The Complete and Utter Newby Tutorial for Dwarf Fortress – Part 1: “WTF?”
I’ve written a book – Getting Started with Dwarf Fortress, available at O’Reilly and Amazon! It covers the current version and takes you from knowing nothing to being a confident Dwarf Fortress player!
Note: This version is not the current build. You can still learn how to play DF with this tutorial and you will learn enough to play the new build.
If you follow a link to the DF Wiki then try and read the pages for version v0.23.130.23a (see links at the top of each wiki page). Newer versions may have significantly different information.
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 under way 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 mistake you 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 in front 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 woodcutter 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 instalment, 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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After Action Reporter 
Excellent thus far! Thanks!
Sweet as bro!!
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.
No problem. Let me know the final link and as long as you link back I am happy 🙂
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.
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!
Once I’m done I’ll have to have a think about it! Thanks for the encouragement 🙂
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!
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.
Nice article! I think you mean ‘plants to be gathered’ there in the last para though… (unless there are underwear gnomes in DF)
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
wait got it working now all problems sloved
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
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!
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
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.
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?
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.
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.
HNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGG
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 🙂
Go for it! Next time I really want to try the fractal layout I link to somewhere. it looks very efficient!
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.
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?
This looks intriguing but the tutorial file download from mediafire isn’t working. Anywhere else I could get it?
Same here….mediafire download isn’t working for me either 😦
the download file isnt working, and this tutorial has realy got me excited for playing this game……i love stock piling stuff
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!
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.
ill second vrp’s post, the download now works for me
thank you for this well written guide
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.
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!
Your mirror linked has already expired due to over downloading, just fyi.
Fixed now. And apologies for the delay.
The download link no longer functions. Lame-o.
We think we’ve fixed it now. Please check the links again.
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?)
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?
When you expand the RAR file provided here, you’ll notice it has a dwarfort.exe file. You can’t run that, as it’s for Windows. What you need is an executable file you can run on the Mac. To get one, download the official 40d version of Dwarf Fortress for Mac from the Bay 12 Games website. Expand the zip file (double-click on it). A new folder will be created. Open that and copy “Dwarf Fortress.app”. Finally, paste it alongside the dwarfort.exe file. Then, double-click the app and everything should just work.
If you’re on a laptop, you’ll likely want to switch between fullscreen and windowed mode using Cmd-F a lot, as 1280×800 is likely your highest resolution and all that screen area is not usable by a windowed application (Menu + Dock eat up some space).
I’ve run into a problem with scrolling to select crops while configuring the farm plot. Alt-UpArrow/Alt-DownArrow doesn’t work; 9 sort of goes up and 3 down, but I can only select the first and last items – I can’t work out a way to get at anything in between. Fortunately, “Plump helmets” is always the last option, so I can proceed with the tutorial.
I solved my Alt-Arrow problem. The solution is to remap the keys for “Move/Page secondary selector up/down”. I opted to use “]” as up, “[” as down, and shifted versions to page in those directions.
Step-by-step directions: Press Esc. Use arrow keys to highlight “Key Bindings”, then hit Enter. Hit “3” to go down 2 pages, then use “2” or “Down Arrow” to highlight “Move secondary selector up”. Then hit “k” followed by the button you want to use. Go though and change the other secondary selector key bindings. I hit “s” to export to txt – hopefully this overwrote the stored key bindings file – then “space” to go back to the Esc menu, then “Return to Game”, and life was good again.
The issue seems to be that the game cannot detect presses to the Alt keys. It also seems to be unaware of the Cmd and Ctrl keys. (I didn’t even bother trying Fn.) This leaves Shift as the only meta key supported by the Mac version of 40d. (I haven’t tested with DF2010 yet.)
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!
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.
😀
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.
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.
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”.
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…
Woops, it took a while before a dwarf actually decided to go and build it, so problem solved.
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.
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. 🙂
Simply put, I could not have done this withouth your help. I’m already into part two. Thank you so much
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.
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!
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.
Yeah, I have that problem now and then as well and I don’t know how to fix it sorry 😦
… fullscreen mode might help.
Ya, this is happening to me to.
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 🙂
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.
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?
Have you tried going down a level or two? There are a few levels between the entrance hall area and the workshop area.
Am I the only who noticed this spells CUNT? <_< But seriously, awesome tut.
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. 😀
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!
Just finished page one! 🙂
Very, very helpful guide, I finally feel like I understand WTF is going on in this game. Thanks a lot!.
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 =/.
Alt + Arrow down does absolutely nothing for me, any ideas about what to do?
+ and – keys. on the numpad
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.
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!
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 🙂
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!
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
hahahahahahahahahahahaha you shpuld get a life noob!!!!! hahaha
should*
hey thanks for the tutorial it really helped! 🙂
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?
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.)
I’m using a Scandinavian QWERTY keyboard and the keys are simply > for up and < for down.
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.
The link to download does not work. Help?
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.
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?
@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.
Err, crap, that was a reply to John of course. Brief eye-tracking screwup.
And more of “my bad”: the map is the same as in the tutorial, I was just looking in the wrong place.
The ALT+DOWN ARROW doesn’t work for me. 😦
Why not?!
I really wish it worked 😦
You can edit the keys via the menu. You need to look for the ALT*ARROW type entries and change them.
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.
@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.
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.
Bloody hell, I must have messed something up. I’ll see what I can do.
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
Fixed!
The link to the second page of this guide is missing, any fix to this or possible mirrors?
Great now the game refuses to let me alt+down or up or alt anything. Wat do
I FIXED IT. Gained +5 proficiency in “do it yourself”
When I open the game I don’t get ‘continue playing’ I get ‘start playing’ any help is appreciated.
