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Author Topic: The City of Ostathbomrek, "Esteemedwhip" [SPOILERS]  (Read 929 times)

Degritone

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The City of Ostathbomrek, "Esteemedwhip" [SPOILERS]
« on: November 28, 2016, 12:13:52 pm »

I'm not very good at writing stories that aren't meant for others to interact with, either as we make the story together through RP, or as a DM slapping my players with a story, but here's the (ongoing) story of the City of Ostathbomrek.
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Quick summary of what has happened in its current 50 year reign over the area, as well as the reasons the dwarves and I have made this fortress (though I have yet to check the legends, as either DF Hack doesn't work or I can't figure out how to make it work with the most recent version of the game, and am not willing to go through 1050 years of history without a better interface than Legends mode to see if there is any hardships currently going on in the world, other than the lack of Elven civilizations anywhere in this world)

50 years ago, some crazy Dwarves of Dogėl Konad, The Galley of Bands, decided to try to make an Embassy, a pillar to the sky where they would gather humans, goblins, themselves, and any of the few remaining elves to show the world that the races could live in harmony, to try to stop any wars from happening ever again, as discord among the civilizations led to the near complete erasure of Elves from the planet long ago, and they did not want a similar fate to occur to any other civilization. At first, the goblins weren't having any of this, as they were at war with the Dwarves, but after finding that the defenses of Ostathbomrek were impenetrable three sieges in a row (read: draw bridges OP,) they decided to give up and let the Dwarves have their way (read: I turned invaders off, as they were just taking months of in-game time where they couldn't work on the Embassy. This may be an issue for the current "story arc," does that stop demons from invading when you breach Hell?)

And this plan has worked, to some extent. News of sieges on the Mountainhome was becoming much and much less common as the years went on, and their Grand Marble Pillar did gather tens of goblins, a few humans, and even a couple of the remaining elves. Some as scholars, some saying they would be mercenaries, though their works having been unused this entire time, and, most of all, bards and entertainers to gather even more people. Though construction is still ongoing on the uppermost levels, all of the main functional levels are made, with a tavern, a library, many (though, actually constructed in game: one) floors for prayer to all the gods of the world, with many floors being unused to allow for the formation of more churches if they hear about a god not currently present (also there only through story), as well as two statue gardens, one on the ground floor, surrounded by smooth marble walls and doors to keep it separate from the tavern, also on the first floor, and the grand Statue Garden higher up, with water pumped from the stream behind the Embassy to the floor below, which flows as waterfalls surrounded by tubes of pure Chrysocolla to keep the water in.
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(Though the reason I started the fort was because I was having my D&D group go to a dwarven civilization, and decided to make the Embassy in Dwarf Fortress because I could.)

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We've recently been told by one of our Goblin friends that the reason they were such an angry civilization was because they had had a demon come and take over long ago. We relayed this to our leader, and he decided to actually start a military here in the fortress. He won't tell us why, though. Are we planning on invading the Goblins to take out their leader? I thought we started this for peace. And why are we digging so far down? We already have everything... Wait, he can't be. He's trying to get the the Adamantine from the planet's stomach. Are we going to invade the demons themselves?

We've found a large Adamantine spire leading all the way to the third cavern layer. I didn't even know Adamantine reaches up here, we have yet to see a single drop of magma. We've been ordered not to mine a bit of it until we've constructed an iron hatch over the top of some stairs leading from above the spire to beside it. I've suggested that they instead be made of the, now accessible, Nether-Cap, since it is always cold. The leader grumbles a bit before sighing and agreeing.

Additionally, we've started work on some temporary iron armor to train in. I suggest making it out of the abundance of leather we have from butchering dogs as they're birthed over these 50 years we've been here, but he says iron will be better to train with, as it's much heavier, leading to better experience. I don't quite believe him, but I let him do his thing, anyway.

On a less grim note, we actually have access to magma now, so we don't have to rely on coke as a fuel source, so it's much easier to make and smelt metal crafts now, though they're far from our stockpiles. Additionally, the leader says it's about time we get someone to actually gauge the worth of the fortress. I'm not sure if he has some other plan, but it'll be nice to actually know the monetary worth of everything we've done up until now.

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Now the Barracks are almost complete. Four archery targets seems like it's not enough for our 10 Crossbowmen, but our leader says it'll be fine. I don't know how, considering he's given them orders to train 9 at a time, except during their off months, where the appropriate four train with the same number targets, but whatever. Now that we're almost done with the Barracks, the military has started training. The leader has decided to split the military into three groups of 10, one group of Axedwarves, one group of non-dwarves in Melee, and one group of 5 dwarves and 5 non-dwarves as crossbowmen. I tell him it would be safer to have more crossbowmen if he's planning what I think he is, and he glares at me. I take the hint and go back to work.

