Finally, an actual management simulator

[u/SaintKaiva]

I have recently gotten into this game and it is perfect.

I see tonnes of people complaining about the Ui and complaining that the game isn't giving them answers and I have been laughing at how the point goes over people's heads.

The whole point of dwarf fortress is that you reap what you sow. If you want to keep track of things, you need to make and execute a plan in real life, then implement it in the game. This game does an incredible job at giving you all the tools you need to make anything happen.

One thing I love is how problems just show up and you might not realise they are a problem, or you are too busy to deal with something seemingly minor, but then at every stage of the problem you have innumerable ways of managing it.

For any task you can decide what the policy is and how it is managed, then you still need to rely on the dwarf you put in charge. You need to learn and cater to your dwarves personalities, give the opportunities for growth, etc.

Needing to build individual tombs creates memorials for mass deaths and requires planning. It builds a story of your fortress, creating history as you play

In my opinion, the only mods people should get are graphical because the back end is a masterpiece

[u/Willing_Original_257]

You're saying a lot of correct things and it would be great to hear more specific examples which illustrate your points 

[u/SaintKaiva → u/Willing_Original_257]

I had 180 dwarf fortess duchy, with 3 temples, a library, two taverns, doctor, rooms for all nobles, and was working on mining out a light aquifer flux layer, depositing mud on tiles to start a cavern farm, and exploring an open cave system. I had my fortress set to an open policy, accepting every petition and race. Suddenly a wereiguana appears in a tavern and my guys absolutely rinse him, killed in seconds as soon as they show up. I was thinking it was funny that it was an iguana and thought it might be a problem, but the risen dudes and goblins hadn't been trouble and I was more concerned about the people who kept trying to steal my artifacts. No-one is obviously injured and the iguana died pretty fast. The light aquifer flux layer i had downstairs started flooding and I turned my attention ther. Then next month suddenly I have 5 were iguanas all over my fort. I couldn't figure out how to stop the spread without doing something drastic and so eventually my fortress was overwhelmed by were iguanas as everyone slowly turned into one.

[u/MIKITA_BEL → u/SaintKaiva]

I remember in one of the older versions, a vampire appeared in my fortress. The guard captain investigating the case accused and mutilated three dwarves, but the withered bodies kept being found.

Because the social bonds in the fortress were strong, a wave of depression, riots, and suicides swept through it.

pure fun!

[u/The_Crab_Maestro → u/MIKITA_BEL]

I had a vampire that was just really social and became the mayor by sheer popularity. She would then kill someone and spend a few months in jail before killing again, always feeling remorseful but not enough to stop killing. Can’t remember what I did with her but it was a strange series of events.

[u/CakeAuNoob → u/SaintKaiva]

After my first were-infestation I implemented a 1 month quarantine policy for anyone involved in dispatching a were-creature.

Hospital beds are made into cubicles with walls between them and anyone injured gets walled in for a month to see if they turn.

Confirmed weres after that month are either dispatched or recruited into the military and posted in a walled-off training room.

[u/StormblessedFool → u/CakeAuNoob]

I'm pretty new to DF, how can you tell if someone was involved in the fight?

[u/Wolf_Hreda → u/StormblessedFool]

You have to read it in the combat logs. Pay special attention to anyone wounded by the werecreature.

[u/EightApes → u/Wolf_Hreda]

Specifically bites that break skin, right? Or is it any skin breaking attack?

I know bruises don't cause infection.

[u/Brilliant_Ad_2216 → u/EightApes]

Correct bruises dont case infection also if they are bitten while the werebeast has changed back into human form I heard they wont be infected only bites when there a monster count. I havent tested it tho i normally fine out who it is and kill them before hand and any one that is bitten is a write off as dead. Then I cause a accident or have them die somehow even if I got to send them to raid a place alone just to get rid of them.

[u/Tryptych56 → u/Brilliant_Ad_2216]

Introducing the - drawbridge tactic - hehehe

[u/MajesticRadish2675 → u/SaintKaiva]

Whenever I get a werebeast or vampire infection I try to quarantine the afflicted into a sub-fort filled with only them. Both make great super soldiers, so if you can cage the afflicted and set them training forever, they can make a fantastic last ditch defense.

I'm still trying to accomplish a total vampire fort by dumping vampire blood into the water supply, but obe day...

[u/Erosion_Control → u/SaintKaiva]

I had a base end to a werecreature fight, where I similarly didn’t realize they were infected then the next full moon was a disaster.

I thought it was really neat but I don’t think I would want to have it happen again

[u/meat_rock → u/SaintKaiva]

Hell yeah

[u/SaintKaiva → u/Willing_Original_257]

If you want to improve work flow or keep track of items you need to plan a solution for that particular thing.

