Print

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

[Musluk]

Hmm... g-rated DF...

Lets see. Caveins, temperature, ALL the pets have to go. Changing dwarves into NO_SLEEP NO_FOOD and removing NEEDS_ALCOHOL, moods, also DAMBLOCK... AMPHIBIOUS, what have you...

I guess it's doable to an extent, but sooner or later, somehow, a dwarf will manage to die. You can even delete the races, I guess. Atom smashing, levers... I'd get rid of bridges, and use floors instead.

But yeah. Doable to an extent, with expectable losses. http://www.dwarffortresswiki.net/index.php/Creature_tokens has a lot of tokens you can change to lower the violence.

Not going to comment about raising kids, before I experience it myself. Hope you have fun with your son, though

[Warlord255]

Wheeew!

Sorry to be away so long, I just looked back at this post.
My son is 5 now and pretty much gets his own fortresses up and running alone.
We just turned off invaders and when one drowns or burns I used to try to scroll away but somewhere along the line I just explained that we needed to take care of the dwarfs.

He still says, "Dad, what does this say?" a few times.  The most difficult thing right now is the prepare carefully part.  He is just about to where he can trade alone. 

Ironically, 2 days ago he started amongst a plethora of evil thing.  More than I think I had seen.  I explained that he could dig on the opposite side of the map and hope they'd not bother him or activate all 7 starting dwarfs immediately and "we might lose a couple" but he'd probably clear the area. 
This is the option he chose.
The cave spider wiped out the whole crew in under a minute and the thing collapsed into ruin.  A couple hours later I overheard him tell his Mom all about it in his bath and thought, "I am gonna hear about this."  Didn't too much though.

DF is the thing he looks forward to right after dinner nearly everyday and right after pancakes on weekend mornings.  He get really immersed in it and I usually read a book nearby while he's playing.  He alters the key bindings so the z-level shifts are * and / by himself.

I thought about posting a fortress he'd done everything on alone sometime.

I appreciate everyone's comments.  It's cool that so many different perspectives are out there.  I had no idea this thread had continued to grow until 20 minutes ago.

DF definitely teaches a lot about organizing and other things he'll absorb without me ever knowing it.

Kudos to the provider.

If he can handle dwarves dying and eating animals, I think the worries of violence are handled.

I'd keep invaders off just as a difficulty precaution. Are artifacts/moods on? I'm not sure if suicide from failed moods would be too much for a kid his age if you could explain that "Urist went crazy, there's nothing you could do. People usually don't go crazy."

[Mondark]

What have you DONE!?!  Raising a child on dwarf fortress from age 4!?!  He'll never be satisfied by any other computer game again!!  He shall grow up to be the ultimate fortress manager, ten years from now (or sooner) his dreams will be filled with images of Dwarves, Elves, magma and chaos, and he shall smile...  The world shall shudder...

He will be the leader of the Dwarven Revolution, the next ruler of the World, and he shall decree that everyone live in caves, everything powered by magma, and that all Elves and Goblins be exterminated!

Kudos to you sir, for raising a child the right way!

Seriously though, it makes me glad that you're letting him play such a mind opening game so early.  There's really a lot DF can teach, things like the importance of double checking complex systems (or not so complex) for silly errors, the importance of a good spatial layout for busy places, and simply fostering the development of an active imagination.

Cool.  The DF Kid.  You simply must report back in a few years and tell us if he still plays!

[sonerohi]

Wait, wait, wait... Didn't we already make that Teachers Mod to be first grader friendly, so that that one guy could use it as a teaching method?

[Fallout Fenix]

Tell me when the kid starts extensive modding projects, regardless of age at the time, I'll have to check it out. Player since age 4, wow, I didn't even know what fortress meant at four! . For all we know, he could grow up to be programming genius or something

[G-Flex]

Wheeew!

Sorry to be away so long, I just looked back at this post.
My son is 5 now and pretty much gets his own fortresses up and running alone.

(probably not a good idea to quote the whole post )

I'm honestly glad to hear all that.

When I first looked over your original post (as well as another, similar post someone made a while ago), I was thinking "oh jeez, someone else thinking he can somehow take absolutely everything negative and violent out of this game; he's going to be disappointed".

