Quick start - Dwarf Fortress Wiki. Quick Start - Dwarf Fortress Wiki
I mentioned the game “Dwarf Fortress” in the last issue. I mentioned it in the vein that compared to this game, any game has a very soft entry threshold. And this is true. Remember, I compared “Factorio” to a situation where they give us a stick, tell us which end to hold and send us to restore civilization. In this game, you are not told anything at all. They don't even give you a stick. You are simply and tritely thrown into the mouth of a dragon, with your hands and feet tied, so that you can tear out a bone with magical runes from its insides with your teeth. This bone can destroy the universe, turn you into a chicken, or make pancakes with honey. How lucky you are. And the best thing is that you never know exactly what will happen.
Game appearance. Left - local interface. Are you asking if this game has a Tutorial or any kind of tutorial? Yes, there is, it's called Google. You can also watch videos on Youtube. Usually these are entire series of several dozen episodes. In the game itself, no one will explain anything to you. A modern player, accustomed to being told at least in which direction to go, is unlikely to be able to go further than the menu. Yes, he will lose, even at the stage of creating the world. At the stage of choosing a point for landing - exactly. But he still has to assemble a detachment of settlers. No, to make life easier for beginners, fans have already created ready-made configs, which list all more or less sane options. But this is not the case in the original version. The player just finds himself face to face with a bunch of questions. What to take from hundreds of items of goods? Is it worth spending precious resources on an anvil? What seeds are best? Is it important to have a beekeeper in the first batch of settlers? Yes, welcome to Google.
By the way, have you already noticed the strange screenshot? This is what the game looks like in its pure version. ASCII graphics. Top view, colored symbols. No, you can install a graphic pack that was developed by ... that's right, the fans. But without that - only symbols, only hardcore. What? You don't understand how the mouse works here? And she doesn't really work here. You need to control only the keys. Well, okay, you can click a little on the playing field. But to control - only keys. What do you say? What keys to control? Everyone. Generally. And key case is also important. A capital letter and a small letter may be responsible for different functions. Any key can do anything. Would you like to order your subordinates to dig a hole? Get ready to memorize a whole chain of keys. Do you want to know where is the best place to dig it? Ha, here's another keyboard shortcut for you. Are you interested in who has a shovel today and who can dig? Learn another combination. By the way, you already know that you do not give orders, but, so to speak, “recommendations” to your “wards”? And that your “ward” may first go for a beer, then sleep, then decide that he is bored and needs to go see the waterfall. And only then, he decides that it's time to fulfill your request. And he will dig a hole above the lake of magma that you made, completely forgetting that there should be a hole one level higher.
Graphic mods somewhat improve the understanding of what is happening. Somewhere at this stage, you may have a question - what kind of maniac will play this game at all, without sane controls, graphics, and even more so without any explanations, goals and without guarantees that his brilliant plans will be fulfilled in such a way, how did he think of it? I will answer you - all people with rich imagination, unlimited patience, plenty of time and healthy fatalism will be happy to play it. To nerves of steel, self-control of iron and the soul of a real dwarf. Those who understand that all their efforts are in vain and you need to enjoy not the goal, but the path to it. There are not so many such people, but they will love this game with all their inexhaustible love. Once upon a time, roads led me too ... I mean, I was also very fond of this game, but then I got out of its tenacious paws, and I still fear that it will swallow me up again, forcing me to spend a huge amount of time on it and strain brain to remember key combinations. What does she take? The answer is simple - everyone.
