Dwarf Fortress Roundtable - Ep. 118: Snakes Are Snitches

Episode Date: May 21, 2025

We cover Kindergarten, the fall of Futureflag, and things we used to do. Roland's post: https://www.reddit.com/r/dwarffortress/comments/1keeyeb/welcome_to_swordkingdom_my_oldest_and_largest/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Welcome to Dwarf Fortress Roundtable, the podcast for All Things Dwarfee, where the dwarf bucks aren't real, and entropy wins in the end. How you doing, guys? Hi-ya. Good. Oh, wait. I just blew through the introduction, man. You're doing, you did it. You did it.

I'm Jonathan. And I'm Roland. I'm Tony. How's it going? And I hear birds in the background there. Someone's got spring going on. I know. They live in the tree.

And they do make sounds. That is a good definition of what a bird is. And I've got the Merlin app, the Merlin Bird app, so I could probably tell you what it is. People are interested. You meant there was an app that you could, like, play and simulate birds behind you. No, it's pretty neat. You basically just hold it up to the bird that's making the sounds,

and then it'll say, oh, that bird, Is it Western goldfinch or something? Interesting. That's pretty cool. So in a moment, I can have a bird for, I can have an identification. So I'm going to start off here by talking about Kit Fox collecting crayon drawings and short stories. They sent out a request if anybody would like to have their crayon or short story that was created as a patron reward by the Adams Brothers. If they would like, send it in to Kit Fox.

And they're planning on putting together a, I don't know if it's for the, 20th anniversary of Door Fortress or what, but they're planning on putting together a booklet that features them. You don't get any money out of it. I believe that it's going to be a, oh, actually, I don't really have any idea what they're going to do with it. But they did say in the message that you do retain ownership of the work. They're not trying to take the copyright. But in any case, if you'd like to share your crayon drawing or short story that you got as a reward, check out probably the Dwar Fortress Discord is probably, the best way to

to find out or maybe they'll even have it on their dwarf fortress the Bay 12 games site but so yeah I sent mine in very cool

that's pretty cute actually and they're gonna make a booklet out of it it's nice I should probably get that I think that's really cool my dwarf pulling a draft from a keg

hopefully we'll make the cut that sounds like a really good one California Tohi that's what you're hearing I know I just want to don't want to leave anybody hanging

Cho-E, quick. How do you write that? T-O-W-H-E, California Tohe. When I look at it, it's like a fat little gray job. Oh, that's nice. That's cute. Yeah, lovely little creature. Technology, man. Can we get it in the game? Sure. I'll mount that in this afternoon.

He needs to hold still. So I can grab him. Tony's birds. The birds, the birds of North America. The backyard city birds. That wouldn't be a bad mod, by the way. just like more creatures more real-life creatures

well someone posted a warg on there that was pretty pretty impressed you know that was really confusing to me because somebody else instantly was like oh yeah they're like really dangerous and I'm like wait wait wait have I not met a warg and it's in the base game what has happened is it I didn't know a warg was in

no it's not I had to Google it oh okay they just happened to have the exact same mod, like, layout. They have the exact same mods, so they assumed it's natural, but it's not a vanilla creature, not at all. Oh, okay.

But it looks really good. I will send out. The sprite, that looked really good. Is Warg a registered trademark of the J.R.R. Tolkien estate? Is that where it comes from? I didn't even know that. That's the first reference I ever knew of them.

They were the wolves that the Goblins rode. I've heard those books are, People really like those books. I actually hope I've heard they're a little influential, a little influential. I've heard really good things, so. Yes. Yeah, you've heard of the books, yes. I have heard of the books.

We, you know, like they've been around. They're good. People love it. Cool. You want to talk to us about the downfall and the tragedy of future flag? I guess we could get into that. So things were going, things had been a little rocky for the last few. years in Future Flag. We had had some trouble from below. We'd had a couple of forgotten

beasts. Well, first of all, I've got to make security more of a priority in my fortresses, especially cavern security because my fortress fell because there was a couple of outlets to the caverns that I had missed closing off. Were they the ones like from the sky? like or you know like from the multiple layers above you kind of thing yeah well this will get you well that wasn't what that that was a problem because i had lots of batman that i couldn't really get to and i didn't have a an archery squad so i couldn't shoot them from from ground level so yeah batman apparently like to hang out a couple of cavern levels above where the floor is and then they will swoop down outdoors the the batman themselves weren't that big of a problem that kind of

sucks. I didn't know about that. Yeah, yeah. If you send a squad down there and there's like maybe two or three Batman that are left, your squads will not be able to path to them because they can't reach them. Look at a bunch of jokers. Yeah.

