Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Urist mcOverusedJoke]

I decided to compress everything into a single thread from now on, just to make things easier. Sorry about the previous two posts, I entirely forgot the purpose of forum threads, somehow.

After the complete disaster that was my previous fort, I’m trying again!

Oh yeah, also it’s in this world. Again.

See here for the first post in this series.

Post Table of Contents
Archive of my first two threads in the previous fort (goodness I'm so sorry)
Part 2 of the current fort: Welcome to the Cage Zone
Part 3: Torment of Trolls
Part 4: Cheater Elf

I don’t even know what to say. This is a trip, that’s for sure.

Spoiler: A Whole New World (Not) (click to show/hide)

I embark with a slightly modified set of dwarves. They’re not perfect but it should work, assuming nothing goes wrong.

Of course, this is Dwarf Fortress.

I try to embark farther away from goblin pits this time. I don’t think it has any effect but maybe it’ll take them more time to get to me and to prepare. Also of course I stayed away from necromancer towers.

I have the “bright” idea to cut out a large chunk of grass and use cave-ins to bring it deeper underground. While performing this absolutely useless task, one of my dwarves is literally frozen in place() and their corpse falls out of a block of ice after I dig them out. My other miner experiences the same fate, and now I have no pickaxes because their previous owner’s bodies are all frozen somehow.

I set up a little base above ground, but a bunch of monkeys keep stealing everything and it’s not a good time. Thankfully, eventually the ice thaws and I get a (single) pickaxe back from my dead dwarves.

I resumed work on the plug, which took a bit but went relatively easy from then on.

If anyone else is as new to this as I am, don’t do this. It’s not a great idea unless you’re willing to dig through hundreds of Z levels to do it. My original plan was to prevent enemies from getting down to my grazing animals, but a lot of enemies can just jump down without getting hurt, even with 5 or so levels of empty space. I have absolutely no idea how, though. Plus flying enemies can ruin your day. Thankfully I took this into account when designing the fort but it was still kinda a waste of time.

I would recommend just making a walled off spot for all of your animals, either entirely isolated from the fort (if you’re not worried about trolls) or connected to the fort and walled off if you’re confident enough in your designing capabilities.

Either way, I shouldn’t have done it. Plus, I had to dig through a light aquifer while doing this, so I had to wall everything off because water was just trickling out everywhere. My dwarves nearly starved, even ignoring the whole “aquifer-water-flash-freezed-my-dwarves” thing.

But, well, I managed to get underground, and that’s when things got a bit more interesting. I made a well(fueled by the aquifer), which thankfully didn’t end in too much death, and dug out a long choke point for the enemies to go through.

I designated a manufacturing and storage area to be dug out, and made a small residential area for my dwarves. I also spent a bit of time creating orders for stone slabs, because at this point more than a reasonable amount of dwarves had died and even though I had a good sized population still I didn’t want ghosts killing people.

I did have to rely on plant gathering for a bit again, and even though things stabilized it took me a long while to get food production to be normalized.


Mostly a boring start, but still not entirely normal, I think.

Spoiler: The Hit Squad Assembles (click to show/hide)

Realizing how terribly things went last time, I actually designated a military squad, equipping them all with leather armor and silver maces, which wasn’t a great choice in retrospect considering how hard it is to get 30-40 pieces of leather armor manufactured. However the maces have proven effective so far, so hopefully that part wasn’t too bad.

Zombies can multiply if you cut them, so I focused the squad on bludgeoning. Unfortunately, this does make them susceptible to most other enemies. Hopefully it doesn’t catch up with me? Knowing this game, though, it probably will.

I also take a decent chunk of time to set 50-60 cage traps to be made. I’ve heard they’re good, but I’ve yet to see them in action.

Whatever, it can’t be worse than last time.

An interesting quirk of this world’s generation, or maybe I’m just not used to this, is the amount of religious dwarves. Almost every dwarf I’ve met has spent their free time either praying, or meditating. They could be drinking or socializing in guild halls, but they choose to pray instead. I suppose a constant pervasive fear of death will do that to you, but as far as I know that’s normal in Dwarf Fortress worlds. I’ll have to investigate this further.

There’s been a few dwarves with strange moods, and most of them have gone well up to this point. I’m just leaving the artifacts in storage for now.

I left the armor stand in the main Dwarven meeting room. I’m actually not sure if dwarves become happy from being around fancy things anymore, but it’s worth a shot.

Right about here a goblin siege happens. I panic initially, but the goblins rush headfirst into the cage traps and one of them is caught. The rest run away immediately after seeing their comrade imprisoned, most likely out of fear of what horrifying thing I’m going to do to them.

