7 years after embark, Wheelcrowds has developed from a 7-dwarf quest to a 194-member small-ish outpost. Also my first "proper" fort after using 4-5 for learning the basics of the game.
Riverside(no carps), hilly landscape, winter 4 days short of a full season. Below 2 levels of sand and clay, heaps of dolomite before all 3 ores of iron, more fancy stuff below it.
So far done, built a moat and a wall around a medium size inner yard where lots of different crops are grown. Level -1 has subterranean farms, and below it are armoury and military's accommondation before some stockpiles as well as iron & dolomite mines, with workshops at level -6. Most of the housings are below that, down to -12, magma forges and smelters at -37. Booze stockpiles consist of 1000 drinks, fairly evenly of all 5 brewed qualities. Food stockpiles have now 200 fish, 1000 seeds and 700 meals, with nearly a thousand raw plump helmets. With the trees growing at the inner yard(and in caverns I havent breached yet), my fortress is no longer dependant of the outside world.
Imports: logs, booze and leather. Exports: booze in barrels made of elf-imported logs, ex-Goblin weapons and armor. Goblins alone (now about an ambush/year with some thieves and a single siege) alone are enough to buy all I need. Its all profit!
The defenses are fairly straightforward. First the attackers are forced to walk under a cave-in trap (built outside). The only siege I have got so far was crushed with it: 15 bow-gobbos and a hammer gobbo riding on a giant olm. The SQUAT was so powerful that I never found the bodies of one bow-gobbo and the olm. However their leader, that rode on that olm, was found.. Olm was struck underground?
One of the gobbos flew into my moat too, over 20 piles away!
After the moat, are cage traps before the drawbridge that leads to the inner yard, across the moat. And right into my barracks with 30 sworddwarves in full-steel from toes to teeth. So far I have suffered 5 military losses: one training accident (guy dodged into my irrigation channel? I built a floor over it after that indicent), one who tackled a gobbo thief, they engangled, and less surprisingly fell into the moat, 3rd fell into the moat too - about 5 seconds after killing his goblin ambusher in a duel over the frozen river, that of course melted, 4th guy was hit in the head by an iron whip that penetrated both helmet and skull, and 5th guy was wandering about over 50 tiles from where he should have been (unable to follow orders), and got shot by those 15 bow-gobbos of the siege that got squatted. In case of emergency, I also have hatches built in all stairs of all levels down to the level below my water tank(level -6) - and a levers to unleash the tank AND the river to flood the upper levels. Like I said above, (most of) the accommondations and stockpiles are below that level -6 anyways. And that water could be used to recreate the subterranean farms. I also have a caged Giant (and a lone gobbo) in my prison. I was thinking about putting the Giant's cage somewhere near the main entrance, and the lever to release it somewhere DEEP....
My military consists of 30 dwarves in all steel. I have 5 guys with 5 or more kills, best of them has 21. However I have trained them the old-fashion way, and not one of them is yet legendary in any skill - as the matter of fact, of latest 10 conscripts, I think 5 are still "dabbling" in sword-wielding! I first had 2 5-man crossbow squads too, but I found them impossible to reliably have them pick up crossbows, quivers or bows, let alone other equipment, and disbanded them. I also have lots of swords, crossbows and some more usable ex-Goblin stuff in the armoury in the case that I ever need to organize a militia.
My latest project has been a wind-powered mist generator to my armoury level (-2). After starting it, the average happiness of the fort rose over 25% within just 5 minutes! The next thing in my project list is probably some sort of an underground entrance with traps and BALLISTAE(or just ballistas?
), that is connected to the rest of the fort only via ramps up somewhere where the current above-moat drawbridge ends. I have also been considering about walling off a section of the caverns, but I dont really _need_ to do that yet.
EDIT: (most) typos fixed.
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Topic: What's going on in your fort? (Read 6236776 times)