Dwarf fortress

[Milskidasith]

Yes, but sieges are only a small part of the game; while tougher sieges and the new promised features about controlling multiple areas, sending raiding squads out, etc. do seem like they would make the game more difficult, the simple fact is that a couple champion dorfs can slaughter an entire gobbo army with an orc compliment and a bone dragon at the same time; sieges need to hit harder from the beginning, and more importantly, resources need to be at least somewhat tougher to manage with an entirely underground operation; sieges aren't particularly effective when you are trying to starve out a foe that manages to be totally self sufficient.

Unless sieges started including champion goblins and a lot of goblins on the level of goblin princes, they simply aren't going to compare with your dwarves. Then again, not gaining strength and such from jobs like bookkeeping will probably lower the general strength of any draftees into your army, so that could help.

[Arachu]

I just came back from Adventurer, and I was almost named "Hamstersplatter" (which I would've kept, but I accidentally skipped it).

He died when he lost his sword in a scorpion and tried beating it to death with his fists. He came close though...

Hey, can you dual-wield shields? That sounds interesting

[The_JJ]

Hokay so I had a siege operator migrate and dwarfs to spare so I set him up a catapult to train. Thing is, I don't see a 'practice' option. Do I set to fire at will and he'll just go at it?

Also, I've got a small squad of crossbowdwarves in training, have the range all set up, but they wont practice. They're all equiped, they put some wooden bolts into a goblin raid earlier, so I don't know whats up.

[Justyn]

Hokay so I had a siege operator migrate and dwarfs to spare so I set him up a catapult to train. Thing is, I don't see a 'practice' option. Do I set to fire at will and he'll just go at it?

Yes, just set it as "Fire at Will" and he'll fire it every time it's loaded. But keep in mind this is a live-fire exercise, so make sure that nobody gets anywhere near the firing area, or they might get hurt.

Also, I've got a small squad of crossbowdwarves in training, have the range all set up, but they wont practice. They're all equiped, they put some wooden bolts into a goblin raid earlier, so I don't know whats up.

I actually think that this might be a bug, but I've noticed that Crossbowmen don't practice if they are wearing plate armor, so set them to wearing leather or clothes instead.

[Artanis]

Hokay so I had a siege operator migrate and dwarfs to spare so I set him up a catapult to train. Thing is, I don't see a 'practice' option. Do I set to fire at will and he'll just go at it?

Also, I've got a small squad of crossbowdwarves in training, have the range all set up, but they wont practice. They're all equiped, they put some wooden bolts into a goblin raid earlier, so I don't know whats up.

Make sure you have spare wooden and bone bolts. They won't practice with what's in their quivers, you need to have the practice ammo laying around.

I actually think that this might be a bug, but I've noticed that Crossbowmen don't practice if they are wearing plate armor, so set them to wearing leather or clothes instead.

They've always trained in plate just fine for me. The weight can make them suck at it, but they'll still do it. Check their inventories to make sure they aren't holding something in their hand that they aren't supposed to, such as somebody else's pants. They tend to rip each others' clothes off during wrestling practice, and hanging on to it interferes with their shooting.

[AgentPaper]

Note to self: If a river contains carp, construction of a well is more important than feeding your dwarves.

Lesson learned. Anyways, my fort is still far too small to really be anything yet, but my plan of making everyone a miner to speed things up seems to have worked. I've already got one legendary miner (one of two surviving members of the original six, thanks to those damned carp) and the rest are coming along. My massive grid of roads and the beginnings of my moderately complex plumbing system, has given them plenty of work, and since it's all still sandy clay at this level, they go pretty quick too. The only problem plaguing my fortress right now is the aforementioned carp, which has only gotten worse with more dwarves around, since my plumbing is taking so long to get on-line. (and with it my wells)

[Milskidasith]

Man, I loved it when I used to be bad at Dwarf Fortress and setting up minor things like a farm filled me with joy. Now it's kind of meh; I never really saw the point in super-projects, and when going for efficient design I find that a few basic concepts beats out a preplanned fortress because you save so much time on planning. I dunno, I'll probably start playing again when mods come around, or do some succession games (that don't have annoying limitations; I'd rather play a hard mod than do something like "no farming" or "no marksdwarves."

