Bay 12 Games Forum

I don't mind changing the PET_EXOTIC tags, since the dungeon master is bugged and doesn't work. While syndrome-causing smears everywhere is !!Fun!!, I see it the same as disabling weather - not much loss for a lot of FPS gain. Still, let's just do that when it starts to bog down FPS. And I like the no traps idea. I mean, let's not forbid traps outright, but let's not put traps right at our entrance hallway. We can still do stuff like scatter them around the caverns and in courtyards, as long as the AI won't in most cases direct themselves over a trap. And no sealing ourselves in completely either with doors or walls. We want as much random Fun happening as possible. I'll keep that in mind as I start to work on it today.

IMHO killing caravan from mountainhomes should result in loyalty cascade. Maybe waiting for humans is better idea?

Oh, I'm not saying that a civil war from fighting your own civilization itself is a bug. I'm saying that it is a bug they as soon as a merchant drops, every single dwarf in the fortress, even the bookkeeper who was taking inventory and minding his own business, starts fighting every friendly they see and their cat. Yes, people totally uninvolved in the raid start fighting their own pets. The only people who don't are people who immigrate after the incident.

A simple fix would be to make it so attacking a caravan acts exactly as attacking a berserking dwarf. The dwarves under a players' control are already pretty sociopathic and insane. A more fun and realistic fix would be to make anyone who is ordered to kill a friendly either not go through with it, or to become a rogue faction. So the caravan-raiders would be hostile to the masons back home, but not each other.

The wiki said that only the dwarves will arrive without a depot. I could test in my more functional fort I'm using for testing by going without a depot until late autumn comes again, and see if anyone else shows up by then. Even then, do humans carry picks or axes? I guess you could go ANOTHER year-wrap if you can request picks from them. The liason seems to work, even if the caravan doesn't arrive.

This fortress began as a challenge to myself. Could I succeed on an itemless, waterless embark? Is it possible? So I started VoidSoul, founded on the Glacial (albeit warm) Desert by the Worshippers of Luck. We started by harvesting berries to eat and to brew - we had to turn a log into a booze barrel for water, locking out the possibility of a trade depot until we got more building materials from caravans. A bit of a catch 22. We butchered animals into meat and bones, then made armor, crossbows, and bolts out of them. When the caravan arrived, all 24 dwarves grabbed their gear and attacked the caravan... three dwarves lost their lives before the first macedwarf fell. And then all of my fortress turned on itself due to the loyalty cascade bug. Both members and enemies of their own civilization, they murdered each other including their pets, totally distracted from killing the remaining swordsdwarf and merchants.

So I used the dump-caravan-items bug to claim all their stuff instead. I also had an immigrant with an axe come, so I could have cut the trees and made a depot. I just didn't want to demonstrate the survival be relying on lucky immigration. The !!science!! has shown that the dwarves and immigrants can should be able to kill that caravan if not for the loyalty cascade bug. When that is fixed, I will restart on a harder embark location and do it again, properly slaying the caravan. Until then, here is the thread for the now-thriving VoidSoul community fortress.

I will personally do the first turn (until end of second year, because the dwarves just now got picks) and update on its progress. Anyone who wants to be dorfed, say so here. You can choose your name, profession name, and what jobs you want to mostly do. I will consider any suggestion you can think of. Whoever wants to be put in line for turns, do so. Each turn will last one year, from the beginning of spring to the end of winter. You will be allowed one week to play your year and upload it. We would greatly prefer for you to update at the end of each season, instead of just at the end of the year, but that will work too. At the end of your turn, just upload your savefile and link to it in this thread.

The original Fortress Mode thread can be found here: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=95902.0

I've been experimenting with some more things on a regular fortress. I can't wait the caravan into insanity, because they just pack up and leave. The loyalty cascade is what's killing me here - it seemed like with all my dwarves combined on the job, they might be able to take out both guards. But attacking each other, there's no chance. The sniper post idea is good in theory (I'd have to get lucky with the limited ammo supply, but that happens), but the problem is that the caravan starts running around when they're attacked.

1. Waterskins will allow your one barrel to be used by many dwarves at once. I'd be interested in seeing how a fortress handles that. I expect that once you get over the initial hump of one group of dwarves having 3 booze and the other having 0 booze, it'll work out fine.

2. It's possible to take the caravan's goods peacefully, though without a trade depot they're reluctant to walk further onto the map. This means that you're stuck with whatever's on the first pack animal unless it shifts over to allow the others to spawn, or unless it's carrying goods that allow you to create a depot. Just a note for any players who want to try this but not get stuck with a loyalty cascade.

How do you take the caravan's goods peacefully? I've seen about three pack animals wander in. I tried browsing to some goods in the stocks menu and unforbidding some caravan items, but nobody wandered over to pick it up. I'm going to keep looking up ways to do this. I might just have to use an immigrant axe to cut the two trees on my map, make a depot, and sell enough stuff for a pick.

Welp, I won. Game over. An immigrant showed up with an iron battleaxe. I get to cut the trees here, build a depot, trade peacefully, and go on with a successful fortress.