Did re-downloading fix it?
anyone??
actually, nvm m just going to download it again……….
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
Thanks for the help, guys!
Thank you, Miral. That tip worked wonderfully.
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.
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.
Good point! Will tweak.
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.
Not sure, sorry. Might be one for the wiki. Bet you can fiddle with the .ini file though.
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.”
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!
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.
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.
“c” brings up the civilizations screen. “b” for build then “C” for walls/floors/stairs did the trick.
Oh dear! You’re right!
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.
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…
No idea what’s causing that. Ask on the forum is my best advice!
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.
The client i downloaded from FileDropper is a .htm file. WTF?
Use the MediaFire link instead.
That sounds wrong. Will check it when I get home tonight.
Hey- this was one of the resources I used to learn Dwarf Fortress. I’ve started a games writing blog recently, and I linked your writing on my post about DF. The stuff you have here is VERY helpful, and you might want to consider posting it in a more-easily navigable format– unless there’s a ‘table of contents’ post I’ve missed?
http://secondpersonshooter.com/2010/02/24/learning-dwarf-fortress/
Good idea – I should have thought of it earlier. I have gone and created a page – see the top of the blog – which indexes all of the tutorials.
I just started playing DF a week ago I brought it up and sat back thinking “WTF! WTF! WTF! WTF! WTF! WTF! WTF!” I had no idea what to do and the wiki was even more confusing, but the next day a friend showed me this site, and now I’m dropping magma on invaders! Thanks!
I can’t seem to get the save you included to work with the 2010 version of the game. Is there anything I need to copy over other than the save file?
It won’t work at all with the new version. If you want to work through this tutorial use the old version. It will yeah you 90% of what you will need to know for the 2010 update 🙂
I found out how to change the “level selct” buttons. in the key bindings, look for the symbols that look like stairs. change these to whatever you want and you can now skip between the diferent “levels” (up/down)
So, uh.. I just started playing Dwarf Fortress. And I’m still having problems trying to go UNDERground. I’ve tried changing the keybindings, I’ve tried doing what the tutorial did. I even tried combining the tileset with the original game file. Nothing worked.
The mention about how to change the bindings didn’t work, I found the “step” icons in the keybindings and it turned out not to be what I was looking for, instead it was the selectors.
So, I ask, for df_31_03, using the DFG30 tileset, how does one GO underground?
You’ll have to go into the keybindings options to set a useful key for going up and down a Z level. On my laptop I use alt+up and down arrows as they are handy.
i can not download the file can you post a link for the download for me please much apreciated
Try the first link again. Works for me.
For some reason i start mining 3×20 and only 1 dwarf goes?
How do i add more dwarves?
You’ll have to read on about dwarven labor (tutorial 6, I believe). To even get more dwarfs mining you’d need more pick-axes, and that’s a topic for another tutorial here somewhere 🙂
Great tutorial! I finally managed to get into DF after all! I’m still in the middle of your tutorial actually(page 7) but i’d like to know if it’s possible to copy the savefiles into the latest version of DF(or maydays DF build)?
I tried it myself a couple of times but nothing seems to work…
Or is it possble to copy the tileset into the version you are using?
You can’t copy the save over but the latest Mayday Green tileset is for the 2010 version. Google for his site 🙂
Aahh damn! But thanks anyway and great move that you still respond to questions^^
Hi, this tutorial is just great, I really couldn’t make it without this stuff 🙂 Thank you very much. But I have a big problem I hope someone could help me with.. I’ve downloaded your version of the client with new graphics, but it seems not working very well – some letters are definitely different than it should be, f.e. “O” is always displayed by other picture etc. I’ve tried everything, many different versions of the game and different graphics, but I seem to always have this problem.. Can anyone please help me?? I have read all the forum topics and tried everything, but nothing works for me 😦 I’ll just add that I am using Windows 7 x64, but dont know wheter this is the problem or not..
If the “O” in all your text looks odd I am affraid that this is normal and can’t be fixed! This might be changing with the new 2010 version which introduces some changes to how graphics are handled.
Thank you for your reply. That’s really a pitty, because I also can’t see the absolute floor number and a few other things. Suppose I¨ll just have to wait 😦 THX
Hey, you might remember me from the military post… Well, I wanted to know if you have just the blank region file – no pre-set dwarves and embark et al. I want to try this area out using a few different embark options, but I can’t seem to figure out how to start the region as a clean slate. I thought abandoning and reclaiming might work, but instead they start me off with 7 axedwarves and 7 marksdwarves – no customization allowed.
Anyways, do you happen to have the region with this area as virgin (cue “plumbing its depths” jokes) ground?
Hmm, don’t think I do, sorry!
Hey hey, I got a problem. the Shift + ^ does not move the view up one level for me, it is just a faster alternative to ^. It just moves the view around faster. Any suggestion as to how this might be solved?
Hit escape and go into the key bindings and adjust the keys for up/down level
i’ve tried multiple times, but i just cant get the save file. the media fire link just has the data folder in it, no exe nothing
and i cant seems to get the game to work when i put the data in other versions.
any help would be appreciated!
neeeeeeeeeeevermind
i only had to unzip it like
6 times before everything finally showed up
*sigh* isnt technology great sometimes? xD
This Guide is probably one of the easiest I’ve seen to follow.
P.S. I recommend it to everyone I tell about DF
It’s a really nice and nub friendly guide and I lolz at the troll -(Comment by Andrew — March 13, 2009)
Oh good! my miner went stark raving mad..
XD
Thanks! Glad you’ve enjoye it!
