Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Oaktree]

Year 9 begins in Relicblaze

Last year was primarily minor construction projects; flooring dirt in the upper levels, roofing the perimeter and then removing snow, and paving the ditch to stop growth of shrubs and trees.

Highlight of the year was a couple of goblin visits:

1) A patrol encountered a goblin master thief in one of the tunnels.  A militia captain got stabbed in the arm (counterstrike attack with a copper dagger that appears to have penetrated/bypassed steel armor).  The captain lost his sword but took the time to crush the goblin's skull with the edge of his shield before reporting to the hospital on his own power to be sewn up. 

The patrol in (1) got a back-up marksdwarf unit attached and then ran into a goblin ambush right afterwards.  Did not go well for the goblins as the sword dwarves were still irked, and the marksdwarves were a good cross-trained unit that could hold its own in melee.  In this case armor did save a dwarf from serious injury when his gauntlets prevented an arm strike from behind by a axe goblin from penetrating and causing any damage.

2) One goblin siege arrived in the autumn.  A cavalry squad ended up tromping right in front of the "water gun" position and provided some more experimental data.  The two cart version works and does fire faster.   

The first shot scored a point-blank hit on the squad and tossed two goblins and two mounts at least six tiles away, with one elk bird going over twenty tiles from the impact.   The rest of the barrage did considerable damage before the goblins moved out of range.  Eight mounts killed (by head skidding on ground and breaking skull), two mounts crippled.  Two goblins killed, including one found entombed in an ice wall, plus two more seriously wounded.  Not bad for a shot every 150 ticks or so, and a fair number of them missing everything.  Hit trauma is usually bruised organs and then the skid may or may not break limbs - with the head skid every so often that can kill.

A faster, and/or multi-barrel set-up pushing targets into a pit would probably be fairly effective assuming you can get the goblins to track in the field of fire long enough.  The "ice wall" effect appears to be rare, and if anything is an irritation since a wall close to the gun blocks shots. 

[Bludulukus]

Fortressbowel, pop 244, year 20

The Queen's consort died of thirst in jail, Queen did not seem to care all that much.
No royal heirs for Fortressbowel it seems.

Goblins siege, 0 dwarf fatalities - 41 goblin fatalities+ 4 prisoners

Taremothil-Fatedweakness the fungiwood scepter is created, erm at least its valuable at 146,400.

A little maze is being furnished for the minotaur Cor Uthretleteng Casluserid in hopes it will smash goblin prisoners dumped in there.

[Maul_Junior]

Ah, Late Spring, Year 8.....so full of *fun* possibilities.

I'm nearly ready to completely cut myself off from the outside world if there's a siege. All that remains right now is to set up a hall of traps just past the caravan depot, complete with ditches next to fortified walls for marksdwarves, a drawbridge to shut the place up tight betweenduring sieges.....

I've got my first steel bars being produced, and then it will be time to kick the military into high gear. Namely forming several military-only squads, fitting them, arming them, and sending them into the caverns for experience.

Naturally, this also means that actually getting my hospital up to par will be a priority from here on out.

I've had several dwarves kill themselves due to failed moods, since I've been rather ignoring them lately, trying to get high-level stuff done. I'm also in the middle of clearing a massive floor of sand that will eventually become the civilian burrow during attacks. All animals will be stored here, all farming done here, most industries will have at least one workshop here. And, of course, the setting of several war watchdogs

Unfortunately another dwarf just went into melancholy, that will make...Dwarf #5, none of whom have died at the hands of hostile creatures. Only one dwarf had to be put down to keep him from going beserk. Yeah, I'm terribad at managing these freaks.

Oh well. As long as nobody important dies. Or as long as another of my starting seven six dies.

Let's learn those military menus!


EDIT: Oh, *fun*.

a Siege. As I was tearing down clay to make room for stone fortifications. Haven't REALLY started making weapons yet. Though I do have an awful lot of iron, copper, steel, and a few bars of silver lying around for just that use that I was just about to start.

And, er, no armor. Sorry, guys.

Oy! Everydwarf! You're all hereby drafted! Grab your babyshields and sharpen your fingernails and teeth! Let's try to survive this with at least 10 people standing, okay?

Hopefully the hippies will make decent meatshields while everyone gets organized. And hey, if the hippies all die, and we survive this, FREE STUFF!

Peasant Lor Silkesal, who only has the Axedwarf 3 going for you in that squad all by yourself, if you survive this you get to lead your own Axedwarf squad. With other dwarves in it. Deal?




....aaaaand much fun has been had.

I feel an obligation to watch the goblins hunt down every last child before I start another fortess. Lesson learned--plan defense early. you moron.

heh...there goes the last of the cats. So much for the catsplosion killing the fortress.

heh....1 kid left, and he's leading them on a fine chase.

