Dwarf Fortress (2) - Team Liquid Project - Page 11

Gather round, gather round, and witness the action-packed adventures of Nemen Risasgirus as he seeks Martyrtomb!

For this attempt, our Hero (and he's actually a Hero, meaning no crazy Demi-god stats/starting skills) Risas is going to attempt to reach and explore Martyrtomb, with some leveling and questing on the way.


Nemen hails from the family of Decentsavior. Their cousins, Matchfixingsavior, are another story.

A few levels in Swords and various other adventuring skills are all we have to begin with. He's a human, for reasons that anyone who plays Adventurer Mode should recognize. Let us begin!


It's actually a prime tourist destination.

Nemen begins north of the eastern edge of the Putrid Oceans, near the Remarkable Forests. From my last playthrough, I remember this puts us west of Skyhall, and southeast of Martyrtomb, which lies along the north edge of the ocean. That means I'll have to slowly make my way along the edge of the sea, collecting fame, fortune, and followers along the way.




I'm definitely going to start building up before I try a long journey, so I travel to these houses to look for things to do and followers to hire. As before, I'm just going to be swiping all the soldiers I can find - probably why so few are actually in these villages in the first place.


I'm willing to bet that the Bottlefriends are pretty drunk.

Bugi Asnabekat gives us an array of things to kill. For our little Hero self, they're all daunting, particularly because we've begun with no armor, a copper shield, and a silver sword. There's no real step down from this. My only hope to do much of anything while I slowly gain levels is to hire people to help me, so that's what I'll do.


No questions asked. This village must be a really boring place.

Umci Gelommogem joins us. We have the option to customize our followers, but I forget about this just like I'll forget about Umci within a few minutes. You can't die, see - this is a roguelike. But your followers can, and many a battle can be won by having your followers handle it.


Our tasks.

This village sucks. Sometimes you get lucky, and there is an absolute zoo of lairs near to the town, letting you clear them quickly and even discover more that the villagers don't know about. Instead, we're going to have to travel a decent distance to each one, and that's assuming we can actually handle them. Beasts in Dwarf Fortress are puny when 50 dwarves pile on them. When you're one guy, it's not so pretty. Now I will know why I fear the night.

Aside from the bogeymen and such.

And the wolves. Did I mention wolves?


Oh boy, random battles. It's like we're really playing a JRPG!

Wolves are kind of a threat to us, with our complete lack of armor or defensive skills. I put points mainly in offense because that IS defense - if you aim your attacks at limbs, you can simply disable opposing offense. In a brawl with many foes, however, that's not going to work. Unless you can keep the fight as a constant 1v1, which is the safest way to handle many enemies.


Wolves actually based their hunting tactics on Brood War Dragoon AI.

Nemen kites backwards, letting the wolves charge at him individually, and takes aimed swings at whatever parts they present. The wolves are quickly dis-limbed, slain, and butchered. With a triumphant drink of some of the wolf blood coating him, Nemen continues his journey, slightly more experienced.

You may ask about our followers, the ones I said I'd forget the names of. As it turns out, a river I had to cross (that wasn't frozen, surprisingly), had an alligator in it. The alligator ate them. This was pretty much the best-case scenario - alligators have nothing on carp or sturgeons.

So, I went to get some new ones. Back to town!


Thank goodness people are generous. I'm not kidding. Nighttime is terrifying.

Nemen waits the night out, grabs some new followers, and heads back out into the forests. The endless, dreary forests, heading back towards one of our lairs. You remember that was our goal, right? To kill monsters, gain fame, and then travel to Martyrtomb with a legion of random soldiers? Well, it is.


Seriously, what makes these damn forests so remarkable?

We've arrived at a lair. You'd think the lair would be better hidden, but quest-seeker GPS trumps all acts of camouflage. I've got two brave souls with me, which translates to a whole lot of attacks that Nemen won't take directly to his soft, unprotected body.


What a quaint little cave you have there.

There is more than one Shadow Troll in here. There are many. That is not what the peasant said. He lied to me.

There are actually four - a Shadow Troll bride and three Trolls, the last of which is simply named 'One'. I might check him out in Legend Mode later, because he sounds tough. Trolls are strong and hit hard, but they, like all creatures with bodies, have one critical weakness, and that is carefully aimed attacks.




One, two, three...


Four!

One himself is no slouch, being much harder to hit and wear down. My companions are badly injured during the fight, but we manage to win a battle of attrition and kill all four night creatures. Despite all being in one lair, these count as multiple foes removed from the earth, so Nemen will be greatly recognized for his deeds when they are reported to town.