These tutes made me come to grips with this game, which was long overdue. After having gone through the tutes, I felt cocky and grabbed the latest DFG version. It all went well with the knowledge I gained through these tutorials, until I got to setting up the military.
/rant
Oh god. Why?! Why did they have to make it so completely unpossible to understand?! Rocket science isn’t even that complex! I mean, sure the old military system was perhaps a bit barren, but the new one is so over the top I don’t know if I’ll keep playing.
/end rant
Anyhoo… great tutes. Plz make more. 🙂
First of all, I just want to tell you how helpful this guide has been so far. I just have one question: Why is it that I’m unable to plant anything when I first construct a farm? After pressing q and selecting the farm, the side menu says that I don’t have any seeds that could be planted there. Do you know what’s wrong?
Also, another question that makes me feel especially noobish: How do you pick up things like logs from trees you’ve cut down?
Dwarfs set to carry wood will do so automatically – if there’s a wood pile to move the wood to
Are you selecting the right crop? You should be going for the mushroom spawn stuff and it is plantable most seasons. Try cycling through the seasons. Hopefully you haven’t used the kitchen to cook all the seeds!
Thanks for telling me about the wood pile thing.
Concerning the seeds, it’s not that I’ve selected the wrong seeds or season or anything like that. After pressing q and selecting my farm plot, it tells me that I have no seeds to plant whatsoever. Also, I’ve not cooked a single thing yet.
OK no idea what has gone on or where the seeds have gone, sorry!
This is what it says when the farm has been queried.
Oh, that’s alright. Thanks for trying and especially for the excellent tutorial! =D
That message usually means that you’ve built your farm above-ground. Since you always embark without any surface seeds, you can’t plant anything on above-ground farms for quite a while.
Good point. Gathering plants on the surface (and then the dwarfs eating them) could produce some seeds, but takes a while.
Nope, the farm is most definitely underground.
Sure you didn’t open up any part of the ceiling? It doesn’t take much. Check what it says in view mode.
You need muddied ground in order to plant inside, but I can’t figure out how to muddy the ground without flooding my whole fortress. I read somewhere about a “Bucket brigade” but I can’t figure out how to do that either. Also, as of this post I’ve been playing DF for about 7 days. Guide’s been freakin’ awesome. I kinda stole your housing layout :P.
If you’re playing the 2009 version (that the tutorial was made for), you don’t need muddied ground — you can plant on any soil or silt tile (as shown in the videos). These are typically only in the first few z-levels, and only in some locations.
In the 2010 version, you do have to muddy any indoor tile (not sure if this is a bug or not), but there are some decent instructions for doing so in the DF Wiki.
I made my farmer make the farm plot but he ran away… What do?
Nevermind he came back.
I’ve noticed when I started the tutorial again, I can recongixe it alot more! Great tutorial!
Oh my gawwwwd, this tutorial is so winnnn. Lucky me the DF Wiki links to it.
This tutorial is helping me discover the absolute WIN of Dwarf Fortress. Thanks~
I was following your tutorial. To navigate menus in the latest release it’s + and – vs ctrl up/down arrows
Also, no info on how to irrigate your first farm. That was a big doosie for me to figure out at first. Because you can’t play a plot without mud.
The new version has many changes – and these tutorials don’t address them. Maybe one day.
I’m following this tutorial, but without using the actual fort.
I have some questions:
What do bushes (for plant gathering) look like with standard Dwarf Fortress graphics? I’ve looked around using K, and I can’t find any bushes alongside the trees.
I made a farm, but I had to make it outdoors. It says there are no available seeds. Why is this?
Not sure what bushes look like normally. As for outdoor seeds, you will only have some once you have gathered plants from outside and your dwarfs have earn the plants, releasing the seeds to your seed stores. Strawberries are common outdoor foods along with others I forget.
Hello, I have played this game for a while and have had a lot of *fun*. I believe I will begin to have too much *fun* soon and am preparing for my adventuror. The tileset came with the download, and i need to know the translated quality characters.
I would also like to know how to start an adventure game, and if you could make a tutorial for it, that would be awsum as well.
Quick question
“Oh, when you have the “d” menu up you can actually click on the map with your mouse and select areas to mine.”
Is that because of some patch\mod in the tutorial pack or is it part of the original game?
I’ve downloaded a different pack from the DF page and that option doesn’t appear to be in it.
I’m trying to setup a build that has the game play style you have here but a different tileset.
cheers buddy
Hmmm, that feature is native to the game – it might not exist in the 2010 version? Forum people might be able to help.
Thank you so much TinyPirate! Really great stuff what you did there!
I just downloaded your client and succesfully combined it with an old mac version and it seems to work, now i just have to change the key bindings (french mac keyboard ftw!) and i should be all set.
Now let’s dig!
Alright, I got this MAJOR PROBLEM: I can’t get seeds. I get plump helmet spawns, but I can’t use them. Every time I Q the farm plots, it says I got no seeds for it. How am I supposed to get them? I can brew and all, but helmets ran out already. Help!
Ok that is odd – perhaps it isn’t the seasons for plump helmets? Tho I think all seasons are… You might have to go Gather some outside plants and create a (walled off) outside garden (out in the sun, omg!) with the seeds from the wild strawberries, etc.
Thanks alot for the guide to understanding Dwarf Fortress,
it has helped me alot and it has given me the ability to enjoy this game ALOT.
Hi there! This post couldn’t be written any better! Reading through this post reminds me of my good old room mate! He always kept talking about this. I will forward this write-up to him. Fairly certain he will have a good read. Many thanks for sharing!
this did not helpm e at all all yur keys were wrong and i couldnt find eny1 with eny usfel keypaths
Or a dictionary, it seems.
i dont mean its bad i set the keys alright now its just that everything was different lol
Strange. It might have something to do with different keyboards, laptops vs PCs or who knows what.
