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[ColonelTEE3]

I shall describe one of the few moments in which i knew i would never stop playing this game, with a little added specifics i threw in because the game leaves so much to the imagination (which i also enjoy) :

The dwarven traders from Urist-Ag packed up their goods and newly acquired clothes... They saddled up the mules, and began to trod happily back to their kingdom. The guards slowly followed in, relaxed by the calm atmosphere that was Akrulbudam. As they walked away, a small dwarven child watched them in awe. Beside her was another, older dwarven male, who was quite upset about something. They both watched as the dwarven caravan slowly made its way back to the kingdom. And as it got far enough away, the older, angry dwarf, took his axe, and cut off the girls head.  

[Gaulgath]

Hehehe, awesome.

I had three seriously cool events in the last goblin siege.

The human guild representitive and his huge caravan had just arrived and was heading down my road when suddenly: "A vile force of darkness has arrived!" I quickly order "all dwarves stay inside" and many rush towards the entrance. However, there was one, a trapper, who decided to stay on the bridge. An incredibly foolhardy move. I was sure he would die... but as the goblins approach he aims his crossbow and shoots down four greenskins! Amazingly, he survives and runs for the safety of the indoors. The caravan is absolutely devasted, but interestingly enough, the giuld representitve stays inside and makes a trade agreement with us. Obviously, as he leaves, he is caught by some goblins and slaughtered.

Then, one of my catapults fires, hits a goblin unconcious, and sends him one tile into the river. Normally, it would have been able to swim out, but it was knocked unconscious so... it drowns. Awesome.

So, things aren't looking good for those green menaces. However, one of my champions (legendary swordsdwarf, legendary shield user, grand master armor user) decides to charge into a huge squad of them... with her children. Picture that. A dwarf heading into combat while carrying two babies. The babies prove usefull, however. The goblins target them and pinchusion them with arrows while our hero cuts goblin after goblin to pieces. Finally, after recieving a yellow wound, she retreats back. That made my day.

(The goblins were crushed by the rest of my forces. We lost about five dwarves.)

[4bh0r53n]

my best one is that my legendary miner had just finished a channel and then started walking up the channel with the water flowing around his ankles....

[ February 04, 2007: Message edited by: 4bh0r53n ]

[Mephisto]

I'm pretty sure I haven't posted this.

My priceless moment was when I was still new to channels. I accidentally flood everything between the cave river and magma (lava?) river.

[Svirfneblim]

I had a very well prospering fortress that happened to run low on food trough a winter. The multitude of hungry dwarves were becoming restless and finally started fighting. Since my sheriff got wounded very fast, there was no one to keep the peace and the fighting soon escalated into a full-scale civil war. It was practically a death-spiral for my fortress with dwarves tantruming and destroying everything.
I dediced to try and make my fortess more manage-able by simply flooding a lot of dwarves.
Just as I started flooding one part of the fortress to quell the riots... A really large horde of frog-men emerged and joined in the fray!

[JT]

Just today, I had a particularly priceless moment.  What with my tendency to build doors everywhere, as soon as I found the chasm I built three doors across the hallway.  While waiting for my Mason to arrive to construct a temporary bridge across the chasm so I could mine out the other side and get some coal, I looked at the 3 doors by the chasm for a second, noticing they were opening at random.  This was quite literally only about fifteen seconds after the doors had been placed.

I thought this was suspicious to say the least, and sure enough, as soon as I walked my cadre of four marksdwarves into position, we spotted the ratmen.  The ratmen all started dashing for the marksdwarves while they were being peppered with crossbow bolts.  About three quarters of them were killed on the spot.  When they started getting too close, I drafted my Extremely Strong, Extremely Agile Legendary Miner who was passing by as a recruit, and he slaughtered the rest of them.

There were twelve ratmen and the only wound we suffered was a "grey" wound on the miner's lower left arm.  I thought it was one of the best slaughters I've ever seen, and I didn't even game it with traps!

[Eiba]

One time, my very first fortress, I flooded almost the entire thing...

That wasn't the priceless bit, the priceless bit is that four years later it's a normal thriving fortress.

One spring, I happened to have a dwarf pull the lever to flood the fields, just as another was going to collect cave spider silk... As it was my first fortress, I hadn't taken the necessary precautions... As a wall of water swept through my fortress I began to despair, having heard of infinite floods and the like. Out of curiosity, I played on to see what I could do.

First thing, take stock of my remaining dwarves- I had 31 (of 84) still alive somehow, but most of them were locked in their workshops or bedrooms, doomed to die of thirst... or the opposite... if I couldn't find a way to save them. Two dwarves were on break outside of my fortress, miraculously one was a miner. Deep inside my fortress, past the chasm (that had doors around it) I had a couple more miners, a metal smith and some random peasant hauling ore.

I also had a jeweler who was hauling ore who was trapped by the chasm... by an unbuilt aqueduct, part of my incomplete world-nuking Lava System...

First thing I tried was to dig into the switch room (miraculously unflooded) with my outside miner to put the floodgate back up. Naturally it was too late, as there was a perma-flood. There was another switch though... The one to activate the Lava System.

