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[Nonsequitorian]

Not necessarily the most successful or fun, or Fun, but just one that's stuck in your memory.

For me it was a fortress with a name that I forgot, containing a huge towering tower with a penthouse/graveyard at the top. The fort only had 40 dwarves and no military to speak of, and only three miners. The miners were very very good, all legendary. They had found candy and decided to strike it. I had no idea that just mining candy would open the circus, but it did and I thought I was done for.

The clowns killed two of my dwarfs gathering stones and my two starting miners. My third miner made it out alright, and in a fit of dwarven genius blocked off the mine without locking himself in. Fortress functions resumed as they had before until finally the place crumbled and died due to a whole lot of things totally not related to the recent events. It's always stuck in my mind though that I had created a semi-mega structure, struck candy and dealt with clowns before I had even a real military or a broker or a mayor, and I wasn't even in my third year yet. It was just a whole lot of good fun.

[Kestrel]

For me it would have to be Frosthalls, built on a lonely glacier back when I barely made it out of my "how do I fortress" phase. 

The fort was really quite elaborate, and the first layer of caves was vast and open - perfect for harvesting mushrooms for lumber and farming.  There wasn't much metal to speak of, and I never had a siege or even a raid.  Apparently goblins don't care about the bottom edge of the world.

I still didn't have much handle on military equipping/training/management, so when the waves of crundles came up from the earth, my dwarfs were all rather squishy.  Then the forgotten beasts became distinctly unforgotten, and they tore through a number of my farmers.  A thin wall of ice separated my remaining dwarfs from the menacing beasts from below - and also from their food supply.  It all kinda went downhill from there.

But Frost Halls!  Yeah, that was a cool place to be.

[Schizotek]

Voidbreach. Was the first fort I did after the DF2012 launched. Evil zone, giant mosquitos, husks. Turned it into a science outpost for the greater good of dwarf kind, since not much was known about husks at the time. I deleted it after it served its purpose.
I thought Marblewine was pretty awesome. Gigantic above ground fort made entirely from marble, cobaltite, and porphyry (modded in marble variant found in clusters, purple colored, quite beautiful). Guarded by dwarves using gear made entirely from unicorns.

[Malarauko]

First fortress where I had enough of an idea of what I was doing to actually make it function. Spearhills the Radiant Battle Abbey of Demons. The rise and fall was the most informative thing ever. Better than a week reading the wiki and a hundred forum questions. I got all sorts of things working like mechanical stuff (pumps and windfarms) sorted out drawbridges and came up with defence ideas (like flyer sealed keeps above ground which is almost ubiquitous in all my modern forts). Also learned how to streamline industry, deal with the military, set up hospitals and just generally function. Built an atomsmasher for the first time created a lava and water moat system (barely worked tbh but the mechanics and idea were sound. It was the execution that was ultimately flawed). I came away with a healthy dose of caution as well. It also cemented a lot of my ideas about how I wanted to play.

Some highlights include:
A goblin invasion being driven off by 30 iron and steel clad militia. The militia was like the dregs of society with this fantastic equipment I had slaved to put together. The lead squad were lead by my militia commander (and best axeman migrant) nicknamed Alpha. He was the hero of the fort surviving all five forgotten beasts, three goblin invasions and assorted minotaurs and hydras. When the second goblin invasion happened my militia was at the best it had ever been. They cut their way through the goblins with heavy casualties but in the end they succeeded in driving off the scum.

My first forgotten beast syndroming a whole level of dwarfs resulting in a hasty quarantine. My three doctors distinguished themselves in treating the patients and saving many lives. Crude medical facilities showed their huge advantage over nothing at all. Even a little bit of care did so much to save lives.

The walls. Spearhills had fantastic defences with towers desgined to allow my crossbows to pepper the enemies from anywhere. The entrance was elaborate with atom smasher defences around the actual door. The door itself was inside a sealed compund that had withdrawable drawbridges to protect it. The wall was three blocks thick and three high. It had a walkable perimeter and incorporated a lakeside garden, a central courtyard with trade depot, outside storage for refuse in case of siege, a cluster of barracks and military facilities and my first crude well.

