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[sean_hyer]

SPOILERS AHEAD

The Alliance Against Hell

Perversely, it was the humans, not we dwarves, who first discovered the greatest dangers of the underworld. While mining for deep veins of gold, a miner of the fortress Thrathdad Ono discovered a mysterious fortress deep underground. The soldiers of that human clan explored the fortress, dispatching the threats within, and then discovered at its bottom a masterfully made weapon of a material they had never seen before.

The entire population of the fortress, men and woman armed and mailed with iron, assembled to watch as their greatest warrior drew the scimitar forth. And, quite literally, all hell broke loose. The humans were mighty warriors, but even so they were massacred. Not a one of the 150-strong army made it out alive, and it was only a lucky cave-in that spared the surface world, sealing the demons into their forgotten fortress deep beneath the earth.

Once reports reached us, we realised something had to be done about this threat. But we are not so arrogant to suppose we could do it alone. Sure, our armor and weaponry is finer than any the humans could hope to make, buth in material and in craftsmanship. But will that alone be enough to turn the tide? Perhaps not.

So here I am, Tekkud Nomiden, sent to build a fortress which will serve as the staging ground for an assault on this last dark fastness. Humans, elves, even goblins; all will join us. Even the savage races of the underground, serpent men and troglodytes, will do their part.

And once we are prepared, we will test ourselves to our limits, in a bid to make the world safe again.



GOAL:
Conquer HFS with nothing but pure military might. No traps, no cave-ins, no obsidian casting.

As it says in the introduction, I tried this once before. I failed. Messily.

RESTRICTIONS:
No danger rooms.
No megabeasts.

METHOD:
Declare war on everybody.
Capture them in cage traps. All of them.
Set up the cage traps in a series of rooms, linked to a lever to open them.
Open HFS at the end of the series of rooms.
See if the armies of the living are sufficient to defeat it in battle.

[TheFlame52]

Between each room, put locked doors. That way, you can release all the combatants ahead of time, letting the demons kill everyone in each room before breaking down the door and moving on to the next.

[sean_hyer]

Assuming I get trolls, that won't work. Maybe a succession of drawbridges.

Does anyone know if you can trap caravan guards?

[Senshuken]

Can I be dwarfed as a sword dwarf with a shield for this?

And a personal recommendation... put the elves closest to the opening. It'll give us some tactical information on the demons and we get to see elves die horrible deaths. It's a show everyone should have the right to enjoy before they are sent into the meat grinder.

[StagnantSoul]

I'd say throw all your animals that can fight in with the elves as the first line of defense. If I remember correctly, mounted elves on unicorns caught in a cage will remain mounted elves on unicorns until they are forced to split. So, if you get mounted elves on unicorns, they can probably do some damage to the demons if they have animal companions, such as a megabeast. I sent a hydra and a cave dragon alone against hell once, they won.

[Paulus Fahlstrom]

You can use caravan guards by building a Depot in an area then sealing it with a drawbridge on normal stone floor. The drawbridge will keep them in but any building destroyer will be able to get through.

You could even have a series of "Depots" where you seal in successive trade delegations. o-o-o-o-o-o-o
In a chain fashion, and have the demons fight their way through them.

Though, admittedly there is a possibility that the merchants and animals will go bezerk and start killing things too. Elf caravans tend to have single animal (Mule typically) survivors that killed off the rest of the caravan.

[sean_hyer]

Slight hiccup. There was a... bug...? of some kind, and my expedition leader decided she wasn't allowed to do anything. And would just stand there until she died. I spent a couple of months in-game time trying to stop her, and ultimately failing. Hopefully this is entertaining. Where do I go to file a bug report?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

18th Malachite: I just checked why the miners weren't making progress and discovered that I am, in fact, stuck up a tree. I'm not quite sure how this happened. Until I get down from here, the beekeeper will wield a pick in my place.

27th Malachite: Enough of this. I refuse to die of thirst because I can't get out of a tree. WOODCUTTER!