But I did find out that whenever your squads have an order to attack something and they can't path to it, they will start going about their regular business again, which is kind of nice. But the problem with that is if the regular business is at level zero, and

And then the monster that they're going to attack, like, becomes accessible again. Yeah, they're going to walk all the way back, yeah. They start running back downstairs or attack it? Then the thing becomes inaccessible again. So they start going back upstairs and they run downstairs. And these things were down on like level 120. So it was a lot of trip down to the depths. But in any case, I had several attacks of cavern dwellers.

mostly it was old men and Batman riding cave crocodiles what why Batman would want to ride cave crocodiles I'm not sure wow like Floridians that's neat

exactly right but so the the waves of them would be 90 of them the 120 of them the biggest one I think was like 130 and that was the one that was the one that was toward the very end

That was part of what ended the fortress. So you're getting cavern invasion, like that big of cavern invasions? Yeah. Wow. We'll come back to that here in a minute. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, we'll come back to that here in a minute. But yeah, so I was learned how to handle that.

My squads are pretty good. I had 50 dwarves and squads, and they were all, you know, masters or legendary with their respective weapons. So that wasn't really that big of a problem. I did start having an issue with forgotten beasts that my dwarves couldn't reach. because they were behind water, going through water, and things like that. So I had two or three of forgotten beasts that were just, you know, taking up residence in my deep, deep caverns.

And finally, there was a forgotten beast that I don't know if I didn't pay enough attention to it, but it turns out that I didn't have my cavern access sealed well enough. This thing spat fire everywhere. And he made it up into my caverns, in my living areas, sorry, into my fortress. and he's pretty much what took out almost all of the dwarves. So I was down to about five or six dwarves, and then I had a migrant wave who took care of the last of the forgotten beast. So the forgotten beast was killed,

but at that point I got an invasion of old men who apparently took the same way up into the fortress, and that killed off my fortress. I thought oom men were, like, made of pudding or something, like, really easy to squash. Yeah, well, when they were on cave crocodiles. Oh, God, that's right. Like, yeah. I do think they're fairly large, by the way, because I don't think they're based of the small oom that is vermin in the game.

I think they're based of the giant old om. Yeah, they were giant old men. Oh. Which would make them very large and strong. Thank you. That's the part I hadn't. Right. Yeah, I misspoke.

It was giant old. men. Oh, Lord. Yeah, that's going to be trouble for you. It sucks. And an odd thing happened. I got down to zero dwarves, and the fortress did not end like it did in version 40 something.

Yeah, because I remember whenever you hit zero dwarves, then you would get your fortress has collapsed or some message like that, and the game would be over. That didn't happen. So I'm sitting here for a couple seasons with zero dwarves while the forgotten beast is tearing through the livestock. and I'm like, well, huh, I wonder how long this is going to last before the fortress goes away. And then I got a migrant wave. And it was a microwave of about 12 dwarves who showed up despite the danger.

They heroically tried to reclaim the fortress, but they couldn't survive the cave crocodiles and giant old men. So I got back down to zero population again, and I abandoned the fortress. Ah, damn. What about someday retaking it? I think Future Flag was quite a success. It was challenging. But I did take a fortress that I tried to keep organized, like I talked about with my New Year's resolution. It stayed organized for the most part.

It wrote out its entire life. It thrived for a while. It reached troubles. And it ended up failing due to attack. So I'm calling that one a success. Yeah. Write it down. And I think, have you ever tried to retake a fortress that you lost?

Yeah, I did this one. Okay. Zell, you can always come back for it years from now. years from now would be a good idea because don't do it, you know, a game month later because it turns out that all those attackers are still there and they make quick work of your seven dwarves. Yeah, they don't leave. Yeah.

Will they eventually leave? I turned up to one with adventure mode and they, and I was sorry when I got there. I killed my adventurers. So there's one of the thing that I wanted to come back to on that. Tarn disabled cavern dweller invasions. And I'm wondering, he said that there was an issue with. them. I've never heard for sure what the real issue was with them. If you guys might know, let me know. But it could be that the cavern dwellers are attacking with the ferocity of

surface dwellers, like happen to me. I wonder. Yeah, I can see two reasons why they got disabled. One is they attack so much and so often with so high numbers that they can clog your PC and drown your fortress's FBS. That's a little too much. And the other, this actually was very confusing to me. They can have steel armor and weapons. And I was under the assumption that steel is more like a dwarven product. So these backwater idiots, which is fairly literally, when we're talking about old men or amphibian men, they have steel, which makes them even more dangerous than some humans. Where do they get it?

