40d:Changes in v0.27

Dwarf Fortress has a huge planned feature set (see Bay 12 Games for a list), and has evolved considerably since its first public release on August 8, 2006. A lot of Dwarf Fortress's development lies in only two major releases, the first 3D version and DF2010, both of which overhauled the entire game. The following is an overview of major and minor changes made to the game, and when they were made. There are currently many omissions of important changes (for instance, a period during which sieges were broken and finally fixed).

Changes in DF2010

See the release information

Changes in the 3D Version

With the release of the 3D version, a huge number of changes were introduced. The central change was the introduction of a Z dimension to the game map; previously, all fortresses were built on a single, two-dimensional plane -- with the new release, fortresses could span dozens of levels. The layout of terrain on the game map also changed radically, featuring separate distinct stone layers with (mostly) geologically accurate contents, as well as allowing a single fortress to encompass several different biomes.

The following is a list of major aspects of the 2D version that changed completely with the release of the 3D version.

Miscellaneous

Z-levels only existed in adventurer mode, and then only in a limited fashion. Most caves, ruins, goblin fortresses, and human buildings had a handful of levels internally, connected by stairs or ramps. When visiting a player-built fortress in adventurer mode, the layout would be preserved but rotated 90 degrees, and a row of ramps would be inserted as a transition between various areas of the fort for no obvious reason.
Starting location choices -- Previously there were only a few dozen fixed locations on each map you could choose, all with the same layout and size; the only thing that varied was biome (climate, creatures, trees, and shrubs), and each location had only one biome. (Accessibility by different civilizations also varied depending on starting location -- this is perhaps little changed in the current version.) Now you can start just about anywhere on the world map, with a variable-size fortress map, which can span several different adjacent biomes and terrains.
Choice of starting goods was very limited. You couldn't bring an anvil (one would automatically be brought in the first summer by a metalsmith). Starting points were very tight, approximately one third of what they are now.
Nobles changed a lot. There used to be "guildmasters" corresponding to different professions (farming, mining, masonry, etc.). The manager was your first noble, who arrived after hitting 20 dwarves. There was no "trader" noble or trade skills (the "trade minister" did nothing of importance); you could trade at any point after the caravan fully unloaded. You couldn't do workshop profiles until the manager arrived and couldn't use the stocks screen until the bookkeeper arrived, which would start the dwarven economy. The mayor, manager, trade minister, and treasurer were all different, full-time nobles, and the baron/count/duke (and their consorts) were all separate as well. Add to this the guildmasters and "Order of the <weapon>" nobles and you could easily have 30 nobles in your fort.
Activity zones, including dumps, were introduced with the 3D version.

Materials differences

There were not as many kinds of stone. Stone was divided into three categories: Light (Limestone, Marble, Moonstone), Dark (Jet, Obsidian, Onyx), and Gray/rock (all others). Light and dark stone (other than obsidian) had 2x value multiplier, and Obsidian had 3x. You could choose whether to make something of light stone, dark stone, or rock, but you could not specify light or dark but exclude limestone or obsidian.

Ore and gems were logically separate from stone. All types of ore/gems could be found - availability was based on how far into the mountain you were digging. For example, gold, platinum, and hematite were always beyond the chasm, as was coal.

There were not as many metals, and only a few alloys. Each metal type had only one ore - galena was a silver ore; there was no lead. Except for steelmaking, all alloys were smelted from ore.

Mining would leave behind stones/gems/coal 50% of the time, regardless of miner skill. Ore (but not coal) would be left behind 100% of the time by legendary miners, less often for lower skill. All mining byproducts now follow the "ore" formula; up to 100% of the time, dependent on skill.

There was only one kind of coal, bituminous coal; it provided two bars of coke from smelting. Only Limestone could be used as Flux for making Steel.

Sand was always available, from the banks of the indoor or outdoor river.

The encumbrance system was changed; the Γ unit was made 1/10th its former weight, and much greater variation in material weights was introduced.

