The two faces of evil

I tried to figure my way through Dwarf Fortress (DF) a few months ago, an experiment that ended before it began, really. But I am not to be discouraged, so I set out again on this most daunting of tasks.

See? I’m already getting into it.

Let’s start out with what tools/sites I have used this time and why they’ve gotten me past my first failure (spoilers!) and beyond.

You Shall Have My axe.zip

These are the three main things you’ll need to start out with and where to put them.  Please note the tools are currently Windows-only.

1. Create a directory for all these tools (and the game itself) somewhere on your machine.
2. Download Dwarf Fortress and unzip to a separate directory in your DF folder
   1. If you want to use the rest of the tools, you’ll need to download DF 0.31.21 (at the time of writing)
   2. If you’re not interested in the tools, download whatever the most recent version is
3. Download the Stonesense visualizer and unzip into a different directory than DF itself
   1. Stonesense is the isometric, sprite-based visualizer for what you’re doing in DF.  Not only does it help you see what you’re doing early on in DF, it also looks sweet as hell
4. Download Dwarf Therapist (I’ll get to what this is used for later)
5. The guide that clicked most with me is the QuickStart Guide on the official DF wiki

If I use any other mods in the future, I’ll mention them in any additional posts I do about DF.  I’ll mention where/how I use those tools in the description of my first, short-lived fortress.

Can’t See the Forest Because It’s Not There

With tools and guide in hand, I was ready to tackle my first fortress (and ultimately fail)!

Upon starting DF, you create a world (and have it write its history) then pick where you want your expedition to land.  Where you want to land is especially important, as I learned a little later on.

Once you pick your starting point, if you want to use Stonesense, now’s the time to fire it up.  You’ll run it alongside the main DF window (it’s not a skin, which is why they call it a visualizer) to see what your dwarfs are doing, in a fantastic 16-bit SNES style.

Oblivious to any issues, I started my dig into the earth, digging out a small but well-designed underground fortress.  Whatever the guide suggested I do, I figured out the interface and set up stockpile rooms, set up an area outside for the rotting corpses of my many, many defeated enemies, and set a place for my dwarfs to dump all the wood that they gather.

And that’s where I ran into a huge, huge issue.

Gaze your eyes on the screenshot below (click to make it fortress-sized):

I didn’t realize until I told my dwarfs to gather wood outside except that I told my dwarfs to set up shop in a giant, grassy plain.  Where I set up is pretty much the exact opposite of where you want to start when you’re learning how to play.

Damnit.

But now that I have Stonesense, I feel a little better about jumping into the game again.  The DF wiki mentions multiple times that losing is part of the fun and now I get it.  Sure, it’s my fault that I failed this time, but I’m sure as hell not going to make that same mistake again.  Now I have a better idea of what I need to do my next time.  And I think my new fortress is off to a pretty great start: