The Complete and Utter Newby Tutorial for Dwarf Fortress – Part 1: “WTF?”
February 9, 2009 at 6:54 am | In Fantasy, Tutorial | 141 CommentsTags: Dwarf Fortress
Dwarf Fortress is an extremely interesting and complex game, but one which people find exceptionally difficult to get into. Although it isn’t hard to find tutorials, many assume some basic knowledge of the interface and what the player is looking at. They also don’t take into account different tilesets and versions and the difficulty new users have in finding a good site for that first fortress.
But all that is in the past as AfterActionReporter.com is pleased to present The Complete and Utter Newby Tutorial for Dwarf Fortress! It comes with a pre-made world and save and full game download for you to play along with. And a ton of screenshots. Yes, many, many screenshots.
So grab a drink, get your thinking cap on and be prepared for some dwarfy fun! And carp. Never forget the carp…
Set Up
First things first. You need to grab a copy of the client. Lucky for you we’ve made that easy and the copy you’ll need for this tutorial is available from Sling File (temp not working) or mirrored at FileDropper and Mediafire. Even if you’ve already got DF installed you should grab this version as it has the world and save file we’ll be working from for this tutorial. In case you’re wondering, this version includes a copy of MayDay’s Green tileset and it’s worth grabbing new versions of the tileset as the game is updated. I use that tileset as it’s a little easier to view than the pure ASCII of the original game.
Next you need to unzip the folder on to your had drive. Then create a shortcut on your desktop (if you wish) leading to dwarfort.exe. While you’re at it, go into the DwarfManager folder and create a shortcut to DwarfManager.exe, we’ll need that later.
Run the Game
Now we’re ready to get going! Run the dwarfort.exe shortcut and you should get the screen below. Bear in mind, this game version is optimised to run in 1280 x 800 resolution, if your game doesn’t look like the screenshot, you might have to fiddle with the .ini file found in \data\init\init.txt. You can read the DFWiki entry on grid size for a bit of help.
So, you’ve got the game running and enjoyed the exciting ASCII intro movie. Well done! I can tell you’ll go far! Next step is to hit “enter” on “Continue Playing”, which should be highlighted. You’ll then be presented with this screen.
This is the save game list, which gets cluttered very quickly as seasonal saves build up. But for now all you have to do is use the down-arrow key (not the number pad arrow key) to select the region1-spr-201 save. Hit enter and the game will load.
First Look
Once the game loads you will be presented with this screen. Although it’s confusing on first glance, don’t panic! It will all be made clear shortly. First thing though, hit “space” to pause the game. Space pauses DF and also backs out of any menu you’re currently in.
Lets talk about what you can see. First up, the screen is divided into three sections: The left shows the local view. The center shows the action menu, the right shows the area map. To make things a lot neater hit “tab”. “Tab” cycles through various menu arrangements. Stop when your view matches the one below.
Now we’re really cooking with gas! Soon you’ll be melting foes with magma-falls, and drowning goblins in artfully engineered traps! But before then, lets look around. Use the arrow keys to navigate around the local area. You’ll notice the we’ve got a decent amount of space to work with.
While you examine your surroundings you should be able to spot trees and the grassy areas easy enough, same with ponds and rivers and bushes. Other tiles won’t make much sense, these tend to be the slightly-arcane zones like open air spaces (pale blue tiles, or tiles with dots) and the earth (brown tiles) and slope tiles (up and down triangles). The screenshot below should help point those features out.
Key to understanding DF’s local view is getting your head around the fact that DF is a 3D game displayed on a 2D map. To display a variety of heights the world is sliced into dozens of Z-levels. Each Z-level is numbered.
If you look on the bottom right of the window you’ll see we’re currently at level 144. To move between levels you need to hit “Shift+<” to go up, and “Shift+>” to go down. If you go up a level the map will look like image below. Try it yourself now. If you can’t get this to work, scroll down and read the comments. There’s a helpful poster there who has some tips for odd keyboard layouts.
You’ll see that what was black dirt is now grass and trees. It’s like we’ve gone up a floor in a lift and we’re no longer looking at a slope, now we’re looking across a grassy plain. Below us is open space and tree tops. Make sense? Now, try going back down to 144 and then down to 143, a level below “ground” level.
Your view should look something like this. We’re basically underground now with mostly dirt around and earth between the river and the rest of the ground. With luck you’ll note a fish and who knows what else swimming around down there. You may have noticed the river doesn’t appear to have changed much, but don’t be confused. The difference is that on this lower level we’re on the same level as the body of the river itself, at the level above, we’re actually above the river a little looking at the top of it.
Continue having a look around. If you follow the river to the west you’ll note it drops down a few levels into a chasm before flowing off the map, what a pretty waterfall! See if you can find it yourself. When you’re done looking around, return to Z-level 144 and find the dwarf caravan with our fresh immigrants. The helpful graphic below explains what you’re looking at.
Lets get digging!
So now what do we do? In Dwarf Fortress we’re usually trying to get a bustling community of dozens of dwarfs up and running, while fending off goblins, the whims of nobles and assorted other evils. To do this we need to build ourselves a mighty fortress! Preferably underground. So lets find a cliff face to dig into and get this show on the road!
If you go down and a little across from where our dwarfs are (using the arrow keys) you’ll see a nice cliff face. Lets dig an entrance into this spot and plan to eventually dig down way underground where it’s safe and cosy. First up, get the map centered around about where we want to dig (shown on the screenshot below). Once you’re ready:
- Hit the “d” key. You’ll see the menu on the right changes and in the local view a yellow X has appeared. The menu on the right should show the “mine” option highlighted. If it doesn’t, hit “d” “again, to select it.
- Move the cursor to the edge of the cliff, like this:
- Now hit enter and move your cursor down with the arrow keys. You’ll see that you’ve dropped a flashing “anchor”. This is going to mark out what your dwarfs will dig. Move it down 20 and across 3 and hit enter, your screen should look like this:
The browned out area shows where your miners are going to come along and dig. But they won’t act until you back out of the “designations” menu as the game is paused. Hit “space” and you should see the game unpause and the menu reset to its master list. Oh, when you have the “d” menu up you can actually click on the map with your mouse and select areas to mine. Some people prefer to select areas this way.
With the game unpaused you should notice three dwarfs race to the cliff face and start digging. With our entrance underway we should also think about laying out some rooms for our dwarfs to live in, who wants to spend time out under that hot yellow disk when lovely rock and earth beckon!
Right now we’re not worried about making our fortress perfect and creating the strongest entrance, we’re simply trying to scratch out a space to live! To that end we’ll need three or four rooms off this main entrance.
See if you can match the layout below by marking out areas to dig, as you’ve learnt. If you make a mistakeyou can hit “x” from the “designations” (“d”) menu and you’ll note that the menu on the right has “remove designation” highlighted. Now when you hit enter and select an area, any area set for digging will be cleared of that designation. Anyway, enough detail, on with the room building!
Look at my little dwarfs go! Aren’t they industrious! They’re quickly digging away and leaving a lot of dirt floor behind them. Good lads! Lets leave them to their work while we sort out some other important jobs.
Chopping trees, setting up piles
Dirt and rocks are handy, but so is wood to make nice dwarven beds, and we’re short on it right now. To get wood, we need to chop down some trees. And we do that by designating an area of trees to be chopped. Lets get cracking and clear the trees infront of the entrance.
Designating trees to chop is like designating rocks to be dug, so lets decimate the local environment!
- Move the map around so you’re looking out front of your fortress.
- Hit “d”. Hopefully this time you’ll notice the game has automatically got “Chop down trees” selected, if it doesn’t, hit “t” and it will be highlighted.
- Move the cursor to the upper left, hit enter, and move the cursor to the bottom right, hit enter again. Any trees in that area will now be set to be cut, as indicated by them all being marked brown.
Your view now should look something like this, note all the trees highlighted in brown:
Although you’ve done well neither man nor dwarf can live on wood and dirt alone! Luckily for us there are plenty of bushes out there loaded with ripe berries. Lets set some of them to be picked:
- Hit “d” again and then “p”. One the right “Gather plants” is now selected.
- Designate about the same area as we did with the wood cutting.
- All the bushes will be highlighted now, and when you unpause you should see a plant harvesting dwarf join the woodcutter.
Now lets sit back and watch the dwarfs work for a minute! It won’t take long before our miners have cleared out our temporary living quarters and our woodcuter and plant gatherer have begun their work. Once the interior space is clear we have lots of work to do, so lets break it down into useful chunks.
Our First Farm
Farming is how you will make most of your food in Dwarf Fortress, and it’s important to get farming quite quickly. If food runs out your dwarfs will starve and your game will end prematurely, and we don’t want that, right? Dwarfs usually farm underground and handily, we have a space all prepared. So follow along, and lets get some tasty mushrooms growing for our stumpys to chow down on!
- Find the bottom right room.
- Hit “b” for the build menu and then “p” for farm plot.
- Move the cursor to your farm area.
- The screen instructions tell you how you can increase the size, we need a good 6 by 6 plot, so hit “u” and “k” a few times until you’ve got a big green grid, like the one below.
- Move the grid around with the arrow keys until it’s in about the same position as the one in the screenshot. If you get the size wrong, “h” and “m” will reduce the plot.
- Hit “enter” and the green area marker will change to a flashing brown field marker. When stuff flashes it indicates that dwarfs are on their way to come build the construction, in this case, a field. And lookee-here! A farmer has come to build our field for us!
He will take a short while to build your field. When you see the dwarf run off, you know he’s done. Now it’s time to set the field to grow delicious plump helms all year round.
- Hit the “q” key. This is the key for “Set building tasks and preferences”. Again you’ll notice a cursor on the local screen and if it’s anywhere near the field, the field will be flashing. You can move that cursor around with your arrow keys, this is useful later on when you need to select different workshops and buildings.
- You’ll note that on the right the menu now shows you specific task details associated with that field, like so:
- What we want to do is set “plump helmets” as the food to be planted every season. You can see on the top right of the menu we have the various plants we could try and grow and in the middle area we have the different seasons. Right now “Dimple cups” are selected (but not highlighted, note) and the season is set on “Spring”, as it’s Spring currently. We need to change these settings.
- Now comes an important skill! Menu scrolling! Using “alt+arrow down”, scroll down through the list to “Plump helmets” and hit enter. You should now see “Plump helmets” highlighted. By the way, if you don’t like this key configuration, hit escape when we’re done and re-bind the keys to your liking.
- Good work! But right now we’ve only set the spring planting. It’s time to set the planting for Summer, Winter and Autumn too. To do this, with the field task menu up, hit “b” for Summer and then scroll to “Plump helmets” and hit enter again. Hit “c” for Autumn, set “Plump helmets” and then “d” for Winter, repeating your selection. You may have noticed that what you can plant changes with the seasons, but don’t worry about that for now.
- Hit “space” to back out of the menu and resume the game. Your two farmer dwarfs will quickly begin planting in your new field, well done!
Now we’ve got a field down hopefully none of your dwarfs will starve, go crazy and resort to eating rats, or each other. Pretty soon you’ll have a few seeds in the ground and your farm will begin to look a bit like this:
Oh, by now you may have noticed the game pausing itself now and then. This is generally because the game wants to let you know that something important has happened. You can hit space to let the game resume, or hit “a” to see the alert and find out what caused the game to pause (if you miss the alert at the bottom of the screen). Hitting “space” will take you back out of the alerts menu and resume the game.
