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[gchristopher]

Summer 202 is complete!

95% of the last two seasons can be summed up in two words: LOG HAULING. The dwarves of CurseKnowledge have decided by general acclaim that log hauling is an utterly mindless task, and does absolutely nothing to build accursed skills or responsibility. Walk over to a log, pick it up, carry it somewhere, put it down. Maybe wave it around a bit in case any elves are watching and shout "Har! Like tha', elf? It's yer tree, and a'hm haulin' it around! Ha!"

So maybe Log Hauling and Log FLAUNTING are the two most common activities in CursedKnowledge.

It's not glamorous, but hey, we're sparing future overseers the chore, so they can chase whatever crazy dreams don't involve carrying bits of wood to stockpiles.

Here's a log of the adventures of CurseKnowledge, Summer 202!

2nd Hematite, 202, Early Summer: Shululujubin, Kobold Thief is back! Hey little guy! Come on in! You want a... uh, log? Hooo, boy do we have logs.

He ran away. What does it take to make a little growly Kobold friend these days? We should make some sparkly toys and leave them out, maybe near a cage or something.

10 Hematite, 202: The magma minecarts are filled! The dwarves flip the lever to drain the filling area, revealing six red-hot iron minecarts full of that most beautiful of liquids: magma.

The carts need to be loaded into an insulating carrying cart to be brought back to the surface. While that tedious micromanagement is happening, let's think a bit about fortress defense.

Every fort will occasionally be visited by sneaky no-good stealthy cheaters. Don't they know it's shockingly poor manners to walk around without stomping, and not wearing proper outfits of clanking metal? It's truly an uncivilized world out there.

Well, if those misbegotten quiet, shadow-hugging fools won't make a racket like's proper, I guess the dwarves will have to do something to spot 'em before they can cause too much trouble.

It's time to deploy.... the PUPPYWATCH!



The PuppyWatch is five puppies stationed on top of grates over the entrance hallway. They wait for anything to walk past and bark their little heads off if anything gets the crazy idea to try to sneak in.

Okay, got distracted playing with puppies there for a while. Where was this fort going?? Oh, right, log hauling.

Spriggans has been leading the dwarves in song!
    Yo ho! Yo ho! A log hauler's life for me!
    We don't have ocean, but we have trees!
    Our cute little buddy Kobold flees!
    I saw an elf and it had fleas!
    Yo ho! Yo ho! A log hauler's life for me!

(Of course he loves log hauling, he's the gorramn Carpenter who gets to use it all.)


14 Hematite, 202: A human caravan has arrived. Time for more trading! The humans have brought a ton of food and plants! This will put our booze and meal stockpiles on a much more solid footing! Even with the long walk down to magma, glass trap production has been going well, so the dwarves clean the caravan out of anything of use, sending the traders home with a huge profit that should encourage them to bring even more next time.

Of interest to Gwolfski, the humans had one book that WASN'T about a village or hamlet! We bought the copy of "Strategems, My Life", a book espousing the value cunning, for future librarians.


20 Hematite, 202: Right in the middle of a log-hauling song, Spriggans suddenly stops and looks around wildly. "LOGS! I NEED LOGS! LOGS! LOGS! I NEED LOGS!" He runs toward the workshop, howling wildly. Alright, aready, Spriggans! We know you love being a carpenter. We get it. You don't need to... oh. That's not just his usual wood-lust. ("Har, har, Spriggans has wood-lust.") It's a Strange Mood, the first of the year!




22 Hematite, 202: Migrants! Oh god, here we go again. Only 7 this time, thankfully. We haven't dug out more housing, leaving that creative choice to future overseers. Instead, dozens of beds line hallways, waiting for more permanent housing plans.

Another one for Gwolfski (BTW, why is our mechanic ranting about strawberries? Are we sure he's okay?), one of the migrants has a definitely interest in book-making:



That might be useful if you stick with the epic library plan! (Or if you want to single out someone for murder by future overseers. That might be synonymous.)

