on March 11, 2013, 03:03:35 am
Still, I'll tell you all about the fort.
First I genned a new world:
World Size: smaller
History: short
Number of Civilizations: med
Number of Sites: med
Number of Beasts: med
Natural Savagery: high
Mineral Occurance: sparse
The world's name is Oruborid, the mortified continent, year 125, it is the age of the Dragon and Brush Titan.
At embark I took 4 copper picks, 3 copper battle-axes, three dogs, and three cats (one male and two female each) and the basic default stuff with a wider variety of starting food.
My starting seven were pretty underwhelming attribute wise.
I gave them novice skill in the following:
Miner
Woodcutter x 2
Cook/diagnostician/surgeon/suturer (but he was really not suited to the doctoring job)
Miner/Grower
Grower/Ambusher
Miner/Brewer
Strike the Earth!!
Fort name is Atiroslan, Dyewind.
fps cap at 100
First of all, I dug a 9-tile wide entrance hallway. I was intending to have a epic hallway of traps with 3-tile wide path for the trade caravans to pass through, for now I put a bunch of temporary workshops and stockpiles there. They never did get moved.
An hour and four minutes into play I opened Dwarf Therapist for the first time. Damn, I couldn't resist.
-farms added to the side of the hallway. Tunnel to a pool built for well. Working on a screw pump.
-two migrants arrive. First time I've gotten migrants this early I think.
-I take a break. At this point I've been playing for an hour and ten minutes. fps is steady at 100.
Now something pretty interesting happens.
-First of all Dwarven merchants. I trade excess food, wood, and some empty barrels for leather.
-At the same time a group of wild boars and sows appear on the edge of the map. I send out the military (unequiped and unarmoured, really civilians that I'd just picked) I now have plenty of leather. You guys won't be fighting unarmoured for long.
-ezum Oslandeg, a hunter, claims a leatherworker's shop. I was just about to start making leather armour and a legendary leatherworker is on his way. Perfect. My plans are comming together. Too well.
-ezum needs hides and gems. Or "shine, colour" something like that, which I think is gems. I don't check the wiki.
-Good a time as any to start digging down, as I had planned to do anyway. By the way this site has deep metal and flux, but no shallow metal.
-I realize that I'd just tanned all the hides and ezum probably needs a raw hide. Luckily, those hides walk onto the battlefie- I mean, my front lawn in the form of some wild Yaks.
-I send forth the brave sons of Atiroslan to do battle again, You'll be fighting without armour for the last time, I promise!
-Unbeknownst to me at the time. My promise to the dwarves would be fulfilled for at least one of them...
-Medtob Bubnuskubuk catches up to one of the Yaks and... well, it's not pretty. His nose is crushed, his leg is damaged and so is his lower spine. I call off the chase.
-The Atiroslan First National Hospital is hastily designated (a bed in the middle of the common sleeping area.)
-I wait for the dwarves to haul poor Medtob in, who had been chasing the Yak for some time and was allready Starving and Dehydrated.
-I wait some more.
-I open up DT and designate a couple of peasants as a professional body-haulers.
-I've more or less written off Medtob now, oh wait, someone is hauling him back. Good.
-Meanwhile exploratory mining hasn't uncovered much.
-Right on cue, as if he'd just heard of the failure of the expedition as Medtob was being dragged in, ezum goes mad. He savagely beats a nearby war dog, the military swarms around him and starts pummelling him. He is quickly dispatched. This really is the last time they will fight without armour. But my dreams of masterwork leather armour are dispatched as well.
-Medtob eventually heals up and is able to return to work. He won't be chasing wildlife anytime soon though.
-I strike gold! Several veins of it. I start digging it out, but don't start smelting it yet.
-23 migrants arrive. Probably the most I've ever gotten at a time, especially this early in the game. I haven't done or made anything valuable yet. huh. Well, I'm glad to have them, some of them aren't absolutely dismal in attributes even if their not skilled yet.
-The elves arrive and bring over twenty bins of cloth. I buy none of it. I imagine the disapointed look on that silly long ears' face.