Stockpiles
While you can just leave all of your dwarfs’ stuff strewn around the countryside, it’s much more efficient to have it all inside near where it’s needed. You may have noticed your farmer dwarfs running in and out of the fortress to grab the seeds that they need (when they flash between their icon and a little red dot (the seed icon) you know they are carrying seeds).
This is where stockpiles come in. They make everything more organised. A stockpile for all our food and seeds right next door to the farm would probably be pretty handy, right? We don’t want the dwarfs running across the map to get a bite to eat or a seed to plant, so lets make a food stockpile inside!
- Find the room opposite the farm.
- Hit the “p” key (for “piles” of course), a cursor will appear.
- Hit “f” to select “food”, we want to make a food stockpile, after all.
- Move the cursor to the bottom left of the room, hit enter, move it to the top right and hit enter again. You have now set that entire space as a food stockpile, well done!
- After a few seconds your spare dwarfs will start moving food inside, you’ll see barrels and bags being hauled and pretty soon the stockpile will look something like this:
You don’t have much room inside the fortress yet, so no more piles for now. In time you’re going to want to put stockpiles everywhere to help manage your production and resource gathering. For now, well done, you’ve got food production up and running, you’ve set up a stockpile, you’ve set wood to be chopped and plants to be gathered and you know how to do some basic digging! You’ve come far!
Before reading the next installment, how about setting some more pants to be gathered and more wood to be chopped. Then, head on to Part 2 and we’ll learn all about workshops, bedrooms, dinning rooms and stairs! It will be ever so exciting, I promise!
The Complete and Utter Newby Tutorial for Dwarf Fortress – Part 2: “No, srsly, WTF?!”
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Excellent thus far! Thanks!
Comment by Dave — February 9, 2009 #
Sweet as bro!!
Comment by Doin — February 10, 2009 #
I’m a moderator in a strategic spanish web. I would like to translate this tutorial to help my spanish mates to get into Dwaf Fortress, linking the translation to your web. You deserve all the merit for this great work and we don’t want to steal the effort. A lot of people is learning to play DF reading your tutorials, so thank you ver much.
Comment by Haplo_Patryn — March 3, 2009 #
No problem. Let me know the final link and as long as you link back I am happy
Comment by TinyPirate — March 3, 2009 #
This guide is a blessing. I never dared to try DF before because it confused me. Right now I’m just watching with glee as my dwarves gather and stockpile food, stones and wood.
Comment by Dwarfbonez — March 4, 2009 #
I’m loving the series of tutorials certainly got me hook on the game. I was wondering if its possible to have the entire series tutorial together as a pdf for download ? Keep up the great work!
Comment by Doc — March 5, 2009 #
Once I’m done I’ll have to have a think about it! Thanks for the encouragement
Comment by TinyPirate — March 5, 2009 #
I’m gonna try to learn it for the 4th time or so xD I keep giving up after a while because it’s so extended, but then I read some funny stuff that happened to people, and I keep thinking I’m missing out.
Hope that I can get hooked this time…
Thanks for the guide anyway, first one that gives some useful info for beginners!
Comment by Pirre — March 8, 2009 #
Ahaha, I got to part 8 of the guide, then one of my engineers went berserk (he kept saying he needed rock?), because of that a few fire imps got into my fort, and things went apeshit really fast xD
I think I’ll start a fresh fort tomorrow.
Comment by Pirre — March 9, 2009 #
[...] Part 1: “WTF?” Part 2: “No, srsly, WTF?!” Part 3: “Dwarf whatnow?” Part 4: “It almost makes sense!” Part 5: “Onwards to Victory!” Part 6: “Dwarf Resource Management” Part 7: “A Mighty Fortress!” Part 8: “It’s a trap!” Part 9: “Nobles and other useless sods” Part 10: “Soldiers and your army” Part 11: “Burning hot mag-ma!” Part 12: “That’s all folks?!” [...]
Pingback by Procedural Content Generation: Dwarf Fortress — March 10, 2009 #
[...] Part 1: “WTF?” [...]
Pingback by Dwarf Fortress For Minors: Newbie Tutorials | Rock, Paper, Shotgun — March 10, 2009 #
Nice article! I think you mean ‘plants to be gathered’ there in the last para though… (unless there are underwear gnomes in DF)
Comment by bonuswavepilot — March 10, 2009 #
I’m Having Bad Technical problems with the game. When I plant something it will reset to the old settings so the dwarves won’t farm and now half the screen has been cut off so i can only see the bottem half which is a sad because this seems like a really good game
Comment by Bigfoot_King — March 10, 2009 #
wait got it working now all problems sloved
Comment by Bigfoot_King — March 10, 2009 #
Eeh, try watching these tutorials instead. They cover everything and more, but will require a few hours of spare time.
http://www.youtube.com/user/captnduck?blend=1&ob=4
Comment by Sky — March 13, 2009 #
Those are excellent tutorials, and I recommend them, but if you are absolutely new to Dwarf Fortress getting past the world setup in those tutorials can be a challenge. Thus, there’s a client download, prepared save and detailed play-along instructions ready-to-go here. The more DF the better I say!
Comment by TinyPirate — March 13, 2009 #
I can’t believe I’ve never heard of this game, but I have obediently gotten the game onto my poor excuse for a computer, changed some settings so the computer can run it at above 3FPS and then realised it moves too slowly with both Firefox and the game open. hmmm
Comment by alexgw — March 13, 2009 #
[...] a little… steep. But never fear! Those of you who read Penny Arcade probably already know about this awesome tutorial, complete with spiffed-up graphics and a world ready to walkthrough. Soon you’ll be burrowing, [...]