Living spaces. Each dwarf has his own room, with a bed, nightstand and wardrobe. And everything is even clear. First, let's at least figure out what the game is about? As it is clear from the name - about the fortress of dwarves (not gnomes). In general, it has three games in one. The first - is the “Adventure” mode. Such a bagel in which you have to wander around the world alone, complete quests, visit cities, equip yourself and so on. The second one is “Legends”, in which you have to travel around this world and uncover its history. To do this, you will need to consider engravings, talk to various NPCs, read books and all that stuff. And the most valuable - "Fortress" mode. You have a party of dwarves who want to build their stronghold. They form a gang, take supplies and go to uncharted lands, so that there, from scratch, start building what their descendants will call their home. At this stage, the player plans their expedition - distributes roles between them, and gives them skills, collects things, depending on his vision of the future (whether to take an anvil with him or buy from a caravan, whether it is worth taking wheat seeds to the icy desert - it is up to him to decide ). After arriving at the location, the player gives them instructions on what to do and where to do it. And the dwarves themselves are distributed according to tasks, depending on their skills. Someone digs, someone builds, someone grows mushrooms in caves. Occasionally, caravans arrive with goods (which can be robbed if you don't feel like buying anything), other dwarves come to live near you. The fortress grows, opponents appear, strange creatures appear. Soldiers train, women give birth to new dwarves. I expect you to ask - what is so special about this? How is the game different from, say, “SimCity”?
This article would be incomplete without a canonical picture. It is somewhat wrong, exaggerated, but describes the feeling of the game well. My love for this game started with a little story. When I first started building one of my first fortresses, I suffered a crushing defeat. It happened like this. Deciding that my people need to eat well, I set up a mushroom growing cave. The only problem is that mushrooms do not grow on ordinary soil. They need some soil. The easiest way is to drain the nearest pond into the cave. In this case, the water will moisten the surfaces and make them suitable for planting. There was a pond nearby, so I prepared a fairly large cave next to this pond, and ordered one miner to break the wall, behind which water splashed. He did it, managed to escape from the stream and after a while, I had an excellent cave for growing mushrooms. And a hole in the wall. It was a direct threat to the security of my fortress. Or an emergency exit - depending on which side to look. I decided to look in terms of possibilities. Simple reasoning - now I will put up a door, and then, when my workers are free, I will put the pond in order, make steps, put up some kind of roof and I will have a secret passage. I followed the first half of my solution and a bit of the second. He expanded the pit, gave it the correct cubic shape and even prepared a slope for the steps. Then he set up a heavy stone door, locked it, and declared that none of the inhabitants of the cave were allowed to open it. Then I forgot about my desire to ennoble the former pond and make a roof over it. This farm after a while became the only food supplier for my commune. Various crops were already growing there, which I bought from visiting caravans. The small population had enough food in abundance, and the rest gradually accumulated in warehouses. Therefore, I decided that since I will soon have a new crop, then I have every right to shake off a bunch of food for the incoming caravan in order to free up warehouses. But, alas, I did not calculate the two wonderful surprises of fate. The first - is that a goblin scout entered the fortress along with the caravan, who slowly wandered around my fortress and sniffed everywhere in order to steal such a quick one. The second is the prolonged rainy season. Rain filled the old pond to the very top. Well, the goblin scout just got to this door. And I decided to open it. A stream of water carried his body along the entire corridor, applying it to the walls and smearing it on the floor. When the goblin swam to the end of the corridor, he had long since been a corpse. But in my farmer's meadows, the flow of water washed away a layer of soil along with seeds. The water reached the warehouse and ruined everything it could reach. The caravan had already left, there was no food. The colony began to starve. The dwarves began to freak out, quietly rage from hunger, show aggression without beer. And once this Rubicon was passed - the farmer, left without work, hit the blacksmith with a turned up stone. The famous spiral of tantrums began to unwind. The next caravan was met only by a miner dying of injuries and hunger. It was fun.
