Anyone play Dwarf Fortress?

[buzzkill]

Mastering the interface is part of the great DF experience.
Very similiar to roguelikes.

Maybe I'm just getting old. I tried to play Angband recently (after a long hiatus) and couldn't remember how to get into the options menu .

[fizzix]

Maybe I'm just getting old. I tried to play Angband recently (after a long hiatus) and couldn't remember how to get into the options menu .

Meh i'm of the opinion that a complicated interface is indicative of sloppy design. Do you have dwarf therapist? If not, you should get it ASAP.

[Mondkalb]

Happens to me all the time. ^^
I tend to play *bands in excessive mode for a couple of weeks or months and then go to DF for a while or vice versa.
Usually I'd have forgotten at least half of the commands ...

[LostTemplar]

Do you have dwarf therapist?

It is a cheat. Dwarf stupidity is the only challenge in DF, anything else is trivial.

[buzzkill]

Meh I'm of the opinion that a complicated interface is indicative of sloppy design. Do you have dwarf therapist? If not, you should get it ASAP.

I do use Dwarf Therapist, but not to cheat. The cheat options are clearly labeled. I use it to simplify viewing and switching job assignments. I don't know if I could play DF without it.

My latest problem, the Dining Room. I long ago created a "fine" dining which my dwarves completely ignore... completely ignore. I thought I had it nipped when I figured out "free table" meant, but no. The dining room in a nutshell, chairs and tables.

[B]CCCCCCCC
TTTTTTTT
TTTT[COLOR="Orange"]T[/COLOR]TTT
CCCCCCCC[/B]

The entire room is designated as a dining room, anchored by the orange table. The orange table, therefore, is the only one I can assign to a specific dwarf (AFAIK). When I cursor over any other table I just get the option to "make dining room" again. I've read that layering designations is something to be avoided. I'm at a loss of what else to do.

Hah, writing this post actually caused me to do some further digging (hah), and I think I may have come up with a fix. Time will tell. Feel free to chime in.

[Derakon]

It's been ages since I played DF, but as I recall, a designated dining room that isn't assigned to any dwarf ought to be usable by all dwarfs. Layering rooms (e.g. making a dining room from each table and assigning the individual "rooms" to different dwarfs) makes the rooms be of lower value than they'd otherwise be, but at least in the versions I played it was just a flat 25% reduction in value no matter how heavily the rooms were layered. I used to make one awesome gigantic bedroom with enough beds for all my dwarfs and they were all super-pleased about their luxuriant quarters.

[buzzkill]

One of my animals died because I made their pasture too small. In response, I removed the pasture designation entirely thinking that the remaining animal would roam freely. I should have know something was up when the Yak started hanging out in the tunnels. Anyhow, it died of starvation (in what is probably the worst possible spot it could). For some reason, maybe because it's so heavy, my lazy dwarves won't move it outside. Now it's rotting, creating miasma. Not sure what that is but it can't be good. Still don't know how to get rid of it, the Yak that is.

On the plus side, I survived my first year without any fatalities and a dwarven baby was born. Population 16.

[Mondkalb]

Every first fortresses just has to suffer from miasma.

Do you have allocated a refuse stockpile? Is it full?

http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2012:Stockpile#Refuse

Dwarfs should carry any dead bodies and remains to refuse stockpiles. If they are outside no miasma will be created.

Maybe your problem with your dining room has to do with disconnected stairs/ramps? (Or burrows...)

[LostTemplar]

1) Don't ever assign rooms except for nobles. Dwarves will claim bedrooms automatically and share other rooms happily.
2) Designate refuse stockpile and dump zone. Put dump zone on refuse stockpile or under a bridge to crush junk.
Set refuse orders using 'o' 'r' to dump anything you don't process.
3) Without pasture all animals will starve in your meeting hall.
4) Make barracks, military and draft all that stupid extra dwarves in, give them shields.
In current DF combat system shield is essential, assuming dwarf is well trained and skilled, it can block all attacks and kill with shield. Weapon and armor are also good but shield is ten times more important.
5) Well military trained dwarf (all usefull stats maxed) if relesed from service will work and move maybe twice as fast and much better then noobish dwarf.

[buzzkill]

1)2) Designate refuse stockpile and dump zone. Put dump zone on refuse stockpile or under a bridge to crush junk.
Set refuse orders using 'o' 'r' to dump anything you don't process.

Thanks. I had a dead body stockpile, but it was full. I placed a dump zone atop it. Hopefully that will clear things up.