Pingback by Dwarf Fortress anybody? - Multiplay UK Forums — March 13, 2009 #
Please please please for the love of god stop using these graphic packs in tutorials. It’s just so utterly ugly, oversized and blurry that it’s a complete eyesore to look at. How hard is to understand that a blue double “~” is a tile of water and a red one is magma. Or that a bright yellow dwarf is a carpenter and a white one is a mason or stoneworker.
You don’t need a giant 16×16 sprite absolutely cluttered with blurry dots to know that it’s the floor.. a green ,. or ‘ is grass, brown is mud and grey is stone.
I find it just completely distracts and takes away the imagination and detail away from the game.
Comment by Andrew — March 13, 2009 #
Sounds like your .ini file is messed up if they look extra-big and blurry to you. Try setting the number of tiles per screen to a much higher number and see how it looks then. There’s plenty of advice on the Wiki. As for tilesets, folks like them, I like them, so why does it matter how we play to you?
Comment by TinyPirate — March 14, 2009 #
I actually think this fellow is just having a go at you for using graphics packs in general. But as someone who tried to play the game pre-your tutorial (and tiles), when I look at the “default” game, I simply can’t imagine playing it. I tried many times but it was neither enjoyable nor even comprehensible.
The game has an incredibly steep learning curve. I think it’s good form to use such a visually explanatory tile set in a tutorial for us utter newbies. It really helped me, & I think the game designer himself clearly intended for his game to support 3rd party art/graphics, so I have no clue why someone would get so snotty & protective of the “pure” form of the game.
Rock on Pirate–and many thanks.
Comment by Streever — March 22, 2009 #
Yes! Tilesets make the game more difficult. They make it easier for the one second you first look at the screen and are able to distinguish between a dwarf and a dog. After that, just TRY telling a carpenter apart from a miner etc. without ASCII.
Comment by Alex — July 29, 2009 #
thanks mate, been lookin for something to help my friends with the learning curve. Great job. hope you dont mind me jacking your housing layout
Comment by Brian — March 13, 2009 #
Go for it! Next time I really want to try the fractal layout I link to somewhere. it looks very efficient!
Comment by TinyPirate — March 14, 2009 #
Many thanks for this tutorial – the new graphical release combined with this guide is finally going to get me actually playing this game! DF is intimidating believe it or not.
Comment by Clumpy — March 14, 2009 #
[...] my tri-weekly visit to Penny Arcade, I found a nice link for new aspiring Dwarf Fortress players. The Complete and Utter Newby Tutorial for Dwarf Fortress is a 12-part series of walk-throughs that should be able to help any dwarf get started [...]
Pingback by cbpye.net — March 14, 2009 #
big up! i have tried to play dwarf fortress before, without success. i’d love to do it properly by following this guide step by step. however, the download from mediafire times out for me. any chance of hosting the file somewhere else?
Comment by Ralf — March 14, 2009 #
This looks intriguing but the tutorial file download from mediafire isn’t working. Anywhere else I could get it?
Comment by VRP — March 14, 2009 #
Same here….mediafire download isn’t working for me either
Comment by linger — March 14, 2009 #
the download file isnt working, and this tutorial has realy got me excited for playing this game……i love stock piling stuff
Comment by bur — March 14, 2009 #
Fifthed. The Mediafire download is broken-we need this up on a more reliable host. Thanks for all of the effort you put into writing this!
Comment by Gryndyl — March 14, 2009 #
Not sure if it’s been fixed or if it’s a matter of persistence but I’ve just managed to download the file from mediafire.
Comment by VRP — March 14, 2009 #
ill second vrp’s post, the download now works for me
thank you for this well written guide
Comment by bur — March 14, 2009 #
[...] I found a new Dwarf Fortress tutorial linked to by Penny Arcade. I checked it out and it looks pretty solid, so I’m going to link [...]
Pingback by Dwarf Fortress Tutorial Resources « NO CASH VALUE — March 14, 2009 #
Seem to have a problem with the download link also getting “page load error” whenever I try to download, this happens in multiple browser combinations. By the sounds of things it seems to go up and down so I’ll try again tomoz and hope for the best.
Comment by Pyreal — March 15, 2009 #
I have put up another link to the file, this time hosted on rapidshare, hope this helps those having trouble with mediafire. Thanks for the warning fellas!
Comment by TinyPirate — March 15, 2009 #
Your mirror linked has already expired due to over downloading, just fyi.
Comment by Theros — March 15, 2009 #
Fixed now. And apologies for the delay.
Comment by TinyPirate — March 15, 2009 #
The download link no longer functions. Lame-o.
Comment by Michael — March 15, 2009 #
We think we’ve fixed it now. Please check the links again.
Comment by TinyPirate — March 15, 2009 #
Hi, I have the Mac version of Dwarf Fortress. Is there any way to follow your tutorial with it? (i.e. is the world portable?)
Comment by John Fouhy — March 15, 2009 #
Good question. You could grab this client, unpack it, grab the save and put it in the same place in your mac version and see what happens? Let us know how you go. If that fails you might be able to ask on the Bay12Games forum?
Comment by TinyPirate — March 15, 2009 #
Just here to say that your guide is absolutely excellent, and *extremely* helpful to new players, especially to those not in the dungeon crawler scene.
Two suggestions, though. I think the save file and world should also be included as a separate download for those people who already have Dwarf Fortress so they don’t have to download 15 megs all over again.
Also, if you could convert this guide to PDF, you’d be a god worshipped by millions of dwarves.
