Bay 12 Games Forum

Hello friends!

This post will be part fortress story, part me bragging about what I think is an accomplishment, and part a friendly challenge for any of y'all to try to beat me.

I am a fan of speedruns and challenge modes in general, but the traditional "speedrun" format doesn't really jive with Dwarf Fortress for me. I wanted to go fast, but I didn't want that speed to just be from 8 hours’ worth of precise button clicks, especially with how much FPS can vary from fort to fort. So, the challenge I gave myself was to see how quickly I could get a fresh fortress to "metropolis," but the score is how many days pass in-game, instead of how much real time passes. That means you aren't penalized for pausing the game to set a bunch of orders or for your FPS dropping through the run. Personally, I think that's a more interesting challenge for this game, and probably lines up a bit better with how people naturally play Dwarf Fortress.

My first several attempts at this challenge were part of a continuous world, because I was livestreaming them and that's what I wanted to do. But eventually those runs hit a plateau, and I had a hunch that I would get better results from a new worldgen. I did a couple of runs offline with new worlds, and ended up with something that I think is pretty dang fast.

This is Ironappear. We arrived on the 15th of Granite, year 250, and were recognized by the game as a metropolis on the 23rd of Limestone, year 252.


(this screenshot was taken one day later but you get the idea)

I let worldgen go for 250 years, and pushed up the number of sites allowed. The hope was to get a very populous world just to make sure there were plenty of people around to migrate (and visit). I chose a populous Dwarven civ and embarked near that civ’s population center, but also near a whole bunch of human hamlets. We brought a bunch of sheep and turkeys, plus two hunting dogs and a pair of cats. We looked for a place with sand, clay, iron, flux, and platinum, plus something in a forest and on a river. I also made sure that we were within trading distance of all trading civs, so as to give our appraiser as much experience as possible.

The basic strategy was to build a tight little fortress and create wealth as quickly as possible. The first three seasons are particularly important, since the wealth number that you report with the first dwarven caravan is a big driver of the next year’s migrant waves. Since this whole run only lasts a hair over 2.5 years, the second year’s migrant waves are quite important. So for those first few seasons we just got all our stuff underground in one giant pile, and built essentially one of every workshop.


From there we cranked out as much quick value as we could. One of our starting seven was fishing, so we ended up with a healthy pile of shells to turn into generic crafts. We also built a glass furnace, a kiln, and a forge to check what instruments our civ had access to. There were simple instruments (the ones that don’t need to be assembled) that we could make out of glass and clay, but unfortunately we didn’t get any good metal instruments to use our platinum on. But with easy access to sand and clay, we did our best to make as many glass and porcelain instruments as possible in that first year, since those can go quickly. We just had to keep digging for fuel stones and kaolinite to keep them going.

We reported something around 20k wealth when the first dwarven caravan left, which isn’t my best but a decent start. Of course that’s probably already way below what our wealth actually is, since our appraiser is only so good at this. Then I focused on digging the fortress itself, and fleshing out all of the production lines. Food is important, and I got aboveground farming going as quickly as I could, just growing whatever we gathered from the nearby surface. I set up a wall and courtyard around the entrance itself, and used that space to put in a bunch of bee hives. I also built the wall so that I had a chunk of the river inside my courtyard, so that fishing and waterwheels could just happen right there. The waterwheels just powered a dozen millstones, so four wheels were plenty.


We sheared the sheep and made yarn, specifically yarn bags, to help with sand collection and flour. We also milked the sheep and made cheese, and set up nest boxes for the turkeys. I also started making iron, and then steel, and then just put a steel bolt job on repeat. I ended up not bothering to build a military at all, and just turned all the steel into bolts. I had my miners mine out all the magnetite veins specifically, to locate the bits of platinum, so iron ore was always on hand.


I wish I could have used the platinum for instruments, because they are so amazing. In civilizations where I’m able to make a simple platinum instrument, it becomes trivial to forge hundreds of platinum insruments, each worth ~3k wealth a pop. Here, I instead put all my platinum into minecarts. They have around the same value on a per-item basis, but they take a lot more raw material. Not quite as efficient, but I think it got the job done. Those in conjunction with the glass and porcelain instruments, and the steel bolts, probably made up the majority of our final wealth. Oh and gems, which we cut and encrusted into the instruments.

There’s also a good handful of things that I didn’t do. I didn’t make clothes, or bother with plant cloth, or paper, or a library. I didn’t make a military, or weapons, maybe aside from a couple of steel axes. I didn’t find lava, I didn’t look for fun stuff, and I don’t think I even found the third cave. We breached the first cave for the moss, but closed it off immediately and never returned. We breached the second cave but I just turned it into a drain for my waterfalls and never returned.

Oh, my waterfalls?

I dare say my waterfalls are perfect, but perhaps that is another discussion. Just know that this entire fortress is built and arranged with one thing in mind: waterfalls. I have been refining this build pattern/strategy over my last half dozen forts, and I am in love with it. Long story short: the main traffic thoroughfare of the fortress is a vertical spiral ramp, and on each level of the ramp there is a waterfall. I then shape the fortress so that dwarves are taking this thoroughfare as frequently as possible. Those little dorks get absolutely hosed down with happy thoughts all day long even though they never stop working to go hang out by some rinky-dink mist generator in the tavern. Also it consumes zero power, since it’s just a big chunk of dug-out aquifer flowing down through criss-crossing channels, and then draining into the cave below. It takes a short bit of fiddling to get it dug and set up, but then you just forget about it.


