(When things are slow at work, I occasionally journal to help me plan out my evening play of DF. This entry is taken from that.)
So, I'm playing "CloisteredWind" (random name generator is occasionally awesome and funny!), my 0.31.16 original fortress last night. Life is swell for my dwarves (other than the lack of dimple cup seeds, but I'm planning to request those, as well as more gold bars, from the dwarven traders when they show up this year). I decided to floor my fortress reservoir room's floor with cobaltite blocks. It's got cobaltite block ramps down into the reservoir, making access to the water trivial for any dwarf that wants to play in the water (fish, wash, get a bucket of water, whatever). I've got a cobaltite floodgate for the aqueduct inlet control gate to the reservoir, and it is linked to a masterful cobaltite lever in my basic office block to allow future filling when desired. I have a safety door installed behind the floodgate, and the sand floor portion of the aqueduct has been covered in cobaltite block flooring. I'm thinking about covering the rest of the actual aqueduct and reservoir tank floor in cobaltite blocks, just for the fun of it. It won't really matter once water flows, since it will be covered in water and mud, but I'll know it is there, and anything worth doing is worth over doing.
There's an access tunnel down to the reservoir tank floor.
I've cut the drainage tunnel for the reservoir tank. I will have to pump the water out to drain the reservoir tank, but that's ok. I've covered the drainage tunnel floor in cobaltite blocks. I've made 2 cobaltite grates. One will block the drainage tunnel exit, and the other will be installed into aqueduct tunnel once the brook has been cut into.
I've got a silver pump installed in the drainage tunnel.
I just tore down the wall guarding the drainage tunnel's outflow, as I'm about to install the new cobaltite grate. After the grate is installed, I plan to cut a moat out in front of it to make sure no non-flyer will be able to reach it. Just in case...
I get a siege, right then and there. The attacking force: 40 trolls, 40 goblin lashers riding 40 jabberers lead by a goblin lasher lord. This was a sign of the respect CloisteredWind has earned from goblins, as only 1 ambush out of the 18 in the past 4.5 years (yes, an ambush EVERY SEASON--- most built up, and were triggered on the elf and dwarven caravans coming to the fortress) had ever returned. "No problem", I think. "Just button up, do the trolls separate from the goblins, and I can finish off my reservoir while all that is going on." So, civilians go on alert (limiting them to the interior fortress burrow) and I close the inner drawbridge while the outer remains down. This allows trolls to run into my trapped entrance, to try tp reach the doors and trade depot that are still reachable while the outer drawbridge is down. Goblins are mulling around, not wanting to truly attack the fortress that no goblin has returned since discovering its existence (ie, the very first ambush). Everything is going according to plan.
"Humm," I think. "Can a troll destroy a screw pump?"
The answer is: Yes.
ARG!
I did actually cage trap THAT troll. I had installed a trap in the screw pump access tunnel (to catch any critters that might wander through while the drain tunnel was being opened to the outside while the silver screw pump was installed). But the damage is done. Another troll runs through the new open spot and then charges through the 2 tile wall I am hastily building by the access point to the main stairs. More precisely, the 2 tile wall that is already built on 1 tile, and suspended on the other, as a couple of legendary dwarves ran through the gap to GRAB THE TRAPPED TROLL IN A CAGE AND GRAB SOME OF THE BROKEN BITS OF THE SILVER SCREW PUMP! I pause the game, unburrow the reservoir room branch of my fortress and draft a militia ("just in case"). I tell the militia to station up by the emergency wall. The troll charges after the now RETREATING dwarves. Oh, if only those had been some of my many, many, many useless dwarves my fortress had attracted over the past few years. Like the new dwarves running through the wall's gap to do who knows what--- it seems they haven't realized that area is no longer part of the allowed fortress burrow. Most of those dwarves are "junk", so they can die and the fortress won't miss them. The last important dwarf runs through the gap, I unsuspend the wall as soon as he passes it--- and one of the legendaries, who was just RUNNING for his life from the troll RIGHT BEHIND HIM, decides to make a desperate bid at the masonry to close out the troll--- only the troll gets too close and he runs off, so scared he's yanking his beard out and tossing bits of it behind him, trying to blind the troll, if only for a second. My drafted militia surge forward, and the troll proceeds to kill FIVE of them before a lucky strike of an iron sword beheads him. The damned troll was fighting bare handed! They, on there other hand, are not. They had time to grab the goblinite stuff (armor and weapons) before reporting in. What a monster troll that was!
With the fall of the troll at the gap, my mason dwarves run to close the gap (for a third time!), but two more trolls have come through the drainage tunnel. One is enjoying tearing up all the nice doors in that end of the fortress (crunch all you like, we will make more). The other charged at the tattered remains of my militia, standing guard over the only gap in the fortress's defenses. I draft more useless dwarves into the militia, and they go running to their squad's station point. Before the mason can finish that last emergency wall tile, he sees a troll coming his way (the sharp eyed bastard!) and runs off (NO! FINISH THE WALL YOU STUPID DWARF! ARG!). The tattered veterans surge forth, and all 5 get smacked down by this troll just as the new raw recruits show up to station. Troll proceeds to destroy them quickly as well. They literally rout in the face of this champion troll who can slaughter armed and armored dwarves with ease, and they run away... back to the meeting zone to be precise. I didn't know that it was possible for militia dwarves to simply rout!
The troll chases them, and has a great time killing the remaining 98 dwarves (108 before the siege started, 98 after a full militia squad is killed by 2 trolls!) of the fortress until a STRAY CAT kills it. Wow. Monster Troll killed 20 dwarves singlehanded (many of them new militia recruits with iron and copper weapons in hand!), and a STRAY CAT killed it. That cat must have been a Siberian tiger masquerading as a small vermin hunter!