Do they steal it? Pun intended. But they would need to steal so much, like tons of steel. So I don't know. I could see either one of these things being the real problem, but I will also admit, for the last two fortresses, I just shut them off because it just gets too much. It's too much. So I'll put them to zero. Yeah, whatever. If that happens a lot, I can see it perhaps being too much if that becomes, you know, chronic. But I've got to say, I enjoyed the variety. It was a different kind of fortress and it was a different kind of. a threat. It was, it was, it was, it was a very entertaining and interesting fortress to, to run. So, you know, I never get, um, cave invasions. Or if you built your world before that was an issue. I think that happened in one of the recent updates. Yeah, I mean, so yeah,

oh, I see. So you're saying if, if I, if I, if I created the world before I see. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know how the mechanisms work. I don't know. Maybe it's just. I don't know. Maybe it's just kind of one of those things. Like, I've got a world now with, like, I haven't run into any vampires, and I'm, like, what, 18 years into in-game? So I'm surprised. Sometimes these things just don't happen. Yeah, I've not got a problem with were beasts or vampires,

and were beasts used to be my bane. Pardon the pun. Sometimes they do show up later, though, and then they become a problem. I've experienced that. But I've got a very quiet world right now. I'm just slowly conquering it, trying to figure out what I want to do next. So how is that going with your world?

I mean, it seems pretty good. Like, a population is a stable, what are we at? A stable 186. And, I mean, we can pretty much just go in either direction and conquer anything we want. We just win. So, I'm like, okay, I guess I could start killing all the goblins. I want to do that. I could start killing all the elves. And then I suppose

I'm on a path to take over the world. So now I'm trying to figure out what do I want to do with this thing. It's a thing. It's a question. I don't know. Yeah. With great power comes great responsibility, right? Yeah. I've built you know, let's see, I've built a temple.

I've built a library. And in my library, I've made the walls, the floors, the tables, the chairs, the bookcases. Everything's made out of gold. how many books do you have um let's see i forget what the button is to push that objects written content not very many so that's the next thing we're trying to work on is writing more books that's going to be fun you know actually i'm very interested in um what kind of content of

written works you will get uh because there's various subjects like uh chemistry and astrology and fluid dynamics and whatever and most of the time I just get engineering books like topic screw topic lever and then I would have medicine books so I'm very interested in if you actually get a like physics books or a fluid dynamics books that would be really cool So I've got gears, a brief history, and I've got surgery after the end, which is usually when surgery is too late. So that's a fun one. The Master of Reliability, that's pretty good. Treatise on the Word.

Great. You know, so these kind of things. Like maybe low, and then one called Life with the Tree, which I did steal from an elven. Of course you did. Where else would that come from? Yeah. Yeah. That one's kept behind the counter in the library.

That's right. You can't, you just can't take that one out. It's a special collections. Nobody's even stealing stuff. You know, I just kind of figure out what's like I've got. I've got an army of badgers that I've, they're not an army because you can't war train them. But I have a whole bunch of badgers that I've been catching. I don't know.

I'm just, now I'm kind of like, well, what do I do now? So I went looking for the fun down in the cavern. So I think I might try to unleash some demons and see where that gets me. Well, you've been wanting to make a scholar fortress for quite a while, right? Yeah, they're fun. Yeah, I always enjoy those. I like my diversity forts. But I'm not getting any entertainment troops in this fort.

Should I usually, you know, if you open a tavern, then it'll be like, you know, the squirrel of nutseppers wants to join your fortress to entertain your citizens. but I've had none of those, which I'm kind of... Not that you mention it, I've had very little of that as well. Of course, I'm in a pocket world. That may have something to do with it. Right. But, yeah.

Yeah, no, I'm in a regular size. So, yeah, I thought I would have thought we'd have more culture in the world, but... One of the first establishments in Future Flag was a nice tavern. But I don't remember getting bards or, you know, external storytellers or anything. I'm, you know, I am somewhat disappointed. But I guess I'll just keep at it Maybe if I write more books, then I think the other thing I want to do is start

Populating the towns when I When I destroy them with my own citizens Just for fun Because I notice they don't get repopulated Or they're less likely to get repatriated by the people I killed off, so How would you go about that?

