Obligatory links:
v0.31:Stories/Bronzemurder - Dwarf Fortress Wiki - epic graphic summarizing the events in Bronzemurder.
And, of course, Boatmurdered. Dwarf Fortress - Boatmurdered
Sounds like you need to set some jobs. Press “v” then move the cursor over a dwarf who you want to make a farmer. Then press “p” for preferences and then “l” for labor. This will bring up a list of job categories and within them specific jobs. You can toggle entire categories or specific jobs on or off, if they’re off then the dwarf won’t do them. That’s the default way to do it. The Dwarf Therapist utility is included within the Lazy Newb Pack, and as I understand it messing around with the dwarves and their assignments is what it’s made for. I never used it though, so I can’t tell you how to do it that way.
What’s to explain? This is one of those games designed for a special niche player, i.e. one who likes astounding complexity, isn’t concerned about graphic quality, and honestly believes that having everything collapse into complete, unavoidable catastrophic calamity undoing months, if not years of effort is just awesome.
No, this is not a mainstream POV. No, no video game company with an ounce of sense would try to release such a game commercially. That’s beside the point. Some players…not a lot, but they most definitely exist…want a struggle, and Dwarf Fortress delivers it in spades.
Personally, I think a really would idea would be some kind of online scoreboard with all kinds of benchmarks. Y’know, so players could compete for longest-lasting fortress, richest fortress, most kills, highest population, what have you, add an element of competition. But then, I’m the kind of player who finds Tekken’s learning curve a crime against humanity, so take it for what it’s worth.
There’s a game being produced called Clockwork Empires, which hopefully will scratch the same Dwarf Fortress itch, but with more intuitive graphics, etc. I can only hope that it keeps the same capacity to construct the sort of mad monstrosities you can in Dwarf Fortress.
There are enough players to get one game greenlit on Steam and there’s this similar game in Steam early access as well.
Thanks, I’ll try that.
I really want to love this game but it seems like every time I start on a new fortress it’s only half an hour in that some dwarf desperately wants something that I have no hope of providing that early in the game and things start declining from there. Maybe I just suck at it. And I know that part of the fun is seeing things fall apart like that, but I’d rather get just a bit further before things turn to shit.
Used to be that you could just lock them in a workshop. No idea if that works anymore.
It’s been a long time since I played. I quit before the introduction of the Z axis. Still, seems like the difficulty is being overstated in this thread. I thought that the motto of the game is “Losing is fun” just because there is no win condition. I didn’t find it hard to set up a basic fort that would last as long as you’d care to watch just by setting up agriculture, brewing, a ton of traps, and a kill room for immigrants.
I really like that Bronzemurder image.
I played it for awhile. It’s a maddening, glorious, infuriating, hilarious game. There’s nothing like it.
I don’t play it anymore, but just knowing it exists, is still being developed, and people are still playing it fills me with delight.
Please forgive what I’m sure is a stupid question but it’s one that’s fairly impervious to Google. How do you place a bin where you want it to be?
I finally got the magic magnetite embark spot, dolomite rock (flux stone) for the first 3 levels and what seams like an ocean of magnetite starting on level two. No coal so far but lots of lumber for charcoal. Needless to say I started my steel industry very early.
From experience with my masons shop I carved out my entire metal working area with space reserved to build a mirror image duplication of the entire operation. That time has come and I now have two smelters across a hall from each other and I’d like to drop a bin in front of each, one for flux stone, the other for ore. I’m just trying to save my dwarfs a few steps.
What I’ve done so far is use the [p] command, selected [s]tone, set “reserved bins” to 1 (single space zone) and then adjusted the settings to exclude the stones I don’t want in there. And yes, I have four bins sitting in a furniture storage zone on the same level. I have plenty of idle dwarfs chugging beer in the meeting hall but none of them are moving my bins.
Help!
From the Dwarf Fortress Wiki:
So I don’t think you can use a bin with a stone/ore stockpile. You just need to make the stockpiles big enough to supply the materials for your smelters, and your furnace workers will use the material from the stockpiles and then the other worker dwarves will keep the stockpiles stocked.
In general, I think the only way that you can place a bin where you want it is to designate a stockpile in that location, and if a bin is available and the stockpile can use bins then a dwarf can grab a bin for that stockpile.
(I’ve never actually used the “Reserved Bins” setting so I’m not sure how that works.)
