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[vjek]

Megafortress construction has ground to a halt, as it turns out my expedition leader inherited the throne. It turns out her father the King died in battle against the Green Menace, and she ascended to the throne. This is all well and good, but my outpost had less than 20 dwarves in it, and the small room and office I'd already assigned her, while lavish for an expedition leader, are woefully inadequate for her royal personage. This must be rectified before I can do anything else, as she is my militia crossbow commander as well.

Yep, this is a consequence of a bunch of bad things, and will be more common than not, in 40.x, until the root of the problem is rectified.

Monarchs without their supporting infrastructure, coupled with ridiculous demands and mandates typically means forts that enjoy this feature suffer this consequence are doomed, as the monarch invariably either starts killing off subjects, and/or causes a tantrum spiral.

It's bad enough that, for myself, I no longer embark from dead civs, or mixed race civs.  If there's not 200+ dwarves only in a mountainhome, I regen the world and try again.  That's the only way to be sure you won't suffer from premature monarchulation.

[Baffler]

I've actually managed to keep her highness happy, I was able to give her the royal stuff she needed using sheer surface area before I get a proper Royal Suite carved out. Plus she mandates crossbows and cut gems, which I produce anyway.

I'm also a dumbass, and forgot to put any kind of gate or other defenses to control access to the fortress. When the goblins arrived, the only reason we didn't all die was a quickly erected bowyer's workshop to serve as a barricade, and enough of a volley from the militia crossbows behind it to drive them off. There were no injuries on either side.

[Lemunde]

Well I started a new fort in .40.07 and had a little too much !!FUN!! after my first year. Everything was going well until a weremonkey decided to show up right on my door step. It probably wouldn't have been a big deal if I actually had a door there. Then I'd just lock it and wait for his condition to wear off so he would go away. But as usual I had other priorities.

My only recourse was to throw together a quick militia made up of my three miners and woodcutter. They were no match for the weremonkey. All but one miner survived from that group and the weremonkey tore through about half of my other dwarves before he changed back into a... fish man thing. One of my other dwarves managed to punch him to death but not before a tantrum spiral ensued and I was tempted to just abandon the fortress and start over.

But I had already put a lot of work into creating an above ground farming area with high walls around it and a good deal of my fortress was already mined out so I wasn't ready to throw in the towel just yet. Around 15 dwarves were dead before all was said and done but luckily I started getting in some migrant waves to replace them and I was able to entomb the dead before they became too much of a problem.

A year later and I have traded off all of the clothing that was left over from the tantrum spiral, I have a hospital set up and most of my injured dwarves are well on their way to recovery and I have a nice set of traps set up for any more uninvited guests that happen to wander into my fortress. Walls are getting smoothed, crafts are getting made and the booze flows freely. My dwarves have seen hard times already but they are determined to persevere!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[martinuzz]

All but one miner survived from that group and the weremonkey tore through about half of my other dwarves before he changed back into a... fish man thing. r]

A fish turning into a monkey overnight. Wow. Darwin would have been so proud.

[RagingDragon]

So I'm no expert, matter of fact this is the first fort I've even gotten a working metal industry going, but I'm really missing the constant kobold thieves, ambushes, and larger assaults that made pre-.40 so challenging.

On one hand, this new easier take on things has allowed me to finally explore many of the aspects I haven't been able to in past forts, like soap and cloth making and many of the other industries, as well as advanced mining and military, so that's pretty cool.

But I hope Toady really brings the difficulty back up, because just surviving in the older versions felt like such a great accomplishment. The world felt full of danger, and now it feels just kind of empty.

I think, if it were possible, this shows how great a sort of difficulty setting or something would be. Even though the embark location kind of has an implied difficulty, maybe just a small setting that showed you the possible threats or the frequency of attacks in an area.

I would love to return to the old amount of !fun! Anyone else experiencing this, or do you just embark in hostile environments to compensate?

[Graknorke]

Well I think a lot of it might just be because civs won't always be at war at everything at the same time.

[Robsoie]

Finally ! i didn't saw a goblin army since 0.40.01 !


Well, so much for an "army", but at least they came.

My fortress is ready for them, 2 entrances, both controlled by a bridge i can raise at any time, doubled wooden walls all over the place and on top fortifications all around.

