Grim Views

Anyone playing dwarf fortress and want to try a succession game?

YES.

Right on! Do you use the lazy newb pack or straight vanilla?

I use the LNP for tilesets and Dwarf Therapist. I can live without Therapist but I need the tilesets or it's too much like staring into the matrix.

Yeah same here. I also use DFHack to address performance issues and automate some of the labors. Cool man this is exciting!

I usually dont check legends or anything like that. If you do then please generate the world because it almost always bites me in the ass. I'm fine with using an expanded embark my computer can handle it as long as the world and population aren't gigantic. What are your thoughts?

I'm in... haven't played it ages, though.

I'm in too.

Maybe a small region just to reduce the file size of the save? Any thoughts about where we want to embark - we want snuggles and unicorns, or a fiery zombie hellscape? Volcano yes/no?

I can set up a common store for all of us to put the save if anyone desires...

A common store sounds like a great idea. I think to start we'll want to share around a folder complete with executable, just so we're running from the exact same base to start, then we can share the save directory after that.

I cracked open DF last night and generated a world, here's what I got:
It is the year 1050, the Age of Myth in the world of Bagsnumon, the Wondrous Plane. I went looking for Good-aligned areas and discovered that the ocean and everything along its shores are all blessed, but that's mostly saltwater marsh. There are some serene forests but they're all ruled over by elves... except one place, right on the edge of the elf and dwarf lands:
I found a nice embark where that place meets The Musical Forest and the Hills of Haze.

It should also be mentioned that the original dwarven capital was conquered by a hydra a thousand years ago and he's still there, murdering everyone who gets close. The new capital is a place called Nosemetals. So, you know, the usual stuff.

Should I just embark and take the first turn, or was someone else hoping to start us off? (Ashenfury?)

Sorry! For some reason Im still filtering notification emails. Awesome pincus much appreciated! Yeah go for it araun! Do we want to do year turns or shorter?

Ok, so I assemble some dwarves and we set out to construct a new fortress where the Moral Plain and the Hills of Haze meet the Musical Forest. Behold Idral, "Rockssilver!"

The game instantly crashes.

I try again and this time they named the fortress "Presenttrumpet" which is - is that an imperative, as in you'd better bring a trumpet, or does it refer to trumpets you have now as opposed to past trumpets or... anyway it's a mystery we'll be considering for a while because this time the game didn't crash.

The local area is nice, with lots of featherwood trees and prickle berries and, uh, bitter orange trees and brown recluse spider webs. So a balance of good and bad there. What's also on the bad list is the fact that we have an aquifer to deal with.

I've dealt with these before so I attempt to build an aquifer ram to punch through and get us access to the sweet, sweet stone below. This fails spectacularly as the falling ram pulls one of the dwarves in and creates a muddy pit, and doesn't even puncture the aquifer.

I send the miners out to dig around in the other biomes in the hope that their aquifers are deeper down and we can sneak around, and meanwhile start digging out what I hope to be a temporary fortress while we solve this problem.

But now I have to go hug a feverish child. Next time: the Double Slit Method.

Good news: the aquifer ram worked after all! Bad news: I discovered this by accidentally dropping the miners into the pit, killing one. The second one survived the fall but oddly didn't drown, and that's how I learned the aquifer was blocked off. I waited for the rest of the water to evaporate, built some stairs, and rescued the remaining miner. So, now we've got a half-built pump setup that's completely useless, and one 2x2 shaft into the earth.

I dig deeper and punch into a vast underground cavern containing a lot of galena and sphalerite which is... nice, I guess? There's some gems and silver scattered around as well.

I start working on getting farms going to make food and booze, explore around for minerals, and generally set up a fortress. Then, two kobold thieves arrive, and immediately walk into a bowdwarf who'd recently immigrated. They get punched to death, and each drop 6 or so artifacts each - including an artifact crossbow and a cape. We're rich, I guess?

I'll finish this up tomorrow, hopefully by getting some living space dug out in the stone and rigging up a drawbridge.

For storage, I think a shared Dropbox folder will work best. Also use Paper for collaboration. Can I use the emails in the forum to send the invites?