General strategic direction and other inane ramblings

[s2odan]

Hehe. To start with I watched a load of the video tutorials on Youtube by Captain Duck, they explain the basics although they are dated now, there might be some better ones around. I played along while watching the videos for a while, and then went back and rewatched them if I found I had forgotten something.The tutorials should teach you how to lay down different rooms and constructions as well as farms, once you can do that then you can start to learn by playing around as you will understand how it all works a little more.I would limit your fort's population cap to around 20-50 and a lower child populationcap as it can be difficult to keep track of them all, plus it will help to keep the game running faster.Although with a low population the invasions could become pretty tricky after a few in-game years.EDIT//Here's a nice tutorial but its not a video one: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=31928.0Edit2Here's a funny one about the medical system in the game: http://afteractionreporter.com/2010/05/18/df-tutorial-using-dwarfs-for-medical-experiments/

[shenle]

s2odan wrote:


shenle wrote:
LOL just making fun. I'll try the lazy newb pack tonight.
Ah, Another victim
Damn you. Damn you. Damn you to hell!

[s2odan]

Hehe I've been playing it tonight as well
Quote:
By default the game has mouse support to select areas etc... Am I wrong if I think the fortressmouse is just for right mouse menus?
It does add in some dodgy mouse support for scrolling the view as well as moving the X pointer when building things, but like I said its dodgy.I only just realised that you could remap keys in the game I have setup all the menu navigation and construction keys to simply use the keyboard Arrows or Alt + Arrows, I read that in one of the tutorials I linked to

[Subzeroplainzero]

I tried playing it recently but I couldn't get the visualiser to work. I don't think it's compatible with the lazy newb pack, or am I wrong? (I hope so)I did have a major gripe with it though or maybe I'm missing something. When I selected my embark area on the world map, are you then restricted to that small square of the world to build your fort in? I kind of hoped I could expand as far as I wanted a la minecraft.It's this amazing aar that got me interested in the first place [url]http://www.nzfortress.co.nz/forum/showthread.php?t=20768[/url]

[s2odan]

AFAIK the Lazy Newb Pack comes with a visualiser that should work with the provided version, that is if its the same one I posted a pic of, the Isometric visualiser. There are other 3d ones but they probably don't work with the new versions. However, minecraft does Theres a program to convert dwarf-fortress maps to minecraft format.For now yes your limited to that small square block that you choose as your embark zone, but in the future plans for the game is a more unlimited kind of expansion and the ability to show other parts of the map in the Fortress mode. In 'Adventure' Mode, you can go anywhere. I think the idea is to eventually integrate the 2 game options, to be able to start building in adventure mode and start a fort that way.Adventure mode is like a traditional Roguelike where you can explore the world you created and check out your fort, in case you didn't know.
Quote:
It's this amazing aar that got me interested in the first place
There's another popular one called Boat-Murdered. Which was a successional fort with many players taking turns and everything went wrong

[s2odan]

Here's my interface.txt file with the changes to the controls, place it in Data/Init/ http://www.freewebs.com/s20dan/interface.txtWhat version of dwarf fortress are you using then because I thought the visualiser was up-to date? It might need a file changing to work.Legend mode lets you view information about your generated world, like the history or populations, cities ect and lets you view some different maps.

[Subzeroplainzero]

Legend mode just lets you read up on the history generated in your world. It's pretty interesting actually! I'm probably going to try again with this game once it is less restrictive on the fortress map. Seems odd that you can go so far down into the ground yet not walk more than a couple of hundred meters from your mine.Edit: oops didn't realise that s2odan already answered the question(better than me )

[s2odan]

You can of course increase the size of your embark zone, up to 16x16 I think, but it would run a lot slower. If you really want a massive area though that could be worth a try.I have read that many people used to do this in an older version back when the game ran a lot faster. But that was probably before there were multiple Z levels.

[shenle]

Boatmurdered

[shenle]

FWIW, if you check out the stonesense SVN at http://code.google.com/p/stonesense/ there is a recent build of stonesense.exe in the tree from a few days ago, which seems to be working fine with the lazy newb pack.

[shenle]

damn. I used all my day today reading boatmurdered. It's... horrific. And gut-wrenchingly funny. And... vile.And... I want those savegames!

[s2odan]

If you play it a while you will have your own Boat-Murdered, with rediculous history to boot :)My current fort has had a lot of crazy things happen, such as mass-deaths, suicides, mass-murder and the crazy dwarf who goes mad and carves horrifc images of death and decay on the walls :DThere was also a very funny incident which springs to mind of a fully trained beast of a dwarf decked out in platemail armor and masterwork axe, the dwarf proceeded to chase down a lowly Kobold that thought it could make off with some food, on approaching the kobald, the Dwarf somehow managed to fall over and tumble a few stories down the mountain gathering a few broken limbs :)God I'm babbling on

[shenle]

s2odan wrote:
...mass-deaths, suicides, mass-murder and the crazy dwarf who goes mad and carves horrifc images of death and decay on the walls ...
So should I be worried that my dwarves are now importing cases of Kool-aid?

[s2odan]

Be very worried All work and no Booze makes Urist a dull dwarf. :lol:No booze + loss of family member or pet = Dwarf Fortress re-enactment of the Shining. hehe.

[shenle]

Goddamit I hate this stairs system. Just when I thought I got the hang of it I managed to have my best miner cut down a few levels then carve some grand halls, only to have her die of thirst down there because she had no way of coming back up for a drink! What kind of frickin stupid stairway is this, that you can use to go down but not up?!?

[s2odan]

Hehe, this is what must of happened:[hsimg]http://godwillbegod.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/homer-hole-digging.jpg[/hsimg]I've done this too :)If you want an actual stairway, start with digging or building a down stairway at the top, then for every floor below that build up/down stairs (X symbol), and up stairs on the bottom if you want to.Or you can use ramps/channelling, but every floor must have a ramp.

[shenle]

That would have been nice, at least I would have known what's wrong. But instead I have a 4-wide set of stairs that runs from the top to the bottom, which nobody can climb either up or down. :roll:That's what I did, down stairway at top, then up/down on subsequent levels, and up at the bottom. I just made a whole new set a few squares away from the first, and it has the same problem. Grrr.

[s2odan]

Hmm, that doesn't make sense then. Its not very new version your playing, so its unlikely to have a glaring bug like that, something else must be going on... If you had assigned burrows, that could have this effect...

[shenle]

No, I'm playing the version from the complete-and-utter-newbie-tutorial-no-seriously-wtf http://afteractionreporter.com/2009/02/09/the-complete-and-utter-newby-tutorial-for-dwarf-fortress-part-1-wtf/ which is 0.28.181.40d, about 2 years old. I'm not fit enough to sink my teeth in the current version at this point if I can't complete simple tasks like building stairs.

[s2odan]

I would really just start with the latest version and play with invasions off and a pop cap of 20-30. Although its more complex, AFAIK it does have some new additions to make it easier to play.Plus you can use the neat tools and tilesets/visualisers.