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Voting closed: December 16, 2013, 01:03:36 pm

[jimboo]

Really? Who started the tantrum spiral again?

It’s hard to say who started the spiral; there have been so many tantrums since Day One!  Grimm, our Legend +5 priest has had five tantrums in the first season and he’s not been alone in that.  I think the one that got out of hand started with a possessed farmer who went insane, unable to construct his artifact.  With everything else going on, I didn’t catch it in time to look at the workshop he’d commandeered.  It was in the main hall, right next to the brewery where everyone was lined up to catch each brew as it finished.  He took out three dwarves before the militia got to him.  Things went downhill from there.  I should screen shot more notes …

You could try the music stage and a drow instrument to stop tantrums, or the temple and the blessing of armoks wrath. They should be just right against tantrums.

A Tavern is in the works but for now, we’re limited to any instruments we make ourselves, there are none in stock.  But we be praying!  So far, we’ve been answered with Armok’s wrath so at least those dwarves are fearless.  But if that also stops tantrums, there've been too many to notice at the time.


18th Felsite.
A Vile Force of Darkness has arrived!  Beak Wolf hunters and predators, there are now 73 of them outside the walls, 21 of us remaining inside.  The mood here is bleak; I can’t get anyone to pick up a pick and mine.  Eating seeds and the occasional pig tail that pops up so vermin hunting isn’t taking up everyone’s time but we’re killing each other before the reactivated militia has time to respond. 

1st Hematite, Summer
Down to 20 remaining but only 3 are now miserable, the rest are content.  Last year’s plump helmets are popping up so along with the fish farms and every exposed cave fungus, we should survive the siege.  Masons are pimping out the bedrooms to increase happiness, we’re clearly more in danger from ourselves than the invaders.  It’s looking more and more like the plan is to “hole up, be self-sufficient and find enough gold to summon the Legion.”  73 is a formidable force outside the walls.   

[Jerbot]

You may have staved off destruction then Jimboo. Great job!

[mensrea]

Find the two miserable dwarves and send them to the apothecary to be lobotomized. Same with the kids. I'll be damned if a couple useless, walking stomachs are the end of the fortress. Use dwarf therapist to assign them the labor needed to jam a sharp object so far up their nose that they can smell red, and hopefully their interactions afterwards will be composed of mumbling "hodor" and shuffling about aimlessly.

Are those giants immune to fire or something? Shouldn't they have killed themselves when they lit everything on fire? Maybe at this point we should be considering lobbing rocks at the invaders with a catapult rather than risking more marksdwarves lives. If you can find some way to light the outside of the fort on fire even better. Maybe use some of that burning/exploding catapult ammo to do so.

Either way, its starting to look like the vampire may be the only dwarf who gets through this. If that's the case, if it gets down to a couple dwarves and him, just let him out. He can feed off the dwarves and hopefully stave off insanity long enough for another immigration wave. Though at this point we may be forced to use the town portal to attract more migrants.

If jimboo manages to keep the fort alive we do need another overseer. I will volunteer for the task if no one else is willing, but I would rather have someone new then start cycling through previous overseers. So if your reading this and interested, let me know. Yes, I understand this is akin to asking someone to preside over a nation experiencing its judgment day, but there is something to be said for grim determination.

On another note:

What if this was his plan all along? Holed up in his safe little bunker, keeping stock of the forts wares by peaking out through cracks in the walls....watching...waiting..until he was the only dwarf left. Then it will be just him. Reigning over a kingdom of corpses and fabulous golden mugs. Who is this mysterious vampire anyway? Can we get some screenshots or something?

[Meph]

I like the vampire. Please dont hurt him.

Oh, another thing: If too many people tantrum, why not throw them into prison? Thats why I made a custom prison. You can use the workshop profile to only select dwarves that are close to going crazy, and let them run the reaction. The "imprisoned dwarf" is immobile and wont cause any trouble for the time you chose.

[Grimmash]

Did the giants leave?  If so, and you can find the dwarves to do it, you could build another atom smasher bridge setup to try and thin out the beak men in case another caravan somehow shows up.  But if you make it to summer, you will be rolling in food from all the farms.

As others have said, the walls will not burn.  It is worth noting that when I put in the catapults, I carved fortifications into the walls in front of them in order to shoot.  That will work anywhere on the walls, but if enemies get within sight range, the civilians will get spooked.

Am I still alive?

