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[tomio175]

Man, DF's high price, plus the paying weekly, and the excessive DLC (Seriously? Modding support costs 100$ and you can't adjust the speeds of units because that would obsolete the 24 hours of superdwarf speed microtransaction), I've kinda  been turned off from it.

It's never been the same since EA threatened Toady at gunpoint with a small army in order to force him to follow the market, has it?

Ah, the dorf versus Evil Activities wars. Good time, !!!FUN!!! was had in the way it should've been had. You youngsters don't even know how it felt to have a magma-waterfall in your conference room(s). Unless you worked at EA ten-ish years ago...

If they actually did that, though, I refer to th Bay12 Mars colonization plan, page 1-2. "Enough to fill a medium crime syndicate" should be the words you're looking for.
Pick, hammer and axe, ho!

[Baffler]

Guys, I think I'm in trouble here, and any help or suggestions are welcome. I'll start from the beginning.

I got my fortress set up pretty uneventfully. I had all of the basic industries going, but didn't have any real wealth, just enough to support the military and administration's wages, and a few basic social programs. All in all I was about in equilibrium and considering some research into the new fluid dynamics system. But in my eighteenth year a major war against the goblins broke out. Reports are hard to come by from the goblin territories but it sounds like a group of clowns strong-armed them into an empire after they escaped from the circus. A lot of forts fell in the early days, but a human civ ours was allied with got invaded later. The goblins, though overextended, still have the manpower and materiel to fight to a stalemate, at least for a time. Anyway this war created a huge demand for soap, which my fortress produced in huge excess and exported already. I got a LOT of wealth really quickly. Now I did have at least some basic controls to prevent runaway inflation, but the sheer amount of capital flowing into the fortress was too much to manage with what I had. I decided to fight the inflation by jacking up trade duties and setting up coin and gem reserve stockpiles to take them out of circulation, and it's helped somewhat, but it wasn't enough to stop my biggest problem.

I mentioned the humans got into the war, right? Well they took a pretty bad beating in the early days too, and there were a lot of refugees from their border region with the goblins. The border was decently protected, but raiders made it across regularly to burn farms and small villages all throughout their kingdom before the bulk of their fighting forces could be mustered to drive them out. Now with my fortress' new found wealth and relative safety they flocked here in droves. They were our allies, so I couldn't just turn them away without causing serious strain on our relations with the humans, but I didn't really have the space to accommodate them either. It didn't help that almost none of them had any skills that are even remotely useful in the fortress. I mean really, I can only find work for so many unskilled laborers and herdsmen, especially since so few of them even speak dwarven.

I did my best to set up decent quarters for them, but shortages of basic necessities are starting to appear, even with all of the money I'm pouring into food imports. The rooms I've set up for them are basically bunkhouses, and crime and poverty are rampant. My own dwarves aren't helping the situation either. They're getting mighty pissed that so much of the fortress' time and resources are going toward these guys, and some of the nobility are calling to have them removed, alliance be damned. It's gotten so bad that the few humans who actually did have the skills to find work in the fortress are in serious danger of being assaulted or even killed in some parts of the fortress. The regular military are still loyal to me, but I don't think I can count on about half of the fortress guard units or any of the civil militia to restore order if the refugees start rioting, or the dwarves try to kick them out. It's hard enough keeping up with the trouble going on now. I've sent an envoy to both the human king and mine for aid, but neither one has responded.

So between my xenophobic dwarves, disgruntled refugees, and the Mountainhomes and Human King's apparent apathy to the situation, I'm almost certainly heading for a meltdown here, and it won't be pretty. I am willing to spend a significant portion of the fortress' treasury to handle this if need be, but I'm afraid if I get rid of all of it my economy will bust when the soap exports dry up. Has anyone else been in a similar situation? As I said, I'm open to just about any suggestion at this point.

[NullForceOmega]

If we hadn't won the EA wars I wouldn't dare say this (without a battlesship on hand at least) WEAPONISE your human refugees!  Foster hatred for the gobs (shouldn't be too difficult), arm and train them then use that unreal amount of wealth to finance your campaign against the gobs.

On my end, does anyone remember how to lock down a continent scale tantrum spiral... I think the 'fix' Toady implemented back in '40 wasn't ready for me to burn that entire colony down to HFS for failure to pay taxes.  I'm paused right now, and I just can't see a way out.

[tomio175]

Snipsnap

Yeah. Spend that A TON of money on trade caravans importing weapons. Stop exporting soap ALL the time. Keep soap exports limited to certain years (even years, every three years and so on?).