I put the captive goblin in my basement. I still have no idea what to do with them. Suggestions would be welcome.

Spoiler: Guardian of the Forest (click to show/hide)

Things have been going… roughly, despite the resounding victory against the goblin scout party. More will probably come, and in the mean time the dwarves have been starving.

Oh yeah, also a titan showed up.

I activate my siege alert and all of the dwarves hide underground. I’m certain cages won’t work on this creature, so I send my military up in a list ditch effort to stave off the inevitable.

Hilariously, even though the creature slaughtered a few innocent dwarves, my militia leader dispatched it singlehandedly. Turns out the thing was made of water, and water isn’t very durable. They managed to cut it’s limbs off with a MACE, of all weapons.



All that’s left of the creature is a small puddle of water, completely mismatched to it’s implied size. The only reason I found out it was dead was by checking the deceased units screen.

Things do worsen, but not because of the titan. I accidentally mismanage a construction for a dump pit, and crush multiple dwarves under their fallen friends’ corpses and piles of rock. Unsurprisingly, despite having their own bedrooms and booze, lots of dwarves have been lost in the long run over this incident. I probably wouldn’t react well if the corpse of my dead best friend nearly killed me by landing on my head, either.

Oh yeah, also I get a notification about it becoming the Age of the Goblin. I panic again at first, but eventually realize this must mean all of the mega beasts in the world are dead. Anticlimactic and a little sad, really. I suppose it was inevitable.

Spoiler: War! (click to show/hide)

The first thing I do after recovering from the mass graveyard collapse incident is to construct some large plump helmet farm plots in the soil layer. I connected it to the outside, which I realize in retrospect was not a great idea, but my food production is nearly tripled because of it. Whoo! Finally, no more “Urist cancelled Give Food: Out of Food” alerts.

Oh yeah, also, all my livestock are dead from that tiny goblin skirmish. Forgot to mention.

I begin making clothing and goblets to try and increase the dwarves’ happiness after the Great Corpse Rain Incident, but I don’t have much time to. I get another announcement about a goblin siege, and put the fort on lockdown.

The very first thing I notice is the absurd amount of goblins. Literally dozens of them, just streaming in. I didn’t think my cage traps could get them all. I had three weapon traps ready as well that I had constructed since last time, but only three. They weren’t going to stop much.

Plus, they brought trolls AND beak dogs. Beakdogs, sure, whatever. There’s a lot of them, but they’re basically just bigger wolves, statistically. But trolls? They can smash buildings. Can trolls even be trapped by cage traps? I don’t know.

I expect the goblins to take the smart route and all stream through only one side of my 1x2 hallway, and they definitely tried, but in reality about half of them still got caught in the other tile’s traps. Weird.

Thankfully, this means the goblins, in their blind rush for riches, have nearly their entire main force wiped out in seconds. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with these goblins, but this is a lot better than them getting through. The rest of the force does retreat, as well.

On the other hand, all the trolls they brought stayed around after the goblins left, no doubt attracted to the farm plots I have set up. Four of them are just sitting on the plots, which means I have to keep all my dwarves inside until they smash them all, because I only have ten military dwarves with subpar equipment for dealing with non-undead enemies. Ugggggh.

And that’s where I’m at right now. Thoughts? Any ideas on what can I do to not die terribly during my next session?

I know the game is fairly normal so far, and honestly I’m not surprised, given how I haven’t declared war on any necromancer towers or anything yet.

I’m considering turning this into a succession game. Would anyone be interested in that?

Thanks y’all,
Urist mcOverusedJoke

[Urist mcOverusedJoke]

I've decided to archive these posts because they shouldn't be in separate threads anyway, so here you go I guess.

First Post in Thread.


First Fort: Part 1

Spoiler: The The Terrible Beginning (click to show/hide)

The first thing I did was change the tile set to Bitlands, because it seemed fun and I wanted an excuse to try it out (don’t judge me), and then went to the Dwarf Fortress mode, and then finally the embark screen.

How absolutely screwed the world is was immediately apparent the second I saw the map. There literally is not a single biome/region on the map that’s more than 40-50 tiles from a necromancer-controlled city.

I did the best I could for choosing an embark site, selecting an area with a small patch of mountains between me and the nearest necromancer tower. I have no idea if that actually does anything, but whatever. Hopefully it slows the zombies down.

