Bay 12 Games Forum - Index. DF General Discussion. DF Gameplay Questions. DF Adventure Mode Discussion. DF Modding. Dwarf Fortress Wiki. Tutorials. Of course, instead of trial and error you could also just read the wiki... Dwarf Fortress started as a pretty complex game back in the days when it was 2D and barely had a quarter of the features it has now. It's easy to get overwhelmed when you first fire it up. Don't worry though, following a tutorial is a very easy way to learn the basics of the game in an afternoon. Don't worry if you don't understand why you do things on your first run, even after reading the tutorial's explanation. If one particular thing bugs you, try starting a new fort and skipping it, then seeing what goes wrong! Especially in the current version, trial and error is great way of having lots of fun.
[Leave feedback] [edit] Installing and Running the Game If you have not installed the game yet see Installation. [Leave feedback] [edit] Learning Fortress Mode Most of the tutorials were written for the older (40d) version of Dwarf Fortress. [Leave feedback] [edit] Recommended tutorials and wiki articles See: Food guide. This guide is aimed at completeness, overview, evaluation, and comparison. It is aimed at new players. Most of the information available on this page is already stated on more specific pages. There are seven possible ways to get food: farming, trading, fishing, hunting, plant gathering, breeding tame livestock and trapping. Farming is the most stable and plentiful of the methods, usually followed by trading. Farming, trading and plant gathering are your only sources of booze or brewable plants, so you need to do at least one of them because booze is a must-have. [Leave feedback] [edit] Gathering This is the quickest way to resolve a food shortage.
[Leave feedback] [edit] Materials None. [Leave feedback] [edit] Skills Minimal Activate the plant gathering labor on one or more dwarves, designate an area to be gathered in a similar way to how you designate trees for felling, and you're good to go. [Leave feedback] [edit] Acreage You need a food stockpile, but you will have one anyway. High Lots Few. Quickstart guide. This guide is intended to be used in conjunction with a save file downloadable here (5 meg download). By downloading it and unzipping it to your Dwarf Fortress directory you will be able to jump straight into a game where the first few hurdles have been overcome - a world has been generated, a location for the fort been selected, the starting skills and items have been bought, and the basic components of the fort completed. This guide aims to explain what the graphics represent, how the menu and interface system works, and guide you through ordering your dwarves to perform a few simple tasks.
This guide and associated save file was created using version v0.28.181.40d. Thus, it will not work with version v0.31.01 or later. [Leave feedback] [edit] What you will see when you load the game The game will begin paused (don't unpause yet), centered on the meeting hall where all 7 of your starting dwarves are currently relaxing. The screen is divided into three sections. Sue is a miner. Starting build. Your First Fortress? If you are a new player looking for a solid basis to survive the first couple of months or years, check out the aptly named guide on your first fortress. It includes a basic starting build aimed at being fail-safe. If you're trying to plan the future, try what should I build first? If you're looking for specific, personalized examples of starting builds, see starting build design A starting build is a personal strategy for choosing the initial supplies, equipment, and skills of your initial seven dwarves when starting a new game in fortress mode.
These skills and items which you assign to your dwarves will have a large impact on life in your new fortress, especially in its first year. This page attempts to give advice on some of the many gameplay elements which influence the flow of your game based on your goals. But one thing should be made clear - there is no "best" build, no "perfect" or "clearly superior" final mix of skills and items. [Leave feedback] [edit] Skills. How do I increase the value of a room. [Leave feedback] [edit] Material Digging a room within a layer consisting of obsidian or flux will inherently give it a higher value than a room built inside a mundane stone such as granite or gabbro. Additionally, veins or clusters of precious minerals (whether ores or gems) which pass through the room can provide a dramatic boost in value.
[Leave feedback] [edit] Engraving Room quality can be increased by smoothing and engraving the walls and the floor. Stone can be smoothed by any skilled dwarf without decreasing quality, but always engrave with more skillful Dwarves as unskilled Dwarves will permanently prevent you from putting a nice engraving there. [Leave feedback] [edit] Construction Constructing floors in a room using high-value building components (such as aluminum or platinum bars, or perhaps soap made from megabeast fat) can dramatically increase the value of a room if its location is important but valuable stones do not occur in the region.
