Bay 12 Games Forum

I know this is an odd place to bring up this topic, but this is the only forum that wouldn't send a bunch of forum police for bringing up something that's off topic.  Also, this is the only forum I use frequently in which I actually feel some special kinship with other users.

I HATE chess.  It's supposed to be the quintessential strategy game.  If you are great at strategy games, yous should be great at chess.  If you are great at board games that require strategic thinking, you should be awesome at chess.  Why do I suck so much at this game?

I know how every piece moves.  Pawns can move two spaces on their first move, they can move one space diagonally to take out a rival piece.  Rooks can move forward or sideways as many spaces as they want unless something is blocking them, etc.

I know how every freaking piece can move.

I've never played against a real player, only a CPU AI.  I play it in the easiest mode and the computer always beats me!

The only explanation I can think of is that I don't get the rules.  Not all of them anyways.  I know how the pieces are SUPPOSED to move.

Somehow, the CP always uses it's queen to take out a bishop situated right in front of a pawn.  I want to use the pawn to take the queen, and it won't let me.  Why?

I assume a pawn can't take a queen so I arrogantly use my queen to take out a knight right in front of a pawn, then that pawn freaking takes my queen!?

I HATE THIS GAME!!! ARRRGH!

I'm good at every classic board game!  Backgammon? Good!  Checkers?  Good!  I won several games of Cribbage without even knowing what the hell was going on!

Why do I suck so horribly at chess?  What the hell am I not getting?

For god's sake I play Dwarf Fortress!  You think Garry Kasparov could understand the first thing about Dwarf Fortress?

Like sand, you could gather clay from clay loam.  You could go on to make pottery and bricks for building from the clay.  Pottery could be used as a trade good or possibly used to store seeds or carry water to the sick.  I would put this as a low priority since it adds nothing to the game that isn't already there in the form of bags or buckets.

However, clay trade goods would be great for people that start in swamp, plains, or woodland

I started playing after almost a 1 year hiatus.  I've noticed the newest version world generator produces haunted oceans out the ass.  hardly anything else is haunted.  Any Idea why this is?  Oftentimes, my only ocean is haunted.

I've heard of a lot of people using their birthdays as the custom seed for world generation.  I decided to try other interesting dates and seeing what I find.  I'm starting with 10251917.  The date of the October Revolution in Russia.  Maybe I'll get a huge red sand desert.

I want to know what other interesting dates people have used and if they found anything interesting.

I'm playing on a map with a volcano and want to make magma forges.  Problem is, there doesn't seem to be any tutorial on how to keep the channel from overflowing.   How does everyone manage to use this precious resource?

By trade goods I mean the ton of useless crap dwarves make in order to get stuff they need.  Namely, crafts.

I'd like to see children play with toys and get happy thoughts from them.  It's not much, but I'd think dwarves should be happier for owning things.  Anybody else have ideas along these lines?