Portraits of creator-brothers Zach and Tarn Adams in the style of the game. Zach (left) - generates ideas, Tarn (right) - programmer. This game has been in development for ten years and mostly by one person (the other, his brother - mostly generates ideas). And it's still alpha. As the developer himself says, in it he implemented percent ... well, forty, from what was planned. And everything continues and continues to be implemented and at the same time come up with something new. Therefore, these forty percent have remained forty percent for several years now. “Toady One” himself (nickname of Tarn Adams) said that he was going to write most of the physical laws into this world. up to quantum mechanics. Immediately after that, he promises to make a sane interface. During development, the game world has become, perhaps, the most elaborate world of all existing. And this despite the fact that each time it is generated anew. What does generated mean? No, not exactly like in “Minecraft” (by the way, this famous game was also inspired by “Dwarf Fortress”). During some period of time at the very beginning, the game calculates the entire history of this world. No, you didn't understand the ALL history of this world. Depending on the size of the world and the desired length of the story, this process can take anywhere from a few minutes to several hours on a decent computer. And believe me, the approach here is very serious. Geological layers are placed and mixed here, volcanoes erupt magma, rivers overflow and become shallow. Kings come and die, dragons ravage the lands, and elves go to war against humans. And all this will be reflected in the history of this world. Dwarves can draw pictures based on historical events, magma that erupted thousands of years ago formed a huge vein of igneous rock that can be a godsend for your craftsmen, and the once-mighty river will turn into a chain of ponds, one of which will destroy your crops after as the goblin scout will open the door.
Fortress going to its sunset. However, here each fortress goes to its sunset. They just do it more or less smoothly. How many items can be in any game? There could be millions of them in this game. Only there are dozens of rocks here, another fifty minerals, several dozen ores, a hundred precious stones. This is not counting materials, such as different types of trees (about a hundred species), bones (of all creatures), skins, metals. In general, we can safely say that there can be several thousand types of different materials in the game. And almost every one of them can be used to make hundreds of items, and the quality of these items can be different, and each can be additionally decorated or engraved. And you, if you wish, can always see where this item is located in your fortress. Which of the dwarves hides it under the bed or keeps it on a shelf to admire it before going to bed. Let's move on to a new level of surprise. Each of your wards (and other inhabitants of the world, including mice and demons) is not a separate unit either. It really is a personality. All the events that happen to him are reflected in his physical and mental appearance. It's not just a collection of hit points. Any creature, and therefore a dwarf, has external parts of the body (down to the fingers), there are internal organs, so, for example, they can shoot the liver in battle. If he gets help in time, he will even survive. But, the liver will certainly be damaged. And now, he will not be able to drink as much as he wants and he will have a bad mood, which he will gladly share with others. Everyone will avoid him and eventually he will go crazy. Or will fall into a rage and will destroy everything. Didn't I already talk about simple laws that lead to interesting consequences when they are executed in turn?
And what is most interesting, a lot of these rules and details are not even visible “outside”. Outwardly, any battle looks dull - one letter shot at another letter with a dot. What happened, except that the second letter died? You can see the description of this fight. And believe me, it's worth it. You will learn that this is a dwarf crossbowman with his steel crossbow shot at the frail body of a goblin with a titanium arrow with a diamond tip and an obscene word engraved on it. He missed, but an arrow hit the goblin in the skull and ripped off his head, pinning it to the wall. And how do you like the guardsman who, having fallen into the rage of a berserker, grabs his torn off hand and beats the werewolf to death with it, who tore off this hand to him? And you say - shot with a dot ...
There is such a thing as visualizers in nature. True, they are again made by fans and in fact - these are separate programs. Not always working well. 
Start over and remember, losing is fun! I forgot to mention the motto of this game - “losing is fun”. This game has no goals, it is endless, a sandbox in its purest form. Each player does what he wants and sets goals for himself. But this is only on the surface. In the depths of this game, there is a goal - to lose beautifully. Losing here is almost guaranteed. And zombie elves aren't the only reason. In this game, anything can lead to a loss. And most of the - is what is inside the fortress. Well, you personally. Decided to tame the energy of a volcano and accidentally flooded the entire living compartment with lava? Fun! The captain of the Guard accidentally stepped on the beloved cat of the ambassador of people and now you have crowds of people armed with catapults under the doors? Fun! A vampire bit a hunter who got lost in the forest, and now bloodless corpses are found everywhere? Fun! The noble dwarf, out of curiosity, pulled the lever, and all the water from the nearest reservoir merrily swept through your breweries, and now you have a whole army of gloomy and sober berserkers who are ready to explode at one sideways glance? Fun! And there will be something to tell other players. They have equally funny stories.