It was then that I got an idea. I had the jeweler complete the aqueduct, and the pulled the switch. The Jeweler was trapped, as water quickly crossed the aqueduct... He stood there, a heroic martyr, to be burned to death by the steam as the lava flowed outward...
I still think of him when people say how useless jewelers are...

Unfortunately... The aqueduct over the river hadn't been built yet...

I again began to despair, until I remembered the two miners, a metal smith and peasant by the magma flow. I had another idea. I immediately had the miners dig a tunnel parallel to the lava channel meanwhile, the peasant and metal smith set about building a masons workshop, a mechanic's workshop, a floodgate, and three mechanisms.

This was the tricky bit... I dug a tunnel to within one square of a stockpile I had. I then recruited one miner and stationed him right next to the flooded stockpile, while the other miner sealed him in with the floodgate... He then dug into the flooded room... and died... Another hero...

Meanwhile I had the floodgate hooked up with a lever I built, and designated another channel to be built between the floodgate and Lava System... I realized the miner that would build the channel would die of lava in this case... Thinking twice (every dwarf being so very valuable), I suspended construction and turned off the Lava System (again, from the switchroom near the entrance). Much to my surprise the lava-cauterized channel did not refill with water, making the construction of the final channel simple.

Not everything was simple, as my miner in the switchroom took that time to decide to open the door to the fortress, flooding the outside world... Quickly, the heroic band beyond the chasm built two more mechanisms and attached the floodgate at the magma flow to their switch.

The switch was pulled- lava slowly filled the fortress, and then the outside world (killing a rather soggy band of elf-merchants). The switch was pulled again, and the lava drained...

The aftermath: 19 dwarves had survived... Three surviving heroes deep within the cave, and seven more who had the sense to stay in their rooms... three of those were nobles... One cat had survived in a dwarf's room... it was the only animal left in my fortress...

There was no food or alcohol left, and nine more (already hungry from the ordeal) dwarves died of starvation in the next few months before the human caravan arrived (I still had a bunch of trinkets, and I had a nice road too, so I got plenty of food). All the nobles survived, leaving me with seven working-dwarves and three nobles... They were not happy nobles...

The year was hard with so few dwarves working in such a massive fortress, but next spring fifteen migrants arrived...

From then on things began to regain a sense of normalcy, my dwarves slowly refilling the empty halls... As I said at the beginning, it's four uneventful years later and the fortress is thriving- even larger than before the Catastrophe...

The one lasting scar... Every single engraving has a dwarf drowning or melting or something... This fortress will never forget the Hazards of Irrigation...

Edit: Comma placement

[ February 10, 2007: Message edited by: Eiba ]

[Rakoth]

On Friday while I was languishing at work, I had my 'main fortress' up and running, letting plantlife get brewed into liquor and various metals forged into works of arms and art.

Then everything paused - A Very Bad Sign indeed, sometimes meaning that there was an invasion.  Hoping for the best, I stared at the screen...  Sadly, the Hordes of Darkness had arrived.

Three squads of goblins, and several packs of trolls tore onto the map.  Immediately, I recalled all Dwarves inside, barring the doors that lead into the antechamber into the fortress; A few stray trappers refused to come inside, as did a few loiterers about the entrance.  One trapper managed to fire a bolt, before a hail of goblin arrows and bolts tore him apart - Another trapper actually took down two trolls before he vanished under a flurry of fists.  Nervously,  I switched commands, saying Dwarves were allowed outside, hoping to dislodge the loiterers at the entrance - What luck!  They came stomping inside, thirsty for liquor!  Unlocking one door, they scurred inside, leaving a throng of blood-thirsty goblins and trolls storming for the entry to the fortress...

And yet, none wandered into the dangerous myriad of traps that kept the entrance safe.  No, they lurked just outside, keeping my poor Dwarves penned within.  A season passed.  Things were a little bleak - Being stuck inside led to more than a few irate Dwarves, and since the chasm had yet to be flooded, everyone was unsure on throwing their trash into its bowels, lest the ire of the batmen be drawn and two battles would have to be fought.

In attempts to draw the hordes into the deadly series of traps, a lone Macedwarf strode forth, stepping out from a mason/carpenter/mechanic's chamber and into the antechamber - He was immediately set upon, of course, and died shortly, but his brave sacrifice pulled in enough of the hordes that only one small clump of trolls lingered.  It wouldn't be too much work to clean them up.

Then,  it happened: The ground shook - And came the message, a Titan had arrived.

Another season passed, and the Fortress' doors were opened, wary Dwarves creeping out cautiously - The carnage was awesome, the spare weaponry numerous, the last of the trolls mere blue smears.  There was but one problem - The very large Titan stumping about.  "Well, if don't bother it, maybe it won't bother us!" grunted the Baron, before going back to collecting a mass of brass flasks.  How wrong was he.

Several more trappers were brutally crushed - One was entirely dismembered.  It took the combined might of several Swordsmasters, a Legendary Marksdwarf, and a small clump of swords- and hammerdwarves to finally bring the Titan down.

