My 1st fort did recover after a near-fatal siege and tantrum spiral. But I never had steel and there were many aspects of my design I disliked. And frame rate was terrible. I abandoned and set pop cap to 100.
While still pretty new to DF, my 2nd Fortress is going swimmingly, now on year 17 iirc. Part of this is definitely my site. No magma yet, but the north part of the embark was a smallish mountain under which lies the fort. The south part a flat plain of small ponds and trees. The mountain above is flush with limonite, magnetite, hematite and piles of flux. Oh, and coal and lignite too (though I've burned through what I could find). And tons of native gold. And copper, silver, nickel. I do not want for metals.
20 melee and 10 marksdwarves, all in steel w/ leather under (boy steel is nice). Everyone has a war dog or two. Marksdwarf commander has an artifact dog bone xbow. With my array of bridges, cage traps, winding weapon trap path all under marksdorf fire sieges are pathetically easy. They show up, half are caged, most of the other half get chewed up or dodge into no-goblins-land. Melee runs in for mop up. The few that aren't brave and try to flee (and don't get trapped inside) are now flung away with a giant bridge that flings them across the fields to the south. The caged are stripped and pitted to all the militia; 20 melee in the pit room, the marksdwarves behind fortifications. A cyclops showed up and a hunter (later dying to a siege), after being punched a few times (damaged liver) fractures the middle spine with the first shot. Three more shots breaks a foot, hand, lower arm. He conveniently leaves the now passed out cyclops in the refuse pile. Go go dog bone bolts. I'm sure I'll eventually get some titan that murders everyone, but attacks are a laugher atm. However.. while many of my militia are level 12-13 fighter/archer/melee/xbow, I don't have a legendary yet. Something still isn't right about my training. No danger rooms and I do occasionally lose someone.. but I would have expected higher skills.
Plenty of industries and luxuries. I've just finished 6 prison cells with bed and all gold for furniture/chains/door. My broker from the original 7 is now a countess. I made a cistern and drained the closest pond into it. I just build/remove a wall to top it off after the rainy season fills the pond. I got lazy and forgot about this... a Roc flew through the passage and up into fort proper. I felt lucky only losing a leather worker. But pretty uneventful. Lots of kids and babies everywhere. DT shows a near solid band of bright green with my deliriously happy dwarves.
I also embraced bridge smashing garbage disposals (7 in various locations). I already have more silk blah blah clothes than I can sell. Smashing has really helped tidy things up. This has been probably one of the best activities to maintain order yet.
However, I have yet to see magma (in this or the first fort). Nor have I stepped foot in a cavern yet. With the rest of the fort running like a well oiled machine, I made a trap hall nearly mirror the top level's, some 20z below. And now I have begun to feverishly dig down. Been conservative long enough.
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Topic: What's going on in your fort? (Read 6230997 times)