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After some casual remarks over a month or so, the leader did decide to add more archery targets to the barracks for the Marksmen. Additionally, after month of procrastination, the carpenters have completed the hatch cover.

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A caravan has arrived. Time to train the broker so we can get the wealth of the fortress.

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And now the leader says we can start mining the Adamantine. I hope he knows what he's doing.

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I plan on letting the military train for about 10-30 years, which won't take long, since I can run all night, usually, then setting up a demon killing chamber before slapping them really hard. I just need to restart DF once a week, or it crashes. And no, I won't play Dwarven Checkers. I also may need to turn invaders back on, since I didn't find if turning them off turns off demons.
« Last Edit: November 28, 2016, 12:19:27 pm by Degritone »
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Re: The City of Ostathbomrek, "Esteemedwhip" [SPOILERS]
« Reply #1 on: November 30, 2016, 09:29:30 am »

Oooh, I always like circuses.
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Re: The City of Ostathbomrek, "Esteemedwhip" [SPOILERS]
« Reply #2 on: November 30, 2016, 10:20:15 am »

- First, there is dfhack alpha2 out for 43.05 - but you can use legends browser/viewer with just the native export as well.

That said, if looking through wars in last 50 years is too troublesome... Well. Nothing much to do, then.

- Grand tower. Reminds me slightly of procedural forts.

Though I suggest adding more gold or dark purple to go with the white and green (ew puke tho, makes me avoid things like green glass pots)

- If you're unsure about invasions, easy to test it with savescum.

I'm unsure about having only 30 military for this project, though, when you have 100 more citizens at your disposal. You only get the clown car once (unless perhaps with sealing it up and retiring, unsure), after all. Though I suppose the fort does primarily focus on researching.

Anyway, the fort has quite a few vulnerable buildings that will be smashed by invading trolls, should they come.

- Haven't ever done magma forges in the deeps, myself. Always found it easier to bring magma up or use carbon source before that.

On that note, what's with the iron when there's a marble castle?

Also, your forges are opens to caverns, with only door in way, due that dug vein.

- Did you find the platinum in olivine, I take it? Or did you have magnetite?

Degritone

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Re: The City of Ostathbomrek, "Esteemedwhip" [SPOILERS]
« Reply #3 on: November 30, 2016, 11:50:10 am »

I'm very scatterbrained when it comes to actually replying to comments, so excuse me if I reorganize things and forget to re-reference something that I'd said in an earlier paragraph while typing only to reorganize to fit the order which you said things.

Ah, I haven't looked hard or far for DFHack, I only looked once for like 30 seconds, and the one I found said it was for 43.03, so.

I was planning on making a bunch of rose gold stuff for some of the higher floors after I finish with the main arc.

I've already closed off the forges with a wall, and a non-flier destroyer-proof door as the entrance to the caverns where I cut down a lot of wood.

I've already tested demon invasions with invaders off through savescum, and it does turn them off, so I guess turning them back on and having our (already over 70% legendary) military slap around goblin invasions as part of the story. Of course, I could just lock everything with the bridges and hatch covers I have littered everywhere. Unless I want to have !fun!, there really is no reason any of my buildings or dwarves should ever be in danger.

They'll be outfit with complete adamantine everything but crossbows and shields, and I plan on making a lot of bolts for the marksmen, as well as a setup for actually slapping the demons. I'm not sure if it'll work 100% the way I want it to, but it'll work at least until the demons figure out how to shoot through nether-cap fortifications. The melee dwarves are mainly for after the initial wave, if any come after, to distract them, or maybe even kill them, as the marksmen do their thing. If it works, it works. If not, oh well. D&D has a good saying, "The dice know," only RNG knows if what's being tried is meant to happen. Plus, yeah, in-universe, there were only 30, including the mercenaries, who were willing to be in the military.

I've had working forges and smelteries before this, with nearly 10k bars of various types from over the years. I just didn't feel like going through the effort of making lava-proof pumps first. And I've made 11 craftdwarf shops above the forges to make easy access to raw adamantine for the extractors and for easy access to the thread for the forges, as well as stockpiles for Adamantine/iron/pig iron/steel, all ores and adamantine thread, and adamantine coins near the forges.

