Dwarf Fortress Roundtable - Ep. 121: Monsters and Archers and Kittens – Oh MY!

Episode Date: July 23, 2025

Let's wrap up season seven, shall we? https://us.jamesgin.com/products/california-dreamgin?country=US https://www.bay12games.com/dwarves

Welcome to Dwar Fortress Roundtable, the podcast for all things, Dwarfee. I'm Jonathan. And I'm Brolin. I'm Tony. And my cat decided he's going to start meowing at us right now. All right. I don't know if he's coming through the mic or not. This is a true Dwar Fortress experience.

Hey, I saw that, uh, that you test the depth of your, uh, of your pits by throwing kittens down. Oh, oh, we want to start with that. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, that's, that's pretty sweet. That was the most recent post to the Discord server. Well, you know, you know, the thing is, I completely forgot to, uh, what is that, uh, gild my cats? Oh, God. And I started a new fortress, and suddenly I had so many of them. And I had two deep pits.

So all my caverns are connected, two deep pits, and I had to do, you know, the investigation somehow. And I just thought, well, you know, I have a lot of this, and I need to do that. And it would be just simple if I, you know, shove some cats down into the pit. And that worked perfectly, by the way. By falling, the creature investigated the entire lower cavern layer. but I felt really bad because the cat exploded into like pieces and now there's like a cat tail and cat eyeball somewhere like strewn across the lower pond and yeah I do really feel bad for it you couldn't have felt too bad because you threw two of them down there that's actually the same cat it collision twice off the wall oh it bounced oh wow yeah it did bounce The Dead Cat Bounce.

Dude. Yeah. I think that that was a dance originated by Belbib DeVoe in like 1991. The bouncing cat? The Dead Cat bounce? Yeah. Isn't that like what they call the stock market?

Like when it crashes and then it bumps up and then down, I think that's its stock term too. Oh, well, maybe Belbe Bivot were actually economists. Yeah, they were economists, yes. Absolutely. I think the band was just their side hustle. I'm pretty sure they run in a, they run an, they run an, an advisory for him somewhere on Wall Street. What fun.

Speaking of weird things that you see in your Dwarf Fortress game, I found that I had a new mayor elected to Fountain Splashed, right? And I did a little bit of a research on here because I wanted to find out a little bit more about her. Turns out that she came from Future Flag. So she was a migrant. Nice. However, I read her personality sheet, and it says she is completely oblivious to any conception of neatness and will just leave things strewn about without care.

A trait that strengthened after being forced to drink vomit in 58. Oh. How is a dwarf forced to drink vomit? Well, I think that is something that happens if somebody puked in your well and they then chuck the bucket over and, like, pull it back up and take a sip and it's just like water laced with vomit. I think that is how that happens. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that.

I don't remember having a well. Well, they can also drink out of puddled, so, you know, same thing. Yeah, well, yeah. So that... Maybe somebody vomited on the cups. On the what? The cups, your cups, your cups, your mugs, whatever. Oh, maybe they're laced, yeah.

Oh, that would be terrible. Anyway, I thought that was amusing. So we don't really have a topic per se today, so we're going to cover some odds and some listener feedback and talk about some show notes and stuff like that. Some time ago, we had a listener send us an email. His name was Mitchell, or still is, I guess, Mitchell Peterson, talking about a YouTube video that had people who were drinking wine that was made out of mushrooms. Well, Mitchell followed up with an email about the,

British version of Top Gear where one of the old hosts decided to make some gin and one of his flavors was mushroom gin. Oh. Yeah. Yes. Techett was on. Techett was on last episode

and I wish now that I would have seen this particular email at that point because that's something that I think Techett might really be into. Mushroom wine. Yeah. Yeah, that's a new mod. Of course, it just has to be a flavoring. We don't even need to mod it in.

It just has to be a flavoring. Mushrooms can't. ferment because ferment because they don't have any sugar, right? That's an excellent, excellent question. I don't think so. Can you actually make mushroom line? Okay, hang on. Wait, wait. You did not mention the key botanicals have mushroom in it. Yes, but it doesn't stop there. It also has oregano and put chuli in it. Yeah, look, you can ferment mushroom.

