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[vjmdhzgr]

Okay I am here now. I forgot about it once I first got back. What's happening now?

[gchristopher]

This really is an fun challenge idea!

Intentionally making a deathtrap for excess population is an interesting idea to keep the fort from getting seriously attacked. The defense isn't super strong so I wouldn't expect the fort to survive a FB, but letting a lot of the population die should keep from having anything too difficult show up. From the challenge perspective, that approach might not be the best thing, but it'll be very neat to see it go for two years!

I'd like to see what some of the other challengers would come up with!

[bliantfive]

I'm really happy people like the idea.

The fort isnt doing to fine, to many dead dwarfs, to many dwarfen baby ghosts.

Since the fort got above the invasion cap it still get occasional goblin invasions but could fend them off without much problem.

The long trap corridor, while beeing a death trap for shy migrants(they run from the corpses there and die from thirst), is a perfect defense against werebeasts. They normally transform back before making it through.
I think he'll make it dispite all problems.

That said, im sorry to say that there wont be a season 4.
At least not in this format.

The work im putting in even at days im not seen in chat is to much and the success is barely worth it.
I might change the format to a more conventional approach, streaming at specific times once or twice a week and won't only stream DF.
Streaming itself was fun and the people who got involved were awesome, so i wont stop entirely.

[gchristopher]

I'm really happy people like the idea.
I think he'll make it dispite all problems.
...
That said, im sorry to say that there wont be a season 4.
At least not in this format.

I'm trying a run of the current for just because it's fun to watch. (Fixing the claim orders from day 1, so there was never a massacre by the cart grinder, just the occasional hunter or randomly poorly pathed dwarf dying in it. Interestingly, I've watched thieves run right through the grinder unharmed.)

One (non-flying) FB has shown up, and an artifact adamantine goblet was made, so that was neat. Year 1 Winter, a leatherworker is in a mood and can't get their required materials, so that'll be interesting.

A werebeast jumped up into the surface tower, bypassing all the traps, but turned back into a human before doing any serious damage.

I think the fort will be most likely to die when the first serious flying FB shows up in either of the two open caverns, or if something crawls up out of the magma. Or maybe any trapavoid building destroyer on the surface.

Ooh, year 2, someone (a ghost) destroyed the trade depot, and dwarves are starting to starve after a winter of no crops being grown.

This has been a great learning experience about how changes to the game (especially psychology) have made the game so easy that you don't even need to be there to play it, and don't need any especially great defensive plan for a fort to stay alive for a protracted period. Pretty much a farm and a trap hallway and you're done. This fort even has four different completely undefended entrances and will survive.

bliantfive, would you mind if I made an attempt to come up with a more challenging embark and rule-set? There were a few other players willing to give the challenge a try, and it would be neat to see some forts that had more effort put into their design.

Here is a brainstorm of random ways to modify the challenge for more Fun:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

• Definitely work out a way to let several players submit entries and compare the resulting outcomes.
• Multi-layer aquifer. (like 8-12)
• More interesting geology so future smithing orders can mean something.
• Force war with humans and elves.
• Necromancers are usually disappointing, but gen a world with 6-7 towers and move them all in range to attack the fort.
• Lower invasion triggers on everything: titans, semi-megas, invasions, so they're all possible from day 1.
• Come up with a formula, like total fort happiness, to rank challengers.
• Evil rain and clouds! Good husking/thralling weather, especially.
• Savage evil embark and ratchet up the populations of any interesting creatures.
• Full-embark reanimation? (That might be too severe, maybe a 4x4 map where the inner 2x2 doesn't reanimate?)
• Longer build and challenge period, so more can be built and there's more time for things to run down.
• Add a last year to the running challenge and force titan/fb/semi-mega events to give the fort a more solid test? (I know you can't force invasions anymore, but maybe these can still be scripted on demand?)

[li]Maybe for forts that prove stable and are contenders for winning, add a regime of sabotage (cancel orders or issue bad orders, maybe let players vote on changes to burrows, or something else, and keep going with sabotage until each and every fort dies under the weight of sadistic democracy.)
[/li][/list]

And maybe a couple rule changes to handle things that the game simply won't let you pre-program?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

• Some rule permitting slabbing ghosts once a season or year?
• dfhack autolabor to manage suicidal hunter/fisher migrants
• Think about permitting burrows and management with dfhack burrow commands? (Not sure if that works, but the alternative is to either not use Fun mechanical defenses, or else build elaborate 1-way tunnels that might violate your "has a path to the outside" theme.)

[Fleeting Frames]

With that list of requirements, it might be reasonable to provide one or more fitting worldgen params as well.

Heck, with war with humans and elves desired, it might greatly simplify providing such embarks if one provides savegame where one already has provoked the war and retired the fortress.

[gchristopher]

With that list of requirements, it might be reasonable to provide one or more fitting worldgen params as well.

Oh yeah, genning worlds is a painful way to make awesome embarks. Dfhack can be used to move biomes around, pick your evil weather, tweak the geology, elevations, etc. That's what was done for Bloodyhells, on a minor scale.

