Dwarven Fortress Beginner Tips: 8 things to know before you start

dwarven fortress perhaps the most difficult and complicated game out there. It has less of a learning curve and more of a learning cliff. You are responsible for everything and there is an endless stream of things that require your attention.

This dwarven fortress Beginner’s guide will help you get onto the cliff.

Learn to love the phrase “Losing is fun.”

There is no way to win dwarven fortress — no end screen, no real goal. There’s the primary goal of becoming a home in the mountains – a capital city – but the game doesn’t really end there. And that means that every fortress you build will eventually fail. Maybe it falls to an enemy attack, your own management mistakes, or maybe you’re just bored.

There’s a phrase that’s borrowed from the dwarven fortress Community: “Losing is fun.” The new Steam version comes with a tutorial and a sane help menu, but your first few strongholds will still fail. Because there are many ways to fail.

Image: Bay 12 Games/Kitfox Games via Polygon

We have described dwarven fortress as incomprehensible chaos. That’s where a lot of the “losing is fun” comes from. In the screenshot above, the keep failed because every time I cut down a tree, a flock of giant wrens would murder whoever was doing the chopping – along with any pets they could reach. All were dead within minutes.

Discovering (or creating) new and exciting ways to fail is fun dwarven fortress. embrace that

Location, location, location

Once you’ve created a world, you’ll need to choose an embarkation point. This is where you build your new fortress house. We go into more detail in our guide to building your first stronghold, but here are the important things to look out for: no aquifers, at least some trees, and at least some soil.

Image: Bay 12 Games/Kitfox Games via Polygon

Aquifers are subterranean bodies of water that slowly flood your stronghold and are tedious to manage. Trees provide lumber for building furniture and workshops. Soil allows you to grow crops for farming.

Don’t dig too much at once

When it’s finally time to start digging your fort dig orders menu (m), don’t stretch your miner(s) too thin. It’s easy to get carried away and start drawing your entire base right away. However, this is counterproductive as it will take a long time for your miners to work and they will leave chunks unfinished if you give them too many choices of where to dig next. Instead, work in small chunks with a specific purpose and wait for the miner(s) to finish before proceeding.

And remember that digging through dirt and clay is faster than digging through rock.

Do not go overboard in hallways

You can make your rooms as big as you like and your hallways can be as wide as you like, but digging takes time, so making things bigger than they really need to be is pointless.

Hallways only have to be one block wide. Your gnomes can go over or through any structure or furniture, and they won’t run into each other, so you don’t have to worry about jams.

Assign nobles and administrators to work for you

There’s a lot to consider while trying to keep your Fortress running. Luckily, you can assign administrative positions to dwarves and make your job easier. you do that in nobles and administrators Menu(s).

Image: Bay 12 Games/Kitfox Games via Polygon

Here you can assign jobs like Manager to process work orders and Accountant to keep track of your resources. Eventually, the manager and the accountant will need offices—a room with a door and a chair—but you don’t have to worry about it right away.

Use alerts to decide what to do next

Periodically, alerts and warnings appear in the top left corner. Here you get news about the weather and births, but also reports about jobs that, for whatever reason, cannot be completed.

Image: Bay 12 Games/Kitfox Games via Polygon

You will get warnings if you don’t have any materials. For example, see the screenshot above – the fortress has run out of plants to turn into alcohol. You’ll also get alerts if you don’t have kegs to store alcohol, or alerts if you’re running out of building materials.

Use these alerts to plan your next step. When you run out of crops, farm or gather more. When you run out of materials, expand your mines or cut down more trees. If you need something specific like barrels or blocks, create a new work order for it.

Keep your gnomes (relatively) happy

In general, your first handful of keeps probably won’t last long enough for your dwarves’ happiness to become a real problem. However, there are some pretty simple things that will make them happier for longer.

Image: Bay 12 Games/Kitfox Games via Polygon

You can review each dwarf by clicking on them and looking at their thoughts. Look for negative emotions to see what you are helping with. (You can also from the Citizens menu with u.)

Some common causes of dissatisfaction and their solutions could be:

• Build some beds in a carpenter workshop. Place them in a room with four walls and a door and make that room a sleeping or sleeping area.
• Place some chairs and tables (either built in a carpenter’s or stonemason’s shop) in a meeting area zone so they have space to sit. Also, make sure your gathering area is indoors or underground – dwarves don’t like being caught out in the rain.
• Collect and grow different plants – gnomes get bored drinking and eating the same thing every day.

Remember that losing is fun

The point of dwarven fortress often fails in new and creative ways. Don’t look at a collapsed fortress as a failure. Instead, think of it as fun. Every stronghold is a chance to learn something new – something you should have done sooner, something you shouldn’t have done, or something you can be better prepared to do next time.