The California Dream Chin? Many cultures have a long history of fermenting mushrooms. Who does? Many cultures have a long history. Have a long history. history of fermenting mushrooms. Fermentation can be done with various methods including lacto fermentation where they're submerged

in brine and allowed to ferment with the help of naturally occurring bacteria. So that's fine. Yeah, it's all ferment. There we go. Huh. I don't know if you can make alcohol out of them, but, you know, can and should. I guess just two words there together. I mean, yeah, okay, I could

see some fermented mushrooms, but I would imagine them to be more of like a food item rather than like a drink? Yeah, I feel food is more the thing. If the Dream gin, by the

way, was not 50 bucks, I would consider it. Yeah, I didn't mention the name of the gin is California Dream gin from James gin. I'll post a link that Mitchell sent us. I'll post that in the show notes.

So yeah, Mitchell, thanks for the email and keep sending those mushroom-related emails to and we will keep reading them on the air on the tape on the air on the earbuds whatever you call this it's all computer it's a whole new paradigm this podcasting thing it sort of has a a feel of talk radio but it's not exactly you got to have the voice really is there an actual studio involved you got to do the voice it's talk radio the radio voice the host voice yeah we haven't spent enough time trying to develop those well this is my host voice uh yeah I am originally from Arkansas, so you should understand that I do have a natural twang to my voice that I typically try to excise whenever I'm speaking into a microphone.

But whenever I'm around my family, it comes out big time. Okay, let's see what else we got here. Right. So this one was from Benny. This is posted to the Discord server. Benny says, hey, guys, just finished the latest episode, got reminded that pre-15, texture packs existed and that I still miss them. This was in response to our speaking a couple episodes ago about doing graphics mods. The texture pack? Yeah, tile packs. Yep. So Benny kind of

would like to revive them for version 50 and that he'd like to dig into modding and replace sprites and such. There was some good advice in the in the Discord server about how Benny might get started on it. I have really no idea except for the fact that you could just go in and fiddle with the graphics and stuff. I think that in the raws, they point to particular graphics, tile sets and stuff like that. Benny says he's a newbie to pixel art

and animation and would appreciate some tutorials in that direction if someone knows of some good ones. And really, I don't know of any good ones that have been made for version 50 yet. But, yeah, tech could get on that. Yeah, that's interesting. I didn't know that those were replaceable.

I wouldn't see why not. I mean, they are bright sheets. Yeah, and it makes sense. You know, there's, like, creature mods, and they have unique graphics, so they have to interact somehow. Hmm. Well, people are replacing some of the sprites because I've got, like, the elegant or accurate undulate graphics. I've got that one. Yeah, I've got a couple.

So, yeah, okay. Wait, what does that one do? I can get accurate cat graphics, accurate dog graphics. I think it's supposed to give you better graphics for your cats and dogs. Angulets. Is that like hoof mammals? Unglet. Ingolet. Ingillet, yeah, I think so. Cows, deer, horses. Pigs? Yeah. Pigs have hooves.

Do you have cloven hoofs? Yeah, pigs have cloven hoofs. All right, fellow fortress managers, before we accidentally flood the dining hall again with an ill-placed aquifer tap, we'd like to bellow out a round of thanks to the patrons who've supported us through season seven of the Dwarf Fortress Roundtable podcast. A mighty clang of the anvils goes to Michael Eller,

Lucas, Christopher Harris, The Great Garzini, Potato Bomb, Loghammer, and Clino Dev. You all keep the gears turning, the booze flowing, and are forts from becoming haunted ruins full of ghostly cheesemakers.

May your stockpiles never fill with myasma and your dwarves always claim artifact workshops instead of going berserk. I started a proper new fortress. And I, you know, the cat thing happened in the new fortress. And it's quite nice because all three cavern layers are definitely connected to each other by, like, Naturally?

Yeah, naturally. Really? Really? Really? So there's a one deep pit that goes from the first to the second. That's where I live. And then there is another one from the second to the third. Sadly, they're not like interconnected.

And there is no actual shaft from the first to the third. That would have been amazing. But whatever. Well, that's the kind of thing that gets you killed by forgotten beasts. Definitely, definitely. I thought about it. So now I'm building myself a little, like a fortress around the shaft from the second to the third. And I'm planning on having a few rooms that actually breach out into the pit so that a dwarf could essentially like go out.

