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[jimboo]

Yeah, I know I’m asking for it –  but who knows, this might start a thread that will be useful to others.

The bloodline game I was scheduled for didn’t start so, I’m starting one.  LOTS to read on Bay12, Wiki, DFDD, but there are some apparently common themes/mistakes.  Before I/we start, I’m asking for comments on the following questions (along with any others that come to others’ minds):

1) Most games seem to go one turn/one year.  That’s a long time, especially in the beginning when everything is being set up.  Might only one or two seasons be better?  Perhaps only at the beginning?  In competitive chess, there are clocks to time player turns that are just clocks and there are also Fischer clocks which have variable intervals.  Might something like that be appropriate for DF? 

2) Does the host always start?  Draw numbers from a hat?

3) One week seems standard per turn, sometimes two but, Life Happens.  Does one week work for most people?  I’ve seen a number of “missed/ dropped-out” turns in bloodline games and maybe it’s because a year of DF can be several hours of real time (or not …).  But one season seems kind of short for a weekly update.  Two weeks RT for a DF year seems OK but, that’s a really slow game.  I want to do one now, easypie, so the kinks are out and there’s credibility when I propose the mod one I really want.   

4) Saves are usually either to a private dropbox or to DFFD.  Dropbox is easy (right click, Send To) with a shared folder so I set up a free, 10 GB dropbox and that’s big enough to avoid  rar/zip compression which takes as much time as the d/l.  But sharing it requires e-mail confirmation; I personally have several e-mail addresses including one that isn’t important to me (hotmail, free); would players rather upload to the anon DFFileDepot?  Also free, would give anybody access, but harder to edit and with limits on file size and movies.  When we all finally exit the stage, the fortress annals could always be uploaded for posterity to DFFD as a .pdf .

5) Folks who’ve PM’d me about the upcoming game seem to want lots of minerals and no tower (?!).  Sounds pretty easy to me but I suppose it frees time for individual Stupid Dwarf Projects and that’s one of the TBA goals of this fortress.  And a population cap of 140+ to get a monarch.  Myself, I’ve never seen the usefulness of a monarch; you lose the autumn Wish List in exchange for yet more mandates (and, I seem to always get yet another vampire).  FPS depends upon the player PCs and we don't all have gamers; I have a decent-enough laptop slaved to a big screen but I still typically cap at 120. 

6) I can start the easypie game “as is” with five, only Armok knows what the response might be when the theme is posted to Bay12; there always seem to be more willing players than games THAT AREN'T ON FRIGGIN' GLACIERS.  What has been the optimum number of players in past games?  The more the merrier?  Round-robin, hand-off teams?


Thanks in advance for your comments, either way.  (“He who cannot take the heat should not render tallow in the kitchen workstation.” – Urist Ramsey)

Jimboo

[CaptainArchmage]

I'm signing up for a turn. I could take the second year if you're going to start.

1) It takes time to deal with DF games, especially when the complexity goes up. You can reasonably ask for one week per turn for the first two or three years, but beyond that the playtime per year will go up somewhat. I'd suggest a one-week limit with a 2-day to one-week "don't ****ing care if it takes longer" buffer where if the person blows through their time limit, they're let off (just frowned upon).

2) My copies of dwarf fortress have all been modded one way or other, and it would take time to generate a new world. However, if you want I can generate a "decent" world and post it to drop box for someone else to start, or I could start the whole settlement, or you can generate a world and send it over to someone else.

3) My suggestion is to crank up the minerals down to 100, which gets you maximum. Variety of metals is good and their availability means the megaprojects can be in different colors and materials. No B.S. with entire z-levels being devoid of any variation.

We don't need to start on a terrifying biome or one with glaciers. Neutral or Joyous Wilds provides extra creatures (Unicorns! Giant Badgers!) that can still be dangerous without having constantly re-raising undead or weather that causes permanent FPS-draining splatter. I'd suggest a grasslands or forest embark with a source of running water present and without an map-encompassing aquifer.

4) I'd suggest DFFD for save storage. DFFD means that your game will be stored somewhere for the world to download for all eternity, so if you end up playing Headshoots II or Battlefailed MMCXVI someone can come back and necro it, or witness the brilliance for themselves.

Imageshack works for storing screenshots.

5) If you want replay value before the new release comes out, I'm OK with having a population cap lower than 140, but put it at 100, not 120. You need to have a buffer if you want to prevent the population shooting over a certain value.

6) The trouble with towers is you want the fortress to have room for Fun, but you also want it to last long enough to make a decent environment for having Fun in. If the outside is overrun by zombies, you won't be getting many migrants to run the forges, and then face off the HFS hoards after an unfortunate clown car crash.

7) You can start the game and post updates before getting many people. If you have two or three people who keep posting updates with interesting content, the thread will be bumped up to the top of the list frequently enough for more people to get on.

[joeclark77]

1) I actually think two years might be better than one.  You want to (a) tell an interesting story and (b) implement some mega (or at least mezzo-) projects, and it's often hard to do that in a year.  Two years would also allow you to (c) take advantage of the whole winter, if you need the water frozen for one of your projects, and (d) order supplies by caravan, and receive them.