The ending was pretty sweet as well. I had a FB and a goblin invasion break in from both sides. Dwarves began tantrumming and catching a rot causing syndrome. So I had rotting beserkers all over the place, goblins ripping apart things and my military fighting to secure a quarantine zone. Basically my cavern defences weren't quite good enough to keep a rot syndrome bearing FB out of my main staircases. While he was rampaging around a goblin force turned up and I sent a dwarf to pull the lever to seal the surface off while also instituting a burrows based lockdown of the interior to keep the FB away from my dwarves. Unfortunatly the FB got between me and the lever and killed a whole bunch of dwarves. The goblins begin to infiltrate the surface complex killing dwarves as they come. I then forbid the outside doors and designate the levers for locking down the fort from the compound. At this point three levers need pulling. The first to seal off the caverns, the second to seal off the fort from the surface compound and the third to seal off the compound. The FB gets killed by my militia who are then sent to the front door to prepare to purge the compound. At this point the tantrums kick off because of the deaths from the FB and the deaths the goblins have caused in the compound. The tantrumming dwarves begin killing the others in the burrow so I disband it and send in my militia to kill or subdue. The syndrome kicks in at this point and all the dwarves fleeing the burrow are infected. The rot begins to spread as do the tantrums. The trolls break down the doors and the goblins begin to stream in. The militia is down ten out of fifty dwarves now from goblins and tantrums. Rotten tantrumming dwarves are destroying everything as the militia desperately fights to close off the food productions areas and a dormitory. I figure I can save 30 dwarves not including any militia who survive. Another FB (who had been lurking in the caverns) breaks in and begins tramping around the main staircase. Alpha and his squad are basically cutting their way through various corridors (the place is a bit of a maze because it developed organically rather than being planned in any way) trying to reach the safe zone. The safe zone is then overrun by tantrums and collapses. My militia are in tatters at this point with maybe twenty still fighting fit and another ten wounded. Alpha encounters the FB on the main staircase (a spiral affair around a central shaft). He kills it in an epic duel while the rest of his squad is torn to pieces. Between everything the whole fort is now a mass of syndrome, body parts, vomit, blood, debris, warfare and rage infested death hulks. Alpha and the surviving militia die fighting the in the main hallway overlooked by galleries of carvings containing the history of their fort. The goblins are almost all dead, the remaining dwarves are tantrumming or rotting to death and there are another three FBs in the hallways. Alphas final kills were two FBs, fifty or so goblins, ten elves and a whole host of wildlife. It was like a zombie movie. Just mindless rotting things charging at my miltia. Whenever my crossbow squad got in a fight I imagined them shouting "They're coming outta the goddamn walls!" and stuff like that.

Best fort ever.

[Frogwarrior]

Ceilingmansion, from the days of 40d. The plan was to build a massive, massive aboveground circular palace above pretty much the entire embark site. FPS death eventually killed it, since I did my mining in probably the stupidest FPS-killing way possible and had waaaaay too much unsmashed stone lying around at all times.

[Stoup]

Ashsteel, my first successful fortress. It housed over 100 dwarves, which by most standards isn't terribly impressive, but for me I remember it well. I remember Tulon Caveknots the Cooperative Hood of Pages, my first ever legendary military dwarf, who I revered greatly. The fort was created before 31.25, so there was no working crutch system, which ultimately caused me to abandon after my legendary cook was injured.
The entrance to the fort ran near a waterfall, so I had a built-in mist generator for my dwarves to walk from one half of the fortress to the other.
I had a drowning pit beneath my entrance bridge, which taught me quite a bit about the mechanics of pressure in the death of one of my hapless miners who released 3 z levels of water in the pit into a drain area. He drowned quite promptly.
I had a few trolls I threw down the waterfall who survived and incessantly harassed my dwarves, I don't believe he was ever killed. Probably chilled down there till the very end.
I once had a cave-in in the dining hall as part of an assassination attempt on a bedridden dwarf, and I ended up maiming my legendary miner baron, though her name I do not recall.
At the fortress's end, I had started building a chamber for coin storage simply for historical value, as well as a catacombs for the more honorable dwarves of the fort.
I recall during sieges how I would get the gobbos to line up right in front of the closed entrance gate-bridge, and have my dwarves build fortifications to block the bridge so that when I opened it I could have a few ballistae as a surprise present for them. They weren't very effective but by god did they have shock value, at least for me

