A brief introduction, including tutorial videos and other resources

This game features a higher density of ore, more lairs, and a 15 minute tick. In addition, there are a few updates:

• You can now rename your dwarrow. Just click on a dwarf’s name at the top of the left panel, insert his new name, and press enter. Names are only viewable to the dwarf’s owner.
• You can now delete a dwarf’s log. Click on the red X next to the ‘log’ header in the left panel.
• Man made walls are now 4x as strong as natural walls.
• New dwarrow are now summoned twice as fast – 4 turns + 2 turns for each dwarf you already control.

In addition, there are some bug fixes:

• You can no longer attempt to dig ‘off the map’
• Similarly, the mine command will no longer attempt to dig off the map.
• When using an item, the quantity is always set to 1.

I’ve updated the item logistics to make it easier to build without having to worry about where your source materials are: Effective immediately, when building or crafting, a dwarf can access resources at any building the player owns, regardless of distance, so long as the building location is in his own or in unclaimed territory. In addition, the gathering range – the range at which mined ore will go straight to the building – of mining camps and great halls has been increased from six tiles to ten.

Looks like some old code snuck into the tree. As a result, no ticks took place between 1 am and 10 am PST. Server’s back online now. I’ll keep my eye on it for a bit to make sure it doesn’t go all explodey again.

I’ve started a new training game. If you haven’t played before, or if you want to refresh your memory, you can go here to get to grips with the game. There are no victory conditions and the game ticks twice an hour. Feel free to explore and try things out. Sign up or log in to the right. We’ll set up a new competitive game within the next few days.

Masters of the Dwarrowdeep is a turn based, persistent, massively multiplayer strategy game.  It’s not a fast game – turns take place in real time, every 15 or 30 minutes depending on the game. As a player, you can give your units an entire queue of commands, allowing them to stay busy even when you’re not online. Some commands are explicit – they tell a unit exactly what to do, while some are implicit – for example, if you tell a unit to mine iron, it’ll mine iron wherever it can be found. Combat is a prime example of an activity that’s handled implicitly: rather than ordering a unit to attack an enemy, the unit will know to attack if you’re at war with the player and its stance is set to ‘aggressive’

Okay, It’s all a bit intimidating, isn’t it? Before you jump on in, check out our tutorial resources. Start with the video tutorials:

Tutorial One: The UI

Tutorial Two: Issuing Commands

Tutorial Three: Items and Buildings

After you’ve watched the videos, you’ll be armed with enough knowledge to start playing. For more in-depth knowledge, check out the following posts:

Getting Started

Tips for Beginners

A Spotter’s Guide to Minerals

On the subject of alliances

Once you’re in game, you can learn more about buildings, items, and unit stats from the in-game encyclopedia.

Good luck, and don’t dig too deep. You never know what’s lurking down there.

I’m cleaning up a bunch of spam and updating apps. The forums are back up and I’m planning on having a new game ready for you within the next few days. Stay tuned.

Here are those stats I promised. Top seven active players in each chart. Economy represents a combination of buildings owned and resources gathered. This one was a decent horse race until about halfway in, when ioquatix and muscleT started running away with it.

(Click to embiggen)

Empire is mostly territory size. The Terminator’s fall was spectacular and abrupt while ioquatix completely dominated the end game.

(Click to embiggen)

Military, finally, is a measure of the number and quality of units. Again, it looks like The Terminator was caught completely off guard, while ioquatix and muscleT suffered only minor losses.

(Again with the clicking)

Once again, congratulations to all. I’m making some modifications before the next game goes live, but once we’re ready for another go-around, you’ll be the first to know.

ioquatix just emphatically won  Svartalf server. Congratulations! I’ll have some score charts up today and will be launching a new game – with some enhancements – in the next couple of days.