Attention Urists!

The Siege Update is available now! This update completely revamps the way enemies invade your fort, empowering them to dig, build bridges, and overcome old standby defences like water or lava. Invaders will be smarter and have new weapons, but dwarves will also have new defensive tools as well. And to celebrate, the game is currently 20% off until November 10th!


This is the Siege Update. Invaders should cause some more trouble now. Aside from a few minor things mentioned below, you don't have to create a new fort or world for this update.

We've done about half of the possible changes we were contemplating on the roadmap and we will certainly be doing some more, especially the magical stuff, as work continues. This update is a nice self-contained improvement for regular siege behavior, so we're posting it without further delay.

Siege update - Attack

• Invaders can build stairs and floors.
  
• Invaders can break down constructions and many blocking buildings
  
• Invaders can bring battering rams to bash through constructions and buildings.
  
• Invaders can dig through natural walls (including trolls with great picks in new worlds.)
  
• Invaders can be lead by historical military-related position holders.
  
• Invaders track where deaths and trap incidents have occurred and eventually plan to avoid them.
  
• Invader army composition is more varied, and invaders have different behavior roles.
  
• Invader can be more skilled and have better equipment.
  
• Invaders can free their caged companions.
  
• Goblins use more of the underground creatures (in new worlds.)
  
• Flying invaders and invaders with flying mounts behavior improved.
  
• Invaders enter over a wider edge width.
  
• Difficulty settings allow you to change invader behavior and add restrictions.

Siege update - Defence

• New bolt thrower siege engine. These fire regular bolts and can be freely rotated to any direction if an operator can stand behind it.
  
• Catapult and ballista siege engines are placed with fixed firing arcs but can target in the full arc rather than firing only in cardinal directions, and they can fire vertically somewhat.
  
• Boulders thrown by catapults explode on impact, ejecting sharp rock shards.
  
• Reinforced walls can be made with two building material and one metal per tile. These are much more resistant to damage.
  
• Materials of constructions and buildings matter more for damage amount.
  
• Siege operators aren't as quick to abandon their positions.
  
• Added siege operator default work detail (in new forts.)
  
• Made fortress patrollers more careful to hit the nodes of their routes exactly.
  
• War dogs should stay with their masters when their masters have squad orders.

Audio updates

• New song Danger Room! Plays in the lively tavern.

General updates

• Made carrying of the wounded more reliable.
  
• Fix for non-square worlds.
  
• Fix for archery training so they use unquivered ammo stacks properly.
  
• Fixed issue with cavern critters sometimes failing to enter the map.
  
• Fixed issue causing wilderness populations to slowly drain.
  
• Fixed necromancer experimentation.
  
• Fixed a typo in post world generation settlement placement.
  
• Major optimization for pond filling.
  
• Some general optimization and memory safety cleanup.
  
• Fixed some plural names.

Watch the Out Now trailer that shows off the update features:


Q: Will other factions be effected by the changes?

A: The humans have little pack mules and can build stuff using the blocks they carry. They can also mine with regular picks, so they are slower than trolls but they can do it. And they have battering rams.

Q: Can I use old saves with this update?

A: Old saves should still work with the update, except for great picks and the new mounts which use the new behaviours. If you load an old save, trolls will come with small picks instead of great picks.

Q: I want a more peaceful experience. Is there a way to adjust or turn off sieges?

A: Yes! You can turn off digging, deconstructing, and building separately, and also toggle the speeds. Or you can turn them off entirely.



We just concluded the first official Dwarf Fortress mod jam, Creatures of the Night. We ended up with a menacing collection of mods that you can download and try out for yourself in the modpack.[itch.io] We also did a showcase stream with Tarn and Putnam and you can watch the VOD here. Thank you to all the participants and organizers who put in a ton of work to make the event happen. Special thanks to DPh Kraken, Squamous, dikbutdagrate and rome of oxtrot for their expert help. We hope to do another event like this in the future.


