Bay 12 Games Forum

Dear all,

Just finished my crazy but wonderful trip in Turkey, and very eager to share one of my super special experience in Cappadocia.

I accidently (sort of planned) visited a ancient underground city, called "Derinkuyu", and I felt so much like walking in a real dwarf fortress there!!
First of all, here is the almighty wiki link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derinkuyu_Underground_City

The intial underground city could date back in late Hittite period around 8 B.C. (Imaging digging up such a huge tunnel system in Bronze era!!) Later was used through many different period by different group of people, mostly as a refuge city for local population against Barbarians, Romans, Persians, and last Seljuks Turks. Most notable period was dwelled by Christian refuges, who have left numerious secret churches and wall painting throughout Cappadocia during Roman and Byzantine periods. If you guys will be interested, here is more wikiiii!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cappadocia

The tunnel and underground cities were abandoned soon after Turkish occupation around 10 A.D., and was found again by accident in early 20th Century.

Enough of my history mumbling, let me tell you my experience there!!

After left my tour bus, all I saw was a normal small town ahead of us. Suddenly, after passing through the parking area, I found the cave entrance by the tollbooth. (Also a well disguised main ventilation shaft by the side). We quickly started to walk down through the first tunnel. Not a long walk, and sometimes you have to bent down a bit like if you are a dwarf. On the side during my walk, I saw more tunnels. According to my tourguide, most of these tunnels lead back to the surface houses.

So here is the deal, when invader comes, people live in the surface will open the hidden patch door within their house which led to these tunnels. Then they will holed up in the underground city until their enemies moved away. If the enemies found the entrance and entered the tunnels, the local people would get even deeper in the underground city and fought them in the tunnels or behind a sealed stone door with defence I will mention later. Exactly like what we did in our dwarf fortress against goblins and such.

Some of these tunnels are still functional (with some collapsed already after all these years of course), so you can still run up surface into some random local residence by accident. Still, I do not encourage you to do so, because once you get lost in one of these tunnels, without light and such, you know what is going to happen, LOL!!

So far the underground cities has counted for 13 floors beneath the ground (still counting). As a tourist you can only visit the major area in the center down to 8th level, through the main tunnel of course.

Besides all the tunnels leading to various directions, I started to see some storage rooms, workshops, winery, and plus more ventilation shafts of different shape. Later, I reached a rather big room which functions as kind of center junction room to all the tunnels around. Here my tour guide told us how people communcated in the underground city. They shouted through the ventilation shafts, or gently knocked walls and floors to get others' attention underneath them. Right next to me in the junction room was a huge ventilation shaft, which led up to the entrance area (yes, the one I saw earlier by the tollbooth). So, this is not only the main ventilation, also services as kind of goods tranfering shaft.

Now, after passing the junction room it was getting more interesting. We walked through a small passage further down (while the other tunnels leading up). After a quick turning point, I saw a small room which serviced as a trap room. (ya, shooting deadly stuff) After another turning and even further down the way, the tour guide told us to look back. Then you see this!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Puerta_derinkuyu.jpg
A stone door just came out of nowhere!! If those refuges sealed the door from inside, it will be very difficult to see from outside. (yes, the picture looks to bright, so you have to image youself walking in the tunnels under dim light). None of us will notice this door without hearing our tourguide's reminder. After seeing this door, everybody was screaming with excitement like "Wow, just like walking in an Indiana Jones movies!!". At that moments I was so wanted to cry out loud: "You elf loving amateurs!! THIS IS DWARF FORTRESS!!".

You can spot a hole on the stone door, which functioned as a weapon shoot out point. Once got sieged from outside, refuges would make a stand here, shooting spears or arrows through this hole to their enemies. After keep walking down the long tunnels (with this stone door built in the middle), passing another trap area, we ventured into a much larger room, which serviced as commanding center. Again, I saw the main ventalition shaft on the side, which lead up to the junction room right above us. Amazing!!

Not far away, you see a even bigger room, in cross shape. So yes, this is the church area. On the side, I saw another long tunnels leading to the temporay grave yard. Here by the church was the 8th level already. We were not allowed to go further down. I could see many rooms like living quarters and such, and of course more tunnels ahead. According to our tour guide, some tunnels can reach serveral KMs away, so very very impressive!!