🙂
This tutorial sorely needs the entire series updated, the new version makes it quite ‘interesting’ or ‘fun’ to play and it took me a ton of research in the wiki to make everything function.
Please consider doing this over so we can bring more people to this wonderful game!
Thanks for the comments! I’m thinking about it – but want to see more new stuff before I start over.
Hey I downloaded your file and the whole game could not fit on my screen. Is there a way to change the resoloution.
My resoloution : 1366 x 768
You have to edit the ini file, it’s not terribly easy. I would google for the DF Wiki and then look for setup and ini file information.
I just want to add my thanks to all the other accolades. I had been pointed to DF after playing other roguelikes. The reviews I read all gushed about the complexity and depth of play, but warned of a steep learning curve. Apparently much too steep for this fat old man, as I found trying to play DF without a tutorial or guide too much of a hassle. However, I stumbled onto your guide about 3 days ago and have had an epiphany since. You have crafted a very accessible, explanatory, humorous, and encouraging tool that has transformed my experience. And your response to the posts is herculean also. Kudos and kowtows.
Aww, thanks!
You post a caveat that “If you follow a link to the DF Wiki then try and read the pages for version v0.23.130.23a (see links at the top of each wiki page).” However, the version of DF that I downloaded is v0.28.141.40d. I got it from the MediaFire link the day before yesterday. Is your caution in error?
Hmmm. Good point! I think. Still, a lot of answers are now in older version sections. If you need to consult the DF wiki you might have to do some research and experimenting.
I have read a few good stuff here. Definitely worth bookmarking for revisiting. I surprise how much effort you place to make this kind of magnificent informative site.
fuck that… play minecraft instead.
just a heads up.
though it could just be me, but, image 10 isn’t loading properly.
I can’t change level in the Z-axis… I’m on a french keyboard. Help, anyone ? =(
I can’t seem to go from a level to the other on the Z-axis (I can’t go underground), because of my french keyboard : anyone knows how to do it ? =(
You will have to do some config file editing. Try the dwarf fortress wiki for some tips or the DF forums.
on mac and can’t even get past the “down the file” am I hopeless? I saw some 2009 comments about using your tutorial with a MAC but even that made my head spin – mb something newer for MAC’s since it’s now 2011? Thanks.
For those of you who want to play this on the Mac (July 2011), you need to download the old version of DF.
1. Download the link here: http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/df_28_181_40d_m.zip
2. Download the tutorial rar
3. Copy the contents of the rar into the unzipped folder of Dwarf Fortress 0.28.181.40d, replacing the files
4. The game should start!
Thanks for that!
TinyPirate you are truly a gentleman and a scholar, i salute you in all your endeavours.
I LOVED THIS GAME BACK IN THE DAY AND HAVE BEEN TRYING TO FIGURE OUT IT’S NAME FOR LTERALLY YEARS! THNX NYT FOR RUNNING THE ARTICLE ON IT, THIS GAME RULES : )
Hey, just to notify you, the FileDropper link doesn’t work. I mean, you can download it, but you only get a 8-9 megas file, with only the Data folder, without the game. The Mediafire link works properly, though.
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thanks a lot! the best tutorial for DF 🙂
Thanks for making the excellent guide!
So I’m starting the tutorial and I get as far as hitting “d” and then moving the cursor to the edge of the cliff to dig the tunnel. Then I hit “enter” and move the cursor down 20 and across 3 – the green cursor flashed in the edge of the cliff when I do this but then when I hit enter, I don’t get a tunnel like the tutorial – the yellow cursor just stays in its new location 20 down and 3 over – no tunnel. What’s wrong?
Press ‘d’ again after the first d, then hit enter, then move, then enter again. Id you hit d while the screen is centered outside the game defaults to the “cut down trees” option not the dig tunnel option.
when i download the new build thing it just goes straight into a winrar file this may sound nooby but what can i do so i can play its also the same with the file on the website please help
You need to unzip the file using winrar 🙂
i cant download the new build link at the top or the game download on the actual website i download it but it just goes into a winrar i cant play please help
Ah, all three of you have a valid point. I’d just like to see people being more open-minded in general.
That means actually trying graphics packs for us hardcorers, and actually going through the bit of perplexion it requires to learn the ASCII set for everyone who uses them. In any case, I think both communicate well enough to be acceptable. My personal taste is the ASCII. I think it has the general advantage, being the original design, besides looking prettier (user opinion!). I’m glad I learned it in the first place. I was sore confused for two weeks or so of on-and-off playing, but after that quickly began grasping the (surprisingly rather intuitive) ASCII GUI. It also forced me to learn the K, V and U commands very rapidly, as I had to constantly use them to figure out what’s going on in the beginning, and that laid the basis for me learning the game faster.
But yeah, unlike some, I don’t resent TinyPirate for using tiles in his tutorials. Keep up the good work man. I’m always happy to see newbies being helped to get a grasp on things.
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKKKK!!
WTF is happening on the screeen ? What am i supposed to do ? Does it really do anything when i do something ? Is there any way to do anything in here or am i just supposed to watch thos little dots randomly moving on the screen ? It’s been an all hour and i still dont understand shit. Srsly, is this game an internet joke or what ? Am i being trolled ?
Dudes, this game is awful !
You can’t see the woman in the red dress?
Hey, the game wont keep any saves in my case. i save it, but when i go to play it again i have to start over
That’s very odd. Try turning of auto saves in the ini file and then when you save there will be only one. Sometimes saves don’t get listed in chronological order in the list, which is annoying.
