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Author Topic: What's going on in your fort?  (Read 6188928 times)

KingBacon

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Re: What's going on in your fort?
« Reply #32250 on: January 17, 2014, 06:51:56 pm »

Kobold ambush, spring year 2... I haven't had this much fun in a while.

And by fun, I mean incompetence mixed with misfortune mixed with excess children (gonna make them buggers do some hauling.)
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peridot

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Re: What's going on in your fort?
« Reply #32251 on: January 17, 2014, 08:33:58 pm »

I like to think there are dark rumours circulating among the neigbouring civilizations. "Do not attack Chantwall. Seriously. You will regret it."

Things were running pretty smoothly, I had brought a few cartloads of magma up to power smelters forges and (especially!) glass furnaces, marble plus goblinite was keeping my steel industry fed, I had a couple of squads of legendary soldiers. I had started a wildlife collection program, posting cage traps at chokepoints on the ground and in the caverns. This had the side effect of causing ambushes to bog down and camp outside, but my legendary dwarves would happily go out and massacre the non-trapped goblins. No really interesting wildlife, apart from a couple of dragons I am repeatedly training in hopes of teaching my civilization more about dragon taming. But things were going pretty smoothly, apart from a somewhat low FPS. So I thought it would be a good time to open up a candy spire.

I took a cautious approach: I dug out a welcoming chamber above the top of the spire, with a piece of floor suspended from a support above its roof. I handed my bravest cheesemaker a pick and told him to dig down, then locked the hatch after him. Soon enough, terrible screams from below. Perfect, just wait for them all to join the party, then pull the lever.

I'm still not quite sure what happened, but they got through that locked hatch. Now, I'm a suspenders-and-belt kind of girl, so I had my military stationed above the welcoming chamber, and another lockable hatch above that. The military gave a pretty decent showing, considering that they were on fire, but I was left with a mob of clowns milling around in what I thought was safe space.

Okay, next attempt: clowns versus zombies. Set up a necromancer behind a window and fortifications, set up a mass pit on the roof, and opened the hatch to the clowns. Now, okay, I did forget necromancers (even behind glass) scare dwarves, so I couldn't get the bridge to shut off the necromancer's view properly hooked up. But the setup basically worked: I could shovel in captives and have them raised as zombies.

Which is why I think there might be rumours about Chantwall. If you attack us, you will probably end up in a cage, where we will toss you into a pit full of clowns. Who will kill you, but the necromancers will raise you from the dead to fight them again, and again, and again.

Unfortunately, this turns out not to be a very effective way of fighting clowns. Living enemies can wield weapons, but they also fight the zombies rather than the clowns. Once zombified, goblins are nearly useless. A troll zombie will occasionally get in a decent hit on a clown, but they are quickly reduced to useless gibbets; the hands and head can be raised, but they never hit the clowns. In fact, they serve as excellent punching bags for clowns, so the clowns become very well-trained. Nevertheless, if you shovel in enough trolls you can occasionally kill a clown.

Two or three goblin ambushes later - they take a lot longer with a beginner military - I was down to a hard core of five or six clowns. But I now had a captive giant cave spider. Aha! Let's web some cages and trap them all. So I built a twisty little corridor full of cage traps, walled with fortifications, staked a couple of cats at one end, and pitted the giant cave spider behind a fortification at the other. And - nothing. I sent some dwarves in, and the spider got all excited, but still no webs. I still don't know why it didn't work. But this clearly wasn't going to get rid of my clowns.

Attempt, um, four? - was inspired by the fact that there's another way you can lose zombies out of the death pits. The clowns can fling zombies through fortifications. So the clowns were all clustered in a corner breathing fire at an already-on-fire zombie on the other side of a fortification. I dug out a room above them and a floor above that and dropped the floor. Splat! No more clowns.

Well, almost no more. Turns out when I let dwarves in to clean up, there was one more lurking two levels below. And unfortunately the zillion dwarves who rushed in were scared by the burning zombies, so they ran in circles instead of up the stairs. So the best I could do was shut the hatch and say goodbye. And since the circles they were running in were in full view of the necromancer, after the initial dwarves-versus-zombies infighting, they each got several chances to attack the clown. And, sure enough, they eventually took down the clown. Success at last!

Okay, kind of a Pyrrhic victory: Chantwall is down from about 100 dwarves to more like 25 very unhappy inhabitants. But I think things are simmering down, more or less. Unfortunately, the death pit is still inhabited by several burning zombies. They don't seem to actually move, and I've got rid of the necromancer, but they emit smoke, so my military dwarves won't go near them (and of course they scare my civilians). I'm hoping some marksdwarves can put them down, but so far they all seem to stand around gormlessly wondering why they don't have any ammunition. I've lost at least one dwarf to thirst because he was too afraid to leave the death pit.

