Since Pikachu17 and ZM5 were kind enough to do my other two mods, I figured I'd complete the set by doing my first-ever mod, WW2. It was only for the old 34.11 version. Ultimately I stopped working on it to do the Composite Mod, which I was more interested in. I later stopped publishing Composite Mod because of lack of public interest, the new version, and because I got tired of asking permission to take mods. Eventually I added around 17 or so mods and the loading times became prohibitive, so I abandoned it. Around then I began working on Jawa Fortress.
Historical fictionI made a small world with a 1943 year history. Bogeymen and werebeasts have also been turned off.
Certain names don't sound right, like "a British" "a French" or "a Japanese". The reason for this is that I couldn't find a good noun that works for them, in the way "a Nazi" or "a American" does. However, Dwarf Fortress typically uses creature names like adjectives. Thus, "a French" becomes "a French soldier" or "a French farmer."
I decided to peek at Legends first before going in. I noticed the Americans had an unusual President.
Electoral College, why do you do this to us?
I decide to make a Soviet ranged character, hoping to eventually kill Lipi. I had hoped to assassinate the Führer, but the Nazis had been eradicated in this world.
I also customized my character a bit more.
I spawned with a rifle, and a shirt made from shark leather.
The only two weapons used in the second world war were Rifle and Pistol. Anyone who tells you otherwise is stupid.
There are wooden "woodcutter axes" available for chopping trees in fortress mode, but I didn't make a reaction to produce them so Fortress Mode probably doesn't work right.
I ask a nearby Soviet peasant for quests. This mod is only for the old 34.11 version, so I go into the old screen.
I was pretty loyal to this version. I didn't upgrade until...42.x, I think. The major reason was because Adventure Mode didn't really work in the early 40.x releases. There was no real quest journal beyond memorizing descriptions like: "Treescissor's lair is somewhere in The Happy Jungles(A desert), on the continent of The Unfortunate Island. All the NPC's were incredibly cowardly and would rarely fight back. It was inevitable. The thing I miss most is these conversation controls. You could spam the "service" button and mine any random NPC for every single quest for miles around, except for the ones locked to rulers of course.
In this case though, the vampire quest catches my eye. I could kill the vampire and grab a neat set of powers to help me take down Lipi. I don't play 34.11 anymore. I still prefer certain features, but 34.11 lacks a few things. For example, it doesn't have mead halls, things for adventurers to do other than killing, jumping, climbing, parrying on purpose, functional dual wielding, multiracial forts, varied attack strengths, tall trees, visitable elf, dwarf, and goblin settlements, pulping body parts, shouting...
Anyway, I make it to the vampire's hometown.
The place is in ruins except for a few houses and this area.
I find the castle while looking for people. I'd like to take a moment here to show off a 34.11 era tree. BEHOLD.
I liked trees
before they went big. The castle is purple and made of pitchblende, a uranium ore. I look in the front door of the radioactive castle to find it filled to bursting with religious Russians.
Nearly all of them are some rank of priest, but there's also a few others, like a pair of female soldiers. This one is using a pistol, the non-rifle gun.
The biggest obstacle to modding guns into Dwarf Fortress is that the game doesn't really support an "internal clip/magazine" sort of loading. Every ranged weapon
must use a projectile sourced from your own inventory. Also, quivers are hardcoded so you can't stop ranged characters from using them or call them something different. So for now guns have to store their bullets in quivers and be loaded one at a time. There might be a solution using DFhack, but I don't use it.
I had forgotten the sort of descriptions I had chosen for the nations in this mod.
Well that's creative. I went into the castle's basement and went through a door.
Instantly, I was shot in the gut by one of the bandits living in the expansive labyrinth mere feet below the clergy. I made a quick retreat back up to the main level. I slept for two hours, after getting questioned by a priest. He thought my name was gibberish.
Now that my nap had healed the bullet hole, I went back down, stealthily. I went into a different room and found another bandit. I tried to sneak around him and verify that he was alone, but he spotted me. Stealth in 34.11 was simply a check whenever you moved around somebody. Vision arcs were added later.
Despite the wound, I returned fire.