We have some cool merch lined up for all you collectors and vinyl heads out there. The Dwarf Fortress Adventure Mode vinyl is up for https://gamemusicrecords.com/product/dwarf-fortress-adventure-mode-soundtrack-vinyl/. It includes two LPS with original artwork by by Tomáš Duchek and Kitfox artist Thea Kent. And the first 1000 pre-orders get a special 1st edition version of the set. The B-side also includes the new track Danger Room! which is part of today's update in-game.

There's also the Serenity Forge 20th Anniversary edition, which is up for pre-order now.[store.serenityforge.com] Serenity Forge has provided us with a well-rounded preview of the gorlak plushie in all his (backside) glory!

If you'd like to discuss the update with your fellow urists, come visit us in the Kitfox Discord[discord.gg]. Show off your advanced defence setup!

-Alexandra

Hey Urists!

It’s Alexandra here with exciting news about Siege update. You won’t have to wait very long because it will be releasing onto the main branch November 3rd! Watch the release date trailer showcasing some of the new features coming:


New enemy weapons: Battering rams, trolls can now carry giant pickaxes and blocks for building

New enemy behaviours: Enemy behaviour is now classified into different roles (charge, hang back, ambush) and can path around dangerous areas. Engineers can build floors and stairs. Enemies can break through fortifications and raised bridges. They can also dig underground through natural walls. Goblins also bring more kinds of mounts and their demonic leader

New weapon: Bolt thrower. This is a siege engine with a fixed location but can be turned freely in any direction. It fires faster than a crossbow and the ammo bin can hold 100 bolts. Siege operator skill matters but unskilled operators can use it more effectively than they use hand-held weapons.

Reworked weapons: Ballistas and catapults are more effective

Changes to traps: Goblins can rescue caged allies. Water and magma traps will not be as effective as before, so you’ll have to try a variety of defensive tools instead of relying just on one, to properly protect your forts.

Expect detailed patch notes with all the changes and features for the siege update on launch day. Old saves should still work with the update, except for great picks and the new mounts which use the new behaviours. If you load an old save, trolls will come with small picks instead of great picks.

If you want a more peaceful experience, you can turn off digging, deconstructing, and building separately, and also toggle the speeds. Or you can turn them off entirely.


We also have new splash art for the update from Kitfox artist Thea Kent, who also made the art for Fortress and Adventure Mode. Can you name all the enemies shown here that you might have to defend against?


After this Siege update is out, of course there will inevitably be important bugs to fix. And then after that, Tarn hopes to start looking into more magical content and features, such as warlords and demon-trained sorcerers that could make sieges on your fort even more dangerous and varied. But as you probably have heard us say before, the fundamentals of magic itself are a fairly large and complicated segment of the world generation to contend with, so we’re glad Tarn’s able to make sieges more fun (and fully-functional!) in the meantime.

-Alexandra

Hey Urists,

It’s Alexandra here and we’ve got a packed update this week with patch 52.05, siege update footage, merch announcements and an exciting community event. The team is busily finishing the last few features before the siege update is ready to go live.

Patch 52.05 brings a bunch of crashing and stability fixes.


General updates

• Fixed crash caused by interrogating certain suspects under certain circumstances in world generation.
  
• Fixed crash in legends caused by missing works of art.
  
• Fixed potential out of bounds crash setting appearance contributions from parents in world generation.
  
• Fixed pathing issues caused by building construction on certain maps.
  
• Fixed some other issues related to map block allocation and path connectivity.
  
• Made training marksdwarves use the last bolt in a stack.
  
• Allowed work orders to specific plants for milling jobs.
  
• Stopped dyed items from triggering inappropriate export prohibitions.
  
• Specifying wood in certain work quotas will now actually use the specified wood.
  
• Stopped meandering behavior for animals that are trained for war or hunting.
  
• Again allowed impaled weapons to be dropped by the wielder, leaving the item behind.
  
• Fixed a problem causing minerals to not show up in some mods.
  
• Fixed issues with blinding and necrosis item powers in scripts.
  
• Increased world generation stability.
  
• Fixed problem with material initialization causing unpredictable problems.