Still, if I can keep things mostly together until a dwarven caravan comes in, I should soon find waves of immigrants eager to join us in this blood-soaked, vomit-stained utopia. Right? We've got a nice dining room!
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Lielac

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Re: What's going on in your fort?
« Reply #32252 on: January 17, 2014, 08:39:26 pm »

Laborfords
6th Moonstone, 203 (Year 3)



A werethingy... child. Wow. That's new.

8th Moonstone: It turned into a kobold child. Interesting...!
« Last Edit: January 17, 2014, 08:41:50 pm by Lielac »
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Lielac likes adamantine, magnetite, marble, the color olive green, battle axes, cats for their aloofness, dragons for their terrible majesty, women for their beauty, and the Oxford comma for its disambiguating properties. When possible, she prefers to consume pear cider and nectarines. She absolutely detests kobolds.

ImagoDeo

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Re: What's going on in your fort?
« Reply #32253 on: January 17, 2014, 09:00:10 pm »

Tragedy has struck Carnagemines.

In the recent goblin invasion, a poor tactical decision was made: in order to save the life of one of our less valuable hunters, three squads of our best dwarves were committed to combat... right in the line of fire of two whole squads of goblin crossbowmen. One of my original seven charged across the bridge to engage them in close combat, but dodged their volleys - right into the river.

And a lucky head shot, or something, took out my badass militia commander, who's been training the new recruits from his knees. Literally. He lost a foot and a leg against a giant tick a decade ago and still managed to reach legendary and massacre goblins. But now he's gone, too, killed by a lucky blow from a spear goblin.

The invasion has been routed... but we lost five or six dwarves total, and the loss is extremely disheartening.
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What would it be like to live in a world that was copy/pasted? Would we even notice? If not, how many times have we switched celestial harddrives or whatever?

VerdantSF

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Re: What's going on in your fort?
« Reply #32254 on: January 17, 2014, 09:29:32 pm »

Relicshield, pop. 163, Midwinter of 346 (Year 95)

Datan Dippedtowers, the dragonslayer who ushered in the Second Age of Legends, suffered a serious spinal cord injury 68 years ago.  Since that time, she has been unable to walk at all, unlike the few crutch-users in the fortress.  Rather than retire her completely, she was given command of the recruit squad.  Despite the inability to walk, her skill in imparting useful information through demonstrations has been renowned.  According to the newest recruits, she has even improvised KICKING demonstrations!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

A werethingy... child. Wow. That's new.

Never seen one either!
« Last Edit: January 17, 2014, 09:31:16 pm by VerdantSF »
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Lielac

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Re: What's going on in your fort?
« Reply #32255 on: January 17, 2014, 09:35:04 pm »

Laborfords
12th Slate, 204

I'm... actually really sad right now. Because of a bug. At least, I think it's not a feature.

The story: Nearly a year ago (28th Slate, 203) our first native dwarf was born. 2030228 died less than a month later (12th Felsite) in their mother's arms due to a conga line of hyenas. The infant was entombed (eventually), and the mother seemed fine... until I told everyone to get inside and stay there because of an ambush. Then Minkot began to hysterically look for her baby, incessantly spamming me with Infant inaccessible until I, coincidentally, built and closed a bridge locking away the outside world.

Minkot then went about her business until there was once more a path outside, at which point she began spamming away again. Finally I decided to turn off the burrow to see where she went...

And she went to her child's site of death, flashed ?, and is now idling in the meeting area without a care in the world. She just wanted to pay her respects...
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Lielac likes adamantine, magnetite, marble, the color olive green, battle axes, cats for their aloofness, dragons for their terrible majesty, women for their beauty, and the Oxford comma for its disambiguating properties. When possible, she prefers to consume pear cider and nectarines. She absolutely detests kobolds.

ZzarkLinux

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Re: What's going on in your fort?
« Reply #32256 on: January 17, 2014, 10:01:24 pm »

I thought that there was no life in cavern three. Still now I see a floating cave blob ooze, and also a feathered scorpion sits pinned near my pasture. Everything's going well, include hacking away at duck heads.  Some zombie skin went unnoticed, but the biggest harm was a malicious ghost that brained my axe lord's only daughter while she slept. The militia was stationed to guard the room, because the ghost and the corpse were still there. One of the brothers must have taken a dare, because he came to sleep in the bloody bed while the ghost and body were still there !!! I swear, kids these days.
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VerdantSF

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Re: What's going on in your fort?
« Reply #32257 on: January 17, 2014, 10:04:53 pm »

And she went to her child's site of death, flashed ?, and is now idling in the meeting area without a care in the world. She just wanted to pay her respects...