Would you just send make a squad of people and send them off to the town? Yeah, that's what I've done when I get them sufficiently weakened then I go and I just put a squad of people that I don't like and I say

conquer and occupy or whatever and then they become economically linked whatever or you know they become your thing. Although I've done that so I've got a couple of weird ones right now which is these two that are really close to me

they're a goblin forts but they're economically linked to me and yet we're at war with them I'm so puzzled by this that's so weird yeah I'm really puzzled by that I don't fully get what's going on with that

because I'm kind of trying to do the same and the idea of repopulating that fort that town that I took over brought up the question um because i want to do it with snake men how do i go about that because the snake man just doesn't you you kind of need the the birds and the bees you know there's two snake men that are necessary to make more a snake man and the the game very much cares whether or not they're somehow related like brother and sister i suddenly saw myself

before the task of like going through 250 snakemen and figuring out who's compatible so I can put them into the same squad and sent them off and I was like, ah, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. So I just take like five idiots and I sent them off and I hope that they're not related. The breath before the delve,

as told by the spirit of Logan Hastings. It is said that Ficod Bronze Stable stood at the edge of the brook, staring up at the silent face of the mountain. She drew in a deep breath, as she always did when the future pressed close, and spoke the name that would anchor a legend, Zafonrelush, fountain splashed. Her partner Olin lovely cloistered nodded, already imagining the mist cascading through vaulted halls. Behind them, their band of five sturdy companions stood ready. No drums marked the first strike of pick against Stone, no fanfare. Only water murmured at their feet, promising both challenge and beauty.

And when their pilot tunnel hit magnetite and gleaming gemstones, some whispered it was the mountain welcoming them. Thus began the tale of fountain splashed. Not with fire or blood, but with breath and stone, and the promise of falling water. Presented by the enduring spirit of Logan Hastings. Before you send out, of snake men to occupy other sites, though.

You really really don't have to get your palace intrigue in order. My what? Your palace intrigued, didn't you say that you have a cascade of violence among your nobles? Oh, right. Yeah. Oh, no. This is a very new development. This has happened just this weekend.

There is one snake person. Let me think, Dumul or something, or Dumuk, is their name? and they keep getting drunk and getting into fights and then beating people. And I'm not sure why this is happening. I do have a performer in my tavern, but that person is a hyena man. So he's walking at snail slug speeds. So I don't think that he's like making my snake man drink too much. And it's always the same person.

It's not various band of people. But now something very funny happens because my tavern is large and I have a lot of people. That snake person gets drunk and like, you know, and his knuckles connect to the nearest person. Oh, I thought that was vomit. I did too. You can't see what I'm doing here. Like I'm shadow boxing in front of the PC. But, you know, like his knuckles connect to the nearest person's face.

and the entire tavern turns around and starts to run out to look for the mayor they're all snitches it is unbelievable so I saw that and I was like

what are you doing what are you doing the entire tavern is like one big snake tail that is going along my fortress going down going around the corner and I was like where are you going

and then I saw oh yeah Up there in the temple is my mayor. You're all going to, into that little tiny temple room, because my mayor is in there, and you're all going to snitch on him. So I had this visualization where the mayor is praying, and suddenly half the fortress is like storming into this small room. They're going like, hey, hey, they're all shouting over each other, and my mayor's like, what the hell is happening here? And we're like, oh, Dubu punched somebody again. Not again. I think those are the people you need to send off

to your conquered. I think so. Snitches are the violent one. I'd send the snitches. It's all of them, isn't it? It's all of them. I think I'm going to send them to, like, different towns, so they'd never have to interact ever again.

It's just, it's not about solving the problem. It's about sending a message. And you can go into the Justice tab and then check how many people witnessed the crime and how many people reported the crime. And because he punched two different people, it counts as two different crimes. Technically, it is. Technically, it very much is, yes. So one has like 55 witnesses and the little bar on the side, my little scroll bar is a really tiny because so many people reported it and the other had 12 the first time I checked it

and then people kept coming in and like reporting and then it was at 60 so I now have honestly 60 snitches that just ran to the mayor to snitch oh doobook is punching us again oh my god I think you know what you need to do I think you know it I think you know what you need to do you get rid of the drunkard in my tavern yeah Well, okay, I suppose. So now I'm questioning, I do believe Dubok currently is on a chain in my prison, because stop it. But I'm questioning what to do after. Do I send them, do I give them, like, a sword in the hand and, like, put a bucket helmet on, like, that scene from Lord of the Rings, you know?

