How I conquered the world in 10 years in Dwarf Fortress

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Waging war against tens of thousands when you're just hundreds is near impossible, but after failing miserably last time I tried this challenge, I'm back trying to conquer every non-Dwarven site in just ten years in Dwarf Fortress.
0:00 - Intro
0:59 - Founding the Nightmare (Year 1)
12:52 - The secret ingredient is people (Year 2-4.5)
29:32 - The first Empires fall (Year 4.5-7)
40:37 - Circling the drain (Year 7-9)
48:44 - The Age of Legends (Final Year)

[@JustDontDie]

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[@saiyanwannabe6896]

You should have a little skip to time to not see the sponsor ad.

[@warmoverdrive]

Medtob feels like a dark souls boss at this point Medtob, Captain of the Guard

[@JustDontDie]

If you don't think about it, Elden Ring kinda stole its whole concept from my videos.

[@RoyalFusilier]

If Dwarf Fortress is primarily an engine for generating emergent stories through gameplay, then it's one hell of a well-oiled machine by now. Gone are the legendary days of Boatmurdered, for good and bad, so much has changed, but there's still the core there. This ended so perfectly, so bleakly, that it could have been written to turn out that way and be a great narrative about, you know. How war is bad, even the 'winners' are left with nothing by the end, an eye for an eye makes everyone blind, a civilization that only exists to support a huge military's endless wars isn't much of any civilization at all, all that stuff. All from a fun challenge run, which you smashed out of the park.

[@sambojinbojin-sam6550]

When good food, good beds, good grog, random nice stuff in a bedroom, and a mist generator in the meeting hall won't keep your dwarfs happy, you're either doing something wrong, or incredibly right/ awesome.

[@JustDontDie]

Right? Their friends are gone, they have to see tons of violence, and ghosts terrorize them, but they should have been happier. It's on them not me.

[@bighatdogan1086]

Love the storytelling in your videos, it's incredible how you can forge not just a story, but a legacy in one 1 hour long video.

[@JustDontDie]

Thanks so much! I feel like it's hard to balance the line between focusing on the challenge and having too much fluff, but I love when it feels like it plays out well here. My first draft of this video was about a half hour longer haha, but I think that was def too much fluff/fortress building.

[@adamguthrey6160]

​@@JustDontDieyouve got good odds that Id watch that extra half hour. Will there be a directors cut?

[@JustDontDie]

@@adamguthrey6160 Ahaha, sadly not. Most got axed before I lined it up with footage etc, and I wouldn't say much of what I do have the footage ready to go on is particularly interesting. It's mostly jokes I was iffy on = cut and taking a long time explaining things that's not necessarily great content. For example, I cut about 4 minutes from the first 20 that were setting up some of the notes hit later on. There was a bit more of a focus on the metalworkers, the human adventurers that helped before becoming ghosts, and fluff about the fortress that became the more focused 'summary' moments like digging major milestones.

[@offshooter]

A wild ride indeed. Would be interesting to see an attempt at restoring the settlement to its former glory now that the mission is over and outside threats are largely dealt with

[@terrydavis5924]

An amazing race against the clock, both the one set by yourself and the inevitable tantrum spiral brewing through the entire second half of the run that was one legendary axedwarf rampage away from a bloodsplattered tomb.

[@dragonuh7915]

The only reason that din't happen was because they were too busy fighting abroad to go to the ghost tavern

[@brody7714]

Would be interesting to see this made into a happy, prosperous fortress.

[@JustDontDie]

Why do you ask the impossible of me? :^)

[@dasbooterror]

Gotta look out for those diagonals on staircases!

[@JustDontDie]

I was trying to rush. I should not have rushed =(

[@Lickicker]

Its always fun playing randomly generated colony games. You set out with a goal in mind only to figure out your map just was not meant for it. It was probably meant for your last playthrough idea. My current fort would be good for this because basically all of the ore is iron with a faint trace of silver and copper, but ive only found exactly 1 block of native gold.