I set up a Dwarven team consisting of a militia leader, an engineer, a woodcrafter/woodcutter, a doctor/blacksmith, a miner, a farmer, and a mason. I can’t really go into too much detail about them, because sadly I’m writing this a decent portion into the fortresses’ development (the end of this post is the point I’m at right now, as of writing), but I can safely say they had no idea what they were getting into.

I immediately began carving out a small encampment out of the nearby hill for my dwarves. In between the fort and the outside world, I slapped down a retracting bridge sitting over a 4-tile-deep pit and connected it to a lever. I think it retracts the wrong direction, but either way it should stop any early unfathomably large hordes of undead from eating these innocent dwarves alive.



Of course, nothing goes as planned, and as I meander about and set up basic defenses and amenities, a group of migrants almost immediately appears. It felt nearly immediate, and I’m not sure if that was just my brain playing tricks on me or if all the sapient beings in this world are just that desperate for shelter.

On closer inspection, all of the new dwarves seemed to have really strange and/or niche laboring skills as well as worryingly high fighting ones. Is it actually possible for civilians in Dwarf Fortress to develop military skills in hostile environments where the other skills are less useful? Does Dwarf Fortress actually simulate that?



Well, moving on, I set them to work creating furniture, gardeni- wait a moment.

It’s at this precise moment I realize I don’t have any kind of farm. I’m honestly terrible at managing farm animals, so I mostly just ignored them (bad idea I know) and construct a regular plot to feed my populace. But, uh, I forgot to this time.

Acting desperately, I try and coat a small room with a bit of mud to make a farm, but it was way too slow. The dwarves actually started starving and becoming dehydrated before I could do it.

I gave up on the irrigation and just made a large farm in the soil layer separated from the outside world, with the only entrance to the farms being from inside the fort. As of now it’s not very secure, being right next to the exit of the drawbridge, but hopefully it stops the dwarves from dying.

But, well, plants take time to grow, and the dwarves are starving *right now*. Uh oh.

Spoiler: The The Radish Room (click to show/hide)

Well, it turns out Herbalism is way 29:8;ing better than I knew. After setting up a bunch of my military dwarves (who weren’t that useful at this point) to go collect some plants, I had WAY more food than I know what to do with.

Fast forward a few more days, and at this point the plump helmet farm was complete. I was panicking because I didn’t think I had anything to turn into alcohol, and all of my plump helmet spawn had mysteriously disappeared. But it turns out I had *so much* stuff to turn into alcohol that I had never brewed the plump helmets. I have so many random vegetables that the dwarves haven’t been begun to eat the plump helmets. I still do.

I appoint a manager and set up two new constant condition-based jobs to brew alcohol and make barrels, because honestly I couldn’t be bothered with boring stuff like actually feeding my population.

After that !fun! time, I finally begin to actually improve the security of the fort. I move everything deeper underground and put it behind a long hallway.

While my dwarves might get outside sickness because of this, it’s better than being eaten by a horde of ravenous zombies. It’s also worth mentioning that I’ve almost entirely neglected the dwarves’ happiness until now, which was pretty terrible on my part, but (hopefully?) I make up for it later.



It appears I’ve drawn the… positive attention of other civilizations? By the time of writing this, I have (I believe) 4 different “visitors”/permanent resident monster slayers from other civilizations. I think this is a normal mechanic, but I can’t shake the feeling that some of these people might be necromancer spies. Yikes.

They’re nice to have around though, because almost every single one of these visitors is a monster slayer and as far as I can tell all of the run ins we’ve had with giant animals have been resolved quickly, possibly because of them? I’m not sure.

Also no, it did not escape my attention that one of them is a goblin. Don’t worry, I’m scared of that one too.

But none of that matters- I need to push aside these distractions, and work on my real project.

Spoiler: Minecart Masher (click to show/hide)

The Minecart Grinder.

So, assuming zombies operate on the you-have-to-destroy-the-head-to-kill-them logic in this game, I’m not sure how effective it’s going to be, but I would assume reducing them to a pulp will help.

Only time will tell…

Spoiler: The Windmill Window (click to show/hide)

It’s been a few months(?) and the minecart project is going along… kinda okay ish. I’m not great at designing these rooms or structures, so I’m sure there’s some sort of giant flaw, but hopefully it should still run over zombies.

I set up some windmills outside, and walled them off. I have no idea if it’s safe, but no one *should* be able to access it from the outside.

More importantly, some more pious dwarves seem to like this place. Seems sort of like a questionable decision for a place to set up a church, but I can’t blame them given… The rest of the planet’s condition.

