As promised, I finally have gotten around to starting the HLP Dwarf Fortress! Not going to waste a whole lot of time with introductions, I'll just get right to the first-session recap. Also, to keep things clean, please submit join requests
here.
"If you want to make an apple pie truly from scratch, you must first invent the universe." -Arthur C. Clarke
Indeed! For those who aren't aware, Dwarf Fortress isn't simply a highly-detailed ASCII simulation of little bearded men living under a mountain and digging for gold, it is first a fairly-detailed world simulator. The first step of any playthrough is to create a world that your fortress will exist in, and often be impacted by.
I'm not going to bother with an "advanced-parameter" world generation procedure, but the addition of quick presets to the default creation option were a nice touch. To give our world some serious
gravitas, I'm choosing to run a large world for a very long time. Develop a nice long history and all that. And, while this doesn't directly impact the final choice of site, I'm bumping the natural savagery and resource presence just a bit, in accordance with the group's general consensus.
In the beginning, the world was unformed... then suddenly there were changes in elevation, temperature was set, the rivers ran for the first time, lakes were formed, and the minerals were seeded for the inheriting life. Yeah, this part took quite a while. Guess there were a lot of minerals to seed... oh, wait.
And here I thought the mineral seeding took a while. Good grief, I now remember why I do an "advanced parameter" worldgen, so I can cap the number of simulated people running around and doing stuff. "Very Long" history means 1,050 years' worth of history, and even with my very powerful rig, that much time with that many historical figures took well over half an hour to simulate.
Finally, with the world creation and the initial history done, we can finally select a location to settle. Hrm. A quick look at the world map and some deeper scanning indicates that there aren't any truly dangerous evil biomes to try and settle. Best I can do is a fairly wild and evil desert that borders some mountains. The cursors decided to flake out on me when I took this screengrab, but on the Region Map, we are near the middle of that screen, east-northeast of the central omega symbol (which represents another Dwarven stronghold). The home region of our parent civilization, The Heroic Ring, is indicated on the World Map by the cluster of blue omega symbols. Suffice to say, we are pretty far from home, though we aren't too far from Dwarven civilization.
I guess this is as good a time as any for a quick word about the world map, and the symbols it uses. To my eyes, the ASCII characters are actually quite a relief, compared to more rudimentary games like ADOM and DoomRL (yes, that's a thing. Look it up, it kicks ass). But I suppose an orientation is in order. Let's work off of the Region Map screen seen in the screenie above. Wavy lines represent deserts, the color of which usually indicates the color of the sand, but in this case, the purple indicates an Evil biome. Close-packed green arrows represent forests and woodlands, which are quite far from our site. Green quotemarks signify flat grasslands, the various sizes of upside-down U's indicate rolling hills, and the grey triangles are mountains. Dwarves like mountains, and I'll go ahead and stop there. Generally, you can quickly pick up the symbolic/color system even with just a few minutes of scanning around.
Also, the worldgen function has a really cool feature that lets you export the entirety of the world map at the zoom level of the Region Map screen. Why did I phrase the "zoom level" malarkey like that? Well, you see- each tile on the World Map represents the most common terrain feature for a pretty large block of Region Map tiles. The Region Map is a little different- the entire area of a Local Map is contained within a single Region Map tile, and we're only settling a 5x5 block of Local Map tiles, which itself represents a roughly 200x200 (I don't recall the exact conversion) area of individual game area tiles. The world is really, REALLY big, is what I'm getting at, and I've made a full-scale exported bitmap of the World Map available for download
HERE, if you're really interested.
Geezalo, ok, with all that out of the way, we can get back to playing and planning. Upon choosing to Embark at this location, we now get to choose the initial skills for our Starting Seven, and our initial load of equipment. Both skills and equipment count against the same point total, but skills are generally a much better investment. Skilled dwarves complete labors more quickly, and (generally) produce higher-quality goods when making things. Also, the physical and mental stats for each starting dwarf is assigned now, and I gotta say, I didn't exactly get a very stellar group of personnel this time around. Most of you are Weak or Quick to Tire, or have issues with Focus. These stats DO matter, so I did what I could to match labors to the most-appropriate candidates. Also, I have no control over gender, so some of you might wind up gender-bent, like TrashMan, who I'm not referring to as a man here. Because Trash's dwarf is a dwarfette. So what's the deal with these job titles you see? As mentioned in the recruitment thread, I'm picky about what skills I take at embark, and this line-up is my standard skillset:
*Doctor: Self-explanatory. Since he doesn't have a regular job, Trash will be responsible for butchery and other miscellaneous tasks.
*Gearsmith: Primarily responsible for building and setting up mechanical stuff, like levers and traps. Also, booze. Brewing is key to running a successful fort, and the two jobs generally won't interfere with each other.
*Fortifier: Mason and Armorer. Patriot's gonna see a lot of early work when we get around to making furniture.
*Plantshaper: Farmer and Carpenter. This pairing isn't ideal, since there's a pretty good demand for early wooden goods, but the combination works, so it stays.