This fortress had zero happiness issues. I didn’t use justice at all. There were zero tantrums. I made as many bedrooms as I could (especially to attract/house visitors) but they were just 1x1’s with a bed and a door. We were making lavish meals and keeping them boozed up, but by far the lion’s share of the happiness came from the waterfalls.

I should mention that a significant portion of our population by the end was visitors, and most of those were human. We attracted a handful of monster hunters, but mostly the visitors were bards. I probably could have attracted scholars too if I just built a library, even without making paper, but I didn’t think of that. But I just approved everyone who wanted to stay. The more the merrier!

That isn’t to say the fortress was without incident. I should mention Thec Soulsbeans. He’s my favorite.


There was also a vampire I guess but I just ignored it. We had a 6-goblin “siege” in the last year but there were enough monster hunters milling about in the courtyard that I didn’t have to worry. I think a monkey scared a hunter off a bridge and into the river, and then that ghost scared someone else to death. That’s about it.

Other than a few stray incidents, this fort ran perfectly. We reached “metropolis” immediately after trading with the dwarven caravan in year 252. I approved a bunch of residents and hit 140 people immediately before trading, and then met the 30k export requirement with that trade. Presumably we had already passed the 300k wealth created requirement, but our display only showed 35k created total because appraisal is silly.

I glanced through my stocks at the end, as well. I won’t list everything but of note we had 138 platinum minecarts, 226 green glass gakits, 87 porcelain bogoshes, 4300 steel bolts, 7000 food, and 2000 drink. I’d be curious what the actual total wealth of the fortress is, if anyone knows of a tool that just tells you.

You can also check this fort out as well, if you like. I’ve uploaded the save from right after it hit metropolis on DFFD.

Also, I recorded this whole thing, and have uploaded the footage to YouTube, here. Also also, I did a commentary version where I replayed the playthrough at x16 speed and just talked over it, here.

Also also also, this run would apparently even be the fastest realtime speedrun of the metropolis% category on speedrun.com, but I had DFHack installed so this wouldn’t qualify. Dang.

On the topic of DFHack, I did have it loaded, but I used it very sparingly. I didn’t use it for anything that acts in the background, except maybe the civilian alert, which was used once. I mostly just used the keyboard shortcuts for things like selecting everything in a category in the import request screen. None of the auto-whatevers were running, I didn’t use suspend manager or the build planner, and I turned off the hungry/thirsty notifications. My intent was for this to be played essentially as “vanilla” Dwarf Fortress, aside from things that just help you navigate the screens.

I’m sure I’m skipping over a bunch of junk but that’s the short version I guess? Mostly I’m curious of all the super obvious things that I didn’t do right that smart people notice. And I want to see if anyone can beat this.

Tomorrow I will once again be participating in the Extra Life charity gaming marathon, and I will be live-streaming 24 straight hours of dwarf fortress! Hopefully the power stays on all day this time! My live stream can be found here.

If you haven't heard of Extra Life, it's a rather fantastic charity that does this event once a year. It's similar to charity running marathons, in that the runner gets people to donate on their behalf, and then they run the marathon. The only difference is that instead of running, I'll be playing Dwarf Fortress. All donations benefit the Children's Miracle Network of hospitals, and each marathoner chooses a specific hospital to put their funds towards. I will be playing for the Seattle Children's Hospital; all money donated goes straight to them. I won't make a single penny off this.

The link to my personal donation page can be found here. I'd love for you guys to check out the charity and consider donating. Nothing is too small. $1, $5, whatever. It's all for a fantastic cause.

This year, I’m doing something extra, as well. If you make a donation of any size, I'll rename a dwarf in your honor. When making your donation, mention a dwarf profession in the "message to Andrew" section (carpenter, brewer, miner, axedwarf, etc.). I will then give a dwarf with that profession your last name or username! If there aren't any previously re-named dwarfs available, I will wait until new dwarfs become available.

And even if you don't donate, I'd love for you guys to check out my live-stream, from 8am CST October 25th to 8am CST October 26th, accessible from the link up top.

I’ve pre-generated a world and picked an embark site before the marathon begins, so I’ll just hop right in and start playing. I’ve also messed around a bit with quickfort, so hopefully this year the gameplay itself goes more quickly as well. The northern and western portions of the embark site are in a Wilderness biome. The south/southeast portion of the map is Haunted. I don’t have any real first-hand experience with the undead, but I’ve read up on them a bit on the wiki and it certainly seems like it will make for an entertaining day. 

Like last year, I will also be recording the whole deal, and then editing it into a summary video and tossing it up on youtube. That way everyone can see what happened throughout the day, and you can watch my inevitable spiral into madness, without having to watch all 24 hours. And if you feel like you want to donate but aren't able to watch the stream, you'll still be able to see the summary video and be amused by what promises to be a rather Fun day. Last year’s video can be found here.

Again, please, at the core of all of this is a great charity that helps children in need in a very real way. Every dollar helps end a tantrum spiral in real life, and generates a new one in Dwarf Fortress.