Darwinism in motion: Send only your 7 most retarded dwarves to start new settlements.
A story of how I come to love the bomb
I've gotten most of my bedrooms, dining hall, meeting hall, farm, and forge setup and am just starting to delve for ores. The first day ends, and my dwarves are having a snooze on the bottom floor bedrooms (below the main hall). All except my farmer who is fiddling around on the farm and stockpiles on the first floor (above the main hall). When suddenly a Magma Man crawls out of the volcano and starts rampaging through the main hall. My untrained dogs put up a solid defence, put are no match for a pissed off creature of fire, and are soon ashes.
Meanwhile my farmer has come downstairs and <Canceled Store Item: Interupted by Magma Man>. The Magma man chases him back down the corridor, tossing fireballs left right and center and soon has my poor farmer backed into a corner, next to the meeting hall. With no options left, <Farmer has become a Recruit> and tries to wrestle the sentinent lava to the ground. Unsurprisingly, <Recruit was struck down> and meanwhile the old wagon donkey bolts out of the meeting room (why the $#@! do animals go to meeting halls? So they can @#(! all over the place?) and straight down the stairs to my bedrooms. Of course the Magma Man chases that fine piece of ass, and now I have a fire creature loose in my bedrooms full of sleeping dwarves. Did I mention I haven't had time to build doors to the bedrooms yet?
The donkey becomes a pile of char-grilled meat at the foot of the stairs, its dying scream unheard by the dwarves sleeping but a few metres away. They are blissfully unware, especially my Smelter who was blissfully unaware right up until his <Sleep canceled: Interupted by Magma Man>. He wakes up to a head injury, and despite the fact that <Smelter has become a Recruit>, all he really wants to do is lie down until his headache goes away. The Magma Man obliges, knocking him unconcious then beating the unresponsive body until <Recruit was struck down>. But on a plus note, the combined efforts of the dogs and untrained recruits have slowed the Magma man down. That's a brown left pinkie toe!
I can only assume that these two dwarves were the real brains of the fortress, because everything goes downhill from here. Anyway, my Mason finally wakes up, presumably disturbed by the noise of slaughter occuring directly behind his bedroom wall. Grasping his trusty woodcutters axe, <Mason has become Axedwarf>. Chasing the wounded Magma down just outside the dining room he ends its miserable life.
As he wakes his comrades from their deep slumber he informs them of the danger the entire fortress is in. They agree to cancel all their other jobs in order to build a wall blocking the magma chambers while he stands guard with his axe, even though this means complete abandonment of the furnace and smithy. The noisome construction attracts the attention of a fire imp, who my axe dwarf quickly moves to intercept. One of the <Miner has become Recruit> and advances behind the axedwarf, hefting his pick in one sweat stained hand.
Next thing I know, the Fire Imp is dead and my Axedwarf has disappeared. WTF? Where'd he go? ... <Axedwarf has burnt to death>. WTF?! I look down one level, and there he is - or at least his body is. 2 squares out from the lip of the caldera, bobbing up and down on the surface of lava. Apparently he thought he'd go for a quick dip to celebrate his kill.
Okay, I'm down to 4 dwarves, but I've barricaded myself in now. I should be safe, for the moment. With the corpses piled in one unused side passage, and rock coffins being crafted by my untrained metalsmith, I feel that I can return to normal duties. Rather high on the priorities is re-establishing my magma driven smelter and forge. My first attempt I screw up majorly, installing a floor grate directly over the floor, instead of a channel. And on my second attempt I leave a spot in the corner where the magma can escape diagonally - quickly moving straight into my mining seam. Can you say molten ore?
Did I say quickly? Not so quickly that it happens before one of my Miners decides to go down there and try to dig. He wanders down the lava-covered stairs before realising that maybe it would be wise if <Miner cancels Dig: Dangerous Terrain>. By this time he has a new pair of lava boots, and goes for a lie down in his bed to recover. Which is made of wood. Which catches on fire.
I sigh as I watch my Miner sleep in a bedroom rapidly filling with smoke (the newly installed doors block that in, at least), and with a complacency born of hopelessness, accept that <Miner has burnt to death>. I'm down to three dwarves but that's okay, I can still do this, it's just more ... challenging. *grits teeth*
Soon thereafter, as my surviving dwarves struggle to acheive everything that a growing fortress needs becoming more depressed as their friends rot away, I learn that <Brewer has bled to death>. Okay, seriously, wtf is going on here. How did he even get injured? Since you can't zoom to units which are dead, I'm reduced to looking through my fort manually to locate him. I'm stumped, he doesn't appear to be anywhere, let alone something that can hurt him. Finally, I get a brain wave and check the bedrooms. Especially the smoke-filled one.
I'm guessing my brewer sampled too many of his own goods, that's the only explanation I can think of for why he thought it WAS A $#@!ING GOOD IDEA TO
SLEEP IN A BED THAT ALREADY HAS A. DEAD. BURNING. CORPSE. IN IT.2 dwarves ... I decide to start afresh.
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Topic: Darwinism in motion (Read 1359 times)