Bay 12 Games Forum

...my instinct is to just play around with it. but it's hard to know whether that's a waste of
time... like will i be able to figure out how to do things or is it basically impossible without
reading guides...?

like for example... i started a new game and can't seem to farm in my fortress b/c there is
no soil... but there's water nearby... so i was taking what little i know about irrigation and
trying to build a rudimentary irrigation system that will allow me to farm... i haven't gotten
it to work yet, but i'm not sure that i won't...

...and i am only using that as an example.. i am not actually asking anyone to talk about
irrigation... i am only exemplifying how i am torn between looking online and experimenting...

...so my question is: in general, does anyone have a good "this is what you should read
and then not read any more until you've really explored and experimented?'

Yes.  Experiment to the fullest extent that you -want- to.  When your joy is eclipsed by frustration, seek help.  One of the -best- fastest shortest immediate ways to find help is to use the wiki and search only for the topic that you are struggling with.  Don't read anything else unless and until you want to.  Don't check out tutorials unless and until you want to.

There's still stuff that's completely unknown in DF, and even a few mods that have surprises.  One, LoFR, even sparkles with secrets and easter eggs.  So you can't ever run out of surprises - but there's TONS you can discover on your own, and if you do it your way - you might even figure stuff out that no one else has ever thought of trying to do that way.  That would be great!

A second, and potentially even better way to get -exactly and only- the help you feel you cant continue without, without additional information, is to make a short post here asking for help - and start that request by saying somethng like "new player here, trying to learn as much as possible on my own, don't want any spoilers or additional info - but totally stuck trying to solve 'x'.  Here's my situation, please offer the minimal help to solve just that situation, thank you hugely!".  Then just read one or two of the responses, and try those ideas in your own way.  If you're still stuck, read another suggestion or two and try those.  Chances are fairly high that you'll get the help you need and want, without getting more than you want, if you ask in that way.

Kudos on being a pioneer, and trying to do it in a way that boldly sends you where you've never gone before.

The wiki http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Baby suggests that normally 'abandoned' infants will be fed and watered as needed, assuming that materials and free dwarves with the labor are available.

Yours may be a special case related to the injury, or maybe the baby really did go insane and could not be fed or watered any more than melancoly dwarves can be (even if this was not visible to a player), or maybe it's a bug.

Time for some !!abandoned and wounded baby!! science, if anyone is up to that!

Another oddish bugish thingy (no idea if it's LFR or DF, but feel nervous offering bugs found in a modded game to the DF bugs list), horses (just horses?) appear to have heard that we like hooves, so they've offered us some hooves to go with our hooves, both right and in arrears:

Unsure if this is a LFR bug or a DF bug, or even if it's totally unique to this one map.  Genned a new newest LFR map.  Noticed that all my dwarves, migrants and starting seven, have two sets of skin colors - and none of them have an eye color.  As one of the sets of skin colors is 'aquamarine', I suspect that eyes got replaced by skin or something.

Though I am amused, and they seem able to function just fine and all... when I first noticed it I was still thinking about Wavebreakers.  Aquamarine is a nice, Wavebreaker-ish sort of color, no?

*Imp, quite filled with anticipation*


*edited to add*  And another oddity...

Them necromancers have really strange and terrifying magic, now that I think about it.

Was late summer of the first year of play.  High savagry embark, but neutral lands, though in range of a tower by civs screen.

Hide while you can, the dead walk!

It was... a Voidwalker Patriarch corpse.  All by its lonesome, or else any companions it has are sneaky and secretive enough that a week after the voidwalker undead attacked I still don't know they are there.

I expected high losses, I've heard how strong undead are, and I know how skilled voidwalkers usually are.


Several things seem weird about this to me.

Are voidwalkers meant to be turned into walking corpses?  They... don't corpse.  Even this walking corpse could not be turned into a normal corpse, so.... I suppose if it's not a bug (or just not fixable) that for voidwalkers they get turned into walking corpses from some state of life, not death?  I could handle that idea...

It seemed really weak.  Nothing else touched it, and of course it didn't bleed, but the amputation of hand was almost instantaneous with its death.

Even undead, it wailed.  However, the tiger caught in the wail seemed unaffected, or else the syndrome lasted a VERY short time compared to normal.

And neither the tiger nor anything else on the map appears to have gotten credit for the kill - both of my tigers are still unnamed and have no kill credits, and combat log of the walker shows nothing happening to it after it loses the hand.

Unsure if any of this is buggy, but it was weird enough (and scary enough) that I totally forgot about Wavebreakers for almost 15 minutes!

"Captain of the guard cancals cage large creature: wrong justice state"

Try turning animal hauling off of your Captain of the Guard, if you haven't yet.

Oh. That might explain the missing teeth.

I feel slightly bad for locking up a little old lady.


ETA: Oops. I let her out, she ran to drink, but still died of dehydration.

MY BAD.

So reminds me of the dark ages/similar ages reactions to suspected witches.

Witches were believed to bear a small mark where their familiar fed from them - who, especially in those days where there was no real medical care, has absolutely no pimples, scars, or small wounds?  If there was believed to be a witch around, anyone at all who seemed a bit odd or uncommonly lucky/unlucky would often be stripped and checked for a witch's mark, which could be anywhere upon their body and shaped like anything.  (not surprisingly, almost everyone suspected of being a witch had at least one likely witch's mark)

It was believed that witches could not be drowned, as the devil would protect them.  However the devil was crafty and enjoyed suffering, so he would let his witches sputter and choke - just not die.  So those suspected of being witches and bearing a witch's mark were bound and weighted down and thrown into ponds.  After a time they were checked, and if they were still alive, usually they were thrown back in for a longer test, or pulled out and burned for being a witch (as they had not drowned).  If they were pulled out and appeared dead, they were laid out (artificial respiration methods being hundreds of years from their time of discovery/creation).  An extremely small number of these people did spontaneously and reflexively attempt to expel the water in their lungs (or had their laryngospasm resolve itself and reflexively attempted to breathe again), and this was usually seen as proof that they were innocent and that god had healed them.  Apparently the devil was seen as being unable to heal people once they appeared dead/stopped breathing/were deeply unconscious.

Congrats, Zhuria, on ascending to the ranks of those superstitious and unintentional murderers!   

Ooooh!  I saw the Manatee in the spoiler 1 make only one hand gesture... and the Emberlight got hit over and over and over again!  And the Manatee was free to keep fighting!  This is.... this is.... oooh!  I'm so glad you're working on this now!  (course, I could get equally eager for other things, just this is this now's thing!)

And these guys can't do friendly fire?

Ahh, That's like... not any ff to anyone friendly?  Won't kill pets?  Won't kill precious exotic warbeasts?  Wont hurt the liaisons and traders?

This makes ME feel very abominably snowmanny myself!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JlVqfC8-UI