History of Adventure Mode

Adventure mode has undergone many changes in its lifetime.

Changes in 0.34.01

The introduction of the interaction system spiced up the adventuring world, with the addition of various undead and night creatures. Towns have gained markets and a better resource tracking system, as well.

Changes in 0.31.17

When generating an adventurer you now have points to assign to attributes as well as to skills. You can reduce unwanted attributes down to 1 to get more points for other attributes.

The travel-mode map is now more zoomed-in than before. To see a fully zoomed-out map during travel mode, press m, and one will appear at the right.

The bar at the top of the travel-mode screen shows the position of the sun, giving you an easy indication of how much daylight is left.

You become sleepy during travel mode. You can choose to sleep or wait for a specific time using (by default) shift+Z. If you sleep outside during the night you can be ambushed by bogeymen or a myriad of other night monsters. Sleeping inside a building (including the temples and lairs of vanquished monsters) will protect you from this. Ambushes will also not be initiated when you are staying on a beach or mountain, but ones that have already started will continue even if you enter such an area.

There are now hamlets (Æ and æ) and castles (○) in addition to towns (+) (NOTE: those symbols are how they appear in the world map (fully zoomed-out)). When in a town or hamlet clusters of buildings will be marked as ■ in the mini-map in the lower-left hand corner. Only towns have shops, which appear as yellow ■ in both the travel map and the mini-map.

You can get quests from any person in a town/hamlet, and from any soldier in a castle after you've gained enough reputation from completing a few quests. Quests to kill titans, dragons and hydras you can only get from leaders found in castles, and only after you've gained a lot of reputation.

The ability to recruit soldiers now depends on reputation from completing quests, rather than how skilled you are compared to them.

Worlds generated before version 0.31.09 cannot perform knapping in Adventure Mode, and new worlds must be generated if custom adventurer reactions are added.

Changes in 0.31.01

Fast-travel, shift+t to enter, and shift+. (Pretend you are making the '>' downstairs symbol) to exit, no longer heals all of your wounds instantly, nor can fast-travel be used when bleeding out. Some wounds do heal over time.

Cave systems are accessible to adventurers but you are virtually guaranteed to get lost exploring them - even if you find your way back to the general vicinity of the entrance, you cannot fast-Travel away until you are outside. If you can make your way underneath a Human village, however, you may be able to Travel directly to the surface.

Material changes are extremely noticeable in adventure mode. Elves with wood are noticeably weaker, and throwing/ranged weapons somewhat reduced in effectiveness.

As of the current release, adventurers start out more powerful than they had in 40d, with certain builds(use all skill points) granting super-----ly tough/strong/agile at start.

"Stuck-in" weapons no longer are endlessly twisted in the wound until the creature bleeds to death, or the weapon is yanked out. There is now a roll to see who controls the stuck-in weapon on the turn following the "stuck-in" attack.

Human towns have only bronze weapons and armor, and large clothing.

Swimming, sneaking, fighting, etc. seem to improve the associated skills only. Attributes (strength, etc.) remain the same even after a long and active period of adventuring.

Combat is much more forgiving than in 40d. Bolts and arrows are less deadly, because they can be blocked with a shield. Armor protects you much better versus bolts and arrows -- when wearing plate, it's rare for one to get through. Don't assume you're arrow proof, but you can take a bit more punishment now. Also, no metal armor can protect one's throat.

Based on what civilizations are allied with humans you may be able to play Kobolds or Goblins, but only random names can be used.

Release History

This section pertains to Adventure Mode only. For the release history of Dwarf Fortress, see Release information.

Dwarf Fortress v0.34

The release of 0.34.01 on February 14, 2012 brought better town maps and markets as well as many night creatures and undead.

• 0.34.06–0.34.07 (2012-03-23): Return of good or evil trees and shrubs.
• 0.34.01–0.34.05 (2012-02-14): Introduction of human cities (shops, marketplaces, sewers, dungeons) and tombs, addition of interactions (necromancers, werebeasts, vampires, etc.), and truly evil regions. See all the changes.

Dwarf Fortress v0.31

• 0.31.19–0.31.25 (2011-02-06): Worldgen starvation, usually wiping out kobolds.
• 0.31.17–0.31.18 (2010-11-11): Bandits, Night Creatures, Bogeyman, Adventure mode improvements, combat aiming, and castles.
• 0.31.13–0.31.16 (2010-09-15): Entity populations, sprawl and river density tweaking.
• 0.31.09–0.31.12 (2010-17-10): Adventure mode knapping and butchery added, combat formula improvements.
• 0.31.01–0.31.08 (04/01/2010): Overhaul of many aspects of the game, first 2010 release. See all the changes.

3D Version (before 2010)

• 0.28.181.39b–0.28.181.40d19 (2008-07-14): Trees in Elven forest retreats no longer have names
• 0.28.181.39a (2008-07-13): Lots of worldgen changes, including ethics (leading to wars and conquered sites), dynamic era naming, worldgen roads/bridges/tunnels, megabeasts being killed during worldgen, megabeasts being undead; human weapon stores stock more stuff (including ammo), and flying creatures no longer give birth in mid-air.
• 0.27.176.38b–0.27.176.38c (2008-02-23): Worlds can have custom sizes.
• 0.27.173.38a–0.27.176.37a (2008-02-04): Spheres added, numerous worldgen improvements, religions implemented, undead ruins removed.
• 0.27.169.32a–0.27.169.33g (2007-10-29): The very first fully 3D version.

2D Version

• 0.22.110.23a–0.23.130.23a (2006-11-17): More detailed art (historical figures and events, special shapes).
• 0.22.110.22a–0.22.110.22f (2006-10-21): Inventory system changes (most notably, gloves and boots were split into two items (left & right for gloves)).
• 0.22.107.21a (2006-10-02): Guards and families, plus "." as a wait key.
• 0.21.101.19a–0.21.105.21a (2006-08-19): Adventurers could now have custom first names.
• 0.21.93.19a–0.21.100.19a (2006-08-08): Initial public release of Dwarf Fortress, including Adventure Mode.