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[HandofCreation0]

So I'm not a terribly experienced DF player. Have never built a water or magma pump, never really automated any sort of system or way of doing things, like danger rooms, etc, but I've survived and know HOW to survive.

Anyways, que Crestpages, a Dwarven Fortress created on a world where dwarves were losing. Badly. High savagery, high beasts, goblins everywhere. The dwarves had no King, no mountainhome left and only two small hillocks to their names. I thought it would make an interesting challenge, and it somewhat has.

But things went well enough surprisingly. Walls were erected and fortifications dug, dwarves crafting and military training. In came the first goblin siege. Only about 7 or 8 of them. Easily and brutally murdered, only lost 1 dwarf. And then came a Bronze Colossus. The drawbridge was raised and the dwarves were walled in for over a year. Magma was discovered, and soon came flowing steel. A brave squad of soldiers went out, armed to the teeth in full Steel battlement, and beat the Bronze Colossus without a single loss, the only major injury being my Military commander who suffered both of his legs being horribly broken and split open, he was in a traction bench for over a year but fully recovered.

Then came another goblin siege. About 30 goblins and this time riding beak dogs. Again brutally destroyed, lost few dwarves. Fire spitting forgotten beast, destroyed, and the caverns burned down. Then another siege, larger than last, about 50 goblins, 3 ogres and about a dozen trolls. Cut down again. Then ANOTHER a few seasons later. Another forgotten beast, this one made of stone (chalk I think) and spat deadly spittle. Lost a few dwarves to it, but it died too.

At this point now, even with so much of the clothes from the invaders being traded away, my Framerate is a mess, only 25 FPS on the surface with all 3 caverns discovered and 150 dwarves running about. About 40 FPS inside. I've beaten every invader so far yet, my Fortress is the mountainhome now, a King finally amongst the dwarves, gold and steel flowing like rivers. I sit here now, feeling rather bored and that nothing save perhaps a dragon or roc could pose any sort of "real" threat to me. The Dead/Missing list is over 800 units long.

With such victories under the fortresses belt, and such low FPS, should I just retire and move on from the Fortress? Continue expanding the dwarven empire? Or am I quitting too early? I've never had a fortress get THIS far before. I'd maybe try a large scale project, but with the game running at 1/4 speed, I feel like ANY project, big OR small, would take an eternity.

What do you guys think?

[thegoatgod_pan]

25-30 fps is tolerable: you can notice things you wouldn't otherwise at that rate, but it isnt yet the drag of 10fps. You can sleed it up by destroying enemy corpses and rotting clothing in an atom smasher and using dfhack to clean everything from random contaminants.

that said, with the option to retire on the table, you may as well start a new fort, with the possibility of returning to the old still on the table. Always fun to play an adventurer and visit your own fort too

[Urist McShire]

Wait, you're at 25 FPS and you're complaining?

Come back to me when you hit 10 on a good day.

All kidding aside, At this point I think the only outside enemy that really could challenge you wouldn't even be a dragon, since it sounds like all your military dwarves are kitted out to the 9s and have shields, but a web-spitting Titan or FB. If you really want to test your metal, dig down to the adamantium and release the clowns, or, even better than that, retire this fort and start another on the same world, and slowly go about bringing your dwarven civilization back to prominence against the gobbos.

And also start a war with the elves. Kill all the elves you can. Dirty hippies.

[Fleeting Frames]

That's not a bad FPS for something that size, I think. I assume you've done variety of things to remove items and limit pathfinding.

About retiring: Iirc, the fortress will persist on it's military might, simulated by a series of one on one fights. So if you want fort to survive without you it is probably what you should focus on.

Still, megaprojects tend to be done in low FPS (typically in teens) with lot of dwarves. Maybe try to figure out how to automate the fortress so you can check it intermittently?

[HandofCreation0]

Wait, you're at 25 FPS and you're complaining?

Come back to me when you hit 10 on a good day.