I wait for them to come and climb my walls.
And i wait, and i wait and ... oh well, so much for a siege, they're not coming.
So i do what i always done in past version, i intentionally lower my defense, let's drop the bridge.



I station my marksdwarves on top of my walls, behind their fortifications


Ok, now with the bridge open and the big "it's open" sign, the goblins are finally coming, it reminds me a lot of pre-DF2014 when sieges were no challenge unless you sabotaged intentionally your defenses
I already avoided to make a moat as i guessed goblins wouldn't even try to swim and there was no moat filling tactic possible for the AI in DF2014 anyways


I order the raising of the bridge, when the goblins are in range, here the 1st bolt fly and miss target :


The bridge close my entrance just in time and i'm preparing for the enemy climbing the walls to get to my marksdwarves reloading ...

... but the goblins all run away in terror and exit the map.

Well, it was rather underwhelming, but it was only the 1st siege i got on that fort, so maybe it will get better soon , without intentionally opening my defenses i hope.
But at least goblins really can come in 40.08

[Torrenal]

Trying to cope with the third attack on my fortress...

The second attack was so weak, you could have scaled it up 10 fold and it'd still have died on my traps.

The third attack.... yeah, not so much.  60 undead + ~5 necromancers + uncounted ambushes, and it hit me before I'd upgraded my entrance traps to what I'd expect to be nigh fun-proof.

I'm learning much about dealing with bulk undead, as I've not previously met them in any prior version, and 'learning' includes 'fun' and a fair bit of save scumming.

1) Holes in the roof of the fortress need plugging early.
2) 10 nigh legendary swordsmen vs 60 undead?  They each do great, hacking off limbs and bits on all sides... until they leave their martial trance, and are too overwhelmed to attack.
3) Balista operators arn't too keen at undead within something like 15 units.
4) Blocking vision so that balliasta operators can man equipment, then opening field of view and asking the operators to immedately fire?  Not so successful.
5) Trying the same peek-a-boo operation with green marksmen?  Not any better.  "Zomg, 20 zombies on the far side of a fortification, and we can't path to each other.  Crossbow.  Check. Bolts.  Check.  Run away!!!"

Unfortunately, I can't upgrade the traps while besieged, all my traps are outside my locking doors.

I don't think I'll see any glorious combat from this siege.  Not with my fortress surviving.

I've still got plans X, Y, and Z to try... 

//Torrenal

[Urist McShire]

Basically just started a new fort in the current version of DF:2014. Started at a volcano in a dry tropical biome with a stream and heavy forestation. Got lots of wood and lots of clay so I can make a lot of ash and pottery, but not a whole lot of sand so that will put a dampener on any future glass industry of mine.

However, my fort is suffering from two problems now. 'Tis about mid-autumn of the second year, I've survived an ambush in the spring by sneaky tree-hugging hippies with my only loss being my one yak cow, and now I'm currently under siege by goblins who want in on the currently wood and stone-based wealth of my fortress that isn't even big enough to be worth noticing. I haven't gotten a single migrant wave yet. Getting close to three years at the fortress and the only new arrivals to the fort's population have been a yak calf and ten poults.

I'm self-sustaining enough to survive the siege since I've sealed myself up inside the earth, but even if I start reallocating labour to smelt down the ores I've found and start hammering out weapons and armour I highly doubt that seven untrained dwarves are going to beat back the goblin siege. Just have to wait it out and pray that when they get bored and pack up that I'll get some fresh blood coming in from the mountainhome.

[fourpotatoes]

After a long drought, the goblins have finally returned to Whiskeranvils. A small "siege", just one squad, appeared in the southwest corner and strolled lazily across the map, stopping to look at the flowers and watch the keas & eagles fly. My patience was wearing thin, but eventually some of them reached an outdoor pen and stopped to look at someone's pet cavy that I pastured there as bait.

That was when eight war miners led by my bookkeeper, six swordsdwarves, seven axedwarves and thirteen marksdwarves surged from ambush and beheaded them.

The Senior Soldier (M) punches The Goblin Axeman in the left eye with his right hand and the injured part explodes into gore!
Minaro Ayitimemica, Goblin Axeman: Death is all around us. This is truly horrifying.