Ive tried it both ways. Its wierd because as long as i dont quit the program the saves stay there
Check the DF folder and all the contents can be written to/are not read only? Strange bug!
What format should the file be in the c drive?
You have extracted the zip file into a folder, right? The saves are in Dwarffortress\data\saves or something like that.
i used winrar. i put the file directly into the c drive in a file folder format
So you did right click on the file and chose “extract here” and all that?
No, i just dragged and dropped the folder
its under C:\Dwarf Fortress
You need to extract all the files into a folder for the game to be able to write to a save file.
Hooray! The problem was that i didn’t extract it. Everything finally works. Thanx for the tutorials by the way, I couldn’t make head nor tail of DF before.
Hi. I deleted my later saves because I screwed up my architecture. I want to start again from scratch, but cant load the pre-generated file that you have provided. Is it available online without having to download all of DF again?
Thank you.
Um, don’t think so. It is only a 10mb or so download…
I found out how to solve the problem with the top and bottom lines on the monitor being cut off. In the INIT file you have to change [GRID:80:50] to [GRID:80:47]. You may have an extra line of black tiles, but nothing gets squished and you won’t miss seeing how many dwarfs need smacked- err, a job, and any announcements that pop up. Y=48 has the original problem. This is for a screen resolution of 1280 by 800, so your mileage may vary.
El Newby total y absoluta Tutorial para la fortaleza enana – Parte 1: “WTF?”
9 de febrero de 2009Leave un commentGo a los comentarios
** Nota: Esta versión no es la corriente de construcción 2010. Todavía se puede aprender a jugar al DF con este tutorial y aprenderás lo suficiente como para jugar a la nueva generación. Más tutoriales con la nueva versión puede venir a su debido tiempo **
Nota **: Si usted sigue un enlace a la Wiki DF continuación, tratar de leer las páginas de la versión v0.23.130.23a (ver los enlaces en la parte superior de cada página wiki). Las versiones más nuevas pueden tener información muy diferente **
Dwarf Fortress es un juego muy interesante y complejo, pero que la gente encuentra excepcionalmente difícil de conseguir. Aunque no es difícil de encontrar tutoriales, muchos asumen algunos conocimientos básicos de la interfaz y lo que el jugador está mirando. Asimismo, no toman en cuenta tilesets y versiones diferentes y los usuarios tienen dificultad en encontrar nuevos un buen sitio para que la primera fortaleza.
Pero todo lo que en el pasado como AfterActionReporter.com se complace en presentar el Tutorial Newby total y absoluta de la fortaleza enana! Viene con un mundo pre-hechos y guardar y descargar juego completo para que usted pueda tocar. Y un montón de capturas de pantalla. Sí, muchas, muchas imágenes.
Así que tomar una copa, obtener su gorra para pensar y estar preparado para algo de diversión dwarfy! Y la carpa. Nunca olvides la carpa …
Configurar
Primero lo primero. Es necesario hacerse con una copia del cliente. Por suerte para ti hemos hecho tan fácil y la copia que usted necesitará para este tutorial está disponible en archivo Sling (temperatura no funciona) o de su fiel reflejo en FileDropper y Mediafire. Incluso si ya tienes instalado DF debe tomar esta versión, ya que tiene el mundo y guardar el archivo que vamos a trabajar a partir de este tutorial. En caso de que usted se esté preguntando, esta versión incluye una copia del juego de fichas verdes de Mayday y vale la pena agarrar nuevas versiones del juego de fichas cuando el juego se actualiza. Yo uso conjunto de baldosas, ya que es un poco más fácil para ver que el ASCII puro del juego original.
Luego tenemos que descomprimir la carpeta en el disco tenía. A continuación, cree un acceso directo en el escritorio (si lo desea) que lleva a dwarfort.exe. Mientras estás en ello, vaya a la carpeta DwarfManager y crear un acceso directo a DwarfManager.exe, vamos a necesitar más adelante.
Ejecutar el juego
Ahora estamos listos para ponerse en marcha! Ejecutar el acceso directo dwarfort.exe y usted debe obtener la siguiente pantalla. Tenga en cuenta, esta versión del juego está optimizado para funcionar en resolución 1280 x 800, si el juego no se parece a la captura de pantalla, es posible que tenga que jugar con el archivo. Ini se encuentra en \ data \ init \ init.txt. Usted puede leer la entrada dfwiki el tamaño de la cuadrícula de un poco de ayuda.
Por lo tanto, tienes el juego terrestre y disfrutó de la película emocionante introducción ASCII. ¡Bien hecho! Puedo decir que llegarás lejos! El siguiente paso es hacer clic en “entrar” en “Continue Playing”, que debe ser resaltado. A continuación, se presenta con esta pantalla.
Esta es la lista de juegos de ahorro, que se llena muy rápidamente como trabajadores estacionales ahorra construir. Pero por ahora todo lo que tienes que hacer es usar la tecla de flecha hacia abajo (no el teclado numérico, pulse la flecha) para seleccionar la partida guardada región1-SPR-201. Pulse intro y el juego se cargará.
Primera vista
Una vez que las cargas del juego se le presentará con esta pantalla. Aunque es confuso a primera vista, no se asuste! Todo se aclarará en breve. Lo primero, sin embargo, golpeó el “espacio” para pausar el juego. El espacio se detiene DF y también se retira de cualquier menú que se encuentra,
Hablemos de lo que se puede ver. En primer lugar, la pantalla se divide en tres secciones: la izquierda muestra el punto de vista local. El centro muestra el menú de acciones, la derecha muestra el mapa de la zona. Para hacer las cosas mucho más ordenado un éxito “ficha”. “Tab” ciclos a través de acuerdos de menú. Pare cuando su punto de vista coincide con la de abajo.
