Let's all play Dwarf Fortress (really)

we'll need wood for bins, barrels, beds, and charcoal

We have magma! Charcoal is just a waste when we've got that sweet sweet sauce boiling somewhere down in the fort.

I'll look for it. We shouldn't need to do too much smithing anytime soon, but finding it could take a while.

Could you post an actual map of the fortress?

Looking pretty nice so far.

I was actually trying to decide between your tower location and the one I had blocked out.

Are we planning to build a small ditch and bridge anytime soon?

Also, are we going to have a policy for the Guard and Nobles? I kinda like trying to keep them around and satisfied.

Hey, sorry it took me this long to notice - I tried sending you a PM, Comonad, but for some reason it isn't working properly. Is there another way I can get in touch with you or otherwise acquire the game file?

Is this still going?

I hope so, I really want to make my mark on this Fortress.

When do we consider skipping his turn and passing it on to the next player?

Hi, sorry for the wait. I've had less time to spend on this than I had hoped. Maybe I should just pass it on to the next person now? I've only played a quarter of a year, but it's something.

That's a pity.

Sure, if you like. It's Shadow Warden, right? I haven't heard back from him yet.

Is there some kind of curse floating around?

Nah, I'm here.

Okay, passed on. Good luck.

This still going?

Yeah, it is, I'll be playing through it tomorrow later today.

EDIT: I stay up too late.

edited 17th Jan '10 2:06:42 AM by ShadowWarden

Oh wow, does this mean it's almost my turn? I'm looking forward to putting my own mark in the future of this Fortress.

The journal of Dewarn Dakostrag, farmer-dwarf

Year 204 - Spring

I have no idea what I'm doing.

I decide to take a brief look around the fortress and note down where everything is.

We have a decent number of dwarves. I take a brief look through the records to figure out what the hell I'm expected to do this year. I find some notes telling me that we need more wood, stone, and food. Apparently we have some wood, seeds, flux, and fuel on the way, but that isn't going to be for a couple of seasons yet.

Luckily, we're clear-cutting the entire mountain. If it looks like we can spare the dwarfpower, I'll send some more out to help.

In the meantime, it's my unprofessional opinion that we need to start mining some more.

While I, of course, tend the fields and hope like hell I'm not doing anything wrong. Hungry dwarves are angry dwarves.

Also, I'm hearing things about a "textile industry." Now, I have no idea what that is, but I'll look into it.

In the meanwhile, I think I want to build a chamber.

A really big, impressive chamber.

Imagine the biggest cavern ever.

Bigger.

Yyyyeaaahhhh.

We're going to call it the Dakostrag Hall.

It's going to be filled with statues and carvings and engravings and it's going to be gorgeous.

The work continues on my hall. Business is uneventful. But Rigoth, one of my farmers, is telling me we're out of sweet pod seeds. That's not good. His sentiment is quickly echoed by the rest of his friends, and I inform them that the merchants are bringing us seeds this autumn.

Eesh. They should learn to tell one another these things and stop wasting my time.

A dwarf named Ezum becomes a professional wrestler. Wonderful, just what we need - more musclebound lunks who fight all the time. They should try planting seeds sometime. We feed those ungrateful lunkheads.

Why are we letting horses wander the halls freely? We need to fix that.

I command the smelter to get to work refining the copper ore we have. The blacksmiths want it for spears.

The seed crisis continues. We're out of longland grass and plump helmet spawn. Accordingly, I command the brewers to get busy. We need seeds!

We've struck Realgar in the Dakostrag Hall!

Shortly afterward, an elven caravan arrives. I hate those pointy-eared bastards.

Nonetheless, let's see what we can get out of them. I send Rockopolis over to talk to them - diplomacy isn't my strong suit. He grunts at me over his shoulder and goes back to smoothing out the floors.

I ask him an hour later. This time he's polishing a wall.

An hour later, he's apparently asleep.

... I can't blame him.

He's still sleeping.

He's back to detailing floors!

What does he want me to do, trade with them myself?

This is ridiculous.

I think it says something that they finished hollowing out my hall before Stukoszon's gotten out here to trade with the elves.

Oh hey, a thief. Better send the meatheads to deal with it.

Or not. It ran.

I find Stukozson downstairs smoothing out the walls in my hall. I tell him that the elves have been waiting outside in the rain for days now.

He tells me to get lost - he's working on a fiddly bit of stone.

You know what? Screw him. He's the one that wanted the wood, but if he can't even be bothered to go out and trade for it, we'll let the whole fortress suffer. I didn't sign up for this crap.

Tom's organized a party downstairs, to which I reply: WHAT?!

More stupid time-wasting. But if they want to be unproductive that long, fine. I'm not one to ruin people's fun just because we might starve to death before autumn. Oh, no, not me...

(I'm going to murder them in their beds. I hate our bedrooms. Small, hideous cells. Oh, and you know something else? Stukozson has this big, airy PALACE all to himself! Maybe I should murder HIM. Useless, lazy waste of space.)

FINALLY!

Stukozson got off his ass.

