Actually, what he seems to be saying is something more along the lines of, "what's the point of playing if you're just going to cheat your way out of the tough situations?".
Of course, I may be interpreting it wrong.
I may have this wrong, but it seems to me that there isn't much point of playing if your entire fortress is wiped out by the first ambush. It isn't as if it is realistic for goblins to come out of the wilderness to completely obliterate every random gathering of thirty dwarves. It seems to me, at least, that Toybasher is only delaying the ambushes until (a.) He is able to have a chance of defeating them or (b.) He understands the game better.
Not much point? Having your ill-prepared fortresses meet a swift and gruesome end gives even more of a point to the game. You learn to build faster and better, develop a strategy to overcome the challenges. Victory just isn't as sweet without knowing the bitter taste of failure.
And as for realism, we're playing as dwarves, my friend. Dwarves who are able to build impenetrable walls of soap, and remove items from existence by lowering a drawbridge onto them. Realism is not this game's strongest leg, so to speak..
The problem is that during that time between failure and victory 90% of players have quit. There is no "sandbox mode" for dwarf fortress, there is no way for players to experiment and explore the game and grow feet to stand on. Is it cheating to look on the wiki?
My first fort was swiftly cut down seconds apart from each other by thirst, but I never saved before the end, and go add the [NO_DRINK] tag or what ever it is to my dwarves. I chuckled, and started again. It probably taught me more, that I need a well, and stills to keep the little guys from dropping, than if I had edited the raws.
How did you get the idea of "the wiki must be cheating, then?" It's the only way that I would have ever even learned how to dig out rooms, let alone setting up a military. The wiki isn't editing the game to our advantage with an outside source, but educating us on what we need to help the dwarves survive. Without it, I doubt anyone would play the game.
P.S. the whole fortress mode is a "way for players to
experiment and
explore the game and grow feet to stand on." There is no right or wrong way to survive, but there are the "accepted" and "not accepted" ways. (editing raws to remove threats, vs letting the little suckers die, to start again)