[@JustDontDie]

Honestly, the map ended up being pretty decent. Early gold = lots of people, and while the lack of iron slightly slowed down steel production, I had enough by the time I started setting out in earnest. I might have sped up the initial attacks slightly with more steel, but I think my ultimate army would have been slightly smaller. I think the only decent settlable part of the world nearish the center being on the south side, when a big lake separated me from the huge # of targets in the north, was more unlucky than the iron ended up being

[@HungryWhiteBoyGames]

You put so much effort into these videos, please don't get discouraged.

[@kylecruz6346]

I'd be interested in wandering this world as an adventurer.

[@xqt6339]

The improvement in editing from the conquest video is insane, keep up the hard work! It is being appreciated!

[@andreasguillot2057]

This is the best DF content I've ever seen. The mantra "happiness is a resource" fits you perfectly 😂 "10 years to fix this fort's happiness" next? sounds harder than one would think, and you may need a well deserved break 😂

[@JustDontDie]

Stop asking the impossible of me!

[@melkormorgothbauglir.4848]

@@JustDontDie Hey if anyone can do it, its you.

[@charlesv4434]

My god what storytelling, sweet music to my ears !

[@StarshadowMelody]

"And the fifth artifact in 4 years is a boot." **video buffers** This is a copper high boot. All craftdwarfship is of the highest quality. It is decorated with giant cave spider silk and giant olm leather. This object menaces with spikes of copper. On the item is an image of a radiant cut gem in alunite. On the item is an image of a diamond in alunite.

[@Runetrantor]

Wonder how much it would take to restore the fort into a nice place to live, or if migrants are just not gonna come again and it would be a slow grind of births to bring the fort back to glory now that the world is defeated.

[@JustDontDie]

I could be wrong, but I believe it'd be possible but very difficult. The fortress' wealth is much lower now that all the steel gear is abroad, but the meals and gold at home should keep migrant waves coming. I think the big problem is going to be attacks. There won't be any sieges now that everyone's dead, but megabeasts and titans and the like will be scaled to a huge fortress that has no military and only 17 tantrum-prone dwarves. Births alone won't be enough, as the human ghosts I can't do anything about were killing about a person a year, outpacing births.

[@Sonnavind123]

That would be fun to watch tbh

[@Gorillahamburger]

it would be cool to see a second challenge in the same world ~50 years later, maybe building a utopia with an iron rule and siphoning resources from the last few colonies on the planet

[@BuddyWudzyn]

Bravo bravo! I was on the edge of my seat at the end of the

[@procrastinationpanda3911]

Sir... The mission, the nightmares... they're finally... over. Outstanding video. Good to see you again :)

[@StarshadowMelody]

"Why does Medtob keep kidnapping children?" What do you think's gonna happen when a single mother of 3 is leading your warmongering?

[@VerySpicyMemes]

Wonderedcastles is the type of fortress that would probably get generated as a "Dark Dwarven Fortress"... tagged as Friendly

[@Bluelolz]

Excellent stuff as always! Thank you!

[@lilbred4044]

Medtob gets Khorne's approval and become a Daemon Prince, they now battle endlessly against the Imperium of Man.

[@C0rruptedSpY]

would be cool to see adventure mode of this bloodied world

[@quinnwasson2399]

Excellent story telling, wonderful video! Well done!

[@evanwilliams1839]

Gonna autism everywhere real quick, but the material of shields don't matter for protective purposes. A wooden shield will stop spewing fire and silver mauls with the same ease as steel shields. However metal shields and steel shields are "better" in the specific scenario of when your troops bash enemies with the shields. Also blunt weapons like maces and hammers can be used as suitable alternatives to bladed weapons as the peak materials for bludgeons are steel AND silver equally, meaning ore like Tetrahedrite can be used to produce silver maces and hammers, which will perform admirably in combat.

[@scotty4189]

Congrats on winning the challenge! What a run.

[@JakeTalksGamesYT]

Amazing video! There's somehow still not enough dwarf fortress videos to show how fun the game truly is

[@KingoftheWelsh]

Great vid, great story, great finish!

