You have arrived. After a journey from the Mountainhomes into the forbidding wilderness beyond, your harsh trek has finally ended. Your party of seven is to make an outpost for the glory of all Ulengèzum.
There are almost no supplies left, but with stout labor comes sustenance. Whether by bolt, plow or hook, provide for your dwarves. You are expecting a supply caravan just before winter entombs you, but it is Spring now. Enough time to delve secure lodgings, ere the wolves get hungry. A new chapter of dwarven history begins here at this place, Litastrakust, "Torchtombs". Strike the earth!
WHAT IS DWARF FORTRESS?
It can be summed up really simply: the motto is "Losing is Fun!".
It's also a really really good game. You start off with seven dwarves and need to build up a fortress, produce stuff, kill stuff, survive, etc. Most fortress devolve into bloody tantrum spirals while being overrun by crocodile-riding goblins, if they don't dig too greedily and too deep and suffer destruction at the hands of some Forgotten Beast first. The longest-lasting fortresses may eventually come across the legendary Adamantine - but mine too much, and you're in for a lot of Fun.
See here and here to get started.
Here is Boatmurdered, probably the most well-known group Let's Play DF game. It's an older version, but you can still see the general gameplay.
Wow, that's a lot of links. Feels like I'm on TV Tropes.
RULES:
We're using the most recent version of Dwarf Fortress, v0.31.18, released on 16th November 2010. If you try using an older version, there may be problems with the save.
One year per turn, from the start of Spring to the start of Spring. Once you see the announcement "Spring has arrived!", save it, zip it, and upload it somewhere, putting the link here. If everyone has a Dropbox account, we could use a shared folder there, but if not, just use a file uploader.
Note: To save the folder, navigate to your dwarf fortress\\data\\save folder, locate the appropriate region folder, zip the entire thing. Add the START year to the filename (e.g. region0 - 1052), then upload it to rapidshare or something and post the link here.
When the link is posted, the next person has 48 hours to post confirmation and start their turn, and a week to finish. If they don't do either of those things, they get skipped. I expect most turns will take significantly less than a week!
If you do something so horrible that it ruins the fortress entirely (like, say, drilling into the magma without taking appropriate precautions) we'll roll back to an earlier save.
When you're in charge of the fort, anything goes. Pick a dwarf, give it your name as a nickname, appoint it as leader. Make posts here (with screenshots as appropriate), giving us updates on what you're doing and what's happening in the fort. Try to keep them in-character and, above all, funny. This is a game - treat it as such!
I don't think we'll forbid traps for this game. Most of the people playing seem to be fairly unfamiliar with DF, and traps give a nice buffer against early attacks.
PLAYERS:
Esano, 1051
Rika, 1052
Furien, 1053: 1 2
Lehki, 1054: 1 2
Llesvelt, 1055: 1
Razenth
Othero
Iorden
Tekora
AquaNeos
Fain
For anyone interested in playing the world on their own, here's the region file before embarking.
The embark site is here:
Oh yes. This thread will be very image-intensive, but the images themselves should be very small.
At first glance, the chosen site looked more suited to farmland than to a dwarven fortress - low-lying land, a brook for easy irrigation, no undead horrors lurking behind the bushes.
And a giant pool of lava restrained only by the thinnest shell of obsidian.
According to our surveys, this volcano was a perfect anomaly - sedimentary stone rather than igneous, and large sources of ore-carrying rock and flux stones.
Our arrival at the start of Spring came with the first thaw. Most of the land was still covered in a thick layer of snow, yet thick swathes had begun to melt. The brook was still frozen, but our booze and food supplies should last us long enough for it to melt.
I ordered the main shaft dug near the stunted volcano, and had our primary industrial area dug out first, several layers down. While our miners were busy, our faithful woodcutter was swiftly deforesting the surrounding area. Take that, elves!
Our initial excavations unearthed a large number of gems, as well as veins of limonite and bituminous coal - two of the requirements for a working steel industry. It was obvious this site was blessed, and our fortress would rise to rival the Mountainhomes. Without a mountain.
Observing the solid state of our brook, and using my immense intellect to deduce the same happening next year, I ordered the excavation of a large cistern. This had the beneficial side-effect of providing a plentiful amount of stone for our newly-constructed workshops.