This game seems strange, unusual in management, with a nightmarish interface, but all this is more than covered by the possibilities that are available in it. Want to build a machine that pumps out the ocean? Or the current computer model? Would you like to arrange gladiator fights in your fortress - captive goblins against a giant lion? Do you dream of building a wall of obsidian across the map? And so that a river of magma flows from above it? Or maybe you always dreamed that your subordinates would lead the life of minotaurs, in a huge labyrinth filled with traps? Where every random visitor is smeared with stones, shot with crossbows, then blown up and poured over the remains with molten lead? All this and more is possible here. The game has a fairly honest physical model, so you can create something unusual and unusual from any object. A textbook example - cart full of axes and derailed beautifully flies to the surface and cripples everyone who is next to it. And the drawbridge can generally disintegrate everyone who ends up in the place where it should go down. There are a huge number of such surprises in the game, you just have to start looking.
In this game, by the way, there is a splash screen. Here is something like this. Why is it worth playing: I consider this game one of the unknown masterpieces of gaming. More precisely, it is known to many, but not very many play it. The game is not that unfriendly to the user. It's just that she's very picky about these very friends. Not everyone is ready to start the game again, simply because at the planning stage they forgot to take seeds or seals. With all this, it is a clean and undiluted gameplay, a sandbox of endless spill, giving the player an ocean of possibilities. And it also allows you to unmistakably separate everyone who always complains that we have begun to forget that graphics are not the main thing, from those who really think so. Show the person this game and see what he has to say about it. You just have to get involved, make an effort on yourself, gather your will into a fist and play a few games. After that, you will either not be torn away from the game, or you will understand that this is not yours. But I deeply doubt that it will leave you indifferent. Yes, many questions remain open. For example, about whether it is necessary to do something that the player will not see anyway (as is the case with the combat system) or whether an overabundance of entities is needed in the game, and whether the user should be placed in deliberately losing conditions. This is a topic for a separate philosophical discussion. But the fact remains - this game is just a great generator of awesome stories.
This video was created thanks to “Minecraft”, but it is the best fit for this game.
In the last post about Dwarf Fortress, I gave a link to the Russian-language wiki, where everything is described in detail. But some points for those who have just started playing, in my opinion, require some chewing. So let's go:
World generation
In the main menu, click Create New World and first of all we are offered to set the parameters of our world. You shouldn't bother with them especially, but for starters, you should choose a smaller world, and set the number of minerals (Mineral Occurrence) to Frequent. Click y and the generation of the world began. This may take from a few seconds to 10-20 minutes. After a while the world will be generated. There will be a countdown from the creation of the world. I usually stop this process when it's 100-200 years old. Click u and then Enter. The world will be saved. After that, we will again find ourselves in the main menu of the game and already press Start playing. Choose the world we created and the game mode Dwarf Fortress(fortress mode). Now we have to choose a place where our dwarves will land. Before you is a screen divided into 4 parts. From left to right: Close-up of the location where you land. You will play on the part that is highlighted. Then comes the region, then the world map, and then the description of the area. For a beginner, Temperature: Warm, Trees: Heavily Forested are suitable, below is a description of what is found in the ground. It is advisable to choose so that there would be no Aquifer, but there were Shallow Clay or soil (but not deep soil, otherwise you will be tormented to dig), Shallow Metals and Deep Metals. Clicking TAB we will see our neighbors. It is desirable that the goblins (goblins) were somewhere far away. Next comes the choice of civilization. With this plainly did not understand what it is for. Then they show the relief (mountainous, flat, etc.). Please note that it will not be so interesting to play on a flat level in the future, and a very high one will load the computer. Experiment with the settings of the world, choose the one that suits you. For the very, very beginning, you don’t have to bother, because it’s important for us to drive in what’s what. Click e, this will complete the process of choosing a place (if you have chosen a place that is too dangerous or uncomfortable, the computer will tell you about it).
Skills and things
After generating the world and choosing a location, you are given the opportunity to equip your dwarves and choose their skills. Here I recommend using tips from wikidwarf, for example,
Landed. And now what?
