Bay 12 Games Forum

For years I have considered forcing my dwarves to drink water as a slightly shameful situation, a sign of hard times. Unless they are in a hospital bed, water is for washing.

These new alcohol syndrome changes, along with the dwarven 'drunks' from the last major update seem to herald a rather large cultural change for dwarves. Is alcohol actually... harmful to them?

It's very hard to understand what the situation is at a site or what recently happened there.

I built a fort for a dying civ, and the human civ that I traded with is also on the ropes. We were surrounded by 4 goblin civs and a particularly mean variety of elves who seem to be doing well for themselves.

So I started an adventurer, and I'm walking around trying to find companions, and I'm seeing a lot of weird stuff. I visited my old fort which was razed by a goblin civ in the two weeks it took to start an adventurer, and it seems that every surviving noble in my civ had fled there afterward. I can't tell who owns the site now, but it's full of dwarves from my civ right now with about 7 barons and baronesses. In previous games, I could ask about the local ruler, but in dozens of towns I can't ask that question. Most of the towns and hillocks are populated only with goblins that are culturally just like the humans or dwarves that used to live there. Goblins in hillocks have dwarf names and goblins in towns have human names. Checking legends shows that small numbers of goblins live in all civs from the beginning of time, and I guess when a civ comes under great calamitous times goblin populations start to outnumber the original.

Really though I have no idea what is going on. I was hoping I could rescue my civ, but they might just be permanently broken now. The fort I made had a steel clad 30 dwarf military that was immediately overrun when I retired the fort. One of my aborted adventurers was actually stomped by one of the goblin armies, and it was rather impressive, probably 12 elites and 40 or so lesser goblins.

I noticed that you can't start with it. Can you learn it somehow?

I explored some of the elf sites, and the new trees really add a great deal to the ambiance. Elf sites have these huge, named, glorious trees! It's weird craning up to talk to people in trees from the ground, but entirely appropriate in this case.

I'm finding that ranged companions run out of ammo at the first pack of wild animals we cross, and that's it. No more ammo for weeks. Are there any shops that specialize in selling ammo?

So, after adventuring all day (no crashes! yay) I finally acted out a suggestion from a human lord to extinguish a nearby bandit camp (is that what I'm supposed to do?) This was my first potential for some loot and maybe score some dwarf sized armor. My two companions were decent, although my crossbowman used all his ammo on some animals or something, he still holds his own by clobbering people with his crossbow.

So I got to the camp, and the bandits were push overs, most of them were sleeping. The commander put up a decent fight until I decapitated him. Then, I threw his head into my backpack as proof (do I need proof? dunno).

What I didn't notice because of the snow was that the camp was in an evil hills biome. The commanders animated head then tore an artery in my arm, then the corpses started waking up and they were much, much more dangerous than the original bandits. They killed my companions quickly while I bled to death trying to run away.

Is there some way to kill someone and prevent reanimation? If I butcher them, will it make things worse and get myself strangled by their animated guts? What do I need for proof of the deed? Is there an identifying body part that is safe to pick up?

I came upon a hillock of dwarven 'drunks' in adventure mode.

I've raised some of the finest dwarves ever, legends at their chosen craft, who lived and died without ever tasting water. What on earth does a dwarf need to do to be considered a 'drunk'!??