I left a large platform above the cistern, and am planning to have a well built there. It should also prove suitable for the construction of a perpetual motion machine, should we require power. While mining out this room, we struck several veins of hematite, further support for steelmaking.
With the spare stone from the excavation of the cistern, I ordered the construction of a wall around the entrance to our fortress. The sole gap in the wall was covered by a drawbridge, which could be raised to seal us off from the rest of the world (it is linked to what is currently the only lever in the fortress: above ground, and visible in the image). Except for anything that flew. Or destroyed bridges.
During the excavation of our sleeping area, we struck mica! Although we had earlier found sphalerite, I don't trust that sublimation stuff, and was greatly pleased at the discovery of a trustworthy magma-safe stone. I ordered the miners to cease work on the living areas and instead dig out a metalworking section near the magma pipe. Thus prepared, we cracked the obsidian wall and tapped the blood of the earth! Liquid rock flowed through the natural walls, pooling under our magma smelters and forge, providing heat and power!
I immediately ordered the smelting of the first bar of iron, and had Kogan Torishcog shape it into a sarcophagus. Once I perish, my bones shall be entombed within the first metal ever produced at Torchtombs!
I also ordered the filling of the cistern, completely forgetting to install a floodgate. Ah well. If they feel that bothered by it, someone can carve out the ice when the brook freezes over, build some walls and a floodgate. I took into account pressure when constructing it, so it's not flooding the fortress.
Not much of significance happened after that. While we were digging out the food stockpiles, the unreliability of our walls was noted:
Luckily the remaining food was safely stored belowground after that incident.
Two waves of migrants arrived over the next few seasons. Not many, this early in the fort, but they can be put to work. Pity none of them have any useful skills.
Shortly after the migrants arrived, so did the first caravan from the Mountainhomes, and the boring outpost liaison.
I ordered people to haul up the various goods we had been mass-producing in preparation of this: stone crafts, glass goblets, and a few pieces of practice armour. The merchants were ecstatic with the goods we provided them, and in exchange we bought a large amount of food (including some still breathing), booze, and a few other supplies.
I managed to dodge the liaison for a long time by professing that I had far more important jobs to get to - trading, constructing a few mechanisms, etc. but eventually he managed to corner me.
Apparently he was impressed with the gauntlets he'd seen me trading, as he told us that the Mountainhomes were especially interested in buying more, among other things.
While this was going on, our miners were digging down into the layers of marble, perfect flux stone for the production of steel. While removing large amounts of stone, they struck into a giant cavern under the earth.
Having heard of the horrors that can inhabit these caverns, I immediately ordered the entrance walled up. Perhaps once our military is more prepared, we can proceed to explore it. Nevertheless, from the marble we carved out, steel production has begun.
Shortly after this, Spring arrived, marking the end of our first year in the new fortress.
End-of-year status:
End-of-year download here.
Notes: Most posts would probably be significantly longer - nothing of particular interested happened this year but setup. Expect more caravans, thieves and possibly an ambush next year!
There's a limit on the number of images you can have per post, so if you're running into that, split it up into multiple posts.
I haven't dwarfed anyone yet, either, except myself.
And a giant pool of lava restrained only by the thinnest shell of obsidian.
According to our surveys, this volcano was a perfect anomaly - sedimentary stone rather than igneous, and large sources of ore-carrying rock and flux stones.
Our arrival at the start of Spring came with the first thaw. Most of the land was still covered in a thick layer of snow, yet thick swathes had begun to melt. The brook was still frozen, but our booze and food supplies should last us long enough for it to melt.
I ordered the main shaft dug near the stunted volcano, and had our primary industrial area dug out first, several layers down. While our miners were busy, our faithful woodcutter was swiftly deforesting the surrounding area. Take that, elves!
Our initial excavations unearthed a large number of gems, as well as veins of limonite and bituminous coal - two of the requirements for a working steel industry. It was obvious this site was blessed, and our fortress would rise to rival the Mountainhomes. Without a mountain.
Observing the solid state of our brook, and using my immense intellect to deduce the same happening next year, I ordered the excavation of a large cistern. This had the beneficial side-effect of providing a plentiful amount of stone for our newly-constructed workshops.
