Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Sandboxer]

So as my handle implies, I'm a big fan of sandboxes .. and this one immediately earned a high spot on my top sandbox list after just a few hours of learning how to play.
I'll spare you the details but my first few attempts were aided by a video series on youtube. I learned the basics pretty quick and along with a few do's and don'ts

one thing I always seem to be preparing for but have yet to experience, is some kind of encounter with an enemy army or invading force.  the only times i have had serious npc problems was from digging too far down and being ignorant of any way to prevent the evil from lurking up the stairs and slaying one of my cherished dwarves...

i always spend a lot of time carefully placing my fortress in a safe area near a mountain for the ore...this has led to several hilarious attempts at corralling water into areas where it might not freeze over during winter...none successful yet.  i have managed to figure out how the military works and promoting nobles with assigned furniture and what not.

one thing i havent been able to figure out is the trade system. there seems to be a caravan every year and they seem to dump a bump of stuff off after i go thru a series of menus but other than that i cant find a way to sell off goods or what have you...im kind of clueless on that aspect but it doesnt seem to inhibit my ability to run a fortress.   

im not really sure what defenses or siege equipment are for since i never end up using anything..... i think perhaps im just starting off in the wrong areas?  how do you guys pick a site? what have your experiences with these so called invasions been?

[Daris]

I never have problems with invasions if I choose a site that has goblin neighbors, but I think that's partially down to luck and partially down to me playing forts for usually at least a decade of game time.  My current fort has been attacked 22 times in the ~35 years since it reached a population of 80.

Invaders do need to find their way to your fort, and a known bug involves faulty pathfinding.  If that affects you, you may never get invaders, which is where the luck factors in.  Planting your fort close to the goblin's home town improves your chances of a siege, as invaders don't have to go as far and the pathfinding bug has less chance to kick in.

Siege engines are currently very situational weapons that require a good bit of advance preparation to deploy in a useful manner.

[feelotraveller]

On trading have a look at the wiki which is very good for this game in general

dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Trading

Basically once merchants/caravans arrive on the map select your trade depot and choose some goods to move there to trade.  Watch your dwarfs drop their jobs and haul all your useless junk valuable items there. Wait for the merchants to arrive and start unloading.  Then click on the depot again and request a trader to attend, your broker (appointed in the nobles screen) is a good choice though you can toggle so that any dwarf can do it.  Wait for dwarf to get to depot then select it and choose to trade.  Do some bartering!  Trading goods valued at about twice as much as what you want in return is a good starting point.  I like to do lots of little trades but whatever you want.  When done (or merchants leave) move your new +socks+ and any leftovers back to stockpiles.

[Uggh]

If the caravan leaves the depot leaving all their stuff lying around, then you might have pressed 's' accidentally in the trade screen, seizing all their goods.

[Sandboxer]

Thanks, I had a feeling i was doing the trading wrong. 

But im not sure that it matters...the video i watched was pretty good I guess.  im able to get about 80 dwarves or so by the 2nd year but from that point forth its either like build more rooms so more dwarves come, or micromanage military items and units...not sure what there is to do after that

[Sandboxer]

oh! i did have something kind of interesting happen...actually two things. 

i had built down to an open cavern and assigned my dwarves to chop trees/etc...eventually i came across a Gremlin...which was interesting because its the only thing ive seen the UI announce in red letters...and basically just said run.  i tried to kill it but almost as soon as i saw the thing, it was gone.

after that they encountered another thing called something something the forgotten. it was basically a green capitol I which killed about 6 of the 12 military units i sent to attack it. spewed webs all over the place it was kind of crazy...its body disappeared after i killed it, so now im wondering if the same thing happened to the Gremlin

[CapnUrist]

The Gremlin is an annoyance. Worst thing about it is if it gets into your fortress, it can start pulling levers and making a mess. They're cowards though, and run at the first sign of danger.

The Forgotten Beast was another matter. Those are large ancient creatures who prefer to destroy fortresses one dwarf at a time. They can also destroy buildings and doors. When you killed it, it may not have left much behind depending on what it was made of; while some are flesh and blood, others are made of minerals, water, fire or even steam or snow. Some FBs can even excrete deadly toxins that linger for years.

[FortunaDraken]

Gremlins are wimps, if they fear that they're about to die, they'll leg it to the edge of the map and disappear. That's probably why you can't find it now.

The forgotten thing was a Forgotten Beast, one of the nasty FUN things that can pop up to kill your dorfs. One interesting thing about them is that their bodies can be made up of just about anything, so it's possible that it was made of something like snow or water so once it died, it just kind of vanished as the liquids evaporated.

Also it's possible that it was made of flesh, and your dwarves butchered it. I forget if Gremlins are butcherable, but same thing there. See if you have any forgotten beast meat or skin lying around.

[Psieye]

Regarding invasions, the short answer is that the current version has much less of them than intended. There are things you can do pre-embark to significantly increase your chances of getting attacked but it requires a conscious effort. That doesn't mean you can't have something to fight: just keep digging down or maybe embark in an evil biome which may bring Complications for your entertainment.