Topic: February - Everyone Plays DWARF FORTRESS!

[Quemaqua]

So we'd talked about this whole Everyone Plays thing, and since I know a bunch of people were curious about finally trying out Dwarf Fortress, I thought we'd start with that one for February.  So here's your official DF thread!

Idol and I have both been hard at work creating assets to make your dwarfy gaming more enjoyable, and he's got several new-and-improved tilesets for the game that make it look better without actually adding "real" graphics (we both enjoy the super-retro look), so that should make your game look sharper and perhaps even a little more comprehensible.  I've also created 9 minutes of epic dwarf music which you can toss in a game directory to give yourself some longer/dwarfier BGM while you play.  On top of all this, idol is also working on a brief little setup guide to help you quickly set your game up once you get it downloaded, with some easy enhancements to the initial .INI and stuff, and he's going to try to work on a little default Embark Profile so that you've got somewhere simple and easy to start when you begin your first game.  After all, DF is known for seeming nearly incomprehensible, right up there with Disgaea and EVE Online, so that's why it'll be fun to all jump in together.

But it's not as bad as all that, and supposedly, watching all your hard-earned efforts burn to the ground in tremendously varied and entertaining ways is half the fun!  So to demonstrate this, I'm actually going to start my very first colony and detail it here as I go.  From what I understand, the game gets much more grounded and seems less daunting once you learn a few basic concepts, so your first few initial failures can act as a tutorial of sorts to get you going with the basic knowledge you'll need to move forward.  So I'll try to learn a few of those lessons for everybody that wants to play along with us, just a couple of days before our official February start, and that way hopefully give everyone else a couple of life lessons on just how not to Build a Better Mountain Cave.

This initial post here will be updated with all the goodies we've made for you guys, and whatever major updates we need to post.  Otherwise, the rest of the thread will just be (I hope) everybody talking about the fun they're having, and all the epic ways in which they managed to kill themselves.

So look forward to my first failures, which I'll be documenting shortly, and to further links containing goodies and information as we update this post.

EDIT - Releases to Use!

This is important.  There has been some... odd behavior happening with the stuff we've given everyone for download.  It appears there's been a little confusion with the versions of DF currently in use.  I had no idea at the start, so I'll explain it now.

v0.28.181.40d (well just call it "40d" for short), is the current official release.  But Toady's implementation of OpenGL is apparently kind of shitty, so some people coded him a new subsystem!  This, however, needs to be tested properly before it can reliably be added to the official release, so they put it out there for people to try.  This version is v0.28.181.40d9, or what we'll just call "40d9".  It's generally supposed to offer nice speed improvements to the graphical subsystem and people seem to generally like it.  This is what I've been using.

So Pyro's been trying to get the game going with idol's custom tiles and hasn't had any luck.  He had the same problem that I did initially, which is getting a black screen and nothing else.  Now, I don't know what version he's using.  I'm guessing 40d.  But I have no way of knowing, so I don't know if this issue is related to one or the other.  All I can say is that if you try 40d9 and it works, awesome.  If it doesn't, try 40d.  I've determined that 40d will also play my custom music (which you can download here), but 40d9 won't.  If you have some interest in it, the thread is here.

EDIT - Goodies!

Okay, so on to the fun stuff.  For a start, I found a handy little beginner's guide to the game.  It seems quite helpful in laying out some of the basic concepts, even down to such things as the way the layers in the game work (this initially confused the hell out of me, despite it being very simple).  There's also a really nice, less-graphical guide that's very concise and well written over at the DF Wiki, which is an absolutely invaluable resource.  You can find robust, detailed information on nearly every aspect of the game there, so keep that open while you play and research whenever you have a question.  There was very little I couldn't find out going through it.

So yeah, use those resources and you should be well on your way to making sense of things after trying out your first fortress.  And remember, in DF, losing is fun!

Music!

There were some problems it took me a while to pin down, but apparently the music will work, just only in v0.28.181.40d of DF, not v0.28.181.40d9.  But you can obviously still grab the music and play it outside the game if using 40d9, so no big deal.

So you can grab the music here: Quemaqua - The Dwarfening

Just throw it into your DF/data/sound directory, backup the original song_game.ogg, and rename this one to song_game.ogg.  Enjoy!

