Malf on 31/8/2008 at 22:29

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Been ploughing on with it, and it's clicking now.

Today I finally cracked something that's been the downfall of almost all my previous fortresses: keeping the shortarses well fed.
No one thing contributed to this, rather it was a combination of fishing, good farming and MAKING SURE THE LITTLE BASTARDS DON'T COOK THOSE EFFING PLUMP HELMETS!
If they cook or brew them, you lose the seed which allows you to grow more and sustain the crop.

So, having got that sussed and being lulled into a false sense of security by the presence of the ridiculously crap Ant Men seemingly the only enemy on the map (seriously, an unarmed peasant beat down two on his oen. Well, his cat might have helped), I decided I'd finally dig down and search for that magma pipe that was supposed to be on the map.
I dug all the way to the bottom of the map and started criss-crossing the map in an effort to find it. In doing so, my Mayor and a buddy of his attained Legendary Miner status, which was nice.
Hidden gems and other goodies (including my very first vein of gold) allowed me to pad my supplies by buying from each of the human, elf and dwarf caravans that seemed all too eager to lap up my crappy yet numerous craftworks.

I used my profit to expand the number of miners I had, and things started to trundle along quite nicely.

Then just when I got comfortable, one of the noob miners found the pipe.
He warned me that he'd found warm rock and the pipe was revealed. "Yay!" thought I, "Magma smelters here we come!".
Stupidly, I got the pleb to dig up.
Next thing you know, I'm getting an announcement "Pleb died from the heat", and the magma's seeping in to the network of tunnels littering the bottom level.

Arg.

In an effort to stem the tide, I tried to build fortifications to stop the creep. My dutiful moron mason made his way down and sealed the passage, with himself on the wrong side.
Thankfully, the Mayor's buddy was around to dig him out.
Sealing the passage behind and running to the next passage that was filling, I thought I had it.
Alas, no.
I didn't realise that magma quite happily burns its way through dwarf-built walls.

Frantic, realising that the pipe was going to fill up all the levels that were below its surface, I came up with a hair-brained scheme.
I dug channels from the river at the top of the map (some 6 z-levels above the plain, another 10 or more above the bottom layer), and started to dig up from the bottom layer, hoping to water-cool the magma. I'd done it before on a level when fire imps had taken out half of my starting party early on, so I knew it'd work.

Of course, in my haste, I didn't notice that the very top channel leading from the river ran straight through the top layer of my fortress.
I only noticed when the human liaison arrived, and while zipping back up to meet him I saw my base being flooded.

So here I was with fiery death bubbling up from below and a watery end pouring in from above.

Then the goblins turned up.
And why had they been so bloody conspicuous by their absence?
Because the little feckers had been planning a siege.

Bad luck always comes in threes it would seem.

Quickly drafting a few paltry peasants, I relied on the humans to take the brunt of the siege. Sure enough, they were none to happy about having their trading party disrupted and proceeded to kick gobbo arse.

This left me and my super miner (the one who had earlier saved the moron mason) to try and patch things up in my fortress.
It was getting a bit desperate; water was beginning to pour down stairwells into the legendary dining room I'd been so lovingly preparing, and lots of dwarves were backing into corners.
I made one of them build a wall to stop the flow of water from one direction, but in doing so he sealed himself and a legendary metalcrafter in with the water.

Meanwhile, where my mayor had tried and failed, super miner ran in and successfully diverted the flood out of the fortress by canny use of channels, being careful of levels below this time. He then went and saved the metal crafter and his idiot builder buddy from drowning by digging a channel to them from the outside of the mountain.

All this resulted in multiple waterfalls streaming out of my fortress and flooding the plain below.

There's still lots to be done, and unfortunately I lost super miner while trying to further patch the flood, as stupid dwarves were trying to use it as a short-cut in to the fortress and were subsequently drowning.

My sink holes aren't properly dug out yet, so magma's still flooding the lower level, and I'm pretty certain that whichever dwarf opens them is probably going to drown.

I bet it's the mayor.

But DAMN, it's fun trying to juggle all this crap knowing that you're inevitably going to lose.

demagogue on 31/8/2008 at 22:52

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I think you (Malf) hit on the best way to play it, though ... telling the story.

This is one of those games where probably the best way to enjoy it is to keep an account of what you've done and tell its story. That's why Boatmurdered is its greatest claim to fame. Everybody who's played it sympathizes immediately and sees the humor. Looking at this thread, I'd say playing it for the account is probably more important than any other motivation for wanting to play this. Here once was X; here's what happened; here's why it's not here anymore. :sweat:

It's those details that make your X special, not the gameplay or interface.



Lol! I noticed that too and had exactly the same reaction.

Minion21g on 2/9/2008 at 23:19

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Now you've got it! This is probably the main reason I play this game. It's too bad I couldn't have thought of telling a story sooner. Dwarf Fortress isn't so much about the actual game but more about the adventure you experience while playing it. Each time you play a new fortress there's something new and exciting for you waiting at the arrival point.

Another good community example of this is: (http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=19279.0) Nist Akath ... though it's getting kind of long.

Malf on 13/5/2009 at 13:15

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I know that now ;)
Check out the date on my original post.
These days I actively use that feature of fortifications to keep fire imps out of the magma channels beneath my forges & smelters.

Unfortunately, I lost my most recent fortress somehow to some save game shenanigans.
Still, gives me a good excuse to start from fresh with the new Mayday DFG17 release.
Hopefully I'll get elves this time. I feel the need to burn / impale / stab some cannibalistic hippies.

Koki on 13/5/2009 at 19:03

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The moment I installed a graphics set in DF I called myself a graphics whore out loud.