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Its currently in Early Access on steam for $8. If anyone ever heard of Dwarf Fortress, its a very similar game to it, only this one has graphics, instead of abstract representations. I got it because it looked like a top-down RTS version of Minecraft. Although now that I've played it extensively, I would say its not like it at all. Its very unique, in its own niche.

I've gotten pretty far into the game, nowhere near feeling like I'm near the point of end game though, I'm happy to say. Gameplay and content is pretty good, and gives you hundreds of hours of enjoyment. Although with updates constantly coming out, I find myself deleting saved games and starting new ones. Still not getting tired of it, and don't think I will for a very long time. Anyone else share my interest?

I've played Gnomoria for a while, but have only see a few minutes of Dwarf Fortress.
It's difficult to get your Gnomes to build stuff. But, it looks pretty good, and worth a while.

I have managed 33 hours according to Steam. It is very similar to dwarf fortress, except that this has an actual UI (of a sort) and has made an attempt at looking fairly presentable.

Anyone have any cool looking builds? I see screenshots on steam of castles and forts, and giant statues made of stone or dirt. The largest structure I've built so far is a giant square fort. It's simple, but its huge, and extremely efficient. I have my entire kingdom inside it, with farms built on top, and a long hallway lined with marksgnomes leading to the main door into the fort. Wish I could build a gate.

I bought it and tried playing it once, but got precisely nowhere. Maybe it will be more my thing in the future, otherwise I'll hold out for that steampunky spiritual successor that's in development instead.

 LumenPraebeo wrote:
Anyone have any cool looking builds? I see screenshots on steam of castles and forts, and giant statues made of stone or dirt. The largest structure I've built so far is a giant square fort. It's simple, but its huge, and extremely efficient. I have my entire kingdom inside it, with farms built on top, and a long hallway lined with marksgnomes leading to the main door into the fort. Wish I could build a gate.

Mechanisms and gates a bit tricky and buggy but once you get the hang of it you can make some cool stuff.

On my tiny map after I got two squads of 3 gnomes full steel I got a bit bored with the fighting, so I blocked the map off and made a crushing trap at the only entrance.

Something like this...

M= Mechanical wall P=Pressure plate T=Torch

MTMMMMMMMMPTPMP

Each one is connected to power, the first M directly, the other two through the pressure plates. Each has a switch to be turned on/off indepentently.

Basically the first wall just blocks off your kingdom and makes sure gnomads or merchants don't kill themselves. If a goblin invasion comes in, that wall comes down and the they come charging in. The first un-armoured one sets off the pressure plate, crushing all his comrades on the ceiling. The reason for the last PMP is that it lets the goblins have a path to come to, but neither side can actually get past the wall. That trap gets turned off, last goblin gets murdered, crushing trap gets disabled and its Goblin Sausage on the menu!

Right now I am trying to dig out the entire floors from 50 down. Fun fun. Will probably end up starting a new map soon!

Sound's awesome. I've heard people talking about using engineering and traps, but I haven't gotten to the point of surplus gnomes for me to feel comfortable with sparing a gnome for those jobs yet. I currently have 23, and they're all busy manning choke points or running like 3 chores a day. Its a REALLY large fort. Perhaps I should run a peaceful mode game so I can get all those figured out. As it is, I have under half my population dedicated to military. Although tbh, I'm quite proud of my accomplishments. In my previous game I had a great hall 50x150 2 depths high all set with marble, statues, and even has its own little market area.

I started a new game since then, but this time, I plan to top my previous accomplishments.

Get a gnome tinkering as soon as you have your metal production going. One of my Gnomes got stabbed in the face and went blind, so she retired from the militia and manned the tinker station all day.

The self powered traps don't seem to be an economical use of metal.

TBH as long as you don't let your Kingdom Worth get ahead of your military production and have only 1 way into your kingdom things should go pretty smoothly. It is mainly about surviving that first year.

That great hall sounds awesome! What was your KW?

