Bay 12 Games Forum

Is there a way to view legends mode after you've started a fortress on a map?

-MB

As a DT addict I must say I appreciate the quick work

I started out with sheer happiness at a new version with all sorts of new stuff to try out.. Then sunk into a depression as I'll have to wait until Dwarf Therapist is updated.. I wish I wasn't addicted to that program.

-MB

I started about two years ago or so (give or take), I had a job then that had a lot of downtime so I'd bring my laptop with me to surf the net and watch videos/whatever.  I remember having read a lot about Dwarf Fortress in reference on TV tropes site and eventually checked out the whole "Boatmurdered" thing. 

I downloaded it once, went "Wow.. I'll never be able to figure this out.." and dumped it.. Then a few months later when I was again bored I found (I forget how, but found a link for it somewhere) the fan made tutorial ("complete newbie guide..") and decided to give it another go, I was hooked since.

These days I generally play in a sort of wave motion, I'll spend a few months where its pretty much all I play, then I'll get out of it for a few months (either I'm busy in RL, or another game catches my eye, or I just decide I need a rest from building fortresses.. Fortri?) but I end up always coming back.

The best was shortly before the start of 2010 I started a new job and was super busy and really didn't have time for DF for several months, when I came back low and behold there was a whole new version out, not just an update but it had been changed in radical ways.. Needless to say those are the most fun, when you come back after being away and there is so much new stuff to see and do.

-MB

Round II, Same Terrifying Glacier (not a reclaim):

Again, immediately attacked by skeletal Yetis, we killed a few and escaped to a more defensible position (between two spires of ice), we dug down into the ice itself and are in the process of walling off between the spires for defense.. Unfortunately we've encounted an aquifer (I assumed it would freeze.. But it hasn't..) so we'll have to deal with that, however before that I'm going to attempt to get my dwarves underground and safe, at least for now.

-MB

I don't really have a hard and fast ration..

I commit three of my inital seven to military (though early on they help with other jobs), after that I try to get two squads of five to ten fairly early on.

Ultimatley however, once I have the basics covered in my fort (mason, carpenter, lumberjack, cook/brewer/farmer, etc) I put the rest into military.  I will initially try to have three fully outfitted squads (one 'bladed', one blunt and one ranged) with the rest as, more or less, cannon fodder with whatever weapons/armor are laying around.. If it goes far enough I sometimes increase to further equipped squads.

But then I am military-centric.  I find traps, in their current incarnation (though thankfull it looks like that will change in the forseeable future) to be far too easy.  Between cage traps, stone fall traps, weapon traps, not to mention all the non-"trap"-traps you can build such as cave in, water/magma/etc you can fend of nearly any assault with enough traps.. I find it more intersting to use soldiers to try to hold off the incoming hordes (I also play with other limitations, such as no walling/drawbridging myself off, so its even harder).

So I guess in answer to your question, early on I try to start training up my soldiers (don't use danger room exploit, so I try to get them going early), and ultimatley tend to have somewhere around thirty or so trained soldiers and then any extra dwarves who aren't needed for fortress maintenence are drafted into my infantry.

-MB

Isn't that just what makes it the best?

I remember a while back in early 2010 version I wanted to check out the caverns.  I'd heard how dangerous they could be so I built a foodgate system where I had two sets of floodgates that created a safe room between the tunnels and my fort which could be flooded with water on command.  I prepared my rag tag military/explorers and opened the gates and started down, immediately set upon by three blind cave ogres as well as some other random stuff from down there (crundles, elk birds or something, and cave rats).  I slammed the gates shut but, of course, the ogres busted them all down and entered my base, it was chaos but ultimately we were able to kill them taking great losses, most notably my accountant (whom I always name after my brother) had both his arms torn off (one at the elbow, one at the shoulder) and amazingly enough, over time, survived! He was useless as a dwarf but he did get better and spent most of his time wandering around my great hall..


So what makes this such a grand experience is that I decided to explore the caverns again (I had walled them off after driving off the ogres), I open them up and again, ogres, I attempt to take them down again until I notice that there is water in my base, one had gotten up top and destroyed the floodgate blocking off a river (which diverted it down to my water trap) and my fort was flooding from the top down, there was no way out, my miners were dead and I had no idea where their equipment was, it was the end of days..

As more and more creatures poured out of the depths my armless accountant found off a giant cave rat by biting him into submission (the rat ran off, wasn't killed).  I was able to seal off the flooded sections as well as the areas with creatures in them but it was all over, I had no more ability to dig, there were monsters in my base and there was no way out through existing channels, it was quite a ride however.

That is one of the many, but perhaps the primary, reasons I love this game.

-MB