I shot him again in the liver, but he landed a hail of shots that killed me. I actually got out of sight, but my neck was broken by a shot so I suffocated. That was a bit disappointingly short, so I made another character. This time I would be a British pugilist. I picked that because unarmed was more powerful in 34.11.
I decided to check the British description. It was "A Brit." It occurred to me that that might be offensive, so I looked it up. It seems that it's at least a bit rude. I found that unacceptable, so I updated the mod before writing this post. I didn't change the term, I'll own the mistake. Instead, I changed the American description to "A Yank." I was also kicking myself for making the Queen, not the Prime Minister, their head of state. However, I eventually remembered why I did it. It was because I thought it would be funny to fight Vampire Queen Elizabeth.
After I spawned, I found my hometown was largely deserted so I wandered off. Eventually I came across an town of Italian facists.
They weren't hostile because I didn't give the Axis nations the [LOCAL_BANDITRY] tag. I think that was a poor choice in retrospect, but I probably did that so the player could use them if desired. In 34.11, if a civ had the tag touching them resulted in an automatic attack even if they were your allies. I tried to ensure hostility by giving the Axis and Allies different ethics. The Soviet ethics were carefully chosen so they could potentially fight either side.
Anyway, I knew how to fix the lack of hostility.
I did make sure to find out the leader's location first. I then attacked a nearby farmer. I thought I might be being a bit cruel, so I decided to try and just subdue him with a kick to the head.
Whoops. Sneaking into the next room, I saw more farmers so I left. Moving on north toward the town Not-Mussolini is in, I was seen by several civilians. The first one to charge dropped from a single punch to the head.
I saw a soldier with a rifle, so I took cover. Two civilians followed with knives, so I smashed their wrists and left them unconscious. A potter blocked me at the door to the soldier's house, so I choked him out. Then I accidentally punched his skull in. Stepping through the door, I dodged a bullet and was surprised at what I discovered.
In the midst of my own meaningless, violent rampage I had discovered a cult! I began a bit of fighting and kicked a furnace operator's head in. He may or may not have been in the cult but he was hostile so who cares. The miller cultist became enraged after I grabbed his knife, kicked his ankle and scratched his shoulder. It didn't matter, I snapped his neck with a kick to the head. I then yanked the knife away and threw it at a ranger. It stuck in the ranger's leg and left him crawling. Some more violence followed, but that fight was over. All three got beaten to death. The people with the ruined wrists tried to get involved but passed out before they could reach me.
I then entered the house. I was then spotted and shot twice in the hip by the soldier.
I crawled over and kicked him twice, but it didn't kill him. The farmer with a knife next him attacked me. Neither of us made much progress as I dodged the blows and was too pained from the bullets to crush her skull. Suddenly, another farmer came through the door and stabbed me in the back.
I went down biting and kicking, but it was over. After a bunch more stab wounds and another gunshot for good measure I finally died.
I think that's enough of this mod. I could revive it, but I don't think it's worth it. It's just not very good. I think I'd rework it completely if I ever went back to it. Instead of a bunch of individual WW2 civs, I'd make two. They'd be Axis and Allies, with castes for each nation. I'd probably set their ratios to reflect real life troop counts as well. The reason for the uncreative weapons is because I can't mod the firing rate of guns, so other differences beyond the physical size of the gun don't matter much. You can change the power though. Mostly it results in knockback if you pump it up enough.
This makes me think the American Civil War might be an interesting concept. Slavery and few other choice ethics could provoke the North and South to fight if they felt strongly enough about it, and melee weapons like cavalry sabers were still occasionally used. Cannons as creatures might be fun.
The main reason I created this mod was to be able to fight Nazis. I enjoyed Wolfenstein:A New Order. This makes me think that maybe WW2 could be skipped as the concept entirely, and instead the new mod could be an adaption of Wolfenstein's content. You could have Panzerhunds wandering around, and CyberHitlers emerging from the HFS to rule civs.
These are all just ideas I've tossed around in my head, I've also thought about doing AVP, Terminator, or Star Trek.
This was fun, I'd like to see more mod creators do commentary on their own work.