[Mrhappyface]

I think it was the 1st real fort I made: RoutedRamparts. It had several staircases down to the caverns, where it was defended by numerous traps. Then there was a super long drowning hallway, and a hundreds of 2*2 bedrooms with each a personal dining room and office. Makes me feel all nostalgic thinking about it.

[Raphite1]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

First fortress where I had enough of an idea of what I was doing to actually make it function. Spearhills the Radiant Battle Abbey of Demons. The rise and fall was the most informative thing ever. Better than a week reading the wiki and a hundred forum questions. I got all sorts of things working like mechanical stuff (pumps and windfarms) sorted out drawbridges and came up with defence ideas (like flyer sealed keeps above ground which is almost ubiquitous in all my modern forts). Also learned how to streamline industry, deal with the military, set up hospitals and just generally function. Built an atomsmasher for the first time created a lava and water moat system (barely worked tbh but the mechanics and idea were sound. It was the execution that was ultimately flawed). I came away with a healthy dose of caution as well. It also cemented a lot of my ideas about how I wanted to play.

Some highlights include:
A goblin invasion being driven off by 30 iron and steel clad militia. The militia was like the dregs of society with this fantastic equipment I had slaved to put together. The lead squad were lead by my militia commander (and best axeman migrant) nicknamed Alpha. He was the hero of the fort surviving all five forgotten beasts, three goblin invasions and assorted minotaurs and hydras. When the second goblin invasion happened my militia was at the best it had ever been. They cut their way through the goblins with heavy casualties but in the end they succeeded in driving off the scum.

My first forgotten beast syndroming a whole level of dwarfs resulting in a hasty quarantine. My three doctors distinguished themselves in treating the patients and saving many lives. Crude medical facilities showed their huge advantage over nothing at all. Even a little bit of care did so much to save lives.

The walls. Spearhills had fantastic defences with towers desgined to allow my crossbows to pepper the enemies from anywhere. The entrance was elaborate with atom smasher defences around the actual door. The door itself was inside a sealed compund that had withdrawable drawbridges to protect it. The wall was three blocks thick and three high. It had a walkable perimeter and incorporated a lakeside garden, a central courtyard with trade depot, outside storage for refuse in case of siege, a cluster of barracks and military facilities and my first crude well.

The ending was pretty sweet as well. I had a FB and a goblin invasion break in from both sides. Dwarves began tantrumming and catching a rot causing syndrome. So I had rotting beserkers all over the place, goblins ripping apart things and my military fighting to secure a quarantine zone. Basically my cavern defences weren't quite good enough to keep a rot syndrome bearing FB out of my main staircases. While he was rampaging around a goblin force turned up and I sent a dwarf to pull the lever to seal the surface off while also instituting a burrows based lockdown of the interior to keep the FB away from my dwarves. Unfortunatly the FB got between me and the lever and killed a whole bunch of dwarves. The goblins begin to infiltrate the surface complex killing dwarves as they come. I then forbid the outside doors and designate the levers for locking down the fort from the compound. At this point three levers need pulling. The first to seal off the caverns, the second to seal off the fort from the surface compound and the third to seal off the compound. The FB gets killed by my militia who are then sent to the front door to prepare to purge the compound. At this point the tantrums kick off because of the deaths from the FB and the deaths the goblins have caused in the compound. The tantrumming dwarves begin killing the others in the burrow so I disband it and send in my militia to kill or subdue. The syndrome kicks in at this point and all the dwarves fleeing the burrow are infected. The rot begins to spread as do the tantrums. The trolls break down the doors and the goblins begin to stream in. The militia is down ten out of fifty dwarves now from goblins and tantrums. Rotten tantrumming dwarves are destroying everything as the militia desperately fights to close off the food productions areas and a dormitory. I figure I can save 30 dwarves not including any militia who survive. Another FB (who had been lurking in the caverns) breaks in and begins tramping around the main staircase. Alpha and his squad are basically cutting their way through various corridors (the place is a bit of a maze because it developed organically rather than being planned in any way) trying to reach the safe zone. The safe zone is then overrun by tantrums and collapses. My militia are in tatters at this point with maybe twenty still fighting fit and another ten wounded. Alpha encounters the FB on the main staircase (a spiral affair around a central shaft). He kills it in an epic duel while the rest of his squad is torn to pieces. Between everything the whole fort is now a mass of syndrome, body parts, vomit, blood, debris, warfare and rage infested death hulks. Alpha and the surviving militia die fighting the in the main hallway overlooked by galleries of carvings containing the history of their fort. The goblins are almost all dead, the remaining dwarves are tantrumming or rotting to death and there are another three FBs in the hallways. Alphas final kills were two FBs, fifty or so goblins, ten elves and a whole host of wildlife. It was like a zombie movie. Just mindless rotting things charging at my miltia. Whenever my crossbow squad got in a fight I imagined them shouting "They're coming outta the goddamn walls!" and stuff like that.

