Ishlumonol (Nutsmountain; that was indeed from the Random Names Generator) now faces another goblin siege. 42 goblins stand outside our gates.
Actually, 10 are locked inside the aboveground fort. I couldn't lock down early enough because they spawned as close to the the drawbridge as they really could, and the fisherdwarf (dead, now) needed it open to run for cover.
I think I'm gonna install a sally port ... and a secret (ish) door. Also a tunnel up the mountain to the river would be good. Something I can quickly lock down.
I'm waiting for the last 5 members of the militia to get over the cave adaptation from the last siege. They are standing inside the animal pen, because the invaders are not smart enough to climb the walls and shoot'em all down. Of course, with just four archers/marks-goblins, if that, they couldn't do much damage before MY four marksdwarves could bring them down. Probably. Now I think of it, I'd better turn the fortifications above the pen to walls ... that was a minor design screwup, because they wouldn't see much use unless I wanted both meat and a rapidly trained squad ... lol.
Also waiting for the second armorer to level up to Expert. Then I can involve him/her in the process of making high-quality armor. I've got low-quality and high-quality armor stockpiles. Currently, the smaller high-quality one is full. Armor is getting left in the armorsmiths' magma smiths. The low-quality one is still half-full of the crud from the last siege (reclaimed all gear off 8 captives, as well; small issue with not ONE of them making it into the Pit, unlike the first two, whom I failed to properly disarm anyways).
In other news, second tier of walls is nearly done, just a bit more to do once I clean this siege out. I'm gonna kill off the ten I trapped inside first, then I'm going to do my very best to trap ten more. Failing that, I'll kill'em all. My militia can do it; they're not even outnumbered 2-1. And I've got a Hammerlord. Grand Master hammerdwarf militia commander. Most dangerous creature in my world by far. Insanely determined, incredible will, massive strength and toughness ... he's got it all. Can't kill him, can't tire him out, can't cause enough pain to down him .... best Dwarf ever.
Once these fool Goblins die, I'm going to finish off my three-z tall "Arena", basically. It's going to have two accesses: one to funnel the siege down at first, and a second set of passages trapped from here to HFS (literally; I'm probably going to rig a washroom to drop'em down about that far) so I can have goblinite everywhere. Not that I need it, but it does provide my overworked furnace ops something to do. They're swamped making pig iron. Forget a flowing steel industry, I'm just gonna smelt all my current iron through to pig iron, then to steel. Then I'll do ALL the iron I've dug up, all at once. Then we'll create an enormous citizen militia, with the standard military working and everybody else training to become powerful soldiers. Probably set it 3-on, 3-off for scheduling, and have half-half for population training at once. It'll cut jobs to a standstill, though, so I'm going to finish the aboveground fort first. It's got 2z walls, 1z fortifications; I'm going to roof it over at least partially to prevent dodging dwarves. Then I'm going to cut the temporary wooden staircase out so they don't get any ideas. Drawbridge sealing access, all made of shale and rhyolite; same color, but neither is even magma safe, unfortunately. So no siege-busting magma weapon. At least, not unless I replace Floor 1 with quartzite walls. And probably Floor 2. And I'll need a quartzite tunnel to get marksdwarves into the top-floor shooting gallery for anything magma-proof. I.E. dragons.
No, quartzite is NOT dragonfire safe. Why do you ask?
After I finish the killing arena, I've got to install two forgotten items: First, an access to the kill-zone that is NOT inside the lockdown fort on top (contains trade depot; not that I care, but I missed the last dwarven caravan and I want to see what the elves do this year; I stole from them last year); second, a method to lock the fort down from the trapped access tunnel beneath, so I can use that too. Although they just seem to stand there forever and ignore the dwarves and dogs at the other end. Perhaps they can see the grey d's as well? Do they know these are no ordinary dogs, but vicious killing machines?
I have plans. But these blasted sieges keep getting in the way. And at one every six months (three total, in fact), I'm going to need a siege-ready militia to get me goblinite and a method to fill my garbage dump with rotting crud. And so I can keep dwarves above-ground doing work.