Building differences

Trader wagon access required an actual 3-wide road (not just a clear path) stretching from the western edge of the map to the depot (which had to be near the cliff face or inside the fort).
You couldn't build traps or farms outdoors. You could build bridges outdoors but not make them raisable/retractable.
You couldn't build/rebuild walls or any of the other constructions.
Steel was necessary for building things over the magma river; Iron could be used with magma in other places.
Machines (gears, pumps, windmills, etc.) did not exist. There was a "mill" workshop that had to be built on one of the rivers.
Magma buildings had to have the left or right center tile over the magma river - other tiles could be but wouldn't power the building, and magma channels would not work.

Terrain layout

There was just an "outside", with a river zig-zagging north to south (except in scorching/freezing climates), a nearly flat cliff face, and cave river, chasm, magma river, demon pit, and adamantine-lined chasm at fairly regular distances in to the mountain, that were present in every fortress. The cave river was lined with limestone; the magma river was lined with obsidian. "Discovered" features (cave river, chasm, etc.) would only be partly revealed according to what was within line-of-sight from all dwarf-accessible tiles.

(Note that the compass directions are an abstraction, and the river does not necessarily actually run north to south with the cliff face to the east)

The chasm would contain primarily antmen, ratmen, or batmen, and 5-15 of them would spontaneously crawl out of it on a fairly regular basis until you poured enough magma in there to "kill" the chasm. While activity zones did not exist yet, you could [o]rder refuse to be dumped into the chasm.

Rivers, Fluids and Flooding

The underground river would flood when breached and then once each spring, summer, and fall (in the form of waves sweeping out up to 20 tiles from its banks), and the floods would tend to sweep dwarves into the river, who would almost always drown. Items swept into the river would permanently disappear. Irrigation was much more necessary for farming than it is now (as you could only build farms on muddied tiles; soil types did not exist), though some fortresses survived purely on tiles muddied by the natural flood ("Nile-style farms").

Both the cave river and magma river had a chance of flooding when first breached; this would often drown the miner (or flat out kill him, in the case of magma).

While a natural flood would subside naturally, floods released by floodgates would be ended by an "anti-flood" caused by a floodgate closing or a cave-in. An antiflood would not be generated if the flood waters were connected to a source of water, leading to permanent flood states if one was not careful. One floodgate being destroyed (by a troll or magma man, for instance) or opened would pull fluid from the river into a channel, a second will release it onto the surface. Channels would absorb surface water and not allow floods to pass. Channels could be walked on when not filled with fluid. To carry fluid over rivers or the chasm, you had to use a bridge-like building called an aqueduct.

Wells could just be "dug", and did not have to be connected to a water supply. Cave river creatures (Frogmen, snakemen, or lizardmen) would show up spontaneously along the banks of the river (and also crawl out of wells beyond the cave river), though much less often than the chasm creatures.

Aquifers did not exist in the 2D version.

Cave-ins

Cave-ins would happen in short order if you mined out a 7x7 area or larger without leaving an unmined natural column in place (or built a support pillar). The cave-in was not immediate, but cave-ins triggered by blowing out a support were immediate. Supports could survive the magma flood.

Adamantine

Too Deep...

Behind the demon pits, forming the far edge of the map, was an adamantine-lined impassable chasm (containing no creatures -- at least, none you ever saw). Mining even a little bit of adamantine set into motion an eventual and unavoidable end-of-game, and mining 100 or more units would guarantee the game ended at the start of the next season. You could not reclaim a fortress lost this way. If you visited a "too deep"ed fortress in adventure mode, you would find a large "Demon". After the demon was defeated[1], the adamantine would turn into ordinary silver. The 3D version up to 40d used Glowing Pits instead.

Skills and labors

In the 2D version, a number of related skills were lumped together via a common labor. The skills of weaponsmithing, armoring, blacksmithing, and metalcrafting all existed separately but were enabled via a single labor called "metalsmithing". Potash making and lye making were grouped under "ashery operating". Gem cutting and gem setting were lumped under "jeweling".

Adamantine processing was divided into four skills and labors: adamantine extractor, smelter, weaver, and worker. It was nigh impossible to produce top-quality adamantine items because there wasn't enough adamantine available to train up an "adamantine worker". In the 3D version, adamantine extractor was renamed "strand extractor" and all further processing was transferred to the ordinary furnace operator, weaver, and smithing skills and labors.

