Hey everybody,

I didn’t post about Dwarf Fortress earlier in the semester, but I’ve talked a couple times in class about my progress in the game. In what is surely a move to avoid working on my final project (and to make up for not posting earlier), I figured I’d show everybody a little bit of what I was able to accomplish. So…welcome to Mountainhome Endoktomus, better known as Atticshove!

First off, here’s a view of my fortress from above ground, using StoneSense to render it in three dimensions:

And yes, that’s a lot of vomit everywhere. But, it gives a nice view of the tower (11 z-levels tall), walls, and fortifications that I’ve built, as well as the road leading into my trading caravan entrance. That tower includes barracks and training grounds for my archers, who can then move along the parapets to shoot down at any attackers. Here’s a more conventional shot of the ground floor:

So, still lots of vomit. The Well (more on that later) and Statue Garden are all forged out of silver by my Legendary Metalsmith, so that’s pretty much what keeps everybody happy. As that “Idlers: 74” up top indicates, I’ve built up a pretty sizable population:

I’m definitely not going to run out of money or food any time soon. And out of those 198 dwarves, I have 13 nobles, though some positions overlap:

At a certain point in the game, you can meet the requirements to become the capital of your civilization, which brings with it your King. My biggest struggle lately has been trying to build quarters that are royal enough for him and his consort…

This level also shows my reservoir, which my Well draws from. I dug a channel to a river on the other side of the map so that I could have a source of water in my fortress while under siege. This was particularly important since I was digging in an area without any mud to farm in, so I needed to build an irrigation system to partially flood the ground to make mud. The next level down is just workshops:

I was planning at one point to expand my reservoir, but that project’s pretty well on hold. You can also see the continued drawbridge pit, which at some point I’ll hopefully get some poor sap stuck in. It bottoms out one more level down:

Lots of traps in case anybody drops down into the pit, plus my kitchen, butcher/fish cleaner, and dining hall. Next up, my metal industry:

And finally, the burial sites and mines:

The next 11 levels down from this look pretty much the same: lots of mining, just without the coffins everywhere. Eventually I’ll have to build royal tombs for my King and Baroness Consort, but right now I’m pretty fed up with Urist McSpoiledpants and company. I haven’t made it down to the caverns yet, or found any magma, though that’s mostly by design (I don’t want to have too much “fun” and risk what I’ve built).

So yeah, that’s pretty much the tour! As far as I’m concerned, I still haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of the game, and I definitely have yet to become “fluent in Dwarf Fortress.” That being said, my civilization has yet to die out even once, and the reservoir and above ground ramparts are fairly dwarvish megaprojects. The way things are set up, I can basically close the gates and repel any goblin siege with minimal loss of life (I’ve weathered 5 or 6 of them so far), but it’s often more enjoyable to send the military out and kill things. Only problem is that the resulting bodies tend to horrify my dwarfs, who are already pretty struck with sunsickness from never going outside, which is why I have a bit of a vomit problem (understatement). It’s probably also why one of my military squads has valiantly named themselves the “Gates of Fainting”…

It was something like 35-40 hours worth of gameplay to get this point, which is pretty insane. I really enjoyed myself, but I’m happy to say I haven’t played in a few weeks, so hopefully I’m over my Dwarf Fortress addiction. If anybody wants to see more, or has any questions about anything in the screenshots, just let me know!

Oh, and one last thing:

The Weretortoise lady consort Buslá Demtamun has come! A large tortoise twisted into humanoid form. It is crazed for blood and flesh. Its eyes glow mahogany. Its sandy taupe scales are blocky and overlapping. Now you will know why you fear the night!

This game gets super weird sometimes…