I'm surprised this hasn't been mentioned before, but dwarf fortress is a great game to checkout. While it can be tedious at times, it has so many unique functions to it. It's basically an ASCII, 2.5D, RTS Minecraft with so much more to it. While there are many things I could mention about it, the things that I enjoyed the MOST were the graphic way they told you how a fight went (one time a troglodyte punched a dwarf of mine's skull through his skull, but leaving his skull intact), the way damage is calculated (there's no HP; the enemy dies if it loses too much blood, or it takes severe brain damage.), and the delightful abominations known as Forgotten Beasts. You can read about them here --> http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/DF2010:Forgotten_beast

Update: I just found a beast with this description: A TOWERING IGUANODONT WITH EXTERNAL RIBS. IT HAS THIN WINGS OF STRETCHED SKIN AND IT MURMURS HORRIBLE CURSES. ITS SPRING GREEN SCALES ARE SMALL AND SET FAR APART. BEWARE IT'S POISONOUS BITE! IT IS FAT. Needless to say, this Iguanodont and his insectoid elemental friends horrifically murdered and devoured all of my people. Except for one odd mason who sealed off the living quarters, then went insane and chopped off his own foot. Good times...

I do quite like the idea of randomized monsters like the Forgotten Beasts, as it actually takes advantage of the lack of graphics to get players to use their imaginations.

Even so, some of them are just begging to be illustrated.

It's funny that you mentioned that, I was just thinking about finding some people to illustrate a lot of the creatures in DF, like the ball of flesh (essentially just a ball of flesh that's great for use as a training tool for blunt weapon users) and purring maggots, which were amusingly the only source of milk in the game for quite awhile.

I might just play it to get some cool monster ideas. I'm definitely going to have some undead mutant dinosaurs in my next game now.

You might want to check out the legends mode too. It basically let's you browse, among other things, forgotten beasts. Ones like Nocpur Nudespews, a gigantic llama without eyelids, but covered in curly brass hair and antennae. She spews poisonous vapors and is associated with depravity. Straight from the game, man. Pure beauty.

Dwarf cancels living: Missing arms and legs.

Attempting to play this game for the first time makes you feel retarded.
I'll understand it one day.

*=~believe in ur selfe~=*

Oh how I wish I could.

Things I couldn't figure out:
How to provide a reliable source of food.
How to trade for things I needed.
How to create a well for clean drinking water.

There are probably more things I can't figure out, but thanks to those three my expeditions all died before I could learn what they were.

How to Farm: Make a floodgate. Dig out underground room on a soil level, break open a one tile wide hole to a source of water, after the room has a small layer of water covering it set up floodgate in the breach. There will now be a coating of mud on the cavern floor, go to [b] Building Menu and hit [p?] Farm Plot. Use [u.] to [m] and [h] to [k] to set perimeter of farm.

How to Trade: Make a [b]+[D] Trading Depot that has at least a 3x3 entrance to the outside world. Liasons will arrive and discuss the price changes of the next caravan, find things you want on the list and hit [->] to increase your need (and thus price) of your choices. Once Caravan arrives and begins unpacking goods, send your Broker (assigned in the [n] Noble menu) to the caravan by [q] Quarrying the caravan and select the option "Broker requested at depot", while in the [q]Quarry menu for the depot, hit [g] and select items you wish to trade to the caravan. These will be brought by dwarfs just like anything else is brought to a stockpile. Once your tradable goods are there and the Broker is present, [q] Quarry the Depot and hit [t] Trade, select items you want by highlighting them using the enter key, and do the same for the items you want to sell. If you are asking for outrageously too much, the Liason may get angry and leave. So don't be stupid.

Building a Well: A well requires a block, a bucket, a rope/chain, and a mechanism. Once you have all of these things, [b]+[l] to build the well, place it over any water tile and the well will be created there. Make sure to be careful and only build it over a 7/7 water tile for maximum usage.

THIS WEBSITE IS YOUR GOD:
http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Main_Page

Is there a way to change all mentions of Dwarf and Dwarves to Orc and Orcs?
These dumb ass dwarves behave a lot more like orcs than dwarves and I would enjoy playing as not dwarves.

WOW you're anal.

*shrug*
Just asking. Thought it would be cool.

Bees are better then both those things, where the fuck is Bee Fortress.

You could probably change it in the RAWS, but honestly if the dwarfs are acting stupid it's your fault. You control them.

From your game session, it looks like they go apeshit every other minute and steal things off the bodies of their dead as a rule. Dwarves don't seem to, do that very often, while Orcs do.
I'd like play Bee Fortress too.

Dwarfs are greedy, this is a fact. Most of my Fort's antics are because I don't bother doing certain things, the game is very hard and most everything fucks up. That's why it's fun and hilarious to watch fall apart. I could have stopped all of them with a single button but it was funner to let them run out there. Also what the dwarfs get up to is way more complex than anything orcs could do.

I think that's subject to debate since orcs were elves at one point in time in most fantasy settings, but oh well.
I just want to replace them with something I like more and increase my fun. :P

The little colorful smily faces represent the dwarves, right?

