it's been six months
In another dimension, there is a place called Nïr Niral, "The Land of Portent." Nïr Niral is a large island region rich in natural resources and filled with fantastical beings and monsters of legend. In year 250 of the Age of Myth, a tiny caravan of dwarves set out from their mountain home to build a new outpost and a new life for themselves...
Dwarf Fortress is a complex ACSII game with two modes. I will be playing fortress mode, where players take control of a small band of dwarves who leave the safety of the mountainhome in order to build a new settlement to live. The game is constantly in development, with improvements and bug fixes being made all the time. Dwarf Fortress is an exercise in micromanagement: things are happening all the time, and you need to keep track of it all. Not only that, each and every individual dwarf has his or her own personality, giving more life to the world. What's more, after your fort dies, you can explore the abandoned fort in Adventurer mode, and possibly even reclaim it.
The game is updated very frequently, and is now at version 0.31.25. Many bugs have been fixed (especially hospital ones, thank goodness!) and about a bajillion new features have been added. (New jobs! New animals!) Every time I download a new version, it seems like I have to learn the game all over again!
What I'm doing here is I'm making a fortress consisting entirely of TST characters. Each dwarf will be named after a character, all of them will be chosen at random with the help of a generator. If you'd like to see your character in the game more quickly, I'll bump them up to priority status and they'll be dorf'd as soon as possible.
As for what I'm actually going to be doing that you'll care about: I am making a record of my progress in the game, in screenshots and commentary. So basically, I'm doing an informal Let's Play of the game. So please join me as I start, improve, and eventually lose a dwarven society. All forts in the game inevitably fall: it is impossible to sustain a fort indefinitely. In fact, the motto of DF is "Losing is Fun!"
Hopefully, we will not die to pants this time.
Okay, here's our embark screen. Our home civilization is the Misty Axe, who live in the northeastern part of the map. (The blue omega signs mark their location in the third image) What we're going to do is find a nice place to settle down, which quite honestly, takes forever. The search feature lets you put in some parameters, but it'll often not find anything that matches what you want exactly.
An ideal place to start, especially if you're not very experienced like I am, is a place with temperate or warm temperature, a decent amount of trees and vegitation, and wildlife that isn't very aggressive. Also, no aquifers. Aquifers suck because it's hard to find stone (the number one resource) and they will flood everything if you're not careful. Aquifers are really for experienced players who want more challenging gameplay.
Anyway, here we have a nice spoot. It fits all our requirements nicely, and is in range of many civilizations and even has a stream to boot. Also, that stream has an awesome name.
Here's our embark screen, part two. I've already taken the liberty of naming the initial dwarves off my randomized list. Again, if you wanna be bumped up in priority, let me know.
Anyway, here are our items. As you can see, we have a BUNCH more domestic animals to choose from! I've chosen to take two hens along because hens lay eggs and eggs equal food. I just need to make sure they have proper nest boxes to lay them in.
We're all set now, or at least as set as we will be. It's tough choosing what you want your dwarves to do initially because there's so many things you want done, but only a few dwarves to do them with! So let's go to our new home, which we have named Avaliden.
Or, by the name you guys know it better by, Lovepaddled.
...wait, YETIS!?
Oh joy. This place is CRAWLING with macaques. Anyway, the first thing we need to do is secure our stuff, or we'll die before the season changes. The easiest way to do that is to get them in an indoor location. We'll make a temporary storage area.
...why is Isshin the expedition leader this cannot end well.
I'll have you guys know it took forever to choose this spot. It'll probably get repurposed into something else later.
Yes, I am building a mason's workshop RIGHT THERE. You know why? Because I need to get some stone things built right away. You know, like doors. Also, I'm building carpenter's, craftdwarf's, and mechanic's workshops too. These are only temporary and will come down soon.
Here's a temporary storage room that I'll probably have to expand soon. I've also set up cage traps just for extra insurance. I also have to clear out the stones, so I'll set up a temporary dumping spot. Temporary temporary temporary.
First thing I'm doing is setting up a dormitory so our dwarves have a place to sleep. I've already got the beds made. Our stuff is safe and we now have a place to sleep. Time to start really building now!
The seasons change, and it is now summer. Here, you can see the trade depot I built.
