Friday, September 15, 2006

Dwarf Fortress: Coming on Monday

I'm still working on farming, particularly using the irrigation system. I managed to successfully flood a farming area today using floodgates but can't seem to unflood it yet (even when I close the floodgates). So I'm going to work on farming this weekend and also spend a little time in adventure mode, as I was told by a trusted source that it's quite a bit of fun. On Sunday I'll write up the basic farming post and put it up Monday morning.

Also on Monday, in addition to the basic farming tutorial, Thom Moyles has written a farming guide that deals with crop-planting strategy and other farming topics beyond the basics. It's terrific.

I've told some of you guys that I'm using some of the DF stories/notes/comments you sent in, and I still am--it's just things are sliding a couple of days. I've still got them all and I'm still using them.

Here's a quick update on my fortress: there are 27 dwarves now, and what I'm finding is that maintaining a settlement with 27 dwarves is a totally different game than managing 10. It's just not possible to focus on micromanagement like you can the first year, and it requires entirely different strategic and tactical thinking.

Which is pretty damn fascinating, just like the rest of this game.

Sometimes strategy games can be envisioned as a three-dimensional mathematical object, if that makes any sense. If you envision all the details, all the behaviors, all the options that exist in Dwarf Fortress, the mathematical object representing the game is staggering. It's a monumental achievement, and it's even more monumental that the game still manages to be deeply personal.

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