Bay 12 Games Forum

High risk for fun, but best to set you up, is bring 1 pick and 1 axe, dig under and hollow a 3x9 space. Deconstruct wagon and 'D'ump everything manually into one square just beside the wagon. Bring wood and bituminous coal and bronze. In the 3x9 build 2 hatches (faster to place hatch then build a floor). Cover the stairs. Once the wagon is piled in 1 spot, channel down there, this drops the contents down 1z. Put a hatch over top the hole and lock them. Then make beds, burn 1 wood to charcoal, smelt bit coal into fuel and make full set of bronze picks and axes, make shields and chain chainmail. Everyone should embark with proficient mining and soldiering (dodge, axe, fighter, shield)

Press gang style build out. Everyone goes down with axes, scout, fight as needed. Then change to seal up what has the easiest chokepoints for least work. You can feed 7 dwarves with a 4x8 plot easily. Plus tight packed beds and shops you need like 12x12. You can plan your expansions slower from there.

A tip to expanding in dangerous areas, build a door inside where you want to punch through, build walls on each side of door and then deconstruct the outer wall, and now you have a safe exit. Same thing explore as a group, secure the area. Since you have amateurs you need to fight with your numbers to prevent injuries. A single soldier is too high risk in my experience.

Best of luck! Update us how much fun you have! Remember, you can reclaim sites too...

Another coffee fanatic checking in. Everyone has great points. I'll just throw mine out there:

First -french presses will leave a dust/mud (called "fines") in your coffee. Unless you have a good burr grinder, then put it in a sifter to get the dust out, you'll still get it. French press does make a nice pot of coffee though. I recommend a stainless one, look for something that labels it as made from 18-8 (good stainless, higher number better), from a not sketchy manufacturer. If you buy a cheap one, you will taste the metal, since coffee is highly acidic it'll leach the steel. French presses can't use pre-ground very well, since pre-ground is dust heavy.

Second - pour over/dripper coffee (not drip coffee), it has a simple plastic/glass cone that sits on the mug, or bigger ones for pots, then a paper filter inside, is best. It'll provide a clean, dust/fines/sediment free, and pull the taste just as well. Also it's able to make a very strong coffee. They're also like $5 for the cone, and $5 for a pack of 200 filters.

Other coffee options: aeropress (quite nice), "Chemex" (fad, it's just pour over), percolator (nice), coffee machine (easy), espresso machine (great but involved)

Alright, essentially, all methods of making coffee are pretty good, some need more work, some are cleaner, but the big point is, if you're using crappy beans, and adding flavourings, it doesn't matter how you make it. You need to locate good coffee! This is the biggest component.

You can google your area for "coffee roasters", "third wave coffee", "single origin coffee", and any other hipster terms + coffee. You need to locate someone who gets beans from a specific farm, and roasts them properly. They'll sell the coffee with the cupping notes (cupping is the tasting of the coffee that is done at the farmers market in the coffee producing country, which is followed by bidding for the lot of beans). Notes will be "chocolate, stonefruit, cherry, blueberry, agave, cane sugar, bright, clean, complex, melon" etc. This stuff, it's like rib-eye vs round or cheesewiz vs. 2 year old hickory smoked Gouda, or whatever else. Something to mix into your diet occasionally.

Next bean source: there is amazing coffee all over the world. "African coffee is acidic" is like saying all "Asian people are smart". That's a pretty broad brush. Stuff from Nicaragua is vastly different from Sumatra or Ethiopia. My personal favourite is Ethiopian. Even the elevation within the country and the soil changes it. This stuff is like grapes.

To find economic coffee, you'll have to essentially just try all the ones in the grocery store. I tried about a dozen, before I found a pre-ground that was decently good. Don't bother with anything Starbucks or McDonald etc, or any of the commons advertised on TV, big waste of time. Try the slightly different, but stocked in good quantities at the grocery store.

Hello guys,

Thank you for the offer but I am quite busy lately and I must decline. Enjoy the game though!

Promote John and Mord to Sergeants. Train a lot. Help recruit new troops.

+1 And help Briggs with finding/choosing new contracts. (Does it have to be war? I feel like escorts, guarding, and other small attack contracts exist).

Canadian checking in. Bashing the United States is one of our favorite pastimes!

Also I don't believe NK will do anything. I mean unless China begins to put real pressure on them and cut aid, then things may get quite ugly. There country doesn't even have enough fuel to run their tanks on their own.

I actually love that idea. I personally just designate the entire map below my main level as safe burrow then it updates as you dig that pre-selected area out. Either way the current system does almost what you wish but that feature would be nice too. Should also be an easy add.

As the plague hit many people had no time to pillage houses and most tenants had died too quickly to eat their pantries of food. It started as a mass virus, and soon after the living people near the initial sites became rabid and violent. Total populations destabilized, martial law was quickly called. Scientists tried to work quickly but it all fell apart too fast. The best they came up with was a gene screening to see who was susceptible to the virus. With the quick plague spreading everythiing was left mostly  intact, that is except for the blood vomiting insane people.

The group looks around and everyone migrates towards the kitchen except a few. "Well the power hasn't gone out yet. We need to make use of it and I'm starving," Michelle begins emptying the fridge. With the electricity still running for the time being most of the fridge is set cooking and the perishables are close to cleaned out. The group seems slightly relaxed, luckily this building wasn't cleaned out.

Three people head to the roof while the others cook. From there they can see desolate streets as far as the eyes go. A few plumes of black smoke are rising out around the city. To the north the city thins and the skyline dips lower to the ground. To the south the skyline is torn by massive buildings and what is essential the sprawled out city centre. You here gun shots echo in the quiet city.. somewhere to the east, and more from the building the other group seemed to run into.

Umm you guys are already stuck in a building in a highly populated area with running infected zombies, ontop of that you want to add the challenge of finding potable water and you want higher amounts of raiders? Do you want to make it hard for me to make this actually fun? I mean !Fun! is fun, but to an extent my friend.