Like, you know, take a breather on a little balcony in a huge cavern pit. I like that mental image. and that world is generated with all the mods that we've talked about and I forgot that that is a modded world so in my first trade caravan I clicked like I want this and I want this and some food and why is there we why they're selling marijuana and I was so confused for a second and then I remember oh right

who was on it the caravans yeah the dwarven caravans tried to like sell me some green and that was absolutely hilarious for like five minutes I don't actually know how to grow up myself currently on my way to making coffee I checked out how to make what was it chocolate wow

just just wow just wow did you manage it yeah I was gonna ask yeah no no I don't have any coffee yet chocolate sorry yeah I haven't found any yeah I I did the same Roland I I rolled the fort and did all the stuff but I just have the world's most boring plants and nobody's bringing them yet so I'll just see where it goes I've got like cabbage oh thank God cabbage that's what everybody wants I kind of want to have a thing that tells you when you embark like what plants are there because maybe I should know this. Maybe this is where you guys go, well, but Tony, you can. I want to know what plants are there. I mean, I don't know. I mean, you kind of can

know, you kind of can know, because when you embark, it tells you what kind of biome it is. And then from that, you could extrapolate what kind of plants will grow there or will most likely grow there. So for example, it is always very interesting to have two different biomes on your map because that means you don't just have two biomes and like potential fun, but that does mean that you do have access to do different like sources of plants and wood and fruit. And usually I try to embark in places that are a little colder, especially if I want to work with water. but now I embarked in the middle of a tropical forest. And I am shocked at the amount of plants that there is.

I think I'm not going to do any farming in this one. I'm just going to put down like two plant gathering zones and then be happy with the insane amount of mangoes. My dwarfs will be able to eat. so if you're in a tropical biome then you might did you put in teckid spiders because the golden orbs are in tropical biomes as we found out sadly not

I only used his kitchen mod not his animal mod yeah and I think one of the reasons for the mod was to give an above ground place to gather silk from or gather webs from so that you can make silk that would be really cool above ground Wasn't there like a thing Where somebody made a dress

From golden orp weaver spider silk And it's like a soft golden yellow Or whatever And it's the most expensive silk dress ever made Or some stupid stuff I don't know You know Having my dwarfs be dressed

In golden orb weaver spider silk Orr or whatever a combination of words there is, that would be pretty cool. Yeah. I had an artifact copper mail shirt made, so that was kind of neat. It's not very useful being copper,

but it was pretty. Copper mail is not the worst. It's worth 17,000 dwarf bucks, so it's pretty nice. There you go. Sometimes you've got to look good, even if it's not very effective. I mean, it's not even that bad. Well, I mean, bronze would be ideal, because

don't ask me the specifics, please God. But there's like different material values, like sheer value and density and stuff. So different values actually have a different impact for combat. So if I remember correctly, like steel is best overall, but bronze is unusually good against blunt weapons or something. Maybe. Oh, okay. I did look into that at one point, all those complicated mechanisms. But eventually I just settled on blunt weapons get made from silver.

Everything else gets made from steel. Yeah, I'm into steel for everything. Yeah, I don't, I haven't. Well, I'll do silver war hammers just because I feel like that seems cool, right? I think there's an advantage to them too. I think they're big and heavy, bashy. I think I might have learned that from this podcast. I make maces out of, out of silver, too.

That may not do any good, but they're also a blunt weapon. Yeah, I think the difference is not even that big. So the difference between the actual weapon is less significant than the difference in skill level of your dwarf. So nowadays, I like to just do everything out of steel for the sake of simplicity mostly, and then use silver for decorations and crafts. But it actually helps if you do different weapons out of different material, because if you're like a weird min-max everything controller like I am sometimes, that gives you the ability to specifically put a specific weapon into someone's hand via the squad menu because then you can sort not just the type of weapon,

but also the material, which means you get an additional like sorting algorithm if you follow what I'm talking about. Yeah, yeah. I also had an artifact musical instrument created in my, in my, um, fortress. I didn't know they could do that. Yeah, it's awesome. It's a, it's called Nabrik Thier-Ur-Tal Khan, skirt merge, the luxury of tiring. It is a plum-wood e-ball.

And if you look down, if you scroll down, it tells you that, uh, the e-ball is a mid-sized handheld metal stringed instrument with a metal neck connecting to a metal body. the strings are tied from the top of the neck down over the body and the musician picks the five strings with a stone plectrum frets on the neck allow the musician to alter the pitch so basically it is a it is like a lute or so yeah it's also worth seventeen thousand dwarf bucks and they absolutely put it in the correct place they stuck it into one of the temples so it's now sitting in the in a clay coffer that is uh in one of my temples. So it's pretty awesome. That's very nice. Yeah, fountain splash has just got a plethora of artifacts that they've been creating.