Thanks again for the guide!
Comment by DJAdmiral — March 15, 2009 #
Hey, Thanks for the Tutorial. If not for this Tutorial, I prolly wouldn’t have gotten in as far as I did. After reading parts of the tutorial, I decided to try the game out. Little did I know that I was going to find probably the most time consuming game I can afford at the moment.
I love how you did the Tutorial, and was wondering if there might be a way to make an Off-Line version, by way of a .pdf or something. Not net capable where I live (backwater boonies, closest neighbor is the coyotes… and not the funny ones that run off of cliffs and get handed anvils mind you), and the tutorial makes sense without the pictures, but I’d rather follow along.
Anyway… all in all, I like the Tutorial, but would like to see a .pdf version, or maybe a “printer friendly” version.
Thanks again for your work.
Comment by IceDragon_XxX — March 16, 2009 #
[...] want something real challenging, try Dwarf Fortress. There’s a really good intro tutorial for it here, and trust me – you’re going to need the tutorial. __________________ WWVD? Sometimes, you just [...]
Pingback by Browser games - mcarterbrown.com — March 16, 2009 #
TinyPirate:
another mac user here. i’m not sure if the versions are exactly the same. it seems like some elements are different or the framework is different to handle the different operating system. In any case, MY attempt to play the PC save on the Mac version failed. Bay12Games forums say that this is possible from PC to PC, but there is no word on PC to Mac.
I’ll keep trying, but it doesn’t look hopeful, unfortunately.
Comment by morelaak — March 18, 2009 #
You might be stuffed unless I learn about getting the seed for this world for you and you learn how to use the seed to generate the same world and find the same spot. Eek.
Comment by TinyPirate — March 19, 2009 #
[...] Cue the timely rant reference to the game by Tycho of Penny Arcade. His intervention led me to a detailed tutorial that allowed me to finally come to grips with the game mechanics and implement all the stuff [...]
Pingback by I Bring Nothing to the Table » Blog Archive » Recession Gaming: Dwarf Fortress [Game Overview] — March 20, 2009 #
Just wanted to say this looks like a really useful tutorial if you’re new to the game! Good job explaining how to get a fort started. Taking the time to explain how to cut down trees and not simply say “go cut some trees down”.
Comment by Snelg — March 21, 2009 #
Very nice tutorial. I updated the graphics pack and came upon the problem that there are no carpenters in the group. By the way, I am using the save file included in the beginning of this tutorial, so i’m unsure of what to do…
Comment by draconuszero — March 23, 2009 #
Woops, it took a while before a dwarf actually decided to go and build it, so problem solved.
Comment by draconuszero — March 23, 2009 #
This is a great tutorial for a game I have never played until now. I am loving DF so so much! Top of my list of cool stuff is the open-ended nature of water and lava – I keep coming up with ideas of how to harness it or dump it on my enemies!
Thanks so so much for taking the time to introduce me to DF.
Comment by Tom Leys — March 23, 2009 #
[...] [...]
Pingback by Dwarf Fortress - anyone? - Page 7 - Fires of Heaven Guild Message Board — March 23, 2009 #
A huge thank you for writing this tutorial. I’ve always wanted to play but felt lost in figuring it out. I like the way you wrote this in a very easy to understand manner. I blogged about it today. Well done sir.
Comment by ladympire — March 24, 2009 #
Simply put, I could not have done this withouth your help. I’m already into part two. Thank you so much
Comment by animalcrushing — March 25, 2009 #
Dude, this is beyond amazing… funny, indepth, and missing nothing. I’ve long since had the basics down, but I’m going through your guide and making sure I haven’t forgotten anything, and I’ve realised I’ve forgotten allot. My dwarfs owe you their poor short lives
That said, where did you get this version of Maygreen’s
dwarf fortress? It has the music, but May’s is the vanilla dwarf fortress, so it doesn’t, at least not the one on his site.
Comment by Sexynips — March 29, 2009 #
He does ship with the music, but by default his ini file has it set to off. I just set it back because I thought folks might like to listen to it, at least for a while! Toady made it all!
Comment by TinyPirate — March 29, 2009 #
I am having a problem with the top line or two being cut off. It didn’t do this when i first time I ran the Game but every time after that it has. I have tried changing the settings in the int. file but it still doesn’t show the top two lines.
Comment by Onyx_xex — March 31, 2009 #
Yeah, I have that problem now and then as well and I don’t know how to fix it sorry
… fullscreen mode might help.
Comment by TinyPirate — April 1, 2009 #
Just posting to thank you for your wonderful work, and hoping for a future printer friendly version: I´d love to have this on paper just laying around
Comment by Joe Doe — April 1, 2009 #
[...] is a wealth of information about Dwarf Fortress available on the web. After Action Reporter’s Complete Newbie Tutorial is an invaluable resource for new players, explaining in detail many of the common commands and [...]
Pingback by Review - Dwarf Fortress | videolamer.com — April 9, 2009 #
I’m running the tutorial on a Mac right now — just copy everything from the tutorial directory (except dwarfort.exe) into the Mac DF folder, replacing similarly-named files. Works a treat.
Comment by Riff — April 14, 2009 #
[...] Dwarf Fortress is probably the most addicting game I have ever played. The extent at which this game was thought out simply astonishes me every time I play. Example: two of my dwarfs were wrestling to build up their strength on top of a bed where a third dwarf was sleeping peacefully, and one incurred a spinal injury. Now he cannot westle anymore! Who thought of this game?! It is insane! [...]
Pingback by Interesting Stuff | Caution Awesome — April 18, 2009 #
[...] fixing it, go ahead and give Dwarf Fortress a try. Be prepared for a steep learning curve (some starter guides can help a lot), and you might want to grab a tileset to make the graphics a little easier to [...]
