Print

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

[QuQuasar]

I thought trying to build over branches and such crashed the game. It's done that to me, at least.

Oh is that what's causing that?  Dammit. Even the bugs are trying to kill you in this embark.

Gotta cut down that tree then. Back to plan a.

(Edit)

Haha, victory!
         
7 dwarves, 1 wagon, and a metric crapton of dogs (seriously, why so many dogs?) alive and safe inside a small bunker (4x3 interior). I can carve fortifications into the walls and shoot zombies from it, and there's 11 aboveground tiles (not including the stairs) for farming and maybe even a single grazing animal.
         
The only thing marring this flawless embark was an injury, a small thing really, barely even worth mentioning in the grand scheme of things, when a peregrine falcon zombie got close and, uh... _{^{tore out Eshtan's throat}}.
         
He's alive though! _{^{Unconsious and paralyzed from the neck down}} but alive!
         
We put him upstairs in the salt bunker. When he wakes up he can greet migrants through the fortifications and watch them get torn apart by the ravenous undead. Prime entertainment!

[Jazzeraint]

a metric crapton of dogs (seriously, why so many dogs?)

Dogs are food. Dogs are life. (until they get back up and try to kill you)

The only thing marring this flawless embark was an injury, a small thing really, barely even worth mentioning in the grand scheme of things, when a peregrine falcon zombie got close and, uh... _{^{tore out Eshtan's throat}}.
         
He's alive though! _{^{Unconsious and paralyzed from the neck down}} but alive!
         
We put him upstairs in the salt bunker. When he wakes up he can greet migrants through the fortifications and watch them get torn apart by the ravenous undead. Prime entertainment!

Ach, it's just a flesh wound. Walk it off, Eshtan! Walk it off...

[QuQuasar]

a metric crapton of dogs (seriously, why so many dogs?)

Dogs are food. Dogs are life. (until they get back up and try to kill you)

Ah, I see!
         
I'm accustomed to a different strategy: embark with a dedicated (proficient) grower and cook (and get the expedition leader to do the brewing), go vegetarian until the autumn caravan arrives, and then trade them a couple barrels of roasts.
         
One dwarf doing all those jobs confused me.

Ach, it's just a flesh wound. Walk it off, Eshtan! Walk it off...

Based on the red spinal injury and the fact he didn't bleed out or suffocate, I think the undead falcon must have landed on the back of his neck, jammed it's beak in, and pulled out a vertebrae. Sometimes I forget how hardcore this game is...

[neblime]

7 dwarves, 1 wagon, and a metric crapton of dogs (seriously, why so many dogs?) alive and safe inside a small bunker (4x3 interior). I can carve fortifications into the walls and shoot zombies from it, and there's 11 aboveground tiles (not including the stairs) for farming and maybe even a single grazing animal.

teach me master!
I tried building walls but zombies climbed over them before I could put a roof :\

[QuQuasar]

teach me master!
I tried building walls but zombies climbed over them before I could put a roof :\

Alright, here's how I did it:
         

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The moment you get in, before you unpause, you'll need to do these things:
         
         
■ Designate a carpenters workshop right next to the Tree Of Doom to the east that's overhanging the wagon. Leave at least one line of tiles between it and the wagon.
■ set up a 4x3 meeting area (including the wagon) with 'i'. This will keep your animals and idlers in the area.
■ set up a two-story (extra story so you can build the roof) burrow with 'w'. It should be sized to encompass 2 tiles on every side of your 4x3 meeting area (so, 8x7), plus the carpenters shop and Treefoe. Not sure if this is strictly necessary, but it doesn't hurt. Remember to activate the burrow via the military screen.
- The two extra tiles are one for the bunker wall tiles themselves, and one for just outside the walls, because they'll sometimes try to build the walls from outside, and if the burrow doesn't encompass these tiles they'll cancel the job.
         
Now quickly unpause and pause again. This is to get your carpenter to pick up the "construct building" job. Making a training axe so you can kill that tree will take longer than nearly anything else, so this is essential.
         
■ Now designate a barricade to enclose the 4x3 meeeting area.
■ Leave one tile open on the east side for access to the carpenters workshop.
■ Also designate an upward ramp in one of the corners.
■ End result, something like this:

Code: [Select]

█ = wall
W = wagon
C = carpenters shop
T = Murder Tree Of Evil
R = ramp

███████████ . T .
█ R W W W . C C C
█ . W W W █ C C C
█ . W W W █ C C C
███████████ . . .

Unpause, and let them go to it. Keep pausing and unsuspending jobs: they'll suspend whenever a trogodyte or troll comes near. The dwarves will also run off to chase said troglodytes and trolls away: this is annoying, but they'll generally come back once the target leaves the area. I think the burrow helps with that.

