Caln Elcarië

the duke of nuke · Post by **the duke of nuke** » Tue Apr 13, 2010 9:04 am

It's been a long time since the Civ2 Almea scenario came out and I thought it was time for a new Almean-inspired video game mod. To this end, I present Caln Elcarië - Dwarf Fortress Almea!

For those who are unfamiliar with it, Dwarf Fortress is a roguelike game where you start off with seven dwarves in a wilderness location, then build up your settlement by mining deep into the earth, making valuable crafts and defending against wild animals and enemy armies. Eventually you can rise to become the capital of your civilisation... or plunge the fortress into a horrific spiral of depression, chaos, and mass murder. I heartily recommend it and it can be downloaded here.
But wait, there's more! As Neek points out, you can do such crazy things as build an 8-bit computer using hydraulics... or make a 100-foot-high statue out of platinum wielding an adamantine warhammer... or construct a self-reloading magma weapon that obliterates swathes of the countryside.
And of course, Losing is Fun!

As it looks like Caln Elcarië may actually see some life sooner or later, I'll keep this post updated with the current state of progress.

NEW: Flaids debugged and rifters implemented!

Currently implemented:
- Modified races (elcari, humans)
- New intelligent races (ktuvoks, múrtani, icëlani, flaids, ilii, rifters)
- New wild animals (sea-monkeys, Almean seals, roa)
- New domestic animals (notseh cow, sammule, flauk, hwihwi)
- New materials (emur, white gold, aluminum bronze)

To be implemented:
- Languages as appropriate (Cuêzi for the humans, I think... but there can be more than one human civilisation eventually)
- New crops and plants (trow bean, teng bean, streff, pell, meigrass, ko bean, threadwood, hemp)
- New wild and domestic animals from across Almea (hamsters, turkeys, piebirds)
- New Almean legendary animals (7ubeer...)

Current problems with the modpack:
- Aluminum bronze and white gold not available on embark

Tested features:
- Civilisations appear in appropriate places -
-- Elcari and múrtani in mountains
-- Humans and flaids in plains, especially coastal areas; only ever one flaidish civilisation
-- Icëlani and rifters in forests, both of which will send thieves to attack you; only ever one rifter civilisation
-- Ilii in Good coastal areas
-- Ktuvoks in Savage wetlands
- Elcarin farming is now above ground
- New animals are available on embark
- Special characters now display correctly

Neek · Post by **Neek** » Tue Apr 13, 2010 10:32 am

Damnit, Duke, I was going to do that!

I was going to wait after the bugfixes in DF2010, so that the game is updated AND playable. You can count me interested. You also forgot two important features of the game: 1). Losing is Fun, 2). It is possible to build an 8-bit computer in the game using fluid-logic.

What version are you going to be using for this project?

the duke of nuke · Post by **the duke of nuke** » Tue Apr 13, 2010 11:41 am

0.31.x (DF2010). I think I'm on 0.31.01, so there are still a few issues, but I've survived so far by staying away from Evil and colossi.
I'd be happy to collaborate on this project if you're interested

Do you want me to mail you the files?

Neek · Post by **Neek** » Tue Apr 13, 2010 5:44 pm

Please!

the duke of nuke · Post by **the duke of nuke** » Tue Apr 13, 2010 6:25 pm

Here's the current file:
http://www.srcf.ucam.org/~ajr91/DF/objects.7z
The folder simply replaces the "objects" folder of the vanilla DF installation.

By all accounts 0.31.03 is pretty stable, so I'd recommend using that.

Neek · Post by **Neek** » Tue Apr 13, 2010 6:28 pm

Also, threw you on my MSN. I think.

the duke of nuke · Post by **the duke of nuke** » Wed Apr 14, 2010 7:52 pm

Cheers

I've made some more updates and it now seems to be working reasonably well. However...
I have discovered that trying to start a fortress on a rifter forest retreat or human, ktuvok, or abandoned town crashes the game if the view is set to biomes

The same doesn't seem to apply to ilian or flaidish towns. Not sure about icëlani retreats.

Also, the settings are such that hwihwis are ridiculously cheap (£1), although that's soon fixed.

Hm. It seems that if I try to loo(k) at a flaid, human, ktuvok, or rifter the game crashes. This is an issue.

Múrtani and ilii can be viewed ok. Obviously, so can elcari.
Icëlani can also be viewed ok; as a side note their forest retreats are absolutely littered with crafts they've stolen from nearby settlements.
Oh, also, the main function of hwihwis seems to be getting devoured by rampaging monsters. Most of the exceptionally designed images on gems and figurines relate to events like

the devouring of a hwihwi of The Lush Band by the sasquatch Fondledown the Heathers of Excavating in Lyricmurder in 497 during The 40th Monster Rampage in Lyricmurder

and yes, that is an actual quote. Interestingly the images of ktuvoks and flaids seem to be appearing without trouble, unlike the creatures themselves...

rotting bones · Post by **rotting bones** » Sun Apr 18, 2010 7:46 pm

Turing-complete in-game computer built using logs and hydraulics:

http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-8269
http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.p ... msg1094222
http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=49641.0

How many games let you get away with that and mindless mayhem?

the duke of nuke · Post by **the duke of nuke** » Wed Apr 21, 2010 4:50 pm

Version 0.1.0 is now online, with 8 civilisations, 17 new plants, 20 new plant products, 9 new animals, and 4 new metals!
See this link for details and this one for the Bay 12 forum thread.

I've linked Virtual Verduria as the homepage for this mod. If there's a problem with this, please tell me and I'll remove it.

rotting bones · Post by **rotting bones** » Thu Apr 22, 2010 3:23 am

Thanks, but um... 0.31 isn't much fun to play yet.

the duke of nuke · Post by **the duke of nuke** » Thu Apr 22, 2010 9:52 am

You could just treat the horrific bugs as sources of comedy... that's what I'm doing.
I'll be doing all the development on 0.31.03, but if you want to backport it to 0.28.x it shouldn't be too much work. At present my DF time is spent beta-testing this mod...

rotting bones · Post by **rotting bones** » Thu Apr 22, 2010 3:24 pm

Thanks. I could try my hand at beta-testing if I get the time.

the duke of nuke · Post by **the duke of nuke** » Sun Apr 25, 2010 7:21 pm

Oh, I'm having a whale of a time with this game.

I founded my fortress, Mirrormire, at the edge of a temperate freshwater swamp and a temperate savannah (so I could grow rice and tea). A few gems, lots and lots of coal and iron ore and sphalerite.

In the first year a rifter appeared and tried to steal some stuff, but was chased away. My militia commander tried to kill a seal but ended up drowning. Múrtani thieves kidnapped two children, but who cares.
The elcarin caravan arrived in late autumn.

Now it's late summer of the second year. The ilian caravan arrived with two merchants and two horses... and then the múrtani sprung from ambush with one blowgunner and four axemen. And then again with one hammerman and four macemen. (Those bronze maces do a lot of damage.) And then they send another thief. Meanwhile one of the iliî is dead, as are seven elcari, and an icëlan thief has decided to join in (and looks very puzzled).

FUN FACT: If there the iliî arrive on the map with a body of water between them and the trade depot, they will swim through it below the surface rather than bothering to walk around it; their horses paddle along at the top.
EDIT: Múrtani are best dealt with by putting them in cages. Then you can do with them as you please...
EDIT: Fought off the last attack. Their casualties: 4 captured, 1 wounded, 7 missing. My casualties: 15 killed, 1 wounded. Ilian casualties: 1 killed, 1 missing.