Bay 12 Games Forum

As a point of honor, my dwarves only ever equip weapons and armor that was forged in their own fortress, with the exception of the pair of picks that I bring from the Mountainhomes.  Right off the start, I forge a crossbow (for hunting) and a battle axe (for woodcutting), but if and when I see any attackers, I draft my hunter and my lumberjack, so my first squad of soldiers is always one marksdwarf and one axedwarf.

Once I get my metal industry up and running, I like to use about a 3/3/4 mixture of hammers, axes, and crossbows.  Hammers and axes just feel more dwarfy to me than swords, spears, or maces.  I like the effects of hammers and axes.  To me, it's not about "how much damage does this weapon do against this type of creature?".  It's about severing three of a goblin's limbs in the first second of combat.  It's about being unable to reach that last decaying harpy leg which is stuck on top of my gatehouse, six z-levels above the courtyard where the harpy met her demise.  I rarely DO use maces, swords, or spears, but only if I get an artifact weapon as the result of a mood.

I used to like to train my recruits in wrestling until they got up to "competent" or "proficient" and then switch them to whichever weapon they would use as a soldier, but since 40d came out, I find that if I turn my attention away from the barracks for a minute, then my wrestler-recruits have grappled their way up to "champion" and will then refuse to spar with weapons, so I generally don't bother with training them in wrestling anymore.  Legendary Axedwarf/Armor User/Shield Users are badassed enough that I don't miss the agility advantage that I would get if I made them wrestle for awhile in boot camp, and it saves me worrying about getting ten elite wrestlers instead of the axe and hammer users that I want.

When you upload something to Imageshack, it will have 2 links that say "Link for forums" and "thumbnail for forums".  Use the first example of either.  Just copy and paste the whole line into your post.

http://mayday.w.staszic.waw.pl/df.htm

This is the one I use.  As a bonus, our friend Mayday has the set already installed in the file that you download, so if you decide you don't like it, you just delete the new DF folder and go back to playing your old one.

AFAIK, all water pump systems rapidly degrade objects. This can be a good thing, in that the objects will be shredded to nothingness long before they reach the drain. Sometimes.

Can anybody verify this?  I thought I'd noticed it once, but I figured it was because the items were getting bounced off of drawbridges or something.  If this is true, it's great (for me).

Here's what the entrance of my current fort looks like in-game.



And here's a 3Dwarf visualization of it.



1.  The northeast tower of the fortress is the keystone of my defense.  Five stories tall, with fortifications on the top two levels, this tower provides a safe place for my marksdwarves to fire into either the entrance courtyard or the elevated road approaching my fort.

2.  This is the gatehouse, the second line of defense.  It provides another field of fire into the entrance courtyard, and also stores all the non-practice ammunition for my marksdwarves.

3.  The thin red lines indicate where there's a bridge which can be retracted to strand invaders on the elevated highway in the entrance courtyard.  They stand there until my marksdwarves ventilate their innards or until I decide to wash them into the moat.

4.  Although you can't see much of the detail from this angle, this is a drain which opens into the moat which entirely surrounds my fort.  At the time I took this picture, I hadn't yet built my water tower.  However, now that it's completed, I can fill the entire entrance courtyard with water which then drains into my moat.  Eventually, I plan to make the tower pour magma as an option, allowing me to incinerate goblin raiders instead of just leaving them swimming in the moat until I decide my marksdwarves need some target practice.

If you've got sharp eyes, you may see that there's a weapon trap (actually a line of three) in front of my gate.  I generally tend to use as few weapon traps as possible because they make the game too easy if they're overused, but my weaponsmith made an artifact spiked iron ball, and I just had to include it in my defenses.

I would consider Edward Leedskalnin a Legendary Mason.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coral_Castle

If you believe the stories, this guy apparently violated the laws of physics to build his masterpiece.  To this day, nobody knows exactly how he moved those multi-ton blocks of stone by himself.

But, you signed the contract. You consented to the EULA by using the game. If you don't like the EULA, then don't play. If you violate the EULA, you'd be breaking the law. That's the real kicker, violation of contract.

Remember that signing a EULA is not the same thing as signing a contract.  The relationship between you and the company is determined when you pay your money for the game at the store, not once you get the game home and install it.

Kolcek v. Gateway pretty clearly states this.
http://www.internetlibrary.com/cases/lib_case209.cfm

Companies would LIKE consumers to believe that the EULA is a legally-enforceable document, but it's not.  My opinions on this topic at greater length:
http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=27830.30

Now, I'll be the first one to admit that in America there is substantial legal confusion over whether a EULA can be held up as a legitimate contract.  This is because technology advances faster than judges and congressmen can keep up with it.  When you have people who literally believe that the Internet is a series of tubes and don't know the difference between DSL and PDF hearing cases, obviously they're going to make mistakes or be wary of setting precedent.  Hopefully in the next decade or so, we'll get some judges who "get it" and this EULA crap can go the way of the fax spam.