By this point, I'm so irritated that I go and get the meatheads. It's funny how cooperative elves are when you point big, burly, ornery, muscly dwarves at them.

We don't have a timber shortage anymore.

There. Problem solved. Anybody want to argue?

I have them start moving the statues into the hall.

Then I declare these first three a sculpture garden.

I'm awesome.

I find out, too, that there's running water a few levels down below, and consider tentative plans for an ornamental waterfall at one side of the hall. This is probably long-term planning, though.

Some migrants arrive. I can barely even keep track of them all, honestly.

WHAT?!

Okay. All right. This is silly. Stukozson is the new Mayor.

Among our new migrants, two stand out - one is an engineer, and one is a peasant. In three words: Both. Utterly. Useless.

Let's make him a new engraver. Stukozson is being lazy again.

I decide to assign rooms so I can get to know the new crowd.

We have a glassmaker among this motley crew. Pity there's no magma, or we could create glass products for cheap.

Some more peasants. We need to assign them to something useful. Draft them into the Guard, maybe.

I kick food and drink production up to eleven, in an effort to build up a decent stockpile.

I decide to appoint our resident leader-of-the-meatheads to be our new sheriff.

Congratulations on your promotion, Olon.

Stukozson yells at me, but who cares what he thinks. He wants some scrawny kobold-man to be the one giving out the beatings. Urgh.

We have fifteen idlers. I give them jobs.

We now have many engravers. It's a short-term solution.

I decide to shove some of these slackers into the Fortress Guard and give them spears to start practicing with.

Stukozson yells at me again. Apparently that's dangerous.

Who cares?

The food stockpiles are definitely coming along nicely.

Speaking of which, there's too many dogs in this fortress. We should kill more of them.

17th Felsite, 204:

"Horse has become enraged!"

What? Uh oh.

Okay, good. It was just giving birth.

We're out of barrels.

I order my carpenters to build more with stolen elven wood.

Thanks, elves!

19th Felsite, 204.

Stukozson has mandated that certain goods be produced.

Like what, pray tell?

Pewter items. Trifle pewter items, whatever the hell that means.

I told Stuckupson I'd get right on it.

So, I talked to the metalsmith. We're going to need tin and copper. Do we have tin? No, of course we don't, that would be too easy.

I'm beginning to regret appointing the musclehead to sheriff.

Stuckupson isn't listening to me when I tell him that we don't have tin for trifle pewter. Something about leveling off the imperfections in his floor.

Someone named Ezum has become a legendary champion. Translation: Another freeloader.

21st Felsite, 204:

Tom's organized a party in my hall. I'm not sure how to feel about this. On the one hand, my creation is being used. On the other hand, he's wasting time.

I've ordered a passage dug out over the chasm, and hollowed out the floor so that dwarves can just toss items in. The garbage pit of the new millennium!

23rd Felsite, 204:

Idlers are at an unprecedented high. Still, everything seems to be running smoothly.

25th Felsite, 204:

The brilliant idea of training all these stray dogs we have into war dogs has just occurred to me. It'll be the ultimate dwarf protection scheme.

I order them to get right on it.

Also, I start the construction of ballista parts. Someday, this will come in handy!

1st Hematite, 204:

It's summertime.

End part 1 of 4.

Next part will be up tomorrow sometime. Sorry for being so slow, I'm trying desperately not to screw things up given my amateurish knowledge of the game.

edited 17th Jan '10 9:07:47 PM by ShadowWarden

Ah, no worries. The fortress isn't rioting and/or/while on fire yet, so I'd say you're doing a pretty good job.

For whatever reason, Engraving is a high priority job; I usually unassign Engraving when I want to do something else.

• Also, though this one is usually my OCD, I usually only have one or two Engravers
  • Engravings are really cool, but they're not a productive skill, and I also don't like letting amateurs actually engrave things (smoothing is okay)
  • You get much more interesting engravings if you let a master do it.

As for textile, technically you can have the clothier start whenever, since we've got huge stockpiles of silk thread, but I was hoping to dye them first; did the elves...donate any outdoor dye plants?

Sadly, I don't believe they did. It was mostly just wood that they had.

Well, at least you got some lumber. I know we ordered dimple cups, so that should come on the fall caravan. Up to you if you want to wait that long; the Dwarves' clothes should be fine for now, and we can probably still survive on bags, since we haven't started glass-making yet.

Any idea where the juicy magma is? Might want to do a bit of exploratory mining for that.

Hmm...what else...oh yeah, make sure you assign a bunch of wardogs to the soldiers before they become elite or champions. You can't assign them later, and they generally make for handy ablative shielding. I always forget to do that myself.

You think these are mere parties? Hahaha! Tom supports the rebellion! Down with Stuckupson!

If it's a magma pipe but doesn't show up on the surface, you might want to do a search for obsidian on the surface. If you find it on the surface there is a good chance that the pipe is below that. If you don't want to do the search for obsidian on the surface because of the tediousness of going over every square until you find it, just wait until my turn. I'll come in and do all sorts of tedious stuff.

Why? Because that's the kind of thing I do.