Pingback by Working in a Dwarf Mine, Going Down, Down, Down… | Spectacle Rock — April 23, 2009 #
[...] your military, economy, and management skills alone will your stout dwarfs survive. The DF wiki , Tutorial link I highly encourage you all to try it, it is of course free. Get the download from the first page [...]
Pingback by Dwarf Fortress. - Mortal Online Forums — May 2, 2009 #
Thank you for this excellent tutorial. I downloaded the tutorial world & have been following it but I am at the magma part & unfortunately my map does not have the lava pool. Any suggestions?
Comment by Morague — May 10, 2009 #
Have you tried going down a level or two? There are a few levels between the entrance hall area and the workshop area.
Comment by TinyPirate — May 11, 2009 #
Am I the only who noticed this spells CUNT? <_< But seriously, awesome tut.
Comment by PSO — May 22, 2009 #
Wow, it all makes sense now. I didn’t get it at all the first time I played, but with the help of this awesome tutorial I am enlightened.
Comment by fipi — May 30, 2009 #
Wow, I have learnt so much and not even finished the second part of the tutorial. DF has gone from inaccessible to a gem of a game.
Thank you so much!
Comment by torchedEARTH — June 18, 2009 #
[...] this long for me to get stuck into the game. Yes, armed with nothing but a free afternoon and a helpful guide I’m attempting to breach Dwarf [...]
Pingback by Don’t anyone try and stop me! « Shotgun Panda — June 20, 2009 #
Just finished page one!
Very, very helpful guide, I finally feel like I understand WTF is going on in this game. Thanks a lot!.
Comment by Zeb The Marmot — June 28, 2009 #
I don’t suppose you could make the save file…separate? I have a 5gb/monthly bandwidth, and I’m sure other people do too, and then some still have dial-up, and some can’t just be re-dling the whole client just for the save game – and i already have that tileset =/.
Comment by Cody — July 3, 2009 #
Alt + Arrow down does absolutely nothing for me, any ideas about what to do?
Comment by Holyaxe — July 4, 2009 #
+ and – keys. on the numpad
Comment by Cody — July 4, 2009 #
You might want to customize the keys. Look for the same keys I listed in my instructions and set them to what you want from the menu.
Comment by TinyPirate — July 6, 2009 #
Hey thanks a LOT, this is by far the best DF tutorial I could find and it helped me to understand how great this game is. If this tutorial was the first link on the DF home page I bet the game would be 10x as popular!
Comment by Grimsford — July 16, 2009 #
Is there a way to lower the resolution without botching anything up? im currently at 1024×768 resolution but would like the game to be in 800×600. thanks in advanced
Comment by Dizzerp — September 1, 2009 #
You’ll have to look around on the DF Wiki, it’s fairly complex to explain. In summary, you need to edit the ini file again!
Comment by TinyPirate — September 2, 2009 #
unfortunately i did try lowering the resolution, but the game still seems to be following the resolution it had in the download [I.E. the text remained the same size and trailed off the edge, now being hidden] apparently im doing something wrong here
il check the wiki at a more appropriate time.
and thanks again for replying. i appreciate it
Comment by Dizzerp — September 2, 2009 #
hahahahahahahahahahahaha you shpuld get a life noob!!!!! hahaha
Comment by meowla123 — September 5, 2009 #
should*
Comment by meowla123 — September 5, 2009 #
hey thanks for the tutorial it really helped!
Comment by hay1243 — September 5, 2009 #
I’m using the Linux version of Dwarf Fortress. As far as I can tell, it is impossible to use graphical tilesets with the Linux version, so I cannot use the save files you provided (trying to start your saves results in error messages, one of which is insolvable without installing the original graphical tileset). Would it be possible to provide the seedfile for the world and the location of your starting place so I can follow allong directly with your tutorial?
Comment by gogi-goji — September 12, 2009 #
You might want to mention that the Shift+ keys to change Z-level is in fact on the comma and period keys, because those keys have completely different markings on most European keyboard layouts. (I can imagine that people using things like AZERTY layout, eg. France, can have even bigger problems, as I think the game uses scancodes and not character values and then even the letters used to access menus are shuffled around from what’s printed on the keyboard.)
Comment by jfs — September 22, 2009 #
Should I have run out of Plump Helmet seeds? The farm isn’t even half done and the farmers cancelled the job because there were no seeds.
Comment by LesBrisant — October 10, 2009 #
[...] the best all-purpose DF tutorial around is After Action Reporter’s The Complete and Utter Newby Tutorial for Dwarf Fortress . I have witnessed firsthand many people that had previously tried (but given up on) DF finally [...]
Pingback by Tutorial Spotlight: ‘The Complete and Utter Newby Tutorial for Dwarf Fortress’ – Dwarf Fortress Fortress — October 10, 2009 #
[...] experience, having built two fortresses. Also, for anyone completely new to the game, I recommend this tutorial. Dwarf Fortress is a game that's hard to learn by doing at the start, and this one starts small and [...]
Pingback by Wiremod Dwarf Fortress Bloodline game - Wiremod.com Forums — October 11, 2009 #
The link to download does not work. Help?
Comment by wedwooster23 — October 16, 2009 #
Bugger. Have you tried downloading the “pdf” and renaming it as a .zip and unzipping it? As per my alternative instruction? If you’ve tried all methods and still can’t get it to work please let me know, perhaps it’s time I splashed out and got a rapidshare account or something.
Comment by TinyPirate — October 16, 2009 #
[...] sims, or roguelike dungeon crawlers, try Dwarf Fortress, seriously. At least check the wiki, or the newbie tutorial, which has a link to a ’starter pack’ which includes a save file and pre-installed [...]
