Print

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

[Aseaheru]

got the plans for gunworks and ammo forges yet?

[Ishar]

The humans didn't show up since then, so not yet. And we need magma-safe materials (which, we don't have) for the tech research lab, so our own science ventures have to wait a bit as well.

[Aseaheru]

isint iron magma safe?

[Ishar]

Hm. Apparently, it is. Strange, I'm sure it wasn't like that a long-long time ago, in a galaxy far-far away (the last time I tinkered with magma was years ago). I'll do something about it, but for a few days, the succession fort takes priority.

[Aseaheru]

buhaha

[Ishar]

Just posting to say this is not dead. The succession game took my DF time, and I have to think about what to do with that goblin 'ambush' (siege really). My first thought was letting out some caged prisoners to thin their numbers, but there's just not enough of them for such a move. Waiting for them to leave doesn't seem to work, the military (however formidable) couldn't handle half these numbers.

I know a few dirty ways to deal with such overwhelming numbers, but all of them are cheap moves, some may even consider them exploits:
- Cage trap corridor. Boo.
- Powerleveling all of our soldiers with danger rooms. Boo.
- Lure them all in a room, then a controlled cave-in. Somewhat less of a boo, but still.

Any suggestions? The traders have a single fire landmine, so I was thinking about buying that, placing it near the goblin entry point, and surround it with a booze supply, but I don't have experience with that sort of thing. How much damage would that do? Weaponized alcohol seems like a very dwarven move, but I wouldn't bet the entire fortress on it.

[Panopticon]

You have a bridge system keeping the fort secure? Why not just let them in a few at a time and deal with them that way?

[Ishar]

I've tried that a few times (a bit of a savescum), but the problem is, I don't see ALL of the ambushes yet. When I open the bridge, I see 4-5 archers coming in, so I close it behind them, order down the military, and surprise-surprise, ambush, 15 previously unseen mounted goblins routinely come in with them. I think I could actually handle the goblins: they have inferior equipment, and equal or worse training. The mounts are more of a problem, giant beetles tend to cripple the soldiers sooner or later, and while the lads slice off limbs with most of their attacks, the bugs have plenty to spare.

Combat is not possible at this point, and waiting for Hugo to train up the new ones from basic stats is... not something I wish to do, honestly.

[Ishar]

From the Journals of 'Sir' 25th Moonstone, 104
Three undead kangaroos appeared, and kicked a few of the goblins to death. Not much, but this could be our opportunity to strike. I gave the order to lower one of the drawbridges, and the militia is assembled to meet them. I own't let every one of them in of course, but we may be able to handle some of them, and the rest may retreat. That's not much of a plan, but I don't have anything better.

From the Journals of 'Sir' 6th Opal, 104
Bah. We let a few archers in, and assmued it would be no contest. The problem was, there a couple outher goblins who somehow managed to sneak it with them, and these ones were mounted on giant beetles. It wasn't pretty, but we got the job done.
The archers quickly went down, but that wasn't a surprise: their makeshift bows didn't do them much good in a confined space. The bugs were not exactly made of steel, almost every hit resulted in limbs flying all over the place. That's cool and all, but those monsters are damn fast, and VERY strong. Slowly but surely, we hacked off their limbs one by one, the hammerdwarves (led by Stoutpants) delivered skull-crushing hits once in a while, but most of the beasts collapsed from blood loss. A sound military operation, though not our best by far.
Two of our recruits are really messed up: one of them has a broken hand that looks quite ugly, and the other has pretty much everything - the beetles got to him first, and almost gutted the poor guy, but not before breaking quite a few of his bones. If the docs can patch THAT guy up, I'll be impressed. We also lost two babies, but we are practically drowning in the little fucks, so I don't exactly give a shit anymore.
Oh and I broke a fucking shoulder, thanks to one of the fucking critters. Payed it back double immediately: I crushed its thorax with one swing. I suppose it's hospital time for me again. Meh.

The remaining goblins seem to be a bit confused about the whole thing, their formations broke up, and they are just wandering around the fort now, but they don't seem to be leaving. Darn. Silus is in hospital, I'm in hospital, some of the recruits are in hospital... there were no fatalities, sure, but we sure as hell can't do another round of this anytime soon. And I think we only got like one tenth of the bastards... can't say for sure, since I don't know exactly how many of them are still hiding.

From the Journals of 'Sir' 15th Opal, 104
Fuck this, my shoulder is healed already. Eat shit, natue.

(Seriously, a broken shoulder healing in 9 days? It really took like half a minute of RL playtime.)

[smakemupagus]

Nice, I saw the link from the succession game and enjoyed the story.

