Bit of a delay due to some issues IRL, but here we go.
Diary of Urist McKiwi III, Dashing Swordsdwarf
8th Timber
So everyone's out looking for Meng now. The king isn't happy, and when royalty isn't happy, they do tend to get things done. Nurse Cutey appeared the instant we got that poor planter out from behind the hives and dragged him off screaming. I don't blame him, frankly. We have got to sort out this mess with the bees!
I ran an inspection of the militia before sending them out. Not good. Most of them haven't seen a battle, and aren't being trained enough. So I've set up some training runs. We're not going to finish this massive rebuild this year anyway....might as well make sure we're trained well enough to survive a siege. Squads will train at 3 month intervals, then spend a month on duty doing patrols......then have a month of leave. The exception to this will be the Royal Fist....as my own elite squad, we will train at 2 month intervals to maintain our skills at the highest possible level.
I suppose that's the good thing about Meng being away....I can get my own work done again. I'm not in charge, but since the person who should be giving the orders isn't, I can just keep things running. But still....we have so few dwarves these days to work with. We've got to find him.....
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10th Timber, Late morning."Udib? Udib!"
"McKiwi? What is it?"
"Got a tipoff from UristTheGrey. Meng's fast asleep down in the old living complex. Want to head down and see what's up with him?"
'Hmmm.....yes. That would be wise. I have noticed a strange focus of McDuck's energies of late, since that last wave of animal posessions. Meng Rirnolas' disappearance worries me."
"And we need the whole beehive thing sorted out. That poor planter had Nurse Cutey looking after him for days..."McKiwi shudders as she and the Priest start their descent into the fortress. Udib Wastedlabor scratches his beard, thinking for a moment.'The bees interest me. Rirnolas has placed hives quite deliberately at focal points for the main hauling routes....almost as if arranging for citizens to be stung is the point of the hives....'
"That's not very dashing."
"Maybe. But I think there's a reason why he's doing it, and I would rather like to find out what that reason is....---------------------------------------
Screenshot and stats time!
Our great fortress of Moltenchannels has a population of 138 dwarves, up by 1 from last year (
yaaaaaay). 33 of these are children. The adult population breaks down by skill as follows:
5 engineers
27 farmers
2 fishery workers (these guys probably need some training in other jobs, since we don't have any fish)
5 peasants (this includes Meng, who is technically a Master Architect but doesn't actually have architecture skills)
10 nobles
11 craftsdwarves
3 jewellers
8 metalsmiths
4 rangers
18 stoneworkers (skewed a bit by my construction work)
7 woodworkers (also skewed a bit)
5 miners
This does not take military skills into account, since the militia is on leave. We currently have a full military of 50 dwarves. Some squads (mostly the marksdwarves) are well trained, but others are just cannon-fodder. To alter this, I've changed the schedule so that we have regular training for most squads, with extra training for the Dead Armors, as they are
really inexperienced. I have never used the schedule system before, so I've no idea if this will work.
Anyway! Screenshots! These are both large images, so be warned.
Circled in red is the area where the planter got trapped. I'll probably leave those walls deconstructed just to be safe As you can see, construction is rather stalled. Ah well, such is life. And some of it is useable at least. The tower in the top-left of the central island is going to be "interesting" to finish, as both the magma weapon and the corpse-disposer go right through it. However, I am optimistic that it can be safely build around the existing structures, although ramp/stair design is a little convoluted. Ideally, I would have built walls and ramps for ground-level parts of the towers as well, to give them their own farms and breweries in case they get sealed off for long periods of time. That went out the window with the slowdown.