Bay 12 Games Forum

MagmaMcFry brings up a good point though which is when you embark such that the edge of the screen cuts into a mountain, and then for security purposes you remove the ramps so enemies have to come in the front door rather than climb over the mountain from the back, will traders/migrants spawn in an area on the edge with no path to your fort? Or do they always spawn in an area where they can conceivably get to you? Please note I'm not talking about an inaccessible edge (such as if it were water or a wall) but an area they can get to from the edge and walk around a bit but they just can't get to my front door.

As for flying enemies, I have been through 10 forts and I haven't seen any hostile flyers yet. I assume any critters would be weak enough that pastured war animals or my marksdwarf squad could handle it.

Actually, that leads to another question: Will pastured war animals leave their pasture to attack a nearby enemy or does the enemy need to be inside the pasture area for the animals to notice/attack them? So say I made a pasture of war animals in the outside area where a goblin or some other non flying animal may fall from the causeway, would the animals finish it off if it falls in an area not technically part of the pasture?

Thanks!

Also, while I understand the ceiling idea would be optimal from a defense perspective, and the game mechanics would allow it and still let it be "outside" I'd rather keep it open to look nicer and be more realistic.

Slade cannot be mined, right? So how could you even get it to make a construction out of it?

Sorry, this isn't in direct answer to your questions, but I just wanted to let you know I've watched all of your (recent) videos and I love them. (I assume you're the same CapnDuck guy) They have inspired me in lots of ways, especially your volcano island one. The magma moat was great. I don't have a Youtube account so this was the only way I could communicate with you to thank you. So...thanks!

As kinda an answer to your question, I think there are far too many DF "tutorials" up on Youtube and not enough actual, well narrated, fun, Let's Plays. For example, I have seen site selection and embark like 20 times but not ONCE have I seen a let's play get as far as HFS or any really ingenious goblin siege defenses. Usually they peter out before even the first full invasion.

I think the value of a good Let's Play is showing people possibilities they otherwise would have overlooked. Like for example on your volcano island. I haven't ever had a desire to embark on a beach but seeing how DF actually models the tides and the waves breaking on the shore, I kind of sat up and went "wow!". I would never have known that without your LP. I also enjoyed how you found a later embark with three biomes, one evil, one neutral wilderness, and one neutral desert (I had never seen a cactus in DF before), all able to fit on the same 4ish square area.

As for yarn, I tried to have some Alpacas and I put "shear" on the farmers workshop but couldn't get it to work, so that would be helpful. I vote Alpacas.

Hello,

I just played my first hero in adventure mode, and I have to admit it has the same addictive quality that comes with fortress mode, but it seemed there wasn't all that much to do.

Some questions:

Do mountain halls, elven retreats, and goblin towers actually exist in the game? I saw them all on the main world map and on the fast travel map but couldn't actually find any of them by walking around.

Do the strength of enemies level with you (like if you have 10 companions the enemy groups are larger) or is it a function of distance from civilization. All I know is I got bored of quests and took off for parts unknown and the enemy groups got much larger and more frequent.

How is it that an iron helm and breastplate on a goblin pretty much prevents me from being able to hit them with my iron long sword? Every single hit was deflected. I took to shield bashing because my sword was ineffective. Stabbing with it would hit but wouldn't do more than bruising.

What is the most versatile weapon for adventure mode? I chose sword and that was great for the most part until I came upon aforementioned armored enemies, then it was pretty much tedium.

Why are there so many civs? I spent most of the time in a relatively small area and yet I became a hero in the eyes of what seemed like over 100 civs.

I pretty much just sold everything but iron armor. Is there a benefit to keeping on the socks, mittens, clothing type items under the armor?

Is every single quest to kill something? The only change being how far they ask you to go to do the deed?

How do you butcher an animal? The wiki is very vague on this. I'm told it can be done, but not what key does it. Do you need to pick up the animal corpse/carcass first?

If my hero was a human, is there a chance that if I start a dwarf fort in the same general region of his exploits that their crafts/murals may commemorate him? My current fort in another world has tons of things about an elf chick who tamed a unicorn.

Considering this is only the rough skeleton of a game, it is amazingly fun and addictive!

Thanks! That's all eminently sensible!

Thanks, guess I'll just need to tell them to drop everything and maybe they will refill with at least some practice bolts.

They are made using up/down staircases (look like big X's in graphics sets), NOT some only up and some only down, as your example graphic shows. I believe it's d and then i when you're digging and b and x if you're building them, but I'm not 100% on that, since I'm at work.

Not to hijack the thread, but I also wonder when I watch let's plays why some people have HUGE staircases (in some cases 5x5). Does this in any way improve the pathing over a say 2x2 staircase? Because it sure takes up a heck of a lot of room.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8Ui0ltKNQE

If I die in battle (Acapella)

This is awesome! Thanks for introducing me to it!

Thank you! I'll reengage it when I decide to play with clowns. For right now I'm trying to build flooring in my great hall to resemble the helmet of skull man from one of the mega man games (my fort is known as Bonecanyon and that was the coolest pixel art bone-themed image of the appropriate size for me to use).