It was like 30 mins already in the cave, and I started to feel the tension in the dense air. Excitement!! However, the bad thing with a tour was you have to follow the time schdule. So we quickly walked back the same way up (yes, all the tourists could only walk in and out throught the same tunnels, another reason why we cannot stayed for long). Walking down was easy, but walking up in kind of crawling stance is very very tiresome!! After junction room, we took another tunnel up. After seeing more tunnels and storage rooms, we finally walked into serveral fine rooms. These, according to our tourguide, was made for VIPs of the undergound cities. I could see clear shape here with living room, bedroom, and even a Jacuzzi (LOL, I guessed by the shape).

After walking a bit more up, we stopped at a huge room designed for live stocks like cow, sheeps, and even horses. On the side of wall, I saw a special trench which used for animal feeding. From the side, another big ventalition shaft, and I could see the sun light coming in already. So, yes, this was the end of my trip in the amazing undergound cities!!

So, here I am, sharing this unique experience with my fellow Urists!! I believe if you were there like me, you will feel exactly the same excitement (like seeing your fortress alive, or having new ideas for your fortress)!! If any of you will ever travel to Turkey, make plans for Cappadocia (espeicall the undergound city!!) There are actually a lot of things to do over there, such as hot ballons, special volcano landscape, scenes of Star Wars (where they shot Tatooine I believe), and etc. Of course, if Toady will ever need some holidays (or say, new inspiration), maybe it is a good reason for him to book a trip to Turkey!! LOL!!

Ah Meph,

I am still playing v1.6, but am reading the new changes and the complete building guide (GREAT JOB btw) in v1.7. You must understand it was like playing it blind without this building guide, lol.

Anyway, at least it may solve the problem I had with brewery for a long time. I thought the reason why I could not always produced seasonal stuff, was that I didn't have enough suger. Now, seems to be not having enough *specific* drinks in a barrel. But how many do I need in a barrel?? Like 25 *specific* wine in a barrel??

Also, the only thing I could make is Royal Dwarven Ale [25], but nothing else. Funny thing is after I check in the brewery, the Royal Dwarven Ale [25] was not even stored in a barrel like the other alchol drinks. So maybe that is the reason why I never saw any of my dwarf drink them. Don't know if I did something wrong in the process?? And they have to be in the same barrel right?? That could explain why even I had 76 strawberry wine here and there, but not able to make any seasonal strawberry wine out of it.

One last thing, is kobold the only creature that drops Bag of Loot?? In my old 1.6 fort, most of the thief type I encountered were minotaurs, even Minotaur Master Thief. I notice that minotaur thieves did drop bag as well (while not carrying any weapon or armor with them sounds silly to me.), but those bags did not really act as Bag of Loot in my experience. Occasionally, I killed some kobold theives here and there, and I did witness my creature reserach lab was working on it automatically. While it did not work on the minotaur bags. Even tried to do it via manager screen, but won't work. Got a bit confused here.

Anyway, enjoy your trip Meph!! Hope the sun shines your way through!!

Hey Meap,

I remember seeing other people talking about dwarf not wearing leather padded legging or greaves in version 1.5 period, and I experienced the same thing also.

It took me awhile to notice this problem, because my fort did not produce enough metal and I had to rely on melting all the loot I gathered after sieges. Recently however, my supposed to be well-armed boys were still mostly injured on their legs after a major minotaur siege. As I looked into the problem, I found none of them wearing greaves, even though I managed to made enough for each one of em.

So, I looked into the squad equip menu, on View/Customize, and yes, they wore both leggings and greaves. Then, I looked into Pri/Assignment part, and yes again they were wearing both as well. But when I looked into real inventory, I can only find leather padded leggings.

Thus, I tried to do it in the micromanage hard way, which was to put the armor on one after another. First I tried put legging first and greaves after. They refused to wear greaves. Then I tried putting greaves before legging. They just removed the greaves and put the leggings on instead. However, in the meantime, no problems with padded hood, shirt, and mittens coexisting with metal helm, breastplate, and gauntlets. So after trying for some hours, I could not but abandon my nicely made leggings in the stockpile.