[@dopy274]

I want to see an adventure mode in this dead world

[@williamhohoho5198]

AMAZING video mate!

[@WilliamL7]

God, just, my god. Awesome job and story telling.

[@jacobislucas]

So glad you’re back

[@Juffe137]

Best channel for dwarf fortress content

[@vsnlps]

Really snuck that ad in there perfectly Didn't take me out of the story or video at all good job!

[@richardtorruellas2370]

Still waiting for that play where you spend 5 years building up a fortress with a massive army to go on a one time crusade per kingdom because they cannot survive the hundreds of dwarves attacking every site they have simultaneously.

[@ProdbyGuzzy]

My goat uploaded when i needed it most

[@underdoug]

Little tip for blunt weapons, steel is too light a metal to make for effective bonking. You want as heavy as possible. Platinum is best but can only happen through strange moods, so silver or copper, in that order, are a your best bets. This is the same for crossbows, since dorfs will use them as a blunt weapon if they run out of bolts. Can't make silver crossbows, so copper is the way to go for those.

[@austind9032]

This was an awesome run

[@adamguthrey6160]

I could say that I had a premonition that caused me to check your channel for your newest upload. the truth is that I habitually check your channel because I love your content

[@khanwinter2740]

Absolutely nutty finish holy crap

[@wolf2403]

I have one, extremely simply request. Please make the most prosperous and we'll defended fortress ever. I mean designed to be impervious to forgotten beasts and external threats alike. A fortress built with the goal of weathering every possible storm while keeping the inhabitants in as good spirits as possible. Basically the safest game. Not some blitz across only a decade, but years of slow build up resulting in a steady, immovable foundation on which expansion may progress. Keeping enough soldiers at home and a high enough amount of workers that the troubles you face here aren't even a concern. TL;DR: I wanna see an absolute victory, regardless of how boring it may seem. I wanna see legends forged of a fortress stronghold so grand that even sleeping quarters are lined with marble and gold, while masterwork artifacts like grand hallways, their walls covered in glorious engravings.

[@cfespenilla8235]

What a legend of an episode haha, always is 🎉

[@SelfIronicWizard]

Great Video

[@SiesenLanguageCenter]

What an adventure!!

[@Sideway8]

I asked for something to watch and the world obliged - haha yes!

[@TheDreadedHope]

Love me a good Dwarf fortress story!!!!

[@johnjoseph2010]

Dwarf Fortress now has its Choas Dwarfs

[@Twistshock]

So you conquered the world, now you just gotta take on the underworld.

[@saltlamp3869]

GOAT df creator

[@user-cd4bx6uq1y]

Wow, that's cool! But have you heard of Jo Bai Dan?

[@XYNTEN]

RIP, Dang the war cave dragon.

[@bruhmcdeez9788]

The great book of grudges will be settled.

[@mueezadam8438]

King uploaded 🙏

[@phosphorific]

Be cool to play this save and recuperate the new order. Long Live the Empire!

[@MisterBones2910]

Getting your iron from combat? Back in the day we used to call this "mining goblinite."

[@gerritvalkering1068]

"How I became a genocidal tyrant in Dwarf Fortress" Darn, I was looking for a guide on how not to become one. Oh well, this will do

[@TheHorreK2]

I tried this multiple times, sadly my dwarfs kinda refused to destroy sites and sometime squats never returned or returned years later which lead to my fort being open for raids... still i wont give up on conquering the world! Also just destroying Goblins with squats of Master Macedwarfs, seeing Teetg flying everywhere is just awesome. Especially when outnumbered 10/1

[@JustDontDie]

It takes a while to destroy sites. You need good commanders with lots of troops to have a decent chance, and even then some sites just refuse to go down and have to be occupied. It's pretty annoying, unfortunately.

[@user-cd4bx6uq1y]

No way we got part 2

[@RisaxTheImp]

Those were a long "3-ish weeks", but well worth the wait.