It's pretty cool. It has grown, man. It has really freaking grown. 193 is the population now of fountain splashed, which is... 193. That's getting up there. Yeah, that's huge for one of my fortresses. It's only been going for like four years.

So these migrant waves, been huge. You know, talking about the migrant waves, I'm not even sure when I started doing this, but when I start a new fortress, I like to have a small fortress and not instantly jump to like a big fortress. So now that I've started a new fortress, actually, I can talk about something else that isn't just snake people. So I actually put the absolute, not the absolute, not the strict cap, but the population cap onto 15. And currently, I'm just working with the 15 dwarfs and like two human bards that have already asked to stay.

And obviously this means that nothing is really done quickly, but it does mean that I get to actually have some time and sit and relax and check out who's like living in my fortress. And that's quite nice, because if they fill up to like 60, 80, 120 within the first two years, you don't really get to know who is Ubuq and why is he sad. You just get to see a little frowny face and a dwarf that you don't really have a connection to.

I build the foaming stuff so that I can overproduce food just like usual, and then I just kind of sat down and try to find out who's who. there is a remarkably annoying human bard that keeps coming back. It says they're part of a, like a performance troupe, something about shadow, shadowy something with tea, shadowy something. And they keep asking if they can stay. But here's the funny part. They're both married. It's two dwarfs, two humans.

They're both married, not to each other, but to different people. And I keep denying them because, like, what are you doing? Go back to your spouse. You don't live here. And they keep coming back. I'm just like two years in, and they keep coming back every other month. They really want to stay here. So I'm starting to assume they have some trouble at home, but just moving in with a bunch of dwarves is not really the answer now, is it?

I don't know, man. I think you got into something. So do you purposely curtail your migrant waves? How do you keep them, the migrant waves down? Well, you know, I just put the population cap down to a very small number, like 15, and then the migrant waves will only fill up to that point. So I started with my natural seven dwarfs, then put my population cap to 15, and then got, I think like two migrant waves.

One had like a handful, and the other was like two people. and now I am already over 15, so no migrants coming at all. Gotcha. But it's quite nice. I like the way it plays simply because you do get to make some connections. And it does mean that I have to limit my military, like strictly. I just have one person that is in the military right now. But I don't know, it's just, it's very nice seeing just very few dwarfs work.

and like mingle and socialize makes me happy well i had a goblin siege come in and i thought my squad could handle it and they obviously couldn't they destroyed like all of the livestock it sucked oh no yeah yeah that's that's another thing what i like to actually play it with less people at the start because i'd like to uh remain under the threshold for all these things that can happen like goblin sieges, forgotten beasts, whatever. Yeah, I forgot that was a thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You will never find out usually because a lot of people, I think,

just play with the natural population cap of like 100, and then it goes like bang, bang, bang, and gives you 60 migrants in one wave, and then you're already above it. Mm-hmm. But this means that I get to actually dig out my fortress and set up all the crafting areas, and then slowly, like, inch up.

And the moment I am above the threshold, for example, Forgotten Beasts, I should not just have enough people to put them into the military, but I already have all the established crafting areas, all the established armor, the weapons, the training area. So, like, mm, it's very helpful. That's a good way to do. When you have a big population, you can do a lot of things quickly. though. But it is

at the cost of getting to know your dwarves. Yeah, yeah. I still tend to focus on just a few of the dwarves, though, so it doesn't really bother me too much. Oh, you mean you have your favorites? Exactly, exactly. Okay, makes sense. I used to have also favorites

in my previous fortress, and I also wanted to have, like, a smaller fortress, but that kind of ballooned up, thanks snake families. And I wouldn't even say that the snake people, per se, are like my favorites, but I definitely had my favorites there, like my chief medical dwarf, for example, for a very long time, and a specific soldier. Yeah, so I get that part. While the miners are off-channeling suspicious tunnels and the masons creating suspiciously

pointy statues, it's time to salute more legendary supporters of season seven. Let's hoist a barrel of Dwarven Ale for Mr. Gutsy. Brunder 313 Sir Nanigans Byron Mondragar and Patrick Shaw. Your support is tougher than

Adamantine and shinier than a masterwork gem. You folks are the reason our episodes are practically void of tantrum spirals. May your fortress floors remain vomit-free and may the goblins never figure out how to pick a door lock. Did you see the dev notes where they posted some of the new style forgotten beasts?