The siege update is coming “soon” and we have a short video showing off some of the new features in action. You can see the new sprites with trolls wearing equipment, showing a enemy siege formation. There’s also a defensive formation with crossbow turrets firing at an incoming charge up a hill. This is just a small sample of all the things you’ll be able to do when the siege update goes live. We still have a few surprises to reveal! Watch the siege update preview here:

We will be sharing the release date ahead time so you’ll be able to prepare your forts (and your dwarves) for completely new threats.


You can now pre-order the Adventure Mode vinyl from GameMusicRecords.com.[gamemusicrecords.com] It’s a breathtaking set that includes two LPS with original artwork by by Tomáš Duchek and Kitfox artist Thea Kent. It also includes the bonus track Danger Room which we previewed in the last update. The vinyls are set to ship Q1 2026.

Dwarf Fortress turns 20 next year and Serenity Forge has been working on a Collector’s Edition to commemorate the occasion. Included in this set is the game in a beautiful collectors box, a cloth map of a special DF Anniversary world you’ll be able to visit, a gorlak plushie, bottle opener, lenticular card and a special collection of Zach’s crayon drawings and community fort stories.

You can pre-order the 20th anniversary set here. [store.serenityforge.com]


We’ve teamed up with DPh Kraken, Squamous and dikbutdagrate, some of the best modding experts in the DF community to start the first official Dwarf Fortress mod jam.

Inspired by the Caves of Qud mod jam and Titan fest, this three day jam is designed to be a beginner friendly way to try out modding in DF. Experienced modders are challenged to embrace the theme and experiment with lua. The jam will start on October 20-23rd with a showcase stream celebrating the entries on October 29th. Because it is so close to Halloween, the theme of the jam will be “Creatures of the Night” so we encourage mods with flavourful and fearsome monsters that suit the world of Dwarf Fortress. To register for the jam and more information please go to the jam page on itch.io. [itch.io]

You can also join the mod-jam channel on the Kitfox Discord[discord.gg] and chat with the organizers and fellow jammers ahead of the event.

That’s all for now, we will be back with more siege update info soon!

-Alexandra

Hey Urists,

It's Alexandra here with patch 52.04 to fix issues with armies/squads travelling. We're sorry this was such a pain to deal with in-game, it was a nasty bug. There's also some other fixes in there. The team's focus for September is continuing with the siege update. We will have more news and details to share soon.


Dabu[www.dabuaudio.com] and Simon Swerwer[www.simonswerwer.com] just released the new single, a remastered and reimagined rendition of "Danger Room" using the original recordings. The cover art is also by Dwarf Fortress pixel artist Carolyn. This track will also be making its way into the game soon. Give it a listen:


General updates

• Fixed issue with squads/armies breaking into groups and not rejoining.
  
• Mod upload doesn't clobber info.txt.
  
• Fixes a crash when choosing clothing sizes in workshop.
  
• Fixed out-of-bounds error in army processing.
  
• Fixed out-of-bounds error in transformed units.
  
• Fixed armies deleting items improperly.
  
• Fixes a potential crash in wrestling.
  
• Fixed issue with plant processing job specifiers being ignored.
  
• Mill job plant can be specified.
  
• Makes the "placing lakes and minerals" stage of worldgen significantly faster.
  
• Moods using bars try to use metal now.
  
• Animal people no longer inherit meandering from their base creature.

See you in the next one,

Alexandra

Hey Urists,

It’s Alexandra here with update 52.03 which brings new colour and options for dying and some general fixes and improvements. From Tarn:

Here is a release to continue to stabilize the lua update. There are several regular fixes as well, listed below in the patch notes.

Also, we have some dye improvements for you! You can now mix dyes to produce a variety of colors, and you can tint with dyes to mix the natural color of the material and the color of the dye during the dyeing process. If you make a new world, you'll also have access to some additional outdoor plant dyes. Leather can now be dyed, and there are some new stockpile controls to help you manage all of the new stuff.

If you want to see your dwarves in their new outfits after you've made some shiny clothes, there's the existing preference setting to show their dyed outfits rather than coloring them by profession.