Pingback by Village Folk: Simulating Intelligence « Da Finchy: A Blog — October 23, 2009 #
Found this by chance today and it’s been a lifesaver in getting immersed in this game.
One question. I downloaded the pack but didn’t see the saves in there so I’m playing my own world and just following along. You mention the Dwarf Manager…I do not see that. Where can I get this at outside the DF download?
Comment by John — October 27, 2009 #
@TinyPirate: don’t use the FileDropper link, it appears to be an entirely different version of DF. I ended up downloading from the MediaFire link (all the others didn’t work for various reasons) and that has all the files and saves mentioned — although when I loaded the save it looked nothing like the screenshots.
Comment by Miral — November 15, 2009 #
Err, crap, that was a reply to John of course. Brief eye-tracking screwup.
Comment by Miral — November 15, 2009 #
And more of “my bad”: the map is the same as in the tutorial, I was just looking in the wrong place.
Comment by Miral — November 15, 2009 #
[...] I’d give it about 9/10. You can get a download WITH a tileset, along with a tutorial of it here, and the Wiki for the game is here. Below, there’s a screenshot of the game with the [...]
Pingback by Peculiar Opinions » Blog Archive » Freebies: Dwarf Fortress — October 28, 2009 #
Where can I Down Load with the tileset? Link me Please.
Or you could just shoot me an e-mail, it would be greatly appreciated I’v been messing with trying to get the tileset to work with his map for hours now.
Comment by Weft — November 25, 2009 #
[...] Play This Thing! ] [ Dwarf Fortress behöver sin egen Wiki ] [ GamaSutras post-mortem för DF ] [ Genomgående nybörjarguide för DF ] AKPC_IDS += "194,"; RSS-prenumerera på kommentarerna!Informera kompisarna på [...]
Pingback by Äntligen! Stonesense & roguelikes. | Ludus Obscura — November 3, 2009 #
The ALT+DOWN ARROW doesn’t work for me.
Why not?!
I really wish it worked
Comment by Tyler — November 25, 2009 #
You can edit the keys via the menu. You need to look for the ALT*ARROW type entries and change them.
Comment by TinyPirate — November 25, 2009 #
Can someone Please help me. I have been trying to get the whole “MayDay” tileset to work, I’v been trying to deal with ti for about a hour now with no luck. I can get the crappy (all ASCII) version to run with the whole “Continue” fortress. But when I cant seem to add on the MayDay pack with out getting the “Continue” option.Also when I play there is only one miner when I start my tunnels, and when I try to plant my farm no one goes and plants it. So is there any links I can Download the MayDay Pack and the right dwarf fortress. Thanks a ton.
Comment by Weft — November 25, 2009 #
@Tyler/Weft:
I don’t think I updated the tileset in the end; when I tried running the latest Mayday pack nothing appeared (apparently it didn’t like the .png tileset files). So the easiest thing to do is to just grab Dwarf_Fortress.rar from the Mediafire link and use it directly. (The FileDropper link gives you completely the wrong file and when I tried all the others were in various states of brokenness and wouldn’t even download, but YMMV.)
Although when you get to the bit talking about Dwarf Manager — grab Dwarf Therapist instead. It’s better.
Comment by Miral — November 25, 2009 #
Hmmm, download seems to be different from one in tutorial. There is only one save and it looks like it has already been played alot.lots of tunnels and busy dwarves.
Comment by Mr.K — December 2, 2009 #
Bloody hell, I must have messed something up. I’ll see what I can do.
Comment by TinyPirate — December 2, 2009 #
well that was a pain in the butt. I had to mix&match various files from all the links b4 I got a combination that matched the tutorial. Teh fuck
Comment by Mr.K — December 2, 2009 #
Fixed!
Comment by TinyPirate — December 2, 2009 #
The link to the second page of this guide is missing, any fix to this or possible mirrors?
Comment by Trig — December 2, 2009 #
Great now the game refuses to let me alt+down or up or alt anything. Wat do
Comment by Mr.K — December 2, 2009 #
I FIXED IT. Gained +5 proficiency in “do it yourself”
Comment by Mr.K — December 3, 2009 #
[...] through this excellent tutorial by 9th Court High Wizzard TinyPirate from After Action Reporter: The Complete and Utter Newby Tutorial for Dwarf Fortress. It would probably be more fun to toss him in and watch him squirm, but there are some things you [...]
Pingback by About Dwarf Fortress « Wizzards Wizzardry — December 10, 2009 #
When I open the game I don’t get ‘continue playing’ I get ’start playing’ any help is appreciated.
Comment by DF Gamer — December 11, 2009 #
Did re-downloading fix it?
Comment by TinyPirate — December 12, 2009 #
anyone??
Comment by DF Gamer — December 11, 2009 #
actually, nvm m just going to download it again……….
Comment by DF Gamer — December 11, 2009 #
So, like multiple people here, could we possibly get an un-graphics’d version of the save? I tried a bunch, but it kept telling me I was missing a [CAT_SOMETHING] every time.
I wanna learn, but the graphics pack eats all my memory, to the point that I can’t have either Firefox or the pdf version of the tutorial open at the same time as DF. Super sadness.
Thanks either way!
Noah
Comment by Noah — December 18, 2009 #
Thanks for the help, guys!
Comment by Noah — December 18, 2009 #
Thank you, Miral. That tip worked wonderfully.
Comment by gogi-goji — December 24, 2009 #
Hey, great tutorial. Comes with subtle sense of humor included. I am running the game on Windows 7 and everything was going great until I started to mess around with the Save files — renaming, trying to reorder them, etc — and caused myself a fatal dose of “Nemesis Unit Failed Reload” … that dread plague is a Save file corruption. This time through, I’m going to behave myself.