That's rather poignant.

One of the brothers must have taken a dare, because he came to sleep in the bloody bed while the ghost and body were still there !!! I swear, kids these days.

Yikes!

Lielac

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Re: What's going on in your fort?
« Reply #32258 on: January 17, 2014, 11:07:29 pm »

And she went to her child's site of death, flashed ?, and is now idling in the meeting area without a care in the world. She just wanted to pay her respects...

That's rather poignant.

I've confirmed via slab engravings that 2030228 was killed by the hyena later named Ritholtobul (which translates to Noblecanyon) who is 2030228's mother's only notable kill. Minkot is a (forcibly) retired hunter, which is why she was out in the first place, but I like the avenging aspect there.

As of 27th Moonstone, 204, I've made a memorial hall inside a magnetite cluster to commemorate all the notable deaths. (So... no goblins.)
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Lielac likes adamantine, magnetite, marble, the color olive green, battle axes, cats for their aloofness, dragons for their terrible majesty, women for their beauty, and the Oxford comma for its disambiguating properties. When possible, she prefers to consume pear cider and nectarines. She absolutely detests kobolds.

Larix

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Re: What's going on in your fort?
« Reply #32259 on: January 18, 2014, 01:29:26 am »

A round of heavy-duty exporting at the weaponmakers' fort - i'm producing all that shit for export, so there was really no point to keeping such huge stockpiles. Animal populations and food stocks also got out of control - we're slowly crawling towards a hundred beards, so over 1000 prepared food is not really called-for.

I gave binsfull of weapons and armour (and old socks) to the human and dwarf caravan, and gave out huge amounts of food as well. I've no idea what the profit rates were, but the dwarfs took away well over two million in goods this year. Notably, they hauled off 5700 units of prepared food and we had just under 3000 left. By the turn of the year, it's back up at 4000, because the caravan arrived in the middle of our culling of the pigs and all that pork and lard had to be cooked up.

After a few false starts, we finally managed to catch some wolves and coyotes and they've already started to breed; a good reason to phase out the pigs.

The encrustation party is still going on, by now there are ten large gems and crafts with a (decoration) value of over 100 000 ☼, and generally something like two pages solid (on fullscreen) of description. I'm regularly ordering cut gems from the dwarven caravan.
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WanderingKid

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Re: What's going on in your fort?
« Reply #32260 on: January 18, 2014, 02:24:38 am »

FurnaceClans, Circa Late August, 773.

Excerpt of a letter to the mountainhome, maintained yearly by Adrakon, our expidition leader, in lieu of being able to speak with the liason(s).

....

Our halls are lined with yet more slabs.  We don't have floors anymore, we walk on the names of the hundreds of dead that have attempted to migrate to us.  We've created an accessway for migrants to hopefully be able to dive into avoiding the minecart and magma trap we've built, but they can't reach us.  The undead are... confusing.  Half of them will charge into the trap blindly, the other half go halfway, and then loiter on the stairs.  Others, via the all seeing eye we were given before leaving, we see just standing around on the surface.  We cannot tell why they just stand there.  The scent of dwarf floats up through the tunnels, but they just won't enter.

Armok's madness continues to take its toll on our population.  Our lack of silk is making us desperate to possibly attempt the impossible... capture a flying beast of legend to collect its webs.  It's against all sanity, though.  Anything that we know how to build that would let it fire webs out is also escapable via a flyer, but that's the only one that's seiging us in the caverns with webbing.  The rest are just deadly to dwarves, but not deadly enough to the undead.  Were the concern goblins, or trolls, or even dragons perhaps we might find use for them.  As they are they simply howl around the walls and hatches we've built into the underground as we searched for the lifeblood of magma.

We've abandoned our hallowed maces for the more efficient crossbows for all of our people except our miners and lumberjacks.  They refuse to wear armor for some reason, complaining that it interferes with the work.  They won't even carry a quiver and crossbow when they pick up their tools.  Absolutely frustrating, but I'm not working with a lot of options here.  Just keeping everyone sane has been a horrible task.  The waterfalls and engravings and semi-private bedrooms help, as does the massive amount of booze and food we have stockpiled.  The urchins are well clothed by our weavers... well, now our weaver, I suppose.  Armok's madness took one of them from us as he howled for materials we just couldn't supply.  The undead keep them safe in the snows on the surface for us.