Oh, yeah. Those are beautiful. You can tell that they hadn't gotten that part quite done yet because all the forgotten beasts pretty much looked the same at this point. Yeah, I think they mentioned that in one of the devlogs that they're working on proper sprites graphics. Yeah, yeah, that was the one that came out on June 16th. If you go over to Bay12games.com slash dwarves, link in the show notes.

But yeah, it takes you right there, and they have pictures of all of, or a bunch of them at least, and they look friggin awesome. Some pretty scary looking things there. I especially like the wide variety of colors. The uses of greens and reds are very nice looking. Yeah, I agree that the colorfulness does not subtract from the, like, dangerous aura that there is. exhibiting because now somebody said to me, now they kind of

look like monster hunter animals. Yeah, yeah. I like that. Heck, one of them looks like the bad guys from, what was that movie series, Stay Quiet, make no noise. Oh, the

one with Jim from the office. That guy. When Jim quit the office, moved to the countryside, got a family, aliens took over. It really doesn't I think Sandra Bullock was in it. What's that? I think Sandra Bullock was in it.

Was she in it? I don't think she was in it. Was she? We may be talking about different movies. The ones where everybody had to be quiet. Yeah. Yeah. That was a dark place or a different.

What was that called? Yeah. Quiet place. There we go. Yeah. I don't know how it connects to the office, but very weird. Very, very, very weird crossover movie. There's one of the monsters that look like the monsters from that.

It's pretty cool. Basically, all mouth. Yeah, they're very, like, did stranger things, like, break us on what monsters look like? Because I feel like a lot of things look like Demi Gorgans now after that show. I think, when did a quiet place come out? Wasn't it like, it was before, it was before Stranger Things? Was it? I don't know.

I don't think so. All right. Let's take a look here. To the computers before somebody tells us we're wrong. 2018. So it definitely came. out after Stranger Things. Stranger Things came about that long ago?

Yeah, 2016. How about that? Oh, yeah. How about that? You know, that's why those kids are all like 40 now. Holy cow. Not quite. You know what I mean.

Also, talking about the sprites, the new beautiful graphics. I think they only work for new beasts and new worlds. Oh. That's true, I think, with all of the mods, the new graphics, you have to build a new world to use them. And it matters, like, the order you put them in. Has this even been released yet? I wasn't, I didn't get the idea that this was actually in the, in the, in the mainstream yet. It wasn't it?

Oh, I didn't. Or is it beta? I don't know. I just. Oh, you're right. It's not released. Okay, never mind then. That's why.

That's why they're not there, yeah. Oh, because I was really sad. I went home and I booed. I put it out my game and I wanted to look at my, like, snake, a forgotten beast that I caged and, like, see it in all its green lorry. See if it blossomed. And it kind of just looked the same, like, black stuff thing, snake thing as before. Black stuff, snake thing.

That's a good, good description. Black stuff, snake thing. I'm allowed to talk weird. This is not my first language. That's my new, that's my new band name. It's why, yeah, it's my Black Sabbath cover band. That's right. did you know that there's a there's a sabbath cover band called mac sabbath and they all dress up like

mcdonald's characters what i just just wanted to make sure everybody knows about that because i think it's really amazing yeah yeah go look at it and and osie osborne has seen it so mac sabbath everyone mac sabbath go check them out so which one is ronald aziz character i don't i don't know exactly you'll have to you'll have to just kind of check it out for yourself but they also re-themed the songs into burger-related you know they stay on message with McDonald's so uh really good yeah really good stuff really worthy of this time now these are old school but the two kings of that

had to be dread Zeppelin which was all Led Zeppelin songs reggae style and and Hacy Dixie ACDC covers at bluegrass I love those like we've got a there's a boomer band out here called Fleetwood Macromay and I'm like You know what? Own it. Live it. That's what you do. I love it. It's great. Well, it's not too far off the mark for 1970s Fleetwood Mac anyway. I could see, you know, a young Stevie and Nick's doing macrame and hanging up, you know, plants with Macromay plant hangers. Fleetwood Macromay.

Yeah. Also, in those dev notes, I want to read this quote because it excites me. I've now added some behavioral changes so that ranged. soldiers will back away, use fortifications, and generally not be as silly in eagerly leaping from the walls and clobbering enemies with their weapons. You know, I was just waiting for you to finally approach the subject of Marks Dwarves yet again in this podcast. Thank you.