All this spanned from Autumn to Spring.  In the nearly ten-year history of that Fortress, nothing quite so exciting had ever occured - Frankly, I can't wait to see what'll happen next.

[Solara]

Man, I'm loving this thread. The last two stories were particularly good.  

[Keilden]

When my drunk got lost in a pyramid and somehow managed to kill several skeletons without any arms and only 1 leg...he later got killed by a wolf.

[Lord Blue]

The entrance to my fortress was set up like so:

code:

 D=Locked Door      XXXXXXXXXXXX
 ^=Trap             X...........
 A=Ammo Pile        X.XXXXXXXXX.
 S=Statue           X.XAAAAAAAX.
                    X.XAAAAAAAX.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.XBBB..SSX.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^FBBB.bS^D.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.XBBB..S^X.
                    X.X^SSSS^^X.
 X=Wall             X.X^^^^^^XX.
 .=Floor            X.XXXXXXXXX.
 F=Fortification    X...........
 B=Ballista         XXXXXXXXXXXX
 b=Bed

I had a Legendary operator for the ballista locked in there (I kept booze and food in the ammo pile).

One day, a dragon shows up. He flies over my first traps (cage ones), and he bares down on my operator. The operator fires seven shots in this time, giving red limbs and yellow everything else. The dragon beats down the locked door, drags himself over to the operator (somehow), and the operator BEATS HIM TO DEATH.

Those ballista strings must have one hell of a pullback...

[EnQue]

One of my priceless moments;

A novice trapper suffers from some bad judgement and some bad luck. He tries hunting elephants with an axe. The end result is that he lies bleeding five miles from the fortress, and has lost both an arm and a leg. The other arm is completely maimed. Now, a helpful friend in the fortress hurries off into the distance to help out.

Upon running the five miles to the wounded comrade, he does not pick him up. Instead he delivers a bucket of water and promptly leaves him there bleeding. Well, it turns out I have no available bed to put him in so nobody bothers retrieving him.

So it takes a while until there is an available bed. So long, in fact, in the mean time they deliver three buckets of water to him. Five miles.

But he makes it. He must be one tough dwarf. And after all that ordeal, it's like a a fairy tale. They carry him to his new bed. Almost immediately one of the dogs start to like him, and becomes his pet. All the dwarves help out bringing him food and water all the time. The dog stays by his side day and night. It sleeps at his side and he "has been comforted by a beloved pet lately".

But healing maimed limbs proves to be difficult. He lies in bed for one year. Two years. By that time I'm getting worried. His thoughts have started to turn to "is getting used to tragedy" and he is generally starting to show signs of melancholy. After he has spent the last three years in bed, I am alerted by a message. Oh yes; he has gone stark raving mad.

I zoom to the location to see what's going on. Well, having no useful limbs there's not much you can do. But this dwarf is a resourceful one! He promptly rolls off his bed, crawls over to his pet dog and BITES IT TO DEATH. I check his inventory and he continues crawling out of his room with a DOG CHUNK IN HIS MOUTH. He leaves a snail-trail of blood behind as he creeps on.

In the corridor he AMBUSHES A JEWELER and continues by biting him to death as well. He is then pursued and executed by the sheriff who cuts off his head.

I lost two dwarves over this incident, but all I could think of was... poor doggie...  

[Gakidou]

quote:Originally posted by Keilden:
<STRONG>When my drunk got lost in a pyramid and somehow managed to kill several skeletons without any arms and only 1 leg...he later got killed by a wolf.</STRONG>

Things like this make me sad that you can't pick up wounded comrades that can't stand in Adventure mode. Partly because I'd like to get them to a bed to recover, but mostly because I would like to go around carrying a limbless drunk in each hand, jaws-a-gnashing.

[Eiba]

quote:Originally posted by EnQue:
<STRONG> I check his inventory and he continues crawling out of his room with a DOG CHUNK IN HIS MOUTH. He leaves a snail-trail of blood behind as he creeps on.</STRONG>

Good god that is hilarious!

Err, I mean tragic... tragic, yes...

[Momaw]

I had a similar problem with a lack of beds.  I decided to run a game without starting with any axes, and my 3 pieces of wagon-wood went into a cage, a bucket, and a bin. I had NO wood available until the second autumn!

Mandrills had been making off with tons of stuff from my outdoor workshops, and eventually I got sick of it, throwing all my citizens into a hastily formed group of militia. 7 mandrills were slain, as well as one of my dwarves, and two more badly injured. They were just conscripts, what can you expect.

Anyway, the two that were wounded, sat outside.  They didn't have a bed, so they couldn't get rescued.  However they spent about half a year outdoors. They were brought food and water. And pitched a tantrum non-stop.  Being forced to stay alive?   One of the two was married to the dwarf who got killed in the melee: they eventually went insane and managed to drag themself to the nearby swamp and drown.

When I eventually got a carpenter (or more importantly, an axe), I built a bed and assigned it to the dwarf still grimly clinging to life. Somebody went and dragged him inside. He's still bed-ridden with a broken leg, but he's in fine spirits now, and looking forward to getting back to work.