[Mondkalb]

I would also recommend this thread on the bay12 forums about early misconceptions that new players had about the game:

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=133654.0

There are some surprisingly common wrong ideas about a lot of things ...

[buzzkill]

I would also recommend this thread on the bay12 forums about early misconceptions that new players had about the game:

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=133654.0

There are some surprisingly common wrong ideas about a lot of things ...

I don't suffer from the misconceptions in that thread, but I'm sure I suffer. I just don't know it yet.

All I read prior to actually playing DF is the it's incredibly difficult and that I'll lose countless fortresses before accomplishing anything. Perhaps I've accomplished nothing so far and I just don't know it, but I feel like I've accomplished something. I survived my first winter and my Dwarves are bearing offspring.

What is frustrating is that after easily 20+ hours of game play, I know I've accomplished very little in the grand scheme of things and I still have trouble with common, not to mention obscure, commands. There are times when I'll boot up my fortress and spend an hour analyzing my Dwarves skill set and plan a couple of areas/workshops/etc. and then realize that I've yet to unpause the game and play a single turn.

[Mondkalb]

DF has a myth about it to be incredible difficult. That's not entirely true.
Some of the myth relates back to the early years when there was no wiki and also the game was harder than it is today. To survive the first year must have been more of a challenge then.

Nowadays we have the awesome wiki and countless starting guides all over the internet.

That the equally awesome game still is such a challenge for one thing is based on its ludicrous complexity and for another thing on the sometimes obscure interface.
The insane amount of detail does one last thing.

You don't have to use or even know about all possible ways to acquire food and drinks for your dwarves to start a fortress and take the starting dwaves through the first winter. A heap of Plump helmets and a couple of seeds will do if you know the basics of farming and brewing.
It's part of the fun for me to discover all off the possibilities (all of the different crops you can harvest and plant, all the animals you can butcher, all of the meals you can cook and drinks you can brew ... oh, and all the fish ... )

In one of my early fortresses I caused a cave-in and one of my dwarfs broke an arm. I had no idea what to do and consulted the wiki. So I started to build a hospital, which required lots of things I didn't have or even knew of, like thread, cloth, crutches, splints, plaster, a well, and soap. How on earth could I get soap? Again the wiki helped out and I had to get tallow, ash, empty barrels and buckets, a soap maker's workshop, an ashery ... And I had to enable all the correspondent labors without dwarf therapist, which I didn't use at the time.
That was quite overwhelming for me, but I got it all done. As a result, my wounded dwarf finally had it's wound washed with fine soap, had a wound stiched and got a good plaster dressing and a splint.

I never stop to wonder when I look to all of the detailed infomation screens dwarf fortress has to offer, such as the medical information screens which I discovered quite late ^^:

[LostTemplar]

DF is the it's incredibly difficult

DF is very easy and difficult in the same time. It is easy beacuse nothing is tight management, e.g. just ONE dwarf worker can supply 200 dwarves living (at least with trade, it will also be a lot of extra luxury), ONE top quality soldier (you will need 3 or 4 since they tend to sleep then they are needed) can kill any amount of goblins, kill megabeasts, etc.
Also dwarves need very little to survive and be happy, e.g. you dont even have to give any dwarf a bed, just a dormitory with e.g. 1/4 of your population size beds will work.
This was an easy part.
Hard part is that there are also infinite things, you can do, and eventually you will want to, e.g. have that nice artificial water fall (or lava falls) all other the map, and such things, while not hard to do may be fatal if a single mistake is done.

In short it is easy to make self sustained, invulnerable fort without any special luxury. But it is very hard to be satisfyed with such a fort.

In DF it is hard to win but even harder to loose (if you consider your fortress, not dwarves)
Dwarves will die anyway. Personally I like reclaim fortress mode (visit is as an adventurer first)

[taptap]

What is hard to win supposed to mean? I mean it isn't a game with an obvious final / aim and nothing forces you to go to the deepest floor. I once prepared for about 30 years with a fortress but then lost interest, I spent way too much time cleaning the remnants of goblin sieges and struggled against FPS death.

Nowadays I would almost certainly play a smallish fortress / ideally without elves and humans interfering /, shamelessly exploit traps to catch goblins for prisoner logic experiments and try to automatize as many processes as possible powered by logical goblins and minecarts. I guess I would be more satisfied if I could construct a system that gently trains dwarves of all ages to swim without injury (!) (and without need for supervision / manual interference) than all military challenges in the game.