Mersirlikot, The Dwarven Fortress

[Cap'n Sam]

Welcome to Mersirlikot, my first settlement with the 0.31+ versions of dwarf fortress. I'll be guiding you through the development of my fortress, and hopefully through the long maturation of the fort with no fun involved. Hopefully you'll learn something from my stories, and maybe I can even entice readers to play this rich rogue-like game, but that's high hopes. The beginning will be akin to world creation, i.e. the Sim City series. Had you played Dungeon Keeper I or II before, the beginning will be very similiar in gameplay, minus the warfare. That will come much later in the game. Let's take a look at the fort!

 

 

I went ahead and skipped talking about generating and picking a settlement location I have started in a heavily forested area. You can see the lush, green environment above with a few lakes spotted around the region. The flora is plentiful so there'll be no problem finding plants, and trees for wood. The surroundings are calm, which means wild animals will leave my dwarves alone for the most part. I wanted to start easy since I haven't played in awhile, and my last fort ended up being a ruin. I've set my party of seven dwarves up to have 4 miners, 2 woodcutters, and a mason/carpenter. I plan to have the miners carpenteer while they idle since one dwarf making everything is too slow for my tastes.

 

 

Rather than building all my rooms on one floor which proves to be a headache getting dwarves around the map, I'm building a separate room on each level as you'll see illustrated below. The game obviously lacks any decent graphics, so to see what's going on underground a hotkey must be invoked to display a crossection corresponding to the previous map. The image above is the surface of the world, where clear blue skies can be found (abiet unseen in this ASCII simulation, hence imagination is the best video adapter). I've labelled my wagon sitting in front of the entrance to my underground dwarven fortress. It'll be dismantled for wood later.

 

 

Directly below the surface of the world is a large empty room with a grey miner, and a yellow woodcutter sitting in it (see if you can find him) that my dwarves have completed. The dwarves are indicated with smilies. My dwarves will be using this room as a meeting hall. The 2x2 "X"'s at the mouth of the hall are stairs leading to the surface, and to the lower level.

 

 

Here is the stockpile floor, directly below the meeting hall. This is the first completed, dug out room in Mersirlikot. This level is designated for stocking food, wood, clothes, armor, weapons, gems, stones, anvils, and just about all the the assets of my dwarf fortress. Later, dwarves will get their own rooms with their own furniture to keep clothes and their worldly possessions. There are 3 miners in the food stockpile, presumably eating. The "" are barrels. These particular barrels are holding all the food my dwarves stocked up on during their journey to settle Mersirlikot. The room directly in front of the food is the wood stockpile, the room to the left is for furniture/belongings, and to the room to the right is for storing stones where you can see many stored already (grey & cyan stones). I'll be using the stones to craft buildings, furniture, and mechanical parts which brings me to discuss the lowest level of the fort.

 

 

This is the incomplete workshop floor. Without workshops, all dwarves can do is dig, chop wood, and eat. Workshops are essential to a fortress and provide all the means for a functional dwarven economy. I'll have dwarves build workshops soon on this level so they can begin crafting a bucket for a well they'll need to drink from. Also, farms are needed above ground so the fort can begin self-sustaining, both tasks will be worked on soon after this post.

 

I've shown you what's completed thus far for Mersirlikot. Not much has been done with the fort as it just started and I'm focusing more on logging it atm, but soon things will pick up, develop, and you'll see what dwarf fortress is all aboot had you stuck around.

 

Also, don't ask about the name of the fort. it was randomly generated.. I forget how to make a custom name and can't be butted; mayne

 

Edited November 12, 2010 by Cap'n Sam