Unfortunately, at this point, it doesn't matter. Other trolls had wandered through the silver strewn troll hole, and were having fun destroying buildings. Just as the STRAY CAT slaughters the grendel the super troll, the actual sieging force of 40 goblin lashers all riding jabberers have finally streamed through the troll hole. FUN happens.
I manage to create an outside evacuation zone for my dwarves. It is set up on the OTHER SIDE of my trapped entrance hall. Originally, I had raised the "Welcome mat" drawbridge so I could clean the weapon traps that had chewed up over 30 trolls. Yes--- over 30 trolls. Just as I was going to reset my traps to handle the goblins and their mounts, one of the few straggler trolls had created the troll hole. Whoops. While my initial militia were making a stand at the emergency wall, I had dropped that bridge back into its normal place, as half my weapon traps in my trapped entrance were still operable after the trolls had been so kind to charge into the trapped entrance hall. All the cage traps in it still stood ready. So if the civilians INSIDE my fortress could path out through the traps, the goblins would chase them through the trapped entrance, and get cut down or caged. If I could just get the numbers of goblins down enough with the traps, they would rout, and my fortress would survive another day.
Only two of my civilian dwarves made it to the safety of the entrance hall, and then to outside. A dwarf child and my new immigrant LEGENDARY FURNACE OPERATOR that had just arrived the month before this siege began (bet he was regretting that decision!). Inside the fortress, my ORIGINAL LEGENDARY MINER was all that survived. He was part of my "original 7", the designated miner of the group. He was still trapped inside the fortress with all the surviving goblins and trolls between himself and the safety zone just outside the trapped entrance. At this point, he had slaughtered 6 trolls, 7 jabberers, and 5 goblins single handedly (literally, they'd cut off or disabled one of his arms early in the fighting), using his original pick, and wearing his now very blood soaked worn cloth outfit (gloves, cap, hood, dress, trousers, boots, socks, cloak). He was now listed as the town mayor--- given that title, apparently, by the new immigrant furnace operator, as all the rest of the mayors had died in slaughter or battle during the siege.
I created a new burrow over the traps, and set my furnace operator to only have the labor "mechanic" enabled, as if he could clear a few of the troll bits from the traps at the entrance, the fortress would survive this most brilliantly timed siege. He immediately set to clearing the nearest traps. Just after clearing the second trap, he became mayor--- the legendary miner had finally died to a strike by a goblin attacker. He was fighting with his pick IN HIS MOUTH as they'd somehow cut off or disabled his pick swinging arm (with WHIPS, mind you--- thems some bad ass goblins, able to destroy limb usage with just a few hits from whips).
As the new fortress MAYOR he IMMEDIATELY stopped clearing the traps. Instead, he returned to the evacuation zone and proceeded to attend a meeting with the last dwarf child in which the child complained to the new mayor about HOW BAD IT SUCKS TO HAVE 40 WHIP USING GOBLINS RIDING 40 JABBERERS AND 40 TROLLS ATTACK YOUR HOME AND SLAUGHTER EVERYONE BUT THE TWO OF YOU. The goblins, overhearing this gripe session, had an easy solution, and they implemented it. They attacked the two remaining dwarves.
Just over 30 goblins and 25 jabberers went INTO the trapped entrance tunnel. Only 6 goblins came out, and all bleeding profusely from the stumps of their wrists (and the other wounds they'd suffered from the large spinning steel discs, not to mention prior wounds from the stray cats and the odd pet animals and even a few dwarf attacks). But 1 of the 6 goblins that survived was the lasher lord, and as long as he wasn't running off to die, neither could the lesser goblins. The six of them easily struck down the legendary furnace operator, the last mayor of CloisteredWind, who dutifully listened to the child complain rather than clear the weapon traps that would save both of their lives. The child dwarf, enraged at not having any adult dwarf to complain to once the mayor died, killed FIVE of the remaining goblins. But the goblin lasher lord was too agile for the child, and finally struck the child in the brain with his magical goblin whip, killing the child. And so, the goblin lasher lord, bleeding from his cut off right hand, as well as bleeding from his eviscerated abdomen, where large spinning steel disc traps had DISEMBOWELLED HIM (and still he fought on), became a new god to goblins everywhere. He was the goblin whose foresight, cunning, leadership, and toughness allowed him to strike at the exact right time to destroy the dwarven fortress "CloisteredWind". Goblins everywhere now sing of his deeds, and steel their courage with images of his mightiness and deeds, whenever they lay siege to a dwarf goblin destroying fortress. They praise his name and sing of his very blood washing away their fears as they charge through the goblin hell of dwarven trapped hallways, and pray that some of his strength soaks in them as they are trapped in drowning chambers. If the great lasher lord can slaughter a dwarven fortress with just few goblins and whips, then they too may do the same.
Note: I think it is funny that if the child hadn't complained to the mayor at that exact time, both of them would have survived that siege, as the "newly drafted mechanic" would have been able to clear a few more traps. The traps at the entrance were extremely effective, and a couple more of those would have been enough to save the dwarves. It was my ignorance of trolls being able to destroy a pump from its "obstacle" side that created this problem. It was my not wanting to sacrifice a few valuable dwarves that allowed the problem to escalate into fortress destroying FUN. I laugh about this, as it was the best possible time for the siege to attack, as if I'd finished my drainage tunnel with its grate and protective moat, my fortress would have gone back to being perfectly impregnable again.
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Topic: What's going on in your fort? (Read 6122081 times)