I take another break. fps at about 70, though I checked it while the elves were still on the map. There are only 3 hours and thirteen hours left, and I hadn't done anything yet. My room-mate suggests a mega-project. I'm going to have to do something big in order to impress all the experienced forumites in the challenge. Not that I'm expecting to beat an underwater fort, or 64 solid gold rooms, but I wanted to put in a good showing. And I've got all this gold just lying about. So begins the tragedy of Atiroslan. Not a tragedy written in blood, but in fail.
The final push. And the disapointment.
-I spend some time thinking of what to do. I'm going to count time spent planning.
-First of all I open up Dwarf Therapist to reasign labours. I want dwarves building, not hauling or making cheese. Big mistake, I spend way too much time fiddling with hauling labours.
-I set aside some dwarves to work on leather armour, and some more to lay traps. I don't want my project to be delayed by goblins. Of course the time I take to do this ends up being wasted, as they don't come, but whatever.
-Design time... I'm going to need some graph paper.
-Done with design. Designating.
At this point, disaster strikes!
Windows has found an error and is closing the application. The program is not responding.
NOOOOOOOOOO!!!
An hour and a half's worth of work lost.
Post by: RockBiterSon on March 11, 2013, 03:13:19 am
On a brighter note, I did intend to dig further and deeper than I usually do, and I reached my first cavern!
Post by: hermes on March 11, 2013, 07:31:11 am
Post by: Mishrak on March 11, 2013, 07:33:21 am
Post by: Mushroo on March 11, 2013, 09:55:10 am
Post by: Mishrak on March 11, 2013, 10:47:13 am
Post by: Ruhn on March 11, 2013, 11:17:48 am
Sorry to hear about the crash, RockBiterSon. Seems they always happen at the worst times.
Hermes: we may allow late submissions for the runner-up award categories. Let us know if you find a way to get save uploaded!
Post by: HavingPhun on March 11, 2013, 03:22:07 pm
Writeup:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Previous Posts:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Pictures
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I started with 100(80) fps. Ended with 90(60). It is usually much higher but I increased max population and max sites.
Fort: http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=7472 (http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=7472)
Post by: RockBiterSon on March 11, 2013, 08:27:59 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
The fort limped into a slow spiral of death. Meanwhile I attempted to build a gold pyramid. Finally a goblin siege came along and put an end to the fort. It ends as every fort should: Surrounded by goblins, Miasma, X-Pig tail sock-X littered all over, and sections of floor torn up by tantruming dwarves.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: flabort on March 11, 2013, 08:42:53 pm
Good luck, everyone, I look forward to seeing the results. :D
Post by: Ruhn on March 11, 2013, 10:00:54 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Fort: http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=7474
I guess my main regret would be not doing a cool project, got too busy trying this new fort layout.
Good luck to anyone and everyone working to finish things up!
I'll update OP with the final submissions and get the poll going tomorrow morning.
Post by: Mishrak on March 11, 2013, 10:36:25 pm
[edit] Save uploaded.
http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=7475
Writeup:
So my original plan was to do a bit of roleplaying and tie it into the Ars article, but I kinda ran out of time, and things just weren't cooperating, so I had to improvise. I built a shiny room dedicated to them out of gold and magma, and built a pit up top to dump large quantities of enemies (and not enemies) into the Ars room, as a means of making it very Dwarf Fortress like. It worked really well. I had to redesign it a couple of times, but the final build worked great. If I were to do it again, I'd certainly make it better and more efficient. (And harder to escape). The problem was finding things to dump in it. I embarked near a necro tower, and the last time that happened, I was sieged by zombies by the second year. Well into the summer of the 3rd year, and that just never occured here. I never even got ambushed by goblins, although I did trap a few. I tried to open HFS but I was having issues digging under the magma sea, so I left that alone for the sake of time. Finally, it was some sneaky human necromancers that provided at least enough entertainment and "decoration" for the Ars room, so it wasn't a complete waste.
