Military Industrial Complex
Only this can describe the situation at Clearedpages. As migrants come and children mature they are immediately conscripted to the military. After the nuclear meltdown left the fortress hanging by the skin of its teeth, we've rebounded to a more strict and streamlined architecture. But Spartan life is not without its rewards. An intelligencia class easily provides masterwork furniture, clothing, armor, food, and drink for all. Military dwarves are free for 6 out of the 12 months and may try their hands at the craft of their choice, or simply throw parties in any of the multiple dining halls. The barracks is stocked full of masterfully crafted steel armor and weapons; we take care of the soldiers!
I organized everything into 8 squads. There are 6 melee squads ( axe, sword, spear, mace, hammer, and wrestling) and 2 marksdwarf squads. I'm always prepared for the situation! If there's a zombie outbreak I can use the mace and hammer dwarves so there aren't excessive limbs reanimating. If a forgotten beast shows up that's a task for the axe and spear dwarves. If there's a goblin seige I can rely almost exclusively on the marksdwarves! I very much like having everything so neatly organized, and with fairly small squads (less than 5) they are almost always finding time to train with a partner.
Ares continues to be the champion of Clearedpages. Here he is practicing in the barracks.
He wields The Spiral of Evisceration, a steel battleaxe, in his left hand, and The Simplicities of Onslaught, a steel shield, in his right. He has adamantium threads sewn into his arm and artifact candy greaves protecting his legs. He has two hundred and thirty four kills to his name.
The population is 50, 28 are in the military, and 7 dwarves are children, which leaves only 15 dwarves who are always free to mine, cut wood, forge equipment, or build new furniture. Food easily takes care of itself with only one farm plot down in the caverns. It is set to plump helmets in the spring and winter, but pig tails in the summer and fall. Here's the first cavern, now fully functional with glass, clay, farming, yak pastures, a hospital right near the water's edge, and the mayor's room up at the top near the magma.
You can probably guess why I put the mayor up at the magma pool. I've gone through no less than 5 mayors since the last update. The first one that I had was really awesome; he always demanded slabs to be built! But he died in the catastrophe of year 24, and his sucessors were... less than adequate. I finally have one that likes coins and only forbids export of coins. Before I had nobles forbidding exports of crafts! Of bins! ...
Unfortunately, I may be stuck with only a mayor for a very long time. I had a baron for about one month before he died, and they are irreplaceable. Therefore, the only higher nobility I could have is the King. No less than 10 artifacts depict his ascension in year 1. His name is Shorast Shootspun. The dwarves here labor to build him an obsidian castle above the terraformed ocean. But there is an unfortunate problem. The most important requirement for the king to arrive is your fort's population. You need around 140 dwarves.
This fort has driven dwarfkind to the brink of extinction.
Worldgen was set to end at year 2, and Clearedpages was founded in year 4. There was only 1 civilization, The Square Lances. I started with 7 dwarves and 2 of them had a baby. Then I got 2 hardcoded migrant waves in the first summer and fall. After that, all of the dwarves are immigrants from the mountainhome.
It is year 30 and every single dwarf has died except for the 50 here at Clearedpages. Migrants tapered off around year 27 or so; I was only getting 3 or 4 at a time. By 28 they stopped coming. Everything died. My units list has over 3000 dead/missing! I've done everything I can to attract migrants; I export silver and gold crafts and filled the fort with awesome decorations. Sieges are killed quickly and all the caravans, even the elves, are well protected. I actually havent had one death in over 2 years.
There are dwarves out there of course, but only liasons, caravan guards, and the king. I honestly think every available migrant has already arrived, but I'll keep holding out. I'm actually genuinely interested in this kind of endgame scenario. Perhaps much later on, if I lose the fort and begin another one, that fort will never get migrants after the first year? Sounds like a great sequel, but who knows, this fort is still chugging along and transforming the land, both above and below.
If I want that king to arrive, I might have to produce 140 dwarves "naturally". Anyone know how to encourage dwarfy lovin?