4TheG8erGood wrote:
Get a gnome tinkering as soon as you have your metal production going. One of my Gnomes got stabbed in the face and went blind, so she retired from the militia and manned the tinker station all day.

The self powered traps don't seem to be an economical use of metal.

TBH as long as you don't let your Kingdom Worth get ahead of your military production and have only 1 way into your kingdom things should go pretty smoothly. It is mainly about surviving that first year.

That great hall sounds awesome! What was your KW?

It was something crazy, like 300k, for me anyway. The problem is I like building big, and my military is always 1 armor grade too low or badly positioned, so I always end up losing 1-3 gnomes each year. Bearable losses, although each time one died, I feel like i failed them. My list of KIA is up in the 30s in that save. It was my longest run yet, before I started the new game, since it was 2 months between patches. This time, I want to built a castle, with battlements, towers, inner and outer walls, maybe even a moat. I doubt I'll achieve my goal, but I'm gonna try anyway.

IMO, its the enemy mobs and underground expansion that are hard. I lose gnomes to that the most. For me, surviving the first few years is a breeze. Build farms, yaks are at top priority, get breweries asap, and you're safe for first year. Second year, get military up, start mining and smithing, get infrastructure for weapon manufacturing set up. Build walls and choke points, excavate for beginning your kingdom. Third year, your military should be competent enough to start dominating ground, and kill off the occasional goblin encroacher. Rooms and hallways should start taking form, cooking and furniture should be in their beginnings. After that, everything is good to go. It's far from perfect planning, I lose way more gnomes than I like later on, but I'm still improving, and perfecting.

What I do is set up a Maze of DEATH. Basically a completely moated kingdom with a single access point with a long and elaborately winding path. I research crossbows as fast as possible and then set up at least 2 'crossbow towers' (raised training grounds with) overlooking the killing fields and a full squad of gnomes with towershields ready to block anything that survives the flurries of bolts.

It takes a while to set up and there are some issues with it but I find it more appealing that just building traps.

I wouldn't build a water filled moat because gnomes have a habit of falling in and drowning.

I've had another go at the game, and got somewhere this time. I've carved a keep out of a mountain and built a low defensive wall around it. I've had some good luck with goblins running into animals and getting eaten instead of attacking the fortress, and now have two crossbowgnomes being trained for sentry duty.

Can you recommend a good video that gives a good example of how a game might go? I don't trust many let's plays...

I'd not tried walls. Will have to try that.

No idea on videos though. I don't use them.

 Skinnereal wrote:
I'd not tried walls. Will have to try that.

You don't need to wall yourself off entirely. Just reducing the number of directions the enemy can approach from is useful, so you know where to send the militia when the ominous music starts. While I carve out my entry hall I'm currently using an empty inlet drain as the way in and out of my fortress. My crossbowgnomes have a training area on top, so they can act as spotters while they train.

Looks interesting. I loved the idea of Dwarf Fortress but sucked horribly at it.

Hopefully the interface for this game is a lot easier to keep track of everything

 Skinnereal wrote:
I'd not tried walls. Will have to try that.

No idea on videos though. I don't use them.

A moat is more effective as it doesn't block ranged attacks (there are currently no ranged monsters) and it works just as well at blocking beasties. Its a very good idea to have your training rooms right next to the entrance through your moat and to have torches spread out along the approach.

 Melissia wrote:
Can you recommend a good video that gives a good example of how a game might go? I don't trust many let's plays...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E75mL6R42i0

This video is by the game developer himself. That's probably the best video you can get other than Lets Plays or reviews. This game is strategy, logistics, and heavy micro-management. Robobob has a great game going here, and he seems to me to be a lot more heavily invested in the game himself than other developers out there with early access games. So its a great game, and it has a bright future. Even if you've never played such a game before, or are more used to other genres, I'd still recommend giving it a go, I can't see how the time spent on this particular game wouldn't be worth it.