Do you consider adding to your corridor some weapon-traps too cheaty?  It's less dirty tactics than mass cage traps anyway.  If it's war beetles and the like you worry about, make a few weapon traps with even low-grade weapons like stone spikes, or copper/stone axe blades.  They do some damage against unarmored enemies, and should leave enough goblins alive for the lads to spar with.

(what version are you running?.. in older versions of Masterwork goblins were trap-avoid)

Landmines are pretty good, but vulnerable to archers.  So I don't know that you could make a lot of use of the one that traders have.  you have to deploy them in a way that they have a chance to get in close.  Like put them in an alcove, or 'pit' them on top of enemies collected in an arena or at the bottom of a dry moat.

[Ishar]

Tiny, but really-really important update:

From the Journals of 'Sir' 8th Obsidian, 104
The goblins finally fucking left. Hoo fucking ray. Just as I was about to inform the merchants of this great development, they all conveniently went insane. Oh well. I let them out of the fort anyway, but not before cutting one of their armored horses in half. Hey, it looked at me funny. Freya thought it was a good idea, and did the same with their other one.

Apparently the merchants got the message, and decided not to attack the fort. Instead, some of them committed suicide by diving into our fishing lake. Personally, I wouldn't give a fuck, but they are tainting our drinking water, which is not cool. Also not cool: coming back as ghosts. The latter didn't happen (yet), but it wouldn't be nice.

[Ishar]

From the Journals of 'Sir' 14th Obsidian, 104
A drow caravan is here, I wonder what they have for us. I hope it's dragons or some equally cool shit, otherwise, they can piss off for all I care.

From the Journals of 'Sir' 17th Obsidian, 104
Oh joy. Just as the drow made it inside, a whole army of zombies showed up. Seriously, how many creatures want us dead in this world? I think that would be all of them. These are zombies however - by definition, unarmed. We are going to meet them up close and personal, out in the field, like men!

(Hell yeah, zombies! Not cowardly archers, but decent, hand-to-hand, absolutely fucking incompetent zombies! And they are up against a fully trained, steel-clad military with mithril weapons. I haven't played the actual battle yet, but if this thing fails, it's gonna be hilarious. I mean, all the dwarves should care about is keeping the weaklings away from zombie bites, while the veterans slice the bastards up. What could go wrong?)

[empfan]

Get me a book of evil (Grimoire, can't spell it) if you can, Ishtar.  I was hoping we could do a bit of Shadowmancy for counter-zombies.

[Ishar]

I will definitely look for it. Adding more zombies into this mess will greatly increase the fun. That is, if the drow merchants don't get instantly spooked about the dwarf vs undead battle that's about to take place.

[Ishar]

From the Journals of 'Sir' 21st Obsidian, 104
Well that was a fucking mess. Freya rushed into the thick of it, ahead of everyone, business as usual. Really, nobody was surprised at this point. By the time we caught up with her, she was lying on the ground exhausted (again), and somehow unharmed (again), despite dozens of zombies clawed at her. I dusted her off, got her back on her feet, and the two of us started cleaning the house. For a while, I think I saw Stoutpants breaking bones with his warhammer as he went along, but we got separated quickly. A few of the others joined the fray - I admit, they did their part, but frankly, they are still not really effective. I saw a few of our lads hit the dirt a couple of times, but most of them got back up. The zombies did not. Finally, Freya collapsed from exhaustion (still unharmed, of fucking course), and a recruit dragged her body away from the fighting. I didn't see much of the battle after that, due to limbs flying fucking everywhere, but when the dust settled, the scene was brutal, even by our crap standards.

It took a while to sort through all that heap of zombie body parts, but what we found was grim. We've lost a decent axedwarf, and one of the recruits, but worse than that, Hellishslapped is dead. A founder, hell of a fighter with an axe, and a dear friend... she will be gravely missed.
The siege was broken, we fought valiantly, and triumphed. This is the kind of battle the bards write songs about for years to come, but what a price to pay. Now I'm off to clean myself up a bit, the merchants won't wait around forever. Also, we've got quite a few wounded, the doc has his work cut out for him. No nasty zombie bites, obviously they can't bite through steel.

(OOC: Whaddaya know, zombies can hold their own without weapons quite well. Didn't matter much, Freya and Sir are just showing off at this point: Freya killed 3 of 16 with her initial mad charge, and Sir just cleaved the rest in half, he got 9 of the rest. Hellishslapped and the others got a few stragglers, but they payed a high price for that.

Oh and for tomorrow: TRADE. With all-fucking-caps. You'll agree.)