2) Whatever you feel like.

3) No opinion.

4) I use microsoft skydrive.  Works like dropbox, you can share with anyone, but they get to see your real name.  I was already using it to sync my files (not just DF) across my work desktop, laptop, and home desktop.  Just please, please upload your files as ZIP folders and not RAR or GZ some other exotic format.

5) Your choices in this regard are what make the succession game unique.  You want at least one type of interesting challenge, whether it be an evil biome, a lack of ore, lack of trees, etc.  But you don't want *every* possible challenge at once.  This should really be your creative contribution to the fort and you shouldn't take a majority vote, otherwise your fort will turn out just like the others.

6) Build it, and they will come.

[CaptainArchmage]

Something more: While I really like large worlds, they take up a lot of space on the hard drive. Its come up a few times on these forums - many people play fortresses on large maps where the save game size can hit 20-50MB. Unlike the game itself, which is not particularly large, the saves are generally increasing in number. Once you factor in the backups and worldgen copies, that's a huge amount of space, so a player can have more hard drive space devoted to Dwarf Fortress than to a massive game such as Crysis in the end - the game takes up a lot of space but it generally doesn't constantly ask for more when its installed. Smaller worlds can get the save size down to a few MB. You can generate a good small-sized map with all races and variety, but it takes work on the Advanced Worldgen, and you may need to physically edit the parameters in the .init file.

On that note, I have tracked down my old objects folder with the unmodded contents.

Edit: I generated a small world with 100 years of history. Its around 18.8MB in size at worldgen. I can post a copy if people want.

New Discovery: So when the roads turn grey or white, they are paved with blocks. Otherwise, its dirt.

[Splint]

1. A year seems to be the norm part out of tradition and part out of avoiding the hassle of switching off so often (At least I personally think seasonal or bi-seasonal terms would be too quick to accomplish anything spectacular.)

2. Host usually starts from what I've seen, just by virtue of them having all the files and the world already generated and in hand.

3. Time seems variable. A week to two weeks is considered the norm from what I usually see but some turns will be as short as them getting the save and blowing through the same day or someone having problems taking three or more weeks (plus overtime of course the load the game is dealing with increases and slows the game down dramatically.)

4. DFFD would probably be the easiest.

5. Minerals mean not needing to rely on imports for materials to make armor and weapons. Imports to supplement are fine and dandy, but let's face it, they're unreliable sources at best if you're going for heavily armored troops. No tower is so the place doesn't get trashed by the end of year one I would assume (Necromancer sieges during a succession game tend to get more annoying than fun in the traditional sense.) But if you want some year one FUN I can hook you up with modbolds who tend to send as many as four ambush parties before the end of the first year (and thankfully they lack ranged weapons, opting instead to zerg rush you to either bend you in knots  or slice you apart with swords.)

6. I'm honestly more shocked by non-evil embarks because they seem like an almost nonexistant concept. I personally view overland settlements in forested savage lands tend to be suitably risky without the evil weather which in some cases does nothing but slow the game down. Some will make a concession of keeping a half or a quarter devoted to evil lands though to add in the potential for zombie wildlife roaming the area.

Most games tend to go on a first come first serve on the sign-up, though having a few guys on hand to keep things going smoothly until more people join is a smart move. I plan on expieriementing with a rotating group of 4-5 players myself.

[jimboo]

Well, the response (dozen or so PMs) has been pretty much unanimous – nobody else wants to embark next to a Tower.  Actually, the defense is rather simple: set up the walls quickly, keep all the refuse inside, put some pillboxes with drawbridge entrances at compass intervals around the surface with drawbridge access tunnels for migrants, then build.  Admittedly, I’ve never yet successfully stormed the Tower and found the scrolls…  and,

Life Happens.

I’m having to relocate, about 12,000 miles from where I am at present.   I don’t have much time to prepare so, it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to start a succession game just now.  I still intend to, sometime hopefully soon, and I’d like a turn if somebody else starts one in the meantime.  I still think the “GreedyLittleBasterds” theme is a good one and once you have magma, anything and everything is available in infinite supply (macro for trading precious coins, object melting which doesn’t even require a caravan for steel).  Stupid Dwarf Projects!  The only drawback is that over time, “stuff” accumulates and drops the FPS.  Myself, I’m happy with 100 dwarves and no grazers, walling off each underground section as mined to eliminate kitty pathfinding; four squads fully armored and trained are more than enough and it isn’t difficult to make a fortress ecstatically self-sufficient and still keep the count over 50.  Other folks seem to want the 140 limit to get a monarch (personally, I’ve never seen the use for a monarch and you lose the Autumn Wish List but hey, that’s part of the attraction of a bloodline game).  Smashing Bridges deal with anything accumulating underground and lately, I’ve been sectioning off most all of the surface and sequentially immolating it with magma; the fires are sort of pretty to look at and nothing is left but goblinite and each repelled siege can leave upwards of a thousand “stuffs” to be counted by the FPS algorithm.  Train your metalsmiths with copper cages, use non-magma-safe mechanisms and then, poof!  Magma solves every problem, as Urist says.