Bay 12 Games Forum

i was finding example games for a game programming idea for a high school project, i managed to find dwarf fortress but got scared away due to the graphics. A long while later, i got bored of playing casual games like the sims that serve you fun on a platter, and decided to give dwarf fortress another try. This time i read over the wiki a bit first and found that there were graphic packs that gave units sprites, i also downloaded the theraphist and later dfhack when i started to run into bugs like the stuck migrant.

i dont think i can go through with playing completely vanilla dwarf fortress though, especially with the default tileset...it just hurts my eyes

there reaches a point where excessive plant production slows down your fort overall though, due to the processing and harvesting of those plants. I require labor for several other industries atm, like my giant cave spider silk farm looms, corpse grinder/bone crafting, and the metal industry. I think i've already passed the point of adequate plant production, long ago.

 10 legendary planters is enough, i dont need any more planters, legendary or not (it should be noted, i used to have no hauling turned on for my initial 4 planters that were part of my starting 7, those 4 where going to produce all the plants my fort ever needed, but now all my legendary planters have all hauling except stone and wood turned on, and still produce an excess).

So i have no reason to go through the effort of making turning on planting exclusively for my non-legendary planters (children that grew up) and instead just throw them in the peasantry. I also have no reason to go through the effort of producing fertilizer and wasting wood because i already have enough plant production in the first place.

this is just the case for this specific fortress though, i have not needed to smash any children so far, but i have done so in the past. in a vanilla fort where there is no child population cap, where overpopulation rather than population stagnation is a problem. Then the (much) easier answer for children is not to become a agricultural fort in order to keep them occupied and useful, but to simply send them to the smasher.

for the case of the OP, i definitely dont think he'll use 50 children as planters when they grow up. Meaning the only use they really have is the limited to moderate (depending on your ilders) harvesting and deconstruction jobs they do. Which, IMO is not worth the friends they make, and tantrums that could potentially result.

Quote from: Tibous on April 05, 2013, 11:25:26 am

I think you've said it all.

There is need to have contact with the outside world, to receive trade or immigrants.

There is no need for the outside world. It is full of humans, elves and inferior Dwarves. You have arrived at this location to get away from them. So let them starve on the surface, wallowing in their own filth and corruption. You have a society to build from the ground-up. Just make sure to accept the first two immigration waves of the Faithful, as they will be your breeding stock. Then dig deeper, and seal yourself away. With your children's children the Dwarven salvation will come.

(if this actually excites you, you can also set pop:0 in d_init.txt file to prevent migration)

theres a unique problem with a  home-grown population though: children tend to make friends in their childhood, and these bonds last all their lives, if the majority of your population's adults were formerly native-born children that had 12 years to make friends, then that is a tantrum-spiral minefield waiting for a spark to set it alight in a blaze of fun.

So mace = universal bashing weapon
Warhammer = specialized anti-armor weapon

this seems to make sense, but in adventure mode i just sidestep the armor and go for the limbs and then the head when the enemy decides to take a nap to rest his broken bones. The only real piece of armor that require a warhammer's anti-armor capabilities seem to be breastplates and maybe greaves, but IMO the lower and upper body parts seem to be very bad targets anyway for any blunt weapon, armored or not. Reason is cuz bruising the stomach or any other organ except the guts has no negative effect (bruising the guts may cause nausea), at best you shatter some ribs and cause pain, but going for the limbs is usually much easier. Bruising the lungs and heart also seem to have no effect compared to say a spear that tears those apart and opens arteries.

I dont know how the Ai fights using blunt weapons, but i think its safe to say blunt weapons are a very bad choice overall for fortress mode dwarves. Maces are better used by the Ai since the ai practically just attack-moves its enemies without regards to tactics, and maces are more versatile than warhammers.

New bug with Dwarf Fortress: Cutting down trees may cause the branches to fall off, causing a cave-in.

dam is this foreal? so now we have to build scaffolds to cut down trees?

Quote from: Catsup on April 04, 2013, 11:27:42 pm

from my experience warhammers really suck and only bruise muscle, and maces tend to shatter the bones of extremities like hands and feet. I know this from testing to find a good weapon in adventure mode.

If you do testing against armored targets you will find the mace tends to bounce off, while the war hammer penetrates the armor more often.

all blunt weapons tend to bounce off or be ineffective against shaped armor (im talking about breastplates in particular), but in adventure mode i tend to aim for the hands and feet, and maces go through gauntlets/high boots just fine and shatter the bone. Hammers however, just seem to do less damage in general and shatter bones way less, bruising muscle and fat most of the time.

build a giant stairway of ramps from the surface down to the caverns and channel out ALL of the rest of the soil, aquifier, and rock above the first cavern layer so that your cavern is now the "surface" and voila, cavern fort.

burrow the unhappiest dwarves in your smasher room and get rid of them, a waterfall (as mentioned above) is really the only free way to make dwarves a bit happier (at the cost of your fps).