[Jessica Phoenix]

It looks like it's been so long since the last thread that it disappeared off the forum altogether. Anyways, there's a new version out today that adds a significant amount of content including new domesticated animals, honey, wax, wool, clay and pottery crafting.

http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/index.html#2011-02-16

[Melanie]

Is the military screen still horrible?

[Eire Charlotta]

Is the military screen still horrible?

To be honest I haven't tried it yet. I'm waiting for someone to release a graphics pack that has all the new stuff in it. But I'm pretty sure there hasn't been any updates to the military screen yet. This next batch of updates is for fixing bugs, new and old. There might be some fixes to the military screen but I wouldn't expect any major changes.

[Isaiah Burdeau]

Ah, yes, Dwarf Fortress.

TBH, I haven't played it since I got into Minecraft. (have been waiting for new version) Maybe tomorrow once I turn my paper in, I'll roll up my sleeves and start a new fortress.

[sally R]

Hopefully the Phoebus tileset will be updated soon. Doesn't really sound like I'll be missing anything too major, though.

[Eve(G)]

Good! I heard it was coming a few days ago, and it is about time I pick this up again.

It would be nice if the truetype font were fixed now, but I've heard nothing about it. It's great, Ironhand's graphics pack uses it (but he'll probably disable it now if it's still not fixed) but on some important text screens some letters are still replaced by tileset graphics and that makes them mostly unreadable.


As for the military, try the DF tutorials of my fellow Dutchman, CaptnDuck. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gu6LUFwWT8Y


Ironhand's and Phoebus' graphics packs are probably the best ones currently out there. They just need to be updated now for the new release.

[Charlotte Lloyd-Jones]

I don't know if anyone's seen or heard of one of these yet but I've just seen my first ghost. I just started a new fortress and an unfortunate mining accident led to the eventual death of one of my miners. Unfortunately I haven't had time to bury him so his corpse has been sitting in a corpse stockpile. Later I noticed a random miner hanging around near where my miner died. Turns out that miner is the miner's spirit haunting the place! I don't think any of my other dwarves have noticed him yet.

Edit: It seems there's a lot more changes in this version than what's represented in the change log. For instance specific layer types no longer show up on the embark screen. Instead you see stuff like clay layer, shallow metal, deep metal, aquifer, etc.. Also metal ores are a lot harder to come by and seem to be more specific to your particular area. The site I'm at now only seems to have galena and a couple of gem types on a basalt layer. Looks like you'll have to rely more on the resources you have available.

[emma sweeney]

I don't know if anyone's seen or heard of one of these yet but I've just seen my first ghost. I just started a new fortress and an unfortunate mining accident led to the eventual death of one of my miners. Unfortunately I haven't had time to bury him so his corpse has been sitting in a corpse stockpile. Later I noticed a random miner hanging around near where my miner died. Turns out that miner is the miner's spirit haunting the place! I don't think any of my other dwarves have noticed him yet.

Yeah, I've had that happen a few times. Normally you get a message saying 'Urist McDeceased has risen!'
Slabs take care of them real quick, though.

Im still hesitant to switch to .19. By the sounds of it, its pretty hard to get minerals now.

[NEGRO]

Yeah, I've had that happen a few times. Normally you get a message saying 'Urist McDeceased has risen!'
Slabs take care of them real quick, though.

Im still hesitant to switch to .19. By the sounds of it, its pretty hard to get minerals now.

I like the way it works now. You're not deluged with all the minerals you could possibly want now. It's pretty much the way it was before the last big update. It makes forts more specialized.

[scorpion972]

I actually downloaded the latest version and messed around with it for a bit the other day. I haven't seriously played this game in ages, and I used to be on it all of the time. I might get a new fort going later tonight if I feel up to it. The problem I have with this game is getting started feels too much like work.

[Davorah Katz]

Both http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=53180.0 and http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=57557.0 pack have been updated for compatibility with .19.

I'm using the one from Phoebus now.


I generated a new world and wanted it to generate history for 1050 years, which takes quite some time, and then it crashed around 900. :sadvaultboy:

[Shiarra Curtis]

So my fortress got off to a bad start. I embarked onto a scorching desert with an aquifer. One of my miners died trying trying to breach the aquifer so my other miner had to take up the slack. I started to notice that, given the location, this fortress was probably doomed to failure. There's no edible grass topside for any cattle so most of my animals were dieing a couple of months after they showed up. There's a bit of edible grass underground but it's not enough for larger animals like muskoxen. The only metal ore on the map is galena (lead and silver) so any hopes of making a decent military were out the window.

I got a couple of migrant waves but I figured it was only a matter of time before something bad happened. Sure enough a forgotten beast showed up. I did a pretty good job of blocking off my fortress from most of the cavern but I figured this was a good way to send my fortress off in a blaze of glory. I drafted a quick squadron of 10 dwarves. They were all mostly equipped with silver maces and leather armor. I think the leader had a spear of some kind that he brought with him. So I put them in position and ordered my last miner to open up the rest of the cavern. The FB made for the opening, clashed with my macedwarves and... died.