[@JustDontDie]

A mixture of being busy and motivation being ehhhh, but it came together well. I realized I do a worse job if I'm forcing it, so I only work on vids when I'm in the mood, which means way slower progress but higher quality when they arrive.

[@RisaxTheImp]

@@JustDontDie Life gets busy sometimes, and I can understand being dissatisfied with the results if you force it. I'm just glad to get a new Dwarf Fortress video from you because it's how I originally found your channel. And yes, it is a lengthy and good one. Keep up the good work!

[@xdxd-zb9di]

very good video

[@xdxd-zb9di]

is like a movie

[@TheSuperappelflap]

If you dont want soldiers to run all the way from the surface to the caves to kill cavern creatures, you can put a small barracks down there and have a squad of a couple guys train there.

[@JustDontDie]

I did do that eventually, which helped a lot, but then got greedy sending them out to raid because it looked like I wasn't going to make it anyways haha.

[@salvagedude625]

36:30 compulsive absent single mother

[@JustDontDie]

She really chose being general over her kids in even coming...

[@kirbycooper9496]

Cut that extremely close!

[@JustDontDie]

Me in all chat: "ez"

[@GokayCEKLI]

Single ambulance in the us? I know you found gold but let’s not dream that big now alright?

[@ThirdStrongestMaster]

this is the only time where the “you didn’t like the video” schtick got me to like the video out of respect for the sheer boyish charm on this lad

[@rileywraith5247]

Next challenge: 12 years to conquer the world, but at least half of your dwarves need to be neutral or happier.

[@JustDontDie]

I want it to at least be possible! I'm apparently really bad at keeping dwarves happy...

[@StarlightLumi]

41:10 the word you're looking for is antepenultimate :)

[@JustDontDie]

See, prepenultimate sounds so much better. It should be the right word.

[@johnturner9546]

Still waiting for more going medieval stories

[@koquarian]

How long do you put into these colonies in real time? I just got back into df recently and a 10 hour base for me is like 500 dwarves with a completely smoothed over safe haven, full of food and usually bronze (sometimes steel) gear. I assume you probably build for function to get towards your predetermined goal faster?

[@JustDontDie]

About 25ish hours for the gameplay, mostly due to just having to wait. My raw footage for this run especially has lots of that in the latter years when there weren't enough hands around the fortress to do much but I had to wait for years to pass while raiding. Then about 70-90 hours for editing, scripting, recording, making animations, thumbs, etc. Progress is definitely slowed down by all the wars though. While the fort's population topped out at around 160 thanks to constant attacks killing migrants as fast as they came even before i started sending them off, almost half of that was in the military, so my 'real' population for growing is much much slower.

[@koquarian]

@JustDontDie I see. I don't normally pick fights until I have around 4 squads heavily trained, so I probably have less pressure on my forts compared to yours, but you need that sweet, sweet content. Lol Been loving the videos, bud. 🫶

[@heroicastrid1029]

how did you the data to show sites and units of each :O

[@JustDontDie]

If you mouse over sites on the world map, it displays the # of people. I manually counted the # of sites and total people for each civ and the overall world at the start then, at the end, went back and checked how many places I'd destroyed every year or two to get a rough estimate of it. Then I calculated the % and made the bars in my editing program Davinci Resolve.

[@heroicastrid1029]

@@JustDontDie thanks I wish there was an easier way

[@Cpneuma]

a blessed day

[@LanceThumping]

After seeing how empty the fort progressively got, I think it'd be nice if the next series was creating the largest population possible. P.S. I was a little sad that it dwindled like that but I'm guessing that it's just impossible to keep getting large amounts of migrants while also throwing so many people into war.

[@Streetcleanergaming]

Would Karl be proud of this? I believe so I mean its dwarves after all

[@nachos34961]

For Hashut!

[@awsomesaucekirby]

Just a question, would you mind sharing your modlist?

[@JustDontDie]

The only mod I use is dfhack. Everything else, including world Gen settings, were vanilla.