I start expanding. I can’t actually keep up with the number of dwarves migrating, so obviously something’s wrong with the mountainhomes. I try my best to create more bedrooms for the new arrivals anyway, and set up a macro that lets me make large rows of bedrooms faster and easier.

By this point the minecart project is nearly done when it comes to the actual rail. But, uh, I’m not exactly what’s happening exactly. It sort of just stops at this corner.



I assume I need a roller to power the cart’s movement up the slope in said corner, and begin work on tha-

Oh, corpses of started walking. That's nice, announcement log.

WAIT WHAT THE F@:& HIDE

I set all the dwarves to hide underground, and try to finish the minecart track faster. I fail… but the siege just, stops.

False alarm? What the hell?

Oh well, some other poor sod’s problem. I get back to work and try to expand the minecart grinder and the living conditions of my… civilians. I can’t even say dwarves anymore, there’s so many people here.

Speaking of which, I sort of just made a tavern randomly. Everyone seems to like it, so it seemed to be a good idea, but wow it’s crowded


(ignore the blood)

Let’s stop at a high point here. I can already this is going to be fun.

First Fort: Part 2

Spoiler: The Minecart Mill (click to show/hide)

I spent a solid 2-4 hours working on the minecart system. It took way f2948(&king longer than it should have, because for some reason the minecart kept getting stuck in a corner for literally no goddamn :@&,ing reason.

In the bright side, it now works. On the *dark* side, I know it works because it ran over a cat and a pig. Oops.

I actually had to set up a kill switch for the minecart track, because it appears that it actually constantly gains speed through the entire loop. Great for smashing zombies into a pulp, at least.

It’s at about this point I actually started making more rooms. I have about… 150-160 dwarves now? Is it normal to have this many?

I also have a ludicrous amount of performing troupes that have settled in my fort permanently. Either migrants and visitors are way more common than I thought, or something else is going on.

My civilians do start starving, which is bad. I would focus more on this, but it’s practically commonplace as of writing. I barely avoid it by setting some dwarves to gather more plants and highly expanding my plant production. I should probably get into livestock soon…
 

wait, is that a red bird? Cool. Wait.

Spoiler: Interlude I: Big Bird (click to show/hide)

I don’t know much about roc’s, so I had to look them up (leave me alone please I’m not an elf I swear).

They ARE mega beasts and they are terrifying, but at least it isn’t a titan or something. Whatever, it’s like halfway across the map from me.

I immediately go back on my previous thought and decide to test my minecart atomizer on this thing. I put all the dwarves on alert and send the small squad of enforcers up to bait it into the minecart loop. It’s big, so it must be slow, right?

WRONG. It immediately teleports 20 files and instakills one of my squad members like it’s name is Barry Allen. I desperately send the rest of my militia back down to the depths of the fort, still trying to fulfill my original plan, but the exact same thing happens to them.

I take a moment of silence for the lost lives, and then my attention drifts to the fact that it’s still heading towards the fort. Yes! Good luck flying underground you big chicken!

It walks across the bridge, and- Disappears?

I quickly look around, trying to find it, and then get dozens of notifications about the roc killing my dwarves. What the hell?

Panning down a couple Z layers, I notice it’s in the MIDDLE OF MY GOD DAMN :$$@KING FOOD STOCKPILE, HOW.

I pause the game to get my bearings, and immediately notice what happened. The pit under the bridge actually had two holes under the stairs I used to make sure my mining dwarves could get back up and walled off, and one of the holes was directly over my main food stockpile. I panic and assign a few random dwarves to a military and tell them to kill it. I resign myself to an early death.

Oh well, it was inevitable.

Wait.

There’s no more fighting notifications? I check the stockpile for corpses, and while the roc is still alive, it’s almost completely immobile. Every single one of it’s limbs is in the red and it’s unable to move. I take a deep breath and unpause the game to let the dwarves finish off the legendary beast.

I’m retrospect, I probably should have caged it, but I don’t have another roc to breed it with so I guess it wasn’t too bad to let it die.

The dwarves lay one final blow on the creature, and the body is moved to my refuse pile. It’s at this moment that I have the bright idea to butcher it, which after a couple minutes of searching for how to butcher nearby animal corpses, pays off. I get *hundreds* of meat, effectively solving my starving problem for the next couple days *at least*. Not to mention the piles of leather and bones.

PRAISE ARMOK! I can’t believe it went that well. A few dwarves died, but altogether it went way better than it should have. A true miracle, honestly.

Spoiler: The Calm before the Storm (click to show/hide)

Finally, some time to rest. Having completed the minecart system and killed all the most recent and pressing threats, I can actually work on making this place livable.