From the lair, we swipe things of value - some coins, mainly. The items in here are dwarven, so of no use to us, but I do find a crutch. Crutches are absolutely critical because they cannot be bought and any injury that renders you unable to stand is practically character-ending due to how slow it makes you. A crutch, however, will let you get back up to full speed as you level up crutch-walker. I store it for now. Nemen still has his two legs.

He can, however, begin to make jokes about his 'solid third leg' to peasant women.


I guess nobody ever lies in this world?

Pan Irnatbuh (aka. first villager I saw) is impressed at our deeds. Our reputation soars, and we've passed beyond the level of mundane quests that most villagers give us. This immediately places Dwarf Fortress above all other RPGs that have top-level heroes running fetch quests for bored NPCs.


You can get weird civilization names in this game, but that's a good one.

Pan asks us to see the civilization leader, which means we're getting much harder but more impressive tasks to complete. One step closer to launching our crusade to Martyrtomb, to sweep it clear of foes in a wave of angry metal.

I head to the fort as Pan asks, because Forts are full of human gear. This is why I created a human - robbing forts/dungeons in human towns is the best way to get good equipment besides abandoning an overstocked fortress of your own for a dwarf. Nobody minds if you swipe stuff lying around, so it's off to this Lord we go. Copper armor kind of sucks.

The mentioned fortress is pretty far to the east, so instead, I go to the closest one. They all have leaders.


I'm not entirely convinced building a fortress so near to a forest isn't asking for an Ent beatdown.

The first thing I notice about this fortress is the walls.


Color of royalty, ain't it?

They're entirely made of rutile blocks, which are purple. This is a giant purple fortress.

I can't imagine anyone managing to siege this place without snickering at how silly it looks.

Nemen holds his tongue long enough to greet the Lady of the Fortress, who asks him to kill a dwarf in a dungeon.


Making jokes about how the Lady named the town 'Greatblown' is punishable by death.

This is problematic.

Dungeons are massive, randomly generated underground areas beneath towns and forts. Actually finding your enemy in it can range from 'surprise, I'm right here, and you're dead!' to 'rarer than a quality post in a LR thread'. Dungeons can be massive. The only upside is they're usually full of random items too.

Martyrtomb would be easier to find. Still, we need our renown. And some experience.

Rummaging around the fort, I find it depressingly tidy and devoid of anything actually useful. I do, however, find a stack of 25 arrows. This is critical, because I haven't found any rock to use the Knapper skill on.

Before I leave the fortress, I spend a little time playing darts.


Using bows to train Archery is too mainstream.

With Legendary Thrower and Archer, Nemen can turn anything into a deadly hail of death. This is far better than trying to actually engage some things in melee combat, especially when 'some things' means 'horse-sized armored spiders' and 'anything with an actual weapon holy shit we have no armor still'.


If these guys live I'm going to have to start naming them for people in the thread.

I've gathered a small army. Civilization leader quests aren't as easy as the peasant ones, and even those were dangerous to us in our poor state of skills and equipment. These brave men and women shall die on the front lines for me, while I hurl bolts across the room.

Assuming our upcoming battle has any line of sight to use.


Ha ha, of course it won't!

Damn it.

Biteholes, the dungeon under Greatblown, is a maze of twisty passages, all alike. The entire area shows that we're at where we need to be to kill our target, so navigation basically relies on wandering randomly and hoping you get lucky.

As Nemen strolls through the corridors, picking up random gems, we start encountering some nonhuman resistance. Goblins, elves, and dwarves, well-armed, wander the halls. It is clear why the Lady wanted these things exterminated - there must be some sort of anti-human resistance force developing underneath the town.

Too bad my whole group's human.

I actually run into the dwarf we're supposed to kill, a Legendary Marksdwarf, very quickly - and miss screenshotting it. He's got a lot of followers, and they don't mess around.


Loss of skull tendons claims thousands of lives every day in Dwarf Fortress.

I fall back to my plan. Letting my hordes rush the doorway towards the foe, I simply throw arrow after arrow into the fray, ripping through foes. I can't aim for body parts, but that doesn't stop them shredding nerves and tendons even when they hit non-critical areas. Legendary Throwers, at this range, don't miss.

Pretty soon, both our ammunition supplies are expended. This is bigger problem for him than it is for me.


The sword was a 'gift' from the floor of a Fortress.

Triumphant, with several of my followers dead but 100% of Nemens in the area still alive, I return to the fortress at Greatblown itself to report my success. After this, no doubt the whole world will follow me to Martyrtomb!


This is getting exponentially more serious.

Uh, alright Mr. Lord. I'll get right on that one.

Later.

Like, after Martrytomb entirely.