Thank you. You're welcome. I didn't bring it up, though. Tony One brought it up. But if they're, okay, let's, let's approach it softly. I'm not going to say they are. now fixed exclamation mark i haven't played it but it would be good if there's just a slight update to the way they approach combat because that would single-handedly make them from a

useless unit at times to the best military unit in the game oh yeah because not only can you shoot air people before they advance into your face which is very practical if you want to, you know, survive an encounter. Yeah, that's the goblins who attack me. Yes. You have two squads of actually functioning military archers, like 20 dwarfs reigning metal hellfire, in the general direction of the goblins.

The goblins are going to have a bad time. And elite Marx dwarfs, they are something else. I've only had the very rarely in my games, but let me tell you, when they shoot, they shoot, they shoot fast, they shoot precise, they hit like a truck. And it is just beautiful, giving them like silver arrows, they're heavy, they're blunt, suddenly, they're not shooting like a crossbow bolt that hurts people because it's sharp. but they're essentially just throwing metal rocks at your enemies, and, ooh. It's like shooting a 20-gauge slug. Yeah, yeah, it's very nice. And if they actually work, then they will also become one of the best military units against animals

because you have flying animals. And even if the flying animal just hovers in terror, above your squad, there is no weird cancellation going on. The Marksdwarf will just shoot it out of the sky. And that's amazing. Yeah, I need to get mine up again. Well, I am looking forward to it. Yeah, I've let mine slide.

I gave up on them several patches ago, and I need to come back. I don't know that I've built a Marksdwarf squad since Steam release came out. Yeah, I just, like, yeah, we've talked about this a lot of, I quit. What do you guys think you're going to do about tunneling invaders? Well, a good thing about tunnels is that Marksdwarfs can shoot in those tunnels. Sorry, I just had to go back there. Yeah. Well, I'm glad you did, because that's a strategy.

But, like, tunneling invaders, what do we do? Tunneling invaders. I am still questioning what that actually. means because are we talking about the same can they just dig down like dwarves because if they can't yeah yeah that would be crazy because that that is something that happens in remworld with like specific raids or whatever I was absolutely shocked when they started digging okay

I didn't know that was in the game and if your invaders can now start to dig that is going to be very problematic. I'm not even sure if they can get through stone. It would be very nice if they just get to dig through dirt, not stone. There would be a huge limitation, but it would still be able to completely circumvent a lot of your military tactics that you built on top of the soil. So, wow.

I'm with you. Yeah. Dirt would be great, because, I mean, that could be really interesting, especially if you have an aquifer layer. What happens if they try tunneling in an aquifer? Oh, my God. I kind of love that. Well, yeah, but imagine if they actually dig through an aquifer right into your fortress and

you have all your dudes down in your, like, deep cavern fortress, and then it just gets flooded and you can't do anything because your only stairway is being rushed with. a new newly created waterfall oh my god okay oh so i love that i'm seeing dark times ahead yeah they can come in and just basically ruin your fort they just be like you know what we're coming in water and all oh no well i i i've said this before i i'm looking forward to something spicing up the challenge i i liked those fortresses that From no mismanagement of your own, just circumstances happen such that you got, you know, whacked with within three years and you had to start over. So I thought that was a fun part of the game that seems to have gone away.

We will see. I was, again, I was sad that they, air quotes, fixed the cavern dwellers. I thought that that was pretty awesome. Yeah, I know that there's some discontinuity if they have steel weapons. but I love the fact that they would just come wave after wave at times. It was a good challenge. You know, I do agree. The amount was a little tricky at times, yes, but the fact that they came in.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. That was huge. I actually mostly put them off. I shut them off, not for the sake of, like, helping their FBS or because it got too much, but because the amount of stuff they bring to you. Just one shield, one weapon per person was so much. I could have built my entire fortress on the ground, on the above ground, out of metal blocks. There was so much.

And I feel that was a very defining factor in the way that that works. If the cabin dweller just came in either like naked and started punching people, or they have, like, more exotic weapons, like the blow darts, no, blow dart is what you actually shoot. But I see the weapon that you shoot it out of. DART gun. Dark gun? Yeah. If they came with that, the syndromes properly worked, that would have been much cooler because that's a more exotic weapon.

That's my opinion. It'll be interesting to see what tweaks he makes to bring the back in because I liked it. I guess it could have been a little bit less harsh, but yeah, I liked it. But also the agitation in wilderness biomes, have you ever tried that? No. Agitation? I'm not sure what that means. Yeah, the agitation mechanic in the wilderness, like untamed wilds biomes, okay, above ground.