Best fort ever.

Amazing story! I spent a couple minutes reading that, and feel like I just got done watching an epic marathon mashup of 300 and Lord of the Rings.

[Loud Whispers]

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=101071.msg3004759#msg3004759
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=100585.msg2978860#msg2978860

Eeyup

[Yoink]

Aye, Malarauko, that is pretty cool! Certainly a better ending than most of my forts have!

The most clearly-remembered would be Rockgrizzles, which I had just before DFVD came out.
I'm not sure exactly what the goal of the fort was, or even if I had one, but it had an interesting entrance, sort of with three hallways, the middle of which went into the fort and the other two led off to industry areas and such.
This was my first time using the Fortress Defence mod, and my fort was rather poorly equipped; having no access to metals other than copper, silver and lead, we relied on what few weapons we could craft and whatever we could trade for.
The main, epic tale of the fort was of the rag-tag military, naturally. Now, there was Commander Inod, a Hammerlord and without a doubt the fort's greatest warrior. At first he had just a copper warhammer, then later on a gave him a masterwork silver one. Occasionally he'd wield both at once, along with a steel crossbow. A strange one, was Inod... I think all the killing got to him.
And killing there was a-plenty, oh yes, he wiped out several sieges more-or-less singlehandedly, I don't remember exactly how many kills he had but he'd saved the fort many times, slaughtering foes as the rest of the military were butchered.
Around this time a family had migrated to the fort, and gave birth to another child soon after. As this was the first child born at my fort, I was rather pleased, and resolved to keep it alive til adulthood. It was not to be.
I don't remember exactly what happened to the young parents and their baby, but it involved beakwolves and was rather gruesome. I was annoyed by this, but oh well, life goes on. Well, mostly. But a short while after the deaths, I noticed something- Their other child, and eight-year-old girl, was still alive, her only wound a scarred foot!

So long story short, I kept this kid alive, giving her the best rooms and such, until she grew to adulthood at 12. Then she was placed into the military, being exactly the perfect kindof dwarf made for war, and was an incredibly dedicated soldier, training near-constantly with hardly a complaint. Her and Inod made a great team, even managing to fight off the siege of giants that arrived completely out of the blue, and nearly destroyed the fort! No-one could harm the monsters save Inod and Eral Roldethathel, and it was rather lucky young Eral never had time to make any friends.
The funny thing was, Inod, who had lost the only two friends he'd ever made to gruesome deaths, developed a strange habit of just standing out the front of the fort, to one side of the entry next to a couple of statues. He'd just stand there, whether on or off-duty, for hours at a time, leaving only to eat and drink. I believe he even slept there.
I love it when my dwarves do stuff like that.