Dwarfs are a hundred percent cooler than orcs. This is a fact that has been known to science for decades.

jeeze, this is confusing...
how do I build walls?

I'm going to paste this in from /vg/'s Dwarf Fortress General threads.

-------------------------------------

Helpful beginner material, it's fucking FREE, why not try it out?:

> http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=4728
/vg/'s Unofficial Official DF Starter Kit v34.02, the basics you need to get started with a simple and attractive tileset and colourscheme.

> http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Main_Page
Wiki for all your dwarfly needs, down to every last mineral.

> http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2...uickstart_guide
THE fastest way to get your ass ready to strike the earth. Concise and simple text + images.

> http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/v0....quick_reference
The basic guide to Adventure Mode, for you ADD types who want to inflict the Fun manually.

> http://youtu.be/FoUTi1aTW2Y
A video for the old version, but short and to the point, just the basics you need to get playing within the hour.

> bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=59026.0
The Lazy Newb Pack: Dwarf Fortress packaged with a plethora of utilities such as SoundSense (adds a sound engine to Dwarf Fortress), DwarfTherapist (an essential in assigning roles and managing dwarves) as well as all 3 of the big tilesets (Phoebus, Mayday and Ironhand) installed.
> http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?punjbnzo5z4xw14
An archive of /vg/'s collected guides and flowcharts, good reference materials for all.

Strike the earth!

I looked at the Lazy Newb Pack once, but apparently it's Windows only.

Wild animal battles in Dwarf Fortress can get surprisingly badass. Like that time I saw a sturgeon bite the leg off a dingo before crushing its skull in its jaws.

I currently have an immortal 34 ft tall sponge locked in eternal combat with three horse-sized crows.

That needs to be drawn in excruciating detail in Photoshop, surrounded by a vivid landscape of forested mountains and a rushing river.

I really should have posted here sooner, but whatever.

I have been playing Dwarf Fortress for about a month now and have made two pretty successful fortresses, both named Beebane (the Bold Busy Bandit-Bee of Bees), our main export isn't honey as would be expected but cut gems and our main imports are usually Kobold thieves and Dalek sieges (since I got a mod that adds them to the game).

In my larger world my Dwarves found their first cavern, I'm planning on moving all my chickens down there as the first line of defense against the subterranean creatures we'll find.

Make sure you keep digging. Go as deep as possible.

You have to find the hidden fun stuff!

When you find a vein of adamantite, hollow it out. All the veins meet in one, pretty much layer-covering mass underneath the lava sea; the problem is getting to it. Make a tunnel going straight down from your fortress for ease of access.

(Also, chickens? Really? Use the cats; not only does it keep them from adopting dwarves, but they'll explore the caverns for you. Plus, the monsters keep their population in check.)

Let's talk about forgotten beasts now.

My first forgotten beast was a stumpy-tailed theropod with corrosive blood. I had no idea that forgotten beasts existed, so I didn't have a military at the time. He took out about a third of my fortress before I was able to wall him off. Someone must have managed to hurt him, because he left behind a trail of necrotizing blood that eventually had to be restricted because nobody was cleaning it up. I've included his description, because I thought you guys would be into it:

The second was a winged, dust spewing quadruped made of satinspar. It blew half of my military off a ledge, then slaughtered everyone else in the fort while the rest of my military tried to kill it with copper weapons. I didn't save the description, but it wasn't all that interesting anyway.

Yeah about that, see...there are no kittens in Beebane. They um, disappeared.

Before anyone asks the arts and crafts department has no idea where their skeletons went.

My first Forgotten Beast was a quadruped made of water. It died as soon as it tried to go up a level. The unit screen said it died because it hit an obstacle.

It was terribly underwhelming.

Every fluid creature does that. Lightly flick them and they fall apart. Sometimes it's hilarious, sometimes it's just disappointing.

Yeah... it's unfortunate because some of them sound awesome. Like the giant blob made of vomit that had small flapping wings and breathed fire.

Man, I was really looking foward to know what the poisonous mist of the water thing did to the dwarfs...

I got a forgotten beast recently who was a giant, bloated tick with membranous wings and a warty, ochre exoskeleton and poisonous blood. It's name was Avzog or Agzvog or something along those lines. It's subtitle was 'The Devil of Lakes' and it was associated with depravity, water, and caverns.
Now half of my fortress seems to be worshipping it.

I think my dwarves somehow got themselves trapped in an HP Lovecraft story.

iA! iA! Giant deranged mutant killer monster sponge fhtagn!

And my most recent session ended with some incidents involving an unidentified killer, a group of zombie raven men, hordes of giant undead lice and thrips, and one badass water buffalo cow.
In my reclaim attempt, several giant crows and a trio of zombified grasshopper women joined the fray, alongside some abominable smoke.

Needless to say, both attempts were total failures. :D

Sounds like a vampire. The first one, I mean. Screen your immigrants next time. As for everything else, seal your fortress as soon as possible. Have a drawbridge over a trench if you absolutely have to let caravans in.