It's heavier and easier to slap things together at a short notice with, since I literally don't have steel because I never needed it before, and I'm outfitting everyone with adamantine before the final operation, anyway, so steel will only really be used for the backup bolts. Plus, though there's no actual source of this being in the game, nor do I actually believe this is part of the game (and might not ever be), but it's always better to train with stuff that's heavier than what you're going to actually be using. If it were implemented, it would make sense for iron, or even platinum, if you were able to make weapons of it, to train agility and strength faster, as well as all of the weapon/armor/shield skills. It's always better to train for something more strenuous than you will actually be using/facing, and iron is to adamantine as grinding is to a boss fight in an RPG. The former makes the latter easier to do. Again, I have not seen any evidence for this being in the game yet, but it would be nice if it were.

It was Magnetite.

Additionally, I've only been playing DF since a few days after my birthday this year (September 22,) so blah. I could share the relatively short story of my first fort, though it is quite boring. Though, from what I've read about other people's first forts, it lasted quite a long time. Technically, it's still alive, though I'm not sure if I still have its world, as I switched computers and I forget if I copied everything or just re-downloaded DF for this computer.

EDIT: Stuff from my walk through legends viewer.

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This deserves exclamation outside of a spoiler: Something wiped out nearly, if not more than, half the goblins this year. And I can't find what caused it.

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There isn't any battle or anything, the goblins, over three different civs, decided to abandon 126 sites in total. There's no event, battle, or anything that would lead to this. They just kind of... left.
« Last Edit: November 30, 2016, 05:07:00 pm by Degritone »
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Re: The City of Ostathbomrek, "Esteemedwhip" [SPOILERS]
« Reply #4 on: November 30, 2016, 04:19:13 pm »

- Let me save you few seconds then: https://github.com/dfhack/dfhack/releases

- Interesting bit about demons.

- I expect demon ranged attacks will be annoying, should the marksmen not try to climb through fortifications. Ensure your archers have at least 6 in shield user to block fire, I guess?

Demons start with 6 in all combat skill, which can result in amusing - or tragic, when fliers/ranged attackers come - combat training on adamantine-less embark. I once dug straight down on embark, tunneled through SMR and popped a no-skill archer to station with wood bolts on stairs right in the highest z-level of hell. Missed everything.

Also, upon furthrer constructions I learned that non-flight capable demons can jump across 1x horizontal gap.

'course, clown car is entirly flight capable.

- Heh. I almost never use pumps, just minecarts. Typically with bidirectional rampway - as I already have to dig exactly that far, it adds about 0,5 dig designations and 1 track designations per z-level.

- Yeah, weight only slows you down and doesn't boost any skill gain. You'll only get armor user by getting hit with anything.

Haulers moving around in ten-layer full outfits are just slowed down.

- It is unusual duration for a fort. If you look around most succession forts, the standard style is more micromanaging a single fort over a year.

- Those populations...It'd be rather impossible to get those with pocket world. No, rather, this looks like the situation for a small to medium world.

And, hey, old age is still winning!

Sucks to be elves.

Oh hey, it IS smaller map. Lower than expected, but it kinda looks like a flooded Europe with pole flipped around

Few towers for so many humans.

- Maybe new library or tavern being estabilished? In my pocket world tests, humans estabilishing a town off the island can bring thousands in from off-shore dark fortress in a matter of years.

Degritone

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Re: The City of Ostathbomrek, "Esteemedwhip" [SPOILERS]
« Reply #5 on: November 30, 2016, 05:58:31 pm »

Already got it.

Yeah, I thought they'd be separate from the INVADERS option.

I've got a setup somewhat similar to (though not the same as) Archcrystal's setup - fortifications, a wooden artifact door, and, instead of beasts to distract them, I have a wooden artifact floor grate and wooden artifact chair in the kill chamber, with nether-cap fortifications. Interesting bit about jumping, though.

I haven't messed with minecarts at all yet.

It's always a bad thing to say this about a game, but I do wish at least strength and agility gain were a little more realistic where using heavier stuff to train increased them more. It would add a little more interaction with the military than "Here's your adamantine stuff, go wild," usually immediately followed by "Ok, now go slap those goblins outside."

TBH, I usually spend the first three years setting up perpetual living so my dwarves could live indefinitely if I just leave the game running and (somehow) turn off auto-pausing. Odly enough, my second fort was my shortest, living less than a year, as I breached the first cavern layer with up/down stairs only to find a forgotten beast literally two spaces away from where we did though multiple Z-levels down. That didn't help because it was a spider and just climbed up the wall and destroyed the fort in less than a minute real time.

I forget what settings the world has.

I mean, old age is winning in terms of flat numbers, murders + shot + struck down is 1.457... times old age.

Possibly.
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