[idolminds]

My own little DF Helper!

This zip file contains the following:

3 new tilesets. One small 8x8 pixel set, and two 16x16 sets. Those two are exactly the same except for one character (nobles/sherrifs/your dude in adventure mode). Its up to you which one you like.
A new init.txt file. In it Ive made these changes:
-Fullscreen resolution of 1280x960 with one of the 16x16 tiles
-Window res of 1024x768 with the 8x8 set
-Altered grid ratios to fill those resolutions. Trust me, its nice.
-Natural color scheme now with 70% less eye bleeding!
-If you want different resolutions let me know and I can help you get that going
Small Things mod. This doesn't change gameplay, but adds a lot more descriptions to the dwarves likes and dislikes as well as other small things. Its nice to have.
New worldgen setting! If you make a "custom" world, this becomes an option. Creates a kinder world with less hazards and evil. Should make learning a bit easier.
New embark profiles! Before setting out you can change your dwarves jobs and the items they bring. I've saved you the trouble and have included two profiles. One has a nice selection of jobs, tons of food, seeds, wood, booze...everything. Good for starters. The other is close to the same, but is more challenging. Comes with an anvil but no picks. Make your own picks!

Just unzip it over your DF directory and let it overwrite what it needs to. Enjoy!

[Quemaqua]

The following are the basic events of Que's first game, to give you an idea of what to expect.  Read through, learn a few lessons, be a better dwarf!

All right. I'm pumped.  I'm psyched.  IT'S TIME TO DWARF, BABY!  And I don't mean going to look for porn videos of tiny mutant womens like idol watches.

Embarking -

I have no idea what all this stuff means.  I basically just say "Yeah, sure!  Let's rock!"  I pick a starting location near a mountain that looks nice and idyllic, if a little chilly.  My dwarves are ready, and so am I!  Actually, none of us are ready at all.  But that's okay.  They're certainly willing to die for my cause, right?  Right.

We have journeyed from the Mountainhomes to Regost, "Glovefolded".  We strike the earth for the glory of all the Stinthad Razes, "The Theater of Hair"!  Go go gadget name generator!  My dwarves are kind of cute.  In that ASCII sort of way.  To start, at idol's suggestion, I decided to make my first act disassembling the wagon we brought our stuff in on.  That seems both productive and tutorialish.  I make the order and my dwarves wander around doing nothing for a while.  A long while.  I cancel the order, set it again... nothing.  Idol can't seem to help me, so I decide to just start digging into the mountain instead.  I go select an area for them to dig in the mountain, and... they won't do it.  What?  Apparently all my dwarves will do is wander around in circles talking to each other, and drink booze occasionally.

I'VE BEEN LIED TO.  THIS IS TEENAGER FORTRESS.

Okay.  Maybe not.  In fact, we figured it out, and thus let my lesson be your lesson.  Turns out I started the game by going into the special embark screen (where you can select exactly what equipment and professions you want to start with) and then... didn't do anything.  So everybody started with no profession and hence all of them refuse to do anything but stand there.  That makes sense enough.  I set 2 dwarves as miners and one as a carpenter, and suddenly off they scamper to mine and... uh, carpent.  SUCCESS!

Infrastructure, lads! -

First things first: build a storeroom.  I set my two miners to work (I only have 2 picks, so I can't really have any more of them), and set a few more to go chop down some trees, then tell them to build a carpenter's workshop and a mason's workshop.  It's great to watch the little blips on the screen go around doing stuff.  It's for some reason really oddly satisfying even just accomplishing this much, and I get the feeling that the sensation is only increased by the fact that there aren't any real graphics.  It's very strange, but I'm already addicted.

Next up is to setup my storeroom.  I designate areas of my big room for different materials (stockpiles), and all my dwarves scatter off to go grab the things and take them in.  Then I set about making beds for sleeping and digging out an area for a barracks of sorts.  Keeping my little guys busy.  In the midst of this digging, I suddenly strike a vein of aluminum.  Apparently it's super-valuable, though can't be used for armor/weapons.  Neat!  And my first time out!  That's only going to make it more painful when I survey the eventual destruction.  Maybe my next group can loot this stuff from the dead.

