Note - This is written from the perspective of my character, who is an immigrant who arrived after the split. He was not there for all of this, but I am ignoring that.
Well, this is terrible. I arrived as a new migrant to what was supposed to be a great, new, upcoming fortress. Instead, there is a small, squalorus hole in the ground with a wooden shack overhead, 12 adult dwarves, and 6 children. I guess this new migrant party didn't help much on the child side though, considering it was 26 new individuals, 12 of which are children, bringing the total population up to 26 adults and 18 children, not a great ratio for anywhere.
What is worse is the distribution of labor, which is terrible. Among the people here when I arrived, there was no order as to who did what. It seemed there was only one miner, but I soon found a second, who was also the only mason, along with 2 engravers, 2 engravers for a fortress barely a year old. The rest of them were just as bad. One dwarf had all of the administrative duties, as well as being Chief Medical Dwarf (without a hospital I might add), and also a fisherman. The previous overseer is bipolar and nuts, and almost nothing is getting done. For Armok's sake they have hematite, dolomite in that hill over there, and a forest to turn into charcoal, and they haven't even touched on metalworking, despite having a budding smith already with them.
For all these reasons and probably more, they decided I was to run this fortress for the next year. I only hope that this is enough time to bring it up to par.
First on the list was fixing job assignments. What people were assigned to do was strictly regulated, and their titles changed to match this. This turned out 2 full-time miners, 1 lumberjack, 2 smiths- the one who was already here and an adequate armor smith who arrived with me, woodburners, 2 masons, 1 carpenter, and animal trainer, one stonecrafter, one skilled medic who became chief medical dwarf and arrived with me, and several others, as well as 3 people with skill in combat slated for starting the military, and several haulers.
After the jobs were mostly fixed, it came time to start striking the earth in earnest. Much more was ordered dug out, such as an expedition to find the caverns, a new hospital, new rooms for the new migrants, a military barracks, several veins of hematite, a passage to the flux stone hill, a storeroom by the depot for trade goods, a metalworking area, and room for many new workshops, as well as expanding the dining hall for the future.
On the surface, fishing was ended, but some plant collection was started, trees were ordered cleared from around the "hut", so a wall and moat around a small area of the outdoors could be constructed, as well as to produce a surplus of wood for usage in charcoal production. The new animal trainer trained the dogs, and they are now guarding the entrance of the hut, soon to be moved to the entrance to the palisade, once it is complete.
Indoors, the masons make blocks and doors, while the carpenter is kept busy making a selection of bins, beds, and wheelbarrows. The craftsdwarf starts making crafts, the farmers farm, the new wood burners make charcoal, new smelters melt hematite, galena, and some of the new native silver the miners quickly found on their new expeditions.
The elves came, and while I am normally happy to see elves and fairly mindful of their beliefs, I had to grin at their faces as they walked up to the fortress with trees falling all around them, the smell of smoke on the air, and a trench starting to scour the earth around us. Trading was decent, but minor, selling a few trinkets for an eagle, an owl, and some fruits. The birds are now on sentry duty, and if something comes to bother us, the hope is that they will make enough noise in dying to alert us of the issue.
The miners have done it!, they found the caverns, and while we quickly sealed them up, we were greeted with some great sights from below. Apparently, a group of Troglydites and Trolls took a disliking to a tribe of bat people. The result was a decimation of most of both of their forces, and 27 deaths that we dwarves had nothing to do with, but are still counting. The miners are ordered to dig through one of the columns and keep diging deeper. Already we have found native silver and gold, hematite, galena, cassiterite, and more.
Work continues at a reasonable pace, with a decent amount of iron, silver, and lead smelted, I ordered a forge constructed, and 3 iron battle axes, 3 iron mail shirts, and 3 iron helms forged. This was quickly achieved, and we now have an army of 3 dwarves who are competent with their axes, and training to be better in the newly dug out barracks.
The surface improvements are doing OK. Much of the ditch has been dug out, but none has yet been flooded. The walls are part-way done, and the bridge over the moat is complete, though as of yet unattached to any lever.
The miners in the depths bring good news again, this time in the form of tetrahedrite, followed quickly by the 3rd cavern layer. The tetrahedrite we can smelt with the cassiterite in raw form to get 8 bars per unit of charcoal, which is hugely efficient, and the cavern indicates we are close to the blood of the earth. We must have missed the 2nd layer, but that is unimportant. We now have access to all of the staple metals, gold, silver, copper, bronze, iron, and steel, all without importation, we are fortunate indeed.
The spring ends with little else, the surface fortifications are about 70% done, the moat 90% done, the underground mining project mostly complete, and other industries establishing themselves. We now have 3 soldiers in partial iron, and hope to finish them off in bronze to train the smiths, before seriously using much steel. Once the blood of the earth is found, I plan to begin a pottery industry, as I noticed that this location has fire clay, rendering glazing unneccesary. We truly are fortunate to have such an ideal location, and I hope the summer goes as well as the spring went
(OOC: Seriously, this is one of the best sites I have ever played on, after the turn is over, can I get the seed, parameters, and location, or something?)
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Topic: Parallel Fortresses Succession Game. | Finished (Read 87823 times)