[jimboo]

Our Vampire:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Two images because I can’t get Merge to work this morning.  He’s been quarantined since before my turn on level 144.  He’s in there with an altar, some tables, chairs and a pick (Grimm: that was thoughtful).  He’s miserable and from what I can tell with the inventory screen, naked.  There are clothes, just seems he’s not wearing them.  He was described earlier as the Bookkeeper, wasn’t listed as such when I took over.  He isn’t now, either; Grimmash is also an apostle but still does menial labor when he’s not praying but Uvash refuses to stay listed as a Noble bookkeeper.  Maybe that’s what the “abdict from normal labor” means.  He’s praying for booze and food but so far, those haven’t been answered.  He doesn’t have an accessible anteroom for supplies so we may build him one and let him mine his way to it – other option is a chute to drop stuff in.  He’s not wearing clothes and miserable, maybe if drafted he’d put on some (non-degrading) armor.

You may have staved off destruction then jimboo. Great job!

I’d like to take the credit but Grimmash set up the fish farms that were our salvation and probably every previous Overseer planted those 511 farm plots – all I’ve done so far is build a few kitchens and fish processors along with a lot of micro-managing, switching labors from the half-dozen or so at a time workers who weren’t tantruming (that was a lot of clicking) in order to get anything done.

Meph: the prison is a good idea, could keep things from getting out of hand again. 

Did the giants leave?  If so, and you can find the dwarves to do it, you could build another atom smasher bridge setup to try and thin out the beak men in case another caravan somehow shows up.  But if you make it to summer, you will be rolling in food from all the farms.

As others have said, the walls will not burn.  It is worth noting that when I put in the catapults, I carved fortifications into the walls in front of them in order to shoot.  That will work anywhere on the walls, but if enemies get within sight range, the civilians will get spooked.

Am I still alive?

Yeah, you’re still alive and praying your backside off.  The Giants are still there, along with their new friends, the beak wolves.  I saw the fortifications; the Cyclops standing next to them outside playing peek-a-boo was what had our militia babbling and quivering in place.  When decommissioned, they finally moved away.  Maybe we can move those catapults to a second level some day. 

The good news:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

We found gold!  Next step is to make it into coins but we’ve only 20 logs for fuel (along with several hundred planks; can they be used?).  I’m not a big fan of workshop repeat orders or auto-other, took that off early spring but we don’t have much fuel.  Igneous layers with some surface sand, there may be coal or anthracite but, not yet.  We could pound ‘em with a cold forge but that’s wasteful and we need 10,000 coins.  There should be a magma pipe somewhere but we have that Bloody Gem.  Or rather, we have access to it – it’s exposed in the bare (What is up with that?  No moss?) cavern on the other side of the blocking bridge.

Anyway, the RL holidays are over and I’m back at my own desk so, perhaps inspiration will strike today. 

[pi_Age]

So if your reading this and interested, let me know.

  Me me, choose me!

I'll roleplay a mad overseer in this ship of insanity.

There should be a magma pipe somewhere but we have that Bloody Gem.  Or rather, we have access to it – it’s exposed in the bare (What is up with that?  No moss?) cavern on the other side of the blocking bridge.

How many z levels is this from the surface? Can't you quickly mine your way to it?

[jimboo]

1st Galena, late summer:
Kubok Shor died of thirst.  We have buckets, I don’t understand.  (And two idlers, who don’t want to do anything but idle.)  Now our only miserable dwarf is the Vampire; even the baby got over the fact that his parents and siblings are gone.  Nineteen dwarves including four infants and children.  At least that eliminates any FPS concerns.  A small population, everyone is quartered in a bedroom with door, cabinet and coffer and that may be helping the mood.

6th Galena.
Hey, our booze stocks are up to double digits!  I think we’ll survive the year.  Plump helmets are not popping as expected but there’s one every now and again.  Our best farmer – Dugan, level four – is doing nothing but planting strawberry seeds.  Slowly.  It’s a shame he’s also a level 7 cook and the only one past novice in that skill but the plant stack size is more important so planting is his only labor for now.  Pig tails when available will now be loomed into cloth, hopefully preventing any more bleed outs in the hospital.  The masons are building grates for a Crematorium: wood is too precious for ash/potash and we have a few body parts around.  And many crawfish shells, too bad they aren’t useful for anything but studding leather (right?).  The catfish don’t seem to leave any bones behind. 

