Would I recommend you buying it? Well, if you're reading this you're probably already reasonably familiar with Dwarf Fortress and won't find much in it that you don't already know, so no, you probably don't need this book, give your $15 to Toady instead. It's written in the same style as my tutorials (irreverent and, I hope, funny) and I'm excited that O'Reilly has let me take this thing where I want it to go.
The book covers how to create your first world, embarking, first steps (getting food production up and running, digging, etc) and then branches into chunky chapters on managing your dwarfs, industry, military, mods and tools, etc etc.
The goal of the GSWDF book is to provide a one-stop-shop for brand new players who want to try and tackle this game but find themselves lost and confused (for most people this sets in about 30 seconds after running dwarffortress.exe in my experience). I would like to think that they have been great introductions to Dwarf Fortress. My old 2009 Dwarf Fortress tutorials still net 2,500 views a day (double that figure whenever Toady releases a new version of DF) and the first tutorial has had 750,000 page views.
Why a book? Well, yes, the wiki exists, and yes, it is a superb and unparalleled resource, but many, many gamers want manuals or huge chunky strategy guides that will step them through everything they need to know. Dwarf Fortress is far more important than any of that stuff! I love the idea of this book sitting alongside books on C+, Lnux, MySQL and server maintenance. The horrorĪnd yes, it is a legit project by O'Reilly who have an editor or two who are as passionate about DF as the rest of us. It's not done yet but I expect it will clear 150 pages. Yes, I'm writing a book on Dwarf Fortress. Quote Hi guys! Looks like the cat is out of the bag! I wasn't sure when O'Reilly was going to announce this but I guess now is the time? I was hoping to announce it myself! Awww. (*) Various string changes for TrueType (will also affect other modes in hopefully minor ways) (*) Stopped critters from breaking away from being led in an inconsistent way (*) Stopped zillions of chat thoughts from being stacked up (*) Reintroduced negative thoughts from clothing, nakedness thoughts take a few weeks (*) Material size respected in standard tool construction jobs
(*) Tool weights fixed (at least to align with raws) (*) Champion can be appointed, fixed various circumstances causing failed position activations (*) Fixed problems with socks going on the same foot (*) Fixed metal/bone helm artifacts (Quietust) (*) Decreased vampire frequency for fort migration (*) Stopped young animals from lashing out (*) Allowed selection of war/hunting animals (*) Animals being trained wander around less (*) Training jobs for large animals decoupled from kennels - assign trainers in animal screen (*) Clothing deterioration in refuse pile (*) Made ownership lapse for things that have been thrown away - can take about 10-20 days (*) Stopped failed pickup job from keeping item in uniform plan (*) Stopped sever victims from obsessing over lost clothes (*) Allowed people to pick up their own owned clothes
(*) Animals that have killed/attacked civ members no longer attack when trained (*) Fixed a save corruption from saving at the moment of trade meetings (*) Added text site color key for town map export (*) Animals have training status which can deteriorate (*) Your civilization picks it up from you if merchants survive (*) Your site picks up training knowledge as you go (*) Each civilization has animal training familiarity based on locale/journeys/domestication You can get at the animal training options from the 'z' animal tab. Quote Here is the next one! The main features are the animal training and clothing changes.