First off, production. I quadruple the amount of mason workshops, carpenter’s workshops, and stills, and triple the amount of kitchens. After that, I can actually see my drink (and food somehow) go into the green.

There’s a bit of lag, but I have no idea what I could do about that. Tips would be appreciated.

While playing around a bit, I get a notification that we’ve entered the Age of Heroes. After some research, it turns out that the number of mega beasts defines the Age, so there’s a nonzero chance my dwarves just dealt the finishing blow to the Age of Legends. Wow.

To top it off, one of my dwarves made a roc bone ring. Talk about badass!




We’re basically invincible! Nothing can go wrong.

Spoiler: !FUN! Event Horizon (click to show/hide)

Things went wrong.

It turns out I was WAAAAY too close to a goblin encampment, and they were coming right towards me.

I set all my dwarves to the underground burrow, expecting the goblins to go through the choke point I made.

Turns out I left a single corner hole in the outside pasture. The goblins just start flooding in behind literally all of my defenses, and I’m literally unable to do anything about it.

Yeah. Okay, well, I have a really good trap set up. There aren’t any big guys so realistically the cart should work still, I’ll just create a new burrow on the other side of the tr- Oh god they’re dismantling my windmills.

It was a massacre. Entire hallways were coated in blood. The dozens of innocent visitors, taking respite in likely one of the only safe places left on earth, are massacred along with my dwarves. Artist and soldier alike are torn asunder under the better-equipped enemy army.

A glimmer of hope shows itself.

I have a single dwarf left under my control. I might be able to construct a windmill- OF COURSE THERE’s A 029393ing ROCK. OF COURSE. BLOCKING THE WINDMILL.

After an hour of desperate micromanagement trying to get this dwarf to fix the single broken windmill that’s stopping my trap from working, they die from a goblin.

I suppose it was inevitable.

Should I try again? I’m not sure. I mean, I made a pretty obvious mistake there. Also I don’t think I’m going to be using windmills from now on.

[EuchreJack]

Good job on surviving so far.

You might have to send out a suicidal dwarf with a spear to poke at trolls.

[Urist mcOverusedJoke]

Good job on surviving so far.

You might have to send out a suicidal dwarf with a spear to poke at trolls.

Thanks! Would the poor Dwarf allow me to bait the trolls to my cage traps? Do they even work on trolls?

[EuchreJack]

Good job on surviving so far.

You might have to send out a suicidal dwarf with a spear to poke at trolls.

Thanks! Would the poor Dwarf allow me to bait the trolls to my cage traps? Do they even work on trolls?

Hm, a review of the wikipage shows that you could probably lure Trolls with a building.  The Cage Traps should work, if the Trolls don't break them before they trigger.

[Urist mcOverusedJoke]

First Post in thread.

Things have been going """well""".

Spoiler: Welcome to the Cage Zone (click to show/hide)

After the last goblin wave, I began worrying. My dwarves were throwing tantrums and I didn't have a large enough military to withstand the inevitable next wave if any goblins got through my trap hallway (which they certainly would given the amount of enemies near my fort). To make matters worse, I didn't have any iron or metals that are useful in combat outside of silver, and there were trolls sitting just outside my fort.

Desperate, I begin digging around in the aquifer layer for iron. I didn't find any, and it's probably going to bite me in the ass later thanks to flooding.

I would have given up hope at this point if it weren't for, ironically, my enemies themselves. It turns out that I had gathered a ridiculous amount of weapons and armor from the captured goblins (after disarming them), and a lot of it was iron. Finally, steel AND iron equipment!

I immediately set up a squad of dwarves to wear some of the armor I gathered from the goblins, and melted down some of the excess equipment so I could make iron axes. I dig out another barracks and set them to train, hoping that the dwarves I chose for this new squad prove to be a kind of "giant-killer" group. Unfortunately, I still have a lot of dwarves that aren't happy and they aren't getting magically better. I start manufacture of a large quantity of lead chairs, because for some reason my metalsmiths are extremely skilled, and I dig, smooth, and engrave a room that I fill with the chairs, and designate it as a dining room. I also set my original meeting room as a tavern and put some more chairs. Hopefully that staves off the tantrum spiral (for now).

I unfortunately had to leave some of the goblin's iron scraps behind, because they were already in my corpse dump area with corpses nearby and I couldn't afford to expose any more dwarves then they had already to their dead friends. It's probably worth mentioning that the corpse area is actually a bunch of hatches connected to a lever that I can drop them down a pit with, as a small effort to prevent necromancer ambushes. So, I sacrifice some of the goblin equipment and drop it down the pit along with the corpses.