And now the most interesting! See 7 faces on the map - these are your dwarves. In general, absolutely any object can be seen on the map, be it a bed, a door, a closet, a bone, or someone's teeth. Any item occupies at least 1 game tile. If there are several of them on the same tile, they "blink". For information about an item, click k hover over it and click Enter. A textual description of what is in that tile will appear. First we need to dig the entrance to the future fortress. For this:
1. Click ESC(to return to the main menu of orders from the inspection mode)
2. Click d and j(it was you who chose to dig the stairs down)
3. Indicate the place on the map where you want to dig it. Click Enter twice.
4. Unpause the game - Space
The dwarves will start digging. Once the job is done click Shift+>, this will lower the camera one level down. And in the same place, dig a ladder up. That's it, now dwarves can go underground and dig. To do this, click d and indicate the area to be excavated. This is done by analogy with digging stairs. I think you will quickly get used to it.
There is another option. The entrance to the fortress can be dug in the mountain. Just double click d and point to the side of the mountain. The dwarves will dig the entrance.
This is just a basic article. Everything else is on the wiki. The following are (I hope they will be) articles and notes on various features that I came across while playing. I wish you a pleasant time.
The file contains an already generated world and two starting saves.
Game launch
Run Lazy New Pack.exe. If you are not satisfied with the size of the window, then go to DwarfFortress\data\init\init .txt and change the window parameters, for example:
GRAPHICS_WINDOWEDX: 800
]
Launch, press Play Dwarf Fortress!. In the game menu, select “Continue Playing” to launch the saved game.
After loading, you will see three working windows in front of you. A local map, a menu and a fragment of a world map. The first thing to do is press the space bar to pause the game.
Press " Tab ” to close the world map, and the local map took up 2/3 of the screen.
Let's take a look. We can move around the region map with the ←→↓ keys, or at 10x speed with the Shift+←→↓ keys. If you are lost then click " F 1", this will return the camera to its original position.
Dwarf Fortress 3D game presented on a 2D map. used to indicate vertical height. Z coordinate (lower right corner). Each level has its own number, to move between levels use "Shift +<” для перехода вверх, и соответственно“Shift+>” (Some versions just ">","<") для перехода на уровень вниз. По практикуйтесь.
Note that the game is sensitive to the registry, and if the controls do not respond to you, then check if it is just enabled “ caps lock ” or stands for another language.
Mine craft.
What should we do? V Dwarf Fortress we strive to build a thriving dwarven community, protected as much as possible from all the dangers and evils lurking in the outside world. Let's build a fortress for this! Preferably underground. Let's look for suitable rocks.
Taxi to give the command to our miners to start digging
- Press" d ”, the right menu has changed, you have entered the “instructions” sub-menu
- Let's press again " d” (Mine ) to select dig
- Move the cursor to the rock, and highlight the desired area by pressing “ Enter ”, by moving the navigation arrows and repeatedly “ Enter ". You will see that the selected area has changed
Our miners will not start working until you exit the "instructions" menu, and unpause the game with a space. Note that the dwarves will only work if they can get to the specified location.
At this stage, you don't have to worry about making the fortress perfect, you just need to understand the basic control mechanisms.
Give instructions to the miners to dig a few more rooms. If you made a mistake in specifying the dimensions of the premises, you can click “ d” and then “x ” to cancel digging in the selected range.
We chop down trees. We collect plants.
Digging through the dirt and chopping stone is cool, but we'll also need wood to make some beds. Specify the area in which the logging will take place.
- Press "d" ”, we entered the menu of instructions
- Press “t”( chop down trees), and select the desired area, specifying the extreme coordinates, press “ enter"
- The selected trees will be labeled
We will also need ripe berries that are in abundance on the surrounding bushes to collect them:
- Press "d" ”, we entered the menu of instructions
- Press " p ” (gather plants), and similarly indicate the area for collecting plants
Let's admire the work of our dwarfs. As soon as our miners are finished, we will begin further work.
First farm
Farms will be the main source of food for most of the game. Therefore, it is very important to set up a farm as early as possible, we don't want our dwarves to starve to death. We already have a dug room where we can place a farm.