Here's one of the new features since last time: nest boxes. Egg laying animals will lay their eggs in there, and we can either collect the eggs or let them hatch into chicks. Since I didn't bring any roosters with me, the eggs won't be fertilized, so they're all for the picking. The little c there is a hen laying her eggs, and a dwarf came to pick them up right away.
FUCK WHAT HAPPENED HERE!? As soon as I finished setting up the nest boxes, I get word a badger boar is picking fights! Yikes! Badgers are all over the place now! I think I better set up some traps.
OH MY GOD YES. COME HERE I NEED MORE WORKERS! Here are their names:
Mamma Gkika
Hexadecimal
Eustace Grumman (and his pet lamb)
This is actually the season change, but you can't tell because the notice about the badger sow is in the way. Autumn starts with badger boars and badger sows returning to harass the shit out of us again. We catch one in a cage trap. Everyone is running around like crazy in order to avoid the charging badgers. Much to my dismay, the badgers kill both of our hens. Then, I find out something terrible: we're out of food! Not very aggressive area my ass.
The badgers are still being a pain in the butt, but a glimmer of hope appears: new migrants!
Rikku Dalabane (and her pet ram and pet bunny)
Low Key Lyesmith
Xigbar (and his pet duckling, who grew up to be a drake shortly after arriving)
Kaoru Kiryuu
Leica Kit
We also have a couple stray animals, but I'm not sure which migrant wave they came with.
Eep! The caravan from the mountain home is here! All right everyone, time to make a good impression!
Those troublesome badgers start harassing the caravan.
It doesn't end well for the badgers. Unfortunately, the two badgers that we caught broke out of their cages when we tried to move them to the trade depot, so I tell Kaoru to go kill them and she does. We clear the caravan out of their goods just as the snow begins to fall.
Now, time to show you guys another new thing.
Yes! A hive! There is now a bee industry in Dwarf Fortress! That is an artificial hive, and we introduced some of the wild bees to it. In six months, we can choose to harvest what they have to offer (honey, royal jelly, wax, etc.) or we can leave them be and split them into more hives.
Spring arrives, and here you can see that we're finally getting around to setting up a farm. There's supposed to be two plots, but the one on the left didn't irrigate quite right, so I'll have to redo that one. Since an entire year has passed, it's time to take a break. Right now, the fort is still trying to stabilize, but hopefully we'll have new and exciting things in years to come!
Dwarf Fortress is a complex ACSII game with two modes. I will be playing fortress mode, where players take control of a small band of dwarves who leave the safety of the mountainhome in order to build a new settlement to live. The game is constantly in development, with improvements and bug fixes being made all the time. Dwarf Fortress is an exercise in micromanagement: things are happening all the time, and you need to keep track of it all. Not only that, each and every individual dwarf has his or her own personality, giving more life to the world. What's more, after your fort dies, you can explore the abandoned fort in Adventurer mode, and possibly even reclaim it.
The game is updated very frequently, and is now at version 0.31.25. Many bugs have been fixed (especially hospital ones, thank goodness!) and about a bajillion new features have been added. (New jobs! New animals!) Every time I download a new version, it seems like I have to learn the game all over again!
What I'm doing here is I'm making a fortress consisting entirely of TST characters. Each dwarf will be named after a character, all of them will be chosen at random with the help of a generator. If you'd like to see your character in the game more quickly, I'll bump them up to priority status and they'll be dorf'd as soon as possible.
As for what I'm actually going to be doing that you'll care about: I am making a record of my progress in the game, in screenshots and commentary. So basically, I'm doing an informal Let's Play of the game. So please join me as I start, improve, and eventually lose a dwarven society. All forts in the game inevitably fall: it is impossible to sustain a fort indefinitely. In fact, the motto of DF is "Losing is Fun!"
Hopefully, we will not die to pants this time.
Okay, here's our embark screen. Our home civilization is the Misty Axe, who live in the northeastern part of the map. (The blue omega signs mark their location in the third image) What we're going to do is find a nice place to settle down, which quite honestly, takes forever. The search feature lets you put in some parameters, but it'll often not find anything that matches what you want exactly.
An ideal place to start, especially if you're not very experienced like I am, is a place with temperate or warm temperature, a decent amount of trees and vegitation, and wildlife that isn't very aggressive. Also, no aquifers. Aquifers suck because it's hard to find stone (the number one resource) and they will flood everything if you're not careful. Aquifers are really for experienced players who want more challenging gameplay.
