I've been trying out some gobbo forting. Had a bit of a scare early on though, as I settled in a very hot climate (all the ponds had long since evaporated) with no brook, and goblins can't take booze from the start.
I also only had three wooden logs, and my other barrels were stuffed full of turtles (get extra food from the bones, yet another reason to go turtle). I had to dig out some rock, build a still and a carpenter's workshop (after taking down the previous ones, which were made out of aforementioned logs), and start making barrels and booze.
Well, the first barrel suffered from lack of micromanagement and got stuffed full of useless hide roots. The second barrel fell prey to a bug, and refused to be stuffed full of anything. But the third barrel was juuust right.
So I had seven goblins all clamoring or the same barrel. Two goblins died of thirst, a miner and my very much needed goblins sniper (crossbow). The reason he was very much needed was because I happened to settle on a place that had not one, but two chasms (so far). One serpentine and one pit. I had a tiny bit of space on my side of the chasm, and promptly decided to only dig out a hallway on that side and slap everything else on the far side.
Right over the heads of a family of inquisitive ratmen.
I had to station the crossgoblin there to fire down at them whenever one decided to poke its head out, or else nothing would get done dut to cancellations. But then he died, and I needed to conscript someone else.
Anyways, things have stabilized somewhat. There are several deceased batmen at the bottom of the chasm with bolts stuck in them, and there's a ratman who wanders around in his little hole passing out from time to time due to the iron bolt that's currently stuck in his arm. I even got a wave of completely useless migrants (lye maker, weaponsmith, siege operator, three peasants...) who were sent to work doing menial jobs.
I didn't want the ratmen to bother me anymore, and the angle my goblins were firing from wasn't that great. So I built a couple bridges out to see if maybve they could hit 'em from there. No luck.
Since there were two bridges, I figured I'd just remove the one that was connected to my main bridge, and have the other collapse (it was far enough away not to suck anybody in).
Well, guess which end of the bridge my highly skilled mason/architect decided to deconstruct it from? Yep, he stood on the second bridge, and removed his support, tumbling into the chasm below.
But hey, I'm not complaining. I've got a fresh new batch of mason recruits, and I didin't lose a single goblin to my controlled cave-in. Not even the imbecile miner who dug out the last space from the wrong side, and got trapped on the platform.
There's even a perfectly shaped doomtower overlooking my front entrance! Since it's part of the cliff, it goes up several levels with all manner of bloodletting potential! It's even got the right spacing inside of it to allow for catapults to be centered comfortably inside.
Pity trolls don't breed though. I should have fixed up the stuff in the goblin mod before starting up.