*cue benny hill*

Heh....the kid lasted a good 90 seconds, and at one point had the whole Siege on his tail before he made a bad turn or two.

I acutally had benny hill playing and everything. That was awesome.

Ah well. No reclaiming, even though this place had iron surface deposits, surface coal, and I had just gotten my first few bars of Steel.

I'll just have to find another PERFECT place like that.

RIP Fortress, you lasted a good 3 years. Next time let's try for 4.

Next up:

The Factional Book will set up a Fortress at Blockadebored

STRIKE THE EARTH!



Heh....I REAAAAALLLY need to pay a little more attention pre-embark. Got an outdoor embark lined up, and when I showed up, snow was everywhere. And I forewent the embark picks in favor of smelting my own copper picks and keeping the extras. Sheesh. That was a mistake. Time to get indoors. Glad I brought some bituminous coal with me. Gonna have to slaughter all the grazers, though. Shame. I was looking forward to the wool from the sheep.

Ah well, it's all fun.


.......cave fungus in my first incision into the hillside?

wtf?

I don't mind, but.....

....what? Does that mean there's an opening to the caverns from the surface?

.........crap. double time the defenses

[PDF urist master]

goblin siege came with Mounts this time. 2 squads. one crossbow squad and one macemen squad. very fun and very interesting. there were cave crocs, elk birds and CAVE SWALLOWS. really dangerous because they could fly over my defenses and kill my dwarves. a few even had marksmen on them.

step one, put my marksdwarves within my walls. this way they can only target flying enemies. shot off most of the cave swallows. luckily, i set my marksdwarves right next to my pig farm. most of the goblin that could attack went for the pigs instead. i think a woodworker got injured.

step two, unleash hell on everything else. sent my marksdwarves on the walls so they can shoot through the fortifications. for some reason the other squad of macemen stopped advancing. they could have helped. they had an axe lord for their squad leader on a cave swallow. lots of death. i think the highlight was a goblin swordmaster, who was able to dodge bolts for a whole page before dying.

this fort has been lots of fun already.

[Porpoisepower]

I'm going to make a layer grates at the bottom of my prisoner splatter shaft to see if it'll act like a goblin shredder

[Splint]

I'm going to make a layer grates at the bottom of my prisoner splatter shaft to see if it'll act like a goblin shredder

It won't, but you might get a nice puddle underneath the hopefully-deceased goblin on the grate in question.

Mothramavus seems to be a magnet for weird shit.

A group of cave swallow tribals snuck in for reasons I cannot fathom and were summarily murdered by two of Obok's subordinates and some badgerdogs, save two who only escaped because they could fly. Then a random mechanical statue went causing trouble until an iron sword silenced its incessant ticking.

Oh and then a bunch of sprite-possessed "wild" scarecrow men. They all died or were captured.

I began executing various undesirables, mummies, POWs, that sort of thing. The mummies all basically exploded into a big blast of pus when they hit the traps in the death pit from being liberated of one or more vital parts. Our Olm Man Prisoner was sliced in half by a dagger of all things.

Humans came and I got what I wanted from them: Various blueprints, gargoyle statues, steel and sterling silver, musket ammo and muskets, some drink, meat, and cheese, all the wood, clay, and leather they had to sell.

It is only now that I realize just how ridiculously overstocked with bone trade goods and "abandoned"  enemy equipment we are.

[TheDecline]

After reading such great stories and how people get attached to there dwarves I decided I would create a new world and live and breath in it for the next few weeks/months/years.

Found a great spot and carefully planned for the journey......

Right after embark the wagon bursts into flames and quickly spreads a fire across the entire map killing all but one dwarf and wiping out my entire live-stock   

I have no idea what went wrong as all i brought was booze and seeds mostly....

Oddly the only survivor was the embark leader i sense foul play

[WanderingKid]

After reading such great stories and how people get attached to there dwarves I decided I would create a new world and live and breath in it for the next few weeks/months/years.

Found a great spot and carefully planned for the journey......

Right after embark the wagon bursts into flames and quickly spreads a fire across the entire map killing all but one dwarf and wiping out my entire live-stock   

I'm sorry, but that's hysterical.  Horrible, but hysterical.  Check the 'u' screen and see what's on the map that might cause fire as a critter.  Do you use mods and/or have you edited your raws?

[TheDecline]

I use Masterwork, i cant spot any critters that would cause it, i must have embarked on something that has set a spark off and then set the booze on fire and its spread. 

I openly admit i suck at DF but that's the quickest FUN Dwarven Massacre I've ever had.

Looking at that message it also shows the miner never even got chance to grab his pick after jumping off the wagon!

[WanderingKid]

A 1 dwarf embark?  You have a chance to re-create Morul (the dwarf legendary in everything).  Go with it!  Turn migrations down to 0 for when the liason gets there, and you'll have a handful of hauling dwarves from the early migrations.

