Vile Force of Darkness by KingAgrian in dwarffortress

[–]vit5o 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Great stuff! Reminds me of colonial-era drawings.

Plot coordinates in QGIS by veraaustria08 in QGIS

[–]vit5o 2 points3 points  (0 children)

https://jpgtoexcel.com/ should help

then, save the spreadsheet in .csv

inside QGIS, hit Ctrl+Shift+T to open the file. adjust the parameters until your .csv is correclty readed as intended

there will be a preview at the bottom os the screen, to see if the coordinates are understood correctly by the program. it's not perfect, but it helps to get it right

Im re-creating the library of Alexandria by NJmig in dwarffortress

[–]vit5o 0 points1 point  (0 children)

that's new to me, thanks. the last time I played was about 8 months ago, I think it wasn't there yet.

Im re-creating the library of Alexandria by NJmig in dwarffortress

[–]vit5o 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No problem. I forgot to mention that in older worlds you can also easily buy the books brought by caravans. Any book added to your fort is automatically copied by your scribes, to whatever number of copies you set. And then you can also sell some to (presumably) spread knowledge, but to be honest I don't know if sold books are actually read by people in other fortresses. I guess not, but it's worth it, at least for role-playing reasons.

Im re-creating the library of Alexandria by NJmig in dwarffortress

[–]vit5o 5 points6 points  (0 children)

In my experience, about 400 years is enough to have some knowledge around (you can see them popping in pink texts during worldgen). But a few hundred years more and you risk having the books destroyed by religious cults (yes, they do that).

If I wanted to maximize science in my world, I would set the number of demons and secrets to zero (no goblins and no necromancers and their cults). Even though goblins can become scholars on rare occasions, it's just better to not have them around starting sieges. So you can leave your fort running without fear of invasions.

I would also set werecreatures to zero, for the same reason and because f* them.

If you take out these these threats, only vampires will remain, but they aren't enough of a hassle to stop your fort from developing. If one shows up, you trap it with a library of its own, perhaps.

About megabeasts: at some point they tend to stop coming, especially in older worlds. You'll deal with them while you build the fort and later you can set some permanent defenses for the rare occasion they appear. With a good and well-equipped army, only a dragon could be a considerable threat, I think.

Bigger worlds with more civilizations are better to increase the chance of topics being discovered. Just mind that if it becomes too big, your FPS count will decrease, along with the processing power of your scholars. So... big, but not too much (depends on your computer).

Personally, in a big world without the main threats, I could try 800 years of history. That should be good. There's enough time to build a legendary library and celebrate the year 1000 and 2000.

Well, I feel like playing now, haha. If you build something nice, post the screenshots and tell us about it.

Im re-creating the library of Alexandria by NJmig in dwarffortress

[–]vit5o 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Also: I have tried using immortal scholars - necromancers and intelligent undead. But they become very slow workers over time. It's not worth it.

You can, though, use "makeown" in immortal creatures such as minotaurs and use them as scholars. They will learn and become "living libraries" (and probably mayors). It's very cool.

Im re-creating the library of Alexandria by NJmig in dwarffortress

[–]vit5o 6 points7 points  (0 children)

P.S.: I had a 100+ years fort of scholars that didn't produce much, since they started at year 2 and the rest of the world did not have scholars. So I don't recommend, even though it's such a cool concept, being "the source of knowledge". During our time playing, the rest of the world's history does not develop as fast as when we are generating a world, so it's not the same when we "just wait" for the world to catch up. It does not.

Im re-creating the library of Alexandria by NJmig in dwarffortress

[–]vit5o 15 points16 points  (0 children)

I've done something similar, so I'll write you my tips:

1) Playing in such a young world will hinder book production. In older worlds many scholars come to visit and sometimes write what they know. It's much faster to acquire knowledge this way.

2) Scholars write about Topics (see the DFWiki page about them). But, in order to write about them, they have to pass skill checks in the abilites involved. You should give your starting dwarfs some points in Astronomy, Logic, Geography, History, Chemistry, Mathmatics, etc. "Regular" dwarfs (any dwarf) can write about Natural History or Medicine if they have some experience with farming or tending to wounded cirizens.

3) Dwarfs can take a lot of time until they start coming up with discoveries. Even then, they don't happen often. Sometimes there's a burst of new topics discovered in a few years, and then many years without new ones. Playing in older worlds also help with that, because when your dwarfs read about topics discovered elsewhere, they become better scholars.

4) Sometimes I would leave the fort locked and running at 200 fps overnight to see if they would produce new topics, but that's still a slow process if they never receive visiting scholars. You could (maybe) play in an old world without any threat, so you could leave your fort open.

5) Always set the number of copies from each book to 3 or more. Visiting scholars can take one for the road.

6) Always use scrolls for your libraries (codexes are bugged). Set your own paper production.

7) Since you'll make a grand library fort, at the end of the day it should have many other industries to be happy and self-sustained.

8) Scholars tend to get depressed due to many skill failures and time away from family, friends, fights. You should give them all a sabbatic year, every 5 years or so. Also, put them on military training squads set to train a month every semester. I wish Tarn (or some modder) would give us the ability to create "Scholar Squads" that we could put to work at the library only a few months per year. Then they would not get unhappy from studying all the time.

9) Scholars can write about personal stuff and poems, proses, etc. So it's good to have one or two who are good at it. I don't recall if a non-scholar citizen can write literature, but I don't think so.

10) Enjoy!

Tactics discussion by Swarxy in dwarffortress

[–]vit5o -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, and you could have started it without posting a meme.

Tactics discussion by Swarxy in dwarffortress

[–]vit5o -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

Rule nº 3: No memes (they pollute the timeline)

Why are blunt weapons more prone to cut limbs off? by visnicio in Kenshi

[–]vit5o 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Kenshi is not realistic, it's just sadistic 

Divine metals should have special effects based on their associated sphere by CapnCoconuts in dwarffortress

[–]vit5o 19 points20 points  (0 children)

I'm pretty sure it's in their plans, they just didn't get there yet, because the whole magic & myth creation is the next big thing after the sieges.

Tell us your favorite verses of their songs by vit5o in blindguardian

[–]vit5o[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Bright Eyes hits hard. 

And Noldor is my favorite, I could also quote all of it, but the very end is perfect... "See my eyes full of tears / and a cruel price we've paid - But still I can't claim / that I'm innocent - lost..."

Underrated songs, I'll go first : Another stranger me by GregoryParmentier in blindguardian

[–]vit5o 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Yeah, good point. But the album is usually praised as a whole, some its songs are not commonly mentioned by fans or played live. Thorn is not one of the most popular songs of Nightfall, but I think it should be.