Here's a fun notification:



After some research, this message being the age of "the Goblin" instead of the age of "Goblins" seems to imply that the necromancer problem has gotten worse, because there's only ONE goblin civ. I may actually be the only dwarven settlement left on the planet, too.

I butcher a few beak dogs out of spite and for training my military. Free food! Actually, a lot of free food. I might be able to live off of these...

That's actually all I have for now, thankfully. I'm planning to set up a longer trap corridor full of silver mace/warhammer weapon traps, and also to expand my military drastically. Maybe I can start taking the fight to them?

Thanks for reading,
Urist mcOverusedJoke

[Urist mcOverusedJoke]

Here's the first post in the thread, so you can get to the table of contents easier.

Things have been... interesting.

Spoiler: Bonus: Civil War?!??! (click to show/hide)

Everything was actually going well for me. Time and space have curved and conspired to destroy this fort, however.

It all started with one dwarf that’s been constantly throwing tantrums and entering bouts of depression and obliviousness. For some reason, none of the other dwarves have been doing this (though I expect that to change soon after the absolute crapshoot that just happened). I really wish I could have given the poor leatherworker therapy or something.

Doesn’t matter now, though. He’s dead. Along with… 5-20 other dwarves? I have a super rough count because what just happened is absolutely nonsensical.

This traumatized leatherworker takes a swing at another dwarf during a tantrum. Whatever, he’ll get over it soon, and if he injured the other dwarf I’ll send in my military.

But then everyone starts killing each other??? A cook took a kid by the index finger and fucking *suplexes the child against a wall*. What the absolute hell??

The only thing I could do was to send my guard into the middle of the conflict and set up a military squad with all of my important dwarves to sit in an out of the way place away from the conflict. These
measures did seem to work, thankfully, but I’m terrified the fighting is going to break out again or is currently happening without me noticing because it’s in an out of the way area, and I have one or two dozen dwarves in the hospital.

Goblin sieges have actually been much much less lethal than this. What the hell is going on? Why was that one leatherworker permanently traumatized? I have no idea what just happened.

Whatever, back to mace production… I expect have to kick up my bedroom quality though.

On the bright side migrants have started coming back again, yay!

Spoiler: Bonus 2: Torment of Trolls (click to show/hide)

Things have been going very well for the fort recently. I’ve recovered from the civil war (mostly), we’ve begun steel production, and the addition of new mace traps in the trap hallway has basically turned the goblin hordes into
a metal delivery service. I did find out I embarked near a 10,000 population goblin tower, which is fun. Hopefully sieges have a capped size.

I've set up two discrete militia squads designed to eventually raid goblin settlements. I followed a guide and set them all up to train wrestling first. I also have my militia captain's
squad, which is designed to kill large threats, and I still have my mace dwarves ready to pulp zombies (Which they have, once or twice. Two plague thralls showed up and the military made short work of both of them).

Example of a "plague thrall", though this one was from the previous fort.

I also managed to get to the Magma Sea after a hilariously large amount of time. I couldn't find a single nugget of iron ore on the map, so I had to use goblinite (junk that goblins brought when trying to kill me) to forge
my steel weaponry. I could use adamantine at this point, but it feels like a bad idea to just tear into adamantine veins willy-nilly yes i did spoil myself a while back it sucks don't do it, just mine the veins its fun i promise. A gremlin also popped up because I breached the caves. Fun.

One or two trolls managed to make their way to the surface, and that combined with some "training accidents" caused a few causalities. I feel like the entire fort is a xXpig-tail ropeXx away from a tantrum spiral at literally all times though, so it's not like it changes much.

Despite how "well" things have been going, I was expecting death around every corner, or for some clown lord to pop out of the bushes and eat me alive, what I DID NOT expect was to be met with 48 (FORTY-EIGHT!) pages of combat text when I check for hostile enemies because of "Urist cancelled Job: combat" alert.
On closer inspection, all FORTY-EIGHT FUCKING pages of combat were mostly one action: A swordsdwarf committing a war crime with a book, titled "The Monastery: My Only Mistake".

what the fuck

I dismissed it, assuming the troll was dead after enduring such a horrifying act of cruelty.

BUT I WAS WRONG.

Two to three days later, after doing a bit of work on setting up the precursor to a magma pump stack, I get the notification again. I prepare to send my axe squad to kill (or capture)
a wild troll. BUT IT WAS THE. SAME. FUCKING. TROLL. AND THERE WERE 20 MORE PAGES OF INTERNATIONAL LAW VIOLATIONS.

