Dwarf Fortress

Thanks, maybe I'll try that out some time.

Nevertheless, I love the ascii of vanilla, all the li'l symbols running around and the dwarves with their beards. Just lovely<3

Dwarf Fortress is the only reason dwarves are my favourite Alliance race. Only thing they lack in Wow is that females have no beards and there's too little madness and eating eachother.
I especially love how someone defined how their happiness system works: "Urist grieves over his lost wife and comrades, but on the other hand he did eat in a really, really nice dining room."

Edit: Read the thread about the pack and gotta say it really looks lovely! Gotta download that, I might disable the graphics pack, but rest seems golden.

Finished my year. I'll get a write-up posted sometime tomorrow.

Here's the up-to-date list of dwarves that have been named (had to start pulling names at random due to migrant invasion)

Saevir
Thenkar
Lini
Halya
Gnash
Saali
Ezlbag
Mervyn
Kavalis
Morgeth
Nessra
Odrade
Julia
Celistra
Mandui
Anaei
Geldar
Calisar
Jayse
Eavya
Aniane
Lilath

Why do I have a tame camel? And why is it in my dining room? All the animals are there. Damned animals in my meeting points.

WHY DID MY DWARVES WANT A PET CAMEL?

Camels are lumpy creatures. Their intelligent gaze and jolly demeanor make them perfect companions for the dwarven style of life.
Do not judge the camel for the camel wishes you no harm.
Accept the camel into your life, until death do you part.

Personal Log of Saevir Stormpaged, Expedition Leader of The Sword of Kings

1st of Granite, Early Spring of the Year 1051

We have finally arrived in the region that the old prospector in the mountainhomes spoke off, and it would appear that there is some truth to his claims. I spotted several deposits of iron and flux as we came in, and both Lini and Halya, the two miners that I brought on for this, claim certainty that there are more to be found beneath us. Saali, our woodworker, informs me as well that the trees in the area are plentiful and well-suited for carpentry. With this in order, I have called for us to stop here and strike the earth.

We are currently camped out on an open, rocky bank inside the bend of the river. The area to the south and east of us is mostly woodland, with some mountains rising up further to the east. The area on the western side of the river is more rocky foothills, particularly to the northwest.



I've ordered Saali and our expedition's botanist, Ezlbag to venture south and start felling lumber and bolster our food supply with the local flora respectively. The miners insisted on carrying out a geological survey immediately, so I will be tending the camp for tonight with Thenkar, our structural engineer, and Gnash the Craftsdwarf.

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2nd of Granite, Early Spring of the Year 1051

While exploring, the others sighted both a large alligator basking on the rocks directly across the river, and also a flock of hippos downriver to the south, beyond the ridge. The hippos should not pose any trouble if we do not agitate them, but the old prospector warned me about the aggressiveness of the alligators around here, so I'm taking no chances. I ordered the entire camp taken down and moved south over the ridge.



The gorge that Saali and Ezlbag described there sounds as if it would make a suitable place to establish our outpost at. I told Thenkar to draw up plans for Saali to construct a bridge over the river with the wood from our wagon.

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24th of Granite, Early Spring of the Year 1051

Since the bridge was finished, the miners have struck the earth on the other side of the river and dug out an underground storage room for our food supply. We are still camping in the open on this side of the river, along with most of our building materials and tools



Thenkar and Saali, unwilling to wait for the miners to finish digging out room for workshops, have set up simple work areas for themselves right in our camp. Saali have been putting together beds and storage bins with the lumber we got from clearing the trees around our camp, while Thenkar so have been carving the stone that the miners bring to the surface into blocks suitable for construction.

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19th of Slate, Mid Spring of the Year 1051

Despite the advantagous terrain, our ability to defend this location is still terribly poor. Because of this, I had Lini and Halya start strip-mining the rock salt deposits on both sides of the river after they finished digging out a bunk room beneath the food storage. Thenkar will be needing that stone as I've put him to building a trade depot on the surface above the food storage.



I also caught Gnash sneaking off with some of the stone from the strip-mining efforts. He apparently got fed up with just hauling, so he set up his own work area in the camp and has begun carving toys and fine crafts. As much as we need those blocks, I will admit that now that we have a trade depot up, we will need something to trade with the caravans as well.

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27th of Slate, Mid Spring of the Year 1051

Lini spotted a tigerfish in the river while she was crossing the bridge on her way to the quarry today. The sight so scared her that she bolted down inside the food storeroom and immediately dived into the booze. I had to give her a stern talking to before she calmed down enough to return to work.

