What to do in Dwarf Fortress?

After some minutes in Dwarf Fortress I had one question what is the goal of this game? There are some tips what to do in Dwarf Fortress. Basic tutorial ends with “loosing is fun” but what to do in this game?

Main goal in Dwarf Fortress is:

Learn to survive and have a lot of fun with endless tries.

In speaking of “humans” Dwarf Fortress is survival / build-base strategy game. Which isn’t have storyline and you play in sandbox mode so you must define your own goals. Bellow you could see some goals defined by your experience.

Basic goals for newbies

There are some more detailed goals for every newbie from which you should take same points what to do in first plays. Really important for you is get know how is the game played.

You must discover all information which games offer you and how to use them. So after some minutes want to discover every metrics which are in the game.

  • Build place where dwarfes could live and work in safe.
    • Every worker must provide value for colony.
    • Make jobs which you need and cancel which you don’t.
    • If your will dwarves doesn’t work for colony then you loose.
  • Provide water and food for every dwarfs in your colony.
    • This is super basic. If you don’t provide this.
    • Then you will loose.
  • Provide privacy in their orwn rooms with beds, storage.
    • Build for your every Dwarf his.
    • Because your Dwarves will need privacy.
    • Comfort is important for survive.
Super easy base in Dwarf Fortress
  • Provide place where dwarfs could eat.
    • Water and food is basic for your dwarfs.
    • Build dining room with kitchen.
    • Build store for meals / food.
  • Defend your dwarfs
    • You must prepare military / sherif.
    • You must have barracks.
  • Build wealth and your dwarfs will love you.

In game is migration and birth rates so above the time your colony will grows and you must reacts to this trends. So be prepared to challenging new way how to improve yourself.

Goals for more experienced players

After several times of building your fortress and more experienced there are more challenges which you could do for better experience from Dwarf Fortress:

  • Create items which you could longterm export.
  • Create military group which will defend your fortress.
  • Dig, dig and find the most valuable things the earth has to offer.
  • Live in luxury with your dwarfs in your Fortress.
  • Have 222+ dwarfs in your colony.
  • Be self-sustaining and self-supplied.
  • 🍺 Build largest brewery in the world.
  • Get experience in all game technics and build everything.
  • Do everything on more complex biome.

Challenges for super experiences players

And if you live with Dwarf Fortes and your wife and kids doesn’t see you in month. There are two tips from official wiki one is Megaprojects which looks a lot of fun to do and reproduce some ides which are documented here or there is Stupid Dwarf tricks which could be fun or not.

Martin
I'm Martin, the main creator of this site. I love city builders, transport, and war strategy games. So I create this site to share my love with others! Let's make Tycoon games great again!