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[NRDL]

Heh, the hermit fort I built was ruined when an angry ghost ripped my hermit's leg off.

To be on the safe side, prepare slabs.  Especially if a lot of people died angry and violently. 

[NRDL]

Also, little question, I'm starting up a surface fort, how do I:

make a roof?

Farm aboveground ( I guess I know how to do it, but what should I plant? )

best construct a militia? 

Any tips? 

[Enigma]

Also, little question, I'm starting up a surface fort, how do I:

make a roof?

Farm aboveground ( I guess I know how to do it, but what should I plant? )

best construct a militia? 

Any tips?

To make a roof, just build a floor on top of the walls of your top floor. To farm aboveground, harvest plants (gathering, rather) for seeds and grow strawberries, strawberries seem the best. Can make strawberry wine out of them, or eat them raw, or cook 'em. For the militia, I would first off build a wall, maybe a moat too, and otherwise train the militia the same, perhaps more marksdwarves than usual. You'll probably have to rely on the army more than in a normal fortress though, cause when the gobbos get flying mounts you aren't going to stop them with a wall, unless you make your above ground fortress inside a huge building (which, by the way, would be the dwarfy thing to do).

[Broseph Stalin]

Also, little question, I'm starting up a surface fort, how do I:

make a roof?

Farm aboveground ( I guess I know how to do it, but what should I plant? )

best construct a militia? 

Any tips?

To roof your fort you need a stairwell that leads to the top of the perimeter wall. Just build a floor over every open space.

If you want symmetrical plots dig a hole in your roof with the same dimensions the plot will be and designate every square above a non-farmable square as a pond, your dwarves will throw water on it and make it muddy so you can make nice even farm plots. You should gather plants to get your seeds and then focus on fisher/prickle/straw berries for food and booze and rope reed for cloth.

Above ground militia is no different than below ground militia, designate the squads to wear full armor and carry an individual melee weapon or crossbows (no mixing) they'll pick up the weapon they're best at and go kick ass when you tell them to. If you can build an area with traps and dogs to station your guys in then open the doors for the enemy, that way your whole squad is fighting instead of the two guys who outran everyone else.

[Enigma]

Crap, I forgot to consider that migrants will be related to my fortress dwellers, and they won't appreciate their children and siblings starving and going berserk above them... gonna have to scrap this one if the tantrums continue.

[shadenight123]

Crap, I forgot to consider that migrants will be related to my fortress dwellers, and they won't appreciate their children and siblings starving and going berserk above them... gonna have to scrap this one if the tantrums continue.

i realized that the day a siege came and i holed myself in.
migrant wave came.
...the legendary axelord didn't take it well to see his pops and his momma torn apart by a goblin lasher.

Toady has unleashed upon us a dreaded thing: "No more can you shun away migrants!"

[AWdeV]

So, pop-quiz:

What unarmoured fleshy beast can resist the poison of a GCS?

a) a roc.
b) a dwarf.
c) a giant hedgehog.

If you answered d) not a damn thing, then by gum you've won the prize!

I'd edited the pet_exotic tags for subterranean critters and a war giant cave spider showed up in a migration wave. I also had some cave crocs, some rats and some bats. All war. Then a roc showed up. It harassed some dwarfs, forcing me to pause a building project (a kill-tower), fought a pet giant bat, got webbed, got poisoned and what followed was 80-odd pages of beating, kicking and pushing (marksdwarfs sans crossbows/bolts), biting (spider, giant rats/bats, war cave croc), shooting (marksdwarves), and lots and lots of webbing. It overcame its paralysis at least once but by that time it was already unconcious, over-exerted and nauseous.

I eventually formed a small second militia squad and armed them with the two bought steel shortswords and a black bronze morningstar to speed up its demise. That helped.

My food stocks grew by 101 roc tallow and, specifically, my meat stock grew from 50 to 908 (!).

Now to set my 7-year old legendary bone carver to work on its skull and bones and I'll have one goddamn swanky totem and some classy giant bolts.


Tame GCS now web and poison as they should, btw. Hella sweet. I hope the pet bat survives. It's pale, missing a paw, has a fractured stomach and other such cheeriness.

[Akura]

It seems my fort can confidently fight off nearly any reasonable threat. I've got a brook, as well as dolomite, sand, kaolinite, and coal aplenty. Massive amounts of wood and clay can be imported relatively easily. I haven't even touched the caverns yet, so there's no telling what riches can be found there.

It's Project Time! I'm thinking of building a blitzball stadium, using clear glass blocks for the sphere pool, dolomite for the stands and general structure, and maybe porcelain for decorations like statues. And then I could pit goblins against elves or something, and see who drowns first blitzes better.

Bah, the moment I say this, a goblin siege shows up lead by their leader: a Skinless Fiend Administrator with deadly dust. The dust itself doesn't seem to have any particular disease, but it was shot out at both extreme cold and extreme hot temperatures. Half my crossbow squad died from bleeding and severe full-body blistering, along with 9 of a cheap recruit squad. None of the other dwarves exposed to the dust have shown any other symptoms, except two or three messages about "Urist cancels job: Unconscious", but that might have been them being injured.

