Insanity: I like the backstory and hope you’ll expand it. Can you work the war chinchillas in there, somehow?
But I don’t understand why you would volunteer to be an Adequate Mechanic. ?? In the current release, there are more than enough embark points to skill up 7 dwarves to the max of 10 each, Proficient in the major profession while still keeping the anvil along with cats, dogs and a couple of egg-layers.
As to your other suggestion,
A volcano in a wilderness biome with multiple metals … yeah, right. Good luck with that one in the World Gen.
And while you’re writing that mod script to forward to mainman879, might I suggest that you include running water, clay and sand? Very useful stuff, glass, and even with a sedimentary layer and clay it’s still a crapshoot whether or not there will be sand on the grid and it can take years to punch into the caverns and trample down the saplings to get some, and there goes your FPS. Oh, and hard code in some Sun berries, please – the tree huggers never seem to bring me any and I wouldn’t want to jinx the Abbey.
More seriously,
I agree with you on the value of an Architect and this is one of the very few times I’ve disagreed with the profession assessment on Wiki (or anything else on Wiki). It takes only a couple of years to skill up from Novice to Legendary in any case, and if we actually construct the supports in some out-of-the-way room of rock and then deconstruct them, it also trains others in the moodable skill of Masonry. A good Building Designer goes a long way towards keeping the inevitable tantrums from spiraling.
For myself, I’m not picky; I’ll take whatever’s left over that we need. I strongly urge that we start with a Proficient Carpenter (quality shields), Proficient Mechanic (a dwarf’s best friend, the mechanism, and ToadyOne has confirmed it is the quality of the mechanism that determines the effectiveness of a cage trap), and a Proficient Grower because as Wiki points out, the cascade effect makes it hard to overestimate the value of a Proficient Grower to a starting fortress. And
more than one dwarf with Novice Diagnosing skill because nothing happens in a hospital without the initial diagnosis, dabblers can’t diagnose, and – Fun Happens. Any single dwarf can succumb to infection from a stubbed toe before the soap is ready and hasn’t everyone had a fortress swell to 200+ without a single diagnostician migrating in?
If mainman lets us choose, make me a Novice Woodcutter (with one metal axe and an assigned hunting dog, please!) and I’ll clear cut the surface while the rest of you do the heavy lifting. Make me a Proficient Teacher also, and that’s only six total points against embark. Adding Novice Axedwarf to the mix would still only total seven and give us one Kobold chaser/bear defender to start. Why Proficient Teacher? Because it isn’t a trainable skill and Wiki says that a Champion who is also proficient in teaching can quickly train up the migrants into a suitable military. That’s assuming that everyone agrees that a Danger Room is an acceptable exploit; if it is, giving the Woodcutter/Teacher several trips through with the various weapons and a cloak but without a shield quickly brings him up to Legendary in all combat skills. For this, you can pick the there-always-seems-to-be-one-in-every-embark clumsy, weak, stupid and socially-challenged dwarf (I get the irony). Name him/me Sarge (drill sergeant), make him a militia captain in a squad of one for DR training and he can “go pro” early on and keep the other squads from getting rusty even without melee rooms until we need a Champion. I also like to start with an up-skilled Herbalist since there won’t be any ambush for at least four seasons and if we’re lucky, there will be rope reeds and whip vines along with berries on the map and we’ll only need the Elves for hauling in wood. (If we go that route, assign the other Hunting dog to the Herbalist at the start. Hunting dogs trump war dogs, imo, since they are just as effective as meat shields, just as tasty, and the sneaky dogs don’t run away during Civilian Alerts.) If the starting rules for HopelessAbbey say no Danger Rooms, then I suppose I really need more practice on the military side before my turn comes up …
Diagnostician is the only make-or-break skill; everything else has a work-around but no dwarf goes from zero skill to Novice in Diagnosis – at least, that seems to be the consensus on Bay12 forums (right?). And Teacher is not a trainable skill so, those are my two suggestions. Ah – just thought of a third suggestion, then I’ll close this (too long) post and hush up: Has everyone read Boatmurdered? What a great story! But at several points, the various players made some pretty snarky comments about each other and “that moron who was the previous manager.” There’s a world of difference between snark and a wisecrack (the smiley face is pretty much a give-away on that one). Let’s have fun and try not to have too much Fun too soon!
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Topic: HopelessAbbey (Read 2174 times)