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[Oaktree]

Another year past in Relicblaze.   

A few caravans finally got in past the goblin sieges and the fort was able to export a huge backlog of minor goods (worn clothing, refurbished goblin clothing, totems, etc.) in exchange for metal destined for the forges and becoming more armor and weapons.  The backlog of goblin weapons and armor was finally converted into ingots as well.

Watergun 2 is being tested in the east tunnels.  At this point mainly tweaks to the reloading path since the cart is getting hung up in the cycling track after reloading with water.  Initial tests are promising since the firing cycle looks to be much faster than Watergun 1 (~100 ticks compared to ~300.)

Only one goblin siege during the year and it was smashed by the garrison force without any injuries.

Two forgotten beasts killed by the spike rooms, and a third killed by a melee squad (mentioned in an earlier post).   A few dwarves were injured by a trog incursion afterwards before it was repelled by a spear squad.  Forgot to seal off the cavern again after cleaning up from the FB.

The mid-winter embark clear cutting was interrupted again.  Not a minotaur though, but a full-blown desert titan.  It flew in and chased a woodcutter into a courtyard - where it was met by pretty much the entire militia of the fort.  The elite melee squad got to it first.  4-5 hits broke bones and knocked it down, and a mace dwarf scored two skull fractures with a steel morningstar.  Seeing that was not doing the job the dwarf pulled a short sword* and decapitated the titan.

* - The squads that max out their main weapon are being issued secondary weapons to play with.  So the elite melee squad is now sparring with short swords at least part of the time.  One of the small marksdwarf squads is now legendary in hammer, sword, and working on spears.

And a dwarf recently died of old age.  First one of those in the fortress.  I expect the immigrant pet population to start dying off as well over the next few years.

Artifact production has mainly been boring.  The captain of the guard has an artifact iron helm, and one of the elites has artifact steel greaves.  Beyond that the items have been mundane for the most part.

[Maul_Junior]

I had just loked around and noticed that everyone in my fortress was inside, so I decided to close up the bridge-door, and seal myself in, despite the human traders that had just shown up.

I watched as a dwarf hit the lever, and the fortress sealed itself up tightly.

Literally five seconds later, I get a message about a siege.

Being me, I've been OCDing on cleaning up the fortress from rocks the last few years......and haven't put together any military, weapons, or armor.

But now I'm sealed up tightly. And I don't need to worry.

Unless they can drop down onto my open drawbridges....should probably seal those up too.

Then in a year or two once my military is up to par, I can open up a passageway and slaughter the goblins.

I do look forward to free stuff from the human caravan, and anything off the goblins the human guards kill.


....or the 16 odd goblins can stare across the river at the trading depot that is currently full of goods, while I scramble to make copper arms/armor to compete with the iron ones the gobs brought.

I've instituted a draft--anyone capable of picking anything up is sent to the fields to grow brewable items, or to brew beer (had been running 1.5, now I've got 5 build). Otherwise we'll run out of drink in a month. I have 200 prepared meals, that should last me for a season, and lots of eggs and lots of creatures I can slaughter for food if I need to.

Meanwhile, I have 2 people slaving away downstairs--one making nothing but charcoal, the other making his finest weapons and armor. I've got a population of 102, but my drink supply hovers around 45.

I think there's a group of crundles that have been near my main shaft have been multiplying. there had been 2-5, now there's like 10. Target practice for marksdwarves!

[Splint]

Beware the crundle Maul_Junior. Get enough of the little bastards together and they can get to be a serious threat to inadequately armored dwarves.

[Eric Blank]

A dwarf got a recover wounded job for a completely healthy migrant who was coming inside just fine and ran out to retrieve him.

There was also a casualty in the magma forges preparation when making a channel; a stone or something fell into the magma, and the associated mist engulfed an engraver, turning them into a puddle of blood and grease. This after the expedition leader and some other dwarf were killed by giant parakeets around this time last year.

[Larix]

A dwarf got a recover wounded job for a completely healthy migrant who was coming inside just fine and ran out to retrieve him.

Could have been someone who got stung by a bee (honeybee or bumblebee). Those cause a bit of pain, and sometimes, another dwarf will drag the poor suffering victim off to bed - while the stung dwarf has already shrugged off the effect and shows their next job (or "no job").

