Context

After a trilogy of rather heavy films dealing with nuclear fears, homelessness, and almost murdering Toshiro Mifune, Kurosawa decided it was time to go back to the roots of his early action adventure days. The biggest reason for this besides just a general desire for a change of scenery was the introduction in Japan of Tohoscope, a panoramic lens system similar to the American counterpart CinemaScope that would give Kurosawa his first majorly widescreen images.

For the story Kurosawa wanted to tell a samurai epic from the point of view of the more lowly characters as while the film is ostensibly about General Rokurota Makabe and Princess Yuki, the perspective is done through the lowly commoners Tahei and Matashichi. This would predate the similar style retelling of Hamlet in the play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by 8 year which would go on to popularize the small characters in a bigger world style of storytelling.

The film was very popular for it's time and while not as well critically regarded now it did score Kurosawa the Silver Bear at Berlin. The film had two releases in the US, a more prestigious 120 min cut in 1960 and a more edited faster paced 90 minute cut two years later. It was this cut that would of course influence a young California film grad to write The Phantom Menace Trilogy. Also I think like a couple other movies, but I dunno can't remember the names right now...

No of course Lucas has been very clear that The Hidden Fortress was a main influence on the original Star Wars. Initially the first draft of A New Hope was just a blatant spacey reskin of Hidden Fortress. However as the script changed, Lucas kept in the main element of Hidden Fortress of following the plot through the eyes of the lowly droids, R2D2 and C-3P0, who were heavily inspired by Tahei and Matashichi. And much of his plot did make it's way into The Phantom Menace, particularly with the palace intrigue and boring political talk.

One more interesting bit of context. Do you know who wrote the essay for The Hidden Fortress' Criterion Collection? The one and only Armond White. Yup, the very same. He wrote: "The Hidden Fortress holds a place in cinema history comparable to John Ford's Stagecoach: It lays out the plot and characters of an on-the-road epic of self-discovery and heroic action. In a now-familiar fashion, Rokurōta and Princess Yuki fight their way to allied territory, accompanied by a scheming, greedy comic duo who get

It even starts with the Criterion title screen.

Im playing on a new playthrough and just beat Sens Fortress, when I went to the back and noticed this http://imgur.com/XyQNMRi. I cant hit him with any arrows (or maybe Im just a terrible shot), but he does seem to move like he's idle. Does he serve any purpose? Or was it just a removed part of the level?

Create World

Find desired location, with river + shallow and/or deep metals + little soil and NO aquifer. Embark

Step 1: Chop Trees

Step 2: Mine into hill

Step 3: Make Farm Plots on soil and grow plump helmets year round

Step 4: Create Meeting hall + make meeting hall a burrow

Step 5: Create Carpenter + Mason + Craftsdwarf + Mechanics Worshop

Step 6: Create Still, start brewing from plant (plump helmets)

Step 7: Create Stockpiles

Step 8: Make Trade Depot and trader

Step 9: Make Managers quarters, make dwarf into manager and bookkeeper, set bookkeeping to highest accuracy

Step 10: Make rock crafts, beds, tables, chairs and mechanisms

Step 11: Create bedrooms

Step 12: Furnish Meeting hall

Step 13: Create Well (inside fortress)

Step 14: Create Bridge (that raises) at entrance of fort, link up to a lever with mechanisms

Step 15: Create Hospital, make chief medical dwarf

Step 16: Create Tomb, place coffins inside make them all ready for burial

Step 17: Create Temple to no particular diety

Step 18: Make barracks with weapon rack/armor stand and create squad of 10 dwarves with metal armor and set them to train + set them to train in the barracks

Step 19: Create 2 wood furnaces, 2 smelters and metalsmith's forge

Step 20: Create Charcoal, smelt ores

Step 21: Forge 10 breastplates, 10 shortswords, 10 shields, 10 gauntlets (not 20! they are made in pairs) 10 boots and 10 greaves

Step 22: Dig into a cave (if you dig into a cave before this point block it off with wall/floor) and create similar bridge entrance as in step 14.

You should now have a functioning fortress with content dwarves

Bonus steps:

BStep 1: Create Hotkeys for key parts of fortress (entrance, meeting hall, caves entrance), not required but save a ton of time.

BStep 2: Smooth walls, also not required but makes fortress look better

BStep 3: Create Garbage Dump by channeling a hole 8 z-levels deep with an updown staircase next to it, create dumping zone.

BStep 4: Create animal pen on the surface and build walls around it with one door. Not required but herbivores will hang around the meeting hall and starve creating miasma

BStep 5: Create traps close to the entrances of your fort. Stonefall traps are easiest to make and reliable, Cage Traps captures creatures of many different sizes.

BStep 6: Make your meeting hall into tavern.

That should do it, if I forgot something that you think is also necessary let me know in the comments.

Edit: I really appreciate the atten

Seriously, Kuva Fortress is bad enough without running Rescue and Kuva Survival ad nauseum because those are the only two mission types with requiem fissures on them. There's a perfectly good disruption mission, the assault mission (which is probably the most fun mission on the fortress), an exterminate mission... why are Taveuni and Garus the only two nodes requiem fissures spawn on? Is it bugged like everything else in this update?

(Laughs maniacally)

Update: So today I found out my friend knows that mimics are in the game. This is disheartening but I don’t think he knows how to tell which chest is a mimic. I’ve seen him hit chests to test them. So I’m gonna warn him about the mimic in Sen’s Fortress so I gain his trust and then try convince him that the mimic chest in the Anor Londo basement is a normal chest.

Yay or nay?

Have I gone to far?