Also, what NFO said. Make them battleships, mate. Even when still on land, these babies ROCK. Sure, some elves might get angry (if you haven't already exterminated them), but who gives a crap. Elves wage war quite similar to gobbo's. Send sieges when pretty much everyone else does. They'll slaughter themselves before your fortress, rout, and you'll be able to loot their bodies.

About the human refugees: Apply Dwarven Therapy™. Otherwise, real therapy. Put a few of them on therapist duty. It'll give them something to do (increasing their happiness) while also clearing the other humans' unhappiness. Win-Win. Pay them in soap.

And about the EA wars: I happened to be commander of a battleFLEET (Battlefleet Epsilon Sigma, tasked to guard Base Zeta) and I wouldn't have dared saying that back then. You are one hell of a brave/mad man if you would with only a battleship. I salute you, we could've used more of your kind.

[Helgoland]

Finally succeded in breeding a contagion that infects elves and goblins, but leaves dwarves (and humans) intact - finally I shall be able to wage biological war with impunity! For a war of annihilation, there's really nothing like it. Sure, gas is cheap and very effective underground (those dwarven rebels can attest to that - strategically placed containers in the main tunnels, and they were gone in minutes), but it does too much collateral damage among your own troops. And we all know the mutatioon lottery that takes place after dropping a thermonuclear weapon

[Greiger]

Operation F*** the world is progressing swimmingly.  The 3000 tungsten barrels of plump helmet wine exploded faster than I thought when dumped into the mantle (kinda figured the tungsten would last longer than that) but the top hatch of the airlock got closed quickly enough and I only lost the dumping dwarf.

As planned the explosion in the mantle has caused all the volcanoes to erupt simultaneously and the world is slowly filling with magma.  I already stopped hearing from the goblins, and the fortress is holding up well against the lava flowing over it from the Spine of Scorching.

In a few more years I will have successfully eliminated the elves and created a magma version of rapture.  2 birds, one ‼stone‼.  If I'm lucky maybe it will hit all those damn vultures too.

[Baffler]

If it ever rains in your fortress though, you'll have a big plate of obsidian come crashing down on your head. The bug is due to be fixed soon but I recommend reinforcing the upper levels of your fort, and possibly the immediate area around you to prevent a cascading collapse.

[Greiger]

Really?  Thanks for the heads up.  I noticed some obsidian showing up thanks to all the rain from the evaporating oceans but only in small amounts, probably not a problem yet because it's still shallow and moving quickly.  I'll get right on the reinforcement.

[NullForceOmega]

Well, tantrum spiral's over, 20% of the human population dead, the entire Elven retreat of Windsongs up in flames, three Dwarven citadels collapsed, and a flood of dispalced sentient biengs literally at my doorstep.  Even better winter's just setting in, there are rumblings of dissent from the landed nobles and my champion has been challenged by no less than four seperate armies, fun found?

As for the EA wars, I was captain of the Hellstar, and served as leader of Nullification Force Omega (hence the name) I led the liberation of Maxis and personaly razed EA Sports headquarters, my ballsiness cost me an arm, an eye, and my lower left leg.  ALL. WORTH. IT.

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

As for the EA wars, I was captain of the Hellstar, and served as leader of Nullification Force Omega (hence the name) I led the liberation of Maxis and personaly razed EA Sports headquarters, my ballsiness cost me an arm, an eye, and my lower left leg.  ALL. WORTH. IT.

I wasn't able to directly participate in any of the raids, but I was a part of the team that managed to hack EA and hit them with self-replicating programs to send their command and information structures crashing down at various points in the war.  We also developed the program that seized control of the EA power grid during the final raid, [REDACTED], and [REDACTED].

[Mel_Vixen]

heh all you serving people are heros. Only thing i could do, back then living on EA territory, was hiding and smuggling out people. The guys who made the star wars games prior to the Disney-EA coalition and a few people that tried coding for themselves. The later was a punishable crime kids. Only Programmers that were allowed to operate were the ones of EA, getting cought with Opensource Software was even Punishable with death.



Anyway somehow, after my last loss i had some suspicions about the world. The trade, economy and wars of certain countries was to ... well coordinated. Turns out somewhere in the Mid 3rd century an openminded Human became a vampire by profaning a Temple. Said vampire Advanced later through the ranks as they often do. In 400 he was baron of a wealthy barony by tinkering with the economy. By 500 he was king ... and then he vanished.  Turns out he had planned his own untimely demise etablishing a figurehead on the human Kingdom. Using a few secrets and an extended network of spies he lead the Kingdom from the shadows but didnt stop there.
By 600 or so he had secretly ursurped 2 other Kingdoms. Even worse he influenced the Mayor religion that spun almost the entire world without anyone supecting anything.   