Release notes for 52.03:

Dye improvements

• Added dye mixing.
  
• Added dyeing of leather.
  
• Added partial dyeing of items (tinting).
  
• Added 60+ new outdoor plant dyes (in new worlds).
  
• Leather, cloth, armor, and finished goods stockpiles can now filter by color and dye status.
  
• Plant processing and extraction jobs can have a specific plant set.
  
• Added natural colors to undyed cloth, thread, and leather descriptions.
  
• Added dye color to dye descriptions.

Modding and lua updates

• Mods in mod_upload are now sorted (first by ID, then name, then numeric version, then description).
  
• The "delete" buttons for saves have been replaced with a "Files" button, which, when clicked, gives the previous menu (with a warning that "Delete" is permanent and instant) with an extra button that opens the saves folder (Windows).
  
• You may click on mods in the various mod lists to open their folder (Windows).
  
• Added logging for missing PERMITTED_REACTION and PERMITTED_BUILDING objects.
  
• Reactions associated to entities that use plant reagents will check that the entity has those plants when making powder list (reaction products are not checked.)
  
• Changed how duplicate object message boxes work.
  
• Possible improvement to Linux message boxes.
  
• Added DYER to list of hard-coded buildings permitted for reactions.
  
• Nightmares no longer have bogeyman polymorph.
  
• Fixed angel sphere descriptions.
  
• Fixed attack tweaks and webs on forgotten beasts.
  
• Fixed necromancer animation missing IT_MANUAL_INPUT.

General updates

• Fixed issue with not all save files being copied to the folder.
  
• Archers will no longer infinitely flick each frame between archery training and going to some other training if they have no ammo.
  
• Fixed problem causing some armies to become stuck.
  
• Announcement settings save properly again.
  
• Prevented some potential crashes on startup.
  
• Removes dead/ghostly/caged/sleeping/paralyzed units from the noble queue.
  
• Makes nobles drop their haul items when they go to a meeting.
  
• Noble meetings auto-rebuff if meeting data is lost.
  
• Improved/optimized memory management for armies/army controllers.
  
• Optimized a particularly slow army loop.
  
• Fixed crash associated to transformed creatures with fewer body parts than their untransformed body.
  
• Fixed the "view sheet" hotkey for items/units.
  
• Fixed placement of titan shrines.
  
• Made work orders reset their suggested conditions properly when details are changed.
  
• Added some crash guards and logs for corrupted units/nemesis records.
  
• Made default embark cloth items dyeable.
  
• Updated historical nicknames in more places so that legends mode has them.
  
• Adds a fix for scrolling on laptop trackpads etc.
  
• Fixed typo in nemesis corruption message.

It’s also the start of the Kitfox Festival which means that Dwarf Fortress and the entire Kitfox catalogue is on sale! And as owners of Dwarf Fortress, you can take advantage of our bundles and pick up say, award-winning roguelike Caves of Qud (since not all of us are patient enough to wait until it comes out on Nintendo Switch, announced this morning)

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/38314/Best_Patch_Notes_Bundle/

Our friends at A Sharp also just announced their brand new procedural adventure game, Thousand Hells: The Underworld Heists. If you're into tense tactical battles and long sunless journeys then this might be for you. You can watch the announcement trailer here and wishlist the game on Steam now:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3794210/Thousand_Hells/

That’s all for now, happy festivaling!

-Alexandra

Hey Urists,

Modders rejoice, the Lua update is now available! Putnam has been steadily making improvements and it’s been running smoothly enough that we’re ready to put it on the main branch. This is an essential update that will pave the way for more advanced systems like procedural magic. It also gives the community the chance to dig deeper into the code and make even cooler mods. Thanks to everyone who helped us on the beta branch and if you run into any issues, please report them on the bug tracker. [dwarffortressbugtracker.com]

Want to make Dwarf Fortress mods with Lua but don’t know where to start? We collaborated with DPh Kraken to make two video tutorials. The first video will teach you how to create a Dwarf Fortress mod that uses the Lua procedural generation API:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMxgsUogIIk

The second is focused on creating a custom creature:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEBTWMlUQzA

And if you’d prefer to use a text guide, DPh Kraken has also written an entry on the Dwarf Fortress wiki about lua modding. You can read that here.[dwarffortresswiki.org] You can also share and discuss your mods in the Kitfox Discord[discord.gg] in modding-technical or modding-discussion! We’d love to see what kind of new creations you make with lua.


