Dwarf Fortress Tutorial

I've spent many, many hours with DF. It was hard when you first mentioned it about two years ago, but now it's much harder with the introduction of a z-axis. I did a fortress a few months ago and built a water clock, which is a lot harder than it sounds because the pressure plates don't work right with water.

What mods do you use, Michael? I played unmodded for a long time, and finally went with a simple graphics mod to make the squares square. Next time I'll try more of a military challenge, like Legendary Lands with no traps.

I haven't played for several months. When it moved to 3D I actually liked it less. The interface became too clunky for building the things I wanted to build, and most of my time was spent trying to figure out how to combine parts in the precise place and order to get what I wanted.

I didn't use any mods, but I did use a square tileset, which was very nice.

I was frustrated by the new interface for a while, too. In fact, I quit playing the game when it came out. When I came back a year later, I eventually found the problem. The help file lists as the commands to move up and down z-levels. And it's very inconvenient to hit those keys over and over.

What the help file doesn't tell you is that there's another keyboard shortcut for changing z-levels using the numpad. I think it's shift-5 to go up and ctrl-5 to go down. With that little trick in place, the default interface flows very smoothly: Your right hand is on the numpad navigating in three dimensions, and your left hand learns the key sequences for the commands. There's still quite a lot to learn, but it's much, much easier once you get the navigation interface down.