- Press “b” (building ), we went to the build menu
- Press “p” (Farm plot ), chose to build a farm
- Move the cursor to the place where our farm will be
- Using the keys " u ” “ k ” “ h ” “ m ”, set the size of the site for the farm 6 x6
- Press "enter" and the green area will turn brown. If it blinks, it means that the dwarf is moving towards it.
Recently, many simulators have appeared, each of which is interesting in its own way. Simulations allow players to bring their fantasies and ideas to life. The same offers the game Dwarf Fortress download torrent, the Russian version of which is on our resource and is waiting for its users. This is an interesting and unusual project, which is a large-scale simulator. Players here must first create their own world, and then engage in its development. The game world is constantly updated and generated, so you need to monitor the state of affairs in it. When everything is ready, you can populate the territories with gnomes and see that they live well. Players need to take care of the inhabitants of their planet. The game is constantly updated. The developers promise that a new mode will be released soon, which will be action-oriented. It will be possible to win back their territories, which the villains want to take possession of. Among other things, the product also stands out with its graphics. In general, the visual issue is quite simple, but there are dotted and well-designed graphics. This is another distinctive feature of the project. Here, players can create and do whatever they want, but always be aware of the possible consequences.
On this page, using the button below, you can download Dwarf Fortress via torrent for free.
At that time, she had been in the alpha stage for eight years. While I was collecting my thoughts, the game had a great transformation, but one thing remained unchanged: Dwarf Fortress is still only an alpha version. Alpha was 10 years old yesterday. Time for a little preview!
But alas, it will not work small. I could just retell a bunch of great stories that Dwarf Fortress constantly generates. Like the one about the bronze colossus immured in the walls (available online). Or from our own, about a bed made of pig bones. Or one of those that have developed on our broadcasts.
But first, let's figure out what the game is all about.
Large strokes
The inhabitants of our planet, from cave dwellers to people of the industrial age, sought to reflect reality as accurately as possible. Over time, the brushes of artists got closer and closer to photorealism, to complete imitation. Then came the era of decadence, and pictorial thought switched to the transmission of images. And the authentically painted cheeks of mamzels are a concrete sarcophagus for images, and not a showcase.
Dwarf Fortress uses ASCII pseudographics. Any other graphics (except for the most primitive texture packs) will simply not allow you to start the game, so much is calculated in it.
Once a game thought made exactly the same somersault. The graphics have evolved over the years. But the content has become more and more simplified (compare, for example, and). This is also development. But decadence happened on our street, too. The brightest star of the new revolution is, of course,.
However, it was not Markus Persson who for the first time neglected form for the sake of content (otherwise his super-sandbox would not have started at all). Before him, external plausibility was abandoned, for example, by Introversion. - the best game work about a nuclear war, transmitted in the form of pictograms, a gloomy map of the world and inscriptions: "20 MILLION DIE". But that was purely a stylistic move: Introversion, like thousands of other independent studios, wouldn't hurt the content by making it rich.
Dwarf Fortress, once the inspiration for Markus Persson, was the original and yet unsurpassed ideal of content. There was simply no place left to serve. But it is not so necessary - the game simulates the world, its patterns and properties, and not the outer shell.
In the cave of the mountain king
There are two main modes in Dwarf Fortress, and the first of them has the exact same name, "Dwarf Fortress". You can argue, but I think that it is the beauty of the game.
Sleeping Compartment: The rooms are small, but luxuriously finished: smooth floors, engravings on the walls, stone-encrusted furniture.
So, fortress. We take a starting set of colonists - seven brave bearded men - and a set of utilities for the first time, be it food, weapons or livestock. If you want - choose the expedition yourself, if you don't want - take a standard set for all occasions. In any case, your team will arrive at the place and the game will begin.
Dwarf Fortress does not set any goal. Formally, your task is to establish and maintain a thriving fortress, dug into the rock or built on the surface. In practice, this is exactly what the player does until he gets to the point where he wants something extravagant.
At your disposal is a medium-sized square plot of land, virtually unlimited in depth. The camera with a top view observes only one horizontal slice, and you have to scroll through the rest. And often, a dwarven fortress always grows vertically. It is useless to fight: if this process is "artificially" slowed down, the stronghold will quickly occupy the entire available section.
