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[kero42]

Sorry for the late reply, I've had internet troubles all afternoon.

The agreed upon plan looks fine to me, though I will confess little experience with the military parts of DF (I'm still in the "Turtle with cage traps and figure out how X mechanic works" stage.) Still, if you lot think it makes sense, then go ahead. As for Kerod, I look forward for him to gain real medical experience (does he already have any? Last I checked he was chief medical dwarf, but I wonder if he has any skill for it yet.) should the others get hurt. I can imagine Kerod taking it up as a pseudo-hobby (anatomical study), with little idea on how important lungs are to the continued existence of his fellows.

[TeleDwarf]

The title of Chief Medic title was given to that suspicious Lor Shorastkodor(I reported my concerns to the council, but none of council membersactually reacted, so I dismissed any precautions). She was very eager to study blood flow in living body and according to the neblime's document some civil titles are not to be held by senators, so I decided to make her our Doc.

That of course by no means signify that Kerod cannot pursuit medical knowledge by operating on fellow dwarves. I will keep him in mind in case we need any doctors. Or would you prefer only surgery?

[kero42]

Kerod could help (he has little else to do, and he really needs to pull his weight in this time of crisis, eh?), and it would perhaps be prudent to keep an eye on the suspicious chief. So that will be fine  .

[TeleDwarf]

Unfortunately Urist brought one goblin along a bit to early. On the other hand it is pretty good that goblins got separated. One goblin is easier to defeat then 5.

With all the plans we carefully made it was hard to be less ready:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Derpislava decided to take a nap in her room.  Dwarves decided to go each on their own business of acquiring weapons and any bits of armor they could salvage. Some taken their positions, most - not.
In the bottom you can see an "!", which is Urist and a goblin which is goblin.
No time to to warm up, so I decided to go for it.


Military training served Urist well. Despite how minimal his skill is, he managed to reach lumber mill and currently working there.


And here is the story of our first military casualty, the useless migrant, Kib Ilunudib. His family will remember his sacrifice.


Another dwarf is lying on the red sends, slowly dying. Notice the striking difference: the Urist, with his minimal training, dodges and parry, while these noobs are standing still no matter what. We might consider training all of the population. Even unarmed training would do much good in dodging.

Wooden bolts were also quite ineffective. They all bounced off iron breastplace or were blocked by iron shield. We might consider forging bolts from stronger metal. like iron perhaps? or at least some copper.
Unarmed strikes, even from our pet black bear, turned to be uterly useless for anything but distraction. Any fur clothes protects from unskilled kicks and punches.
The first goblin kill was made by broker, Bim Rigothkogan. He had a chance to grab a kobold silver dagger somewhere. We might consider producing more weapons, as those are actually only method of killing dressed goblins before old age.




1-is sleeping right on top of the dead goblin.
2-is the second wounded dwarf we met earlier.
3-is sleeping right in the doorway.
Other dwarves are drinking, eating, and sleeping. Apparently killing even one goblin was way too much for them. There are 4 more goblins to come. they are taking their time(or maybe they are wondering where their comrade gone?), but given the efficiency we had so far - I am reluctant going to them ,as field battle may not confer so much tactical advantage.
We might consider creating a standing, professional, military squad. even 4 fully armored dwarves, trained 24/7, would quickly learn how to pace themselves and would not need rest after every swing and would greatly improve our combat readiness.

Derpislava is still asleep.

And then something unexpected happened:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Goblins separated once more. Three axemen rushed after some kitten(No, not Erlis. Some other kitten.), and by doing so they left their leader alone and vulnerable. At the same time 9 migrants came.
The memory of the lone goblin killing and incapacitating dwarves left and right while greatly outnumbered was still fresh, and I decided to order an assault to kill the leader and hopefully destroy enemy morale.

1-goblin leader.
2-there three proud goblin axemen are returning after having killed a kitten.

But goblins are tough soldiers who start their training at the infancy, and my recruits are dumb asses, who only know how to gobble enormous amounts of food and yell at me for having to sleep in the mud.
While my fat meatballs were carrying their bellies to the Zolak Songured he managed to incapacitate no less then 4 of them. maybe even 6.
Again conventional dwarven arms(nails and teeth, fists and feet,  everything they use in a drunken fight) were proven absolutely useless against sober enemy. Goblin axemen came too close and began an encircling maneuver on our disorderly mob.
By this time all of the council members, except Derpislava, who slept through the first battle and cyberTripping, who was hiding in the LongHall basement.
I made an important choice - "Once more into the breach, my friends!",- I screamed in fury and rushed into the two goblin Axemen, who were planning something nasty:


1- is a goblin leader making recruits miserable. the cross near him is a migrand who took an arrow(well, bolt...) in the knee. literally. one step from the dreaded Zolak.
3- three axemen. moving as Rommel taught, in pincers formation.
Next to two of them are I, Kerod and Neblime. fighting side by side.