The rest of the siege was pretty much easy, due to the large number of cage traps automated blitzball recruiting kiosks I placed down just before the siege. Still had to start an expansion of the public mausoleum, though.

[Broseph Stalin]

Ambushed an elf caravan, killed their animals, siezed their wares, murdered the man, captured the woman and tied her up in the dining hall. She's gone stark raving mad and has begun to do a strip show for the dwarves.

It's absurd how hilariously depraved this game is.

[bluefox]

Lighttunnels has fallen.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

After a less-than-ideal start in which the starting seven were trapped on a mountainside with no supplies, they were saved by the contents of a trading caravan. They scraped together enough wood and bone crafts to trade for a couple of picks, and set to work mining out a new mountainhome.

Thier hardship did not discourage migrants; over twenty souls decided to join the group at Lighttunnels. Little did anyone know that this would contribute to the downfall of the fortress.

The first problem that assailed the fort was wolverines. Prone to attack at the slightest provocation, their first victims were two dwarves scrounging in the hardscrabble surface farms for strawberries. The military, The Mountainous Chapels, tried to mount a defense, but with no forges and (probably more importantly) no ore discovered, they were stuck trying to fend off the creatures with little more than training spears. The wolverines tore them asunder.

Ber, the defacto mayor, called everyone inside the rough-cut mountain and sealed the entrance with a raised bridge. Anyone who wanted inside would have to knock.

But it wasn't long before bodies began to pile up, drained of blood. Fingers were pointed every which way, and so it was not until the fifth feeding that the identity of the vampire was discovered. As per the rituals of the dwarves, it was decided that the vampire would be exiled.

The wolverines had long since left, but they had been replaced by something even more terrifying: a cyclops. The vampire was given a wooden spear to make things more "sporting." The cyclops tore the spear from the vampire's hands and instructed him on the proper use of such a weapon. The vampire did not survive the demonstration.

But the vampire had planned even for this eventuality. Using his wiles, he had made friends with well over half the fortress population. Some dwarves went mad with grief, throwing chairs and generally causing a ruckus.

Meanwhile, more migrants came, but the Cyclops made sport of them. The dwarves inside the fort did their best to make a home for themselves, but the death cries outside and the spiral of destruction inside was untenable. Eventually, copper was found, smelted, and new weapons were forged. There were doubts as to whether or not it was going to be enough, but it was either fight for dominance of the surface or crumble from within.

To that end, everyone was given a spear, a copper breastplate and helmet, and drafted into the military. Three greenhorn squads rushed out to meet the cyclops and give him what-for.

In the end, it came down to timing. No sooner had the cyclops been vanquished (with heavy losses, sad to say) than a small party of goblins sprung their ambush. Exhausted from their battle with the cyclops, the last of the dwarves were slaughtered easily.

In the end, I think my mistake was making lavish meals to increase happiness. They also increased the value of my fortress, which called the attention of a titan and the nearby goblin tower.

Now to start up a new fortress in the new version. The name it gives me is ... Crazedcities.

This should be fun.

[vjek]

New embark,everything proceeding according to plan until I try to chop down trees.
Nope, they won't do it.  Give them the labor, nope.  Make them new axes, nope.  redefine a new burrow, nope.  Grow trees underground, nope. 

Wait until caravan comes, buy logs.  They're happy to haul the logs, make them into beds.  But no way no how will they chop down trees.  They're definitely dwarves, not elves.  I'm at a complete loss.  I guess I'm going to have to trade to get all my wood, despite embarking in a broadleaf forest.

I can designate them, they highlight, but they just won't do it.  Three new waves of migrants now, and they're all the same.  Mining, sure. carpentry, sure. metal working yep, everything else works, even planting, plant processing, weaving, clothesmaking.  No chopping down trees.

[ZzarkLinux]

The Great Rabbit-Hut
Founded by The Bronze Grains

01) The Embark - What happened??
02) A Fresh Start Means Crossing your Fingers
03) It almost feels like cheating, and like Yak Management
04) Our only skeleton is an Industry Framework
05) Summer arrives
06) Live a nobody, Die a nobo... massacre
07) Summer's end barbeque
08) Autumn - Watch for Falling Undead

I notice that one of the undead dwarves is roaming on the roof of my bunker.
Ruby's corpse is isolated up there (everything else is around the map edge).
If I want to keep the surface under control, now might be a good time to bring her down.

Check Military's thoughts.
Two are ecstatic and one is happy.
Green light.

The fight spills down my entrance ramp into the livestock courtyard.
But the wrestlers overcome the corpse with no injuries.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Taking Ruby's dead body to the dump goes well.
She does get stuck in the chute for a little bit, but the hatch eventually works.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

There are Giant Wrens (alive) outside.
They are now approaching the central entrance hatch.
I guess my team timed the corpse-napping perfectly.

Sweet
Bessy from the old migrant wave is still alive.
Since I opened the Hatch, she is now wandering towards my fort and meeting hall.

She wants to donate her meat to our cause!
! Blessed Bessy !

The first undead has risen in our garbage compactor.
Ruby's corpse is risen and now cristens our garbage collection with undeath.
The Reindeer Skin from earlier is no longer shy, and it too eventually rises.
Finally. I can't wait to pit live things down there.