Anyway, here we have a nice spoot. It fits all our requirements nicely, and is in range of many civilizations and even has a stream to boot. Also, that stream has an awesome name.
Here's our embark screen, part two. I've already taken the liberty of naming the initial dwarves off my randomized list. Again, if you wanna be bumped up in priority, let me know.
Anyway, here are our items. As you can see, we have a BUNCH more domestic animals to choose from! I've chosen to take two hens along because hens lay eggs and eggs equal food. I just need to make sure they have proper nest boxes to lay them in.
We're all set now, or at least as set as we will be. It's tough choosing what you want your dwarves to do initially because there's so many things you want done, but only a few dwarves to do them with! So let's go to our new home, which we have named Avaliden.
Or, by the name you guys know it better by, Lovepaddled.
...wait, YETIS!?
Oh joy. This place is CRAWLING with macaques. Anyway, the first thing we need to do is secure our stuff, or we'll die before the season changes. The easiest way to do that is to get them in an indoor location. We'll make a temporary storage area.
...why is Isshin the expedition leader this cannot end well.
I'll have you guys know it took forever to choose this spot. It'll probably get repurposed into something else later.
Yes, I am building a mason's workshop RIGHT THERE. You know why? Because I need to get some stone things built right away. You know, like doors. Also, I'm building carpenter's, craftdwarf's, and mechanic's workshops too. These are only temporary and will come down soon.
Here's a temporary storage room that I'll probably have to expand soon. I've also set up cage traps just for extra insurance. I also have to clear out the stones, so I'll set up a temporary dumping spot. Temporary temporary temporary.
First thing I'm doing is setting up a dormitory so our dwarves have a place to sleep. I've already got the beds made. Our stuff is safe and we now have a place to sleep. Time to start really building now!
The seasons change, and it is now summer. Here, you can see the trade depot I built.
Here's one of the new features since last time: nest boxes. Egg laying animals will lay their eggs in there, and we can either collect the eggs or let them hatch into chicks. Since I didn't bring any roosters with me, the eggs won't be fertilized, so they're all for the picking. The little c there is a hen laying her eggs, and a dwarf came to pick them up right away.
FUCK WHAT HAPPENED HERE!? As soon as I finished setting up the nest boxes, I get word a badger boar is picking fights! Yikes! Badgers are all over the place now! I think I better set up some traps.
OH MY GOD YES. COME HERE I NEED MORE WORKERS! Here are their names:
Mamma Gkika
Hexadecimal
Eustace Grumman (and his pet lamb)
This is actually the season change, but you can't tell because the notice about the badger sow is in the way. Autumn starts with badger boars and badger sows returning to harass the shit out of us again. We catch one in a cage trap. Everyone is running around like crazy in order to avoid the charging badgers. Much to my dismay, the badgers kill both of our hens. Then, I find out something terrible: we're out of food! Not very aggressive area my ass.
The badgers are still being a pain in the butt, but a glimmer of hope appears: new migrants!
Rikku Dalabane (and her pet ram and pet bunny)
Low Key Lyesmith
Xigbar (and his pet duckling, who grew up to be a drake shortly after arriving)
Kaoru Kiryuu
Leica Kit
We also have a couple stray animals, but I'm not sure which migrant wave they came with.
Eep! The caravan from the mountain home is here! All right everyone, time to make a good impression!
Those troublesome badgers start harassing the caravan.
It doesn't end well for the badgers. Unfortunately, the two badgers that we caught broke out of their cages when we tried to move them to the trade depot, so I tell Kaoru to go kill them and she does. We clear the caravan out of their goods just as the snow begins to fall.
Now, time to show you guys another new thing.
Yes! A hive! There is now a bee industry in Dwarf Fortress! That is an artificial hive, and we introduced some of the wild bees to it. In six months, we can choose to harvest what they have to offer (honey, royal jelly, wax, etc.) or we can leave them be and split them into more hives.
Spring arrives, and here you can see that we're finally getting around to setting up a farm. There's supposed to be two plots, but the one on the left didn't irrigate quite right, so I'll have to redo that one. Since an entire year has passed, it's time to take a break. Right now, the fort is still trying to stabilize, but hopefully we'll have new and exciting things in years to come!