Not that it was much more effective though:

But at least goblin was busy long enough for some migrant to lucky headkick him. He and his buddy also was not simly standing there and taking my rage. they managed to kill two more dwarves and wound even more:

Thedwarven corpse there iare actually two dwarves who died at the same spot. that fight was tough, but we made it, and somewher e to it's end goblins were shakenand sounded a retreat. Ngoso was mortally wounded and managed to only crawl few feet in his vomit before some migrant caught him. but his friend was more intact and was fleeing at great speed. In the thick of battle I decided to let him go and spread the word of what happened here, while we could still catch the leader. And possibly his last soldier - the one who was running to rescue his captain

They fought bravely, but were unrelenting:

1 - here lies the Ngoso, the lightning-fast marksman.
2 - here lies the loyal Smunstu, who did not abandon his leader even in the face of death and defeat.

Those goblin, despite their hideous customs, deserve a memorial. Maybe we could spare a few slabs to properly honor our foes?

But life is not over yet, as witnessed by the only ecstatic dwarf in our settlement - Urist Mc Dwarf.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Who get's to sleep in this spiky bed?

Now to the other matters:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Now, while peasants are sorting the dead from the wounded - council can convene to discuss whatever senators consider appropriate. The more we discuss now - the more ready we will be in future.
Future plans, battle retrospective, requests to the overseer, political matters, rewards or punishments - are all welcome at this time.

[☼!!Troll Fur Sock!!☼]

I guess that bed was inspired by Derpislava...

[Cain12]

Cool name, "The Scintillating Cobra", so that didn't go as bad as I thought it would.

[neblime]

"Friends, in light of the recent cowardly surprise attack by the goblins, I propose we dedicate ourselves to military preparations! 
I motion that a 4 point plan is put into action at earliest opportunity;
1. Manufacture weapons for each and every citizen, mining any metals necessary for that end, with preference for higher quality going to council members.
2. Assign every citizen to a squad that may be mustered in times of need, however giving no training facility to distract them in times of peace.
3. Assign a training facility for councilmen to hone their skills of war periodically all year round, it is paramount that they survive, and serve as an inspiration to the lower orders!
4. Assign some peasants to patrol the edge of our settlement to detect ambushes earlier, preferably the most fleet of foot AND most expendable.
submit your votes fellow councilmen, indecision shall be the death of us!"

OOC
good update ^_^
I was scared for a minute that council members might die D:
anyway, as i'm sure you're aware goblin attacks are only going to ramp up from this point, my main idea is just having everyone prepared to go into military mode with an assigned weapon but not taking pointless training breaks all year round (at least not for now), except for the council members to have a better chance of survival.

[cyberTripping]

I second Neblime's idea of arming all dwarves, and the stone gathered from mining the materials can be put forth to building protective walls.

[neblime]

ooc
I thought no walls was part of this whole thing.  If not we definitely need a wall to at least protect where the councilmen live, if it's too much of a task to protect all the peasant's future houses.

[TeleDwarf]

ooc:
well. total encasing and impregnable walls are not that fun to play with, are they? You just surround a reasonably large area with walls, put a rising bridge in the only entrance and restraint some useless ganders around entrance on the outside in the radius of about 25 steps. Put a lever for that bridge in the meeting room and DONE - you are safe for decades. From there on you can only worry for some thieves (not hard to catch on their way out at least) or an extremely unlikely event of flying goblins. Everything else can be just waited out. These fortifications can be done extremely quickly, but they are ultimately not fun to play with.

I am not unconditionally against walls though. If done with role play in mind they can be both useful feature and a nice landmark, full of architecture beauty.
Take a Long Hall for example:
we needed a place to have some beds, some tables and chairs. To make dwarves less reason to be miserable. We also needed some relatively enclosed space to store our more valuable possessions, like an anvil and food.
we could have gone cheap and build just a 10x10 enclosed area over the dirt , put a little roof over its corner and just throw some beds, tables and chairs in the roofed corner. Or we could have gone even cheaper and expand the mushroom cave and have walls and roof for free.
We instead took greater pains of finding a historic precedent: Mead Hall,Long house, and especially this one: Reconstructed long house in the Vikingmuseum in Borg; excavating soil for basement; building the basement and making a constructed floor; erecting walls; roofing it over; and finally removing some constructed floors to put room walls.
If we will ever decide to build a second story - we will have to add columns in the center of basement and the first floor to act as a support.
Isn't it more fun this way? It gives a lot of meaningful choice, the main driver for real RP.

so, the bottom line thought I am trying to convey here:
1. I am not against walls per se, just unreasonable walls. If we are to construct an impregnable (by the large group of reasonably prepared warriors during the course of one siege, which is about one season long.) we need to think in the terms of Great Wall of China, or The Wall of Westeros.
2. Building such a wall would be a MAJOR undertaking, first sufficiently complex plans should be made and agreed upon by council, then we need to plan the raw materials extraction, workforce requirements, schedule and such.
3. It took us 2 years to finish Long Hall, we were inexperienced nobles of course,  but it also means that we might consider leveling up some masons/carpenters and stockpiling HUGE amounts of various blocks before starting to lay such plans.
4. It is important to understand that such a wall will take years to build, and we might get caught with our pants down during that time, so it would be immensely helpful to have a large, trained and euipped military at that time.
5. Also any wall can be impregnable only as long as it is sufficiently manned, so we must be prepared to spare a fair amount of dwarves to man the wall (station/patrol).
6. And of course building a Great Wall of China around a barn would be ridiculous, if we ever build such a wall it must be justified by the size of protected territory and/or the importance of what is inside(royal palace, senate, great city).