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28th of Felsite, Late Spring of the Year 1051

Work on the trade depot is continuing. Progress is slow as Thenkar has to both carve the blocks himself and also oversee the construction effort at the same time. The walls are almost in place now, however. As we have an excess of stone at this point, I ordered Lini and Halya away from the strip-mining and instead had them dig away the soil around the trade depot.

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25th Hematite, Early Summer of the Year 1051

Migrants have arrived, and what bloody great time they decided to do so at as well! Our bunk room is overcrowded as it is, having only five beds and a small dining table against the south wall. There's just four of them at least, so it is not completely unlivable however. The two males, Kavalis and Mervyn, are jeweler and weaver respectively. Nothing that we have much use for at this time, so they'll just be help haul things for now. The females are Morgeth and Nessra. Morgeth is a peasant of no noteworthy skill at all, so there's not much to do with her other than just have her do the menial tasks to save the time for the rest of us. Nessra is a craftsdwarf though, and while her skill is with carving wood, I have ordered her to start practicing on stone instead under Gnash's tutelage. Wood is not so plentiful around here that we can spare it on trade goods just yet.

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19th of Malachite, Mid Summer of the Year 1051

Lini and Halya have finished digging out the moat around the trade depot. A small earthen dam at each end is all that blocks the river out of it. We'll be breaching those to fill it in next week.



Ezlbag has been keeping up our food supply by foraging fruits and berries in the woods, but without functioning farming operation and a still, there is little he can do about the booze. With four extra mouths in the fort, it is already dwindling faster than I would like, even after rationing it and telling the others to go drink river water instead. Our food supply should hold until the caravan arrives in the autumn though, and creating a defensible position is more important than digging out caves for Ezlbag to farm in.

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27th of Malachite, Mid Summer of the Year 1051

Lini nearly drowned today.

I sent the miners out to breach the dams so the river could flow through the moat. Halya got out to the northern end first. Lini was still heading there and decided to take a shortcut through the moat itself rather than crawl over the ridge. Unfortunately Halya managed to breach the dam while Lini was still midway along on the bottom of the moat. Lini only saw the rushing water when she rounded the bend and ran headlong into the wall of water. Thankfully she managed to pull herself up again and wade back to where she could get out, but the event had us all on the edge for the rest of the day.



I briefly considered whether to have us all taught how to swim, but at this point we can't afford the loss of work that would come with locking each of us in a flooded cell for a few days.

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12th of Galena, Late Summer of the Year 1051

With the moat done, the bridge is now the only way in and out of the fortress. We'll want to replace the crude wooden thing we have now with a proper drawbridge at some point, but it's a good start.

I've ordered the miners back down below to dig out larger storage rooms from the bedrock. We'll need it as we can't keep our craftsmen and their stock at the old campsite across the river forever.

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2nd of Limestone, Early Autumn of the Year 1051

Halya says we're far enough below the river now for it to be safe to dig under it. I ordered her to start digging a tunnel to the other side so that we can make use of the extensive soil layer there for farming and storage space.



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22nd of Limestone, Early Autumn of the Year 1051

Ezlbag warned me that the food stock is getting dangerously low. That caravan better come really soon.

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13th of Sandstone, Mid Autumn of the Year 1051

The miners finished digging out a cave for an underground farm across the river. It still needs to be irrigated first, and there's no time to set up a proper system at this point, so I've ordered the peasants to form a bucket brigade and start dumping water from the upper gallery in the cave.



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28th of Sandstone, Mid Autumn of the Year 1051

More bloody migrants! Just what we need, more mouths to feed...

Five of them this time, all womenfolk. There's Odrade, a woodcutter. I told her to go help cut wood for Saali. Next one's Mandui, who's got a little bit of experience with masonry. I told her to go study structural engineering under Thenkar and help make more stone blocks in the process. We did get a third miner out of the bunch though, Anaei. She even brought her own pickaxe, so she could go and help Lini and Halya right away. The last two, Julia and Celistra, were little more than unskilled peasants. I told them to go help Morgeth with hauling.

Or food stock won't last a month with this many dwarves in the outpost. The upper dormitory is cramped at all hours of the day now, and the lower one is not much better.

Where is that caravan?

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12th of Timber, Late Autumn of the Year 1051

The caravan is coming! Praise Armok!

We had five full bins of trade goods by this point. I ordered them all brought up to the trade depot as the caravan came in and began setting up, then went up there myself to talk with the Outpost Liaison from the mountainhomes.

I bought all the booze they brought, as well as enough meat, plump helmets, cheese and other foodstuff to hopefully last us until we have our own food supply secured. I also bought an iron anvil so that we'll be ready for setting up a metal industry when we start mining out the iron veins, and a second battle axe for the woodcutters. The value of our own trade goods easily covered the cost of it all with enough left that I could buy some useful items to help speed things up a bit over the winter.