1st Galena: I survived the tree, but this is getting out of hand. I have no job. I am thirsty. The drinks stockpile is just a quick walk away. And yet, I cannot seem to move from this spot.

9th Galena: My feet still will not budge. Today some ingrate tried to build a wall on the very spot where I am standing. I would have none of it, of course. When that failed, they cut the ground from beneath my very feet, so now I stand in a pit.

12th Galena: It is clearly my fate to die here, so why will they not leave me in peace? This time, they burrowed under me, causing a complete cave-in. I was knocked to the side, and both I and the miner were knocked unconscious, but suffered no further injury. While I was out, though, some fool tried to bring me water. As soon as I revived, I resumed my earlier position and sent him away. The miner left as well, muttering something about 'need a deeper pit'.

16th Galena: Another day, another cave-in. The fall felt distinctly longer this time, and indeed the miner picked up more than a couple of bruises. I, of course, suffered no worse. A death in a fall is not what fate has in store for me. Nevertheless, as he trekked back out of this ever growing pit I find myself in, he cocked his hat determinedly.

23rd Galena: The miner again escaped with only miner bruising, but I was not so lucky. The impact this time jammed a rib through my liver. I am not so weak as to be incapacitated for long by such a thing, but it was long enough for them to force some water down my throat. Water. Euch. Well, if death by thirst is denied me, then I must die by hunger. My new position is directly on top of a food stockpile, but they don't call dwarves stubborn for nothing.

1st Limestone: Autumn has arrived on the calender, and what has the fortress achieved? Nothing! It is only right that I should die for this lack of progress. Why can these fools not see this?! Already I can hear the miners picks around me once    again.

5th Limestone: This endless series of falls is painful and repetitive, but accomplishes nothing. I think my fellow dwarves finally see that. I escaped this time with only a few bruises, despite the drop being the greatest yet. And no more do they mine around me. Instead, as the miners were leaving again, I distinctly heard the words 'flood him out'. That's probably not a good sign.

7th Limestone: Tiredness grips me, but I will not retire to a bed. Oooh! Mist! How nice! Wait...

8th Limestone: HAHAHAHAHA! The fools have only hastened my demise! The water creeps slowly higher, but I will not budge. Already it is at my neck...

9th Limestone: Gather with me today as we mourn a true dwarf. She was very strong, very agile, indefatigable and almost never sick. And to add to that, she was the largest dwarf I have ever seen, half again as big as most of our kind. True to her heritage, though, she faced her troubles without complaint, instead accepting her fate with a smile on her face, never despairing even as the waters crept higher around her. Of course, it was only after the fact that we discovered a passing gremlin had nailed her boots to the rock on which she stood. She will be missed.

[Taupe]

Well this is promising. And needlessly cruel.

[nimbus25]

A fortress with a start as amusingly buggy as that must be worth keeping track of. Am interested to see how this goes.

Also, did no other work get done during the time your expedition leader was accomplishing nothing at all?

[sean_hyer]

Yeah, basically nothing got done while I was struggling with the expedition leader. Most early fort building needs mining, and I was using them. Still, one dead dwarf and two wasted months at the start of a fort isn't that important, except that... it turns out, in addition to all the other stuff that went wrong, the first fort bordered neither elves nor humans. Not quite sure how I managed that.

So, sorry to disappoint, but I'm starting again from scratch. The good news is I have a ton of free time at the moment, so it should still go pretty fast. The bad news is that it is likely to be pretty boring up until the very end, since it is a lot like a normal fort, only with less action and more cages.

One question. The new fort has its first cavern 106 (!) z-levels below the surface, with a magma pipe opening 4 levels below that. Should I try to pump magma 110 levels up to my fort?

[Elagn]

Just build the main part of your fortress between the 1st and second cavern layers.

[FrankMcFuzz]

I think a necromancer would be a pretty awesome force against the HFS. Might be harder/impossible to get, but it'd still be wonderful to see them try to out-ressurrect the HFS's raw killing potential.