[@awsomesaucekirby]

​@JustDontDie really? What command did you use to look at your dwarf's history like that?

[@JustDontDie]

@@awsomesaucekirby That's legend's mode. If you retire your fortress and save it to a new timeline, then start a new game in that existing world, you click legends mode instead of fortress mode and it opens up an atlas where you can search for names of people, sites, artifacts, etc and see their history.

[@awsomesaucekirby]

@@JustDontDie thanks! I usually use DFHack to perform 'blood magic'. Sacrificing creatures as a cost for the powers the console offers. Ascending in value the more sentient or civilized a sacrificed creature is, and increasing further depending on the complexity of the sacrifice.

[@ronaldp7573]

When you play Stellaris in Dwarf Fortress.

[@creed2466]

SHORT????!!!!??!?? THATS A GRUDGING

[@janoschjobstmann4588]

I have question: do you name your settlements yourself or are they random names the game suggested?

[@JustDontDie]

I let the game name them.

[@janoschjobstmann4588]

Neat, and thanks for your answer.

[@Pogey_Bait]

How do you access legends mode to show some of your new migrants stories? Do you make another save and restart in Legends mode?

[@JustDontDie]

I make a save at the very end to restart in legends mode. I just got a bit lucky that the first two commanders had interesting backstories.

[@cosmic_hierophant]

peak

[@perryborn2777]

38:00 Oh no, these never go well

[@JustDontDie]

You are the 54%

[@bigfatboss7427]

Grudges = Settled

[@dogleader1126]

Watching this twice because i can

[@JustDontDie]

You madlad...

[@waddyz8802]

Lets goooooo

[@frcid]

I have a decent pc, but when i reach 200+ dwarves it slows considerably. What can i do? I think its the animals in my pen, i have so much cats and dogs... il try to make them backpacks and quivers

[@goreobsessed2308]

Not much you can do the game is super cpu heavy so you could upgrade that. The biggest issue is it's a single core program and all the decently priced cpus are multi core these days

[@PureStealth]

Hey algorithm endorse this one please

[@TheRealKiRBEY]

yea

[@diamond_zack_7998]

Guys, please tell me how you can send an army on a raid?

[@JustDontDie]

If you go to the world map using the button on the bottom right, you can click settlements to send mission's for a variety of things, including raiding

[@jonathanprisbrey9473]

If only you could go back to the world generator thing and continue the story of the world in Super Speed so you could know the fate of the world after you killed and conquered everyone else

[@JustDontDie]

That'd be great. It'd probably proceed way faster than the generating since so much is gone...

[@TheSuperappelflap]

I tried to exterminate one goblin faction and got six full squads killed by a skinless demon in a goblin town with 100 population. No idea what I need to get to be able to kill it.

[@JustDontDie]

That happened to me my last time I tried this. Even a few adamantine-clad soldiers died to it. Occupying it seems to be very very effective, as imbalanced as it is, and it's what I had to do versus the demon here even though my soldiers were so good.

[@ian6241]

Poggers

[@JustDontDie]

Some would say 'very poggers', though I cannot verify the authenticity of this claim.

[@alwinlowdham2670]

ah, dude, shield material doesn't matter, don't waste your steel on shields

[@JustDontDie]

Oh really? That's super counterintuitive haha. Good to know though, thanks!

[@pinkhatboi]

ez clap

[@DigitalLibrarian]

you a dwarf fortress

[@Binky291]

Is now a bad time to mention you didn't conquer the other dwarven civ? ;)

[@JustDontDie]

Dwarves don't hurt Dwarves (physically. It's pretty clear from this run that they hurt each other emotionally)

[@namechanged1]

41:10 "Antepenultimate" is a word.

[@JustDontDie]

But so is penpenultimate, so why would I use antepenultimate? :^)

[@zulu1775r]

:D

[@j-rizza0079]

sorry for not clicking like earlier so then they stop making iron artefacts mb

[@JustDontDie]

Hey everyone, this one over here. Get 'em!