[Fleeting Frames]

Hm. Can you give me a link to a guide? This is something I've been curious about, but lacking in how-to.

[gchristopher]

Hm. Can you give me a link to a guide? This is something I've been curious about, but lacking in how-to.

There isn't one, and I'm starting to worry that I might have done the most actual playing with those tricks and should pull a Larix and write one. I was hoping dfhack would catch up 43.05 before then, though.

So, interestingly, starvation is looking like the major threat to my alternate-universe run of the current fort. Without the initial population cull, the tiny farms aren't producing much food, and brewing is competing for plump helmets. There were only a few farmers to begin with, and all but 2 have starved to death. Population grew over 90 from migrants, but is slowly decreasing as starving turns into deaths. The meeting hall is full of miasma from people dropping dead, but still no tantrum spiral! (That's disappointing.)

There are at least four more necromancers out there! Too bad they don't seem to have an army to bring with them.

[Sanctume]

There isn't one.   I can help write one up if I know some of the steps and played around.  I'm definitely interested. 

Now back to the challenge.
I've been genning smaller worlds, short history, high everything else, and most minerals for easier time finding iron.

I usually (a)bort and (y)go to re-gen quickly.  Just looking at the map, I tend to like a smaller mountain cluster, and tiles for sand desert areas, or purple-evil ice areas.  I just prefer flat surface. 

For a challenge map like this, I end up going 3 miners, 2 axe, 2 military sword.  Each with +3 to the weapon/tool, +1 Dodger, +1 Discipline at least. 

And with a 2-year fort building, "beautifying" via smoothing stones or building above ground is labor intensive. 

I notice that at least depending if the civ is dying or thriving, a quick boost to wealth can be done with Lavish meals. 
At least 1 of each meat, garden vegetable, milk and fish can make a Cook make masterful roast faster. 
Herbalism early on if biome isn't full of roaming zombies can further boosts lavish meals production.

So 1.Wood Cutter and 2.Herbalist can do these the first season and don't need to do anymore for the rest of the 2 years.

The 3.Carpenter can handle all the beds and barrels ratio of 2 beds:1barrel initially.  Dorms or private rooms do not matter / affect migrant waves.  So might as well crank out bed and barrels on repeat for season 1.

With 100 booze in the embark, brewing will not be a concern at least until autumn and have new migrants handle that.
Food and booze in the wagon do not spoil either, so no need to make stockpiles for drinks until there are migran haulers. 
Only prepared meals and outdoor plants for stockpile.

Now I am not sure if fortress wealth affect the number of migrants coming in on Summer and Autumn.  But I rather have the 4.Cook start making roasts and use up the containers of the meat and milk in the Season 1.

Definitely have the 3 miners dig out the dirt first as it is faster and helps level them up sooner.
For the most part, I like using z-2 as tunnels so tree roots do not hinder, and I have a more controlled paths compared to the surface; away from zombies, fogs, etc. 

If there is aquifer, it will probably take a season to breach it.  But with aquifer, comes plenty of power and even fancy drowning chambers, and water cannons.
Yeah, with a 2-year build time and aquifer, it's definitely water engineering projects for defenses.

[bliantfive]

The fort has mere hours to go.
Some goblins made it into the living rooms but got killed by the military dwarfs. They were badly hurt anyway and no real threat.

I guess it will survive. But it couldnt go another year.

What I learned from this specific fort:
There are no tantrum spirals anymore.
I thought they were just hard to reach, but obviously they arent there anymore.
Not a single dwarf went berserk despite corpses everywhere, no booze for over a year, muddy water, plump helmets only, ghosts!, shreddered pets and family members(even babies).

[Fleeting Frames]

Dwarves no longer have the emotional maturity of Craft Berserker, yeah, but vengeful thoughts from joining an existing conflict and seeing dead sentients en masse every week can still incite insanity.

[bliantfive]

It's done!

Gwolfski was victorious.

The challenge didn't went as smooth as it looked like in the beginning, but 2 Years, 3 goblin sieges, some zombie invasions, about 80 dead dwarfs and numerous werebeasts the fort is still standing.

Check out the final save here: http://dwarf247.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/challenge-victory.zip

The winner got his prizes per pn.

The stream is going down for a while as I switch to a more conventional approach to streaming.

I guess I'll just stream a little DF for a change, or something else thats fun to watch.

We'll see.

[gchristopher]

There are no tantrum spirals anymore.
I thought they were just hard to reach, but obviously they arent there anymore.
Not a single dwarf went berserk despite corpses everywhere, no booze for over a year, muddy water, plump helmets only, ghosts!, shreddered pets and family members(even babies).

That's severely disappointing, but congratulations, Gwolfski!

[Gwolfski]

If I had more time at the time, I think I could have done this a lot better, but I am quite surprised this survived!

[SeiggrainHart]

I'm not... from what I saw of your Fort, it looked like the perfect ort made, just for this Challenge... maybe the next challenge should be survive 10 years with out player interaction... or even better... 20 years!