The first human traders somehow managed to get themselves screwed up - a pack animal and one wagon showed up, arrived at the depot and unpacked their stuff, but never moved off the 'wait a while, we're still busy unpacking' stage. I built a second depot, moved them over there, same message, let them back to the old depot, still the same. After time was up, they packed up their stuff and shoved off, never to be seen again. I.e., there was _no human caravan_ in the third year. They plain didn't show up.
I suspect there was an additional merchant or two which were scheduled to belong to the first caravan, but they for some reason failed to spawn properly - never entered the map, never reached the depot (and never unpacked their trader shit, so trading with the 'incomplete' caravan wasn't possible), and _never properly left the map_, blocking new caravans of their civ from spawning. The annoying thing is that there's no caravan unit listed, i.e. if i ended up with a stuck phantom merchant, they're stuck in limbo, outside the map proper.

Edit: the next year, the human diplomat showed up - alone. Well, it was a vampire, i guess those don't scare easily. But i think i've nailed the stuck merchant - the stocks listed some 'forbidden' crutches, and zooming to the location landed me on a bit of rock salt right by the map border. Channelled it away, and the location switched to a tree on the border. Cut down the tree and right enough, a human merchant with pack animal cycled onto and back off the map, as well as a caravan guard. Seems they got blocked by a tree that grew the moment they tried to enter the map. I should have the yearly save from spring, might be worth signing in on the bug tracker.

[Maul_Junior]

Beware the crundle Maul_Junior. Get enough of the little bastards together and they can get to be a serious threat to inadequately armored dwarves.

which is why the Marksdwarf Squad will have its practice room overlooking the area the Crundles are currently located, with fortifications to shoot through.

[Lalasa]

Fishmine's Queen is dead.

Considering she was a vampire, I'm a bit glad.  Dwarves were constantly eaten at a steady rate, and i liked some of them.  However, I also liked the idea of having a cool and awesome noble warrior vampire.  And she's dead because she bled to death from a recent hammering.  That's... a little disappointing.  The citizens' response was to elect a mayor, which is sensible.

My main concern is- will I even get another king/queen?  Adil Bustswims the Perplexing Rumor of Waters was a major part of my fort's culture and amusement, and now that figurehead of my dwarven society is gone.

[Lich180]

The elves brought a pair of giant kiwi last year, so a few nest boxes were constructed and placed for the female to lay eggs in. 3 seasons later, giant kiwi chicks have hatched, both are females, and will be a welcome addition to the breeding stock.

Currently constructing more drains in the bottom of the magma pipe, since the few I already have aren't draining the pipe nearly fast enough. The current rate is about 4/7's a level per season, and with 40 levels to drain... that is quite a long time to stay holed up.

Relatively boring for now, working on glass blocks for constructions and such, might finally get around to making real bedrooms soon, since the current ones are just bed wedged into nooks in the old copper mines.

And to top off this spring, the elves brought a female black bear and male grey langur, completing a breeding pair of both!

And a necro siege, the first in years, arrives. Damn, I was hoping to make a decent trade.... Good practice for my civilians though. Each and every one of them has been issued copper armor, crossbows, quivers and bolts. Stationed on the roof of the bunker, makes for a good target range.

[wer6]

Starting to gen up worlds with as many mega beasts, forgotten beasts, ETC and wiat ten thousand years so that hopefully dwarfs will be extinct so I can rebuild the glorious civilization of the dwarves, and to add to build A monument to there glory, A huge statue made of the best materails, standing ever watchfully of the entrance of the hopefully volcano we will be standiing at, if there will be any dwarfs coming in besides the seven founders, il make them die, with Dwarf hack, wish me luck!

[Oaktree]

Second water "gun" is operational in Relicblaze.  Only combat test so far was firing at a passing ogre unit in the tunnel.  However, two ogres were killed, which makes it a successful test.  Took about six hits to kill one, though the first hit shattered a leg and left it lying stunned for a while.  It was just periodically hit again by later shots (or another ogre), and steadily pushed down the tunnel until it finally died.  The other ogre was a insta-kill head shot, which also knocked it into the already wounded ogre.

Cycle time was not closely measured, but appears to be about 130 ticks.  An adjustment was made that hopefully will speed it up a little (maybe to 120).  It was also noticed that the gun drained out the reload reservoir fairly quickly.  So the reservoir was enlarged to double the water capacity.*  Some timing tests will be done and then possibly adding a pressure plate for dropping a second cart into the cycle to see if this can double the firing rate.