Like, here's your sword, here's your bucket head. Go kill some orcs. and I just sent him off, or like, what do I do? My God. Yeah, that's tough, you know. I don't know. Send him away. Make him, make him this quick.

Yeah, listener, if you have a great idea, put it in the comments down below. That's it. That's it. Let's crowdsource the solution. I love it. Crowdsource it. Exactly. And then I sent a funny screenshot of this, this, this, this,

scene to you. But you now have to imagine that every single person in that screenshot that I send is moving along that red arrow all in the same speed, all in the same way. It was so funny. Yeah, that's going to be the episode art. That makes sense, yeah. Yeah. Is the name of it, Snitches get stitches? Snitches get sent off to war. I was thinking snakes are snitches, but oh that's also good yeah snakes are snitches yeah that's good well they are snakes so i guess you know you don't have are snakes ethical snakes ethical you know the the concept of ethics being applied to to non-humanity is is troublesome at best is that questionable i'm i'm just very happy that i don't have any apple trees in this fortress oh nice nice yes that would be trouble

equal measures of steel and song preserved by mr gutsy chronicler of fountain splashed the mountain gifted iron but fountain splashed would not be shaped by metal alone among the founders walked teacut equaled rooms and kivish nuke clasped a healer and a poet while teacut prepared the hospital with firm hands and sharper knowledge, Kuyvesh carved beauty into the air, composing verses for yet uncut stone passages. It was Kivish who first recited the aquamarine reason in the common hall, his voice echoing through stone dust and lanternlight. Lead focus paddle, militia commander and poet in arms, nodded in approval. Soon, even Olin lovely cloistered was learning the cadence, readying to pen a dedication in verse. Steel may protect a fortress, but in Fountain's flat,

Poetry Binds Its Heart. Recounted by the Eternal Writings of Mr. Gutsi. There were a lot of good questions, and people are working on some really neat mods. There's been some fun in the old Discord. Listener Techid from the Discord server, if you're not on there, it would be great to see you there. Join for free.

Yes. Techett asks, anything you guys used to never do in your forts that you now do fairly regularly? And vice versa, is there anything that you always used to do that you have stopped doing? Ah, okay, so I understand this question. Okay. I'm patting myself on the back. I understand the question. It was just it was just that the message garbled it so badly. No, it wasn't. It was, it's, you know, it's early here. So, you know, I've still, I'm still waking up. I used to always dig into the face of a cliff for my fortress main entrance, and I rarely even do that anymore.

Oh, you mean like from the side, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You know, the whole Moria thing. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah. There is something about that, which I agree. I used to do that every fort, the same thing.

I guess I didn't think you would go straight down because you might get flooded or something. I don't know. Now it's just economics, and I just dig a stairwell as close as I can. can to the cart that lost its wheel whenever we first embarked. That actually is a very good point. I also used to do that. I try to get a more mountainous biome going, and then I would start to dig a shaft into the mountain, and then down, and then have my security on literally the base layer, like the surface layer. And I would have most of my military actually train up, and I completely stopped doing that. Now, for me, it is just

direct shaft down. Yep, pretty much me too. Yep, same. I need to go back to that, though. That's a nice aesthetic. One thing I used to do all the time that I've stopped doing is I didn't used to have just regular doors. Like, I'd build a wall around my, well, one thing I always do is I always try to build a wall around my entrance into the fort so I can put doors or some sort of egress ingress filter to it. But one thing that I used to do is I used to do mechanisms in a drawbridge because I felt like those were relatively siege resistant. And I think they are. But then I started kind of being lazier and just using a door because it seems like goblin sieges don't knock the door down they just sort of like oh i'm sorry it's locked

we'll go by i apologize for the inconvenience today oh i'm sorry i see the lock i will leave which they do inexplicably but i feel like they didn't use to like i think ogers or whatever used to just knock the door straight down yeah yeah yeah i don't know it just hasn't been a problem i watched crowd crowd strike i watched um crug smash sorry uh brain aneurism i watched Cug Smash, just get away without it. And I was like, well, I'm a fool. What am I doing? I don't know.