The other well-remembered fort would have to be Koshid, 'Slaughterrocks', which was VERY aptly named and was little more than a couple of shacks and a cave. I need to dig out the save and re-visit Koshid... I remember it ending with a double-whammy FB attack, one of which was a giant teal finch with the dealiest, fastest-acting syndrome I'd ever seen, and I retired the fort through DFusion and sent in a legendary retired adventurer, who decapitated the thing in an epic duel and then collapsed dead beside it.

[Malarauko]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Aye, Malarauko, that is pretty cool! Certainly a better ending than most of my forts have!

The most clearly-remembered would be Rockgrizzles, which I had just before DFVD came out.
I'm not sure exactly what the goal of the fort was, or even if I had one, but it had an interesting entrance, sort of with three hallways, the middle of which went into the fort and the other two led off to industry areas and such.
This was my first time using the Fortress Defence mod, and my fort was rather poorly equipped; having no access to metals other than copper, silver and lead, we relied on what few weapons we could craft and whatever we could trade for.
The main, epic tale of the fort was of the rag-tag military, naturally. Now, there was Commander Inod, a Hammerlord and without a doubt the fort's greatest warrior. At first he had just a copper warhammer, then later on a gave him a masterwork silver one. Occasionally he'd wield both at once, along with a steel crossbow. A strange one, was Inod... I think all the killing got to him.
And killing there was a-plenty, oh yes, he wiped out several sieges more-or-less singlehandedly, I don't remember exactly how many kills he had but he'd saved the fort many times, slaughtering foes as the rest of the military were butchered.
Around this time a family had migrated to the fort, and gave birth to another child soon after. As this was the first child born at my fort, I was rather pleased, and resolved to keep it alive til adulthood. It was not to be.
I don't remember exactly what happened to the young parents and their baby, but it involved beakwolves and was rather gruesome. I was annoyed by this, but oh well, life goes on. Well, mostly. But a short while after the deaths, I noticed something- Their other child, and eight-year-old girl, was still alive, her only wound a scarred foot!

So long story short, I kept this kid alive, giving her the best rooms and such, until she grew to adulthood at 12. Then she was placed into the military, being exactly the perfect kindof dwarf made for war, and was an incredibly dedicated soldier, training near-constantly with hardly a complaint. Her and Inod made a great team, even managing to fight off the siege of giants that arrived completely out of the blue, and nearly destroyed the fort! No-one could harm the monsters save Inod and Eral Roldethathel, and it was rather lucky young Eral never had time to make any friends.
The funny thing was, Inod, who had lost the only two friends he'd ever made to gruesome deaths, developed a strange habit of just standing out the front of the fort, to one side of the entry next to a couple of statues. He'd just stand there, whether on or off-duty, for hours at a time, leaving only to eat and drink. I believe he even slept there.
I love it when my dwarves do stuff like that.

The other well-remembered fort would have to be Koshid, 'Slaughterrocks', which was VERY aptly named and was little more than a couple of shacks and a cave. I need to dig out the save and re-visit Koshid... I remember it ending with a double-whammy FB attack, one of which was a giant teal finch with the dealiest, fastest-acting syndrome I'd ever seen, and I retired the fort through DFusion and sent in a legendary retired adventurer, who decapitated the thing in an epic duel and then collapsed dead beside it.

Its the dwarves that make it epic. The last survivor and the legendary craftsmen. The warriors who kill epic enemies of their people. The best thing about this game is the stories.

[Lord Dullard]

This one.

I was pretty fond of Wiltedblight, my dark elf fortress, too - even though it got utterly crushed by HFS earlier than I would have liked. Oops.

I got pretty close to outdoing all of my old efforts with my last fort, but I haven't been playing it lately. I should pick it back up again and finish my plans...

[Elf Lover]

I'm surprised no-one's mentioned Boatmurdered yet.

[Lord Dullard]

Ehm. The topic name, man.

[Intro1827]

My first successful fortress had a water reservoir right next to the entrance, which could be opened to make the fortress untouchable by goblins. Of course, I had no drain, and actually getting my dwarves out again would take a month or two, but it stuck in my mind as my first true fortress.