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Dwarf Fortress is a deeply complex and complicated game with decades of development behind it before its release on Steam and Itch.io. With it, the thousands of players who have picked up the game have learned some hard lessons by playing it. Below we have tried to give some new players the best tips and tricks we learned playing Bay 12 colony simulator.
Dwarf Fortress Tips and Tricks
- The dwarves will automatically pick up the bodies and materials left on the fallen or dead dwarves, and bravely run into danger to retrieve the injured. You can disable this in the Workforce menu below standing orders.
- the Manager Y Accountant They are two of the most important nobles in the game. The Counter will allow you to find out the exact amount of stock for each item you have and a Manager will allow you to place bulk orders for items to craft. These are essential nobles to install as soon as possible.
- Pressing the WASD keys in a direction while mining, smoothing stone, or other designations will move the cursor exactly 11 squares. This is really useful and as a result the 11×11 stack or storage room has become a very common size in Dwarf Fortress. It’s also the perfect size for nine workshops with a 1×1 walkway between them. Or nine 3×3 bedrooms.
- cage traps they are dominated. If you are concerned about how to defend your fortress, cage type traps are the answer. Enemy armies, ancient beasts, dragons, anything, will mindlessly fall into the traps in the cages. Only the most skilled and dangerous enemies can avoid them, making it easy to defend your fortress if you’re smart.
- Dwarves will take breaks from work, sometimes even if you have chores for them, and spend their time socializing. If you haven’t created a meeting room or dining room, they will stay in the Wagon by default. However, if you deconstruct the wagon without designating a meeting room, the dwarves will not take breaks. Useful for the first pushes on the mountain!
- Their trading Post It should be one of the first things you build. Early trades with dwarven, human, and elven representatives can be decisive for your strength, and often you can take their entire inventory with a few dozen crafts or carved gems.
Related: Dwarf Fortress Steam UI and Symbols Explained
- Did you know the dwarves? mist of love? Standing at the bottom of a waterfall will generate happy thoughts for the dwarves and cheer them up. If you can create an artificial waterfall near a meeting room, or better yet, use a natural one, you can make your Dwarves incredibly happy.
- Everything you dig, create, build or farm adds to your strength worth. Sometimes this means that you will be attacked faster, you will attract more immigrants than you can bear, or you will be in danger. Sometimes it can be better to stay in the mud, dirt, and sand for a while until you’re ready for bigger trouble.
- Every dwarf has things they love and hate, such as certain animals, materials, and objects. If you fill the dwarves’ living environment with them, they will become incredibly happy. For example, a dwarf who likes dogs will be happy if he has a dog, he has statues of dogs and his surroundings have engravings of dogs. Conversely, if they hate dogs, those very things will make them more and more unhappy.
- Are you not happy with your mayor, baron or other nobles? At a certain point, the nobles will not work or contribute to your fortress. At that point, it’s time to *ahem* arrange for some accidents to happen.
- And finally, always remember “Losing is fun!” You can lose your strength because of a foolish mistake, because of something completely unfair and out of your control. But think about the history you have and how fragile your strength is. That’s what makes this game so overwhelmingly brilliant.
For complete Dwarf Fortress guides and information, stay tuned to MyFullGames and check out How to prevent water from freezing in Dwarf Fortress?