A slice of life.

[theweaselking]

torrain: There are two seasons in Dwarf Fortress, "goblin" and "construction".

(Context is, like, on page 9 of this, which is the most hilarious Dwarf Fortress play-by-play ever.)

Comments

[stormfeather.livejournal.com]

...Yup, that sounds about right.

Well, really, it's ALWAYS construction season, at least for me. Instead, it's more like goblin season, and collecting-goblinite season.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Melting goblin crap most often gets you more metal, faster, than smelting ores.

(Setting the boiling point of goblins to -10C is also funny - they appear, they burst, you collect their stuff. Anyone with them is covered by horrible pink boiling goblin mist.)

[drhoz.livejournal.com]

Glazedalpaca! O Pestilent Jewel of the North! How thy crude walls glisten unspeakably in the setting sun! O thou fetid sphincter, most beloved of the King; would that I could walk thy cramped, refuse-strewn passages and know, truly, that there are worse things than death.

[drhoz.livejournal.com]

http://brokenforum.com/index.php?threads/dwarf-fortress-vd-staying-dry.1003/page-6#post-65667

"Okay, sure, we came out here to strip-mine the local landscape, and trained a squad of axe-wielding child soldiers to slaughter the indigenous population as well as murder an ancient being's family and friends one by one right in front of him. Yes, Sinthad's life has been so brutal and bloody that she is little more than a dead-eyed killer at 19. Yes, the arrival of a kindly and just King did nothing to improve the lives of the dwarves, because the problem is not people like Logem but rather the entire dwarven culture. Yes, Glazedcoast is a glass box filled with mud and dead plants, covered in sickening phlegm, below which sits a festering hole leading deep into the bowels of the earth; yes, its major exports are weapons and suffering; yes, there is not a single family that has not lost a child to monsters or the arrogance of the military. I have had endangered birds shot and left their bodies to rot on the ground. I allowed a four-hundred-year-old vampire queen to be ripped limb from limb to discover the limits of her powers. I have thrown innocents into battle with vicious goblins simply because the amazing works of art they produced did not amaze me quite enough. I have made pies out of puppies.

This is grim? This is monstrous? THIS. IS. DWARF! FORTRESS!

*kicks human ambassador into a pit full of captured goblins; puts on gem-studded human-hair crown* "

[drcuriosity]

A truth.

[drcuriosity]

Somehow it's 3a.m. and I'm only on page 2 and I need to have started sleeping a couple of hours ago. Good move on the kangaroo, though - they are tasty.

[biomekanic.livejournal.com]

It was 2AM and I was on page 4 before sleep demanded I surrender to it. After doing stuff during the day, I just finished. Holy crap, is this hilarious.

[kowh.livejournal.com]

On no account should you read Boatmurdered either then, assuming you actually like sleeping.

[falconwarrior.livejournal.com]

I find it odd you feel the need to supply context beyond "It's Dwarf Fortress."

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

You haven't read the link, I see.

[falconwarrior.livejournal.com]

Oh it's a great link, but the quote stands fine on its own.

[whisperkit.livejournal.com]

I've yet to be invaded by Goblins, and I've been playing for a while. I think my saves just comparatively don't last as long as others'. I get bored once I hit the basic first-level tech plateau. Trying to finally overcome this in my current save, and *gasp* smelt metals and suchlike.

That playthrough is brilliant.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

The secret to avoiding getting bored is to decide on a Stupid Dwarf Trick, and implement it.

Install showers! Build a three-level tomb and fill the bottom with magma to provide your dead with a comforting glow. Build a big courtyard that is the only way into your fort, and have two gates that lock unwanted people in it. Then pull a lever and fill it with magma.... then a second lever that covers it in water. Then dig out the obsidian, make statues and knicknacks, and wait for more Extra-Crispy Goblinoids.

[whisperkit.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the tips. I want to try a Dwarf Shower now.

Found this while poking around the TVTropes page: "Kol Tölunimush has been ecstatic lately. He killed somebody by accident while sparring recently. He took joy in slaughter lately. He has lost a lover to tragedy lately. He has witnessed death. He had a satisfying sparring session recently."

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Dwarven Showers are something I figured out recently, and have been using because they're AWESOME.

The basic principle is three things: A water source, some grates, a two-level drop, and a drain. Water flows into the showers from above, falls through shower area in a controlled way (no 7/7 showers, please), and drains out the grates and into the drain.