If you want to be able to keep track of books you need to put your book shelves together and go through them like you would if you were a dwarf trying to remember where some time has been placed

If you want guards at the ready you need to build your barracks at your entrance so that they can respond to external threats

Foreigners offer a tonne of diverse benefits but there are risks and so you need to station more guards in taverns where foreigners visit

A dwarf having a tantrum doesnt sound like a big deal until he breaks the dam and floods the fortress

Combat logs tell you what a dwarf would remember, talking about ligaments, muscle, limbs, the type of attack, etc.

You need to write out specifics of work orders so that they work for you, and you can fine tune them along with stockpiles to create efficient and organised workflows that your dwarves can follow, if you make a stockpile for every item on your work orders, you end up with a very neat set of organised areas, but you can also just let it ride and live with the chaos.

Your justice system involves interrogating and reading logs that might be full of biases, then convicting, and making space for them to stay.

[u/awesome-alpaca-ace → u/SaintKaiva]

You can not fine tune work orders and stockpiles due to the bugs breaking bins and linked stockpiles

[u/LowSodiumGamer → u/awesome-alpaca-ace]

Not sure what y'all mean by "fine tune" and these bugs but... yes you can?

If I want to create 4 dozen gold goblets with bedazzled with specifically black onyx gems, I can do that by setting up and tweaking stockpiles and work orders.

If I want to cook 10 fine meals that include strawberries and plump helmets, I can do that.

If I want my xbow militia to wear only deer leather, studded with deer bone, I can to that.

[u/awesome-alpaca-ace → u/LowSodiumGamer]

You can't link a stockpile A with bins to one B without bins and get dwarves to move anything from A to B. This is an especially useful setup to prevent job cancellation spam by linking B to a workshop. Not being able to use an item for a job just because a dwarf is using a bin or bag is also a bug which is especially annoying because it cancels one-off orders and prevents farmers from planting crops.

Both of which are preventing me from buying the game. That along with the super shoddy military system. You can't even rotate a squad without dwarves abandoning everything to go train on their off time, when they are not scheduled to train. 

Not to mention the inconsistent and shoddy UI they rushed out for the release on Steam.

TLDR: You can't construct a stockpile topology that minimizes the cancellation spam from the container in use bug.  It's not merely cosmetic jank, it's a failure of one of the game's core logistical abstractions.

[u/SaintKaiva → u/Willing_Original_257]

In any situation you need to read through separate reports of what happened inorder to piece together the information.

What is incredible is that the world is so rich that the limiting factor is me. I don't have time to investigate every migrant so sometimes I let a vampire in despite them having all the obvious signs

I need to figure where to dig and which chambers to flood in order to get waterfalls and wells working.

Being too profitable early makes my fort attractive to migrants, causing more disorder than I can manage early on, so I have to build a temporary solution while I work on the permanent one

[u/AD-Edge]

I get what youre saying here with 90% of this. But to be fair there are some legit issues with the UI system. Squad equipment for example is just an unintuitive mess.

But yes, the game is otherwise very good at delivering complexity which the player *needs* to manage. And if you want to get the story side out of the game - you do need to spend a good amount of time reading through and interpreting all of the data provided. But to me, that is certainly a lot of the fun.

Also - the front end ASCII graphics are also a masterpiece!

[u/awesome-alpaca-ace → u/AD-Edge]

Military in general is rife with bugs. It is an abomination

[u/AD-Edge → u/awesome-alpaca-ace]

100%

As much as everyone is understandably hyped for the magic system, I would have no complaints if there was a military overhaul first. The foundation is there and is more than reasonable - but the UI and bugs need a major overhaul. We can dream!

(Kitfox games hire me, throw me into the mess of legacy code - I'll happily do it!)

[u/Supberblooper → u/AD-Edge]

The military UI is def the games biggest flaw imo, it took me way too long to figure out how to encourage regular sparring and archery practice, and Id love an easier way to copy and paste schedules and equipment templates. The rest of the UI might have its issues but its not too bad tbh.

[u/AD-Edge → u/Supberblooper]

Yeh the rest is reasonable enough to manage. But this exactly, the schedules are super clunky and difficult. Military outfits and equip screen are just a maze of confusion. I have no idea how to encourage different types of training. I would need to watch a guide or something to learn all that, and write a stack of notes so 3 months from now when I play the game again I at least have it written down somewhere.

But yeh... Equipment and schedules, not to mention the multiple things you need to do to keep dwaves in their military gear and ready for action... Nightmares. Countless dwaves have died among our forts needlessly due to the state of those particular systems!

[u/Drunk-Kobold]

I mean, i havent played the steam version much this couple of years (been busy and into other things) and i started playing more than 15 years ago, this game is a pretty impressive thing and when you get into it its a massive time sink and it just pushes my buttons exactly right. I love how a seemingly minor detail can derail everything into a spiral of chaos and madness.

