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[cochramd]

A bit late, but

It's been forever since I've read 1984, but I think the analogy might be fairly apt. There is literally no place for my dwarves to hide from my all-knowing eye (except for jumping in lake or pit, and then I won't know where they've gone for a week). I know next to everything about them, down to the colors they like and how they react to stress. The only things they own are what I give them. The only people that do work outside of what I've decided they can do are those on the borderline of sanity. There's no real economy. Sure I have deal with the annoying demands of nobles party middle-men, but ultimately they can always be replaced by somebody who has preferences more to my liking.

...now if I could just get my archers to do a damn thing I want them to.

It's been a while since I read 1984 too, but as I recall the whole panopticon thing isn't exactly unique to it as far as dystopias go. What really defines 1984, at least in my mind, was how the party could so easily redefine history and truth for their underlings. For instance, if DF was exactly like 1984, then you could have a dwarf with a bedroom reassigned to a lower quality bedroom (accounting for preferences) and have him think he's getting a better room. There's also the trouble of history; if you produce any statues, engravings, decorations or figurines, there's a good chance at least one of them will be of an event that you wouldn't want your dwarfs to remember, like that one time the goblins killed almost everyone. You can just sell any problematic statues, figurines and decorated items to the caravan, or just destroy them, and do over any problematic engravings, but those have problems of their own. Namely, dwarfs might go crazy from you erasing their masterworks, and sometimes you'll have to sell or destroy really nice items that you wanted for yourself to the caravan. You could avoid the entire issue by just not creating any statues, figurines, engravings or decorate items, but you'd have to turn off artifacts and miss out on some sweet weapons and armor. Oh, and let's not forget that you can't pretend that your soldiers who died never actually existed; if you don't give them a grave or a memorial, you risk them haunting your ass.

Anyhow, Crowgravel. Everything tameable that doesn't have a child stage I have ordered slaughtered; this includes all my snakes. My training levels aren't very high with any of them, but you know what? I'll never be able to have a fully tame population of them, so better that I slaughter them all now so my trainers can focus on animals that I can fully tame, like tapirs, birds, large cats, cave crocodiles and Jabberers. I have finally found the first cavern (which has lead to me catching my first giant bat, here's to hoping I catch many more), so I guess I don't have an excuse anymore for not preparing the great magma pumpstack which will be used to create the great obsidian block in which my dwarfs will make their permanent residences and workplaces. I've done my research, so I know that everything needs to be made out of magma-safe materials (being ever so frugal, fond of getting things done quickly and considerate to my poor haulers, I'm planning green glass for the pipes and enormous corkscrews and magma-safe stone for blocks and mechanisms). It's just so intimidating, and I don't quite grasp how I need to carve out and build everything. I just wish I could have someone hold my hand through the whole thing.

[94dima94]

Dear diary, today I learned an important lesson: always check your reports twice!

Story:
A werebuffalo attacks my new fortress, before I have time to build a proper army or a decent defense.
Three people are caught outside: the three fishermen of the fortress, fishing in the only lake they can find.
The three can't really run away, so the beast proceeds to fight them; it hits the first one and then starts destroying the second one.
As he is being massacred, the first one is on the ground. The second one dies, and the beast starts attacking the first one again, until the curse ends and the now-human monster flees.

The first fisherman and the third (who was punched) are taken to the hospital and healed. I immediately start building an outside shelter for the first one, now a werebeast, and I assign it to a burrow forcing it to stay there, fishing all day and never leaving.

Then, the day comes: the first dwarf transforms, locked inside his cell... and the third one does too... in the middle of my dining room.
Apparently, I mixed up names when reading the reports (in my defense, the names were something like Odom the Fisherman, Omob the Fisherman and Otob the fisherman; I can't even remember the right ones, and I studied those for a good 15 minutes to understand where I f***ed up...)
My fortress went from 37 dwarfes to 6, and one of those six was the other werebeast, that I immediately killed (I was quite paranoid after that).
"Luckily", the werebeast did a very good job, killing every single dwarf he could touch, and staying alive until the turned into a dwarf again, so the curse didn't spread anywhere.

So, yeah, kids, always check your reports!

[callisto8413]

In my latest Fortress I am carrying out my plans for a perfect utopia - making ramps instead of doors and giving the Dwarfs customized names so I could tell, in a glance, who was SF (Single Female), MM (Married Male), and so on - when I found a husband and wife who had ten kids.  That's more kids then I have in my current Fortress!  I assume most are someplace else...but that's not the point.

The point is I didn't know a couple could have more than five kids.  How many kids can a couple have now?  Oh the horror!  The horror!  I need the pill!  I need the pill! 

[cochramd]

The point is I didn't know a couple could have more than five kids.  How many kids can a couple have now?  Oh the horror!  The horror!  I need the pill!  I need the pill!