25 Hematite, 202: Spriggans has completed his mad project. It's... a very spiky table.




2 Malachite, 202 Mid-Summer: Libash Mebzuthoshosh draws an extremely short straw and has to carry the cart full of carts full of magma up the insanely long stairway. Let's see if he dies of thirst on the way! Carrying seven minecarts, six full of magma, up almost 150 flights of stairs, sounds like a miserable job.

    Yo Ho! Yo Ho! A Log Hauler's Life for me!

22 Malachite, 202: The minecarts reach the workshop levels and magma pouring begins! An incredibly tedious sequence of building track stops, very small stockpiles, and other organizational details gradually resolves into carts pouring sweet, sweet magma into three waiting holes, permitting us to jumpstart our forge industries without the insane walk down the stairs!


25 Malachite, 202: The workshop-level magma smelter is operational! Time to start smelting all those piles of iron ore! TheFlame52_2 leaps into action, happily smelting away, which he'll probably be doing for the rest of his sweaty drunken existence.


1 Galena, 202, Late Summer: We decided to stop producing barrels. We should be in good shape now. Spriggans achieved a huge leap in his understanding of Carpentry making that spiky table and can now produce wooden goods at an insane rate. There are indeed several ☼Beds☼ to choose from now. The dwarves needed a lot more barrels to brew all the plants brought by the human caravan. Spriggans takes a break... no wait, he joins in the official business of CurseKnowledge in year 202: LOG HAULING!

    Yo Ho! Yo Ho! A Log Hauler's Life for me!

8 Galena, 202: The first round of log hauling is complete! Almost 500 logs were brought in, and used to create an initial stock of beds and barrels. With all those log hauled, what should we do now?

"I know!" shouts Spriggans. "Send the woodcutter out for more trees!"

    Yo Ho! Yo Ho! A Log Hauler's Life for me!

10 Galena, 202, Late Summer: All three magma workshops are operational at the main fortress level!!! Woohoo! That was a ton of micromanagement, but that will probably increase the speed of industry by a factor of ten. Cart hauling remains by far the fastest way of getting small amounts of magma to surface level. (Smelter, Forge, Glass Furnace.)

And look! Another 122 logs have been cut to be hauled!

    Yo Ho! Yo Ho! A Log Hauler's Life for me!

Have you started a military yet ? Even wrestlers are good enough, since this will train willpower/fighter/dodger.

Codyrex has been dorfed as the militia commander. A few other dwarves that arrived with military skills have been assigned to the squad, but they're all inactive and not training. They're only assigned to the (inactive) squad so we can find them later if we want them to train. Log hauling remains the activity of every non-skilled dwarf.

Dorf changes since Spring:

Codyrex dorfed as Axedwarf Militia Commander.
A second dwarf has been assigned Mechanic skill. (0 free skill picks remaining.)

Other notes:

- I screwed up by picking plant gathering. I wanted seeds for agriculture, but didn't think ahead to how many surface plants the elves and humans would bring. That pick was a mistake.
- Future overseers (Gwolfski first?), are there dorfs you'd like to see killed before the end of the year to free up skill picks?

Here's dorfs that I think might be considered for death:
- NEEDS NAME: Wood Cutter (>500 logs should be stockpiled by year end.)
- NEEDS NAME: Plant Gatherer (Oops, I basically murdered this dorf.)
- NEEDS NAME: Mechanic (Second Mechanic. Absolutely needed this year, but probably not unless someone else loves levers and bridges.)
- Bembul: Cook/Architect. (This dorf can't do both jobs at once and is a major blocking factor to building almost everything. Also, I think one of the migrants had good Building Designer skill.)

Here's dorfs that are MVPs that hopefully won't die:
- Spriggans: Carpenter/Weaver (After mooding, Spriggans does Carpentry so fast that he should be able to cover weaving, too once that job comes up.)
- Cattan: Miner/Engraver (Mining jobs come in spurts, leaving Cattan free to practice smoothing and eventual engraving.)
- NEEDS NAME: Glassmaker (Came in a High Master and produces absurd trade value, plus unlimited ugly green magma-safe stuff.)