I’ve read that if you dig deeply enough, you will release a horde of demons from hell. I guess it is possible to defeat them in battle, which some consider a de-facto kind of victory condition. But the game apparently doesn’t stop to congratulate you, no, your dwarves are all still doomed.
I’d like to get around to this one if I can find the time.
Couple of Boatmurdered questions, genuine curiosity. I read the whole account, and I have no idea what exactly happened that caused everything to go completely to hell. All I could deduce was that the IIRC second-to-last player was a complete egomaniac and squandered a great deal of metal building a big statue of himself (which was never completed 
), and then a whole bunch of dwarves got sick and things went downhill and 20 nobles dropped by and things went into a death spiral…somehow. The sad epilogue seemed to indicate that “adamantine” was to blame, “we naught but uncovered the vein” and it led to disaster, but I couldn’t find any distinct trigger. Is there some evil curse surrounding that particular metal that causes everything to utterly implode or what? I heard it several times, if you want the fortress to survive, kill anyone who wants adamantine!
Also, what’s the consequence of defying the elves? By far the most bizarre thing about the whole sordid story was how not one person dared stand up to the forest folk; everyone gave in to their demands. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. Including the real butt-kickers who you think would be glad to hold firm. Just try something, you scrawny little ponces! But no, time after time, it’s:
“Hmm. Well, I don’t really think they’ll be able to back up their threat, but juuust in case, I’ll go along with what they want. I mean, how much are a bunch of tree huggers going to demand, anyway?”
“Ooh, they’re really starting to get on my nerves now. I’ll give them what they want this time, but if they ever throw their attitude in my face again, look out!”
“Lousy mead-guzzling bunny-kissing snots! Who do they think they are? I could kick their little butts across the mountainside all by myself! Okay, fine, I’m going to let them have exactly what they want, but I’m certainly not going to enjoy it!”
“WHY, THOSE LITTLE…I OUGHTA CHOP THEIR HEADS OFF, POUR MIASMA DOWN THEIR NECKS, SLICE OPEN THEIR GUTS AND TEAR OUT THEIR SLIMY ENTRAILS, HACK THEIR LIMBS TO PIECES, THEN TAPE THEIR SLIMY ENTRAILS IN AND TEAR THEM OUT AGAIN! YEAHHHH!!! IT’S TIME TO…capitulate and surrender and grovel and beg for mercy.”
There’s gotta be more to this. Anyone who actually had the guts to tell the elves to take a long walk off a short tree branch and remembers what that led to?
The problem with adamantine veins is that if you dig through them, you tend to release the chaotic demons from Hell who live below them.
I have vague memories of elven archer ambushes when you piss them off enough. Basically going outside to collect wood became a death trap.
It’s a Lord of the Rings reference.
I have DF downloaded on my laptop, but I hadn’t played in a while, until this thread spurred me to pick it up again and have some more FUN!
I’m having more success with my current fortress than I even have before. I’ve got 117 dwarves, plenty of food and drink, thriving industry, even a well armored and trained military. Which of course means that disaster must be only moments away
My favorite moment with this fortress was the arrival of the most recent Elven caravan…followed about 10 seconds later by a massive goblin siege. My archers were able to fight off the invaders with little difficulty, but not before they massacred every single elf, leaving their entire stock of goods for me to take for free. 
As far as the adamantine goes, Boatmurdered was played in a much older version of the game, before it was 3D. Back then, there was just one level, and you dug into a mountainside, uncovering, in order, an underground river, a chasm, a magma river, and, finally, adamantine. In that version, every month, your fortresss had a X% chance of being destroyed by a demon, where X is the number of pieces of adamantine mined. You couldn’t fight it, there was just a message that your fortress was no more. So, mining even a single piece would, eventually, kill your fortress.
These days, adamantine comes in spires that protrude up from below the magma sea. The spires are hollow up to a random point, and opening that hollow releases a seemingly* infinite flood of demons. However, with some skill and luck, you can safely mine parts of that spire, and get some adamantine for your own use, so it’s not necessarily a death sentence anymore. Probably, but not necessarily.
*Note: The demons are, in fact, merely numerous instead of infinite. With lots of skill and luck, you can defeat the wave and colonize hell. This is probably as close as DF will ever come to a win condition.
I think this might qualify as a victory condition (from the wiki):
I finally got back into the game and had the longest-running fort thus far. I had several thriving industries and nearly all my dwarves were happy. Then… tragedy…
As detailed here. Nowhere near as glorious as Bronzemurder, but still, it was my first real fortress.