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[rtg593]

So... Ya. The game hates me. Lol. After creating and abandoning a few fortresses in a few worlds, I decide to make a "final" new world, and stick with it for a bit.

1st embark:

Everything is going pretty grand, caravan's love me, had a few goblin thieves, but no sieges, no ambushes, nothing. I think to myself, hey, this is pretty cool. Guess I found myself a nice little mountainhome. Due to the most action I've seen being a few snatchers and thieves, I only had 13 members in my military (oops). Most everyone else was involved in my Great Project: excavate the entire mountain. Of course, finding nothing but copper, being on a steep slope with few trees, and excavating 3 sedimentary layers without a single block of coal wasn't encouraging me to build up my military, either...

Well, my migrants were coming in 20's, roughly, so about the time I got to 137 dwarves... A mountain Titan came. I quickly ordered a dwarf to lock down my fortress (drawbridges over moats with water flowing to the river), but since there were no idle dwarves anywhere nearby...and with the Titan being wickedly fast... Ya, it got inside.

Within minutes the firebreathing Titan burst into the main hall, and stood where ALL the dwarves traffic back and forth, blasting wave after wave of fire. 60 died in the first minutes. He then took out my "military," and entered the catacombs of my Project, slaughtering them 1 by 1. The last I saw of the fortress, the Titan had holed up in the furthest corner of my fortress, the last 20 dwarves were killing each other off... I abandoned the fortress when the only 2 dwarves left were the 3 and 7 month old babies, crawling around their parents corpses as they bled out...

2nd Embark:

After learning how to view the civilizations around me on the embark screen... I purposefully chose a location with dwarf, human, elf, and goblins nearby... :p I also go for a location that isn't a mountain side, to give me large amounts of wood.

Everything starts great, there are only 3 z-levels about the ground (river) level, so I go down. 10 down I hit a cavern, full of giant cave spiders, what looks like an underground ocean, and who knows what else. I decide my 20 dwarves shouldn't go down there yet, so I put a hatch on it and pray.

Well, the migrants start rolling in, pretty quick I'm at 79. Elves decide to visit, as they enter my fortress I get several ambush alerts. Apparently 20 goblins decided it'd be a good time to visit, also. I lock down the fortress behind the caravan, unfortunately gaining a few goblins in the process. 2 go into cage traps, the 3rd slips through and starts killing people. The other 17 remain locked outside, killing the 20 or so dwarves out collecting stuff. Great timing.

Goblin inside kills off a few before he's killed, everyone outside is mortally wounded, but manage to kill off the goblins before dying of their wounds (note to self, mass producing crossbows when you arrive is a good thing). I end the lockdown, and send the elves on their way, as the fortress "appears" to be tearing itself apart, just like the last one. Surprisingly, they get their wits about them, and the 9 survivors begin cleaning things up. My hallway to nowhere (future tree farm) becomes a cemetery, 70 coffins/memorials.

Migrants arrive "despite the danger," taking me to 27 dwarves. Cleanup speeds up. Humans come and go, elves come and go, haven't noticed a dwarven caravan, oddly... Migrants come, "despite the danger." Next time the elves come around, I'm at 49 dwarves. I swear, they're in league with the goblins... Ambush! Ambush! Ambush! Ambush! Ambush! It's another 20 goblins, right at the entrance. I lock down tight, manage to keep them all outside, only a few dwarves outside, as well. Unfortunately, they don't like their friends being hunted, so they start killing each other. The caravan starts roaming my halls, restless and wanting to leave, so I look around...looks all clear.

NOT.

I open the gates, and the 15 or so remaining goblins come from who knows where, swarm my Fortress. Everyone runs out, they follow. Everyone dies. "My strength has been broken."

No Titan this time, that's an improvement...

With the way things are going, when i finally get my first seige... I'm screwed.

...DF hates me.

[rtg593]

PS, I thoroughly enjoyed all this, my slightly sarcastic/morbid sense of humor may have made it seem otherwise, but I'm starting my third embark as  I type. This was just my way of saying, "Hi everyone! I'm new here and having a blast!" :p

[Fishybang]

Well that was !!FUN!!

[Mitchewawa]

Well, my migrants were coming in 20's, roughly, so about the time I got to 137 dwarves... A mountain Titan came. I quickly ordered a dwarf to lock down my fortress (drawbridges over moats with water flowing to the river), but since there were no idle dwarves anywhere nearby...and with the Titan being wickedly fast... Ya, it got inside.

Wow, 140 dwarfs and not one of them idle? You're either a ☼masterwork☼ of micromanagement or you didn't put the lever close to your idlers.

[Tiruin]

Know that Goblins attack near the end of Winter, following up in Spring, when the Elven caravan comes.

Also, founding a small squad of maybe two or three full-time military dwarves pays off much more than creating a pile of militia recruits.

I partly envy your luck. All I get when breaching the caverns is too much web, no spider.

Welcome to the Forums! by the way.