I think for me, that actually falls into the category things that I no longer do. And I, you know what? I'm thinking about it. I think I can pinpoint the exact fortress where it changed. I started in a very evil biome. And I started to dig down instantly. And I think I lost like two people before I even had the first room finished. and I would dig down instantly

and I wouldn't even be very far down but I just wanted to get away from the surface and I think I lost like two people while digging the first room because zombie crocodiles or something wow that's quick and I only had a singular metal door that was connecting me to the outside and I do very clearly remember

remember, a hill titan wren that spewed webs. So a flying hill titan with webs swooped in, got through the door and murdered my entire fortress in maybe like two minutes. And I was like, I could have

survived that if I had a bridge instead of such a lazy door. And now, Like me, at this point in my dwarf fortress experience, you know, I like the military. But I still do drawbridges. Even if now the drawbridge is no longer at the very start of my fortress, but very deep inside, there is probably somewhere a drawbridge because of that singular little disgusting hill titan. Well, a drawbridge is very dwarfy, right?

It is so good, though. it is so good. I agree. I, like, out of principle, I usually, like, if I'm in a hurry, I'll throw the door up, but I also like the satisfaction of building the drawbridge. It's just, it just feels right to me. Half the time, I don't use it to repel sieges, but instead block my dwarfs from going outside, thereby limiting their labor pool, so they can socialize more.

And I can't tell you how many dwarves I've lost to drawbridge accidents whenever they were trying to, you know, get in from whenever you turn on your, uh, your civilian borough and, uh, and someone pulls the drawbridge when people are still coming in. Yeah, I hate to see it, but it does happen. Yeah. No, that's, that's real. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. I've, I've lost, uh, I've lost children in that because sometimes they'll linger outside the door. Like, you guys have to leave. I'm closing the door and the children stay there and the siege is coming, so. Oh, yeah. That's, it's a lot quicker. to lock a door than it is to pull a lever.

The thing where I've gotten screwed on doors is somebody panics and drop something in the doorway. And then they're going to close. That's, I think, what's, you know, that'll probably bring me back next time that happens. I've had rage-inducing. I've had to, like, quickly build additional walls and doors around doors that have gotten latched open. I'm not saying it's the right way to go about. I also love the idea that

like a cherry pit, one singular cherry pit is enough to block a door so wide open you can't close it. Well, yeah, that makes sense. It's hard. Door jam. It's like stepping on a Lego. Bare feet. You know, these dwarves are such high craftsmen that anything in the way of the door is going to keep it from being able to make it... The tolerances are so precise.

You know, I do like to imagine that a masterful rock door, when closed, looks exactly like a normal unsmoved rock surface. And I probably got that from like a lot of the rings. But the idea that you can set a door into like an unsmooth, like rough rock surface. And then the doors closed. And it looks, you know, you know what I mean. You know what I mean. Yeah, yeah. Speak, friend, and enter.

Arrival at the brook, recorded by the vision of Christopher Harris. Barely had the founders carved quarters into stone, when the sound of distant clatter reached the gates. Seven more dwarves, weary but grinning, arrived with livestock, pets, and unrivaled enthusiasm. Fountain splashed had gone. grown, before it had even settled. Avuz Pantpage, the manager, scrambled to draft sleeping quarters while Monum bolted wheeled

updated the books with meticulous ink. No one was ready, and yet everything moved with that distinct dwarven energy, a rush of work, laughter, and spilled ale. They say the newcomers saw a vision of waterfalls from a blessed aqueduct, trickling through carved channels and misting the air. Fountain splashed would be more than shelter. It would be wonder Shared through the dreamlight of Christopher Harris

Things that I've never done before But now I do all the time I think I now build kindergartens And I'm not talking about the spiky nonsense With the spikes and the levers and the blood I'm talking about a genuine kindergarten Why I put my children in and I try to have a well and some food

and I stole my clothing and the toys there and then they stay in the room please stay in the room don't come out here I don't want you running around

make a burrow and add your kids to it yes wow okay tell me more about that what does that mean to you like what does it get you how do you do it how do you I have the let me actually

while I'm talking I can try and find the one picture that I took of it. Does it keep the kids out of trouble? Yes. So I'm just going to send you like a full picture of the entire layer, but there is the kindergarten in there. It's the top few rooms.

This has the benefit that my children are burrowed into the top rooms. So they have a dining room where food is being stocked into. They have a bedroom, a dormitory, where they can sleep. they have a main hall where they can mingle and that is full of my artifacts so it's also like a museum um i have a little clothing stock so they can always dress themselves i have a toy stock this is the only place where toys are being stored um this is also where the children are playing this is like if this thing is full with children they're all in the toy stock and then i have some statues and a well so they don't have to like walk out and

Nobody has to stock them with drinks because that actually stocking food into the kindergarten is fine, but stocking drinks always had a problem because sometimes the dwarf stocking the drinks took too long, and then people got thirsty, and it was like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, uh-uh. Also, alcohol for children, mm-hmm. So they only get water from the well. That's fine. The upside of this is that when they grow up and they're like 15, 18, whatever, they're incredibly happy people. They don't really have any memories of, like, trauma because they never really seen a corpse.