You might also eventually find out how the heck your entire embark bust into flames.  I'm afraid I'm not really familiar with Masterwork so I'm not entirely sure how that could have happened.

[Porpoisepower]

I'm going to make a layer grates at the bottom of my prisoner splatter shaft to see if it'll act like a goblin shredder

It won't, but you might get a nice puddle underneath the hopefully-deceased goblin on the grate in question.

Granted... but it's all about the narrative even if I fail... besides I've got a magma hose to help deal with any "leftovers"

[Larix]

Good morning, Drownedgears!
Do you know what time it is? Of course you do, after all, you have the Trinity Clock. So what time is it?


2:19 local time. So, time for the train to depart? Well, if it were a weekday, certainly. But it's the 15th of Felsite, and the 15th is the first day of the week, and the only exception is made for the first of Granite. So, it's time for the train _not_ to depart. And true enough,
   
there's the cart, staying at Lakeside Station and not departing for Magmagate.

And, let's see, the fifteenth is the first day of the third week, and Felsite's the last month of spring, so it should also be time for the (dummy) Depot to lower its outer (left) bridge and close the inner (right) one.



Yep, looks like it.
So, how is this all done?
The basic logic processes to determine everything i've mentioned are executed here:


Although there are two more checks done here, but one is quite simple (a check for a single weekday) and another is just a duplicate of the depot switch, just for another week (second week of the second month outside of spring). A bit to the north, there's also the specific check for the 13th of Limestone, the Mistress of the Clock's birthday, which is also an official holiday with no train service:

 
A simple check for day, week, month and season, a four-input AND.

Of course, there were lots of screwing around and false starts. I first tried to make this gate with a linear design, which, not very surprisingly, failed, but in a rather unexpected way involving flying carts. This is what it looked like when i decided building the gate with a direction change might be a better idea:



All in all, a very satisfying experience. It cost about 150 mechanisms and the life of a child(*), and brought my total tally (for the first clock, the improved clock and the scheduler) to ~1050 mechanisms and precisely 300 hatch covers. I better try and create a proper writeup for all this stuff.

(*) insisted on standing atop an hour-signal hatch cover while its mother was linking up a piece of machinery, and of course it took so long that the hatch opened and the kid fell down onto a ramp, brain-first.

[WanderingKid]

That's pretty impressive Larix.

AdmiredMansions is still in the middle of a massive operation of moving all the metal ores to the magma forges.  I've linked up four 3x2 stockpiles with 3 wheelbarrows each to get ore and marble down there to the QS minecart.  We've built up the bedrooms for our magma staff after researching our haulers and finding a few of them who have now volunteered as married couples doing full time furnace work.  Our Mr Wizard, an amazing weapon/armor/metalsmith and his wife were given quarters, as were our married glassmakers.  Nothing like a little efficiency.  Those haulers insisted on mating up... well, good for me!

In more amusing news the last ambush took out 5/8 hunters.  My 6 melee guys are still training and waiting on armor/good weapons, so the fort's defense is pretty much left in the hands of the suicide squad hunters.  Lost 5 dogs in that too, but a lot of captives when the hunters fell and the ambush ran over the cage trap airlock.

Recently a goblin thief popped up (well, a few, and a snatcher) but this one managed to annoy a hunter... who proceeded to first shoot him in the left upper leg, breaking that, and when he ran again shot him in the right lower leg, and broke that as well.  Deciding he'd like some more ammo and that there's a sparrow out there somewhere that's more interesting to hunt... he left him there, in the grass, bleeding to death with two broken legs.

I like that dwarf.

I hope he's not the vampire.  Somewhere in my fort I have a vampire.  A hauler was found, dead, in his bedroom.  No witnesses.  Considering everyone's getting private bedrooms this may go on a while until I find the bugger... or cheat, if necessary.  However, due to this, I've begun setting up a jail area with good furniture for other possible infractions since my Mayor seems to be a bit confused.

The mass butchering of our animal stocks continues to hopefully let in some breathing room for the leopard population to grow some more.  I'm still waiting on the cubs to mature but we'll get there.  I've been having trouble getting brewable plants down to the still on the magma level because the idiots keep dragging the *1* barrel back upstairs to get more plants, so my brewer down there is hauling himself all the way to surface and back down again.  I've removed barrels from that stockpile so hopefully the poor brewer will have a fighting chance.  I've been tempted to just create a disconnected minecart route to dump them down there but haven't gotten to that point yet.

[enolate]

Check which dwarf hasn't eaten, drunk, or slept lately. If it didn't migrate there in the last three months, you found Count Durkula.

[Orange Wizard]

Count Durkula

Except in this case, Count Durkula wasn't murdered by the lizgreaper.