 14th Galena.
The Giants, Cyclops, Beak Wolves and Eldjotun got bored and walked off.  Less than a day later,

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

41 Orcs and Giant Drowspiders, some of the orcs are elite bowmen.  For a day, I was thinking we might have a caravan this year … but 41 is better than 73 and maybe we can summon the Legion.

21st Galena.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Second wave of Orcs arrived, with bats.  62 now outside the walls.  So much for the Human caravan.  Bats can ignore the outer walls so I’m putting floor hatches on the 16 (!) stairs leading down from the surface.  One or two marksdwarves likely would make no difference.

2nd Limestone, early Autumn.
Nish the Mason has been taken by a mood.  Fourth one, EVERY ONE has been a possession.  Such has been the luck of Silvergoos.

Backpedaling, playing catch up:
A typical Silvergoos dwarf:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I’m not sure I’d tell the therapist my mood was fine if my skull was fractured.  Doc Nish is doing the best he can but has been tied up with some possession artifact for a month.  I fear we may lose him: gems, cloth and metal bars we have, he’s hung on “Tree of Life.”  Doctors.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Blooshot eyes?  Diseases are off, aren’t they?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Didn’t even see this one coming.


Autumn.  Wow, the year is winding down and there’s not much crossed off the To Do list …

[Grimmash]

At least the fort is refusing to die.  Assuming the lowered population stabilizes...  for the 4th time?  5th time now? How many tantrum spirals have we made it through?  I mean, those crops will come up, and the fishponds alone should be enough for how few dwarves there are.  The real challenge will be rebuilding the population with all the sieges.

One option could be digging out a moat around the edge of the map, say 5 or 10 tiles in.  We could dig out the underground portions so that caves ins would make fast work of it when a break comes in sieges.  Then we could build trader tunnels, with airlocks, to try and get migrants and caravans into the fort from the edges.  May take a few years at the rate we are keeping dwarves.

Fun fact:  By my count, 150 dwarves have lived in Silvergoose.  That was the count when I started, plus my one migrant wave.  I don't think Jimboo has had any migrants.  19 remain.  We have an 87% mortality rate going!

   

[mensrea]

Pi_age, I am signing you up as overseer and you will go after jimboo is done. Good luck!

Also, in regards to the diseases, yes, I did disable them. However, they are likely culprit to the same reversal that everything else suffered, on account of the launcher malfunction. Happy days! At the least though it sounds like that dwarf has either high blood pressure or rosacea(?). Given the reversal malfunction, I suspect the cult of the carp god and other terrible monstrosities could be lurking in our midst as well. At least if we get the cult you can shut the cult leader outside. He should be able to take on some invaders.

Also, sorry about the 16 stairways. I typically design my forts with a very large central staircase in the center of the map. Minimizes pathfinding lag because dwarves don't have to negotiate with each other to go up or down. I guess in this situation pathfinding lag is probably the very least of the forts woes.

[jimboo]

Skipping ahead a bit to mid-Winter, our Vampire Apostle is now running around and babbling.  He refuses all labors.  And clothes, apparently.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Wiki says vampire insanity comes from outliving relationships but ours has only relations that did not come to the fortress with him.  He is not cursed.  He hasn’t eaten or slept in a year but isn’t listed as even thirsty.  The only things he likes we could possible provide are fishing supplies.

What can be done for him? 

[mensrea]

Skipping ahead a bit to mid-Winter, our Vampire Apostle is now running around and babbling.  He refuses all labors.  And clothes, apparently.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Wiki says vampire insanity comes from outliving relationships but ours has only relations that did not come to the fortress with him.  He is not cursed.  He hasn’t eaten or slept in a year but isn’t listed as even thirsty.  The only things he likes we could possible provide are fishing supplies.

What can be done for him?

I'm afraid that once you go batshit crazy there is no coming back...just leave him where he is and maybe he'll snap out of it someday?

[Meph]

You cant undo mental damage in DF. Once babbling, babbing till die of thirst. Vampire will babble forever. Keep him as a mascot.

[jimboo]

Well, if he babbles forever then we're still an immortal fortress.  I tell ya, that first month I was really tempted to pick four or five of the more stable dorfs and take some seeds and picks to a hasty bunker.  But the 18 (!) dwarves are content/happy/ecstatic (excepting the miserable, babbling Vampire) and no one is hungry or thirsty.  Pi_Age will get his turn.   

[Jerbot]

Meph's mascot idea is great. And vampy is the perfect mascot. Undying, but batshitcrazy. Just like Silvergoos.