They have not really seen war. And their social abilities are fairly good. Plus, you can implement a guild into the kindergarten. So the children can't leave the borough, but now obviously people can just casually walk into the bureau. And now inside there, you make, for example, an armorer guild or a general metalsmith guild, which will lead to something very practical. When your children get possessed or want to do like an artifact, they automatically choose

the skill that they're highest in. And just by being in the same room as like the grown-ups talking about metal smithing, they learn metal smithing. So no longer do you have any stupid bone crafts, like bone rings and stuff that nobody needs. But now you have a kid that genuinely can go and make a steel sword artifact. Hell yeah. That's pretty cool. I'll give you that. That's neat.

I hadn't thought about that. Okay. I'm all about the kindergarten. and then, I guess that's why it's a German word. Yeah, and plus, I did try to repopulate my fortresses by just using what I already have, not through migrant waves. So the thought of, like, losing children as more like the accident was always very upsetting to me. I was like, no, that's the future of my fortress. So now, you know, the whole children can do chores thing.

that's that's like really practical they keep their own kindergarten clean but they're not allowed to leave it because stop touching the corpse Timmy it's not your job well I've always believed you know the children

are our future if we teach them well let them lead the way yeah you know you should really show them all the beauty that they possess inside right I think we're on it yeah this is beautiful This is a beautiful moment we've had. No, I love it.

I love it. Because I also don't want the children to die and be miserable. And I've also noticed, like, having them do some chores makes them a little bit crazy, I think. Yeah, because sometimes they see things they should not be seeing. And one of the problems is the way that memories are formed. and the way the memory system works. Because if your little boy or your little dude doesn't have any memories yet, then he will stack his memory system full of the next thing that he sees,

which is always a problem. For example, a migrant spawns at your map edge, and then it rains. And the first memory, because this migrant just started existing. And now it's raining. So his first memory is that of being rained on. So that sucks. yeah it does so you want to with children you have the possibility of keeping them out of the rain so you can put them into the kindergarten and their first few memories will then only be filled by positive things and then you have a positive feedback loop and even if they then walk through miasma or i don't know see a corpse of a goblin or two they will bounce back very quickly from that because they have such a good How do you say, like support system?

Yes. Yeah, it takes the village. Yeah. I wonder if you could, you know, just surround the kindergarten with different guild halls of different types. Keep the adults out of them, but just have them be there. I wonder if that would impart a skill on them. I do think that somebody has to be in the guild hall and like make a demonstration because your children can. and exactly do that by themselves.

But they do seem to, like, little Timmy is sitting on the floor, like going Goo Goo Gaga with his toys, and two meters over is the, I don't know, the metal smith that is telling people how to make a sword. And for some reason, Goo Goo Gaga Timmy looks over and is like, ah, yes, I understand. It's like, what the hell? but for some reason

that is enough for Timmy to learn how to metalcraft kind of makes sense can't you now have non-contiguous zones oh what do you mean with stockpiles you can have two unconnected like islands you mean

yeah well you can repaint your you know metal smiths guild and just put a square of that metal smiths guild in the kindergarten that may not even be anywhere close to the actual metal smiths guild i wonder if of course that's cheating and gaming the system but i wonder if that works or if the dwarf that has the um the the the show thing

the teaching thing has to be actually next to the other person so there well you know we have some very clever people in our discord server i suspect that we're going to get a comment on this on whether or not that would work but you could definitely put several different guild holes in and then just have a bunch of your children. Essentially, actually, that would be very smart because you would have different guild halls which passively train different skills for your children. And when they then come out into, like, the real world,

they have, like, various skills and various things. Yeah, that presumes that your fortress is going to last long enough for your children to become adults. What does that happen at? 14? I think later, because I just, checked on somebody who was 15 and they were still in the red kindergarten clothing. I am very interested

and how to make a kindergarten in such a way that my military is training in it and my children will gain military skills while they're going like goo-go-gaga. That is what I'm looking for. Oh, yes. Whenever fights break out, I have a problem with blood being on the floor of my barracks

because I don't know if things get out of hand or what happens, but at case you, I'll look over to barracks and there will be blood on the floor. I think that's normal. Yeah. Like, genuinely, that's normal. Little Timmy Eurrhus sees, you know, Uncle Euris get, you know, smacked upside the head. I wonder if that would affect them. Generational trauma, I think.