(Yes, that goblin had an elf name.)

For some reason the goblins left their fire support (and a hammergob to protect them) too far away to be of use, although they were close enough to experience mortal terror as they watched their friends' heads being asploded. I sent my soldiers to dislodge them, and w6 Udib Limulrulush, a recent recruit, was the first to reach them. She disarmed Ago Ngosoxeso the hammergob:

The Goblin Hammerman strikes at The Wrestler but the shot is easily deflected by the -steel pick-!
The Goblin Hammerman loses hold of the ({troll fur left glove}).
The Goblin Hammerman loses hold of the ({iron maul}).
The Wrestler strikes at The Goblin Hammerman in the left upper arm with her -steel pick- and the severed part sails off in an arc!

and proceeded to kick & bite the goblin before switching back to her pick, at which point she disemboweled her victim & sliced open her neck. When the goblin fell to the ground, Udib finally cut off her head. My soldiers chased down and beheaded the other goblins, and then the child w1 Dumed Sanrebdeduk organized a party.

[Staalo]

Fifth year in Searingmines.

For some reason more and more creepy crawler remains are turning up in the refuse pile. Cats must be bringing them in from somewhere but live crawlers haven't been found anywhere yet. No one has any idea what evil-aligned vermin are doing in Mirthful surroundings of Searingmines.

[Robsoie]

Still on my fortress from previous page and i got a 2nd goblin siege.
Unfortunately it looked like it was the same goblins squad trying to besiege my fortress by .. staying away.

.. until i lowered my bridge to let them approach.

Oh well.
Anyways, my marksdwarves were slightly better and made the goblins to run away with 2 goblins dead. I looked at the report and  after noticing there were lots of bolt dodging from the goblins, this made me smile :

[Thor]

2014.08 has brought me some !fun!.

My first werecreature ( a werehedgehog) of the release was lackluster and dispatched by a yak calf, easypeasy. However another werehedgehog appeared and proceeded to bite a baby in half and then rip the head off the weeping mother. Needless to say I was amazed that werecreatures are now actually a threat and proceeded to rush a militia together. It was reasonably brought down with only a few wounds to my militiadwarves.

Unfortunately those wounds transfered the curse and I am now regretting letting them back into the fortress as they have all (7) transformed and have begun to slay every child attending little Urist's birthday party.

[Sus]

Bloodmachine, Dwarf Fortress was initially run into a tantrum spiral by a first year goblin raid, and abandoned when the four survivors out of the starting seven started killing everybody in fist fights.

I put together an intrepid band of heroes with war hammers, axes, and crossbow ammo, and reclaimed.
Everybody in the reclaim team was ambushed and brutally murdered by a water buffalo cow. (!)

I put together an intrepid band of heroes with war hammers, axes, crossbow ammo, crossbows, copper caps, copper mail shirts, and copper bucklers, and reclaimed.
Turns out shields make all the difference in the world. My new band of seven foolhardy dorfs made short work of the offending ruminant and its donkey friend, even if copper battle axes proved useless against the (*large pig tail fiber cloak*)s and (-large pig tail fiber hood-)s the infernal heifers had somehow managed to procure and wear. (Wait, what?  )

Now, I've almost buried all of the brave martyrs of the previous expeditions, plus a fresh migrant wave or two lost to goblins, wereskinks and thirst. Maybe now we can get a dining hall going, and set up some semblance of defense...

My outpost liaison is an interesting fellow, as his other occupation seems to be "Goblin Drunk". He also regaled us with tales of one Xuspgas Practicedhate the dwarf, who seems to practice his hate by attacking the mountainhome roughly once every month, every time driving out a horde of refugees. Seriously, there was like half a page of reports on refugee group this-or-that fleeing before the armies of the Tick of Doom, led by Xuspgas. That's a thoroughly brainwashed dorf abductee if I ever saw one! 

[Aristion]

Well it seems; kidnapping -> brainwashing day care -> slaughter your own kind say hi to your friends and family after a vacation/day care, is now working wonderfully.

Also wool/cloth/etc. (except candy) clothing that is larger [than a human] is pretty much super armor with the clothing being scaled match a creature's size. As in piercing weapons are your best bet at killing such things most of the time. That or fire and slashing weapons.