Dwarf Fortress

I tried the game once but couldn't understand how to play it plus the graphics were just confusing. It's nice that their doing an official improve graphics update and it's also on itch up making it DRM Free. If the reviews are good, I might buy the game to support the makers.

i mean are you asking about if the reviews for the graphics/UX are good, or if the game is good? because the gameplay itself has gotten nothing but absolute praise from everyone.

I suspect the graphical interface. They're apparently fixing the "graphics must be the same size as the text" issue, and how good this is may depend on how well that ports.

I'd actually welcome that if it allowed for SQUARE TILES THANK ARMOK

To be fair, the gameplay does have detractors, mainly with regards to the clunky menus and the difficulty cliff.

i feel like the difficulty cliff is kind of overhyped. if anything its the hype that's making people give up without even trying to learn it- combined with the less than helpful interface, of course.

The basics are not vastly more difficult than any other settlement builder. Find location, designate jobs, establish shelter, establish food, establish indestructible wall for defense. The only thing missing is an in game tutorial and intuitive UI. It doesn’t even ask you to do anything weird as your first step like, I dunno, punch trees with your bare hands before your first nightfall.

Well, your first step isn't even on the field. It's the world creator. After that you pick your overall area, then your starting supplies and skills for seven dwarves and whatever animals you bring along. Then you get to picking out an initial place to settle. Bring a copper axe. Wooden ones don't work anymore.

ETA: But yeah, no. The difficulty's not as strong as it used to be. Things are fiddly and detail oriented, but other than automating out your micromanagement with a manager, you're pretty solid once you figure out farming and the like. Settle on soil and you won't need to mess with digging out ponds.

Edited by Journeyman on Mar 17th 2019 at 12:06:09 PM

Cool, one of the streamers I follow, Setch Dreskar is doing this game now.

First step is building a new world and hoping that's not the whole damn stream.

So, new devlog from a couple days ago. He's got mounts working. And pets. And zombie pets and mounts. You can pet your animals. You can pet your cat. You can pet your undead zombie cat. Let the hype begin.

I want to ride mastiffs

Probably not in by default, but modding is a wonderful thing and that's probably only going to be one or two lines of change.

Can we pet beards? That should be the official dwarf greeting.

Can you pet the forgotten beasts?

I haven't heard anything about that but if you put it in the Future of the Fortress thread Toady might answer it. If no one else came up with it already.

Haven't played in a while, so decided to load the most recent version and give it a go. Man, a lot has been added.

First year over, my dwarves are doing fuck-all and getting wasted in the tavern, adventurers are flocking by the dozens to die in my caverns to a troglodyte with a now truly impressive kill count, and a giant tarantula titan made me panic up until five farmers swarmed it at the gates and bit it to death one leg at a time.

Yup, can confirm. Average experience with the game.

So the big reason I stopped playing this game is that on my normal monitor the contrast in the menus doesn't work. I can't actually see what's highlighted. I used to be able to until my new computer a couple years ago, so I figured it was a problem with the computer. A while back I switched from the monitor to a big plasma TV. Tonight for shiggles I tried out DF just to see the menu situation. I couldn't miss the highlighting on this thing, the white stood out like a bright light.

Don't know if I'm going to play yet, but at least the big problem's taken care of. I'll just need to zoom in a bit because this big screen makes everything look small at first.

I'm waiting for the Steam version at this point to try playing it again. Honestly it's kind of a big commitment to try and figure out how to play it in an ok manner...

There's tutorials for that. The Dwarf Fortress Wiki has a good one.

http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Quickstart_guide

This morning before work I started playing this again. Made it through the Fall caravan. My nation inhabits a U-shaped range of mountains surrounding a forest full of elves and my personal goal is to subjugate them all. With some planning, foresight, and patience I should be able to pull it off. I started with a couple miners (one doubling for masonry and the other building designer) a woodcutter/carpenter, a general purpose smith, a grower/brewer, and two hammerdwarves with three points into hammer and armor, and two into dodging and shield use. I gave both a full set of Maxwell gear. Silver warhammers and full suits of copper armor.

Only thing I forgot was the anvil. So I spent the spring and summer mining and smelting bars for the fall caravan. Summer saw 8 more people join us, including a Legendary weapon crafter and the last thing that happened before I saved was him turning out a Masterwork steel ax. Armok approves of my quest. Thankfully I did think to pack that gear and my two warriors have just started sparring. I figure a couple years to train them plus however long to work my way into 150 Legendary warriors I can send out. As they get there I'll send them out on small quests like kidnap rescues and artifact retrievals to build up their tactics skill. I figure on buying up silver for war hammers, and using steel for the sharp weapons. Iron will do for armor, unless steel gives a serious boost. For now I can work my way into iron.

Playing again because stuff has been updated sufficiently. Also, someone stumbled into one of the old Succession Fort threads and expressed interest in it. I am tempted to start a new one up and see what happens.

Be careful about some of the newer features. Game breaking bugs abound. Weapon traps are now capable of crashing your game thanks to weapon degradation being a thing. Beyond that you can get crashes from sending off-site parties out if they return with the wrong items. That last one disappointed me because I'd planned a conquest run involving a castle, two treasure vaults, and an army of Hellsing vampires ready to wreak havoc on the elves.

Ok, having a totally thick moment on how to build the best up down access between z levels. I have forgotten how to get it work and have fucked up pathing in my fort.

I go with a 2x2 or 3x3 central staircase. Start with a layer of downstairs, have all the middle layers by up/down stairs, and have the last layer be upstairs.

Not being patronizing, just unsure how far you've forgotten.