Bay 12 Games Forum

Has anyone else seen something like this? I'm concerned about potential glitches since this seems weird. Although it was also exactly the kind of FUN I play DF for.

It happened as I said in the title: first dwarf caravan shows up, they come to the trade depot as normal. I trade with them, am pretty pleased to both have all the low quality mugs I've been making carted off the screen and to get the food I bought from them. I remove the broker from the depot and go on with my life.

Then I get a message telling me that a werebeast has arrived, just like any normal one. The world I'm playing in is lousy with weretortoises for some reason so I'm not too surprised. I send my workers inside, set the drawbridge to close, then zoom in on the werebeast.

He's right in the middle of my trade depot.

I have no military. I barely have a wall to cower behind. So I'm just not part of what occurs next: every member of the trade caravan, merchants too although I don't think they did so voluntarily, gets into a massive fight with the weretortoise and manage to kill it. He has a rainbow of metal bolts sticking out of him by the end.

When the dust settles all that's left now is one merchant, who is wandering around my fort like he's supposed to be here but who is still listed as a merchant. I'm very concerned that this guy will prevent future trade caravans from the dwarves.

On the plus side I now get the entire contents of the first caravan. On the down side that includes all the mugs I traded them.

I'd include a screenshot but I'm playing on my other computer.

So who knows anything about how this stuff works?

I've been playing around with it lately. I made a fort, built it up to a barony, then retired it for a new one which I got up to a duchy. By the time I went back to unretire the original fort to see how it had changed over the years it had been conquered by goblins. Apparently immediately after I founded the new fort. Given the way invasions work it now strikes me that it would probably be quite an accomplishment to be able to retire a fort, go away for a decade or so, and come back to see what level of changes happened.

I can verify that a few things were altered. When I went back to reclaim the ruined retired fortress, a lot of my former dwarves were still there. Unfortunately I reclaimed as a rival dwarf civilization so they were all hostile. I was able to ascertain, before he completely finished caving in the heads of my settlers with a pick, that one of my legendary soldiers had been promoted to Hammerer (a position which, for obvious reasons, I tend to leave unfilled).

Other than that it was just like any reclaimed fort, with stuff strewn around, but I imagine that was because it was ruined. No sign of goblins either, but apparently the dwarf population was not completely wiped out.

When just playing around with it and reclaiming a fort as quickly as I could after retiring it I didn't notice any changes at all.

Does anyone know if the population cap in the init is preserved after the fort is retired?

I mean, obviously, they're more likely to make statues of people they know, the things they like or dislike, the gods they worship, and the founding of the bloody fortress. I'm specifically talking about when they make statues of historical events. Based purely on my own observations it seems that individual dwarves have preferences in this area as well and usually make statues of the same few events over and over.

I guess this all applies more broadly to engravings and even decorations and what have you, but I'm specifically interested in what influences the creation of metal statues (since I know different attributes influence different skills). I want to know what to look for in a good Metalcrafter besides the things the affect quality.

Even more specifically, I'd love to know what an adventurer might do to influence whether subsequent dwarves from his home will make statues of him. I know you can't go to the fortresses and brag directly because there are none, but maybe if you tell humans they'll broken telephone it along to the dwarves?

I must have golden idols to commemorate my magnificence. I AM CHARLEMAGNE, KING OF KINGS, LOOK ON MY WORKS YE MIGHTY AND DISPAIR!

I'm pretty much just going to construct a giant statue factory and run it until I get one of this guy. Do vampires ever attack your fort like forgotten beasts, or are they just an immigrant thing?

I'm currently tweaking my own personal version of Dwarf Fortress, and I thought I'd share a goofy little weapon I've added with the community. I wanted to add some kind of primitive firearms without having to design a whole new industry around it with gunpowder making and all that jazz. Hence the far dorfier firearm the boozecannon.

The cannon itself is a metal tube filled with mechanisms built at a special forge. The ammo is created from one metal bar and one plant, and is brewed at the same forge (brewing skill being what influences the quality). By harnessing the great power of booze, which is the ultimate fuel in the universe, the boozecannon is able to mildly outperform a crossbow with a mere 500% increase in the effort required to build one. This makes the weapon especially dwarfy. Of course you could always change that and give them power consummate to their complexity in your game.