My duke's got 8, and he and his sweet little farmer girl are showing no signs of stopping. I think everyone just has kids until the hard limit is reached.

[callisto8413]

Really?   And here I thought people were complaining about not having enough kids.  Oh well....I better expand on the apartment project.  More RAMPS!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Staalo]

He went melancholy because of sleep deprivation. It causes madness, though this isn't well known because there are only a few situations in which it can happen. How are you planning to put him out of his misery? You can't just have the military kill him in his bed.

So that's possible too? This is the first I've seen it and it took a very specific syndrome with both drowsiness and unconsciousness (and nausea, but that's irrelevant) to get to that point. There are also several bugbats sleeping permanent sleep in the caverns but the madness doesn't seem to affect them.

In the end I didn't have to do anything; he died of thirst before I came up with a decent plan to "let him go."

[TheFlame52]

I'm having some trouble equipping one of my marksdwarves. He/she won't pick up a quiver.

There are quivers available. The position in the squad seems to be the problem, as my other marksdwarves pick up quivers. Switching out the dwarf does not solve the problem. The dwarf has plenty of room on his torso for the quiver. Even force-equip won't stick the quiver on him. What do I do?!

[Daris]

The point is I didn't know a couple could have more than five kids.  How many kids can a couple have now?  Oh the horror!  The horror!  I need the pill!  I need the pill!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[callisto8413]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

How does she have time for work?   

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

In Kilrudzustash, known in the common tongue as "Bronzeancient," work continues on the defensive structures.  A grand tower was previously built, housing the barracks, and with fortifications looking out onto the plains.  A roof was recently installed (just in time for winter), and now our soldiers are training in slightly less frigid air.  On the roof was placed a statue of the god of merriment and a slab to the only casualty in the history of the nearly three-year-old fortress, Rith Umstizgoden, who drowned in the cavern lake during construction earlier this year.

Now, a wall is being constructed around the tower, turning what was once a ten-tile long depot hallway into a long hallway with archer's walkways above.  The archers are training, sometimes, so we should be able to repel almost any attack.

Down below, the soldiers train inside a hollowed-out pillar, watching over the caverns.  Fisherdwarves fish, weavers collect webs, and a cave crocodile sits where it has for the last two seasons.

The snow falls, the workers build, and the children run around on the roof.

Speaking of children, the hammerdwarf mayor's baby just grew up!  She says she's "fine".  Great.  Good to see we won't have any babyshields, eh?

Aww!  Kol, the recently grown-up child, is playing with the giant cave spider by the frozen pond!

[Kneenibble]

I have a fortress now 12 years old that began to succumb to the dreaded FPS death.

The surface is littered with the corpses and junk from 12 years of goblin invasions.  I thought that flinging all that dross into magma would speed up performance at least a little bit.  And it has -- except that the repeated exposure to corpses has cast a rather grim mood over the whole fortress.  With the cleanup barely begun, I am already dangerously close to a tantrum spiral: and quite resentful that I have to choose between an unplayably slow game and a complete fortress disaster.

[Daris]

I have a fortress now 12 years old that began to succumb to the dreaded FPS death.

The surface is littered with the corpses and junk from 12 years of goblin invasions.  I thought that flinging all that dross into magma would speed up performance at least a little bit.  And it has -- except that the repeated exposure to corpses has cast a rather grim mood over the whole fortress.  With the cleanup barely begun, I am already dangerously close to a tantrum spiral: and quite resentful that I have to choose between an unplayably slow game and a complete fortress disaster.

Find the ones who are susceptible to stress and disable refuse hauling on them.  Then give them some task to do that will both keep them out of the charnel house and give them good thoughts about being satisfied at work.  It works even better if they can produce masterworks in the process, but even just brewing booze will help.

[cochramd]

I've got 3 giant bats now, but they're all female. There's a male flitting around the cavern, though. Heeeeeeerrrrrre batty batty batty....

[NESgamer190]

At voidspider, the fort has started disposal of the invaders from the two sieges in a 49 z-level drop onto some platinum flooring.  The results were quite pleasing as I saw each invader blast into six parts, and killed.  (From mighty ogre to piddling goblin.)  A giant had also attempted assault of the fort, and with a quick alarm, and giant attempting to destroy the trade depot with the trade caravan trailing the giant, I sent out my military elite and disposed of him in a few decisive blows.  (One strike, and the big galoot is down.  Have giants eaten a nerf, or am I missing something?)  One last thing:  The fortress has become a barony!

[cochramd]

Blast it all, the giant bat has gotten himself past my traps and into my quarry pit. This is exactly what the last male giant cave bat did, and it got him killed before I could do anything useful with him. That's it, I'm putting down some animals as bait....