Huge caves are a problem that you will certainly encounter in the course of geological exploration. To flood them with water from the surface is also a decision, albeit a controversial one.
The traditional appearance of the lair of the bearded men is a multi-storey network of tunnels and rooms dug into the rocks. Not all dwarves will dig it, but at first it’s the only one you equip with a pickaxe and appoint as a miner. There are plenty of things to do for underground drinkers without digging tunnels. One list of industries will put the whole kind of role-playing games in an uncomfortable position: stonework, woodwork, fishing, jewelry, health care, hunting, agriculture, blacksmithing, engineering, architecture ... And in each industry there are many separate professions, from the usual blacksmith to soap maker and beekeeper.
Physics of the disaster
The mechanics of Dwarf Fortress has an indecent amount of internal systems. To begin with, dwarves want to get drunk. Without food, they will stretch out for some time, catching rats and eating them along with the skin. But without a mug of beer on duty, dwarves will have to drink water, and their mood deteriorates from forced sobriety.
How to get booze? Grow a crop (requires a farmer) and ferment it (requires a brewer). Just? But after all, dwarves still need to cook food (cook) from meat (butcher, who will bring the carcass of the hunter), fish (fisherman and kitchen worker), plants from the farm (again, a farmer) or wild plants (herbalist). And if you get a cattle, then a milkman, a cheese maker, a sheep shearer, and you never know who else will come in handy. Even more detailed production chains are related to weapons, medicine (five professions in medicine alone!), furniture, construction, goods for sale ...
The most crooked detail of Dwarf Fortress is the management of "staff". It is solved by programs like Dwarf Therapist, without which commanding at least a hundred dwarves is a living hell.
Dwarf Fortress lives according to very complex laws, which, perhaps, are not found in any game - except perhaps in scientific simulations. So, there is the physics of flowing and standing water. There are mechanics of communicating vessels, groundwater, pumps. A stormy stream easily knocks an adult dwarf off his feet, and give Armok something so that there is no sharp turn on the way, otherwise he will smear on the wall.
Better with solids. The mountain and soil massifs consist of conditional cells, which are conveniently represented by cubes. But Dwarf Fortress does not understand such words as “stone” or “soil”, because there are more than two dozen types of soil alone - however, sand, peat, and river silt are included there.
Whether it's rocks. Their account goes to many tens. The dug out cobblestones are the backbone of the economy of a dwarven stronghold. Metal ores are smelted. Lumps interspersed with ornamental and precious stones will fall on the jeweler's table. They will make coke out of coal, and they will melt the smelting furnaces with it. Gypsum rock is crushed into powder for fixing fractures. And from not so useful rocks they will make doors, tables, pots for food, mechanisms and workshop buildings.
Orders are issued through the manager: you place an order, the manager approves it, and the dwarves get to work.
It is useless to describe the entire dwarven industry: it is incredibly vast, and if you want to achieve sufficient autonomy, almost everything will have to be developed. In addition, which is impossible by definition. There is no grass and nowhere to graze cattle - there will be no meat industry either. Bare rocks around instead of a forest - there will be no woodworking industry, and the forest will have to be purchased from visiting caravans. Just understanding all industries, all production and logistics nuances takes many days. The fortress has no development ceiling, the longer you play, the more ways you will find to enrich and secure it.
And the more clearly you will see the web of relationships. The magma lock must be made of refractory rock. Drinking water in the well is only running water, otherwise any drop of blood will poison the entire tank. You find that selling an artifact very will grieve its creator, right up to falling into a tantrum - a fratricidal rage that only your soldiers will stop. And then you will be surprised why your wards sleep so badly, forgetting that noisy excavations are going on three floors below. Every good strategy is replete with such details, but only in Dwarf Fortress do they form an essential part of the game itself.