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Comment by illisaWow — January 22, 2010 #
[...] – This is an excellent tutorial series, and it will help out a lot. As are the videos from Captain Duck on [...]
Pingback by Dwarf Fortress - mcarterbrown.com — January 26, 2010 #
This article was a godsend in getting into this game. One problem I ran into though was that after setting up my trading post it never got built. I eventually figured out that I needed an architech but you don’t talk about managing your dwarves labor until later. Because of this my time was much more progressed (I missed the first traders) than yours and I ended up getting attacked by a band of goblins before I got to the section where you start talking about traps and defenses. Everything went downhill fast even though I eventually figured out how to kill them. Just might want to mention somewhere when setting up the trading post how to handle this situation.
Comment by Blackblade — January 26, 2010 #
Good point! Will tweak.
Comment by TinyPirate — January 26, 2010 #
Of the several tutorials I’ve tried, this is by far the most helpful and easiest to follow. One question: any way to play in a window? When I start it up, it appears to be in a window, but takes up the entire screen, and isn’t adjustable. Not a huge deal, just kind of a pain minimizing to read, maximizing to implement over and over.
Comment by SkubaSteve — January 27, 2010 #
Not sure, sorry. Might be one for the wiki. Bet you can fiddle with the .ini file though.
Comment by TinyPirate — January 27, 2010 #
Ah well no biggie. Messing with the .ini file kinda scares me – wouldn’t know what to do in the slightest. Also wondering if mine’s running slower than normal, as the mining seems to take ages. I started de-designating spaces I won’t use right away. Of the four huge rooms, you’ve only specified using one for anything at all so far (just started page 3), so I just cancelled what was left of the others. Damn non-systematic miners.
Again, this walk-thru is amazingly helpful. Particularly in the ‘assuming we know absolutely nothing’ category: explaining exactly how to gather wood instead of just saying “go chop some trees.”
Comment by SkubaSteve — January 28, 2010 #
One more suggestion. How about an index. I’ve been wanting to come back and reference certain areas but I can’t find an easy way to get to “chapter 7″ without starting at one and advancing one at a time. It’s kind of painful.
Comment by Blackblade — February 4, 2010 #
well, i downloaded the version given for this tutorial but the key appear to be too sensitive, if i press the down key as i would in any game it scrolls three or two times…its too sensitive…
Comment by xczxc — February 4, 2010 #
No idea what’s causing that. Ask on the forum is my best advice!
Comment by TinyPirate — February 5, 2010 #
Sure you’re in the right mode? In the “normal” mode, scrolling is usually by a half-screenful for a single press. It’s not until you go into one of the commands (view, designate, construct, etc) that it switches to single-cell movement.
And incidentally, TinyPirate: your comment sort order seems broken.
Comment by Miral — February 5, 2010 #
You don’t need the tileset, you need the full client, as per tutorial 1.
Comment by TinyPirate — November 25, 2009 #
Awesome tutorial. Between that and the tileset you included, that finally allowed me to get into dwarf fortress. I had tried on my own before, but just had no clue how to get started or interpret the interface.
Comment by Corambis — December 4, 2009 #
Right, I know, but trying to play with the full client you provided doesn’t work for me; it’s too memory intensive. I’m wondering if the save could be separated from the full client for myself and the others like me. I’d love to play this game. My computer is just sad.
Noah
Comment by Noah — December 18, 2009 #
If you try to use your provided save files without that specific tileset, you get that CAT error. It would be beyond awesome if you could generate the save files again using an unaltered version of the game, with default everrything, so that us people that can’t or don’t want to use the tileset can still follow along.
Comment by gogi-goji — December 18, 2009 #
I’ll have a think about how to do that. Although, those who think the game will run faster without tiles are probably mistaken. The load in the game isn’t graphics, it’s the CPU being forced to simulate every damn detail in the world =)
Comment by TinyPirate — December 18, 2009 #
It’s easy to fix the CAT_MOUTH error, though. Just open up raw\objects\body_default.txt, scroll right to the bottom, and add the following lines:
[BODY:CAT_MOUTH][BP:CAT_MOUTH:mouth][CONTYPE:HEAD][MOUTH][SMALL][EMBEDDED][APERTURE][GRASP]
Comment by Miral — December 18, 2009 #
Thanks, fellow Kiwi, that’s an excellent tip.
Comment by TinyPirate — December 18, 2009 #
Glad you have enjoyed it! Check the DF wiki though – they have a great section on the .ini file as well as tips for speeding the game up. That being said, DF is very processor intensive so running slow is actually fairly normal!
Comment by TinyPirate — January 28, 2010 #
I scanned the wiki entry on the .ini file. I’ll give some of that a shot at some point.
Another question (and I very much doubt my last): I accidentally removed one of the up stairways on the bottom level (the one with the bedrooms and Mason’s workshop). I can’t seem to get it to accept a designation for a new up stairway. I figured maybe it just won’t let me, so I added a new stairway right next to the original, and i can’t seem to put an up stairway at the bottom of that one, either. So now I have a three-wide staircase for three z-levels with only one up-stairway at the bottom. If that makes any sense.
Comment by SkubaSteve — January 28, 2010 #
You can’t “d” designate new stairs but you can “c” construct them. Designate is for untouched dirt/rock, construct will let you make stuff in those empty carved-out spaces.
Comment by TinyPirate — January 28, 2010 #
“c” brings up the civilizations screen. “b” for build then “C” for walls/floors/stairs did the trick.
Comment by SkubaSteve — January 29, 2010 #
Oh dear! You’re right!
Comment by TinyPirate — January 29, 2010 #