Please let me know any murder requests! I think there'll probably be free time at the end of the year to handle details like that.

[gchristopher]

Wow, the Dwarf caravan is tiny. Gwolfski, did anything happen with them during year 1? Any deaths or stealing from the caravan?

[Fleeting Frames]

The puppywatch is adorable. You might want to put two forbidden doors into a shortcut for kobolds (do kobolds thieves take over doors over ramps that they'll never pass through anyway? Something to test for a fort that doesn't HAUL ALL THE LOGS. I find mine often do.)

Book espousing the value of cunning....Hm, I don't think there are much benefits to such a book outside of perhaps having a more harmonious fortress and goblin residents.

And yay for magma near surface! But...Not once did you mention making anything mechanical? What's the two mechanics for?

[gchristopher]

And yay for magma near surface! But...Not once did you mention making anything mechanical? What's the two mechanics for?

Four trap hallways with bridges to toggle forcing invaders through or allowing them to bypass. Two bridges for the depot, one to block access and another to open the hallway to the surface if invaders appear in the entrance. The minecart grinder will have force/bypass bridges like for the trap hallways, and six grinding chambers, each with a bridge and hatch for the on-off mechanism.

And there sure are a lot of trap components lying around. Maybe one or two of them should get put into a trap somewhere?

The writeup and notes for all of that will be tedious and contingent on it actually getting finished, so that'll be in the last update post. Nothing on the order of a megaproject, though.

[Fleeting Frames]

And there sure are a lot of trap components lying around. Maybe one or two of them should get put into a trap somewhere?

Perhaps after a cage trap or 2 to capture errant dragons for kea defence? (Straight corridors are neat, but it'd be better diagonally for greater hit chance.)

[gchristopher]

Fall is complete, but was uneventful enough that I'll just post it with the year-end. The dwarves have transitioned to obsessively sorting everything into neat piles, and lots of drinking and socializing, which I suppose is the point of the fortress!

The most major event was finishing the cart grinder, which looks pretty horrifically deadly in operation.

Hopefully winter will bring something worth smashing!

[Gwolfski]

Wow, the Dwarf caravan is tiny. Gwolfski, did anything happen with them during year 1? Any deaths or stealing from the caravan?

Construction accident. Building a roof, dwarf built floor with no support, caravan squished. Ended up with tons of crafts i made which where now useless.

edit: could you assign the bookbinder to the library as a scholar? it requires no labor enabled,

[Fleeting Frames]

The dwarves have transitioned to obsessively sorting everything into neat piles, and lots of drinking and socializing, which I suppose is the point of the fortress!

Do you ever create stockpile loops just to get the idler count down?

I find matching minecarts moving relaxing, or maybe a little hypnotizing. Well, they're circular periodical movements after all....

[Spriggans]

We got really unlucky with Spriggans' mood...
We could have gotta a new skill if any other dwarf took the job.
At least, I'm now a Legendary.... carpenter xD

That unbreakable table will be usefull to trap trolls and what not later.
And I believe we will be able to trap this kobold using pressure plates and what not.

and lots of drinking and socializing, which I suppose is the point of the fortress!

Socializing => Friends.
Killing dwarves to swap labors => Killing dorfs friends => Hoppefully some Fun

[gchristopher]

Wow, the Dwarf caravan is tiny. Gwolfski, did anything happen with them during year 1? Any deaths or stealing from the caravan?

Construction accident. Building a roof, dwarf built floor with no support, caravan squished. Ended up with tons of crafts i made which where now useless.

Hahaha, you have GOT to start writing up your turns!!! That's fantastic.

edit: could you assign the bookbinder to the library as a scholar? it requires no labor enabled,

I'll try to figure out how. I've never set up a library. Everyone got reassigned to log hauling earlier in the year, because holy carp, we had some logs to haul.

Do you ever create stockpile loops just to get the idler count down?

I find matching minecarts moving relaxing, or maybe a little hypnotizing. Well, they're circular periodical movements after all....

