Bay 12 Games Forum

In my top 10?  DF is my Top 10!   

It's hard to say what my top 10 "favourite" games are, as the list changes from time to time depending on what style of games I'm bored with.  But DF is definitely in the 10 that have made the biggest impression on me - the ones I consider real groundbreakers, that made me go *<*WOW*>* and caused me a lot of sleepless nights.  That list (in no special order) is:

The Hobbit      (C=64)
Elite               (Amiga)
Faerie Tale        "
Civilisation         "
Doom             (PC)
Thief                "
Unreal              "
The Settlers      "
Mechwarrior      "

Total number cut down? Number to cut down to get a legion of cannibalistic pointy-eared barbarians knocking down your doors?

Hmmm...  with 222 beds, 250 wooden barrels and 300 bins the first can't be right.  I'm sorta hoping you're right about the second but sadly I think that JoRo has it.

Bummer.

1. The defaults. 
2. I'm lazy.   

 

"Daturenar Lathon Egdoth (Spireblue, the Myth of Bows)   $2400

This is a cedar amulet.  All craftdwarfship is of the highest quality.  It is encircled with bands of cedar."

It's just a bit of wood, fer chrissake!     No images, no spikes, not even a piece of string to hang it with! 

My fortress and royal guard always do their damnedest to get slaughtered on every siege.

I thought the whole reason people hated the Guards originally were that they were an uncontrollable military that had a nasty habit of charging out into the thick of an enemy siege and suiciding against bowgobs they can't even get to before being shot to pieces?

In the past I've had the odd one or two rush out by themselves, but this was nothing like that.  They were operating the way that squads should work but don't.  ie. together.

Like many others, my Fortress Guard are usually crippled ex-military.  The legless, the eyeless, the spineless, the brainless. The ones who aren't up to much more than wandering through my hallways carrying a big stick and going "'Allo 'allo?  What's all this 'ere, then?"   But at least they usually had some training before they got wounded...  the Royal Guards are just Cheese Makers and the like promoted as they infiltrate the borders for no reasons other than to stop nobles whinging and get some immigrants out of my hair.  They're lucky even to be assigned weapons, let alone armour.

So to see this ragtag army act as they did made me wonder whether improvements had been made to the AI or whether I was just very lucky it played out the way it did this time. 

I don't think I'll rush out to buy a Tatts ticket though.    

26 at last count, not including failed embarks or fiddles'n'twiddles for testing things.  Only 5 have been played long enough to get the king.  But those are the fortresses I've carried across several DF updates and the only reason I'm not still playing 'em is FPS.

(You'd think I'd know enough to stop asking stupid questions by now, wouldn't ya?  [sigh])

I had a dwarven trade caravan appear on a nearby hill overlooking my fortress, where it ran straight into an ambush.  Now I really needed that caravan and I thought my military would like a change of pace to sparring, so I sent both squads up to lend some assistance.   8 marksdwarves and 8 melee dwarves, each soldier with 2 or 3 war dogs.

The moment they engaged the ambushers, another two squads of gobbos jumped into the fray.  SIEGE!  The wily gobbos had used the caravan ambush to lure my defenders into a workd of hurt.     Of course, I immediately called a lock-down and told the rest of the fortress to turtle up, but my hunter and fisherman had both wandered far afield and each had run into roaming gobbo squads. 

To my very, very great surprise, members of the Royal Guard ran out to assist!  One to the aid of the fisherman, one to the aid of the hunter!     They held up the enemy, giving my workers time to escape while other members of the Royal Guard and the Fortress Guard mustered together and sallied forth to assist.

It was a glorious battle, my newly formed Home Guard quickly wiped out a squad of bow-gobs(!!) and then rushed to destroy the spear-gobs.  Even though they were out-numbered by 2:1, the only lives lost were the two valiant members of the Royal Guard who'd rushed to the defense of mere commoners.     (This is the first time I've ever wished I could assign tombs posthumously.)

All this, while my "trained military elite" were struggling to overcome equal odds. 

Fortress & Royal Guards have finally gained some value in my eyes!  Talking of which,  I've already mentioned in another post that in my current game my Countess is my trader.  Well... to be more accurate, I haven't elected a trader...  she just loves doing it for me.     Similarly, so far all punishments have been handled by the guard & the cells - my hammerer prefers to party and when there's no parties going, he spends his time hauling!

So, has Toady tweaked the nobles & guards to be less useless for 39e or am I just having a really, really unusual game?
 

Wot Dasqoot said...

...look under [z]/stones   (how can that be "non-obvious" unless you've never bothered looking at that screen before?    And if that's the case, there's a whole slew of info that you're not aware of...)

It not only lets you select which economic stones to make available for other uses (eg. building) but also tells you what it smelts down to and what alloys can be made with it.  From memory you can select any alloy that interests you and be told what other ores are needed to make it.