Late Night Thoughts
I've recently developed a new habit of waking up in the middle of the night and being up for an hour or two. Last night was a rough one and it took me a while to fall back asleep, but as I tried - I had two thoughts which, at the time, seemed profound enough to share.
If I ever go into a coma, I just know I'm going to play an entire game of dwarf fortress and wake up from the coma and begin to cry, realizing it was all a dream.
A joke on the supposed story of a woman who had a coma and in three years lived an entire life and had a family and everything. Now, I went researching to try and find out more about this story and it could very well be an Internet hoax as I couldn't find any verifiable information this morning.
--
Happiness is our survival mechanism telling us we're living.
I fell down a rabbit hole where my tired brain backtracked the happiness through the feelings that define it, such pleasure, fulfillment, and contentment, as all being things our subconscious uses to pull us in positive directions. Which, in a world of survival, is a very good thing. Part of today's problems are that that has been weaponized against us such that we can literally have too much pleasure.
|
Long live Zustashadil
As the date neared, the dwarves began work on their great hall. An expansive cone room designed to amplify the voices on the dais. Day and night they toiled, chiseling and mining out the massive space.
And then on the 6th of Obsidian, when their queen awoke, she alerter her advisors of the vision that today was the day. The day the dwarven fortress Ancientwalls would forever turn their back on the overworld.
The message went out, summoning all dwarves to the great chamber. The speeches were made, from the mayor, from the duchess, and lastly from the queen. As the queen spoke one dwarf, Urist, was dispatched to make the trek upwards. He ran down the halls, trotting up the stairs, huffing and puffing down the final corridor until he reached the two levers. WIthout hesitation he yanked on both, and turned back towards where the citizens were gathered, listening to the mechanisms behind him as they began closing the gates, forever locking them within.
The engineers had cleverly devised a system that would send noises down to the chamber, magnifying the same mechanisms that Urist heard fading behind him as he began the trek back from his ceremonial mission. And as the hall fell quiet, the grinding of gears and ticking of latches echoing and distorted over the distance, until a clang rang out - that noise sending the dwarves into a joyful cheer. "Long live Zustashadil! Long live Zustashadil!"
Zustashadil was the ancient tongue for Ancientwalls. And now, they were forever safe, with caverns to conquer, and no more reason to step out into the sun. Thus Zustashadil had become a hermit kingdom.
This is my current Dwarf Fortress and I had decided around year 107 in game that I was going to do this by 110. I had visions of doing it as the year turned over, but as we got late in the year 109 I decided to just go ahead and pull the trigger. The fortress was relatively large with over 350 dwarves, and it just felt right to do.
For theatrics, I did actually force all of my dwarves into the great chamber and, humorously, that may have borked the game.
I opened it up last night and most dwarves were not working and did not begin taking jobs that were needed. I'm not clear if this is just the game being overly loaded with pathfinding after having all these dwarves in the same place and the calculations for line of sight and path finding being overly taxed, we'll see. I have a different save I can fall back to where I forego the theatrics before closing the gate, if need be.
But, all that said, we'll see what happens to Zustashadil on this new stage of the game.
|
Ep. 4 of the Noclip Dwarf Fortress Documentary
I loved the series of videos, they did a fantastic job shining a light on this crazy/silly game and the brothers behind it.
|
The Fate of Zunturasan
From 3 years ago on my Facebook page:
Last night, my Dwarf Fortress "Zunturasan" came to a joyous end after I succumbed to a goblin and troll invasion. I sat confidently behind my iron bulwarks and went on with my business assuming the monsters outside would tire and head home.
Little did I know that the goblin which we knew was stealing things and sneaking away was apparently hard at work burrowing a tunnel in for the invading force. Suddenly my notifications were filled with notifications that dwarves were being killed and I found that not only had they gotten into the fortress but that they had snuck in into the middle of the residences, giving them immediate access to dozens of dwarves.
I had not built a military, relying instead on good walls. And so the fortress fell, countless riches lost the greedy hands of the goblins.
Bummed Zunturasan ended, it was the fortress I had done the most with. I had made it to magma and was in the process of moving the fortress deep into the earth. But alas, it was not to be.
And so I shall begin anew, hard at work on building a truly great dwarf fortress.
This time I think I'll work on military a bit, lol
I haven't played much Dwarf Fortress in a while. I have the newer visual version purchased, I just need to sit down and play it. Maybe I'll do that some later this week.
|
Back to Dwarf Fortress
With the week off of work, this morning I was seized by a desire to play Dwarf Fortress again. So, goodbye spare time!
|
