Right, let's get this party started.
I genned a world with a medium number of civs and a low number of sites. Minerals are everywhere, the natural savagery is low but megabeasts are medium. I originally wanted to run it for 550 years, but after realizing how long that would take I stopped it in year 110. I started an embark that was untamed wilds, but then I abandoned it because I thought it got horrible FPS, when in fact I'd confused the FPS cap and the pop cap tags. Idiot. Therefore, the original lengthy "prologue" I had written up will not see the light of day. The important parts are these:
I packed two copper picks, a copper battle axe, 80 units of booze, 20 seeds for each of the major crops, food, thread, cloth, bags, and ropes (though no wheelbarrow or buckets this time), a breeding pair of war dogs (plus a regular bitch just in case), a tomcat, two turkey hens and a gobbler, a ewe and a ram.
We have a broker/bookkeeper, two miners, a woodcutter/carpenter, a brewer/herbalist/grower, a stonecrafter/cook, and a furnace operator/weaponsmith.
We are named the Fortress of Forever; the fortress name is Horrortowers.
Strike the Earth!The Diary of dhokarena56, Overseer, 1st Granite, 111Right, so. We have a bit of a problem.
I asked for a cliff that we could dig into for easy early defense. I asked
specifically for a cliff. They said I would have a cliff, and the map looked like there would be a cliff.
And what do I get?
Nothing but flat, snowy woodland for hundreds of meters. While there are mounds to the north and south, they're pretty far to trudge. There is a brook, whose position I have vaguely indicated in cyan ink.
Bastards.
There's nothing for it. Badgers could appear at any moment and despite the fact that Inod Chancedguilt, the woodworker, has a copper battle axe I don't want to risk more than I have to. We are going to have to dig in, quickly.
I'd learned about this strategy in Fortress Management 202. In the event that you don't feel safe in your surroundings and don't have the time to start working on the permanent settlement, but
do need a small self-sufficient camp in which you can hold out indefinitely, if uncomfortably, you build a tiny, compact settlement belowground and while it off while you design a more permanent fortress. I took half an hour to sketch out what I wanted, then called the miners, Bėmbul Walkboot and Unib Beanbronze, over.
"You have a week to dig this out," I said. "You're off any and all hauling duty during that time. Hop to it."
I further informed Inod that he was going to be off hauling duty as well while he manufactured a door and built a quick and shoddy defense around the camp. The only wild animal I can see is a great horned owl to the northwest, but we cannot be reckless with safety.
The Diary of dhokarena56, Overseer, 7th Granite, 111The miners finished their job just in time. However, I seem to have completely forgotten to order them to carve out a wood stockpile. I shall build a furniture stockpile space next to the furniture stockpile, and reassign the current furniture stockpile to wood. As for food, though we will not run out any time soon, the construction of the still reminds us that it is always wise to stay in good habits. I set one of the newly dug out farms to grow a rotation of sweet pods, cave wheat, pig tails and plump helmets, another to grow the same rotation with cave wheat and pig tails swapped, and a third to grow quarry bushes in spring and autumn and plump helmets in summer and winter. I have also overlooked a kitchen and a farmer's workshop; I have space dug out next to the food stockpile.
The Diary of dhokarena56, Overseer, 1st Slate, 111Today the last of seven beds was installed. I'm impressed at the speed at which we've put this establishment up. A rough sketch of the fortress:
However, the weather's acting strangely.
Player's note: there's this bug where the snow all melted, then a snowstorm came, but the snow periodically melts during the snowstorm, so it never gets beyond a dusting of white on some tiles on the map. Then it started raining, but the brook and ponds hadn't melted. Bizarre.We've even got defenses up:
...sort of. I need to have Inod put a roof over the stairs so birds can't get in.
Now that that's done, we're going to have to figure out what to do next. True, we can live underground in this pit indefinitely, with as much food and booze as we want. We have assigned beds and a small dining room, and a place to hang out. Except for a place to put the animals, we're set for as long as we need to be.
I shall go have a drink and think about it.
[have a drink]
(Player's note: at this point, I too decided to go have dinner to ruminate on the matter. However it goes, we may end up living in this pit possibly up until the end of the year, depending on how long it takes to dig out the main encampment.)