That's the basic, bog-simple, no effort shower: Tap a river, filter the fish out[1], drain it off the map edge. Watch your pressure to keep from flooding, because falling water doesn't always fall straight.

Then you start thinking "Well, this water pressure is inconsistent. It changes based on the season and if I'm too far from the river it's just anemic." Dwarf Shower 2.0 gets creative: Instead of a drain, you have a reservoir. Instead of pulling water from a river, you *pump* it, from the reservoir into the ceiling of the shower. You fill it from a river with floodgates to keep from overfilling (or pump it up from the caverns! Or just bucket-brigade it, but what kind of dwarf does THAT?), and run the pumps, and you get a perpetual shower with a controlled flow. Awesome, yes? Oh, and now you have a reservoir - tap it with a well!

But that pumping is hard work, and while PumpDwarves get pumped, they also get tired and your showers stop! Dwarf Shower 3.0 installs a water wheel and uses the flow of water from the shower to power the pumps... and because of Dwarf Physics, it gets out enough power to run itself and *also* to run your gristmill and *also* to power your Dwarven Merry-Go-Round/Minecart Shotgun.

Anyway. Stick your showers on a wall of your dining room. *Every dwarf* will quickly get the "waterfall" happy and most will get the "nice bath" happy. Stock soap nearby and they'll get the "soapy bath" happy. Don't be surprised that your shower quickly gets covered in blood and ichor and good - all the dwarves will rush in and wash themselves, making your shower filthy. Some idlers with the "Clean" task will solve that, if you've got enough soap. If you don't have enough soap, raid an elven caravan and smelt their kittens, and make kitten soap.

(I got this idea when I built a fortress into the side of a waterfall, and put the dining room, the noble bedrooms, and the jail (teeny cells, sloping downward) all facing the waterfall, wall-less. Then I built out around the waterfall, surrounding it.)

Now you have a great supply of water, an excess of power, and a working knowledge of how screw pumps work and how much fun they are. Awesome, y/y? Next project: Operation Flood The Goblins. Project after that: pump magma up. Project after that: Operation Magma The Goblins. After THAT, Operation Flood The Magma To Let The Merchants In And Oh Hey Now I Have Obsidian.


DWARF FORTRESS.


(My current Stupid Dwarf Trick *started* by catching cave spiders and making a Cave Spider Room where the spiders would weave webs in peace, because I noticed cave spiders would do that but cats would eat them. Then I added more doors so the cats wouldn't sneak in a "pet-locked" door. Then I caught some Giant Cave Spiders and tamed them and put them in the room, because the cats won't eat them. Then I discovered that angry Giant Cave Spiders make TONS of silk, so I started throwing wolverines into the room. I was losing too much silk to cleanup and was running low on wolverines, so I tried Tortoise Men - not good, the spiders couldn't kill them and there was just a constant spray of silk that I couldn't use. I had to send in my militia to fight through the webs to kill the tortoise-man, and that took MONTHS. So now I have a new thought: Silk goes through fortifications. What if I build a room that I can drop a hostile into, that's visible from The Spider Room, and then once enough silk has been sprayed I pull a lever that either kills the hostile or hides him from the spider's view while I go collect all the silk?

That's my stupid dwarf trick: Farming silk by dangling helpless goblins in front of giant cave spiders but not letting them eat.

DWARF FORTRESS.)


[1]: Or don't. Fresh fish, delivered to your shower floor? Kinda cool! Watch out for swimming monsters.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Project after that: Operation Magma The Goblins. After THAT, Operation Flood The Magma To Let The Merchants In And Oh Hey Now I Have Obsidian.

Project after THAT: REalise that you have just created "rough walls", and pump more magma onto the layer of obsidian, then more water. Build another layer of pumps, and pump more magma, and more water. Build a TOWER of rough obsidian, then dig it out, smooth it, ENGRAVE IT (which you can't do with manually-built walls and floors, and carve out all the bits that don't look like a T-Rex. Now that you have your GIANT MASTERWORK OBSIDIAN DINOSAUR, pump magma up it and out it's mouth so it can breathe fire. That's right, you've just built Godzilla, 20 stories high.

[whisperkit.livejournal.com]

Holy shit. I want this to happen so much.

My current projects are the shower, an archery tower to deal with the f*ing Keas & Raven Women, and some sort of solution to the Werebuffalo infection going round. I've already had to club one Herbalist to death for turning into a flesh-eating bovine.

Anyone so much as moos in my Fortress and they're getting an axe to the head.