Everything you do from now on will happen when a specific event occurs:

■ When the carpenters shop is built, designate a training axe. I'd recommend giving everyone the carpentry and woodcutting labors to make sure someone gets on it asap.
■ remember to designate the enemy tree for cutting, too!

■ The moment the ramp and outer walls are done:
■ Designate the roof everywhere except under the tree's branches and above the ramp.
■ Reduce the size of the burrow. You no longer need access to the tiles outside the wall: only the tiles inside it and the carpenters shop and tree.

■ When Treefoe falls:
■ Reduce the size of the burrow. You no longer need access to the carpenters shop and trees. The burrow should now be the 4x3 area inside the walls, plus the missing wall-piece
■ Order the final wall-piece placed.
■ Order the second-to-last two tiles of roof (previously hidden under the branches) placed.

And finally...

■ When the second-to-last of the roof tiles are placed, order the tile over the ramp roofed. Your dwarfs can do this from underneath.

And, the most important thing throughout all this:

■ Get Lucky. I had a peregrine falcon attack: it could just as easily have been a troll or giant bat. But in general, you should have plenty of time before the undead are finished killing the wild creatures and the other expedition members to finish the bunker. It seemed to take more time to get that tree down than anything else: I even had time to dismantle the carpenters shop before putting that last wall in.

If you succeed, cancel the alert, delete the burrow, dismantle the wagon and start digging. It'll be a fairly normal evil-biome start from this point forward.

[Taupe]

I tip my hat to you, sir.

[Jazzeraint]

Well geez, spell it out for people. ;p That's the key though, bravo.

[Taupe]

This thread is like a very, very deadly game of Rush Hour...

[QuQuasar]

Alternative, far simpler method that also works so long you don't mind dog blood everywhere:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

■ Set up a meeting area a few tiles away from the wagon. Set up a burrow to stop everyone wandering off.
■ Channel out the area around the wagon. Dig out the area under the wagon.
■ (optional) Accidentally crush three dogs and a cat and knock everyone unconscious in the subsequent, "controlled" cave-in.
■ The wagon itself will be destroyed, but your stuff will be fine.
■ Floor off the new room, leaving a single tile to get in and out of.
■ Use a burrow and meeting hall to get everyone into the tiny room, then floor off the last tile.
■ Bam! Underground and safe.

[neblime]

I think I will have to try the caving in..
every time I try to build walls something shows up just at the wrong time and scares all the dwarves away

[QuQuasar]

Yay! 1 dwarven caravan safe and sound.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

In case you're not aware how that's achieved: Traders will only arrive from directions that provide wagon access to your trade depot: you can press "shift-D" to see whether you've got access.

That ramp is a few tiles away from the southern border, and the ditches without ramps to the east and west prevent the wagon from going around it, so the only place they can arrive on the map is directly in the tunnel.

So long as the undead don't reach them while they're still arriving, it's a simple matter of waiting for them to get in and closing the southern door behind them.

Had to savescum twice: once to avoid excessive post-mortem-elk-bird-induced cranial trauma throughout the entire fortress (all 7 dwarves were too busy to pull the "don't die" lever I guess) and a second time when I accidentally crushed one of their horses with the southern bridge and they immediately started packing up. It's almost like they found the sight of liquid horse dribbling down the doorway they just arrived through disturbing or something.

Of course, then I learn the hard way that I can't seize stuff from the dwarven caravan (which I guess makes sense in this case: they had 3 merchants and 4 fully-armed bodyguards. We had two picks, a wood axe and a cripple). I suggested that we *could* just leave the southern door open and let them be torn apart by undead, but they laughed it off as a joke and I was too embarrassed to clarify that I was dead serious.

So without anything of worth (normally I'd have mechanisms and prepared meals by now, but I took far too long getting stone and the embark wasn't set up for cooking), we ended up trading the only thing we had any of: wine and ale. Yes, I traded away booze. I will go down in the annals as dwarven histories greatest monster, but dammit we needed that anvil!

[Jazzeraint]

I would have just left them to the Undead and looted their corpses.

[QuQuasar]

They're still here so it's still an option, but I'm mostly worried about attracting the undead to the trade depot entrance. I don't trust them not to camp out in front of the door and ambush next years traders.

Plus something something smaller caravan next time something, but who cares about that anyway?

[Elagn]

To seize from dwarven caravans, deconstruct the trade depo while they are in it. You get absolutely everything they have, excluding what they are wearing and such. It counts as if you out-traded them to a rediculus degree, and not that you stole it. This can be employed with caravans of other races as well.