[rtg593]

Well, my migrants were coming in 20's, roughly, so about the time I got to 137 dwarves... A mountain Titan came. I quickly ordered a dwarf to lock down my fortress (drawbridges over moats with water flowing to the river), but since there were no idle dwarves anywhere nearby...and with the Titan being wickedly fast... Ya, it got inside.

Wow, 140 dwarfs and not one of them idle? You're either a ☼masterwork☼ of micromanagement or you didn't put the lever close to your idlers.

Even though I hadn't found anything other than copper in my sedimentary layers (no coal, iron, whatever), what WAS there was a buttload of uncut gems, when an exploratory tunnel crossed a cluster, there was always at least 5 and another 3-4 1 z-level down. So they were all quite busy hauling stuff as I channeled clusters out. Plus I was mass-dumping all the copper ore (tetrahedrite, I think?) to make copper "stuff" once I finally hit a coal vein. Was about to start another sedimentary layer, the current one didn't have any, when the Titan came...

Know that Goblins attack near the end of Winter, following up in Spring, when the Elven caravan comes.

Also, founding a small squad of maybe two or three full-time military dwarves pays off much more than creating a pile of militia recruits.

I partly envy your luck. All I get when breaching the caverns is too much web, no spider.

Welcome to the Forums! by the way.

Thanks, and those 13 were full time soldiers, doing nothing but training... but with few trees, no coal, and finding nothing but copper so far,... They didn't have the strongest weapons or armor:p They DID, however, cause at least 3 full screen pages worth of injuries to the Titan :-D Every toe, finger, rib, tooth, and miscellaneous body part was damaged. HUGE wall of red text:p Unless he had crazy healing powers, he might've bled out up in the corner of the mine. Of course, with only a couple babies left, a dozen ghosts scaring the crap out of them, and a fortress full of miasma... I didn't see how I could continue there:p

[Jilladilla]

well i know two solutions to solve your shortage of coal problem:

embark on a volcano, albiet its rare for there to be a lot of trees near these (at least from what ive seen)

dig down VERY fast, it doesn't take too long to get down there, although this can lead to some very long hauling times

well pick your poison i guess... everyone prefers doing things in their own way, and its not my right to interfere with that
Anyway, welcome to Bay12, please leave your sanity at the door. 

[MaskedMiner]

Huh. I said exact same thing when I was starting.

The "Dwarf Fortress hates me" thing I mean xD

[Archereon]

DF doesn't hate you, this is just its way of showing you its love, in the most !!FUN!! way possible.

[rtg593]

Lol, sanity left, as apparently I am an "escaped lunatic," whatever that means:p

I know it's all in good !!FUN!! :-D

Ok, my military hates me.

3rd Embark:

9 z-levels over the river, splits into twin peaks, a 3rd lower hill on the other side of the river. Have all my shops set up, bedrooms, had a few years of peace (except for the mother playing with her infant next to the map edge... Snatcher bait, what was she thinking?), when goblins ambush me!

I think, cool, I just learned how to set my fortress as a burrow for alerts, set alert, everyone but the fisherdwarf makes it inside. Apparently he had too big a fish on the line to just leave it, and he paid dearly for that mistake.

So everyone is inside, all is well, military is training up, working on a maze with archer towers so anything coming in with have a very long, bloody route into my fortress. I get it finished, set the archers into a burrow over the maze, and breach the last wall...... And the goblins just stand there. As I'm trying to figure out why they aren't pathing into my fortress, now that theres a "clear" path... My entire military runs out. Completely ignoring the "defend burrow" order they're under. Maybe I misunderstood, but I thought that kept them in the burrow... maybe not. Anyway, they all get slaughtered (still looking for better than copper, and coal to boot... Maybe this world genned without coal, lol), and NOW the goblins all run in, right through the line of cage traps. Unfortunately it took 2 caravans and a migration before my preparations were complete, so... Hopefully the elves and the humans don't try to siege me now, lol... And I need new migrants to replace the military that all ran out...

I'm putting a door on that archers station...

[Jilladilla]

still having iron troubles? its more common in areas with a sedimentary layer (not mountains)
still the one thing about iron is that 9 times out of 10 you either have absolutly none of it or enough to make EVERYTHING in your fort out of it for 10 years (magnetite is found in HUGE clusters, expect over 300 bits per cluster)

also from what ive read it seems you stick to the mountains somewhat, bituminous coal and lignite are only found in sedimentary layers, which tend to be away from mountains... They still are somewhat rare...

simply put, try to embark on a spot that has shallow metals, best chance you will get of having at least one of those

[rtg593]

Ya, the embark sites I've chosen all have shallow metals, deep metals, deep soil, and clay :p My mining endeavors have been entirely in sedimentary layers, or at least, they're entirely composed of rocks that are supposed to be sedimentary layers...

