Bay 12 Games Forum

One character I had drank a vampire's blood, and then for quite a while he would get dizzy spells. Occasionally he'd get a blinking blue X on his icon, and "Dizzy" would show up where "Hungry" or "Thirsty" usually do. Then after a  bit it would go away, then come back later. It didn't seem to really cause any problems, although I was a bit concerned when I was underground in some of those rooms with a ledge around the edges several levels above a floor. But he never fell off the ledges. Then a while later I noticed the red "Thirsty" and realized that I had indeed become a vampire.

So I (and my 10 or so companions) sneak into a village at night and I try to feed off of a sleeping villager. Naturally, he wakes up and sounds the alarm, and now my companions start attacking me, too. Oops. Queue "Yakkity Sax" as I run away with a string of a dozen or so villagers and ex-companions on my tail.

I get requests from guys who want me to kill their wives on a regular basis.

Oh, wait. You're talking about in the game, not in real life? nevemind.

Philosoraptor asks: What happens if a ghost necromancer raises his own corpse?

One thing to consider for those who plan on taking ore to produce armor and weapons: The game now requires multiple bars for each piece of armor. So if I'm doing the math right, a set of armor (helm, mail shirt, gauntlets, leggings and high boots) would require 16 bars of whatever metal you choose, not just 5 like it used to. And that's skipping a breastplate, which is another 9 bars!

If you want steel, you'll need as much flux as well. If you are embarking in a wooded area, you can make charcoal, but if not, you need to bring enough bituminous coal (plus one wood to start it) to produce twice as many bars of coke as you want steel.

16 hematite x 24 P = 384 P
16 marble x 6 P  = 96 P
1 wood x 3 P + 16 bituminous coal x 3P = 51 P
Total: 480 P if trees are available, or 531 P without trees

That's a lot cheaper than starting with steel armor, but you still aren't going to equip many soldiers with what you can bring in the embark. Equip 2 dwarves (assuming trees) and you only have 314 point left. That's not even enough to max out your dwarves' skills.

Bronze looks a lot nicer, though. It's ores are cheaper, it doesn't need flux, and you can make two bars with one fuel.
8 malachite x 6 P = 48 P
8 cassiterite x 6 P = 48 P
1 wood x 3 P + 4 bituminous coal x 3 P = 15 P
Total: 96 P with trees, 111 P without trees.

Now that's a lot more practical, one fifth the price. Heck, you could equip all 7 dwarves in full bronze armor and still have 497 P left over. And bronze is very likely good enough for anything you will face in the first year or so. If it's not, then it's likely that steel wouldn't be either.

Someone please check my math and let me know if I made any mistakes in how many resources are needed or how much it costs.

Edit: For those who want to take live animals and butcher them after you arrive instead of carrying meat, I just calculated how much food you get per embark point for the various animals typically available at embark:

Animal	Food	Cost	Food/Cost
Turkey	19	6	3.17
Blue Peafowl	17	6	2.83
Goose	17	6	2.83
Chicken	13	6	2.17
Dog	26	16	1.63
Goat	27	26	1.04
Cat	7	11	0.64
Pig	29	51	0.57
Sheep	27	51	0.53
Water Buffalo	51	101	0.50
Yak	38	101	0.38
Alpaca	35	101	0.35
Llama	35	101	0.35
Mule	34	101	0.34
Horse	31	101	0.31
Donkey	20	101	0.30
Reindeer	28	101	0.28
Cow	35	151	0.23
One-humped Camel	50	251	0.20
Two-humped Camel	43	251	0.17
Duck	1	6	0.17
Cavy	0	2	0.00
Rabbit	0	2	0.00
Guineafowl	0	2	0.00

The food values were obtained from the wiki, by adding up all the food items in the butchering returns box. Where there was a range, I too the average of the high and low value. I suspect some of those are not entirely accurate.

Note that you can buy meat at 0.50 food per point, so many of the animals are not worth it. Although you do also get bones and skin, which aren't factored into the above table. It also doesn't factor in eggs, which would make the birds even better if you let each one lay a clutch of eggs before butchering it. So it looks like Turkeys are the best animal to take on an embark for quick conversion to food. It's also nice to keep a few hens in the long term for continued egg production.

So instead of starting with the default 30 meat costing 60 points, you can spend those points on 10 turkey hens and get 90 meat, 90 fat and 10 intestines (my favorite!). Plus a hundred or so eggs if you make a nest box and give the birds time to use it.

Or you could just spend 12 points on 2 turkeys and get 18 meat, 18 fat and 2 intestines so you get a little more food than the default for a lot less.

But doing either means you can't get 30 free barrels by taking 30 different types of meat. Maybe a few turkeys and a few single units of different meats to get some barrels?

Some people are so hard to please.

We used to all complain about the Master Milkers and Grand Master Cheesmakers. Now we get blank slates upon which we can write whatever skills we want. Not that we couldn't retrain the cheesmakers before, but it seems less frustrating to me to assign an unskilled worker to the smelter that assigning one with very high level of a worthless skill.

I'm wondering what sort of transformations your adventurer can undergo in the new version.  I've already made one a necromancer and I'd like to have them become a vampire as well.  Is it also possible to become one of the were- animals I see in Legends mode?  And beyond that, is there anything else that can happen to you?

Also, is it possible for your adventurer themselves to journey into the depths of the world?

I've had an adventurer become a vampire, then read a slab and become a vampire necromancer. Haven't had one become a werecreature, though. But I haven't encountered one in were form.

I've also had a different adventurer find a lair in a cave that had ramps downward that eventually led into caverns. Managed to get myself royally lost. It took me hours or wandering around to finally find the way back out. This was back in 31.25 so I didn't need food/water. But I think I encountered enough wildlife and lakes that I could have survived indefinitely down there in 34.02. Maybe with enough searching downward I could have found more interesting areas, but it might have taken ages. It's very difficult to navigate, since you keep forgetting the maps of areas you wandered away from, and there is no way to tell how deep you are.

One thing to note is that restricting the area won't stop the dwarves if that is the only way to get to where they want to go. Restricted traffic zones will make dwarves prefer a different route, but don't ever completely forbid travel through them. So be sure to build a bridge quickly when you embark. Or maybe build walls next to the top of the fall so they can't path to the shallow area.

So I embark in a beautiful place. Two rivers meeting with a nice 7 level waterfall, with several layers of chalk (a flux stone), with clusters of magnetite with hematite veins running through them. So naturally within the first month, three of my dwarves jump in the river above the falls and get washed off and die (plus my cat). So I'm down to 4 dwarves, one of which is unhappy and following the expedition leader round to have a meeting for months instead of doing useful work. It was a relief when the first migration wave showed up, even though none of them had any decent skills. At this point I had about 10 or so dwarves and they were still overworked.

Then the second wave shows up with 12 dwarves. Yay! Or so I thought. Of the 12 dwarves, no less than 8 of them were children. Eight useless mouths to feed. And of the 4 adults, still no useful skills.

Has anyone else seen this many kids in a wave? What are they thinking back in the MountainHome? "Hey, let's send a group that's 2/3rds kids to a brand new fort. They'll be safe there."

Oh yeah, those dwarves that got washed off the falls? They are all listed as missing. One has become a ghost, but doesn't show up in the list of names for creating a memorial slab. I'm guessing that's because he's missing, not dead. Kinda sucks.