A fresh bunny is born !
Good that it's only one, cause that pet alpaca is starting to destroy my delicate pasture,
and I need to keep my animal count low.

Hmm, DF won't let me toss the grass-devourer pet into a pit.
Guess I'll eventually just turn it lose on the topsoil and let nature take its course...

Time for cow meat.
Military is one content, one happy, one ecstatic.
So I cover my bases and make bedrooms for the girls who dutifully serve.
They've earned it.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Assemble the burrows and laborers and cow for tactical tasty extraction.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Note on burrows:
To haul meat, even if you have burrowed a food stockpile, dwarves will still
prefer your first food stockpile/barrels, and cancel the hauling task.
Even if you have burrowed another food stockpile...

The cow hair rises, and the fight goes very easy.
Every single punch from my militia severed one of the limbs of the cow-hair
Toady must have changed something, Hair is much less durable, and none of my attacks passed-through the target.
Now there are Hair pieces refuse everywhere on the floor.
To the dump/undead pasture with you !

So now I go to check outside.
Hmm, it seems I do get rain after all.
It only appears in the southeast biome, but it's still there.

Oh God No !

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Dwarf Migrants have Arrived

So did these

[Greiger]

The anti vampire dorms are a great success.  One taken down wall between a dormintory and a meeting hall, a few green glass windows and the sacrifice of one useless farmer and I got to enjoy the amusing sight of the entire meeting hall draining out and piling into the captain of the guard's bedroom while he slept.  21 witnesses, and I don't even think they all finished reporting yet.

Maybe my sword modded executioner will use that shiny alpaca bone greatsword...

EDIT: I just happened across a second vampire.  Same place, this time my mayor.  He says he's conducting a meeting...

[MenacesWithSpikes]

Anvilring has been shelved for now.  I may take it off the shelf after a while to try out things like "Forgotten Beast extract-induced tantrum spiral," or simply to test out how to deal with syndromes after they've gotten all over your fort.  I might also use it to try out a reclaim or visit there in adventurer mode and grab armfuls of masterwork/artifact weapons.

Hence the new 34.07 fortress, "Trapdeath the Screams of Artifice," has been born.  It's settled between a couple of tropical biomes (savanna? grassland? shrubland? something like that).  There's a stream, and my fisherdwarf brings in mussels frequently.  My dwarves have trapped and have been training wild boars (ivory!), gray langurs, and giant horned owls.  "General familiarity" in all three at this point, I think.  I got a kakapo (a kind of parrot) from the elves, so plenty of interesting eggs for omelettes.  (Currently:  duck eggs, blue peafowl eggs, turkey eggs, goose eggs, chicken eggs, guineahen eggs, kakapo eggs, and giant horned owl eggs. I need more.)

I'm hoping to acquire a breeding pair of kangaroos and a pair of dingoes.  (Why are kangaroos milkable?  They're marsupials... I mean, they don't have proper udders, do they?)  Every now and then, a kingsnake, a mamba, or some other snake slithers around the zone, so I'm hoping to try breeding some sort of snake as well.

I have exactly one dedicated hunter and one dedicated fisherdwarf (and I turn off those labors in additional migrants), so I'm hoping I won't deplete the zone of wildlife too quickly.

As per the fortress name, I'm hoping to come up with more traps, more exotic and complicated traps, and of course more terrifying traps.  Being able to quarantine parts of the fortress from each other (particularly the caverns and the medical section) will hopefully be an intrinsic part of this fortress design.

In terms of minerals, this zone has a good selection.  Tons and tons of limestone.  Magnetite for iron.  Malachite for copper.  Also galena for lead, and a little bit of platinum.  I'm annoyed by the apparent absence of sand in this biome; gotta have green glass serrated glass discs.  In large numbers.  Not sure what the caverns have yet.  Once I have more squads in full steel armor, I'll go exploring.

The elves brought me sun berry seeds, but I can't plant them yet due to a bug.  I think if I buy the sun berry alcohol next time the elven traders show up, or some sun berries, I might be able to plant the seeds.  (I now wonder:  is there any civilization in a non-modded game that would bring in silver barbs to trade?)

No sieges yet.  Just kobolds and some goblin thieves, and one ambush.  The majority of my migrants have military skills, usually at Competent.  I don't think I've gotten a single miner as a migrant yet.  Weird.

[NRDL]

Made a new fort, last one failed, this time the fort was intended to be a normal fort, underground, everything, except that my only goal was to reach adamantine.  Nothing less.

So I set basic farming, some workshops, stockpiles, beds, etc, then I had my two minders dig straight down.  Hit a few caverns, worked my way around them, until I heard the "praise the miners" message.  I had my miner work his or her way over there...only to get killed by a troglodyte.   

No biggie right?  Well, the troggs and the crundles kept walking up the stairway to the center of the Earth that I had built.  I built a ramshackle militia, no weapons, just fists, and by working 3 against 1, I think they actually managed to kill a trogg. 

Then I accidentally shut down my computer.  The save reverted to the point where I had barely started digging. 

Ah well.