7 Ways to Fail at Dwarf Fortress

Dwarf Fortress is about to get a pretty major update so to get myself into the spirit of things, I’m going to run a fortress right into the ground!

The thing I love about Dwarf Fortress is it’s a failure story generator. We take an entirely fresh world, toss in relationships and conflict, and see how it all shakes out. Failure is inevitable. Not because the game is hard, but because those relationships and conflicts finally come to a head.

For this run I’m using the Lazy Newb Pack. No other mods beyond graphics. It’ll be a vanilla game.

The goal?

To fail in the most entertaining way possible.

So how do I expect to fail?

Starvation
Drowning
Zombies
Goblins
Insanity
Tantrum Spiral
Forgotten Beasts

All of these are the most likely path to failure. But not the only ones!

We could end up getting slaughtered by a Colossus, or maybe poisoned by some crazy animal. Dragons, maybe. But I think those are the most likely.

First things first. Making a world. This is what I like.

Small world keeps it manageable. I like a dense world to play in, with lots of Civilizations, Sites, Beasts, Savagery, and of course minerals.

Not too bad! Lots of variety, islands, a secondary continent. I see goblin populations, some nasty biomes, and plenty of shoreline. I can work with this.

Look at that!

The Momentous Realms

How’s that for a cool random name?

The first sight that catches my eye is the only volcano visible on the map. I love playing near volcanoes. Magma smelters, goblin fire pits, nasty traps. It’s so much fun to work with.

Alas, it’s on a giant mountain. The world needs more ground level volcanoes.

I won’t bore you with the site selection too much. I like oceans for plentiful fish. Having some trees makes it’s fun too. Temperate is my favorite as it’ll get snow, be cold, and eventually everything will freeze. And of course we have plenty of minerals and eventually flux for steel.

I don’t min-max my embarks. I like the good ole easy start. Failing right off the bat isn’t much fun.

Judgedlance

Sounds like a metal band from 1997. I’ll take it.

And there it is. Blood red sand. Forests filled with magical creatures.

7 Dwarves.

A bunch of soon-to-be-eaten farm animals.

One busted ass wagon.

Strike the Earth!

Want a dwarf named after you?

Leave me a comment below.

Think we should build a tower of doom?

Let me know. I’ll definitely be taking community direction.

We can all fail together!

 

 

 

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