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[Itnetlolor]

After the success of SabreLured's primary function (video included), I have decided to work on making my first above ground fort. I already made concept art of the plans I intend to use. From the looks of the artwork, it'll be like the DF equivalent of a resort (I'll try to make them like condos), and it makes good use of the land. If I can keep this place safe before/during/after establishing my fort, I might expand it into an above ground town of sorts, using some of my other concepts, like the dwarven power-grid; phone/power lines, substations, and all. Of course, with the necessary limitations to prevent anyone from walking on them except the designated "electricians". I'm basically going to use a list of concepts I mentioned before, but didn't see anyone try out yet. If everything works out especially well, I might even try to include a sewage system/aqueduct/etc. to provide water everywhere.

If I can make this work, I might make my first above ground metropolis, while keeping a fully functional subterranean infrastructure. Naturally, the market district (starting point) will have to be extremely well guarded for the start, until expansion occurs. Kudos to the sorting system, producing the materials to expand with should be no problem at all; and since I have clay and sand sources, earthenware (clay) products and adobe structures, along with glass structures and stuff should also come way easier; especially once I find a way to make use of the nearby volcano.

I'll upload my concept art soon.

EDIT:

Spoiler: Here it is: (click to show/hide)

You can see that the Mushroom Kingdom Tower Defense System from Wavehandle will make a comeback here. I'll also make use of the area for fishing and farming, along with livestock. As for the alternate building style, I just saw an interesting piece of packaging that looked like it would make a pretty fancy building. Due to it's architecture, it would make a suitable barrack design, since it can allow for defenses from up above, while providing plenty of housing and weapon/armor storage; and a basement for sparring inside. If you want, the top-most area could also be a tiny arena (3x3 to 5x5 round area) with a lever that closes the doors, and unleashes the prisoner after the dwarf who wishes to fight them.

[Clover Magic]

Troglodytes infiltrated the fortress before I could get the cavern properly sealed off.  They've killed three and put five others in the hospital (my race is not so robust as dwarves).  The medic is very unhappy as he's lost both a friend and his lover - man, what is with all my doctors losing their lovers in this mod?

The trog corpses have been magma'ed and the dead genomes buried in coffins and walled off.  Now every able-bodied worker - and not so able-bodied, one just got out of the hospital with a broken right leg and is now working - is pulling double shifts since essentially half our population just got gangraped.

It's the middle of winter.  I can't wait for the spring migrants.  I hope they make it inside.

[Xob Ludosmbax]

[

And from what I understand of how eggs work, not forbidding the griffin eggs leads to the eggs getting taken for food storage, to eventually get cooked...So does that mean these griffins would eat their unborn young without your guidance?

That is quite correct.  I've got a lot of griffon egg roasts chilling in my stockpiles now.  I brought turkeys with me for the eggs, but I've got lots of griffon eggs too.  It's more than a bit creepy, but there's little you can do to stop them from eating their unborn babies.  The only option is to sit there and constantly watch the nest boxes, and immediately forbid any eggs.  Dump eggs you don't want (or that are infertile, such as if there is no husband).  Of course, you'll never get them all...

I was pretty shocked to learn that griffon incubation worked at all, but it does sometimes.  I haven't yet found a pattern to the mother sitting on the eggs and whether they'll hatch or not.  I've definitely seen eggs hatch when the mother didn't sit on them constantly.

I guess it's the same for griffons, but when trying to raise birds for meat, I generally allow one food stockpile to accept eggs, and set all of the other food stockpiles to not accept eggs.  Then, when you have a breeding pair, you only need to disable that particular type of egg on that one stockpile, and on the kitchen menu, and the eggs remain undisturbed.  However, you can only disable eggs on the kitchen menu if they are available to be cooked.  So, if you will pardon the pun, it's a bit of a chicken and egg problem. 

Oh, and rotten eggs eventually get dumped on the refuse stockpile.

(Damn tvtropes link!  Now I'll never get any work done.)

[Telgin]

Huh, I'll have to try that and see if it works.  I'll probably end up with nest boxes stuffed with unfertilized griffon eggs, but at least the creepy factor goes away! 

[Mr Space Cat]

(Damn tvtropes link!  Now I'll never get any work done.)

Look at it this way, every link helps you build a resistance to getting sidetracked! It's like a vaccine! Fight the urge to surf the tropes!