Another thing I noticed was that the timberyard seemed to be always in *CLT* status, because my dwarfs were lazy about hauling finished-wood out of it. Specifically speaking, smooth wood logs, ironbarks logs, and fungi logs seemed to stay in the yard forever even when I have a fully empty stockpile nearby. Funny thing is they did haul scrap wood logs to dedicated stockpile, and rough wood of any kind also went to any empty ones as they normally do.

I just broke into the 2nd cavern (cause there were too many sieges and skirmish above ground and 1st cavern to deal with.), and am trying to play with crystal wood at the moment. WIll broke in to 3rd cavern soon, and I will see what netherwood will do.

btw, I am still running 1.6. Just notice you turned 1.7.

Finally, I made it through the fifth year under masterwork mod.

So far, I experienced several dark stranglers sieges, turned out to quite easy to handle after several attempts with masterwork mod already.

Got someone turned into zombie in the middle of the summer, however I was kind of prepared for it. I mean, I felt something strange about seeing him was always hungrily looked at the other dwarfs. So, he turned as expected, unfortunately bite one of my dwarf before his death. Before the zombie spiral hit the road, the victim bled to death, so I was unable to test anything yet.

However, something weird did happen though. After some months passed, I found in the public burial ground that someone was holding the victim's bone right outside his coffin with "place item in tomb" on tag. (The coffin was claim by his corpse already). I tried to remove the coffin, and re-build it again. Still, some people kept taking turns holding his bone standing next to his coffin, mostly his relatives after I checked his relationship menu. So, a vanilla bug, or something went wrong?? I personally found this amazing, like someone was guarding his grave for eternity, tears .

Oh, I remembered I saw his ghost once, because I forgot to engrave his slab. I quickly put him back to rest of course, and this holding bone thing came out all a sudden. Don't know if it was related.

And I must say again I have a wonderful time with this mod since I started a few weeks back. Just got sieged by a group of ettins, cyclops, rime (frost) giants, and great ogres. Hidden among them was one she-giant called Eldjotun (Some kind of Jotun from Norse myth)?? Man this girl is crazy, shooting flame ball of apocalypse and burning my beautiful wood land into living hell!! Hot damn!! Now, time to put my military dwarfs into some real tests, see if they are born giant slayers as we learned from the books!!

Thank you again Meph, for the great work!!

Thanks man!!

Both issues solved

Oh man, I really love this mod.

One of my miner dwarf just hit some minor warp stone, and she was immediatelly got dizzy, fevered, and vomiting her way up to the surface layer. The epic part was, during her struggle climbing up, she gave birth to a healthy baby girl. She vomit so hard, that she had to leave her baby deep in the mining area. Cannot wait to see what happen next!

Hey Meph,

I also encountered the crossbowdorf not equiping rock-tip bolts problem like someone earlier in this thread.

I was besieged by 28 dark stargelers in the late winter of the 1st year. Luckily my simple moat and bridge were up, and also they were just sit outside and wait. So i try to make some quick copper and iron weapon and armor, and decided to strike them once the core team is ready. In the second month of the next year, I assmebled a markdorf squad of 3, a heavy melee squad of 2, and a sucidal miner squad of 5. However, when the time comes, I found none of my markdorf were bring ammo with em.

1. I tried to let them equip specific ammo, namely rocktip blunt bolts under both "bolts" and "foreign bolts" category. Not working.
2. I tried to give different order, moving em around and disbanding them. After awhile, re-actived them to see if they would equip ammo. However, they did not.
3. I tried to move the ammo from and to different stockpile, and to see if option 1 and 2 will work. Again failed. My squad would just stand next to the stockpile full of bolts but did nothing.

After trying for the last 2 hours, I cannot but give up trying. I still have the last save before I assembling the squads to break siege. I will post the save file up, and see if you want to have a try.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7708225/region1-sum-252.rar

All the ammo is currently on the big stockpile of 1st fort floor. All the military team were set up already, you only need to change the ammo type in the military screen to see if you can make any difference.

I will try a bit more after I went back home later!

Btw, I am using v1.51 of the mod, plus the quick "object" update from yesterday!