Bay 12 Games Forum

Bad things happen!

My dwarves have failed to procure metal bars for that metalworker, and she's gone insane! Fortunately, nobody here is armed so a mob of angry dwarves and one child should be able to take him down. We hope. Already, knocked-out teeth litter the hallways. But her lung is fractured and she's missing an ear (yeeg) so she shouldn't last much longer.

And did I say 29 dwarves? The metalcrafter no longer counts due to being crazy, so we're at 28 (a much nicer number overall).

This should be fun!

CONCLUSION:
After an epic battle, our brewer and the insane metalcrafter both lay dead on the cold, hard ground. Farewell, Avuznåzom. You and your willingness to constantly churn out large amounts of alcohol will be missed.

Not lurkers, just story hungry...

Well, I guess I can oblige then 

Posting to Watch. Looking forward to when the goblins attack!

Me too! After working on all the other stuff I'll get right on defense planning.

Congratulations, you've managed to get a fort started without everyone starving to death for the first 3 months of playing IRL

Incidentally, why are you using 2x2 bedrooms instead of 3x3? I know that 3x3's obviously take up more space, but they can be turned into workshop areas in a pinch. For when you inevitably start a megaproject so that you can, say, churn out insane amounts of rock blocks for a cannon that shoots goblinite ice particles or some such nonsense.

The quickstart guide was super-helpful and I'm a pretty quick learner, although the worst part was getting over my accumulated Minecraft instincts (no, don't start off by gathering vast amounts of logs, you fool!).

Anyway, 2x2 seemed like a manageable size to make a space-efficient design with, but line bedrooms seemed a bit cramped (I was always imagining myself walking around in this fort, so I made a few large-ish rooms). The second floor, however, would be great for workshops now that I can knock out all the walls and start fresh.

Oh right, let's have a currently-text-only update!

Granite, Year 7
After failing the trade screen, the dwarven merchants leave without any goods exchanged. It turns out I should have moved stuff into the trade depot beforehand! Preparing for the next caravan, I order my minions to lug every +mudstone cabinet+ to the depot. I hope elves like cabinets!!

Meanwhile, our expedition leader is put to work doing the most accurate bookkeeping work possible. I've heard that when this is completed, he'll be mightily strong for some reason and the books will stay perfectly balanced even after his death, but perhaps TVtropes lied to me. Still, though, it's nice to have "13 Drink" instead of "10? Drink". But when do I get to learn that we have "12.784234619 Drink"?! Precision is key!

An additional mason's workshop is also being constructed, ready to churn out metric tonnes of useless trade goods. I plan to slip the elves +cinnabar mugs+ when they arrive in the spring. Are elves immune to neurotoxin? (Well, it would be nice if cinnabar/mercury poisoned stuff, but apparently it doesn't. ) But that may be a bad choice because it's heavy... pitchblende is heavy too... darn. Oh well!

Also needed: a forge and a smelter. Minecraft has trained me to believe that these are the same thing. Curse you, Minecraft! (I looked it up and it turns out that all that bituminous coal will come in handy now. Yay!)

FOOTNOTE:
Well, I counted what I had gotten out of my farm, and discovered that I now have 70 plump helmets and 26 dwarven wine (have no idea what it's measured in - barrels perhaps?). It looks like fungus are, indeed, among us.

With previous advice in mind, Operation Bedroom begins. It's not a gigantic device designed to flood the universe with magma, but at least it's something. Because when the conquering hordes inevitably come, we will have bloody nice bedrooms to cower within as we are slaughtered one by one.

The old bedrooms are emptied out, and all furniture is placed onto a temporary furniture receptacle. The floor seems empty without its beautiful furnishings. We had even made some cabinets, but they must be removed so soon...

A lone dwarf begins tunneling out Bedrooms 2.0. It's a more-or-less modular design that's built in a layer far enough down to be made almost entirely out of stone. Then the engravers can start engraving and much quaffing will occur in the Gigantic Hall(tm).