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1st of Moonstone, Early Winter of the Year 1051

Winter has arrived, and the Outpost Liaison is preparing to leave with the caravan again. I've requested that they bring more food and booze next time, just in case.

With the weather growing colder, I've ordered that the second of the large storage rooms on the lowest level should be turned into a workhall. The craftsdwarves seemed delighted about the prospect of finally moving inside and eagerly cleared up their work areas across the river and began setting up down there. The first storeroom has been filled with all the materials we used to store outside in the meantime.

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8th of Moonstone, Early Winter of the Year 1051

There was a commotion down in the work hall today. When I went down there, I found Gnash proudly conversing with his apprentice, Nessra, and Kavalis who seemed to have been helping bring materials to them today. He seemed to be espousing the qualities of his latest piece of work, and I have to say that it was indeed a masterpiece that he has crafted. It is a mark of his increasing skill, and such work should fetch quite a bit in trade in the future.



Everyone has now set up their workshops down in the hall. The noise of their work is rather loud even up in the dormitories above, but we will hopefully soon have expanded into new tunnels from which we can carve out proper living quarters.

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17th of Moonstone, Early Winter of the Year 1051

The caravan departed for the mountainhomes today. Hopefully they will bring word of the success of our outpost so that migrants of better skill will decide to come next year.

Thenkar and Mandui have been hard at work carving stone blocks for some time now. I've ordered them to start building a second floor on top of the trade depot, and leave it solid enough for more floors to be added in the future. Eventually the simple structure currently serving as our entrance will be formidable tower, standing like a beacon of persistence on this frontier so far from home.

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20th of Opal, Mid Winter of the Year 1051

The base of the second-floor walls have been laid. Despite it being a mild winter, progress has been slow. I still hope that we will have it done by spring.

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18th of Obsidian, Late Winter of the Year 1051

Thenkar has put up the walls of the second floor. Our supply of quality alunite for the construction is dwindling, so I've ordered andesite to be used for the roof. Thenkar and Mandui think they will be able to carve enough block to finish the job in time for spring.

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20th of Granite, Early Spring of the Year 1052

The warmth of spring got the masons working a bit faster, and they've finally finished the second floor. More migrants arrived as the month turned as well. They must have traveled all winter to reach us from the mountainhomes, and they brought kids with them!

Jayse, a carpenter, and his wife Calisar, a mason, brought their two daughters, Aniane and Lilath, with them. A craftsdwarf with some skill in a variety of materials by the name of Geldar came in with the family as well, as did another peasant by the name of Eavya.

We're up to 22 dwarves in the outpost now, living in two cramped dormitories with 11 beds in total. This is no place for a kid to grow up in. We really need to expand.

Thenkar will have to take care of that though. If we are to make our food stock last for this many dwarves, then we need to keep better track of it. I had the new room above the trade depot furnished as my bedroom and office, and will be spending most of my time there from now on, updating our stock records.

I also finally decided on a name for our outpost. Crowhall.



I left a note for Thenkar before going up here, telling him to look into sorting out the food supply issue, and also that it might be time to start drafting a small militia to defend us until a proper drawbridge has been installed. I've heard complaints from the others about having to go to the river for drinking water as well, so installing a well somewhere inside the outpost might be a good idea. We still need better living quarters as well.

Good luck, Thenkar.

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OOC: Looking for a place to upload the save at now. You can also PM me your MSN address and I'll send it over there.

Sorry if it's a bit light on screenshots. I'm not used to document how I play

I'm a miner! Is this awesome? Y/Y?


Also, I wouldn't mind taking the third year.

I'm not playing this or anything, but I loved the journal of how it went. That was awesome!

Also, I have to admit those Stonesense screenshots make it a lot easier to figure out what's going on even if you're not that familiar with the game. (I'm fluent in reading the Matrix so the default ASCII graphics don't bother me that much.)

Right so Thenkar is up next then Lini, I would like to sign up for Fourth

This thread needs comics, by the way.

Dwarves need to learn what fire is :O

Also from Deviantart (i added the description in since it makes it a lot funnier xD i didnt make it though)

Description: Drew this in mid February. It's based on an old story from Dwarf Fortress.
A dwarf became rather moody and began work on a mysterious construction. He would soon complete an artifact floodgate, and would carry it around the fortress with him.
There was an engraving on the floodgate as well, depicting a dwarf getting killed by an elephant.
Strange enough, yeah?

But no. Years later, this floodgate was slowing down the dwarf so much, he was unable to escape from the local wildlife.
An elephant slaughtered the poor fool.

