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[TheFlame52]

If there were any pack animals that lived underground, dwarven caravans would show up with them too.

[Splint]

... That said you may need to make beak dogs or something useable as pack animals for them to be able to deliver any offerings, even if said offerings are token gestures of submission to the more militarily powerful entity. ...

47.05 goblins are capable of taming both evil-aligned animals and cave animals without trouble. Beak dogs don't appear to be considered pack animals; however, is it possible that anything else in that list might be something goblins have access to? (Although it's plenty easy to make the civilization templates-of-sorts that the game uses override the default behavior of animals, 47.05 goblins don't do that by themselves - they would need to be modded to.)
(For the purposes of modding, "cave animals" are defined as creatures appearing exclusively in subterranean biomes. "Evil animals" are evil-aligned creatures with [SLOW_LEARNER] or without [CAN_LEARN], and the token allowing a civilization to use this definition of evil animals also lets them use the creatures in question even if they otherwise can't be tamed.)

Wouldn't even have to do that, it's just stuff they have access to by default I don't think have the tokens needed and I never see them really use normal domestic animals from memory. All he'd have to do is add the tokens for either pulling wagons or hauling goods to the beak dog creature.

So it'd be like [WAGON_PULLER] or [PACK_ANIMAL] combined with [TRADE_CAPACITY:whatever number here] added to a suitable creature the goblins have, which usually means beak dogs (and works out alright enough since they're large enough to ride.)

[Maloy]

I did this once to goblins and it'd always be one lone goblin showing up to throw a random sock or thong into my trade depot.

[Cathar]

Well the idea is not that much to take their stuff but more like to disarm them and to put them out of the fight. It's okay if they don't give us anything, it's not like we NEED goblin sized troll fur boots or something. We could use beakdogs as attack animals but that's about it.
My dilemna is, I'm not sure how this will affect the war long term. If I retire the fort with tributaries, will they revert to their goblin ways ? I assume they would, so that will mean I'll have to conquer them later. I might also overlook some other aspects of the issue, hence my question.

Right now I assume people think it's a good idea, so we might start making unoccupied tributaries in summer. Feel free to change my mind

[Cathar]

Spring 159

On the general situation of the war

The year’s first season was surprisingly calm at home. War, as we will see, is pacing up and gaining in intensity as the final battle approaches, the border also recedes further and further in the meantime.
At this point in time, the last Osmite attempt to attack the bridge town happened two years ago.
The recent beating their armies took reverted 40 years of incremental gains : Osme has been pushed back to its year 119 borders.

Osmite territory is now bordered in the north by the fortress of Stozuumu, bordering the Nuzko jungle, cursed piece of woodland no man should venture in, and in the west by the fortress of Stustonako.

With their villages falling one after another to the implacable advance of the Army of Pearls, Osmite warlords gathered their forces in the fortress of Sustonako to prepare the upcoming battle, in an ultimate attempt to stop our advance.

Now this strategy worries us quite a bit – we are not sure at all we can defeat that fortress. But on the upside, as long as Osmite army is completely pinned in that one fortress, means that not only our security is more or less assured at home, but we have also free reign in the offense as well.

In short; things are going exceptionally well for now, but the final battle at Stustonako proper makes us anxious.

Foothold gained in Stustonako suburbs

Now the battle for Stustonako is engaged and ongoing, it is important that we gain a foothold in its suburb to later on be used as a springboard for further development ; only when all the suburbs are conquered can the fortress really be breached.

Because the suburb of Snudubabusp was already weakened by skirmishes last winter, the army of Pearls decided to exploit and reinforce their advantage: another attack was launched the 26th of March. This time, the villagers managed to line up a half squad of infantry. Because their officers were killed, they entrenched and waited for the pearlites.

That passive and defensive stance proved surprising for Histamine, used to exploit the lack of patience of Osmite warlords and lure their forces in the open, where Islas heavy mobile infantry slams into them.

Had Osme used that strategy when they had the forces to make it count, the outcome of previous battles could have been very different… This time, Pearlites had to fight in trenches, but against five goblins, it made no difference. The defenders were slain, and Aru’s occupation squad took control of the suburb the 8th of April.



Now the army of Pearls had a foothold in Sustonako and the army of Pearls still had unaffected reserves – momentum was capitalized on. The next suburb, Matoluru, was attacked the 20th of April, and captured the 5th of May.