Ahora realmente estamos cocinando con gas! Pronto estarás derritiendo los enemigos con el magma-caídas, ahogamiento y duendes en las trampas ingeniosamente diseñados! Pero antes de eso, vamos a mirar a su alrededor. Utilice las teclas de flechas para navegar por la zona. Usted notará que la que tenemos una buena cantidad de espacio para trabajar.
Mientras usted examina su entorno debe ser capaz de detectar los árboles y las zonas verdes bastante fácil, lo mismo con los estanques y ríos y arbustos. Otros azulejos no tiene mucho sentido, estos tienden a ser las zonas ligeramente arcanos como espacios al aire libre (pálido azulejos y baldosas con puntos) y de la tierra (baldosas marrones) y los azulejos de pendiente (triángulos arriba y abajo). La siguiente captura de pantalla debe ayudar a señalar los rasgos a cabo.
La clave para entender la perspectiva local de DF está recibiendo alrededor de su cabeza el hecho de que DF es un juego en 3D que aparece en un mapa 2D. Para mostrar una variedad de alturas todo el mundo está cortada en decenas de Z-niveles. Cada nivel Z está numerada.
Si nos fijamos en la parte inferior derecha de la ventana verás que estamos actualmente en el nivel 144. Para moverse entre los niveles que usted tenga que pulsar “Shift + ” para ir hacia abajo. Si se sube un nivel el mapa se verá como la imagen de abajo. Pruébelo usted mismo ahora. Si usted no puede conseguir que esto funcione, desplácese hacia abajo y leer los comentarios. Hay un cartel de ayuda ahí que tiene algunos consejos para la distribución del teclado impares.
Vas a ver que lo que era de tierra negro es ahora la hierba y los árboles. Es como si hubiéramos subido un piso en un ascensor y ya no estamos mirando a una pendiente, ahora que estamos buscando a través de una llanura cubierta de hierba. Debajo de nosotros, es un espacio abierto y copas de los árboles. Tiene sentido? Ahora, intenta volver a bajar a 144 y luego hacia abajo a 143, un nivel por debajo del “suelo” de nivel.
Su visión debe ser algo como esto. Somos básicamente subterránea sobre todo ahora con la suciedad y la tierra alrededor de entre el río y el resto de la tierra. Con suerte se le nota un pez y quién sabe qué más nadando allí. Usted puede haber notado que el río no parece haber cambiado mucho, pero no confundirse. La diferencia es que en este nivel inferior que estamos en el mismo nivel que el cuerpo del propio río, en el nivel superior, en realidad estamos por encima del río un poco de mirar en la parte superior de la misma.
Continuar con una mirada alrededor. Si usted sigue el río hacia el oeste se le nota que caiga un par de niveles en un abismo antes de fluir fuera del mapa, lo que es una hermosa cascada! A ver si puedes encontrar a ti mismo. Cuando haya terminado de mirar a su alrededor, volverá a la Z-144 de nivel y encontrar la caravana enana con los nuevos inmigrantes. El gráfico siguiente explica lo útil que usted está mirando.
Vamos a conseguir cavar!
¿Y ahora qué hacemos? En la fortaleza enana que estamos tratando de conseguir por lo general una bulliciosa comunidad de decenas de enanos en marcha, mientras que defenderse de duendes, de los caprichos de los nobles y una variedad de otros males. Para ello tenemos que construir una poderosa fortaleza! Preferiblemente subterráneo. Así que vamos a encontrar un acantilado para profundizar en este programa y obtener en el camino!
Si usted va hacia abajo y un poco al otro lado de donde nuestros enanos son (usando las teclas de flecha) verás un acantilado agradable. Vamos a cavar una entrada en este lugar y un plan para cavar hacia abajo con el tiempo forma subterránea donde es seguro y acogedor. En primer lugar, conseguir el mapa en torno a dónde queremos cavar (que aparece en la pantalla de abajo). Una vez que esté listo:
Golpea la tecla “D”. Usted verá el menú de la derecha y los cambios en la vista local una X amarilla ha aparecido. El menú de la derecha debe mostrar la “mina” la opción resaltada. Si no es así, pulsa “d” “de nuevo, para seleccionarlo.
Mueva el cursor hacia el borde del acantilado, de esta manera:
Ahora entrar en golpear y mover el cursor hacia abajo con las teclas de flecha. Vas a ver que te has caído de forma intermitente “ancla”. Esto va a marcar cuáles son sus enanos a cavar. Mueva hacia abajo a través de 20 y 3 y pulsa enter, la pantalla debe tener este aspecto:
La zona dorada a cabo muestra que los mineros van a venir a lo largo y cavar. Sin embargo, no actuará hasta que retirarse de la “designación” del menú ya que el juego está en pausa. Haga clic en “espacio” y deberá ver el Activar el juego y el restablecimiento de menú a su lista principal. Oh, cuando usted tiene la “d” del menú hasta que realmente puede hacer clic en el mapa con el ratón y seleccionar las áreas a la mía. Algunas personas prefieren seleccionar las áreas de esta manera.
Con el juego reanudar todos usted debe notar tres carreras enanos de la pared del acantilado y empezar a cavar. Con nuestra entrada en curso, también debe pensar en trazar algunas de las habitaciones de nuestros enanos que viven en el, que quiere pasar un tiempo en el marco de ese disco de color amarillo en caliente cuando la roca y la tierra encantadora invitan!