[Leave feedback] [edit] Furniture. DF2010:Building. The Build Menu The Building menu can be accessed from the main menu by pressing the b key. This allows your dwarves to build anything listed within the menu, provided you have access to the proper materials. This list also contains several sub-menus which expand to show further building options. Any item within this list, once built, can then be interacted with using the q:Set Building Tasks/Prefs key. The exception to this rule are items located under the C:Walls/Stairs/Floors sub-menu. [Leave feedback] [edit] Notes When a building gets designated for construction, the items designated to be used in the construction will be reserved for that building, meaning that other dwarves will not use that item for something else, even if there is plenty of that item available.
[Leave feedback] [edit] List of buildings. Building. A building is a structure that can be placed from the build menu and then interacted with by the Set Building Tasks/Prefs command ( q ), and the View Items in Buildings command ( t ). Included in this are workshops, doors, trade depots, furniture, bridges, traps -- most of the interesting stuff your dwarves will build!
Most buildings are made from raw materials or blocks, although some workshops require some additional finished items as well. Some buildings are placed furniture; a cage or throne sitting in a stockpile is just furniture and can be moved by haulers, washed away by flooding, etc., but when built they become a building that can be interacted with. (Or, what seems more accurate to say, a new building is created and the original furniture becomes part of that building's permanent inventory.) Buildings should be considered distinct from constructions. [Leave feedback] [edit] Overlap of Buildings and Constructions Nothing can be built or constructed where a wall tile exists. Trap. For traps used to catch vermin, see animal trap. Traps are a reliable and cost-effective method for defending any fortress. Unlike soldiers, they're always on duty, and don't need to be carefully managed.
On the other hand, they are immobile and can only lie in wait for foes to walk over them. To build a trap, go to the build->Traps/Levers menu. You'll generally need one mechanism, a dwarf with the mechanic labor designated (ranks in this skill reduce the time to place a trap), and at least one other component depending on the type of trap - a stone, a cage, or one or more weapons. They can be built indoors or outdoors, and require a level ground square with no other constructions in them. Stone-fall, weapon and cage traps will be triggered by (most) any hostile entity entering their tile, with the exception of kobold thieves. [Leave feedback] [edit] Stone-fall Trap Shortcut b T sComponents used: mechanism and an ordinary stoneAppearance: ^ = ready, ^ = no stone loaded See Trap design. Animal trap. Fortification. If looking for a guide on general fortifications as defense, see the Defense guide and/or Defense design. Fortifications on top of a round tower.
Fortifications are arrow slits used in the defense of your fortress, (and which are more technically known as "crenellations"). They are probably most commonly used along the outside walls of your fortress and on the upper levels of constructed watchtowers so that marksdwarves and siege engines can fire at enemies from within your walls. Much like real world embrasures on battlements, their utility is limited if the enemy is close and at the same height; their true power lies in shooting from above and at distance, as it is possible to shoot at targets on other z-levels. Fortifications allow ranged attacks (including siege weapons), fireballs/breath, water, magma, steam, etc. to pass through. [Leave feedback] [edit] Building fortifications Fortifications can be carved from stone walls, or built like any other construction. Defense guide.
In Dwarf Fortress, you will often find yourself beset by hostile creatures looking to murder your dwarves or take their treasures. Protecting your fortress from intruders is a challenging task and a broad, complex topic. A wide variety of creatures can threaten your dwarves, and there is no one approach or philosophy that perfectly addresses every possibility. Fortress layout, military organization and training, traps and more, all contribute to the overall "defense" and survivability of your fortress and the dwarves that live and work both within there and in the world around it, and likewise no one article can include every last detail.
This guide will pull from many other articles, but will prefer to refer to those rather than re-post information that is already found (and better placed) there. There are three important things to consider when planning the defenses for your fortress. For specific discussion, suggestions, descriptions and blueprints for... Wild animals Ambushes Siege War. DF2010:Farming. General farming flowchart.
Farming is the act of growing crops for food, alcohol production and cloth manufacturing. While small forts can easily be sustained by plant gathering, hunting and trading, farming is vital to large settlements. Farming is done at a farm plot building (b-p, resize with umkh). Building uses no resources, and can only be done on soil or muddied rock. Mud-free stone will not allow the building of a farm plot on top. The "Farming (Fields)" labor must be enabled.
Farm plots only display the kind of crops that they are able to grow when selected with the query key. Depending on where the farm plot is constructed, different crops may be planted. Note that although you can construct a farm plot anywhere there is either a soil floor or a mud covering, this does not always mean seeds can be planted there.
See the article on crops for details on the conditions needed to grow the available plants. [Leave feedback] [edit] Introduction to Farming. Crop.