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[ofasgard]

I'm trying out an experiment: set the population cap to 7 and build an aboveground fort. The only stuff below ground is my storerooms. Petitions for residency ignore the population cap, so effectively I have a multicultural fort that is slowly growing as random drifters join the community. Fits the theme well since I'm in the middle of a desert several thousand miles from the mountainhomes.

[Gizogin]

My fortress has entered summer of its second year.  What a year it has been.

The goal of my fortress was to live entirely contained in a 20x20x20 cube, suspended in and surrounded by water three tiles thick on all sides.  I finally finished channeling all the way down, despite every effort by my miners to sabotage themselves.  Channeling downwards should not be complicated, but my dwarves keep digging out the tiles that others are standing on, and apparently my miners are made of balsa wood and styrofoam.  I lost four miners and a mason to fall-related head collapses, and my expedition leader, two of my remaining miners, and at least one farmer suffered major injuries.  I'm just glad I had the foresight to set up the hospital as a priority.  Eventually, I figured out how to designate channeling tasks to minimize the risk of injury, and now I have a macro to handle it.

I hit the caverns much sooner than I expected, so I had to spend a lot of time securing and sealing them.  A crundle and a troglodyte still snuck through before I could finish, and now I only have one dog left.

Apparently, that hospital stay had a profound effect on my expedition leader, as she decided to crown herself queen shortly after getting out.  I had to put other digging tasks on hold while I converted an entire floor of precious space into living quarters for her, and it's still not good enough, so I need to make some fancy furniture as well.  Since I haven't yet filled in the moat around my fortress, I'm thinking a nice floodgate built into the outer wall will make her happy.  She can have a lever made of fancy mechanisms, too.  And, if she should get too hot and stuffy cramped up underground, she'll be able to let in some cool, refreshing water.

At least she likes war hammers, so we have something in common.

As soon as I can divert attention away from Her Royal Pickiness, I'm going to begin work on my water circulation system.  Since the fortress itself will be self-contained and space for leisure is limited, I want to give my dwarves something to keep their spirits up.  As we all know, nothing perks up those beard hairs like the gentle misting of a thunderous waterfall, so I'm going to run one right through the middle of the fortress.  It's going to fall all around the central staircase, with floor grates keeping the dwarves from being washed away.  Something like this:

Code: [Select]

OO++OO
O+##+O
+#XX#+
+#XX#+
O+##+O
OO++OOThat's going to mean building a pump stack and a compact water reactor or three, and I'll have to build it before I can start filling the moat or the cistern.  At least it'll give me time to gather and dump all the stone sitting in the moat; it's too much raw material for me to be comfortable wasting it.

My immediate and total focus on excavation has had a bit of an impact on other industries.  Sure, I have a workshop or two for each industry, but but with every dwarf focused on clearing stone, smoothing stone, engraving stone, fashioning furniture out of stone, or building stone walls, I have absolutely no ability to trade with the dwarven caravan that has just left for the second time.  They didn't even bring a liaison (how odd), so I can't request what I need.

[LMeire]

A tigerfish fell out of my aqueduct, so I made some +biscuits+.

[Cynicalsob]

I'm trying out an experiment: set the population cap to 7 and build an aboveground fort. The only stuff below ground is my storerooms. Petitions for residency ignore the population cap, so effectively I have a multicultural fort that is slowly growing as random drifters join the community. Fits the theme well since I'm in the middle of a desert several thousand miles from the mountainhomes.

I`ve been thinking of doing the same except eliminating the 7 originals and having just humans and/or elves.

[StarWars1981]

Nutsmountain lost two dwarves. Idiot marksdwarves decided NOT to shoot at the goblins, but charge them head-on. The melee dwarves arrived shortly afterwards. I can live without those two fools, they were low skill anyways.
Now my dang hallway is filled with the blood and remnants of two lonely goblins who decided not to join the 28 others who evacuated after I waited them out (creating steel armor for the militia to make them not just skilled, but armored supermen). 8 more never got the chance, but only 4 of them went in the pit. The others, unarmed and tiny, decided to fight it out with the fully armed militia stationed (after the first 2 escapees brutalized a poor peasant dwarf) in the pitting room. Danged things got a 50% pit rate, the others tried their luck. It wasn't much.