Release History

The most recent releases are listed at the top.

Caravan Arc

In a devlog entry for 01/30/2011, Threetoe announced plans for a series of nine numbered releases ("Short-term Goals" on the dev page) to finish off the long-planned "caravan" development arc. Release 1, improving towns and introducing markets, along with a variety of supernatural creature types, will probably have a version number of 0.33 or 0.34 (scroll down) and appears headed for release in the summer of 2011.

Dwarf Fortress 2010

0.31.25 (03/28/2011): Bugfix -- Final update of version 0.31.
0.31.24 (03/27/2011): Hotfix
0.31.23 (03/26/2011): Hotfix
0.31.22 (03/24/2011): Hotfix
0.31.21 (03/06/2011): Bugfix
0.31.20 (03/06/2011): Hotfix
0.31.19 (02/16/2011): Worldgen starvation, usually wiping out kobolds; grazing; ceramics; jugs, pots, nest boxes, beehives (and bees); site finder changes. Last major 0.31 release, laying the groundwork for the caravan arc series.
0.31.18 (11/16/2010): Hotfix
0.31.17 (11/11/2010): Bandits, Night Creatures, Bogeyman, Adventure mode improvements, combat aiming, castles
0.31.16 (10/04/2010): Hotfix
0.31.15 (10/03/2010): Bugfix
0.31.14 (09/23/2010): Hotfix
0.31.13 (09/15/2010): Entity populations, sprawl, river density tweaking, TrueType font support
0.31.12 (07/25/2010): Hotfix
0.31.11 (07/23/2010): Art of deities
0.31.10 (07/11/2010): Hotfix
0.31.09 (07/10/2010): Adventure mode knapping and butchery, combat improvements
0.31.08 (06/19/2010): Hotfix
0.31.07 (06/19/2010): Bugfix
0.31.06 (06/09/2010): Bugfix
0.31.05 (06/04/2010): Bugfix
0.31.04 (05/16/2010): Merge with the 40d19 branch
0.31.03 (04/12/2010): Ability to create undead in arena
0.31.02 (04/08/2010): Bugfix
0.31.01 (04/01/2010): Overhaul of many aspects of the game, first 2010 release

3D Version (before 2010)

Branch: 0.28.181.40d2 thru 0.28.181.40d19: OpenGL optimizations, macros, zooming
0.28.181.40d (09/06/2008): Bugfix; Cat bug introduced
0.28.181.40c (08/21/2008): Hotfix
0.28.181.40b (08/20/2008): Partial print, windowed/fullscreen gridsizes
0.28.181.40a (08/18/2008): Embark profiles added, notes extended to embark map, customizable forbid orders added (used ammunition, dead creatures' possessions, etc.)
0.28.181.39f (08/09/2008): Custom grid sizes added
0.28.181.39e (07/23/2008): Hotfix
0.28.181.39d (07/23/2008): Added Site finder, can display hidden map features when choosing a site, Note support implemented
0.28.181.39c (07/16/2008): Hotfix
0.28.181.39b (07/14/2008): Hotfix
0.28.181.39a (07/13/2008): 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; cats and trained animals are now named on adoption, human weapon stores stock more stuff (including ammo), placing constructions now destroys engravings, and flying creatures no longer give birth in mid-air
0.27.176.38c (02/24/2008): Bugfix
0.27.176.38b (02/23/2008): First Macintosh-compatible release; Dwarves no longer carry their artifacts around, booze food no longer melts, worlds can now have custom sizes
0.27.176.38a (02/15/2008): Magma pipes now refill, ZERO_RENT and BABY_CHILD_CAP init.txt options were added, strange moods no longer convert workshops, metal crossbows now made by weaponsmiths instead of bowyers, dwarves chat and make friends/grudges and get married, unhappy thoughts from masterpiece destruction are now reduced based on the number of masterpieces the dwarf has made
0.27.173.38a (02/04/2008): Spheres added, lots of new entity tags, numerous worldgen improvements, religions implemented, undead ruins removed
0.27.169.33g (12/21/2007): Mud no longer dries up during winter, occupied cages are named according to their contents, brand new "Bring to depot" interface, strange moods no longer require glass unless you actually have some
0.27.169.33f (12/14/2007): Bugfix; mud and blood no longer spread, auto-forbid fired ammunition
0.27.169.33e (12/08/2007): Bugfix; in particular, nobles no longer order themselves to be punished for failed mandates
0.27.169.33d (11/30/2007): Bugfix
0.27.169.33c (11/23/2007): Animals screen now labels war dogs and hunting dogs correctly
0.27.169.33b (11/16/2007): Carp and other fish no longer gain swimming skill, making them slightly less dangerous
0.27.169.33a (11/01/2007): added wooden blocks
0.27.169.32a (10/29/2007): The very first fully 3D version