En este momento no estamos preocupados por hacer que nuestra fortaleza perfecta y la creación de la fuerte entrada, simplemente estamos tratando de ganarse un espacio para vivir! Para ello vamos a necesitar tres o cuatro habitaciones de esta entrada principal.
Vea si usted puede coincidir con el diseño que sigue marcando las áreas a excavar, lo que ha aprendido. Si usted comete un error que puede golpear “x” de la “denominación” (“d”) del menú y te darás cuenta que el menú de la derecha se “retire la designación”, destacó. Ahora, cuando usted pulsa enter y seleccionar un área, un área fijada para la excavación se borrará de su designación. De todos modos, con suficiente detalle, en el edificio de la sala!
Mira mis enanos ir! ¿No son laboriosos! Están cavando con rapidez y dejando una gran cantidad de suelo de tierra detrás de ellos. Bien muchachos! Vamos a dejar a su trabajo, mientras que resolver algunos puestos de trabajo importantes.
Cortar los árboles, la creación de pilas
La suciedad y las rocas son muy útiles, pero también lo es la madera para hacer buenas camas enanas, y estamos cortos en eso ahora. Para obtener la madera, es necesario cortar algunos árboles. Y lo hacemos mediante la designación de una zona de árboles a ser cortados. Permite manos a la obra y limpiar los árboles en el frente de la entrada.
Designación de los árboles a cortar es como la designación de las rocas para ser excavado, por lo que permite aniquilar el medio ambiente local!
Mueve el mapa por lo que está buscando en el frente de su fortaleza.
Haga clic en “d”. Esperemos que esta vez te darás cuenta de que el juego se recibió automáticamente “Corte los árboles” seleccionado, si no es así, pulse “t” y se colorea.
Mueva el cursor a la esquina superior izquierda, pulsa enter, y mover el cursor a la esquina inferior derecha, pulsa enter otra vez. Cualquier árboles en esa zona se definirá a ser cortado, como se indica por todos ellos están marcados marrón.
Su punto de vista debería ser ahora algo como esto, tenga en cuenta todos los árboles se destacan en color marrón:
A pesar de que han hecho bien ni el hombre ni enano puede vivir en la madera y la tierra en paz! Por suerte para nosotros hay un montón de arbustos por ahí cargados de bayas maduras. Vamos a establecer algunas de ellas para ser recogido:
Haga clic en “d” de nuevo y luego la “p”. Uno el derecho a “recoger plantas” está seleccionado.
Designar por la misma zona que lo hicimos con el corte de madera.
Todos los arbustos se puso de relieve ahora, y cuando quitar la pausa que debe ver a un enano la cosecha de plantas unirse al leñador.
Ahora vamos a sentarnos y ver el trabajo de los enanos por un minuto! No pasará mucho tiempo antes de que nuestros mineros han limpiado nuestras viviendas temporales y nuestro leñador y recolectores de plantas han comenzado su trabajo. Una vez que el espacio interior es claro que tenemos mucho trabajo que hacer, por lo que permite dividirlo en trozos útiles.
Nuestra primera granja
La agricultura es cómo va a hacer la mayor parte de su comida en la fortaleza enana, y es importante que la agricultura con bastante rapidez. Si la comida se queda sin sus enanos morirán de hambre y su juego va a terminar antes de tiempo, y no queremos eso, ¿verdad? Enanos suelen cultivar bajo tierra y con facilidad, tenemos un espacio todo preparado. Así que siga adelante, y le permite obtener algunos sabrosos hongos en crecimiento para nuestros stumpys al perro chino abajo en!
Encuentra la sala de abajo a la derecha.
Haga clic en “b” para el menú de construcción y luego la “p” para la parcela de cultivo.
Mueva el cursor hasta el área de la finca.
Las instrucciones de la pantalla le dirá cómo usted puede aumentar el tamaño, necesitamos un buen terreno de 6 por 6, así que pulse en “U” y “k” un par de veces hasta que haya logrado una cuadrícula grande y verde, como la de abajo.
Mover la red con las teclas de flecha hasta que, aproximadamente en la misma posición que el de la captura de pantalla. Si se obtiene el tamaño incorrecto, “h” y “m” se reducirá la trama.
Haga clic en “entrar” y el marcador de zona verde se convertirá en un marcador de campo intermitente marrón. Cuando cosas parpadea, indica que las enanas están en su forma de llegar a construir la construcción, en este caso, un campo. Y Mirad, aquí! Un agricultor ha llegado a construir nuestro campo para nosotros!
Él tomará un corto tiempo para construir su campo. Cuando vea el enano corriendo, usted sabe que ha hecho. Ahora es el momento para establecer el campo para crecer regordeta deliciosa timones durante todo el año.
Golpea la tecla “q”. Esta es la clave para “tareas de juego de construcción y preferencias”. Una vez más te darás cuenta de un cursor en la pantalla local y si es en cualquier lugar cerca del campo, el campo estará destellando. Puede mover el cursor de que por ahí con sus teclas de flechas, esto es útil más adelante, cuando es necesario seleccionar diferentes talleres y edificios.
Usted notará que a la derecha del menú ahora te muestra detalles de la tarea específicos relacionados con ese campo, así:
Lo que queremos hacer es establecer “cascos gruesos” como la comida que se plantarán en cada temporada. Usted puede ver en la parte superior derecha del menú tenemos las diferentes plantas que podríamos tratar de crecer y en la zona media tenemos las diferentes estaciones del año. En este momento “tazas Dimple” se seleccionan (pero no destacó, nota) y la estación se encuentra en “Primavera”, ya que la primavera en la actualidad. Tenemos que cambiar esta configuración.