Barracks are now complete with beds, I've begun to install a bunch of doors to block off areas, and I've got some guys going out to gather plants.  I think I'll need to get some farming happening soon, too, as I'm running out of food pretty fast.  But the basics are complete, and I'm thinking you guys have a good idea of what to expect from the early game, no?  So I'll leave it at that and post some updates once there are some less mundane developments.

EDIT -

The End -

Well, I did better than I thought I would, but I succumbed in the end.  What got me?  Thirst.  I neglected to build a well, so when winter came all the water froze and that was that.  I actually nearly lost half the colony to starvation in autumn, but rallied my hunters and butcher shops and built a kitchen.  That got things back on track, and then I even got some farming going.  But I forgot about winter.  My dwarves, however, remembered it pretty well.  I had the last few scrambling to build a well, even though it was pointless because it would be empty, and they couldn't even manage to get that ironic task done before the end.

So ends Que's first colony.  We didn't quite make it a year.  But lessons learned, oh yes!  I have high hopes for colony #2.  We might make it a year and a half!

[gpw11]

Fuck, i would be so down for this (succession game!), but i totally don't have the time needed to invest in this game. 

[Quemaqua]

Actually, it may not be so.  I don't know that this is as much of a time hog as it makes itself look to be.  Granted, it's addictive as hell, as I have discovered tonight, but once you get past the initial learning curve (which really isn't that terrible if you have friends to answer questions), you can actually do a whole ton of stuff in a very short amount of time.  If you give it a few hours to get past the early learning stages, I think it could be something you could well play in shortish bursts and still enjoy.  If you don't know what you're doing and aren't comfy with the interface, you spend a lot of time with the game paused hemming and hawing about what to do, but when the game is unpaused, the little suckers run around performing tasks like greased lightning.

EDIT - Sorry I haven't updated in a bit.  Have been busy with other stuff, not much chance to play, much less do the big image update I was planning to do (it's hard to get much done when your brain falls asleep at 10:30).

So my current group of dudes is having an interesting time (you may want to view these images on their own, not as they're posted here, since they'll likely be too small to appreciate all the finer details).  Generally speaking, it's going much better.  Here's where we embarked, and you can also see a current bit of fortress there.  It's a big area with a lot of red clay and small pockets of water.  Pretty heavily forested, lots of plants.  I don't remember if the climate is Warm or Temperate, but I think the latter.

http://www.theflyingmonkeyapparatus.com/images/posty/Fencewayward-Big.jpg (made link instead of posting here since it's big)

In the following image you can see a detail of the entry level of the fortress.  It's got some small ponds outside, the remains of our deconstructed cart, a small farm (the brown plot and associated building by the lake where the little blue dwarf is fishing), and a kennel (outside below the farm and the fortress entrance).  I trained a war dog who you can see is chained up just past the entrance (the small "d").  Going in from there you've got a front hall that has two small rooms off to either side which have staircases down.  If you continue straight ahead from there, you'll hit the barracks, the large room with the 7 beds in it.  I'll obviously be filling this with more dwarves eventually, but I'll be making sure to leave room for them to spar.  There's a storeroom (just full of rocks ATM) below that, and below that is a private room for the guy currently overseeing the fort.  Next to his room, through the wall, is an area where animals can be housed.  There are a couple cages in there now.



The 2nd level of the fort is entirely underground.  Here you can see a general mess hall on the far left, then a set of apartments for my current residents to the right.  Two hallways from the apartments lead to the primary storeroom and craftsdwarf areas, with the storeroom stretching out to the right, and a stone stockroom and mason in the upper area, with a wood stockroom and carpenter in the lower area.  The other little room/building just up from the carpenter's area is a brewer, and going off from that area is my current attempt to drain a large pond into a well, which thus far has proved... difficult.  I'm having issues with my tunneling into the lower areas, and will have to report back when I finally figure out what it is I'm doing wrong.





So that's the entirety of my 2nd fort, currently.  This game is really super fun, you guys totally need to give it a try!

[idolminds]

Here is where I Embarked. My fortress name is Tombsplatter. This will be a difficult fortress, since the area I'm in has no trees. I brought 100 logs with me, but those will only last so long. I'll eventually have to trade for the wood I'll need. On the plus side there is lots of red sand, so I'll be able to get farming operational with little trouble.