We've made a life here, beneath the tundra and snows.  Magma warms our halls as the heat pours up from the lower shafts.  We continue in Armok's work of obliterating those undead that we can.  We hope, soon, to create a passage for traders, but we've had that hope for 15 years now and we still can't get enough of the surface destroyed to risk it.  However, life will go on.  Even if we have to breed our own army and take the surface back by force, we will.  We have iron and ore.  Trees grow.  Food produces, and booze satisfies.  Life continues, in spite of the unholy landscape above filled with the corpses of the hopeful from the mountainhome.

But we have hope for the future, and that will entail....

<the page ends here, the next page is maddeningly blank>

peridot

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Re: What's going on in your fort?
« Reply #32261 on: January 18, 2014, 04:21:00 am »

Armok's madness continues to take its toll on our population.  Our lack of silk is making us desperate to possibly attempt the impossible... capture a flying beast of legend to collect its webs.  It's against all sanity, though.  Anything that we know how to build that would let it fire webs out is also escapable via a flyer, but that's the only one that's seiging us in the caverns with webbing.  The rest are just deadly to dwarves, but not deadly enough to the undead.  Were the concern goblins, or trolls, or even dragons perhaps we might find use for them.  As they are they simply howl around the walls and hatches we've built into the underground as we searched for the lifeblood of magma.

Flyers can't fly through fortifications, normally, any more than walkers can walk through them. Everything (including dwarves) can dodge or be thrown through them, though. And swimmers can pass through fortifications under 7/7 liquid. If you had your flyer captive, you could pit it through a locked floor hatch and it couldn't get back out. But of course, good luck making a web-shooting FB captive enough to lead around. You do know that, absent more exciting targets, it will move to two spaces away from an artifact piece of furniture then park there trying to destroy it. You can then close drawbridges in front of and behind it; let it shoot webs out of fortifications on one side. Another drawbridge outside the fortification should make web collection easier (and at least allow you to trap the beast if I'm wrong about fliers and fortifications - but I have a pit full of fliers and other enemies held in by fortifications, and they only escape while being shot at). You will of course need a roof over your head to make this work, but that also lets you use floor hatches for easy FB-proof access.
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VerdantSF

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Re: What's going on in your fort?
« Reply #32262 on: January 18, 2014, 12:58:16 pm »

Relicshield, pop. 162, Mid-Autumn of 347 (Year 96)

One of the youngest soldiers of the fortress, Olin Channelflashes, went missing.  At fourteen years of age, he killed his first goblin during a siege in the Spring. Olin wasn't injured as far as anyone could tell.  The last known sighting of him was during a sparring match.  Though friends and family searched high and low, his corpse was never found.  Fearing the work of vampires or worse, the aid of a higher power (DFHack deathcause) was invoked.  It was revealed that young Olin had ventured too close to a drawbridge.  Despite clear warnings and guidelines regarding safe paths around them, he was crushed while one was in operation.

ZzarkLinux

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Re: What's going on in your fort?
« Reply #32263 on: January 18, 2014, 01:05:25 pm »

FurnaceClans, Circa Late August, 773.
...
Our halls are lined with yet more slabs.  We don't have floors anymore, we walk on the names of the hundreds of dead that have attempted to migrate to us.  We've created an accessway for migrants to hopefully be able to dive into avoiding the minecart and magma trap we've built, but they can't reach us.  The undead are... confusing.  Half of them will charge into the trap blindly, the other half go halfway, and then loiter on the stairs.  Others, via the all seeing eye we were given before leaving, we see just standing around on the surface.  We cannot tell why they just stand there.  The scent of dwarf floats up through the tunnels, but they just won't enter.

What's your current population of adult/children/deceased?
I'd like to do an evaluation of my fort, and I've heard that migrants will stop coming at some point but I'm not sure.

EDIT: Since I posted a question, might as well post an update. My only cavy died of age, and later took out two rabbits and a duck. It's all under control though, because zombie ducks and zombie guineas only cause bruises. I'm going to stuff them all in with the zombie daughter, because I don't have time to make 1-to-1 containment chambers.
« Last Edit: January 18, 2014, 01:26:13 pm by ZzarkLinux »
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WanderingKid

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Re: What's going on in your fort?
« Reply #32264 on: January 18, 2014, 02:05:20 pm »

@peridot: Swimmers, that was it.  Trying to plan out forms of capture at 2 in the morning is apparently not my best plan. :)  I usually double fortify my magma punches.  For some reason my brain hooked in on fliers doing the same thing.  Thanks.

@ZzarkLinux: Um, 13 adults, 14 children, 2500+ dead that I've already done a clean-dead on so the #'s are down to 600 or so significants.  Watch out for bad thoughts from being attacked by the undead though.  Those thoughts are more dangerous in the long run than any wounds your dwarves might suffer.

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