*Warsmith: Weaponsmithing and eventually Siege Engineering. Wat's also not gonna have a whole lot of day-to-day work, but he needs to be good at his real job when I need him. Only the best weapons and heavy equipment will be accepted!
*Digger: Miner, with a variable set of secondary skills. Since Scotty asked, his dwarf has a little training in Gem Cutting.
*Coordinator: Miner, with an administrative/diplomatic secondary skillset. Polpolion will be the unofficial leader and mouthpiece for the fort, at least until you elect a mayor.
Not much to write home about for the supply list. Initial food, drink, materials, and a few animals. Protrick- it's cheaper to take ore and fuel along and forge tools and weapons onsite than it is to take weapons. However, since I don't know what the embark site will be like, I hedged my bets and took a pick in case we need to get underground in a hurry.
Also, on the embark screen you get to choose the name for your fortress and the name for your merry band of bearded loonies. Cycling through the "random" features on both of those (because hey, Roguelike after all), I settled on "The Mighty Silvers" as the expedition name. And the name of our fortress shall be ... Wallbones.
Embark prep is done, only thing left to do is to get out there and get to work.
Here's our first look at what will be our new home, and yes, the little smiley faces represent dwarves. Regarding some other new symbols, the white O's of various sizes are "staring eyeballs", and the pink shapes are "wormy tendrils". The tendrils can move on their own- most unpleasant, but that's what we get for settling in an Evil area. Well, time to get to work- I'm designating the area directly beneath the wagon to be dug out, and all dwarves not digging are to slap up a quick defensive perimeter around the access point in case something nasty comes along.
Oh, something nasty comes along, not something we can fight, but mercifully it's not something that's terribly dangerous. We haven't even unloaded the wagon when this nasty, putrid sludge starts falling from the sky like rain. Any dwarves that pass near it immediately start throwing up (this is indicated by the green staining on some tiles). Gross! Time to get indoors.
Once a quick-and-dirty hideyhole has been established, work that would normally be first priority can now commence. Patriot and Wat start refining our stock of coal, smelting iron ore, and making the rest of our initial tools: another pick (for Scotty), and an axe (so Mongoose can chop down trees, though there aren't many around). While that's going, I have Trash butcher our two pack animals. I do that for 2 reasons: a) extra meat, and some bone crafts, and b) so I don't have to deal with managing pastures in a desert. Large grazing animals need to be assigned an area of grass to graze on. There's very few plants to graze on, and since the nasty sludge hasn't stopped raining down, I'm not sending my dwarves out into that putrid sea. So to the butcher's shop with the draft animals!
The sludge is still pouring down. Perhaps it was incorrect to categorize this area as a desert? At any rate, Scotty and Polpolion are digging out a secondary access tunnel. Turns out that a portion of the map is normal, and uncontaminated with the sludge. We shall dig out our main entrance there.
Lotta things going on here, so I'll explain them one at a time. I had used a bit of our wood supply to put up the (now unnecessary) defensive wall, so I ordered the walls torn down to reclaim the materials. By now most of the desert was coated in that fetid sludge, everybody was puking and nobody was having a good time. It was at this point that a wandering wolverine, in the midst of its own dry heaving, decided this would be a fun time to mess with Patriot. I don't screw around with unfriendly wildlife, and in a stroke of good luck, most of the group was up on the surface (Trash was, somewhat smartly, safe underground carving some bones from the slain pack animals). Dwarves assigned jobs that need tools, like Miners, will always carry their tools with them. Since Scourge and Polpolion were already miserable on the surface and armed, I ordered them to kill the troublesome wolverine. The dispatch it with little fanfare, and Trash hacks up the creature's carcass for some more meat. It was at this point that Scotty started getting a little moody, and who could blame him? Truth be told, the ever-present vile sludge was wearing on everybody's morale, but thankfully surface operations were pretty much done.
First migrant wave. Just two- a Craftsdwarf and her Tanner husband. I assign Apollo's moniker to the quite-skilled craftsdwarf, and continue developing the fort's infrastructure. As a matter of morale, I had ordered (basic) individual bedrooms dug out and a temporary communal dining area established.
The next wave came soon after, a very proficient Suturer with some other skills and his Soapmaker wife. While extra dwarfpower is always a good thing, I'd rather have my ducks in a row regarding food and housing before taking on extra population. Looks like the wretched conditions outside are actually working in our favor for now.
The nasty rains continue. Though there is a small river to the north of our current fort location, it's several levels below us, and it will be tricky to get water all the way to the fort. Fortunately, there is another viable short-term solution for clean water- drain a nearby pond into a cistern. This will provide the fort with a (temporary) supply of water for cleaning wounds, personal hygeine, and (Armok forbid) emergency drink.
Overview of the fort at present. The abbattiore and tannery are off to the side, the central area houses the remaining workshops and stockpiles. The central "fishbone" area is the bedroom clusters- each brown elongated theta is a bed. The area next to the bedrooms is the hospital, which just received its first stocks of thread, gauze, and soap. It still needs splints, crutches and plaster powder, but for now our medical supplies are sufficient. Off on its own is the well- I built it pretty much right beneath the source pools, to minimize water lost in transit.
And that's all for today.