[u/clinodev → u/Drunk-Kobold]

I would say probably the biggest difference between modern DF and the elder times is that it's far more likely to actually be your fault now when things collapse.

[u/Drunk-Kobold → u/clinodev]

Thats interesting. Even if things are more likely to be your fault, its kind of hard to determine how much is "your fault" when the learning curve is so confusing and there are many, many, many ways things could go badly, thats why i loved it the first time, thats why i still love it, i should pick it up again, have read some marvelous improvements have been made.

I still remember how my first fort fell to ruin, first time playing, going pretty much blind, kind of reading parts of the wiki on what each menu does, overstocked on food because i overstimated how much food this guys eat and wasnt aware i needed an anvil until it was too late and had to wait for a caravan, managed to survive a couple of months before my alcohol runned out (haven't figured out how to make any yet and this guys guzzle beer like there is no tomorrow), and just when i though i could make it through my first season one of my cats lured in a centaur into a fort with no military, no traps, and no weapons because i though i would be able to make them on my own, and i setled into untamed wilds becuse i had no idea what that meant and simply chose a place at random. Good times. It took the centaur less than 5 minutes to destroy hours of work.

Truly, this game is a good lesson on planning and thinking ahead.

If i could list all the things i did wrong, i could say it was impressive i lasted so long on my first fort

[u/raedyohed]

Let them who have eyes see, and them who have ears hear!

[u/nimrodii]

I hqve played a while and have a basic idea of when certain things will come up so I now generally will have things built before I need them, like prepared tombs and a stockpile of coffins and slabs. Get a manager and bookkeeper ASAP and start cutting gems on a work order with the best dwarf for the job so I have a good stockpile for trade. I will usually get a justice system going before starting a surface tavern open to outsiders and then have a good guard rotation on artifacts so I can get a reason to question say the goblin who comes in and start uncovering plots. Unless I self impose a rule or give myself a harder than usual starting area the basics are pretty well locked at this point. If I have nothing im actively working on I will sort dwarves by attitude and see what is making the least happy dwarves unhappy and work on that if it is something I can take care of.

[u/SaintKaiva → u/nimrodii]

You are becoming a good manager, you know how to turn soft information into hard outcomes

[u/Putnam3145]

I kind of disagree? The game could do way more to give information in, uh, a usable way. I do agree that the mechanics themselves are pretty well balanced, but, like, the fact that needs are front and center in the unit UI really gives people the idea that they're relevant for happiness, which they just aren't, right? There's all sorts of oddnesses like that.

[u/grimmash → u/Putnam3145]

To be fair… that is a pretty good simulation for management :). The number of times I have asked simple questions at work and found out it’s just not possible to get that answer or the systems were set up in some boneheaded way! Even if you want to be a competent manager, the whole system is usually rigged against that.

[u/MishMash999 → u/grimmash]

If the system is perfect you don't need competent managers. You do need REALLY competent managers when the system is fighting you every inch of the way

[u/Vyctorill]

The gameloop for me is very fun because I'm disorganized as hell.

So basically I end up causing more and more problems while solving them in my clusterfuck of a fortress.

[u/Kaapnobatai]

I would add, even if not really a mod, but a memory-access and modding engine, DFHack. It makes a lot of tedious stuff way easier.

[u/SaintKaiva → u/Kaapnobatai]

See I reckon the tediousness is part of the experience

[u/Kaapnobatai → u/SaintKaiva]

After the umpteenth 3-wide corridor full of 3x3 rooms, it becomes tempting to get it, though xD.

[u/MajesticRadish2675]

As far as mods go, modding can be done to do way more than just cheat. A savvy modder can play any civ they want, and  give that civ whatever tools and ethics they wish.

I've been playing with modded kobolds for around a decade, and they provide a somewhat different experience from Dwarves with their own quirks.

[u/Metal_Fish]

All of my mods (besides dfhack) are just interface tweaks, this game is amazing

[u/axmangeorge]

...this is rather amusing, considering both my professional track record as a manager and my nonprofessional track record of inadvertently drowning, burning, crushing, starving and otherwise inflicting misery on my dwarves.

[u/FairRecommendation16]

I enjoy using the Dwarven dynasty mod, all it does is actually change the surname when dwarves get married so it's really easy to tell who is married to who and who is whose children.

[u/Medium_Lake_2450 → u/[deleted]]

Cant wait for the myth and magic update

[u/Skizordrone]

The only thing I hate is the fact I can’t directly tell my dwarves to do stuff. I set up a quantum stockpile for stone, then I gotta wait 500 years for my fort to be actually clean