Meanwhile, a yak died of starvation. I probably should have done something about that but hey, nobody had to waste time capturing and slaughtering it!

Shieldsensed, story of a newb

Well, last year I was mindlessly browsing TVtropes, looking for a game to occupy my spare time. Then I found Dwarf Fortress! I read and read, enchanted by tales of murderous carp and overpowered throwing. Then I downloaded the game, sure it would live up to my expectations.

I stared at the worldgen for all of fifteen minutes before giving up and moving on.

A year later I thought of it again, possibly at the behest of my friend (who had stared at the worldgen for fifteen minutes before giving up and moving on).

And I made a few fortresses, learned how to do things, and slowly figured out how to make a community of dwarves destined to not die in a pool of magma within three months. And I started a fortress that is sure to be a winner, Shieldsensed. Absolutely sure. Yup. Definitely.

Granite, Year 5 day distinctions are for uncool dudes
It's a lovely day. Presumably, horrifying tentacle monsters are oozing their way through history, but we are going to ignore that for now because we're going to start a fortress! After freaking out at the worldmap, me a team of seven dwarves eventually find a nice location without an aquifer. And so we embark to some temperate mountainside forest, eagerly awaiting the fun to be had by all.

The Undocumented Times:

The fortress begins as a long hallway and a general stuff stockpile. Immediately, our seven brave workers start unpacking, and soon enough everything is piled up in a ridiculous unsorted heap. Next they get to work on an underground farm and some workshops, with the farm right next to a pond. One especially brave dwarf is given the task of breaching the dirt wall separating our brave outpost from a watery demise, and the irrigation, somehow, works almost properly. For his efforts, he is given the nickname "Floody" Erithåblel, Delugeer. The field is not fully watered, but it is muddy enough to begin growing some crops of plump helmets and nothing else. Our farmer, not content with taking the (admittedly long) hallway to our stockpile every time she wishes to gather seeds, plunges into the pond, swims up and walks above-ground to the entrance for her trips. At least she won't have to worry about cave adaptation...

Meanwhile, alcohol consumption reaches an all-time high, and dark rumours spread about the once-inexhaustible supplies of mead will run out before autumn. A still is shoddily crafted by soon-to-be-sober hands, but will it be enough to bring Shieldsensed out of the dark dimensions of sobriety?

The answer, fortunately, is "yes", as nearly all of our plump helmet output is jammed into the still and ruthlessly fermented into wine. This happens just in time for a charming apartment block to be built, but an already-overclocked mason cannot produce enough cabinets for every dwarf, so they must go with just a bed and a door. Already, bloodshot gazes haunt the hallways, silently accusing one another for this critical lack of furniture.

Suddenly, torrential rains begin! Our dwarven population meanders inside the fortress, but...

The hole from the pond to the farm was never filled!!

Water gushes over our carefully tilled land, washing away scores of beautiful plump helmets. Fortunately, "Floody" manages to wade through the rushing floodwaters with a just-crafted floodgate in tow, ready to do what he must for the fortress. He manages to plug the hole with no problem. Hopefully he's equally crafty when told to do irresponsible things with magma.

TIME SKIP! Timber, Year 6
After spending nearly two years establishing the fortress, our dwarven numbers have swelled to 11. The top level is full of workbenches and our farm, while the bottom level has a lovely pattern of bedrooms within, complete with dining room and empty kitchen spots. The organization of Shieldsensed started haphazardly but improved over time, just in time for a trade caravan to avoid us because their caravan sucked too much to make it around the bend to our depot. Since the next one showed up without a hitch, I can only assume that this was the elves' fault. Damned elves.

I bet you'd all love to see the cabinet-free bedrooms, so here's a (artifacted-up...) picture of them:


Note how it devolves into clay and sand after a certain point. Oh well...

And here's a labeled picture of the fortress, a year and a half old!