You would cut wood or pick plants or whatever, and that would agitate the animals in the area. and then the game will throw something at you because it is untamed wilds. It could be a giant version of an animal. And whenever I played, I basically just got flying creatures. So, vultures, giant parakeets, and eagles and whatever. And that got really annoying because of the previously mentioned archer bug where they would not just

like shoot at the thing that is flying in the sky but they would just mill around or I didn't even have archers because they, you know, don't really work that way. I don't think that was touched on and I had a few fortresses where I would kill one of the agitated animals and that was already enough

agitation on the surface level to like spawn the next few things in and I was like, oh yeah. I never tweak the game setting like that. I always go with just stock. Yep. Yeah. I do stock. Sometimes I'll limit the number of population, you know, population count, but usually they just leave everything alone. I'm not very good at like the world builder, neither. The world builder. Like, you know, roll your own world or whatever. Advanced world gen? Advance world gen. Boy, am I not good at that. Never ends well for me.

You know, I have I have tried my fair share of advanced world. That was all before Steam release, by the way. I've never tried advanced world gen with a steam release. And I remember I wanted to make a volcanic island chain. Archipelago. Yes. Exactly. I wanted to have like a world like that

and just have like various smaller islands with a lot of volcanoes. That's my favorite way to play Empire Earth. Oh, that's so true. You brought back memories. but not to go and divulge in your

thing here because my god I've been playing Empire Earth lately age of mythology by the way but I managed to create a world that had a lot of islands had a lot of volcanoes but it had like no caverns and those caverns that it did have were like weirdly glitched and elongated

and like really deep tiny shafts in the earth yeah and it was not very fun to play so are you are you actually playing empire earth one you know i have played empire earth one when i was a child and i think my brother got me two or three when i was older and i was like yeah okay this good but now this is this is not the same nuclear rocket spam that i used to do back then and yeah Empire Earth was the bomb. It was great. But now I'm playing H.F. mythology retold, like the reforged version of it.

It's interesting what they added to the game. It's completely useless. Although that multiplayer Django is like, okay, daily drops? Are you serious? Just let me get to my game, please. Thanks. Yeah. Oh, that ship has sailed, man.

That ship has sailed. The Tor Fortress actually has lots of drops, too. It's constantly being updated, so I don't know why I'm complaining. That is pretty big, you know. I have noted that a lot of the games that I used to play in my youth, you know, because it's so long ago, but a lot of them have shot off one way or the other. And those that are still being updated, I do not enjoy the updates anymore, because the game is very clearly removing itself from the picture that I used to have in the head of the game.

Not to call here any names, but, you know, World of Warcraft. Anyway. Oh, no, have they done things to it? Oh, no, I haven't looked in a while. You know, I feel like such a slob when I say, oh, my God, what did they do to the game every time they update it? but I play Rothof the Litch King and I'm very happy with it, missed me with everything after. But the games that I play the most nowadays

are all games that are like passion projects, they're constantly being updated, the long-going projects. I mean, Project Zonboid, for example, is a passion. That's a passion project that went on very long and is still being updated. So you're saying you like to be. you're mostly into games that are like long-term projects one or two people like the passion project games you know you you can really smell the soul the love that they have for this

and um i don't know how long project on boy it has been like worked on and updated but you do feel like the the makers of this game are very much loving what they're doing i don't know that that is a much bigger selling point for me than super polished graphics or completely always working servers that are never crashing, which big thing, by the way, Apex Legends did not manage to do that, but giving a passion project over like a 4K 3D first-person shooter title. I think you are maybe on to something. And I think a lot of those games tend to be these, like, rogue light type games, kind of like, you know, like every time you play it, it's a little bit different sort of thing. Well, yeah, that's true.

Like, think, do you guys have done that one? Yeah. Like, that's a roguelight. It's poker roguelite. Who'd a guess? But, oh, my God, it works. Did you hear that the maker of Bellatro just finished to actually, like, finish the game? Like, just lately.

Yeah, I believe it. Bro, made the game and never finished. finished it and like three weeks ago tweeted about that he actually managed to 100% his own game the first time. I think that's very cute. It's a tough game. It is. I cry every time. Actually, I'm not very far.

I'm not very good. It's crazy how bad I am at the game. Yeah, nor am I. But they've done it. And again, it's a one-person dev shop. I don't think you can get more incognito mode than that, dude. But yeah, it's like clearly something they enjoyed doing. I think he wrote it in Lueh.