Pictures:
Embark:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Before any ground was broken. This place was always filled with boars, white cranes or vultures. Or necromancers. Just saying.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
It took 121 z-levels of digging through two other caverns to finally find water. I was a bit nervous till I did. Notice the L shape in the center. That would later become my site for my well.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Early wall construction, along with a Trade Depot and a moat. The refuse pile is encased in walls to protect against necromancers. Also notice the volcano dumping area in the upper right corner. This proved to be very handy.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
"Dwarves were harmed in the making of this fortress." I lost several engravers to volcano breaches, one miner to a cave-in, and many others wounded or dead. Such is Dwarf Fortress. This picture is one haunting my Forging Area.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Another haunting, this time he's stalking the manager /expedition leader in the main food area. There's several livestock areas for birds, several farms. Kitchen and Brewery to the left, drink stockpile to the south, on the far east was a pigtail / cloth farm. I accidentally cooked most of the plump helmets early on, so I was playing catchup most of the way trying to keep booze supplies high. Sacking the elves helped a lot.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
The main project, the Ars room. This was the earliest screenshot I took of it, before it got all messy. Hilariously, and rather fitting, is the dwarf miner corpse who fell into it during a cave-in while trying to expand the pit up above.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Ars Room from above. Sadly, I didn't get a shot before there was blood all over the place, so it distorted the image a little bit.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
20 Z-level drop. The two headed ettin I dropped in there didn't survive, but the necromancer did. And he made things fun. Notice the 3 re-animated corpses in there.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
This Caravan is about to have a really bad day.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
The results of what happened next, after pulling the lever that retracted the bridges below that caravan. I hated to do it to the dwarves, but I was out of time. I had planned to tie necromancers up at the chains in that picture, but when this one survived the fall, I didn't have to anymore.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
When it was all said and done, I'm pretty happy with the device I made. It worked exactly like I envisioned it, and it didn't cause tantrum spirals because you weren't physically killing the enemies AND the corpses were in a room that was sealed off. I have a feeling I'm not too far from a siege, and were I to continue with the fort, it would have been even more glorious a room - filled with zombie goblins and other things.
Anyway, this was done in roughly 10 hours. I might have gone over by a few minutes, I'm not really sure. It was close, either way. Also my FPS ran at around 80 or so the entire time, except for a few situations where it dipped into the 50's and 60's for a few minutes.
Post by: Ruhn on March 12, 2013, 09:03:41 am
OK, the voting is ready to go for the grand prize.
! ! !
I would also like to discuss how we should submit to Ars. Some ideas are:
1) copy everything into an email and send to Casey Johnston
2) Just email her a link to the winning post (since she talked about going on the forums before)
3) Don't contact Casey directly, put a link to the winner in the article's comments
4) Recreate the writeup on a website and send links to that
5) Someone has a journalist friend that would post the writeup on our behalf
6) other really good ideas?
I meant to email her over the weekend to introduce our activity, will get to that in the next day or 2.
Post by: vjek on March 12, 2013, 09:09:17 am
Post by: Mishrak on March 12, 2013, 09:31:36 am
Post by: Gigaz on March 13, 2013, 06:53:36 am
Post by: RockBiterSon on March 14, 2013, 01:33:19 pm
Post by: Ruhn on March 15, 2013, 11:36:50 am
In the mean time let's keep voting for the "grand prize" going for a few more days.
I've gotten as far as downloading the forts, but not reviewing them all.
Post by: Gigaz on March 15, 2013, 01:39:11 pm
Post by: Ruhn on March 15, 2013, 06:35:01 pm
Quote from: Casey Johnston
Thanks for getting in touch, this is really cool! I'm glad you all decided to make something constructive out of my article. I'm interested in writing about some of the best finished 10-hour forts, and also who the winner was, and see how much further everyone got than me... can you let me know when a winner is chosen and also link me to some of the best ones, by any chance? I might need help interpreting them too, but I guess I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. Let me know!
Post by: Mishrak on March 15, 2013, 06:46:46 pm
Post by: Ruhn on March 15, 2013, 06:50:55 pm
Hah! How great is that. Love it. Props to you Ruhn for organizing this. I didn't think my idea of more than just a whim really, but it seems Casey likes this and that's worth the work we did. Keep voting dudes!Kudos to you as well, Mishrak. Your whim was brilliance.
Post by: Big Bear on March 17, 2013, 09:11:07 pm
That's so great that she seems really interested in our 10 hour fort challenge.
