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[TerryDactyl]

Elf! Sissy! You don't need to bring an axe on embark! Take your cart apart and BUILD an axe! For that matter, you don't need to bring anything at all except for some dogs and picks.

[Drawde]

-Walls + Drawbridge (keeps out 99% of enemies that you can just plink away at with bolts until they leave)

I don't see how something in the game being used the same way the things work in real life is an exploit.

[Mickey Blue]

If in real life having a wall and a drawbridge made you impervious from all attack nobody with a castle would ever have been invaded.  The fact that there is simply no way to break through the drawbridge/walls, climb over them, dig under them, or anything else is what makes them quite a bit not like in real life.

They aren't an exploit, in fact I specifically said that if you go back and re-read my post, but they do unbalance the game to the point (IMO) they make it far too easy.  Its not so much nobody should use them, just if you want a challenge you may not want to.  But to each their own.

Let's see... I don't consider danger rooms an exploit. Without extremely close monitoring my dwarves never seem to get too high in skills in the military, and the danger of executing even unarmed enemies makes it too much.

They are an exploit because they perform an action not intended (giving you absurdly high training without cause).  Whether or not they are a necessary exploit due to other malfunctioning mechanics is for each person to decide on their own but they are still without question an exploit.

Its sort of like using wooden axes to cut down trees.  Its clearly an exploit as they are not intended to function in that way however at the same time the lack of stone weapons to cut down trees (which certainly existed in real life) may make them reasonable to use for some (basically using wooden hatchets in place of stone ones that don't exist but should).  That said, its an exploit.

[King Mir]

No one's mentioned magma pistons yet.

Or floored over sun rooms.

[TerryDactyl]

Come to think of it, the simple Archimedean screw pump featured in this game expels water with pressure roughly equivalent to that of a fire-hose. Given an ample supply and a suitably enclosed space, a single pump operator could theoretically hold off entire armies nigh indefinitely.

[nerdyboy321123]

Come to think of it, the simple Archimedean screw pump featured in this game expels water with pressure roughly equivalent to that of a fire-hose. Given an ample supply and a suitably enclosed space, a single pump operator could theoretically hold off entire armies nigh indefinitely.

nerdyboy cancels lurk forums: Taken by mood

[Sutremaine]

For that matter, you don't need to bring anything at all except for some dogs and picks.

I like to take some dogs for breeding and replace the ones I'd slaughter with turkeys. I think they come out slightly less cost-effective when food yield is taken into account, but 48 points spent on turkeys will get you more leather (and totems, if you like) than 48 points spent on dogs. I can always use the leather early on, especially for waterskins (you know that time in the spring where everyone rushes for the barrels and stands there chugging for what seems like forever? Gone). The only problem is that you need to bring some tanning skill for processing to not take forever, though I think it's worth it for the cheap leather and all the other goodies inside a full-grown turkey.

[jasonwill2]

guys i made a custom world with a lot of deserts and no layer of lava in the map, and put my embark points to the max allowed for custom worlds, is that cheating? though given the vast majority of land has aquifers, and in many places I put the savagery up, and in most places other than one area near a civ there is a very little overlapping of shallow metal and fresh water.

really, only two main areas are ok for civs, and most of that land is taken up but the max embark points... lol

[i2amroy]

Elf! Sissy! You don't need to bring an axe on embark! Take your cart apart and BUILD an axe! For that matter, you don't need to bring anything at all except for some dogs and picks.

You bring dogs? And picks!? What madness is this!? I embark with nothing at all and no skills on my dwarves! They then have to disassemble the wagon in order to make training axes to cut trees and construct things, all of the while hunting and fishing for the very food required to live until the first caravan shows up with a pick! And to make it extra challenging sometimes, I embark in places that only have murky pools for water! It takes a real dwarf to stand up to having 4 of my 7 starting dwarves die of dehydration while I am waiting for the merchants to finish unloading their barrels of booze! THIS... IS... DWARF FORTRESSSSSSSSSS!!!!!

[ZeroSumHappiness]

is that cheating?

It's only cheating if you're not having fun.  (It's still slightly cheaty if you have fun but no ‼fun‼.)

[Mickey Blue]

Really when it comes down to it there is no 'cheating' in this game, just difficulty settings.  Think of using danger rooms, walling yourself in, using hundreds of traps, finding the most beneficial embark, starting with above normal embark points, etc, etc, etc, as playing on 'easy mode'.  Think of not using danger rooms, not using traps, not using walls, not using magma, finding the most horrific and difficult embark possible, using zero embark points, etc, etc, etc, as playing on 'hard mode'.  Other combinations are in the middle.

You shouldn't really look at these various things you can do (be they out and out exploits or just gameplay options that reduce the difficulty) to be things that are cheating, just things that can make the game easier on you.  If that makes it more fun then go for it, if it makes it less fun then I wouldn't do it. 

For example I find the idea of stealing from the merchants to be boring, it just gives me tons of stuff for no effort and (in most cases) no punishment.  Other people may enjoy having a ton of free stuff without having to work for it because it drives the game faster.  Still other people may enjoy concocting elaborate traps to steal from the merchants and that makes it fun for them.  So in that example stealing or not stealing from the merchants is not 'cheating', but depending on your playstyle it may increase or decrease the fun, so just make the call appropriately.

Simple as that really.

[Indricotherium]

There are as many ways to play the game as there are socks on a battlefield.

Sigged.

[TerryDactyl]

Nobody, not one of you mentioned the mother of all exploits:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

CTRL-ALT-DEL

100% guaranteed to get you out of a sticky situation. Forts tend to suffer a great deal of entropic damage whilst employing this technique, so use sparingly...

[thistleknot]

That's not an exploit, that's save scumming.

[Urist Imiknorris]

Which is...