That would explain a lot. Fascinating stuff, though. Finally, before Eurist McMiner decides to dig straight down for science, we've got one last wave of epic thanks for the patrons who've kept our pickaxes swinging through season seven. Huge dwarfy gratitude goes to Dan Wyman. Colton Reagan, Nome Gull, Heif the Green Wizard, and Rainer. You all are the magma beneath our forges and the platinum spikes on our finest artifacts.

May your feline friends never bring forth the cat's plosion, may your levers always be labeled, and may your socks never wear out. Thanks for being part of the podcast. So I think we're about ready to wrap up this episode of Dwarfortress Roundtable. We are going to start our summer hiatus that has become an annual occurrence. It's good just to stand back. The activity in Dwarfortress isn't that heavy right now. So whenever the late summer, early fall rolls around, we'll be back.

And we will talk all about Dwarfortress. And hopefully, yeah, hopefully we will have. learn how to make chocolate by that point. Get the office as fumigated. It's great. It's going to be a good summer. Some roasted coffee beans, maybe some bags made out of orb weaver spider silk. Holy moly, don't threaten me with a good time.

I'm down. Yeah, let's have a fort off. Wait. So we will be back for the start of season number eight of Dwarfortress Roundtable. we are at this is episode 121 that we're recording right now wow so you know guys what are we doing with all all the money and all the fame that we're doing are we going to go on like the third dubai trip again oh so sure yeah get ready to launch dwarf token our dwarf themed pansy i mean cryptocurrency project i would like to thank our patrons though because patrons are are what is

making the podcast possible. Definitely. It is them who are funding our server storage, our recording software. It's the reason that we're able to do this every two weeks or so, and we appreciate it. I'll be turning off the donations for the hiatus like I always do. But yeah, thanks to the patrons, thanks to all the listeners for tuning in every episode to Dwar Fortress Roundtable. You know, it's just a fun thing for us to get together and talk about everyone. once a while. Yeah, I love ideas. I think we all love it. If you pose us questions or things that

seem crazy and dumb and shouldn't be done or can't be done, like let us try and fail and present the output of that to you. I think that'll be fine. Yeah, I enjoy the fact that I am now able to have this little niche hobby and that I don't have to worry about finances or am I being listen to but apparently it is working we have found a very nice niche and I'm I don't have enough words

to describe how happy I am with us yeah yeah we've got over 300,000 downloads so wow yeah that's so cool I mean I I am continually amazed that there's seemingly always interesting

new questions that people pose or just stuff that we didn't understand or figure out and what a what a friggin rich game door fortresses what an interesting really yeah yeah thank you yeah thanks tarn you and zach it's tarn may be that the gear the gear turner but but i think that zack is a huge part of the flavor of the game so yeah thanks guys his his lennon to his mccartney right is that we're doing are we comparing them to the beatles all well well only only if they hate each other uh whenever they stop working on the project

together. Right. Yeah, I don't know. We don't want that to happen. We don't want the Lennon and McCartney thing to happen. No, no. But, you know, who knows? Yeah, of course. Let's keep it very specific to 1963. 63, yeah, 63 through

say 67. Yeah. Yes, that was totally a lot of at that point. You know, once magical mystery tour happened, it started going way downhill really fast. It all changed on Brian Epstein, died, really. All right, we're going to take off for the summer. We'll see you all in

probably early September's when we'll be back for season eight. Thanks again for everybody for joining us for this long ride that we've been on with Twelfortress Roundtable, and we'll see you next time. Peace out. Yeah, I will emerge from my cool cellar in the fall, and then we will be here again. Did you say cruel cellar? Well, it's a cruel, cruel. That is Well is the truth, but I meant like... Sorry, it was like my audio broken. Chili, chilly cellar. Like a cool seller.

That was a banana-rama song, right? Cruel seller. Cruel seller. Yeah, and now it's gone. Do you get Roland's like banana, banana? The crap. 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 in the comments section for this episode. While you're there, you can subscribe to Dwarfortress Roundtable or find us in the podcast service of your choice. If you'd like to contact us by email, the address is Urest at DFRoundable.com. That's UR-I-ST at D-F Roundtable.com. If you'd like to interact with the hosts and listeners of the podcast, you'll find a link to join our Discord server in the main menu of our website. If you'd like to help support this podcast financially, you can find us at patreon.com D.F Roundtable. This is a conversational podcast.

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