Dewarn's Journal: Summer

• 2nd Hematite, 204:

I order the metalsmith to turn out some more copper picks so I can throw some of these slackers onto mining duty. It's high time we did some exploratory mining around here. It has been decided that the downward staircases should rest at the far end of the main dormitory halls - it is from there that we'll begin our first, all-pervasive ventures into the rock. Strike the earth!

• 3rd Hematite, 204:

As usual, we need copper bars to forge picks. But to get copper, we need to mine, and to mine, we need picks.

I order a small antechamber to be hollowed out on the level beneath the living quarters. Everything else will branch from here.

• 9th Hematite, 204:

So far we're striking alunite. Not much else interesting.

• 10th Hematite, 204:

I get reports that there's a whole bunch of copper ore lying down in the incomplete moat. This might explain why it's taking so long to smelt the bloody stuff.

Time to dig out a stockpile branching off of our smithing rooms. This is unacceptable, in my view.

• 11th Hematite, 204:

The humans have arrived to trade with us. Lovely. Time to go tell Stuckupson to stop his beloved engraving for five minutes so he

can tell these human chaps what's what.

• 12th Hematite, 204:

Yay, we struck tetrahedrite.

• 13th Hematite, 204:

It's been two days since I talked to our dear mayor, and he's still smoothing out floors. The humans have gotten here. Finally, in my capacity as ruler of the fortress, I tell him to knock off the stone detailing until he trades with them. He pouts at me, but at least he's doing what I say this time.

On an entirely unrelated note, we have tons upon tons of alunite craftsmanship. Let's trade some of it.

Oh, excellent! They have more wood. What do you know, we can use wood. We give them a few of our idols, which they like very much.

I also secure a couple of picks for future use, and some wild strawberry seeds. Why? Why not.

With that, I think the trading is done with. I tell Stuckupson to go back to his carving, but the human representative accosts him first.

They ask what sort of requests we've got. I ask for wood and leave it at that.

• 23rd Hematite, 204:

Exploratory mining continues.

In an effort to train some of the new engravers I've appointed, I've mandated that all the domiciles be smoothed. Maybe they'll be slightly more tolerable that way.

Unlike Stuckupson, I do not order the construction of a big, ego-boosting office for myself.

• 25th Hematite, 204:

The war dogs have been trained. All four or so. I have them divvied up among the Guard, since they need them the most.

• 27th Hematite, 204:

I order the first ballista to be built. The copper stockpile off the smithy has been designated. Idlers at a low as they scramble to it.

• 5th Malachite, 204:

We're informed that we attracted no new migrants this season. Good. I've got enough trouble with this many dwarves as it is.

We've discovered an underground pool! Aha. Tower-caps ahoy!

• 17th Malachite, 204:

I'm pleased to note that smoothing the walls of one's quarters renders them suitably modest. I think we'll have happier dwarves from now on.

• 18th Malachite, 204:

I decide to place the first ballista in the hallway, second floor down. Basically, if anyone comes through, they've got the ballista pointing right in their faces. I don't know how effective this is, but hell if it doesn't amuse me.

• 19th Malachite, 204:

We've struck native aluminum. Our metalsmith'll like that.

• 8th Galena, 204:

We've struck precious fire opals. Praise be to the miners!

• 11th Galena, 204:

Stuckupson is finally done meeting with the humans. I tune him out as he describes the economic situation in painstaking detail - whatever, whatever. Just have the craftsdwarves churn out more amulets, and I'm happy. He bugs me about the textile industry, but I'm tuning that out too.

I check over our stores. We have a lot of prepared meals (470), some beer (10 dwarven, 131 longland), some rum (25), and vast quantities of dwarven wine (608). Something tells me our food stockpiles are in very good shape.

• 16th Galena, 204:

Momuz Kuletudist has given birth to a girl.

• 20th Galena, 204:

Good news - we've found the underground pool.

Bad news - I just flooded all the exploratory tunnels.

Crap.

• 21th Galena, 204:

I've cancelled the digging and ordered them to set some doors, and fast.

• 25th Galena, 204:

I've put the doors in place - luckily, the flooding is relatively localized, and we've only lost a small percentage of the tunnels - there's nothing valuable in there that we need to get ahold of, either, so all things considered I think we made out pretty well.

Official order: Under NO CIRCUMSTANCES are these doors to be opened, EVER, unless we want to lose the exploratory mines and all the levels underneath. To anyone who may read this, there's two of them, one close to the antechamber - just follow the flooded area until you find the next one. Know where they are, know what they're there for.

• 26th Galena, 204:

Olon, our beloved leader of muscleheads, became a legendary champion this day.

Woo.

• 1st Limestone, 204:

Autumn has come. I've decided to wall up the flooded tunnels, just to make sure. I don't want one kobold thief to ruin months of hard work.

edited 19th Jan '10 3:55:30 PM by ShadowWarden

Sounding pretty good so far.

How bout rigging some kind of system to open the floodgates and flood the lower levels in case of an invasion? I'm sure that doesn't end up going horribly wrong....

^Na, that sounds 100% fail-proof.