User:Navian

As per request, here's the rough draft of an article for a 'Dwarf Fortress Elf Game'!

What's this all about?

Herein lies a guide for those wishing to explore the softer, more pointy-eared side of Dwarf Fortress by building (or perhaps more appropriately, growing) their very own Forest Retreat. Sleeping beneath the stars and defending the woodlands from goblin hordes with naught but wooden swords and elf hide can be quite a challenge. Communal resources must be managed carefully and more attention paid to the individual needs of its members.

Prepare for the Journey--A How-to Guide

The first stop on your trip, before you begin, is to entity_default.txt, in your /raws/objects directory. To activate other races for play, you need only move the '[CIV_CONTROLLABLE] tag from Dwarves to another race. However, you may find elves to be unplayable as-is, for they have so many professions disabled that you will be unable to construct a trade depot, or indeed, do much of anything other than gather plants.

To solve this problem, you may edit the list of allowed professions for another race, taking out whatever you consider non-elven, perhaps using the original elven list as a guide. Architecture and carpentry are vital, if only to enable you to deconstruct your wagon to build a trade depot--this may be considered a good bare minimum. Brewing and dyeing can be recommended, perhaps with milling (plus mining and masonry, to build querns) and farming to support them. After all, elven caravans do tend to carry beverages and dyed cloth. Note that to enable mining, you should first add [DIGGER:ITEM_WEAPON_PICK] to the top of the entity entry.

You have another choice to make here that might not be obvious at first. The game interface does not currently allow for selecting non-dwarven weapons for your defenders, and as a result your elves will neither be able to arm themselves with bows nor crossbows by default. You can add the crossbow entry to your Elven entity to work around this problem. (If you want to go the extra mile, you can even edit the item_weapon.txt raw file to make crossbows identical to bows to preserve flavour. Dwarves won't show up in an Elf game, so there will be no incongruity on this front.

Last but not least, you may want to check your init.txt file before you give it a go. Strange moods can be even messier than usual when elves demand materials you don't produce, though there is mercy in that they will never demand a workshop or create an item for a profession you haven't given permission to. By switching [ARTIFACTS:YES] to NO, you can prevent this from happening. Keep in mind that you can always save, close the program and then reload the game if you make additions to the raws, so don't worry about locking yourself out of future options for gameplay.

Enough of that... Raw files at the ready, it's to move on to the embark screen!

The Elven Experience

As dramatic as they may be, the differences between elves and dwarves are fairly simple. Elves are naturally agile and both move and work 20% faster than dwarves, and, being larger, are a little more dangerous in combat. However, they are considerably less hardy and more prone to injury, a problem compounded by their lack of metal armour, definitely something to keep in mind when preparing to spar.

On the embark screen, you will see Elven preferences reflected in the options available to you. Professions you left disabled will not be here, though skills for weapons your elves can't equip will be. Adding the ambusher skill is less beneficial than normal, since elves have more limited armour selections and won't (normally) recieve free crossbows. Still, plant fiber and wooden armour is better than nothing, and as it's not possible to edit the raws to permit crafting these armours, your only other option for them will be to trade with the caravan that comes from the homelands (unless you see fit to enable armouring, leatherworking, or bone carving for your elves, of course.)

Elves have the major advantage of being able to choose almost any animal to start with, but there's no need to go overboard--Immigrants will arrive with just about anything, too, and you'll be able to trade for such wonders as pet giant eagles (though no one will be able to adopt it until you have a 'dungeon master' noble.)

Despite this, most likely wood will be your most valuable commodity to start with as certainly, you wouldn't dare cutting down any trees to procure it, and they just don't seem to leave it lying around for you. In any case, hunting enabled or no, elves will not attack normal animals or vice-versa, which means your settlers will be relatively safe for the first year in most climes. A downside is that your elves won't lift a finger to stop animals from stealing your goods, even artifacts, but overall the deal is a good one. On to the game!

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(Stopping here for now. I don't like how rambling this article is, and I realize I have no clue how to design it.)