SOMEONE HELP THE TROLL PLEASE

The order to kill is given. I can't let this go on any longer. Please die peacefully, you innocent fuzzy murderbeast.

Mercy.

My militia leader deals a single, extraordinarily precise blow to the creature's neck. It's head flys off, confirming that I had succesfully killed it in the most painless way I could.

I'm not arresting the sworddwarf, though. I actually don't have a jail The sword-dwarf was a victim too. They passed out numerous times of exhaustion while trying to kill the troll with the book but they just. keep. hitting. the. poor. thing.

May Armok have mercy on that Troll’s soul.

Spoiler: The Boss (click to show/hide)

A strange thing happened today. I mean, another strange thing. I got a new visitor (an Olm Woman) with the profession of “Boss”. I think they may be a criminal. And, if you recall from the original Reddit post where this world was shared, the necromancer society that controls everything is a criminal organization.

bruuuuuRINGRINGRINGRINGRINGRING

The thought, unfortunately, did not occur to me until it was too late. By the time I was considering “arranging” a new “permanent living condition” for her, the strange animal person escaped into the night.

Also, along with them, some more… interesting visitors have started arriving. A creature called the “Paintedsense’s Eye” (badass name tbh) showed up near the border of my map. On closer inspection, it appeared to be a kind of… horrifying abomination that the necromancers have started cooking up.

at least it wasn't made from a little girl and a dog

I send my axedwarves to kill it, but it dashes into the darkness along with the olm woman. Concerning, to say the least.

holy fuck

Edit: Refreshed with images and some bad jokes

[EuchreJack]

Hey, you shouldn't scare off Your New Monarch like that!

...because, yeah, if you're the last fortress in existence, the Necromancer Boss of Crime might just be your sovereign.  Over at The Colorless Home, we've got a Necromancer Mayor.  I don't *think* its lead to anything weird...

[Urist mcOverusedJoke]

Hey, you shouldn't scare off Your New Monarch like that!

...because, yeah, if you're the last fortress in existence, the Necromancer Boss of Crime might just be your sovereign.  Over at The Colorless Home, we've got a Necromancer Mayor.  I don't *think* its lead to anything weird...

In retrospect, there hasn’t been any reason to think I’m the only dwarf fort left on the planet. I’m still getting migrant waves and I don’t have access to the “monarch” noble role yet.

ON THE OTHER HAND the last migrant wave only had 1 (one!!!) dwarf, which I don’t think is normal.

Also, at least 50 dwarves worship the God of Death. I’m considering arranging… accidents… for them. Maybe they can join their god that way.

Edit: It’s okay that I’m posting updates as replies, right? I’m considering changing to edits because then I’m not clogging up the top of the forum board with updates

[fatcat__25]

It is normal to post updates as replies, so don't worry about it.

[Urist mcOverusedJoke]

It is normal to post updates as replies, so don't worry about it.

Phew. Thanks!

[EuchreJack]

It is normal to post updates as replies, so don't worry about it.

Phew. Thanks!

You sort of have to post updates as replies, so the topic shows as new/unread.  Edits make the topic appear as if nothing has updated.

[Urist mcOverusedJoke]

It is normal to post updates as replies, so don't worry about it.

Phew. Thanks!

You sort of have to post updates as replies, so the topic shows as new/unread.  Edits make the topic appear as if nothing has updated.

I mean, yeah. I think I was just confused by the number of threads on the board with relatively low reply counts.

[Urist mcOverusedJoke]

Here's the first post, for your convienience.

I am a filthy cheater elf

Spoiler: The Goblin Raid (click to show/hide)

After the events of all of the goblin sieges I've mentioned PLUS a whole bunch I haven't, my goblinite stores had reached epic proportions. Ignoring my dwarves' strange insistence on not melting what I tell them to, I have easily enough iron to begin outfitting my entire military with steel equipment. So, of course, like any self-respecting dwarf overseer, I do.

I also think its about time I take the fight to THEM. Those pointy eared goblin bastards.

On a quick check to the world map, I can see that, while I am near a goblin tower (!!yikes!!), I am also near a dozen or so goblin pits. Most of them have 60-80 goblins in them, supposedly, and I would imagine a group of axe lords equipped with full steel shouldn't have too hard of a time raiding one of the pits.

I did try and make a mission to retrieve the Roc Bone ring from the previous fort as well, but nothing happened. The inexperienced military I sent spent a few days frolicking in the woods like elves before coming back completely empty handed.