Lol, can't catch a break. After the goblins were killed/captured, I released my dwarves to go out and get food (since I kinda ran out during all that... Took almost a year to finish off my defenses when the goblins standing in the entrance:p), only to find out there were 2 more groups of 7 goblins running around out there. They killed 9 before I could get the dwarves back inside... Again, the goblins stopped in the entrance, with no interest to come in any closer to my traps...

The 9 that died must have been the top 10 list for popularity in the fortress, cuz they all went from happy to miserable like that... Tantrum spiral, by the time I had to save it and go to bed, I had 4 miserable dwarves left trying to clean the place up... Miasma everywhere... 100+ corpses laying around... And still at least 10 goblins running around outside... Something tells me this may be another abandoned fortress, soon, lol. Kinda sucks too, I had quite a bit of farming going, a rather large (600 tiles) pasture walled and roofed (floors) off for protection with several breeding pairs, and I was about to start on another enclosure for farming... 13 dogs, which I guess the breeding pen was too small, cuz the puppies started eating each other, lol. Chickens were about to start laying eggs, and I had a beekeeper that just got stung (ironic), so I was going to start some honey farming, to boot. All in all, it was going really well there...

This game is hard :p

PS I gotta say, the highlight of this fortress has to be the Mayor getting 401 days in prison for beating :p

EDIT: To my understanding, you only get 1 ambush alert per group of goblins, right? So those 2 alerts i just got when those 10 goblins all ran into my traps would be entirely different groups then the 10 that were outside killing my dwarves earlier? :p

[rtg593]

Well, to continue with the story of this world...

Migrants arrived today. 18 of them, bringing the total population up to 21 (a carpenter died of thirst in his sleep. Apparently he was too depressed to drink any of the 219 drinks available in the fortress). The extra labor force quickly went to work tidying up, cleaning off blood, building coffins, and laying fellow dwarves to rest.

I do have a question to insert here, so far I've counted 30 goblins that came in this ambush... they appear to move in groups of 5-6, and I've gotten I think 6 ambush alerts while they were swarming in... How many come in a siege? Cuz I need to do some major prepping if it's worse than this, lol.

Anywho, currently 26 are in cages, I'm building a mass pitting room to dump them, and 4 are currently running amock in my trap maze, which is fortunate, because I just realized I can seal them in there:-D Lost another dwarf to carelessness... I let them out thinking all the goblins were caught, and those last three came out of nowhere...really need to start looking closer.

Out of stone, unfortunately, so now I'm trying to decide if I should try making everything out of copper, since I seemingly have a ton of it, or should I go mine a big area. I'm leaning towards copper, because it will require less of a workforce, and there are still over 80 corpses to collect and lay to rest...

These ghosts are really getting to my guys:p

EDIT: I just found 5 deceased goblins in the U menu, so that takes the total number of goblins in this ambush to 35. Fun times.

EDIT again: Found a Goblin Pikeman listed that I haven't caged yet. So now we're at 36. They really must not like me... Glad they didn't siege me:p

Hmm.... If I drop 36 disarmed goblins in a pit with a Giant Desert Scorpion... What would happen? :-D

[Jilladilla]

first siege tends to be rather easy in my experiance, 1 or 2 squads, unmounted and led by a non weapon master/lord/elite
also no trolls

at least thats what i get...
i hope you dont get too many lashers/bowmen
at least you see the siege coming too

P.S. siege squads are larger than ambush squads and after the first 1 or 2 sieges the training wheels are off (numbers of goblins dont significantly increase, but mounts+trolls make it much more dangerous)

P.P.S. butcher any jabberers you kill ASAP, they give A MOUNTAIN of meat and bones (i believe they're the size of elephants, so expect the corpses to make any dwarf slow to a crawl (build many butchers shops if you wanna butcher a lot of them, even a legendary butcher can only do so much, especially with these guys))

[rtg593]

Good to know, on all counts. Thanks.

So, up to 60 goblins now. 36 in the pit, 12 being stripped of their gear, and 12 in a holding chamber waiting to be caged. Hoping there aren't any more out there, they already outnumber my dwarves 3-1 :p

Beginning to wonder if dropping the Giant Desert Scorpion into the pit would be a bad idea... A few goblins at a time, sure, but 60? Even the 36 in there now might kill it... Maybe I'll just flood the chamber...

Getting a pretty good system going. Turns out goblins LOVE kittens. Pen one somewhere, and they appear out of thin air, if it wasn't for the raised bridges, the dwarf wouldn't have made it out alive...

Up to 44 coffins, unfortunately, there's just too much work. The ghosts are getting restless, they've started killing my dwarves. Starting a targeted campaign, building memorials for ghosts instead of relying on luck they they get buried, but it's slow going. 20 dwarves cleaning up a 70 dwarf fortress, with over 100 corpses to collect... While being continually ambushed by packs of goblins...

Oddly, even though they've both lost 2 trade caravans, they humans and elves keep sending them... At this rate, next summer I'll be under siege from all 3,lol.

K, someone answer my question now, how many naked goblins does it take to kill a Giant Desert Scorpion?  :p