If we had water, 50% of the fortress by area would be a minecart-ride-loop swimming training center. Waterpark!

edit: I only make stockpile loops on accident. But maybe that happens often to count?

[Gwolfski]

there is a library. Press 'l' , find the library, you can assign xcholars and scribes there. Make him a scholar please.

[Fleeting Frames]

The embark has savanna and grassland beside the badlands. Are there no murky pools?

At it's most basic, a library is just a zone; if assigned as scholar dwarf can discuss abstract reasoning with the visitors standing up. I like to include tables, chairs and stockpiles for sheets/codices and manually dumping all bought books to library. Dwarf will occasionally write something with materials on the table. As well as bookcases, but last I saw anything inside them was in a worldgen fortress I think.

Not that I'm most competent with libraries :v

[gchristopher]

The embark has savanna and grassland beside the badlands. Are there no murky pools?

Nope, nothing. The eventual water source will have to be caverns.


Okay, more writeup!

For this part of the fort to make sense, I should recap what the dwarves were talking about back during early summer.

Spriggans was leading a group discussion of the philosophy of CurseKnowledge:

He said: "Knowledge takes motivation, and tha's not a thing we do here in CurseKnowledge." There was a lot of nodding and general agreement.

Spriggans continued, "Here at CurseKnowledge, we have a lot of stuff." It was true.

"And you know wha' takes Knowledge? Remembering where ya put stuff!"

At this, there was a sudden shock of realization, then loud shouts of agreement:
  "Yeah! Remembering where stuff is is hard!"
  "We don't want to remember things!"
  "CurseKnowledge!"

Emboldened, Spriggans continued: "So instead of remembering where we put stuff, I say we just put ALL the stuff in one place, with little labels over it all, and then never remember where we put stuff again!"

The dwarves were too enthused at this point to consider that course of action might take effort, and continued cheering:
  "Yeah!"
  "Never remember!"
  "I already forgot!"

Spriggans felt the time was right to reveal his plan. "You know that big hole Cattan was digging for limestone?"

"We're going to widen it out and toss all our stuff in there! We'll call this place... the StuffHole!"
 
  "Yeah!"
  "The StuffHole!"
  "CurseKnowledge!"

And so it came to be, a storage area built from minecarts and a truly obsessive-compulsive view of item sorting.



This picture, from late winter, is after stuff hauling is pretty much complete, so even the spare stone from the magma layers has been hauled up at that point. One thing this place has in abundance is haulers!

So, yeah, enjoy. That's a crapton of hauling route designations, but it'll collect and sort just about everything, provided you make sure things don't get put into bins. (Bins are evil.) A few things, like candy, mugs, and soap, are excluded because they have special places to be stored. The center two stockpiles are for mass collection, then things get sorted out to the side areas.

Aside from convenience, big open storage areas are one of the top FPS drains and killers of fortresses, so maybe CurseKnowledge will make it a little longer with a compact storage area.

There's a few other quantum stockpiles set up. One for mugs near the food storage/cook/brewing area, one for seed bags (permitting seeds in a stockpile with barrels is also evil), and one for green glass spiked balls, because huge caravan profits mean they bring more stuff the next year.

[Fleeting Frames]

Bins can work with minecarts, as long as you have bins listed in desired goods and use "any items" for moving the cart.

Candy...Is slightly better to process into thread near spire: this way you can fit more of it in a container when carrying it up. Still, it is so light to make little difference.

Though, I'm not sure I'd describe it as compact, being 19x12. What are the 5 empty spots for :3, miscounting with goblets/food/spiked balls/seeds? Still, I approve :3

And yes, seed bags are evil vhooming monsters.

[Spriggans]

Bah ! Too many words ! I'm too lazy to discuss the pros and cons of this method now.
So, I approve without questionning !


I guess we have an outdoor refuse stockpile too, near a refuse smasher probably, with bones and such enabled ?
Not that we can use bones just yet, but we may want bones/shells available in case of a mood.

Still, it must have been a pain to designate all these routes