After they return, though, I immediately begin plans to embark on a raiding mission with my most experienced part of axe dwarves, assuming that though there might be trolls or other tamed creatures I couldn't see in the population count, that they would make easy work of any enemies that discovered them while they were stealing things, thanks to the one time an axe dwarf I had singlehandedly took down two trolls without any injury.

I was... really wrong. It took a bit, but when the team returned they were not in a good shape. The report mentioned some goblin nerd with a high tactics skill that managed to outmaneuver my group, which while he DID kill two of my axe dwarves and capture four, he also got his head smashed in by one of the survivors. That's just karma, really.

The only loot the dwarves managed to bring back was a barrel of wine. I assume that the fact that they brought anything at all meant that the raid was successful, but I can't be certain. I sent a group of inexperienced militia dwarves to rescue my militia commander, who was unfortunately taken prisoner by the goblin threat. Again, they walked around for a bit outside the fort (I gusss) and returned with literally nothing to show for it and no report. Not even a bruise.

Whatever, we've had tons of casualties in this fort. We need more men!

Spoiler: Accidental Savescumming (click to show/hide)

Armok hates me, I think.

While I was trying to set up a training regime for my dwarves (involving prisoners and multiple war crimes), the game just randomly crashes. Of course I hadn't saved at all today, so I had to just... start over from right before the raid on the goblin pit. Accidental cheating
   

Oh yeah, while this was happening, a fun fight happened against a giant cave spider. Normal affair, with civilians ganging up on it because it was an immediate threat in our home I somehow missed being able to stop with my drawbridge that leads underground, but at least one kid was demonstrating a true Dwarven fighting spirit during the skirmish.

children's show protagonists be like

I don't believe the child died during the procedure, or even got injured. Godspeed.

I issue some job orders and get the dwarves to work producing steel equipment and training my soldiers, splitting them into three squads plus my macedwarves. One is a hit squad, designed for raids and eliminating extremely dangerous enemies, while the other two are basic militia squads for defense. The militia squads were set up to train wrestling while the “elite squad” was given the task of training their axe skill in the meantime. I plan to equip the wrestling dwarves at a later point with weapons and allow them to train, but for now the addition of wrestling should give them an ability to cover their bases for when they’re disarmed later.

While I’m organizing my military, a dwarf named [dwarf name] has a mood and produces an artifact Golden bed. Unbelievably lucky- No longer shall I be confined by the ridiculous demands of mayors or guards.

AtŒstathtat, "Stakeplunges", a native gold bed   
This is a native gold bed.  All craftsdwarfship is of the highest quality.  It is encrusted with round native gold  cabochons and encircled with bands of copper. 

I also set up a bathhouse, and butchered some beak dogs to turn into tallow. Soap bars were mass produced, and I forced an elf to create the lye from the ashes. A little immersion breaking that they took it in stride, but probably good because I wasn’t really thinking entirely level when I gave them the labor preference.

Spoiler: MEGADEATH (click to show/hide)

My fortress has reached a peak of power. An entire squad of legendary dwarves, two squads of elite wrestlers. Luxurious bedrooms, a trap hallway filled with death. Piles of fine meals, and a bathhouse with statues made of solid gold, and soap made from the flesh of my enemies. Nothing can stop me! Except dwarven suicidal tendencies.

A goblin siege approaches. I am prepared, and I have faced such a threat many times now. But today will be different- Today they will meet the fury of my soldier's axeblades!

I send in my legendary axedwarf squad, expecting them to tear through the enemies ranks like butter. Unsurpisingly, they do- But one by one, they fall, despite their proud stature in Dwarven society. I try to order the dwarves to retreat, but they kill goblins until their final breath, only to fall alongside their brothers, sisters, and dwarves that prefer not to ascribe themselves a part of the gender binary in arms.

To make matters worse, the high-quality armor they drop draws the attention of my other military dwarves. A squad of elite wrestlers, soon to be legendary axedwarves, rush headlong into enemy fire. They also put up a valiant fight-But their death was guaranteed. Only three or so dwarves of the first wrestler squad survive, and the trap hallway is covered in blood. Never before have I seen so much death in this world.

Imagine this, but 100 times worse.

So much death.

I unforbid the precious Goblinite, and my dwarves get to work becoming traumatized hauling the precious resources to my weapon and armor stockpiles. After drafting some peasants into my military, I feel even more powerless than before.

Can any overseer survive in this cruel world? I haven't yet fought the greatest threats, and still my soldiers die like flies to a electric bug zapper.

There is only one answer to this- Dwarven engineering.

[EuchreJack]

Son, you are truly BLESSED by Armok, God of Blood.