Till now (1050) every Human dwarf and elve thinks that he fights and works for his own side and that the others are enemies but in reality 80% of them are controlled by that vampire. He runs something like an Utopia though. Many well fed people, populations kept in check, regular Monster hunts, hell even one case of national healthcare!

Other things are covered and manipulated up by his agents. Like the Murders the WerArmadillo/Master Gemcutter or certain FBs with usefull abilities disappearing. 

[My Name is Immaterial]

You lucky bastards. You weren't there at the siege of the Origin servers. It was their last foothold in the Internet. As soon as they heard us coming, they locked it down for maintnence. Physically, we didn't loose anyone, but mentally, half our force was decimated. Too many good men and women lost their sanity to the unending error messages.

But Origin was nothing compared to Dice. We marched believing the propaganda: they were nothing but a money printing machine for EA, they were willing participants in this war, instigators, even.

Lies.

As soon as we came over the hill, they surrendered unconditionally. Our commanders accepted, and ordered us to put them to the sword. What's that? I thought that they killed themselves rather than suffer defeat, I hear you say.

Bull.

Command marched us from Origin, since no one would believe our stories of war crimes. They could claim us mad. And many of us were. We were ordered to burn the evidence, destroying the proof that they were decent people who knew how to make a decent PC settings menu. I was able to snag a few files from the fire, and I've sent photocopies to major news outlets. I haven't heard back.

TL;DR: That war was not something to be proud of. We fought monsters, by becoming monsters ourselves.

[Helgoland]

Damn I'd have liked to get a piece of  the action... they didn't allow it. Physically unfit, they said. Instead I spent the war at a tiny desk in a tiny office in a tiny town, working for a tiny part of Toady's R&D department.

You remember the optimised RC drones that were introduced some two years into the war, probably saving the butts of anyone who served with you multiple times?
Yeah, that was me.

[Eric Blank]

I've had an issue with an overzealous human warlord rampaging across the countryside. And, unfortunately, I set up a fort right on the front lines, near the borders of his civilization, the goblin civilization he conquered and forced into fighting for him, and a neighboring human civilization that's been fighting him. Within five years after coming into power he'd ended his war with the goblins. I supported them with weapons and armor exports throughout that campaign because he'd maintained a good relationship with me up to that point and didn't hint at any greater scope of objectives besides dealing with our mutual enemies. I'd actually sent a few military detachments to aid in a couple of raids against the goblins. Not more than a season later and his troops, and the goblins, started moving south towards my end of the river basin, and that summer I didn't receive any human caravan.

I was expecting the dwarf caravan that autumn by surface, but they arrived through the caverns, and I got a notice about the humans blockading my fortress from caravans. I sent a diplomat to negotiate with them. They sent me her head. I mustered what military my fortress and the half-dozen surrounding hill dwarf sites and half-dozen cavern sites could supply, and fought it out for four more years. In the end I lost something like 95% of that military and the entire populations of the hill dwarf sites, whether killed or enslaved. It was a stalemate, nonetheless, as they could not conquer my fortress. Instead they left a battalion to keep me from going anywhere and marched on the other human civ, where they fought to a stalemate as my civilization sent their forces to help push back the warlord's, but eventually they all negotiated an end to the war and the mountainhomes even agreed to cede my lands to him. They also learned how to advance through the caverns, and after wiping out all but one of my cavern sites and filling my fortress with the refugees, I'm sitting here watching them all starve to death, in what is now the dead-center of enemy territory.

Worst part is this guy's empire isn't going to crumble anytime soon, as he's allowed the civilian populations to work relatively freely, if you ignore the slave population composed of anybody that doesn't want to show loyalty. They reportedly own every scrap of land on the peninsula and their economy. His armies are well-supported, and they have dwarven metallurgists manufacturing steel equipment.

And he built a god-damn wall clear around the fortress. Including in the caverns. I can't get anyone through them alive. Now I'm starting to see refugees showing up out of nowhere. He's turned my fortress into a prison camp!

[Baffler]

And I thought I had it bad...

My only advice is to see if you can sap out sections of the wall he built around you, and maybe even around the caverns. Those dwarven metallurgists are going to be a problem. I assume a lot of them came from your deep dwarf satellites? Retaking those would be my first priority. It all hinges on how much metal is left in the fortress. If you can, arm the refugees. I'm sure they'd like to strike back.

Show the humans why the dwarves are the undisputed masters of the underground.