I left a large platform above the cistern, and am planning to have a well built there. It should also prove suitable for the construction of a perpetual motion machine, should we require power. While mining out this room, we struck several veins of hematite, further support for steelmaking.
With the spare stone from the excavation of the cistern, I ordered the construction of a wall around the entrance to our fortress. The sole gap in the wall was covered by a drawbridge, which could be raised to seal us off from the rest of the world (it is linked to what is currently the only lever in the fortress: above ground, and visible in the image). Except for anything that flew. Or destroyed bridges.
During the excavation of our sleeping area, we struck mica! Although we had earlier found sphalerite, I don't trust that sublimation stuff, and was greatly pleased at the discovery of a trustworthy magma-safe stone. I ordered the miners to cease work on the living areas and instead dig out a metalworking section near the magma pipe. Thus prepared, we cracked the obsidian wall and tapped the blood of the earth! Liquid rock flowed through the natural walls, pooling under our magma smelters and forge, providing heat and power!
I immediately ordered the smelting of the first bar of iron, and had Kogan Torishcog shape it into a sarcophagus. Once I perish, my bones shall be entombed within the first metal ever produced at Torchtombs!
I also ordered the filling of the cistern, completely forgetting to install a floodgate. Ah well. If they feel that bothered by it, someone can carve out the ice when the brook freezes over, build some walls and a floodgate. I took into account pressure when constructing it, so it's not flooding the fortress.
Not much of significance happened after that. While we were digging out the food stockpiles, the unreliability of our walls was noted:
Luckily the remaining food was safely stored belowground after that incident.
Two waves of migrants arrived over the next few seasons. Not many, this early in the fort, but they can be put to work. Pity none of them have any useful skills.
Shortly after the migrants arrived, so did the first caravan from the Mountainhomes, and the boring outpost liaison.
I ordered people to haul up the various goods we had been mass-producing in preparation of this: stone crafts, glass goblets, and a few pieces of practice armour. The merchants were ecstatic with the goods we provided them, and in exchange we bought a large amount of food (including some still breathing), booze, and a few other supplies.
I managed to dodge the liaison for a long time by professing that I had far more important jobs to get to - trading, constructing a few mechanisms, etc. but eventually he managed to corner me.
Apparently he was impressed with the gauntlets he'd seen me trading, as he told us that the Mountainhomes were especially interested in buying more, among other things.
While this was going on, our miners were digging down into the layers of marble, perfect flux stone for the production of steel. While removing large amounts of stone, they struck into a giant cavern under the earth.
Having heard of the horrors that can inhabit these caverns, I immediately ordered the entrance walled up. Perhaps once our military is more prepared, we can proceed to explore it. Nevertheless, from the marble we carved out, steel production has begun.
Shortly after this, Spring arrived, marking the end of our first year in the new fortress.
End-of-year status:
End-of-year download here.
Notes: Most posts would probably be significantly longer - nothing of particular interested happened this year but setup. Expect more caravans, thieves and possibly an ambush next year!
There's a limit on the number of images you can have per post, so if you're running into that, split it up into multiple posts.
I haven't dwarfed anyone yet, either, except myself.
Drop me from the list.
You guys are setting up these cisterns and engineering things and oh god what I have no idea and I don't want to totally screw it up by mining out the wrong square.
You guys are setting up these cisterns and engineering things and oh god what I have no idea and I don't want to totally screw it up by mining out the wrong square.
QUOTE (Furien @ Nov 23 2010, 04:59 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
You guys are setting up these cisterns and engineering things and oh god what I have no idea and I don't want to totally screw it up by mining out the wrong square.
Not sure if you have ever checked a succession log, but that's the whole point behind most of this kind of games. Setting up the most spectacular failure ever is way funnier than building dwarven paradise.
QUOTE (Furien @ Nov 23 2010, 10:59 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Drop me from the list.
You guys are setting up these cisterns and engineering things and oh god what I have no idea and I don't want to totally screw it up by mining out the wrong square.
You guys are setting up these cisterns and engineering things and oh god what I have no idea and I don't want to totally screw it up by mining out the wrong square.
I veto. Put Furien back on the list.
Wipe the blood off! Get back there on the field and suck it up. This game doesn't end until I say so you here?
