Minecarts and Horrible Injuries

It's almost time for a new release for Dwarf Fortress!

Are you as excited as I am? I bet you are.

A recent poll of most anticipated changes to Dwarf Fortress has led to the implementation of a drastic mining overhaul. Minecarts, and incredible changes to hauling are the most popular items to be added.

In the past, a dwarf could only carry one item at a time. This meant that moving a pile of seeds or the clothing off of your former mayor's corpse would take dozens of dwarves and intense lag due to the abundance of pathfinding calculations required.

These changes will allow a single dwarf to carry as many items as it can carry, meaning that a single dwarf could now do work that would previously have taken ten! It's amazing. If it doesn't sound amazing then you don't understand how incredibly tedious it can be to watch a small army of dwarves carry single stones back and forth between piles when all you want is a wall constructed.

Minecarts have also been included in the upcoming release, which will allow dwarves to push, pull, load, and even ride minecarts.

                                        the future of DF? (photo courtesy of the minecraft wiki)

Of course, when one thing is added to the game, Toady adds much more to achieve a sense of completion. The implementation of minecarts has led to the addition of damage taken from skidding, parabolic arcs for flying items, and splashing upon hitting water (or magma).

The community is already planning on how to incorporate minecarts into their forts, and plans for cart launching death machines that fling magma-filled minecarts at hordes of goblin spearmen are already underway.

It will be amazing. Just. Amazing.

Zombie Weasels and the Collapse of Society

It isn't particularly rare that an experienced player of Dwarf Fortress builds a functioning fortress, in fact, creating a functioning self-sufficient fortress that can repel or avoid attacks and sieges is pretty commonplace. The real "fun" comes from building megaprojects, like giant statues of dwarves rigged to vomit magma on gobilins, or massive towers made out of pure gold that inspire awe in all who see it.

Luckily, I am not good at Dwarf Fortress, so my games become interesting pretty quickly.

Prestigecities, a new dwarven settlement in the white sand desert. Sand deserts promise many things, such as soil for crops, a low chance of having an aquifer, and material for infinite amounts of glasswork.

I have settled in a haunted desert, meaning that the land itself is hostile to life. It is one of the first times I have embarked in such an area, and so I am not quite sure what will happen.

In haunted biomes, it may rain blood or snow ash. Dead bodies will rise up instantly after death and attack their former friends and family with a newfound bloodlust and complete disregard for living beings. Perhaps most terrifying of all, demon fogs have been known to roll through haunted areas, turning all who touch its mist into horrible abominations bent on destruction.

One story in the Bay12 forums tells of a fog that turned its victims into virtually unkillable husks that could turn others simply by touching them. I feared what horrors would await me, and anticipated with glee how I would solve them.

Unfortunately, there were no epic battles. There were no genius traps, and there was no glorious victory over land that refused to be conquered. There wasn't even a farm.

A weasel. A zombie weasel ran onto the map and scared all of my dwarves so bad that they literally ran around in circles until they died of thirst.

Stupid dwarves.