So on my third fort (OCD on fort design killed the first 2) I set out to make my current fort, Greatermansion. After roughly 2 years I have recieved a total of 1 kobold thief, 0 migrants, and 0 merchants.
With so few people I haven't even bothered with a military, so instead I just locked the doors and called it good. If I ever get anyone I'll open them back up.
But I was curious, what happened to my civ? First thought - all dead. Maybe I'm the last of my race! Or at least my civilization. Who are the nobles?
... They all exist. But they're also all goblins. WTF happened? Time for a copy of the world and legends mode, plus way too many hours of time wasted.
First off, tracing the important events by looking at the civilization was horrible. Apparently they have a new contest every year. This takes 3 simultaneous posts, because they have a foot race, a procession with candles, criers, and incense burning and images, and they have a story recital. Very nice. Hard to navigate.
Near the bottom, I have dwarves from one of my previous fort who all left the entangled page and became members of the entangled page in the same year. And at the very end my settlement regained their senses after questionable judgement. That's it. No idea what happened.
So I check the age of myth. This would store the wars, which I could tediously trace (through several hours) and figure out what happened. And what happened was an asshole goblin civilizaiton, The Contained Tick. Since the dawn of civilization they wared every 10-20 years, slaughtering everyone.
At the beginning, in the year 19, they sent 7 humans, 34 goblins, 7 dwarves, 9 trolls, and 5 giant cave swallows (read, population 62, against 33 dwarves, 4 goblins, and 5 giant olms (read, population 42). They lost 10, we lost all.
They attacked again in the years 29, 42, 55, 66, 76, 90, 100, 112, 124, 136, 151, 159, 162, 179, 205,
By 205, they were sending literally 2336 people against 622. Guess how many they lost in that battle? 47. Guess how many we lost? 449. We lost just over 2/3 of our people, and they lost effectively nothing. BTW, it was considered that we "won" that battle.
We were fine then, for 45 years. Until 250.
And here "The Dented Conflict" occured, the first "war" we had where I recorded the name of the war instead of the battles - because it actually had 3. All in the same year. This is where 3 dwarves known as "The Amusing Avalanche" repelled 20 goblins, and then 12 goblins. And then on the third try 7 goblins rushed in, and killed the dwarves. These goblins are known as "The Veiled Fiend". Look closer though, and you notice that they were all killed by one goblin - Eliye Drainsblue.
Eliye was a female goblin born in the year 62, rose to fame only in 250 for killing 3 dwarves, and then happily was struck down the same year in The Escorted Hill, by Iteb Ownerrim.
Then, in the same year, The Contained Tick (yeah, fuck 'em), went to war with The Balanced Tomes, another dwarven civilization. By this time, they attacked with exactly 209 humans, 135 dwarves, and 3743 goblins. Holy shit. 354 losses. The Balanced Tomes defended with 50 dwarves, 13 humans, 3 elves, and 8 goblins. They lost 47, but "won" the fight.
The Contained Tick attacked again the following year, lost 38 to the dwarves loss of 4. I feel bitter sweet, but I'm proud of my neighbors of stone.
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woh, a lot happened, breath a bit, more to come
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Then came, in late spring of 250, and lasting to early summer of 251, "The Stormy War".
The Veiled Fiend attacked The Pillar of Notches. Who are they? A group of The Entagled Page. So it's important. By this point the state of the civ becomes clear, because this outpost was not mostly dwarves, it was 3 dwarves and 15 goblins. A goblin civ is, at this point, effectively attacking another goblin civ. They are attacking this group, btw, at the same time they're destroying The Amusing Avalanche.
Happily, The Contained Tick is also attacked by neighboring humans. Very few deaths. Ironically at this point The Contained Tick is defending this place without even a single goblin. Apparnetly they're all off attacking people. The Scortching war, as this one is called, involves 20 humans killing 5 dwarves (hey, those are mine!) and 2 humans. They go back and forth, very few people die. Oh well.
Then, still in tey hear 250, another of our dwarven sites is attacked by goblins. This is "The Fierce War", where 20 goblins attack The Wooden Hammer. This site, btw, had 6 humans, 8 dwarves (remember, it's a dwarven civ), and 51 goblins. Fifty freaken one. It had 3 battles, and the number fluctuate slightly, but there is no doubt now that goblins outnumber dwarves.
The same year (again), a "human" civ once again attacks The Contained Tick (damn them all to hell). Except the attack was only 7 humans, and 13 goblins. WTF, my entire area is predominantly goblin only.
Then, again in the same year, we had "The Furious War", where The Blue Society (humans), attacked The Contained Tick again. Holy shit. The Contained Tick won counterattacks and pillaged them.
A lot more happneed this year and the next, but the base is that The Contained Tick really started getting fucked up by humans, and The Entangled page never really recovered.
We are dwarven in culture, but we are almost entirely goblin now. I guess I'm making a 7 dwarf cult, and hoping they have lots of children.
And the cause of all these wars?
A conflict over formalized agreement.
We couldn't, in 250 years, agree on the terms of ancient agreements.