In case you missed it, there’s also a new Tarn Time seasonal update video covering the updates from June:

That's all for now, see you in the next one.

-Alexandra

Release notes for 51.13

General updates

• Fixed a timing error introduced by ammo loading that caused many actions to be performed in slow motion, leading to all of the dwarves dying over a long period as drinking could not catch up with thirst.
  
• Adventurer can wait when under attack while nocking or loading.

Hello! Here's a new update, focusing on ranged weapons and colorful beasts.

We've reworked ranged weapons and archer behavior in preparation for the siege update.

Ranged weapons can now be nocked/loaded, which takes the bulk of the time, and this can be done before firing ('n' in adventure mode.) This allows archers to be a bit safer, since they won't be paralyzed for a long while after firing a shot. The firing force of bows is affected by strength and skill up to a point, whereas crossbows are slower to load but don't require skill and attributes to get their full force. Crossbows are also easier to aim. Loading speeds of all weapons can be improved with skill.

Ranged projectiles (shot or thrown) can be aimed at specific body parts. It's now also harder to hit targets that are farther away. Adventurers, fortress defenders, and enemies all have access to aiming.

In the fortress, your defenders will try to use nearby fortifications, stay away from the enemy, and not use their crossbows as clubs unless very desperate. Enemy archers will also use fortifications if they can get close. Fortress archers will try to reload from the squad ammo pool rather than engage in melee combat.

We've also brought back the ammo and supply management menus and worked out some old issues with them so they should function more smoothly.

The squad's ammo reserves can be set by selecting a single squad, going to their equipment, and selecting the ammo button. Multiple ammo pools can be set by material, amount, and whether they are used for combat or training (or both.) This allows you to eventually separate out metal bolts for combat and wood/bone bolts for training if you choose. Squads can store ammo in chests in a barracks if the barracks is set to hold that squad's equipment to give you some control over where squad bolts end up. Hunters also have an ammo pool you can set under Labor / Standing Orders / Other.

Here's a gif with some archers firing back and forth and making use of fortifications.

You can also set a squad's food and drink settings from Equip / Supplies. This allows you to set how many rations are carried in their backpack and whether their flask gets alcohol, water, or nothing.

Forgotten beast and titan graphics have been updated. In new worlds, they will now be generated with colors and multiple decorations.

Also, dwarves that die will lose their room assignments properly and a few crashes and other issues have been fixed.

Have fun!

Tarn


Ranged weapon update

• Stopped ranged soldiers from aggressively entering melee combat when out of ammo.
  
• Made ranged units step away from close enemies and try to use any nearby fortifications.
  
• Ranged attackers can aim at specific body parts.
  
• Added loading and nocking states and actions for ranged weapons.
  
• Made firing take much less time than loading.
  
• Differentiated shooting and post-shot recovery times.
  
• Added weapon-specific attribute and skill effects for aiming and delays.
  
• Can set ammunition, food, and drink assignments for squads.
  
• Fixed various issues with extra ammo being kept in quivers and ammo not being picked up.

New graphics

• Added colorful forgotten beasts and titans.

General updates

• Dwarves that meet with misfortune lose their room assignments properly.
  
• Changed how item deletion works to fix some army crashes.
  
• Stopped crash from unspecified inorganic dusts.
  
• Stopped keyboard cursor from skipping large distances when scroll distance is larger than 1.
  
• Made modded night trolls appear even when no night trolls are generated.
  
• Made NO_PHYS_ATT_GAIN/RUST add/remove syndromes work properly.
  
• Stopped requiring music and sound definitions to load saves (makes classic saves compatible again).