[Artanis]

Man, I loved it when I used to be bad at Dwarf Fortress and setting up minor things like a farm filled me with joy. Now it's kind of meh; I never really saw the point in super-projects, and when going for efficient design I find that a few basic concepts beats out a preplanned fortress because you save so much time on planning. I dunno, I'll probably start playing again when mods come around, or do some succession games (that don't have annoying limitations; I'd rather play a hard mod than do something like "no farming" or "no marksdwarves."

Check the official site's modding forum. The Orc Mod is pretty popular, though there's lots of other things - including stuff you can do yourself - to mod the game to be harder. Just putting the trapavoid tag on goblins can do wonders as it forces you to actually fight them instead of hiding behind eighty rows of traps.

[Milskidasith]

I never use traps for gobbos; they start sieging at 80 pop, and by that time I've got a military of around 20 well trained dwarves. (Though one time I did cage trap a giant eagle, tame it, and then mod it so I could have a war giant eagle).

The Orc mod does sound nice, but I'm not sure how much tougher it will actually be; sieges were never much of a problem for me, but this might change things.

[Artanis]

Well, they're huge (size 8), have big damblock, and are ridiculously aggressive

[Milskidasith]

Can they break down doors? If not, it's going to be too easy; as I said, fortresses can easily be self sufficient and even self expanding within the year.

[Artanis]

They can't break them down but they can walk right through them. I found out the hard way that a locked door does nothing to stop Orcs.

[Milskidasith]

Ah. Should be a nice change of pace, then.

[Rockphed]

Beware the orcs. They start sieging sometime between the first summer and second summer. When they do, you typically die.

[Artanis]

Yeah. My first fortress using the Orc Mod went something like this:

"Doot do doo, oh, hey, an Orc attack! They'll quickly fall prey to my tra...oh, ****, that's right, they ignore traps. That's alright, they can't get through the doors straight into my base, they have to go through the other corridor where my troops can jum...they went right through the doors. Not good. Alright, DRAFT EVERYBODY! OK, I've got everybody drafted and armed so they'll take ca...aaaaaaaand they're all dead "

[Milskidasith]

Sounds like I might get some challenge out of it. :D

[Zeful]

Which is why your first line of defense is a 3 tile wide, 5 z-level pit which surrounds your fortress, and the only way in is over a retractable bridge.

[Suicide Junkie]

The only problem plaguing my fortress right now is the aforementioned carp, which has only gotten worse with more dwarves around, since my plumbing is taking so long to get on-line. (and with it my wells)

Best to dam the river at its most upstream point, and then let the carp drown in the air. Although it would be quick and easy to dig a channel and put a grate in to keep the carp out... Make your own artificial lake to use instead of the river.

[kell the brute]

I can never seem to get much of a challenge out of DF...

Just out of pure curiosity,
ARE YOU INSANE!

Dwarf fortress is the second most challenging game I've ever played. How can ANYONE not find this game challenging!?!?

[Milskidasith]

Because after five fortresses that fizzled out (I never entirely lost a fortress, but they generally wound up with stupid floods and/or total lack of progress and a couple deaths causing me to give up on them) I found a way to make it click, and then I found out that as long as you have one source of water the game is easy? The only challenge I ever got was trying to irrigate areas when it was on hot conditions with no river, and even then it wasn't hard; after you set up the farm, you have all the drinks you need and a small artificial pond is enough to keep your injured dwarves from dying of thirst.

So the only ways I can make the game challenging are doing giant construction projects, intentionally crippling my fortress with limitations like "no farming" or "no weapons/bolts that aren't imported," or hopefully the Orc mod (and, of course, finding HFS before you have multiple god-champions, or HFS at any time if you get a certain type of HFS).

[Lord Herman]

With all the stupid dwarf tricks I've tried involving machinery and water, I'm surprised my fortress hasn't been flooded yet.

Still, I keep trying. This time, I'm building an automatically irrigated tower-cap farm around my underground river. The irrigation pump is powered by the river itself. There is an off switch, but I'm not entirely sure the area it's in won't be flooded as well. Oh well, only one way to find out.

Edit: Okay, here goes nothing. It is at times like these I am reminded of the words of the famous chaos theorist Urist Malcolm: 'Fun will find a way.'

[TheSummoner]

So... I know a way to stop nobles from coming...