But it really seems like you're sugarcoating those aspects far less now than I imagined. I mean, I imagine he still isn't quite familiar with all the dismemberment that went on with the giant cave spider, but hey, it seems like you did a good job.

I've always thought (in my own naive, childless, 22-year-old's opinion) that even if media has a bit of violence in it, it's okay as long as it's appropriate to the context, the parents are sane and actually talk to the kid and know what he's doing, and he's made to actually understand it (and the difference between reality and fantasy).

[MagmaDeath]

Nothing to say

[cjet79]

Will getting rid of these in the entity files prevent invasions?

   [SELECT_SYMBOL:WAR:NAME_WAR]
   [SUBSELECT_SYMBOL:WAR:VIOLENT]
   [SELECT_SYMBOL:BATTLE:NAME_BATTLE]
   [SUBSELECT_SYMBOL:BATTLE:VIOLENT]
   [SELECT_SYMBOL:SIEGE:NAME_SIEGE]
   [SUBSELECT_SYMBOL:SIEGE:VIOLENT]

[FoboslC]

Ummm. noo...

[G-Flex]

Those just have to do with what symbols the civilizations will choose and has no impact on their behavior at all.

There's an init.txt file setting that can completely disable invaders, I believe. Should be something really simple like [INVADERS:(YES/NO)].

[cjet79]

Those just have to do with what symbols the civilizations will choose and has no impact on their behavior at all.

There's an init.txt file setting that can completely disable invaders, I believe. Should be something really simple like [INVADERS:(YES/NO)].

Ok thanks, this wont turn off other things like raids, baby snatching, or stealing right?

[Footkerchief]

Those just have to do with what symbols the civilizations will choose and has no impact on their behavior at all.

There's an init.txt file setting that can completely disable invaders, I believe. Should be something really simple like [INVADERS:(YES/NO)].

Ok thanks, this wont turn off other things like raids, baby snatching, or stealing right?

Yes, it will.  If you just want to avoid sieges, keep your population below 80 by setting the population cap in init.txt to something conservative like 60.

[cjet79]

Those just have to do with what symbols the civilizations will choose and has no impact on their behavior at all.

There's an init.txt file setting that can completely disable invaders, I believe. Should be something really simple like [INVADERS:(YES/NO)].

Ok thanks, this wont turn off other things like raids, baby snatching, or stealing right?

Yes, it will.  If you just want to avoid sieges, keep your population below 80 by setting the population cap in init.txt to something conservative like 60.

Will turning off invaders have any effect on wild animals, traders, or immigrants entering the fortress area?
(I know losing is fun, but I want to try something other then rushing to build all my defenses just to survive more then 5 years. I thought it would be nice to still keep some kind of combat challenge so I don't lose sight of its importance, but I'm more then willing to see it totally cut out for a couple games in peace.)

[Footkerchief]

Will turning off invaders have any effect on wild animals, traders, or immigrants entering the fortress area?
(I know losing is fun, but I want to try something other then rushing to build all my defenses just to survive more then 5 years. I thought it would be nice to still keep some kind of combat challenge so I don't lose sight of its importance, but I'm more then willing to see it totally cut out for a couple games in peace.)

No, it shouldn't affect those.

[Kagus]

My dad introduced me to computers when I was 2.  I'd sit on his lap and enter random garbage into the command prompt (no GUI in those days).  I was an amazingly easy child to amuse.

I actually learned the layout of a QWERTY keyboard before I learned the ABC alphabetical sequence.  Not many folks who can say that.  Or, quite frankly, would.


From the looks of things (setting up the supplies and skills for a fort, and more impressively rebinding keys independently), you've got a pretty sharp kid.  You'll want to throw as many overly complex concepts at him as possible, and DF is just the trick for being overly complicated.

And yes, you are most certainly going to get an earful about encouraging this sort of thing.


Would very much like to see that fort you mentioned.  And, of course, would love to hear exactly which buzzwords you receive for your corrupting influence on the poor child.  Keep up the good work.


Did you really present the option of sending all the dwarves into military mode and "only losing a few"?  It's possible to tone down the violence inherent in the game, but we can't do anything about the user.