All kidding aside, At this point I think the only outside enemy that really could challenge you wouldn't even be a dragon, since it sounds like all your military dwarves are kitted out to the 9s and have shields, but a web-spitting Titan or FB. If you really want to test your metal, dig down to the adamantium and release the clowns, or, even better than that, retire this fort and start another on the same world, and slowly go about bringing your dwarven civilization back to prominence against the gobbos.

And also start a war with the elves. Kill all the elves you can. Dirty hippies.

Heh, map only had 1 Adamantine spire, and it was microscopic, only had about 25 units of the blue stuff to use. Made axes and a single suit of armor for the King (who is a VERY good king, he was a Axelord before being promoted after "settling with his rivals" and likes slabs and leggings, which are super easy to make). I'm aware of the melting "features" that allow you to generate adamantine, but I feel that's kinda cheating.

Sadly despite there being Elves on the map, my fortress is too far away for them to visit, and the only elves I've seen are the RARE few who come in for soldiering or performing.

I got sick of all the of performers and soldiers hovering around my fortress, despite me never approving a single one to stay there, they were all listed as "citizens" and were taking up about 5 1/2 pages on the squad list. So I purged them all by force and forbid anymore visitors, then dumped their corpses and all their belongings save metal weapons and melted them down.

I was secretly hoping that killing 50 humans that were innocent(ly eating my framerate) would put me at war with them and would spice up things. It didn't.

Also. I can't help but keep noticing this number at the bottom of my stocks page. Have ANY clue as to what it is? https://gyazo.com/eda3edb5e77bcf3b459cfdc0e8e3bcc4 I've seen it go from -27 to 7,000,000+ and everything between

[Goatmaan]

A few things to remember if you're going to start another fort in that world after you retire this one.
You will get immigrants from this fort.
Woodcutters will bring their axe.
Miners their pick.
Hunters their crossbow/quiver.
Military will sadly leave armor/weapons behind, but bring their skills.
So I'd retire any xbow squads, make them hunters.
Add some miners, stripmine a few z levels.
Add some woodcutters, clearcut the map.
Add military if you want.
Then retire.
Enjoy the skilled immigrants you get at new fort.


  Goatmaan

Ps 10 fps? Ha. Come talk to me when you get a steady 5. 

[k33n]

Dig deeper and prove your power.

[HandofCreation0]

Update: I've decided not to retire the fort for now, and instead expand and make it better. I've got tons of stone, literal thousands of bars of metal. Time to make something out of it. I've begun explanding the forts EXTERIOR so that my dwarves can have a little breathing room and do some work out in the sun. Too many cave adapted dwarves just go "blech" the moment they step outside.

[Sanctume]

Build roads from north to south, and east to west. 
Actually, make it tracks, with loot stashes along the way. 

When you retire it, and build more fort embarks, you can do similar on roads that can connect to adjacent fort embarks. 

Then when you have an adventurer, they can ride the minecart to your fortress, and have stashes of loot along the way.

[freeze]

Can't really comment on fort decisions (I bounce around a lot depending on general mood as a fort develops), but really don't skip adventuring and getting a few more forts going once you've got a region you like.

I'm in a similar situation but elves are the main enemy. Humans are under 10k but about 3/4 of the goblins are part of the main human civ (20k+ elves and goblins). Everything was fine my first embark (_two_ living dwarves in the world at the time), found lots of shiny blue rocks but no steel. We spent six years at peace with everyone except the pathetic gobs who didn't even manage more than two squads in an attack over six years.

Eventually got bored and not having steel did another embark. Got gobs of steel but either very little or no blue. I was literally on the doorstep of a tower though, so stayed pretty busy. I never build walls and do most of my crafting/training on the surface. Anyway, retired there after just a few years and found I still couldn't create a dwarf adventurer so I rolled goblin in the human civ near my 2nd embark. Made my way to the fort and found that the elves had declared war over trees - this after years of careful negotiation and peaceful trading (I want some more sites first, damn it) - and noone could stop talking about the giant elven invasion force en route. I was able to recruit three squad leaders, steel clad weapon lords all, to "rescue" them from the elven menace. Good times.