[Tarran]

One of my dwarves has just lost a limb to a violent ghost. After she had already lost a limb to a violent ghost a while ago. She is now missing a leg and an arm.

Freaking violent ghosts, I swear. At least 1/10 of my fortress has lost a limb to those dicks.

Also, she is now using a crutch and is now going to cut down a tree. What.

[Clover Magic]

Slowly recovering from the trog attack.  Out of five in the hospital, three were successfully treated and have returned to work.  A fourth is currently in traction for his tail (how does that work?) and should released once that finishes.  The last....er.  Well, if the medic keeps on her, she'll probably recover.  Having at least one bone in every limb shattered puts you in the hospital for a while.

So many broken limbs.  Thankfully I was actually mining out a gypsum cluster just before the attack, so more plaster is getting made.  Also mandated some more crutches and splints, since like half the fort is now on crutches.

Edit: Annnnd the caravan has arrived.  Uh, liason, the current leader is currently in the hospital with multiple shattered bones, I...don't think you're getting that meeting any time soon.

[Oaktree]

Waterspear is declaring war on the kobolds.  Chasing them off when they try to steal things is annoying, but not considered an act of war.  That they fight with the guard dogs a bit as well is quasi-acceptable.  Knifing woodcutters just going about a job is not going to given a pass however.  Heavier patrols are now out and a few more kobold corpses now lie in the dump.  And it might be time to design and build some sort of automated trap that will catch or harm these vermin.

Goblin absence from the area has allowed for considerable progress with troop training and construction work.  The steel-armored militia now numbers about sixty, with almost twenty of that number qualified as elite with at least one weapon.  A lot of the reservists are also now at least competent with a weapon and equipped with a shield, weapon, and some light armor - and there are lots of marksdwarves ready to man the battlements.

Preparations for the circus continue with a lot of work currently being done to link up retracting spike traps.

[Itnetlolor]

Just completed the top-layer walls. Going to establish a lever-action drawbridge and such, while also making sure they work as designed. Sorta lack a military, and I am establishing a self-sufficient fortress internally (thank goodness for elves (Armok, forgive me) to provide some creatures and such as well as aboveground crops to establish the AG farms). So far, everything is working out quite well. Once I can lock out everything else with the drawbridge gateway system, and maybe a few cage traps, I can continue with my housing project.

[fourpotatoes]

Anyway, they'll hide and sneak up to a civvie or soldier, then enrage and perforate their brain with the dagger, caring little for armor.  'Tis quite frustrating, I've lost good soldiers to these mofos.

I've noticed that they tend to enrage while walking about, before they close with anyone. It shows up in combat reports and gives me some advance warning that they're around.

I've temporarily set aside my Rampage Edition pony fortress to embark with dwarves for some !!engineering!! tests. I brought one dwarf to handle wood logistics, one dwarf for food logistics, one for security, and outfitted the rest to mine out and build the test facility. I've gotten enough migrants now to double up all the support roles, and now more are arriving that I don't really know what to do with.

Although it was only meant for testing some timing and logic designs before they end up in my pony fortress, it turns out to be a nice embark site. It has sand, flux (no iron, but that's what goblins are for) and plenty of copper and silver. This world has lovely tall caverns perfect for constructing grand multi-level dining halls. I found some even better embark sites in the hills nearby, so I may have to come back to this world. I'll probably train up the latest migrants in case they show up again.

Anyway, I've established secure food and water supplies, and I've just brought the #1 water reactor on-line. I've excavated a test area and built a sort of blast shield to prevent stray minecarts careening down the halls into the control and staging rooms. It wouldn't do to get my test engineers killed -- that's what peasants are for.

[Telgin]

I've noticed that they tend to enrage while walking about, before they close with anyone. It shows up in combat reports and gives me some advance warning that they're around.

This is true actually, and since they're so cheap about stabbing through helmets I mercilessly exploit the fact that I get fair warning.  The problem is that until I implemented a dog-on-a-rope early warning system out front, it was always a case of, "Okay, I know they're coming, let's park the soldiers here and... FFFFUUUUU- they stabbed Grusha in the lung, and now stabbed her in the brain through her helmet!  Argh!"  Now, they just stab the dogs in the lung and head, and get 10 steel swords and assorted arrows lodged in their organs.