Ahora viene una habilidad muy importante! Menú de desplazamiento! El uso de “alt + flecha hacia abajo”, desplácese hacia abajo por la lista de “cascos Plump” y pulsa enter. Ahora debería ver “cascos Plump”, destacó. Por cierto, si no te gusta esta configuración de las teclas, pulsar escape cuando hayamos terminado y volver a unir-las llaves de su agrado.
¡Buen trabajo! Pero en este momento sólo hemos establecido la siembra de primavera. Es el momento de establecer la siembra de verano, invierno y otoño también. Para ello, con el menú de tareas de campo para arriba, clic en “b” para el verano y luego vaya a “cascos Plump” y pulsa enter otra vez. Haga clic en “c” para el otoño, ajuste “cascos Plump” y luego “d” para el invierno, repitiendo su selección. Usted puede haber notado que lo que usted puede plantar cambia con las estaciones, pero no te preocupes por eso por ahora.
Haga clic en “espacio” para realizar copias de seguridad fuera del menú y volver al juego. Sus dos enanas agricultores rápidamente comenzar a plantar en su nuevo campo, bien hecho!
Ahora tenemos un campo de abajo con suerte ninguno de los enanos morirán de hambre, se vuelven locos y el recurso a comer ratas, o entre sí. Muy pronto usted tendrá unas cuantas semillas en la tierra y su explotación comenzará a verse un poco como esto:
Oh, ahora te habrás dado cuenta del juego en sí una pausa de vez en cuando. Esto es generalmente debido a que el juego quiere hacerle saber que algo importante ha sucedido. Usted puede golpear el espacio para que el juego curriculum vitae, o golpear “a” para ver la alerta y averiguar qué causó el juego para hacer una pausa (si se le pasa la alerta en la parte inferior de la pantalla). Golpear el “espacio” te llevará de vuelta y salir del menú de alertas y reanudar el juego.
Las existencias
Mientras que usted puede dejar todas las cosas de los enanos esparcidos por el campo, es mucho más eficiente para tener todo en el interior, cerca de donde se necesita. Usted puede haber notado que su productor enanos entrando y saliendo de la fortaleza para tomar las semillas que necesitan (cuando parpadea entre su icono y un poco de punto rojo (el icono de la semilla) que saben que están llevando las semillas).
Aquí es donde las existencias de entrar Ellos hacen que todo sea más organizado. Un arsenal para todos nuestros alimentos y semillas justo al lado de la granja sería probablemente muy útil, ¿verdad? No queremos que los enanos se ejecutan a través del mapa para conseguir un bocado para comer o una semilla a la planta, por lo que vamos a hacer una reserva de alimentos en el interior!
Encuentra la habitación frente a la granja.
Golpea la tecla “P” (por “montones”, por supuesto), aparecerá un cursor.
Haga clic en “f” para seleccionar “los alimentos”, queremos hacer una reserva de alimentos, después de todo.
Mueva el cursor a la esquina inferior izquierda de la sala, pulsa enter, moverlo a la parte superior derecha y pulsa enter otra vez. Ya ha configurado el espacio entero como una reserva de alimentos, bien hecho!
Después de unos segundos los enanos de repuesto comenzará a moverse dentro de los alimentos, verás barriles y bolsas que se transportaban y muy pronto la reserva se verá algo como esto:
Usted no tiene mucho espacio dentro de la fortaleza, sin embargo, que las pilas no más por ahora. Con el tiempo vas a querer poner las existencias en todas partes para ayudar a controlar su producción y recolección de recursos. Por ahora, bien hecho, tienes la producción de alimentos en marcha, que ha creado una reserva, que ha establecido la madera para ser cortada y plantas que se reunieron y usted sabe cómo hacer algo de investigación básica! Usted ha llegado el momento!
Antes de leer la siguiente entrega, cómo sobre la configuración de los pantalones un poco más para ser recogidos y más de madera para ser cortada. Entonces, la cabeza en la parte 2 y vamos a aprender todo acerca de los talleres, dormitorios, salas de comedor y las escaleras! Será siempre tan emocionante, lo prometo!
El Newby total y absoluta Tutorial para la fortaleza enana – Parte 2: “No, srsly, WTF?”
I can’t get either of the downloads working, it tells me to open in another program.
I just need to know your dwarves proficiency in their stats and what you took with you if you can.
It’s a rar file – get winrar from download.com
Got it, thanks, I had winzip, not winrar. Sometimes I’m so bad with technology.
I can’t get a dialling tone http://mecycuylani.blog.free.fr/ young nudist bbs guestbook I can show this woman how to properly SERVICE A MAN like that. DEEP THROAT HIM BALLS DEEP I WOULD . . .
Great tut but could you paste a link to the world and save files?? Thanks 🙂
I looked at your guide and I tried to dig a cave out, but for some reason it wont let me? lol I think it’s something to do with the undeground lake. what can I do?
Buy my book when it comes out in two weeks or so 🙂 …this tutorial is getting quite out of date.
If you are following this tutorial precisely, and the save and game build that comes with it, you should not have any problems so long as you dig precisely where instructed.
Setting some more PANTS to be gathered? You can gather pants? I must learn how.
Forgot something?
Hint: its an animal
Nother hint: Meow.
I greatly dislike how you assume everyone is a licensee of the Microsoft Windows Operating System. Please remove such reference.
Lol wut? No.
hey. if you instead make the farm plots just lines. with spaces in them they make more foodstuffs per lines of 1×5 plots. so try it 😀
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.
You don’t need the tileset, you need the full client, as per tutorial 1.
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.
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
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.
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 =)
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]
Thanks, fellow Kiwi, that’s an excellent tip.