2D Version

0.23.130.23a (01/18/2007): Hotfix - Final version
0.23.125.23b (01/16/2007): Hotfix
0.23.125.23a (01/16/2007): Temperature support was further improved, population/FPS caps were added, coffins could now be restricted to only dwarves or only pets, and animals could now be marked for slaughter from their v-p screen
0.22.123.23a (12/21/2006): Hotfix
0.22.123.23a (12/21/2006): More workshop orders were added - auto collect webs, auto slaughter, auto butcher, auto tan
0.22.121.23b (12/16/2006): The ability to disable temperature and weather were added (to boost FPS)
0.22.121.23a (12/14/2006): Bins could now be made from metal, and the embark screen now described your biome and listed what civilizations were nearby
0.22.120.23b (12/10/2006): Improved temperature support was added
0.22.120.23a (11/23/2006): The ability to use custom graphics sets was added
0.22.110.23c (11/17/2006): Hotfix
0.22.110.23b (11/15/2006): Hotfix
0.22.110.23a (11/17/2006): Dyes and dyeing were implemented, allowed sewing cloth/leather images into goods, as well as more detailed art (historical figures and events, special shapes); standing orders now allowed auto collecting webs and only using dyed cloth
0.22.110.22f (11/03/2006): Bugfix. Boatmurdered began in this version.
0.22.110.22e (10/29/2006): Hotfix
0.22.110.22d (10/29/2006): Hotfix
0.22.110.22c (10/29/2006): Custom stockpiles were added (previously, there were only 16 basic stockpile types; things like potash would be stored with your metal bars and you could not force seeds to be kept near the farm).
0.22.110.22b (10/21/2006): Hotfix
0.22.110.22a (10/21/2006): Inventory system changes (most notably, gloves and boots were split into two items (left & right for gloves))
0.22.107.21a (10/02/2006): Various changes to adventurer mode - guards and families, plus "." as a wait key
0.21.105.21a (09/25/2006): Hotfix
0.21.104.21c (09/25/2006): Making potash no longer required making ashes into lye first.
0.21.104.21b (09/16/2006): Workshop profiles were added, along with showing genders on the Animal status screen
0.21.104.21a (09/08/2006): Designating with the mouse was added
0.21.104.19d (09/02/2006): Bugfix
0.21.104.19c (09/02/2006): The ability to hide engravings was added, announcement consolidation (x15), seasonal blood cleanup was temporarily added (and would remain until version 0.31)
0.21.104.19b (08/27/2006): Bugfix
0.21.104.19a (08/27/2006): The ability to "chasm" items was added (complete with attacks from chasm creatures as a result), as well as butchering cats
0.21.102.19a (08/24/2006): Dwarves could now have custom nicknames and professions, fullscreen could be toggled, starting animals would have mixed genders, horses could breed
0.21.101.19d (08/21/2006): Bugfix
0.21.101.19c (08/20/2006): Bugfix
0.21.101.19b (08/20/2006): Bugfix
0.21.101.19a (08/19/2006): Adventurers could now have custom first names
0.21.100.19a (08/16/2006): Gender symbol was added to unit views, config options for disabling sound and the intro movie, command-line world generation, ability to export local map
0.21.95.19c (08/14/2006): Farm plot fertilization could be controlled directly
0.21.95.19b (08/13/2006): Bugfix
0.21.95.19a (08/12/2006): Bugfix
0.21.93.19c (08/10/2006): Bugfix
0.21.93.19b (08/10/2006): Bugfix
0.21.93.19a (08/08/2006): Initial public release