I am. I don't know about anyone else.
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Journal of Manze, Digger of Holes
I feel like the military needs some restructuring. Let's see how I can do this. As it is, we have a few large squads, and one small squad that consists of the captain of the guard and the hammerer. While it is nice for large battles, it's bad for training. The entire military's been restructured. It now goes as follows:
The Closed Syrups - Captain of the Guard and Hammerer. Use only in emergencies.
The Oily Bowels - Marksdwarves. Full squad of ten.
Earthen Coincidences - 2x Speardwarves.
Constructive Numbers - 2x Swordsdwarves.
Tongs of Scalding - 2x Axedwarves.
The Ochre Manors - 2x Hammerdwarf.
The Blockaded Rays - 10x miscellaneous. Used for general training. Will not level as fast as the 2dwarf squads.
The Spirits of Wire - 10x miscellaneous. Again, general training.
The 2dwarf squads are for active service, and should level fastest. Should a dwarf in one of them become too injured to remain on duty, remove him from active service, changes hid profession to Retired Vet, and replace him with one from the training squads. The training area has also been majorly expanded, and even includes archery ranges.
In unrelated news, sackboy and the Captain of the Guard both had babies on the same day. Double congratulations.
A "blind dervish Diplomat" has arrived. This seems like a sign that something horrible is going to happen. And hot on his heels, a human caravan. Here's hoping they bring useful things!
And they get ambushed in 6 seconds. I bet they run away. At least they're close to the entrance, for easy recovery.
[[I made an alert called Hide! that restricts units to Burrow 6, which is pretty much the entire fort. And the trade depot.]]
The caravan makes it in. It's two wagons. Their two bowman guards stay behind to pepper the remains of the ambush. I send in the Constructive Numbers, looking for some easy experience, when they get ambushed by another goblin squad. They don't last long.
Oh look, more caravan wagons. And a cheese maker is trapped outside. A couple of dogs charged at the goblins in the entrance. They're not doing badly, to be honest.
The Deity the humans sent us is apparently happy with us.
[[I took a look at an unhappy Marksdwarf's relationships screen. Fifteen kids. Six pages of friends. And probably over 140 relatives.]]
The seasons change, and so did I. You need not wonder why. It's halfway through my term as overseer, according to some obscure law.
The militia captain had twins. How many kids does she have now? 18? Jeez. Busy husband.
The Baroness mandated that no figurines be traded. Coincidentally, we are critically low on trade goods. I order some gems be brought forth. I traded basically everything i could for all of their wood and some booze. I'll try to get some mugs made to trade for their food.
[[It turns out I accidentally enlisted all 4 of our stonecrafters. Whoops. Time to make some new ones. And half our miners, too. I need to pay more attention.]]
The merchants left before I could get them anything for their food. So be it. We can hold out until the dwarven caravan.
There was a minecart track leading from a lower floor to the stone stockpile. After revisiting the ramps beside it, I noticed there were parts where the only way up was to walk on the tracks -- a massive safety hazard, to be sure. The path was widened and the problem was fixed.
I had another kid. Why are there so many babies in this fort? Is it because EVERYONE SLEEPS IN THE SAME DAMN ROOM?
The human caravan "left" a month ago. It's still sitting in the trade depot. Nobody's tried to move. I'll try deconstructing the depot and seeing if that helps.
More migrants have arrived. What are the odds these ones have kids, too?
The Baroness is miserable because of "the pretentious dining arrangements of a lesser". I don't know who in this damn place has a dining room. I don't even know where hers is. I'm digging her a room now.
It's the middle of Timber and there's been no dwarven caravan. Uh oh. I've ordered the construction of a kitchen, and for it to make Lavish meals out of everything but plump helmet spawn and brewable plants. Drink stores are in the positives (up 200 in the last three months), so I've reduced brewing to 2 stills.
Aha! The dwarven caravan is here. It's just later than usual.
The liaison asked what we'd need for next year. I put Wood and Drinks as low priority, and Plump Helmets and their seeds as High priority. Gauntlets and High Boots were also requested.
I still don't know why we have so many Cut Rocks. Oval Cut Conglomerate isn't worth anything or pretty. And that's a waste of a good stone.
Our broker is the laziest broker I've ever met. I told him the caravan was coming. He went and stood in the depot until he could see them, then ran off to eat, drink, go on break, and sleep. I told one of my fellow miners to go trade instead.
We traded a bunch of crafts, a decent supply of spare weapons, and all the conglomerate cabochons i could find for almost all of their food, three bags of plump helmet seeds, and all of their booze. And their spare backpacks, because apparently we have almost none. No wonder military training takes so long. Here's how our stocks look after that trade.
Also of note is the 88 children. Jesus.
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This time nothing of interest is happening. My turn's almost over, should be one more update.