I was a bit surprised. There were a couple of casualties. One of my macedwarves died from his wounds and another one's hand doesn't work too well anymore. Otherwise it was a pretty epic victory. Since then they've taken on two more FBs, both of which were easily dispatched.

Aside from that, the goblin and kobold raids I've been expecting never came. I keep my macedwarves near the front gate during trades just in case but it's been over 5 years and still nothing. I guess they don't like hot weather. I also found out that surface grass grows in underground sand for some reason, which gave me a place to keep all my livestock. All said and done, this doomed fortress has somehow managed to prosper.

[Wayne Cole]

So my fortress got off to a bad start. I embarked onto a scorching desert with an aquifer. One of my miners died trying trying to breach the aquifer so my other miner had to take up the slack. I started to notice that, given the location, this fortress was probably doomed to failure. There's no edible grass topside for any cattle so most of my animals were dieing a couple of months after they showed up. There's a bit of edible grass underground but it's not enough for larger animals like muskoxen. The only metal ore on the map is galena (lead and silver) so any hopes of making a decent military were out the window.

Animals eat now? How much else did they change?

....Maybe I should start playing again. :ermm:

[ShOrty]

Animals eat now? How much else did they change?

....Maybe I should start playing again. :ermm:

Livestock graze. I don't think cats and dogs do. They do get pissy when something else is occupying their square.

[Lizzie]

Animals eat now? How much else did they change?

....Maybe I should start playing again. :ermm:

Yeah, most livestock type animals need grass or moss or they'll starve to death. Something that's a bit of an issue on desert maps, as I've found out the hard way. The grass also gets consumed when they eat it so you have to make sure not to keep too many animals in one area so it can grow back at an equal rate. Chickens and other poultry type animals don't need grass to survive. I don't have any cats or dogs on my map but I don't think they need any kind of food either. Neither do predatory animals in general. I expect that will change in a future update but there's no telling when.

Honestly I'd say there's almost as much of a change in gameplay as the .31 release. It's definitely worth playing again, especially if you haven't played in a while.

[ijohnnny]

The lack of metal ores thing appears to be a known issue that Toady intends to address with this bugfix cycle. They're supposed to be a little more rare but not that rare. Trying to start a new fortress I've found that over 50 percent of sites don't show as having any metal at all and the sites that do have metal sometimes don't(game thinks gems are metal?) and often don't have any useful metal.

As always with a major update there's a couple of serious bugs that need to be worked out. The metal thing isn't quite game breaking but it's close.

[CHangohh BOyy]

Just saw this:
http://kotaku.com/#!5763906/one-of-the-pcs-toughest-games-just-got-a-lot-simpler

Is this new to you guys? Is this by the same person/group?

[Portions]

Just saw this:
http://kotaku.com/#!5763906/one-of-the-pcs-toughest-games-just-got-a-lot-simpler

Is this new to you guys? Is this by the same person/group?

It's from a different company, but the devs said they took inspiration from DF.

[Sammygirl500]

It's from a different company, but the devs said they took inspiration from DF.

Gameplay exactly the same?

[Scott]

Gameplay exactly the same?

Aside from the facts that there are dwarves, you can go underground, and they need food, not at all. Also, I noticed a distinct lack of magma. And burning animals. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6FXeupOp04

If you want a good example of gameplay look up the Let's Play called Boatmurdered.

[Jordan Fletcher]

If you want a good example of gameplay look up the Let's Play called Boatmurdered.

http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/Boatmurdered

[aisha jamil]

Aside from the facts that there are dwarves, you can go underground, and they need food, not at all. Also, I noticed a distinct lack of magma. And burning animals. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6FXeupOp04

This.

If you want a good example of gameplay look up the Let's Play called Boatmurdered.

Oh yeah, that one is legendary!

http://www.bravemule.com/ new Lets Play, Matul Remrit, is also be worth checking out. They're creating a lot of awesome looking art for it, and show the progress of the fortress with the isometric visualiser StoneSense rather than the original ASCII graphics or a tileset.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESNRQFEzirA :bowdown:

[Andres Lechuga]

Hi!

Some time ago I tried playing Dwarf Fortress, but due to lack of knowledge about it, I didn't advance that much in it. Now I want to start again, but the questions are - where to start? Any tutorials beside CaptnDuck's ones? Wchich version should I choose?

I think I'll grab Ironhand tileset.

Thanks in advance!

[NEGRO]

Hi!

Some time ago I tried playing Dwarf Fortress, but due to lack of knowledge about it, I didn't advance that much in it. Now I want to start again, but the questions are - where to start? Any tutorials beside CaptnDuck's ones? Wchich version should I choose?

I think I'll grab Ironhand tileset.

Thanks in advance!

You should probably start with 0.31.18. The newest version, 0.31.19, has a few quirks in it such as almost no metal ore on most maps which can make things difficult for a new player. The next version should fix most of these problems.

I don't know about tutorials (other than Cap'n Duck's) but I would recommend starting your first fortress on an island. This way you shouldn't have to worry about invasions and you can experiment to your heart's content.

[Alexis Estrada]

0.31.20 is up! Any information about metal ores? Are they still that rare?