Here are the reactions:

[REACTION:LEAD_BULLET]
   [NAME:make lead bullets]
   [BUILDING:GUN_FORGE:NONE]
   [BUILDING:GUN_MAGMA:NONE]
   [REAGENT:A:150:BAR:NO_SUBTYPE:METAL:LEAD]
   [REAGENT:B:1:PLANT:NONE:NONE:NONE]
   [PRODUCT:100:60:AMMO:ITEM_AMMO_BULLETS:METAL:LEAD]
   [FUEL]
   [SKILL:BREWING]
   
[REACTION:IRON_BULLET]
   [NAME:make iron bullets]
   [BUILDING:GUN_FORGE:NONE]
   [BUILDING:GUN_MAGMA:NONE]
   [REAGENT:A:150:BAR:NO_SUBTYPE:METAL:IRON]
   [REAGENT:B:1:PLANT:NONE:NONE:NONE]
   [PRODUCT:100:60:AMMO:ITEM_AMMO_BULLETS:METAL:IRON]
   [FUEL]
   [SKILL:BREWING]
   
[REACTION:COPPER_BULLET]
   [NAME:make copper bullets]
   [BUILDING:GUN_FORGE:NONE]
   [BUILDING:GUN_MAGMA:NONE]
   [REAGENT:A:150:BAR:NO_SUBTYPE:METAL:COPPER]
   [REAGENT:B:1:PLANT:NONE:NONE:NONE]
   [PRODUCT:100:60:AMMO:ITEM_AMMO_BULLETS:METAL:COPPER]
   [FUEL]
   [SKILL:BREWING]

[REACTION:STEEL_BULLET]
   [NAME:make steel bullets]
   [BUILDING:GUN_FORGE:NONE]
   [BUILDING:GUN_MAGMA:NONE]
   [REAGENT:A:150:BAR:NO_SUBTYPE:METAL:STEEL]
   [REAGENT:B:1:PLANT:NONE:NONE:NONE]
   [PRODUCT:100:60:AMMO:ITEM_AMMO_BULLETS:METAL:STEEL]
   [FUEL]
   [SKILL:BREWING]

[REACTION:COPPER_BOOZECANNON]
   [NAME:make copper boozecannon]
   [BUILDING:GUN_FORGE:NONE]
   [BUILDING:GUN_MAGMA:NONE]
   [REAGENT:A:150:BAR:NO_SUBTYPE:METAL:COPPER]
   [REAGENT:B:1:WOOD:NONE:NONE:NONE]
   [REAGENT:C:2:TRAPPARTS:NO_SUBTYPE:METAL:NONE]
   [PRODUCT:100:1:WEAPON:ITEM_WEAPON_BOOZECANNON:METAL:COPPER]
   [FUEL]
   [SKILL:FORGE_WEAPON]

[REACTION:IRON_BOOZECANNON]
   [NAME:make iron boozecannon]
   [BUILDING:GUN_FORGE:NONE]
   [BUILDING:GUN_MAGMA:NONE]
   [REAGENT:A:150:BAR:NO_SUBTYPE:METAL:IRON]
   [REAGENT:B:1:WOOD:NONE:NONE:NONE]
   [REAGENT:C:2:TRAPPARTS:NO_SUBTYPE:METAL:NONE]
   [PRODUCT:100:1:WEAPON:ITEM_WEAPON_BOOZECANNON:METAL:IRON]
   [FUEL]
   [SKILL:FORGE_WEAPON]

[REACTION:STEEL_BOOZECANNON]
   [NAME:make steel boozecannon]
   [BUILDING:GUN_FORGE:NONE]
   [BUILDING:GUN_MAGMA:NONE]
   [REAGENT:A:150:BAR:NO_SUBTYPE:METAL:STEEL]
   [REAGENT:B:1:WOOD:NONE:NONE:NONE]
   [REAGENT:C:2:TRAPPARTS:NO_SUBTYPE:METAL:NONE]
   [PRODUCT:100:1:WEAPON:ITEM_WEAPON_BOOZECANNON:METAL:STEEL]
   [FUEL]
   [SKILL:FORGE_WEAPON]

Then add this to ammo

[ITEM_AMMO:ITEM_AMMO_BULLETS]
[NAME:bullet:bullets]
[CLASS:BULLET]
[SIZE:150]
[ATTACK:EDGE:2:2200:stab:stabs:NO_SUB:1000]

And here's the weapon itself

[ITEM_WEAPON:ITEM_WEAPON_BOOZECANNON]
[NAME:booze cannon:booze cannons]
[SIZE:400]
[SKILL:HAMMER]
[RANGED:CROSSBOW:BULLET]
[SHOOT_FORCE:1000]
[SHOOT_MAXVEL:1000] 
[TWO_HANDED:0]
[MINIMUM_SIZE:15000]
[MATERIAL_SIZE:3]
[ATTACK:BLUNT:10000:4000:bash:bashes:NO_SUB:1250]