I know, yeah. I think that's what we do. We simulate generational trauma now. It's beautiful. Before we wrap up today, I would like to, you know, thank Mike from, uh, D.F. Hack, because we spoke about SightMap on our last episode, and I made the comment that you could sort the dwarves by their nicknames in SightMap, which, you know, a few minutes later, we realized it wasn't the case. Well, Mike heard that, and he rectified that almost immediately. So, yeah,

So now in the, I guess it's the beta version of D.F. Hack, the nicknames are now in the site map of the dwarves. The nicknames of the dwarves are now in the site map. And you can look up a dwarf by their nickname and site map. But an absolute legend. I know. I told it was like, masterwork. It kind of stinks. I feel like we whine about things. And he's like, oh, man, they're, what's, what's a enough for them.

They keep wanting more and more. We keep giving and we keep giving and they want more and more. Maybe if we ask him nicely, he'll join and talk to us. Yeah. If we say pretty, please. So, yeah, thanks, Mike. And he also has added stars to the gooey design where you can designate shapes for your dwarves to mine out. He's added stars to that.

So that's coming up in the release of D.FAC. I don't use the development version. You know what I'd like? I'd like the Dwarven Bedazzler, where you can take any piece of gear and stud it with gems. Wait, is that not possible? The bedazzler? You should look up YouTube videos on Bedazzler. It's delightful.

Yeah, no, no, no, I know, thanks. I know because of Lady Gaga, but that's a different story. Okay, good, good, I'm glad that's transcended oceans. Who is this Miss Gaga you speak of? Yeah, she's a little kooky, but... She's from Sesame Street, I think. Isn't she Mr. Hooper's wife, her daughter? I don't know.

I can't keep it straight. You know, Ernie's... Okay, anyway. Mr. Hooper's dead. She's with Ernie. Lady Gaga and Ernie. Paint the town red. Well, did Burke get jealous?

Did Ernie and Bert split up? Well, they have an open relationship. Gotcha. Sorry, sorry. You were speaking about Lady Gaga Jim studded armor being possible Can you stud armor with gems?

Yeah, I'm trying to think of it But actually, I don't know that you can You can do ammo For some reason you can put gems in ammo I don't know why you would do that You can do finished goods And maybe with a With a few tricks

Armour's not finished goods though, is it? No You know what? I should check that out, but I don't think you can right now. That, hmm, huh, it's sad. I just make beer armor, so I don't know about that.

Beer? Beer armor? Yeah, like, with iron spikes. Oh, okay. Like a bear hunting suit. Oh, yeah. That's like the grizzly man. Beer armor is what you put on every time that you've had a few too many, and you think you can take on the world.

That's just my accent, because for some reason, I can't make a difference between beer. and bear I think you're talking about do you know the film Grizzly Man the guy that made himself bear armor and then like his spouse or something was attacked by a bear

instead of like just thanking heavens that everything was okay he decides to commit and make a suit of armor so he can go fight a bear it's called Grizzly Man it's a real story directed by

German director of Arna Hartzog so he wants to fight a bear and that was the outcome yeah okay yeah so anyway and his he seized he took over a workshop and built

bear armor so don't let people tell you you can't do things is what I'm saying don't be afraid maybe we should leave it up with that does anybody else have anything that they would like to cover today I mean, I could shamelessly shill my one Reddit post that I made today. Please do. It's a website.

Links in the show notes. Roland's blog. Because I wanted to show off Sword Kingdom, because I'm now kind of moving into the next fortress. And I wanted to just show off what I have, what I've been talking about. and I took a few screenshots the first one is stitched together again because the fortress is larger than my screen and then I tried to title it a little bit like describe what is in here so I put some arrows with Photoshop and stuff just so if you the listener your interest in my fortress with the snakes and you want to know what it looks like and what I have been playing,

then that is the Reddit post you should be clicking on. All right, so I think we're going to wrap this one up. I do want everyone to know that I did decide long ago to never walk in anyone's shadow. Yeah, because if I fail or if I succeed, at least I lived as I believed. Aw, thank you for that. All right, guys, we're going to wrap this one up.

Everyone out there, have fun playing Dwarters, right? All right, guys. do it. Fortress up. Yep, have fun digging. This has been the Dwarf Fortress Roundtable podcast. You can find all our past episodes at DFRoundable.com. Stop by and leave a message or suggestion

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