Thanks to this, such a close and dedicated community has developed around the game. I'm not talking about the quantity and quality of internal memes (Urist McStupid, killer carp, atomic disintegrator, tantrum spiral and a whole host of others). And the community has collected collective wisdom in the game Wikipedia, without which the development of the game is comparable to space exploration.
bearded children
One of the main problems of any underground fortress is its inhabitants. The first seven settlers will eventually turn into a population of several hundred beards: migrants will come from other dwarven forts, children will be born and grow up, bearded nobles will settle, and there, you see, the king himself will move his court to your lair. And every dwarf is a person, full of thoughts, desires and prejudices.
Of course, dwarves also have needs familiar to strategies of indirect control: food, drink, sleep. But their satisfaction is almost unlimited. One bearded man sleeps on the floor, because he did not have enough bed, and accumulates gloomy thoughts. The other is reclining on a couch of ginkgo wood inlaid with dragon bone and opals, enjoying life more and more.
Such thoughts arise in dwarves for any reason, including family events, relationships with colleagues and neighbors. Even a simple job can make or break a dwarf. You can describe the social mechanics until the morning, but I will try to express it with one example. The bearded men, who have not left the fortress for a long time, will receive a charge of sadness as soon as they see the sun - because the cave adaptation has come.
Soldiers spend most of their time in training, which is incredibly welcome. And during breaks, they can briefly return to civil affairs.
The longer you play, the more your fortress is at risk, and every danger threatens to turn into another story for your piggy bank. One day vampires and werewolves will come to visit, and if the latter are easy to beat, then the bloodsucker is almost no different from a dwarf. With a lack of witnesses to his atrocities - and the game has a simple system of justice and imprisonment - the vampire's visit will turn into a mediocre detective.
The fortress is full of fun
There will be sieges. As you sniff out a gold mine, so greedy goblins will sniff you out. And to gather and arm the militia is one of the most difficult tasks for a young fortress. It is necessary to forge swords, and train soldiers, and allocate barracks. Combat mechanics are not amenable to manual control, but there are tons of all sorts of tricks in it and there is no HP scale - only body parts, only hardcore. I hope you've stocked up on disinfectant soap and suture thread. If not, then not all warriors will celebrate their triumph.
The farther, the more stupid and funny you are able to destroy your fortress: from an accidental lack of liquid to total flooding with magma. At this time, you come to the idea of how true the folk wisdom “Losing is fun!”, Because only the most epic, the most grandiose failures give birth to your personal annals. But I do not consider the purposeful pursuit of death the only entertainment. Even in the most peaceful fortress there are adventures that you want to remember.
And if you settled in a dangerous area ... Let's say, if you are besieged by a necromancer, then it would be better for him not to see your warehouse with oyster shells, otherwise there will be a story about a king pecked with dead shells in your collection.
Seven tabs, almost a dozen different sores on each.
And the longer a game stays in development, the more mechanics it has. More and more options for "fun" appear to be possible. Therefore, you most likely will not see a review on this site. Dwarf Fortress is made by two enthusiasts, Tharn and Zach Adams, they live on generous donations from fans (up to eight thousand dollars a month!) And they do not intend to stop. Ten years in alpha, fifteen in development, and before release... but why is it needed? To solemnly release version 1.00.00 and cut the ribbon?
The most monstrous flaw in the game - the entry threshold - will never be fixed anyway. The graphics of Dwarf Fortress will definitely not get prettier, and they promise to bring the controls to mind for a very, very long time. However, ASCII has its advantages. The first days your eyes will bleed (and you still have to read guides), but your imagination will complete the most impressive pictures. If you need it, of course. Not everyone likes it when a game leaves you on your own with a set of tools, even if it is exceptionally rich.
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I've been talking more and more about the value of the game as a generator of stories and a specific "fun" (in the language of dwarves, "fun" means a terrible disaster). But Dwarf Fortress is free to play however you like. For example, in adventure mode, the game turns into a "bagel". You can also just gently and peacefully settle in the fortress. Or implement crazy ideas, like a huge dragon soap tower or a dining room in hell. And no one bothers to let everything take its course and see what happens.
But I warned you. When you play it right, your friends will have a hard time: you torture them with your incredible stories about the misadventures of the dwarves.