UPDATE
Fortress

Things are not going as planned. I attempted to channel out an are to the north so I could build an indoor well. Long story short, it looks like crap and a miner died. I'll probably seal that area off.

To the south I found an area with sand, so I set up a farm plot. Sand is great because you don't have to have any irrigation.

I didnt know what to do when a liaison showed up, so the traders will only have random stuff in it. Damn. I wasnt prepared for that. I also think my architect was the miner that died so I'm having trouble building the trade depot.

I did get a still up and running, so with luck I will survive the winter.

[Ghandi]

I'm going to try this out tonight after I make some food. Expect an update detailing massive failures soon.

[Quemaqua]

I think your fortress is awesome looking.  Mine looks so... arbitrary.  I just sort of started digging away and throwing stuff down.  My last pictures there at least look somewhat symmetrical, but my latest stuff is just totally random.

EDIT - Top post updated with some new information about version confusion, and has a link to my music and some info on how to use it.

EDIT x2 - So time for an update on Que's Magical Fortress of Suckage (which makes it sound like we make porno there... sadly, we do not).



Some bastard freaking monkeys started stealing the stuff I left outside the entrance to the fort!  Curse my lack of foresight!  They stole a rope and I think some wood.  I was mostly mad about losing the rope, because I don't yet have a ropemaker and I've been in the middle of digging my well, which is useless without a rope!



So I sent some dudes to go kick the shit out of them, and the rivers ran red with monkey blood.  No, seriously, you can see some of the blood there.  And I didn't have any weapons to speak of, so my military draftees had basically just been wrestling each other for practice, having subsequently become legendary wrestlers. So they basically beat the monkeys to death with their bare hands.  Which was hardcore, and a little disturbing.  The battlefield was covered in blood, limbs, and vomit by the time it was over.

I've discovered that this game can disturb me in a variety of ways, despite how simple it is.  It's so... real feeling sometimes.  Like I had a few dogs give birth to puppies, but I didn't need them, and the only thing you can do with animals you don't need is butcher them.  So I butchered them.  And I felt a little sick to my stomach watching the pixelated little dwarf graphic drag the little lowercase "d" over to the ASCII chopping block.  I don't know why I'm such a wuss, but that weirded me out a little.  And then the beatdown the monkeys got made me feel a little odd too (though I was mad enough at them stealing my rope to not feel so bad).

Sadly, after all this happened, my hunter and one of his two hunting dogs were utterly mauled to death by a cougar.  Seriously, the carnage was catastrophic, and the dwarf himself lost his actual head.  One hunting dog survived, though badly injured, and... he refuses to leave his master's side.  This actually kind of started to depress me after a while, and I haven't gone back to play the game since.  I know, I'm a pussy.



In happier news, I managed to flesh out the downstairs area of my fortress a good bit.  You can see that the far west end has been expanded with another table surrounded by 4 chairs (actually in the shot they're grey, and haven't quite been delivered yet), and below that there's a new kitchen with some area for stockpile.  I also got an infusion of dwarves which prompted this new build, so I now have 12 (well... 11 after the hunter died) or thereabouts.

At the east end, I expanded the main middle section there which serves as my main storeroom, and so east of that you can see the new workshops.  I can't even recall what all these are.  One's the engineer's place (machinist?  I forget what they call it), another is a craftsdwarf's workshop, and one I think is a tanner.  Unfortunately, my supply of hides is now running rather thin since my hunter died.  Poor bastard couldn't really defend himself.  He was hunting with nature's implements only - two dogs and his bare hands.  I really need a metalsmith, but the traders haven't come yet and I didn't bring one initially.

You can also see below that main area, furthest east, a big spot I'm digging out for more storage.  The upstairs has expanded in this way too, but I'll show that later sometime.  I don't want to overload the thread with pics.  So if you head west from that big room, go past the first junction, and then go north at the 2nd junction, you can see my well.  Digging this thing was quite the undertaking, as the plans I had (and what I read on the interwebs) didn't really work the way I wanted.  But eventually I dug out some 52 squares or so underneath the area so as to drain the nearby big pond/small lake, the remaining bits of stagnant water which you can see there.  The well is the bright cyan-ish circle just down from that.  It requires a rope, a bucket, and a mechanism.

Anyway, that's about all I have for now.  I'll update when someone else dies.