I stand corrected; 100% failure rate. Not a single goblin made it down the hole. Really??!?!?? Well, the first speardwarf in has 3 new kills to his name. Oh well. I guess I don't need goblins in a pit.
Also the two who are currently in there are fully armed/armored. I never properly dumped their equipment. Oops. I'll have to send the militia commander in after them, or someone like that. He's got attributes related to military skills all showing green and probably two levels above average (in the text, such as average/strong/very strong); also a High Master Hammerdwarf and Legendary Observer/Fighter/Wrestler. He's not taken a single injury despite charging goblins many times. Other dwarves are showing similar traits, but not quite so pronounced; his second, the Axedwarf, is not nearly so skilled for some reason; hmm, I've got to check that out.
Oh wait, his second's a woodcutter too. No wonder - she wouldn't have spent so much time training.
In other related news:  two Swordmasters now, both Great skill. Wonder when I'll get another Hammerlord; the Militia Commander is one, but it just says Militia Commander . It's not as cool.
Anyways, steel industry coming up quickly enough. Now that the dang siege is gone (missed Dwarven caravan, oh well), I can cut more wood for charcoal, so I can smelt all my iron bars into pig iron and then steel, rather than doing a quota for each to ensure I get enough steel for my military.
Also working on a plan for breaching the caverns. I'm thinking send an armored militia through when there's no Forgotten Beasts or GCS or anything, really, that's likely to be an issue. Then we locate the map edges, wall it at the base and then climb up, walling the entire gap. Militia on-station at all times. Should only take a little while. Gonna need to move stone down, though. Possibly set an array of cagetraps and behind those, some sort of elaborate system to make use of my magma pump stack. And my extra FPS. It doesn't really need to move that fast, does it?

EDIT: Fixed that; the militia commander is a HAMMERLORD, not an AXELORD. Derp.

[NeoSilverThorn]

Well, let's see, over the last season my last fortress:
- Was threatened by a weresalamander who decided to try and chase dorfs picking fruit, but turned back into a goblin, fell a good four Z levels out of the tree and landed on his neck and shoulders, killing it on impact.  Nobody apparently considers it important to pick up the corpse.  (Or maybe they just don't want to have a corpse that goes from goblin to giant lizard on a regular basis in the trash pile.  Either or.)

-Lost the blacksmith when his fell mood happened and he failed to gether materials.  Snapped and went berzerk in the middle of the dining room, only to be beaten to death two minutes later by the mob.  (Not sure who got the kill.)  Could likely have been prevented had he not decided to stop in the middle of building the forge to get drunk.

-Due to either a bug, population outpacing skill or everyone but one of the fisherdwarves being traumatized due to the blacksmith's abrupt insanity, the manager stopped verifying new jobs.  One of two major reasons I abandoned the fortress; without jobs getting verifyed I was short beds, ammo, chairs and tables and the booze supply was all but gone.  Hell, I couldn't even get a coffin made.  The blacksmith's corpse was just laying in the graveyard terrifying every kid who walked by it.

The other big reason for the abandon at this point was that we were consuming food faster than we could replenish it.  Too many dorfs, too fast, and even four hunters and five fisherdwarves couldn't put meat on the table quick enough.

[Foxite]

This is the second siege. My militia is 25 strong, with 5 marksdwarves and 20 ground troops. A large group of goblins simply climbed over the walls and neutralized the marksdwarves.

Long story short, I didn't win.

[Random_Dragon]

This is the second siege. My militia is 25 strong, with 5 marksdwarves and 20 ground troops. A large group of goblins simply climbed over the walls and neutralized the marksdwarves.

Long story short, I didn't win.

And thus, you learned the hard way not to build a defense that hinges on enemies being unable to climb. o3o

[vekar]

Chain of events over the past three days but first some basic information:
Dying civilization, rebuilding them, became capital, I drafted the queen and duchess into a squad called "Royal Guard" so they would arm up and learn to fight, worked, but the queen played hookey and refused to train, always "busy" doing something else like drinking and sleeping. Duchess trains like hell, she is a master macedwarf, squad had (now has more) two legendary dwarves, now the story begins.

1. Goblin invasion, turns out the militia refused to use the shields I provided nor the armor, they ran outside and faced the goblins, made some headway then they all got butchered for lack of armor and shields which were rotting in the bins below.

2. Goblin invasion is crushed physically by liberal use of a single atom smasher, couple trolls, goblins and some beak dogs still get inside while others learn to fly some 7+ z-levels up, it rained gore. Down below the last surviving squad: Royal Guard, holds the line. The queen at the last minute decides to go investigate the sounds down the hallway rather than hold her position and is gutted by a... Goblin with a crossbow. The queen was such a pansy she could not defend herself from a flailing goblin holding a crossbow and died quickly. Royal Guard charges down the hall and kills off everything without a single bump or bruise, no one mourns the loss of "the old dumb heifer." She really was too, utterly useless, an old booze hound that weighed a metric ton, no one was willing to haul her carcass for a LONG time.