Finally here are the gun workshops the design of which I stole from another mod

[BUILDING_WORKSHOP:GUN_FORGE]
   [NAME:Gunsmith's Forge]
   [BUILD_LABOR:METAL_CRAFT]
   [BUILD_KEY:CUSTOM_SHIFT_F]
   [NAME_COLOR:7:0:1]
   [WORK_LOCATION:2:2]
   [BLOCK:1:1:1:1]
   [BLOCK:2:1:0:0]
   [BLOCK:3:1:0:0]
   [DIM:3:3]
   [TILE:0:1:32:7:47]
   [TILE:0:2:32:32:32]
   [TILE:0:3:229:32:32]
   [COLOR:0:1:0:0:0:0:7:0:0:0:1]
   [COLOR:0:2:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0]
   [COLOR:0:3:0:0:1:0:0:0:0:0:0]
   [TILE:1:1:177:7:177]
   [TILE:1:2:32:229:32]
   [TILE:1:3:32:47:32]
   [COLOR:1:1:0:0:1:0:7:0:0:0:1]
   [COLOR:1:2:0:0:0:0:0:1:0:0:0]
   [COLOR:1:3:0:0:0:0:0:1:0:0:0]
   [TILE:2:1:177:7:177]
   [TILE:2:2:47:32:229]
   [TILE:2:3:0:32:32]
   [COLOR:2:1:0:7:1:0:7:0:0:7:1]
   [COLOR:2:2:0:7:1:0:0:0:0:0:1]
   [COLOR:2:3:0:7:1:0:0:0:0:0:0]
   [TILE:3:1:177:7:177]
   [TILE:3:2:92:210:229]
   [TILE:3:3:128:32:32]
   [COLOR:3:1:0:7:1:4:7:1:0:7:1]
   [COLOR:3:2:0:7:1:0:0:1:0:0:1]
   [COLOR:3:3:0:7:1:0:0:0:0:0:0]
   [BUILD_ITEM:1:BLOCKS:NONE:NONE:NONE][BUILDMAT][FIRE_BUILD_SAFE]
   [BUILD_ITEM:1:ANVIL:NONE:NONE:NONE][CAN_USE_ARTIFACT]

[BUILDING_WORKSHOP:GUN_MAGMA]
   [NAME:Gunsmith's Magma Forge]
   [BUILD_LABOR:METAL_CRAFT]
   [BUILD_KEY:CUSTOM_SHIFT_F]
   [NAME_COLOR:7:0:1]
   [WORK_LOCATION:2:2]
   [BLOCK:1:1:1:1]
   [BLOCK:2:1:0:0]
   [BLOCK:3:1:0:0]
   [DIM:3:3]
   [TILE:0:1:32:7:47]
   [TILE:0:2:32:32:32]
   [TILE:0:3:229:32:32]
   [COLOR:0:1:0:0:0:0:7:0:0:0:1]
   [COLOR:0:2:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0]
   [COLOR:0:3:0:0:1:0:0:0:0:0:0]
   [TILE:1:1:177:7:177]
   [TILE:1:2:32:229:32]
   [TILE:1:3:32:47:32]
   [COLOR:1:1:0:0:1:0:7:0:0:0:1]
   [COLOR:1:2:0:0:0:0:0:1:0:0:0]
   [COLOR:1:3:0:0:0:0:0:1:0:0:0]
   [TILE:2:1:177:7:177]
   [TILE:2:2:47:32:229]
   [TILE:2:3:0:32:32]
   [COLOR:2:1:0:7:1:0:7:0:0:7:1]
   [COLOR:2:2:0:7:1:0:0:0:0:0:1]
   [COLOR:2:3:0:7:1:0:0:0:0:0:0]
   [TILE:3:1:177:7:177]
   [TILE:3:2:92:210:229]
   [TILE:3:3:128:32:32]
   [COLOR:3:1:0:7:1:4:7:1:0:7:1]
   [COLOR:3:2:0:7:1:0:0:1:0:0:1]
   [COLOR:3:3:0:7:1:0:0:0:0:0:0]
   [BUILD_ITEM:1:BLOCKS:NONE:NONE:NONE][BUILDMAT][FIRE_BUILD_SAFE]
   [BUILD_ITEM:1:ANVIL:NONE:NONE:NONE][CAN_USE_ARTIFACT]
   [NEEDS_MAGMA]

As you can see it's deliberately not worth the effort it takes to produce. This is a feature.

It punishes you for treating it like a video game. Every time I attempt something using videogame meta-logic something horrible and unexpected happens. I'll give an example:

Just now I had accidentally mined out an area I had intended to channel out from above, so the roof was still there. Rather than micromanage and safely remove the roof, I just channeled around the outside and let the rest fall. No one in real life would do it that way, but it seemed the fastest and I figured it'd be no problem.

Well it collapsed right down through the roof of my fort, all the way through down to the lowest level. Pretty much like how I should have expected it to if I had been taking the game seriously. It ended up crushing a guy who was calmly eating his dinner in the dining room on the lowest level. The table he was using must have been crushed into dust, because it's nowhere to be seen.

I just discovered something interesting recently.

I was looking at a bunch of engravings that were recently revealed by the removal of the stone that was blocking them. One of them was of the mortal wounding of a goblin by the dwarf Dopey Jr. What is interesting about it was that Dopey Jr. would have been 5 years old at the time. Dopey Jr. is actually the namesake of the first and for a long time the only defender of Greedgates, who died recently. She carried her daughter and namesake into many a battle, and apparently something rubbed off. The crazy thing is I never saw this happen, the only evidence is the engraving and a single goblin being listed under Dopey Jr's kills (Dopey Jr. is still a child, although she should become a peasent in about 2 years). I'm trying to figure out just exactly how a 5-year-old managed this.