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Author Topic: Getting started with Orcs  (Read 4208 times)

Apollo Densin

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Getting started with Orcs
« on: March 12, 2019, 03:13:28 pm »

So I am giving the orcs a try by switching the dwarfs off and the orcs on. One of the things I am noticing is the special plants that orcs have are not embarkable, are they something you need to trade for?

Trade wise, who all will trade with the orcs? I know goblins and rogue humans. Do some of the invader races trade with the orcs? Currently i have them all turned off, and I know Drow are no longer in this version by the looks of it. General tips on playing the orcs as well would be appreciated, mainly on stuff that has changed from the old version of the tutorial game that was made
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"Man I just survived an attack by 90 goblins with no loses. I feel so unsafe, time to build more defenses." My typical response to this game

Apollo Densin

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Re: Getting started with Orcs
« Reply #1 on: March 13, 2019, 04:14:40 pm »



I am unsure if the reason why I am not getting the spawns is because I am in a too warm area? According to the wiki a temperate conifer forest should be able to grow the Orcish plants in fall and winter in this environment. I received the caravan already, but the orcs did not have the plants as well.

I tried going to a Taigia itself, and it does seem that I can grow them there, but it is not an option for embarking.
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"Man I just survived an attack by 90 goblins with no loses. I feel so unsafe, time to build more defenses." My typical response to this game

smakemupagus

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Re: Getting started with Orcs
« Reply #2 on: April 02, 2019, 12:51:10 am »

You can (or i would even say, should) keep dwarfs in the game when you play orcs, they are one of the few invaders that can really give you a hard time in a melee. 

Try to keep your Uruks and Ologs happy, otherwise your tavern brawls can get very bloody very fast.  Make them the core of your military, crush your enemies and melt down their stuff. 

Macuahuitls are 2-handed and not terribly effective in the hands of a small orc, but an big caste orc can cut an unarmored enemy in half with one.  Spears and axes are fine for everyone. 

If the version we are playing currently has elves with metal arrows, those can be dangerous, and you probably want to spar (or fight a lot) to get your shield user skill up.  War animals counter elves pretty well by discovering ambushes and drawing away a first couple waves of arrow fire.

FantasticDorf

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Re: Getting started with Orcs
« Reply #3 on: May 20, 2019, 09:52:20 am »

Orcs can run like a dwarf fortress living underground with similar nausea penalties for being down too long that don't really matter due to their physicality to slowing them down, so not a lot may change in comparison to that respect and they make very competent wrestlers & melee fighters. The castes should definitely be labelled by professions typically to ensure to know where their best racial strengths lie as they are distinct.

In general if 'primal' stuff is messy (it sort of is) you're not 100% obliged to use it and use regular weapons and armors instead, id recommend setting up a textile industry immediately to start working with the caravansai with some interaction with the freeholder market, start obtaining bonemould coins by selling ropes to exchange into silvers and golds, and then begin smelting petty metals like copper (tetrahedrite in the embark scanner) into raiding kits for raids. The coins can be melted back down again (not the bonemould i think) to get the bars

Gold, platinum or silver ore will speed the caravansai along (like orchalium with a 1% chance drop needed for shadowbroker) considerably since your own minted coins count, but eventually you should be able to have a excellent exchange rate by using the food caravansai market to sell excess alcohol for 1k silver, and then convert that to bonemould at equal exchange for a profit, to raid and then bring back loot and more coins in the process by assigning better siege engineers with the workshop profile.
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Apollo Densin

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Re: Getting started with Orcs
« Reply #4 on: December 14, 2019, 11:43:36 pm »

So I return to orc fortress after a long while of being busy with other stuff and needing a slight break from dwarf fortress but some notes on it.

Composite bows do not seem to appear in the fletcher anymore along with enchanted arrows with toolkits. This along with some weapon types appear to be gone or just replaced with dwarf equivlents jagged axes are an example of being replaced by battle axes. In previous versions you could embark with above ground crops, but you can no longer do so in the latest version of masterwork. Orc specific plants that grow on the tagia are not embarkable/requestable at all. The evil versions of elves, dwarves, and humans are not available for trade.

Just some things I have seen so far with the orcs stuff in current masterwork that are no longer avalible

Whenever a trader takes their anmals off the map it says they are getting kidnapped
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"Man I just survived an attack by 90 goblins with no loses. I feel so unsafe, time to build more defenses." My typical response to this game

FantasticDorf

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Re: Getting started with Orcs
« Reply #5 on: December 17, 2019, 08:23:53 am »

Quote
Composite bows do not seem to appear in the fletcher anymore along with enchanted arrows with toolkits. This along with some weapon types appear to be gone or just replaced with dwarf equivlents jagged axes are an example of being replaced by battle axes. In previous versions you could embark with above ground crops, but you can no longer do so in the latest version of masterwork. Orc specific plants that grow on the tagia are not embarkable/requestable at all. The evil versions of elves, dwarves, and humans are not available for trade.

Just some things I have seen so far with the orcs stuff in current masterwork that are no longer avalible

Chalk it up to meph and the generalised masterwork changelog, though you can buy plant kits from the caravansai's food stall with the tundra seeds if its allowed on localised plant climate.

Quote
Whenever a trader takes their anmals off the map it says they are getting kidnapped

Thats normal when trading (with races with '[ITEM THEIF]' civ tags), which version are you playing? As the actual version of the DF has to match up to the masterwork, not copy and pasting over a existing one or using old saves which save the original raws into itself. Start a new game and see if its kept consistent.

0.44.12 (or maybe 11 i forget) worked completely fine for me without the things you are experiencing from a general user feedback experience of not initialising your saves/content properly.
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Apollo Densin

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Re: Getting started with Orcs
« Reply #6 on: December 17, 2019, 10:41:49 am »

Current version, whenever the orcs are leaving with their animals says they are kidnapping them. Or at least the version avalible in the downloads page.

It seems like a lot of features of the orcs got reworked in the current 44.x version of masterwork. I know that meph is doing a complete reworking of how the mod plays/lore wise, so unsure if orc fortress will keep getting updated for it to be a separate install or not anymore to be honest. I do like how the steam punk elements seem to be going away at the very least. To get a more proper orc gameplay I am doing the 4h install now, although it has one annoying feature I do not like. I can not zoom in close so everything is fairly far out. I miss the graphics pack in the newest version as well.

But taking the advice as it is given, and so far doing well in my current orc fort, although I did turn automatons off so probably wont get much on the big arms front
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"Man I just survived an attack by 90 goblins with no loses. I feel so unsafe, time to build more defenses." My typical response to this game

Apollo Densin

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Re: Getting started with Orcs
« Reply #7 on: December 18, 2019, 01:42:51 pm »

How does one acquire greater souls in masterwork v4h? I assume it is by butchering intelligent races, but I can not seem to get my orcs to butcher them

Edit: Got this one figured out, did not relieze it was an auto reaction, but my butchers were so backed up that they were letting the races rot before butchering them for bones so I lost the souls
« Last Edit: December 24, 2019, 08:21:56 am by Apollo Densin »
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"Man I just survived an attack by 90 goblins with no loses. I feel so unsafe, time to build more defenses." My typical response to this game