Don't trade your own goods. After the first year or so, if you made it, don't trade it. By the time ambushes start coming, you'll have plenty of goblin gear to trade away for whatever you need (keep the metal bits to melt down, but sell the leather and cloth). So long as exports don't exceed 10,000 dwarfmoney, the Baron will never arrive... the only immigrant noble you'll get is the dungeon master... and hes not annoying like most of them. The key here is that exports that you didn't make yourself don't count towards the 10,000 total. So, as long as you export goblin gear primarily, you'll never have to deal with annoying nobles.

[AgentPaper]

So my sound isn't working, (only in DF) and when I try to go to the menu to fix it, the "music and sound" option is grayed out and unresponsive. Is there some button combo I pressed to make this happen? Though that seems unlikely, as it's persisted through multiple re-starts.

On an unrelated note, my spell-check recognizes gray and grey and grayed, but greyed is apparently not a work.

[Greep]

So my sound isn't working, (only in DF) and when I try to go to the menu to fix it, the "music and sound" option is grayed out and unresponsive. Is there some button combo I pressed to make this happen? Though that seems unlikely, as it's persisted through multiple re-starts.

On an unrelated note, my spell-check recognizes gray and grey and grayed, but greyed is apparently not a work.

On certain points of the game, like the embarking items/stats menu, you can't change music. That could be the problem *shrug* Otherwise, I dunno.

[Nano]

I think I might burrow under the ocean, and build a fortress out of glass. Then dump the ocean on it. Any ideas as to how I can get the water in without killing too many people, though? The goal is mainly just to get a big glass fortress in the water, though, so could I possibly drop it in from above?

[Destro_Yersul]

So the only ways I can make the game challenging are doing giant construction projects, intentionally crippling my fortress with limitations like "no farming" or "no weapons/bolts that aren't imported," or hopefully the Orc mod (and, of course, finding HFS before you have multiple god-champions, or HFS at any time if you get a certain type of HFS).

You may want to give this mod a try. From what I've heard it makes the game much more Fun, and includes such things as plants taking twice as long to grow, reduced value on iron, orcs, more metals and gems, and the GCSQ, Destroyer of Worlds.

[Artanis]

You may want to give this mod a try. From what I've heard it makes the game much more Fun, and includes such things as plants taking twice as long to grow, reduced value on iron, orcs, more metals and gems, and the GCSQ, Destroyer of Worlds.

*looks it over*

I see a whole lot of bloat, and only three or four things that might actually make the game harder: orcs, slower-growing plants, dwarves who are more picky, and maybe the megabeasts/semi-megabeasts (depending on how tough they actually turn out to be). In fact, a lot of the things - especially the unholy number of new materials - seem like they would just work to make things easier. That includes the reduced value on iron, since that just makes it that much easier to buy the iron you need for weapons and armor.

[Justyn]

So my sound isn't working, (only in DF) and when I try to go to the menu to fix it, the "music and sound" option is grayed out and unresponsive. Is there some button combo I pressed to make this happen? Though that seems unlikely, as it's persisted through multiple re-starts.

On an unrelated note, my spell-check recognizes gray and grey and grayed, but greyed is apparently not a work.

It might be that the music is turned off in the INIT files. If you're using the Mayday tileset, that's probably it.

[Milskidasith]

*looks it over*

I see a whole lot of bloat, and only three or four things that might actually make the game harder: orcs, slower-growing plants, dwarves who are more picky, and maybe the megabeasts/semi-megabeasts (depending on how tough they actually turn out to be). In fact, a lot of the things - especially the unholy number of new materials - seem like they would just work to make things easier. That includes the reduced value on iron, since that just makes it that much easier to buy the iron you need for weapons and armor.

Yeah; looking at that, it adds an unholy amount of new and stronger metals to be used. Any benefit from the stronger orcs is probably negated by the fact pretty much everything can become a weapon now. Also, some of the metals seem odd; if ebony or whatever is second to mithril, does that mean that adamantine is weaker than both?

[Suicide Junkie]

I think I might burrow under the ocean, and build a fortress out of glass. Then dump the ocean on it. Any ideas as to how I can get the water in without killing too many people, though? The goal is mainly just to get a big glass fortress in the water, though, so could I possibly drop it in from above?

What about building a big dike and then dropping it into the ocean? You could then pump the water out and take your time making fort Atlantis as big and deep as you like.

Build the glass dome and then chip a hole in the dike when you're done :)