3. VAMPIRE! Kills three, the last dwarf to give their life for the glorious mountainhome was a bait dwarf in the 60+ packed tavern, all beds were moved there after the previous detection system failed: Located in a crowded hallway, no one saw a thing somehow. Turns out it is a human vampire bard, 26 witnesses come screaming to the Captain of the Guard, 27 if you count the vampire. The Royal Guard is sent into action, this is their main purpose: Cleansing the fortress of filth. The vampire is down in the hospital (more on that later) at the time saying the bed ate the dwarf. Instant conviction while the RG squad now marches into view, vampire runs. Vampire finds out that stairwell was HALF finished, turns the flee... Trapped. Then came Ducim Koganrith, ah Ducim... Ducim arrived with the queen, legendary hammerer, tasked with protecting the queen and failed horribly, never even showed up for the battle. Disgraced. Traitor, Coward... SCUM! Ducim regained his honor this day, he charged the vampire and cornered it in the private tombs hallway while the squad was far behind. He waited. The vampire came back down the hall and as he poked his head out Ducim gave him a haircut. Blood sprayed everywhere and the vampire ran off screaming deeper into the catacombs, Ducim calmly walking after him. The vampire his in the Duchess's mausoleum, Ducim followed him inside and took a few swings, each hit but not a killing blow, the floor was red. The vampire fled again to the queens tomb, Ducim quietly followed. Ducim stepped inside and locked the door behind him, then attacked. It took days for the vampire to die, Ducim very slowly beat the vampire to death, breaking every bone and tearing every muscle. Outside the RG waited, listening to the howls of agony and terror, then one day he door opened and out stepped Ducim, drenched in blood, the duchess nodded her approval to him and made their way back upstairs.

4. The Captain of the Guard is a doctor. She spent the better part of a year wandering the fortress after her appointment beating the living hell out of random dwarves for crimes that happened under the old booze hound queen, she then would pack them up, carry them to the hospital (sometimes) and then patch them up. She beat up so many dwarves within two months that the hospital was almost at 50% capacity and it is no small hospital. She actually quit carrying out "justice" so she could patch up the wounded. I appointed her the position for the sheer sake of irony, the doctor shows up at your home with a baseball bat, breaks both legs then gasps and says "Who could do such a horrible thing!" Then takes you to the hospital and patches you up and cares for you. For the sake of irony she sentenced HERSELF to 276 days in prison but since she is the only "justice bringer," no one can take her up on that YET.

Edit: Despite mass exportation the stock of dwarven MRE's is over 5000 units in a fortress of 169.
Edit Edit: Human bard just tried to steal an instrument, justice is swift! Armor save the soul of anyone trying to steal a library book though... *shudder*

[ofasgard]

I`ve been thinking of doing the same except eliminating the 7 originals and having just humans and/or elves.

Give it time, I'm sure they'll die on their own soon enough 

[Fleeting Frames]

I`ve been thinking of doing the same except eliminating the 7 originals and having just humans and/or elves.

Note that this way you won't get (admittedly exploity) bait artifact furniture.

-Due to either a bug, population outpacing skill or everyone but one of the fisherdwarves being traumatized due to the blacksmith's abrupt insanity, the manager stopped verifying new jobs.

Honestly, what surprises me so much about the new system is how little of a bottleneck manager is usually reported to be. I think this is the first time I hear manager killing fort.

4. The Captain of the Guard is a doctor. She spent the better part of a year wandering the fortress after her appointment beating the living hell out of random dwarves for crimes that happened under the old booze hound queen, she then would pack them up, carry them to the hospital (sometimes) and then patch them up.

Impressive. I think I'm probably doing the same.

[NeoSilverThorn]

-Due to either a bug, population outpacing skill or everyone but one of the fisherdwarves being traumatized due to the blacksmith's abrupt insanity, the manager stopped verifying new jobs.

Honestly, what surprises me so much about the new system is how little of a bottleneck manager is usually reported to be. I think this is the first time I hear manager killing fort.

Well, helping to kill, anyways.  I just abandoned the fort before the sobriety-and-starvation-induced tantrum spiral could start. 

Honestly, it's probably somewhere between "It's the mac version" and "Neo attracts AI bugs that way," since this kind of thing isn't uncommon to me when I play games like Dwarf Fortress.

[Cynicalsob]

I`ve been thinking of doing the same except eliminating the 7 originals and having just humans and/or elves.

Note that this way you won't get (admittedly exploity) bait artifact furniture.

Whaa you mean only dwarves can get posessed moody etc and make artifacts?
And whats that about artifact furniture exploits? i like exploiting

[ThatZommy]

I`ve been thinking of doing the same except eliminating the 7 originals and having just humans and/or elves.

Note that this way you won't get (admittedly exploity) bait artifact furniture.

Whaa you mean only dwarves can get posessed moody etc and make artifacts?
And whats that about artifact furniture exploits? i like exploiting

Well, you could always throw the moody tag into the human and elf creatures.

[Cynicalsob]

I`ve been thinking of doing the same except eliminating the 7 originals and having just humans and/or elves.

Give it time, I'm sure they'll die on their own soon enough 

I guess its better to keep couple of them alive as artifact producing slaves.
God i like this game!