Engravings of cheese, cat leather hats and shirts on fire. Sounds like Dwarf Fortress to me.
Anyway, here's more.

When talking about carp xD

xD
Awesome journal, Saevir! And awesome pictures!

I sent a PM just now and, depending when I get my hands on the save, I'll most likely focus on playing tomorrow. Though it'll be a couple of days before I get to post my entry and give the save to the next willing participant.

So, I think the current order's this:

Line:
Saevir
Thenkar ~ here now
Lini
Ezlbag

It's looking better, but but there's plenty of room left!

While we wait for the next journal update, here's a story for you to read.

Having started as your standard DF, the Hamlet of Tyranny was uneventful by normal standards.
Sure there would be caravans and immigrants and occasional (though unusually rare) seiges, but there was a dark and DEADLY secret buried beneath the hills.
And his name was Ashmalice.


Ashmalice was a fire demon of legendary status.
Not only had he existed in the prehistory of the fort, but he had over 550 kills - which included 2 entire tribes of goblins, a handful of elves,
and a terrifying ammound of dwarves... one of whom was the king of the mountain-homes.


Fast forwarding to the present time major construction was underway of the fort.
Many many immigrants had arrived over the years and times were good for the dwarves.
Having many legendary carvers and warriors my friend grew lax in his defenses.
And his dwarves paid the price when a miner unearthed a glowing pit deep below the dungeons carved into the mountain.


Within an hour my friend's fortress was besieged by a nearly unending horde of demonic horrors.
Ill equipped to deal with the threat immediately, the population of the Hamlet began dropping exponentially.
Not even a panicked redirection of the river into the lower levels was enough to staunch the influx of demons,
only enough to slow them long enough for the major walkways to be collapsed to buy some precious time.


Luckilly (and cleverly) my friend had built his fortress in such a way that if any large section had collapsed,
then all escape routes would lead out into the wilderness and on a path far from the fortress and defendable
by collapsing the ceiling via lever to flood seawater into the tunnel.
Though no dwarf was alive on that side of the map, or able to reach it to pull the lever, my friend had bought the dwarves much needed time,
though when Ashmalice made himself known all seemed futile. Even moreso when Stuvok lost his mind with rage.


Stuvok was one of the founding 7. He was an ex-miner turned blacksmith of legendary status.
He was a monster of a dwarf that all dwarves aspired to be. And he had just lost his wife Doken (another of the starting 7) to the demon Ashmalice.
His sorrow was felt by the surviving clan as he tore through them one by one unopposed.
Only when he ran into his workshop and was locked in did his rage abate.


Morale was rock bottom. Several dwarves commit suicide in this dark hour.
And of the handfull who remained of this once great fortress, few were willing to do anything at all,
except the only other remaining dwarf of the founders: the engraver Sil. In the months that followed, the floors were carved with graven images of his follow brethren.
All hope seemed lost. But this was not the end for the Hamlet. Not just yet...


In his grief and mourning, Stuvok opened his heart to the spirits of the dead.
And one day they came to him in spirit. In his posessed mood he plotted and planned and (ironically) with the materials available to him,
crafted an artifact clearly in homage to his wife: Endless Death of Tears - a sword with an image of a dwarf holding a piece of glass -
glass that his wife used daily in her trade.


My friend had been content to just flood the map with lava and end the game after such losses.
But upon seeing this artifact his neckbeard overtook him and he knew that Doken, the dwarves, the king, must all be avenged!
And thankfully for me, he decided to continue.
Fast forwarding again to the present (the time at which I had come in to see him play) my friend had safely excavated what he could of the fortress
and moved all activity to a small corner of the interior. When all levers were erected, dwarves armed, and preparations complete, he unpaused the game for me.


A few dwarves made suicide runs to the bottom of the dungeons and collapsed them -
which in turn lowered the debris above into a sinkhole that breached a large hole for the demons to pour from back into the fort.
A few more dwarves valiantly fired into the oncomming tide of hate, but they were nothing but fodder that bought precious moments for the true plan to kick in.
A masterfully placed lever that had yet been unpulled brought down the entire mountain through the legendary dining hall ceiling; crushing almost half of the intruding horde.


As planned, the demons made a bee-line through the side hallways through rows of blade traps.
Demons were chewed up by the blades, but still they came. And so did "He".
Ashmalice not only avoided the fatal cave-in, passed the slicing blades, and bypassed the numerous flooding-trap chambers,
but he and a squad of equally lucky frog demons carved and scorched their way into the final defensive line.
Among their victims was Stuvok; unable to avenge his beloved. And the last handfull of dwarves were quickly reduced to 2 -
Sil the engraver and the legendary captain of the guard, Daneken.