Anyway, Canyontalon saw a lot more violence in my last session.  No less than three ambushes descended upon the home caravan, slaying most of the guards and merchants before fleeing from their own casualties.  It took me an entire season to clean up the mess.  More coffins had to be made for the hapless griffons of the caravan, but for once none of Canyontalon's own were killed or even wounded.

The discordant pony corpses and most of their junk (along with most of the caravan junk) were crushed into oblivion by my garbage disposal.  At least I got a lot of free wood and some steel armor out of the deal.

I'm just wondering what's going to happen when I get my first siege.  I don't know why they haven't sent one yet, I'm up to 108 griffons now, with a wealth of about 3 million bits.  Maybe it's time to start decorating stuff with gems.  Sergeant (and he was a sergeant, 'twas my mistake) Bortsov certainly deserves a medal.

[Splint]

Maybe they just haven't gotten to you yet. Long distances from hostile neighbors seems to ake thier  large scale attacks take a while to crop up.

I have decided to challenge myself near the dawn of time, in year 4 (did some adventuring, slew a giant dingo, a minortaur and a band of sand raiders before retiring,) But building a checkpoint of sorts, and building into the caverns walls from the caverns themselves (embarking on a cave.)

Surface building plans include
- Topside shelter, stockade and small farm/mill.
- Topside garden for dwarves to relax in.
- Depot (obviously)
- Overland temple to any rain and sun gods the dwarves happen to worship.

Caverns challenge
- The caverns may only be minimally reshaped.
- Rooms must follow the contours of the cavern walls.
- A giant mole or draltha herd must be established.
- Plump helmets are not to be relied on.
- Extreme herbalism. Farms will be less reliable because of the general shape of the caverns.
- Liberal application of herd animal catching traps.

Other challenges
- Glass Cannon Army: No metal armor except for helmets gauntlets and boots. The rest must be wood or leather. This provides the benifets of speed, but also the downside of poor staying power for soldiers. This worked remarkably well with speardwarves on Glacialhell.
- Champion MUST use dual weapons. Because rule of cool, and it works oddly enough. Should I go with maces again or swords for the champion... Axes seem too fancy to me...

EDIT:
Pro - Domsticated elephants. Badass.
Con - Alligators. Five of them. There was a small segment of unfrozen river they survived in and now they're cautiously creeping towards my hastily trained war elephants and war beetle. I have one soldier with a wrought iron spear. There's a troglodyte tribe starting to file out that seems curious.

So much for this embark. It is sooooo fucked.

EDIT II: As predicted, we got slaughtered.

[Clover Magic]

Oh god so much vomit.

[Mr Space Cat]

Your dwarves might be allergic to purple, Clover. On the bright side, the green is a nice change of pace from the sheer fabulosity!
-------------------------------------------------
So, now that Reksas Generalscourged is dead, there's pretty much nothing to keep AnnualHate going for me. A siege of frogmen arrived, but I wanted to set up a bunch of saw weapon traps before letting them through the gatehouse doors, since we had no military to back it up, and i wanted a somewhat gory demise for the frogmen as well as our dwarves.

Sadly, once I unlocked the doors the frogmen just kinda chilled by their slain elven traders who they followed. Rather than try to provoke the froggies into the gatehouse with some kittens for 3 hours I just gave in to the seige.

Genned a new world with vanilla earth bound dwarves and I'm thinking of setting up shop in a haunted forest named "The Forests of Itching."

[Varnifane]

I keep DF running behind whatever I'm working on at work and leave the top peeking out so I can keep track of idlers and pause-worthy events.

Just now I checked in on the dorfs to find half of them looking for vermin. I check the food (z) and it is sitting at 1500, but come to find out it's all seeds. By brewer had been working overtime. I decided not to stew my seeds in beer for food but rather sent the dwarves topside...into an ambush.

The ambush made short work of a number of vermin hunters before my military got there. Thankfully 16 (not-so-hungry-they-were-hunting-vermin) migrants showed up just then and gathered enough plants to get the rest of the fortress to stop hunting vermin and bury their dead before somebody acted out their frustration.

It's less than a month later and everyone (but one) is content or better due to three pieces of artifact furniture and a lever made with an artifact mechanism along the path from the food/booze and the legendary dining room.

The brewer is wounded and if he doesn't die I'm going to starve him to death; which is justice in my mind. And we  we got a better brewer in the migrant wave anyway.