And great work on your forts, everyone!
It's hard to choose just one.. And I'm actually just having too much fun exploring everyone's saved forts right now. :P There's a lot of variety, and when I look beneath all the corpses, blood, and undead denizens, I get a lot of new ideas for my own designs.
Post by: Mishrak on March 18, 2013, 05:20:26 pm
Post by: Ruhn on March 18, 2013, 07:09:43 pm
When's the voting deadline by the way? I forget.If we set one I've lost track, so let's give it a final 24 hours.
Post by: Mishrak on March 19, 2013, 02:06:17 pm
I'd love to see her post a series of articles over a period of time where she actually is able to get things done in the game as a result of our helping her learn it.
Post by: Ruhn on March 20, 2013, 11:49:08 am
Quote
This is a Grand Prize. All craftsdwarfship is of the highest quality. It is encircled with bands of silver and shark leather. This object is adorned with hanging rings of goblin bone and menaces with spikes of Adamantine, gold, and star sapphire. On the item is an image of an elf in oak. The elf is burning. On the item is an image of ThatDude in Adamantine. ThatDude is surrounded by the bay12 members. The artwork relates to the awarding of the 10 Hour Grand Prize to ThatDude in 2013.
I will get an email sent to Casey with links for the winning forts and writeups.
Post by: Mishrak on March 20, 2013, 12:14:48 pm
Post by: Thatdude on March 20, 2013, 02:54:48 pm
But thank you guys. I didn't expect to win to be honest :-[. I guess my prize is the right to sig the "Grand Prize".
Also, when will the voting for the other categorys start :P
Post by: Ruhn on March 20, 2013, 05:27:13 pm
The mega projects one should have enough submissions, but I'm not sure about all the others.
What does everyone think about opening up submissions again?
Edit: poll results are fixed now, thanks for pointing out dude.
Post by: flabort on March 20, 2013, 09:19:36 pm
So, shall voting for the other categories commence? ;)
Congrats, Thatdude, First Place is quite an accomplishment in any challenge. :D
Post by: Ruhn on March 21, 2013, 01:18:13 pm
This is based just on the fort save, and everyone is included since definitions of what constructions would qualify surely vary in the community.
Post by: Mishrak on March 22, 2013, 09:33:32 am
Post by: Ruhn on March 25, 2013, 11:18:05 am
Also, looks like we will have 4 forts for the dangerous area voting.
Gigaz, do you have any stories of danger and terror from the nearby necro tower?
Post by: Mishrak on April 14, 2013, 05:32:46 pm
I hope we represented the game well. :D
When the emails stopped a couple weeks ago, I assumed we had tl;dr'd her to death, but I guess not. Hooray.
Post by: flabort on April 14, 2013, 05:57:34 pm
... The user comments are a bit more negative then the ones on the original article. :(
Post by: Mishrak on April 14, 2013, 06:16:32 pm
Post by: Lich180 on April 14, 2013, 06:22:30 pm
The user comments are a bit more negative then the ones on the original article. :(
Probably people who couldn't / didn't want to climb the learning cliff.
Post by: Ruhn on April 15, 2013, 12:15:01 pm
A few of the comments were pretty funny, I only found a few to be negative.
Also, congrats to Vjek for the best megaproject! (Masterwork EVERYTHING)
Post by: Mishrak on April 15, 2013, 12:16:36 pm
Post by: Ruhn on April 15, 2013, 12:22:11 pm
Yeah some of her points were slightly off (level 10 aquifer was really a 10 level aquifer
I liked that one too. It kinda makes sense, since higher level enemies in other games are harder to defeat.
"The dreaded Level 10 Aquifer has come! Beware its drowning and infinant supply of water!!"
Post by: hermes on April 18, 2013, 10:06:22 am
Post by: Ruhn on April 18, 2013, 10:31:08 am
Some contestents picked spots with towers nearby, while others chose the evil biomes.
The votes should just focus on fort, writeup doesn't count so much.
Post by: flabort on April 18, 2013, 07:47:52 pm
must... refrain... *vote placed*
darn.
Post by: Mishrak on April 18, 2013, 11:57:10 pm