As respected and powerful as Stuvok had been, Daneken was that and more.
He was a god among his clan, and had once in his long career single-handedly repelled a goblin siege led by a cyclops, and had helped wrestle a dragon to death.
And now armed with his dead friend's artifact sword, he was seeing red.
Daneken had been stationed at the edge of a chasm (my friend's map had a pit AND chasm that had been unearthed,
but it was amazingly only filled with tiny spiders that were easilly dispatched in the early years of the fort).
A single bridge had been built to span the chasm, and would have been later expanded as housing. But that plan was no longer.
And this was it. This was the end of the dwarves of the Hamlet of Tyranny. But they would not go quietly.


As the demons approached Daneken threw himself at them in a rage.
Ashmalice blasted him with demonic flames, but Daneken was imbued with the collective rage of his people and carved through the frog retainers with little signs of stopping.
Ashmalice, however, had seen the deaths of a king and was not impressed with the antics of a lowly dwarf and sent him hurtling back onto the bridge -
coincidentally knocking Sil over the edge.
With his flesh scorching and his blood boiling, Denekan crawled to his feet just in time to see Ashmalice hover over him.
With but a single push the fortress would be claimed by demons. But to my friend's and my own utter jaw-dropping amazement, it was the dwarves who claimed him.


Daneken, in a testament to his dwarfdom slashed off one of Ashmalice's arm/wing and plunged Endless Death of Tears into his evil heart.
Such was the force of the blow that the demon was hurled backwards off of the bridge and sent spiraling down into the unending darkness;
spouting curses the entire way. With his clan and his king avenged, Daneken himself tumbled from the bridge. But... one dwarf remained?


Awestruck by what had just happend, I urged my friend to quickly find the survivor!
The menus opened, the tabs clicked, and we see that name. Sil. Sil?
But he fell into the chasm! What was going on? With the battle essentially over and the remaining demons blocked from furthur intrusion by an unchecked flood of river water,
we peer into the chasm. Several Z-levels down, on a tiny 2-square ledge, lay Sil - broken and bleeding, but alive.


With no way to save him, and with his entire clan residing in the afterlife, we debated how this should end.
Should we just abandon the fort outright? Should we try and kill him somehow? What? In the end, however,
we decided to let him create one more carving - one last testament to dwarfkind.
This decision did not come lightly, as after such an epic climax, anything less would seem an insult.
But still we left him to his work. Afterall, maybe he would draw a picture of a plump helmet or something equally random.


What did he draw?
Moments before he bled to death?
Alone on a cliff?
The last gesture of the dwarves of the Hamlet of Tyranny?


A picture of a demon and some dwarves. The demon was in a fetal position. The dwarves were laughing.

Making an useless post to say that I have the save now. Too late for me to start playing tonight, but gonna get it underway tomorrow. n.n

Anyone got a good beginners guide on the game? And a good version of the game?

Bennedictus, This site pretty much have all you need. http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/Main_Page
and if your gonna start playing DF look up fun. http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/Fun
I would recomend downloading a version with a graphic pack just do a search for graphics or something. Other than that there are a lot of guides on the page.

Also the story that just was linked, EPIC!

Well isn't this just grate...

That was a bad pun, you know...

My expedition leader (Halya) who was a bookkeeper and fisherdwarf (yeah... I needed food okay?) got a fey mood. Demanded rock crystal and silver. I found some rock crystal the floor below her workshop 5 seconds later. And then in the same room, silver. I gigglesnorted at the massive coincidence, then she made her artifact ring and became a legendary gemcutter. She now cuts crystals worth more than a suit of plate mail. Then she fell into the river and got killed by a carp.

Status update, I've been playing my turn faithfully. Hopefully I'll finish the year during the weekend.
Much hasn't happened. We got elven traders who remedied our alcohol problem for a little while. Build a still but the dwarves seem reluctant to use it.

Also, Mervyn got a fey mood. He demands silk and so far there hasn't been any, so we might have a rampaging dwarf in the fortress soon! xD
Unless something interesting happens again, I'll let the whole story wait for until I post my journal and save.

Is it true this game sucks out more hours of your life than WoW?

Ovelia "Snow" Adair wrote:Is it true this game sucks out more hours of your life than WoW?

Well for a while i didnt do any schoolwork since i had this on my school computer.....
Also me and a friend are planning to mod it, so yeaaah it slowly consumes my life.

Ovelia "Snow" Adair wrote:Is it true this game sucks out more hours of your life than WoW?

I played it from 1pm to 11pm yesterday. I stopped for half an hour to make dinner. =DDD