Our colony had just gotten a couple of new members. They were captured at vastly different times, but due to differences in resistances, they both ended up being recruited pretty close together. The first was a guy I got way long ago that I liked to call "The Caveman". He came from a tribe of violent savages (in contrast to the peaceful tribals who raided me before), and was a melee brute with the tough trait (takes 50% less damage universally). I initially didn't see him as that useful so I harvested one of his kidneys and used it to replace the one my former drug addict broke, but over the in-game days my opinion turned around, so I gave him the kidney of the next guy to make up for it.
The next guy was also somebody I thought useless. He had very weak skills and no burning passion for anything, so likewise he was cheap to recruit. His only redeeming quality was his level 9 crafting skill with weak passion. If he wasn't the only competent craftsman I'd encountered so far, I would have harvested the other kidney. His name was Sleepy.
Still, I was excited to have these guys. I put Sleepy on the smithy to begin crafting a steel longsword. I was looking forward to the day I would get to see Caveman put on some plate armour and chop off some heads, like a civilized person.
Unfortunately, Sleepy only had enough time to gather the steel and bring it to the smith before the next raid began.
Now this was a problem for two reasons. Our second-best shooter (and I should also add: only other one) was still recovering in the hospital from a failed attempt to tame a bear. The person who finally did tame the bear was also down due to an unrelated mental break.
Still, this wasn't our first raid without that shooter and the other person was just some girl with a club whose only purpose in combat was to distract the raiders while the gunmen peppered them with bullets. We had Caveman for that now. Additionally, the raiders spawned in a part of the map that was extremely narrow and thus I had easily walled it off a long time ago. I wasn't exactly sweating.
We gathered our men and prepared to fight. Our team consisted of Skissor, my elderly scientist/doctor/sharpshooter who had a bad back but was great with a rifle; Dyl, the builder with minimal combat skill who I only brought over to construct impromptu fortifications; and Sleepy and Caveman who need no introduction (I gave them both steel clubs to wield). Remember these people. It'll be important.
The raid hadn't even started before things went wrong. While we were building wooden barricades, Caveman decided to have a mental break and immediately started insulting Sleepy which caused him to retaliate by starting a social fight. The enemy was knocking on our door and my guys were beating the crap out of each other instead.
In order to break it up, I had no choice but to arrest arrest Caveman with Dyl, but not before he got a couple of good hits on Sleepy. Arresting someone already sucked, but what made it really sting was that our prison was super far away from this part of the map, so it would take a long time for Dyl to bring him there and come back.
We only had two men at the gates when the Raiders finally started in earnest.
Now like I said before, I walled this place off a long time ago. In practice, what this meant was that the wall was still made out of wood. They bashed against the door like you would expect, but one of them had the bright idea to set it on fire!
As the wall burned, they broke down the door and the first raider to make it through was greeted with a shot in the eye, courtesy of Skissor who was naturally perched a long distance away. Then a shot in the leg for good measure.
Though it was a good start, I completely underestimated how long the additional barricades we set up would slow them down for. They were only slowed for a few seconds before they clambered over them and ran at their normal speed, closing the distance shockingly fast.
Sleepy, wounded as he was, did his best to delay them but there were too many. They just split their forces to attack them both. Even when split, they had more than enough men to dogpile the newbie and take him down. I tried to get Skissor out of there, but they got him right as he reached the front door of a house that he could have taken shelter in.
With Skissor down, the Raider's had decided that they've had enough and began collecting our wounded so they could be brought out of the map and to their base. As far as they were concerned, they'd won and I was about to lose my only doctor and researcher, and by far my best fighter.
Dyl at this point, had safely managed to bring Caveman to justice and was beginning the long trek back to the fight. Armed with only a plasteel knife and not enough melee skill to use it properly, I sent him out in a desperate attempt to catch the raiders and save my colonists.
My plan relied on the fact that the raider's had chased Skissor somewhat deep into town before they caught him, climbing over a second set of improvised barricades to do so. They would have to climb over those again on their way back, but Dyl was able to skip those by taking a shortcut through the animal pasture and potentially cut them off.
It was like the raider's
knew about this exact possibility, because they sent a single guy ahead of the group to watch the pasture and cover their retreat, forcing Dyl to confront him if he wanted to save his friends
What followed next was a butt-clenching knife duel between the raider and my unskilled engineer. Each blow exchanged wasted precious seconds of time and was bringing the enemy several
meters closer to the edge of the map. Also on my mind was the likely possibility of being struck down right then and there. It's not like it was an even fight after all.
When I saw Dyl strike the final blow and kill the guy, I was amazed at how lucky I was. Checking the combat log, it turns out that Dyl opened strong by delivering a powerful slash to the right arm, even going as far as to crack the humerus. Whatever skill difference there was between the two pawns had instantly been eliminated by pain and loss of function, though he still managed to get nicked in the neck.
But that was a problem that could be dealt with later! As tense as the question of life or death was, there was still the question of time and the guard did a good job at buying it! His friends had made it to the forest outside of town and would soon be outside of the map. It was now the final stretch, so without hesitation I sent Dyl through the flaming wreckage the wall had become in a desperate sprint to catch up to the fleeing kidnappers.
There were no more choices to be made anymore. All I could do was watch as the wounded raiders plodded forward with my colonists on their back while certain death sped behind them, hoping to god that I could still save them.
Unfortunately, the first one managed to escape, taking Sleepy from the front lines with him. The other guy though... he got a knife straight in the back!
He wasn't escaping after that. With this blow his speed slowed to a crawl, if only a metaphorical one. He wouldn't fight back and instead continued to shamble towards the exit desperately trying to reach the point where game logic would take him out of my grasp forever. It took two more hits to put that dream to rest for good.
With the person carrying him dead, Skissor was dropped on the ground, only 7 tiles away from his doom. He was the best armored among us, but bleeding all the same. There wasn't even a moment to take it in before someone suddenly popped out of from behind us, back where our gate used to be.
It turned out to be that guy from the beginning, whose eye we shot out! Somehow Dyl managed to run past him while chasing after his friends, and it was only now that he finally caught up. After everything else that's happened this day, dealing with this guy was easy. Poetically, Dyl ended up taking out his other eye for his trouble, as if finishing a job for a friend.
With the last remaining raider gone, all that was left to do now was to pick up the old vet and take him to the hospital. Somehow, in spite of how disastrously it all began, Dyl came through in the end and against all odds saved all but one of us. It sucked that we lost the guy who could make good swords, but with time we'll find someone who can replace him. And on the bright side, I don't have to harvest a replacement kidney for him anymore.
Except there was one thing we forgot. The fire that we had neglected up to this point had spread to the hay field I planted beside the wall, which was in hindsight a REALLY bad idea! I basically created a highly flammable fuse that lead directly to our barn. If we didn't extinguish it, it could burn down the entire farming complex!
Now fighting this thing is its own interesting story, with some surprising twists of its own, but I think things have went on long enough. As a sequel, it doesn't really live up to this one, but I think it does a good job at reminding you of the fact that the AI in this game is literally programmed to hate you sometimes. It was fun though.
Author
Topic: RimWorld - basically the sci-fi Dwarf Fortress (Read 856534 times)