Dwarf Fortress > DF Dwarf Mode Discussion

Ready for a challenge

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ebenezer:
Hi everyone,
first of all let me introduce myself: I've been playing DF for 10 months or so, and I enjoy it immensely. It's by far the best game I've ever played, thanks to its depth and open possibilities. My only problem is that - having a 11 mo old daughter - I have very little time for playing, a couple of hours a week. I played only 4 or 5 fortresses so far, my present one is at year 5 and started on Sep 13th! This has an advantage: I THINK a lot before playing, and I really recommend it - 1 day of thinking gives you an excellent 30 min of play. And I read a lot too - Probably I have spent more time reading the wiki than playing (by the way, is it possible to have it printable as a pdf?). Sorry for the long intro, I come to the point.

My present fortress is thriving, but the site helps a lot: magma pool, river, sand, trees, you name it. I would like to start a new one that gives me more challenge, so I am asking the following:
1. what should I look for when I choose the embark site? A desert with no trees? an island in the ocean? Terrifying wilderness? stop earlier the world generation? what's an exciting mix?
2. What mod or combination of mods do you recommend to make things more interesting? I mean more civs/animals/plants/stones to add variety to the game.

This is very important for me, as I will be playing the next fortress for at least two months (well, if they survive). Please keep in mind that I don't like megaprojects, so boooring...

Armok bless you.

Jim Groovester:
A terrifying desert island out in the middle of a terrifying ocean might prove interesting. No fresh water, no wood, and skeletal whales come ashore to try to eat you.

darkflagrance:

--- Quote from: ebenezer on November 25, 2009, 05:45:30 pm ---Hi everyone,
first of all let me introduce myself: I've been playing DF for 10 months or so, and I enjoy it immensely. It's by far the best game I've ever played, thanks to its depth and open possibilities. My only problem is that - having a 11 mo old daughter - I have very little time for playing, a couple of hours a week. I played only 4 or 5 fortresses so far, my present one is at year 5 and started on Sep 13th! This has an advantage: I THINK a lot before playing, and I really recommend it - 1 day of thinking gives you an excellent 30 min of play. And I read a lot too - Probably I have spent more time reading the wiki than playing (by the way, is it possible to have it printable as a pdf?). Sorry for the long intro, I come to the point.

My present fortress is thriving, but the site helps a lot: magma pool, river, sand, trees, you name it. I would like to start a new one that gives me more challenge, so I am asking the following:
1. what should I look for when I choose the embark site? A desert with no trees? an island in the ocean? Terrifying wilderness? stop earlier the world generation? what's an exciting mix?
2. What mod or combination of mods do you recommend to make things more interesting? I mean more civs/animals/plants/stones to add variety to the game.

This is very important for me, as I will be playing the next fortress for at least two months (well, if they survive). Please keep in mind that I don't like megaprojects, so boooring...

Armok bless you.

--- End quote ---

Regarding mods:

For military challenge, the bigger, better armored, faster, trap-avoiding Orcs are the next step from goblins.

Civforge, Dig Deeper, and Relentless Assault emphasize different areas of the DF experience; the first two increase the variety of minerals, plants and animals; Civforge increases the number of civs dramatically as well, while Dig Deeper includes Orcs. Relentless Assault converts preexisting creatures into civs that launch progressively more powerful sieges at you. I've only played the latter two however (due to forum games and whatnot). There's also a helpful sticky at the modding forum that has a list of other worthy mods I didn't mention.

Dwarf conversion mods like Catsplosion or Kobold Camp are good if you want to roleplay a different creature within DF.

It might be a good idea to explore each mod so that you get a decent idea of what you want to see in one, and modding the game itself is not too difficult; all you do is copy an entry in the raw files, change some names, look up the occasional value on the wiki. Lately, I've combined the Wonderment mod (which makes major geological changes to the game) with Orcs and part of Relentless Assault along with my own custom stuff.

Also, stopping world generation early on average lets more megabeasts survive but decreases the resources available to civs. Better in my opinion to just go into the raws and increase the size and damblock of megabeasts (about a hundred for each value ought to do it and still give you creatures that are at best significant challenges)

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