No. Screw you Id, and your axe, and your meaningful name. Drop it like it's hot. You feel that? That's the heat of the magma that I'm THINKING so hard to burn your axe in. Except I don't have any because we don't have a pick. But we will soon. You'll soon be fighting your nation and your friends to get your hands on that pick, so you don't have to live in the glare of the sun picking berries like an elf.

So anyway, it's mid-autumn, we've got a lot more armor and some crossbows, and we have 22 dwarves. We don't have enough bone to go around, but that's alright. We'll keep crafting until the caravan shows up. Then I save the game, and throw everything I have at the caravan. If RNG smiles on us, we'll take them down, and avoid taking down too many of each other. When more immigrants show up, it's a new beginning.

***

Whoops, keeping track of the prickle berries got away from me there. Well, it isn't dwarf fortress until someone dies horribly.

Things are going along pretty smoothly. The biggest thing slowing me down is the one-stack-refuse-clutters-workshops bug. Yet RNG has smiled on me. Immigrants have arrived, one of them being a skilled bone carver. We will need everyone when the caravan comes, preferably as armored as possible. I have only one option open to me - bone armor. My avatar dwarf is the only one equipped and in the military right now. As soon as I get more bolts and the rest of the armor crafted, I'm going hunting. So apparently leggings and greaves need a third stack of bone, not just three bones. I can live with that, but immigrants' pets won't.

Also, I messed with the color scheme files and toned down the LRED to something less eyeraping, and reduced RED as well to still be able to tell them apart. We're into summer now. During late autumn is when we need to be prepared.

I like this image so much. I don't mean the text so much as the mental image.


******

I'll make sure to keep an eye on this as it unfolds. Kudos to you for trying it.

By the way, would you mind making a short guide to this on the DF Wiki? I'm sure there are others who would like to try this, and a few tips and tricks on the way from an experienced player would be appreciated.

Sure, why not? It would probably go as a user page subpage. I'll do it in the style of other tutorials by specific people. Of course, this little experiment will give some key feedback. I can at least write the "with water, and trade depot" version. The "No water, no trade depot, FUN" version is going to be a lot more complete after I get to that point in late autumn. I did do a test run of it though, in an actual fortress with no trade depot. Like I said, several people lost the ability to walk. And if you're caught up with hilarious bugs, something else Fun happens.

I've got to do some housework, but then I'm getting right back to this. Maybe I'll go ahead and write a tutorial too.

I have dismantled the wagon, turned a log into a barrel, and am now shuffling workshops back and forth as the dwarves make everything they can. A camel has been butchered, some of the meat has been turned into prepared meals. We've got a keg of prickle berry wine. The dwarves were suicidal, wanting to pack the barrel with the meat or the very prickle berry we're trying to brew here. But with some designate-fu, I have got this worked out. Every time the barrel runs dry, we put back up the still, forbid-fu the barrel into being free at the split second the brew job is called for, and refill it. We've also got a farm set up, so our own stock of berries will be farmed in case the shrubs die out. I've got a bone carver making crossbows, and soon, arrows. Then we hunt down the camels roaming for target practice. They're going to need all they can get.

Let's just say that in a practice run in an old fort I was testing conditions in, all the untrained dwarves got their spines and hips snapped. Even if these are skilled and lucky enough with their crossbows, a final bit of Fun will test them.

Anyway, image of Voidsoul thriving as best it can.

I have done a lot of !!science!! leading up to this. I am a challenge gamer. And I thought, "What is the hardest embark possible without any stupid rules post-embark?". Itemless embarks immediately jump to mind. Training axes chopping down trees is a silly bug, so no turning a log into an axe to chop more trees with. What most itemless embarks do is simple.

They tear up their wagon for 3 wood, never turning it into anything else, and eventually build a trade depot. In the meantime, they survive on animal meat and water. When the caravan arrives, they trade all their -mule bone earrings- for a pick and maybe an axe and anvil.

I want harder. So I'm embarking on a desert. "The Glacial Dune", which is ironically warm. No surface water at all. This means I'm going to have to turn one of my precious logs into a barrel, so I can turn gathered desert berries into booze so my dwarves don't all thirst to death. I will butcher the pack animals into meat and bones. I will cook up the meat. I will then make bone crossbows and bone arrows, to hunt down more animals to turn into more bolts.

When the caravan arrives, the Fun begins. They will have nowhere to go. I won't spoil it too much, but the fortress and group are going to be aptly named.

The fortress "Voidsoul" and the group "The Worshipper of Luck".

With that, have some pictures.

The embark location, a warm calm desert with scarce plant life. I would pick something more threatening, but I didn't see anything that had plantlife but no water. I tried several different spots before I found one with actual plants. Anyway, with the total lack of defense, giant desert scorpions running around would make it more random and savescumming more necessary. I'm mainly just wanting to prove a concept here. If anyone can suggest a good, horrifically hard embark with shrubs but no water, then I'm all for rebooting this on a harder embark.

Have some screencapped proof that I'm embarking with no skills and no items.

Strike the Earth! Eventually!

And here we go. We've just arrived.

Wish me luck. For !!SCIENCE!!

(Figured it out. Imageshack lies, downthemall doesn't about links.)