Category Archives: Dwarf Fortress

A River Runs Through It The centerpiece of this fortress is the double tower straddling the river.  So the big challenge is getting through the river to create the central stairwell.  There are many way to do this, but I’ll cover two, because I used both. Dam It All When I started the map, I had no idea if the water would freeze, because I am terrible at using biomes.   I initially used a strategy that works, but is very CPU intensive:  Damming the river.  There are a few ways to do this, mostly variations of pumping out the river or causing a cave-in to block the river.  I like the pumping method, as it makes your dwarves stronger.  Take a look at this picture below to get a basic idea of how this works.  The pump bridge is at the bottom. You build a bridge across the river, followed by a bunch of screw pumps, set to pull water out of the downstream side of the river.  Then you build a receiveing channel, so to the water doesn’t just fall back in.  Finally, you tunnel out a chute to the edge of the map to drain water of into Continue Reading →

A New Fort With the release of Dwarf Fortress v40, or whatever, I decided to play through a new fort, and document it.  This is in part to learn the changes myself, and in part to help teach some friends how to get started in DF. A few notes:  I will assume you know how to use the interface to DF.  If not, check the DF wiki quickstart guide I link below, or look it up on the wiki.  Similarly, if I say to build or make things, look it up in that guide or the wiki.  The processes are simple once you understand them, but extremely tedious to write out every time.  Others have done this already, so I will let their work do the heavy lifting!  In a few places I may call out keystrokes to do things, but not often.  You’ll find that DF is game you rapidly learn to play with two hands on the keyboard. The format of these posts will be a big first post, where I lay some basic steps that are vital for the first few months of a fortress.  Then I will start to show pictures and follow the building of Continue Reading →