* - Given the lack of an aquifer or lake any water has to be painstakingly gotten by thawing a section of stream, draining it off into a cistern, and then allowing it to refreeze.  Not a quick process.  And the magma used for thawing needs to be recharged periodically as well.

Also discovered an interesting fact about danger rooms.  If you load down the trainees with multiple weapons they learn skill in *all* of them at about the same rate as they'd learn one.  Just as an experiment a crossbow squad was given swords, spears, whips, and battleaxes before getting the usual session I do to train shield and basic melee skills into marksdwarf squads.  I ended up with dwarves with 4-5 levels in five different weapon types.  Now that's an exploit!   

[Miriage]

My legendary spear militia outfitted in mostly training gear ran into a goblin spear-man ambush. Now my legendary spear militia is outfitted in metal gear.

Best part was when the ambush saw 2 teammates get slaughtered, turned and ran across the entrance bridge. Lever pulled followed by broken bones and an easy mop up of the survivors. Unfortunately I think one goblin made it across the bridge before it disappeared.

[Maul_Junior]

hippies brought me a male grizzly bear, to match a female I bought from them 2 years ago.

Fuck yes, it's time to breed up war grizzlies!


woo, I now also have a breeding pair of goblins. if only I could train them for war.....

[Lexx]

Spring of 1004. 5th year since the founding of Shortroads.

The Unicorn breeding herd is progressing really well.  5 females and 2 males with more semi-tame being trained caught from the previous year. Though with the amount of food in stock from wholesale slaughtering of wildlife in the caverns it means I won't be needing to make them into food for domestic use at least. Though I do want more unicorn leather for the militias items and unicorn horn to decorate their gear with. The lone tame giant cave spider that was caught by accident 2 years prior has not lapsed in training once. Hopefully more can be caught.

A small siege came and went home beaten. A pike wielding goblin with 20 or so bowgoblins. They didn't even get to the spike traps before the militia steamrolled them. Sustaining no injuries. Their copper and iron gear earmarked for melting down.

The expedition finally made it to the lowest caverns. Finding multiple magma vents and several adamantine spires mercifully peaking above the floor level of the cavern. praise the miners! Now to extract and process the stuff. Also another big plus of the militia expedition was the many crundle and troglodyte kills over it's course. giving great live experience for the military as well as at the same time neutralizing potential threats. Several cave gores and trolls were also found and slain by the militia. Most notable dwarf of the year in the military is Dobar Amaskeskal. Who started using an iron longsword that was bought by trade. Has become very adept with it. Killing over 14 various cave monsters to put her kills into the 70s total.

40 3 by 5 chambers complete in the universal dwarven social housing project. Complete with limestone cabinet, coffer and door plus wooden bed. The finished food only and drink silos and two 40+ seat dining halls are also complete and filling up nicely. Though they are used to much there may be need for a third dining hall to keep up with the growing population. The miners have been tasked with the next loads of houses to work towards every dwarf fin the city having their own 3/5 quarters.

[wer6]

Wow Lexx, most of my dwarfs sleep in beds near the old ore veins that I mine,lucky them.

[Diablous]

It's autumn at Wounddrinks, and two different forgotten beasts have paid my dwarves a visit. First this guy:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

He just ran into the water and stayed there, so I dropped the cavern's ceiling on him and called it a day. No confrontation with my dwarves.

Then this guy happened.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

He was on land so I thought, finally something my dwarves can fight. When my military met the beast he released his dust. I'm not entirely clear on what happened, but the exposed dwarves were stunned and/or knocked out, with the babies some were carrying getting injuries, which the adults also got when exposed to more bursts of dust. I checked the reports and saw messages indicating that my military was slamming into walls and each other. I'm not sure if that was part of a syndrome the dust caused or if the actual bursts of dust did it, but my dwarves were getting thrown around like ragdolls. He died as whatever was happening threw him around too. After a few bursts his head flew off after hitting a wall.

Well, that was interesting. Also, a good chunk of my military are now reporting spinal injuries. This is either due to a syndrome or getting thrown around like a ragdoll. Judging by the lack of blows to the upper body or neck in the reports, I'm guessing syndrome. Either way, a large portion of my military may be crippled. Oh dear.

Update: The affected dwarves also stopped breathing. They predictably died quickly of suffocation. My 32 dwarf military is now only 12, all due to one forgotten beast. Now there's those horror stories of beasts with insane syndromes I've heard so much about.