[cyberTripping]

Alright. Maybe the stone could be put towards beautification, then? The embark isn't exactly much to look at right now.

[TeleDwarf]

IC:

I vote "yay" for  each and every current citizen.
I would like to put on vote the tier plan:
1. we could start by smelting available ores and making 1000 iron bolts for our council.
2. we could continue by exploratory mining to find any source of copper, and if we are lucky - bronze.
3. we could then create the copper or, if we are lucky, bronze armor for peasantry.
4. as a next step we could create a few sets of iron armor for our citizens (which we have exactly one, Citizen Lord_lemonpie, but being a ranger he would probably be better off without armor. We might get some more named citizens in future, promote more important npc peasants to citizens, or demote some senators )
5. finally, with somewhat skilled smith we could create quality steel armor for the council.

I vote "yay" for assigning evry peasant to a squad. but I would also like to propose an amendment "and provide them with training grounds to hone their skills while off work. No mandatory training though."

I vote "nay" for the reasons of current state of affairs: Senator Kerod is required in the hospital to heal patients (his own initiative); Senator Derpislava is required to oversee the construction of pumps around the aquifer as part of the investigation regarding two missing miners from the last year's mining operations; also her high teaching skills may be usefull in training of militia; Senator Dwarf4Explosive is our second best carpenter and may be needed in the lumbermill to construct blocks, while Fortification Commissioner, Senator UristMcDwarf is most probably going to create masterwork furniture to replace the roach-bags we currently call or beds; I, Royal Liason, Senator Teledwarf, will probably need to perform quite a few meetings with unhappy peasantry. More public discussion is probably needed for this law.

I vote "nay" for assigning peasants to patrol rote: It would take too many peasants to patrol a reasonable perimeter (not regularly visited by the cats), and the field of view of such scouts will be obstructed by the dense forest we live in, so their effectiveness will be pretty small. Assigning the smaller number of dwarves to this duty will not give us any more safety, but will undermine our potential growth rate.

I would also like to put on vote creation of a four-men squad to be the backbone of our standing professional army. Steel armed and armored.

[TeleDwarf]

Alright. Maybe the stone could be put towards beautification, then? The embark isn't exactly much to look at right now.

You could draft some building plans, and then it could be built, if approved by council. The buildings we need now are: Hospital, carpeter's workshop/mansion  of Urist Mc Dwarf, Senate, several temples, Forges, etc...

Just keep in mind main baselines: realistic, scenic, adequate to our current situatuion (42 dwarves)

[kero42]

I really wouldn't know what to do regarding military, but the idea of the workers remaining unprepared does not appeal to me. So I suppose I'm going to vote yes on the the proposed arming plan.

Regarding walls, If we have decided on where to build our future home, we could wall that off and send the non-combatants (read: Kerods' wife/eventual kids) there during combat. Have we decided on how large the place is to be?

Also, I would suggest the workers get some training, at least so they can stand a chance against the evil hordes. I would not wish them to be slaughtered so easily, especially with the migrant problems we've been having. Besides, the stronger ones can eventually become proper guards, yes?

I would also like to know if there are any resources or items we lack, or have to go to a lot of effort to get? If we could set up priorities, then we could make sure we know which things to pick up when the caravans arrive. So, in short, anything we need? And what do we have to give in return? We should consider whether we are allowed to seize goods, and who from. (I could see arguments for No Seizing, Seizing in times of desperation, Seizing whenever (elves/humans, or only one of the two), Seizing whenever (dwarves included), or any other combination therefore.) Just food for thought.

[TeleDwarf]

we could wall that off and send the non-combatants (read: Kerods' wife/eventual kids) there during combat.

I would assume any shelter would work for that (LongHall basement, children asylum, Kerod's eventual mansion, Senate, Temple...). Basically anything that would have high-quality doors and at least some food stockpiles.

Have we decided on how large the place is to be?

Have not heard any proposals and/or plans yet. Maybe Kerod has a plan?

Besides, the stronger ones can eventually become proper guards, yes?

Everything is in the hands of council.

I would also like to know if there are any resources or items we lack, or have to go to a lot of effort to get? If we could set up priorities, then we could make sure we know which things to pick up when the caravans arrive. So, in short, anything we need? And what do we have to give in return? We should consider whether we are allowed to seize goods, and who from. (I could see arguments for No Seizing, Seizing in times of desperation, Seizing whenever (elves/humans, or only one of the two), Seizing whenever (dwarves included), or any other combination therefore.) Just food for thought.

We are not currently out of anything particular, so no need to ruin some merchant's day in my opinion. The current list nailed to the
bookkeeper's door reads:
"1.
SOAP! so many wounded...
Traction benches.
Splints, crutches.
2. Copper. Bronze. Coffins. Caskets. Slabs.
3. Armor. Weapons.
4. Clothes.
5. Backpacks and waterskins.
6. Glass, windows.
7. blocks. mechanisms"