During the battle for Matoluru suburb, a number of attack grizzly bears were added to the assault units, with good results.


Spisba, lord of Matoluru, is torn to shreds by the bear Kaslun. Fatally wounded, the lord manages to chase off the bear – later on, Gal, swordmistress of the Heavy Mobile Squad, found him bleeding out and put him out of his misery.

Animal units proved to be nowhere near as effective as weapon masters, but inflicted casualties nonetheless. Besides, we find that they might complement occupation units and reduce their need for manpower in the future.


Snodubabusp and Matoluru suburbds fall, Slaxungostong suburb is taken in a pocket

Economy and domestic development

Because with all the fighting going on in the front, Histamine – who happens to also be the city’s broker, was probably not on the top of her game during the spring festival. With the elves that came this year, she managed to barter cloth jewlery against grown wood fuel. Because elves came to town without a lot of valuable trade goods besides burning wood, Histamine thought it was a good idea to send a gift to their queen – to insure good relations between Mong Kima and Iferifiyopi.

But as it happened last time, the unverified crates of trade goods contained one single scepter crafted out of a persimmon branch. The elves were outraged and left immediately.



Last time it happened, it was two years ago, in 157. We might want to try to get rid of wooden craft good in general – upsetting cultural sensibilities of our allies for items of such low value is not worth it. Hopefully they will accept our apologies next year and this incident will not degrade our relations with them too much.

The construction of the city also continues. The dying workshop has finally been completed, and additional small individual bedrooms, meant to shelter farmers and apprentice craft-men, were build under the bridge. We still lack the material to make large improvements on the mausoleum, it is also not our first priority, but it will be done eventually.

On the bridge itself, substantial progress has been made to complete the army barracks – it is a bit absurd it wasn’t done earlier actually – and Lady Uquur’s quarters has been installed in the Palace.

On the western shore, the construction of the building destined to house the smith guild is also making progress, but will likely require years of work to be complete.

Longer term projects include adding more stories to the granary and finish that building we barely started, on the westmost place in the bridge – we still don’t know what to do with it, but we’ll need to finish it so it doesn’t remain an unfinished project forever.

Lats but not least, it is important to note that our exports are now exceeding our imports, making our trade balance positive for the first time since the foundation of the town.

A note about Birod

The whole season, as the main pearlite forces were establishing a foothold in Stustonako, the Commando has been training in the small suburb of Slaxungostong – in half a year, they robbed their coffers blind.

Birod “Infinite dream of light” was therefore away most of the time – the few days he could spend in town, he would be busy training his swordsmanship and debriefing with his companions.  His underage son, Ras, would be left alone in town most of the time.



Kimaeslo Ori was not a dangerous city and a young child would be taken care of by the villagers, but it was a bit distressing to see him unattended. Where was his mother?

Well, after investigation, it turned out that Irud, Birod’s wife, has signed up with the army and was sent to occupy an Osmite village. While we don’t like de-garissoning occupied territories, uncared for children are not a welcome sight either. Therefore, in summer, we’ll conduct a survey of all lone children in town and try to get their parents back home if applicable. If the need arises, they can always be replaced later – this could even be an opportunity to house rescued vagrants.

Three new forest dwellers rescued

Speaking of vagrants, since the winter rescues has been successfully integrated, we decided to continue our operation with the short-term goal of completely eliminating pearlite forest vagrancy.
At this point in time, most seem to have been rescued and re-integrated to the city, but every now and then we still find stragglers hiding in caves or wandering on the western shore.

This spring, three new souls were saved from the woods:



• Kabár Shaloic
• Rosha Ipomfuri
• Innah Eslikisun

Those people will be spared military activity until the first day of September 161.


Uzu is now a father

When he left the town, Uzu was in a terrible headspace. The constant sight of death and the weight of the responsibilities of sworncaptain had took their toll on his mind, and the execution of his sister Are for murder left him broken and unresponsive.

For years we tried to help him, but no matter what we did, his mood continued to sink. In desperation, he was sent with his wife and their two dogs to the occupied village of Ngomzogast between August and September 157.

Now just because he was sent in mission to Ngomzogast doesn’t mean we stop caring about members of our flock, and after two years of exile, we thought we’d check on him.

And what do you know, we learned that he had become a father recently! His first daughter was born sometimes between Fall and Winter last year, and was named Umil.

Maybe those somewhat forced vacations were the contrivance he needed to finally snap out of his depression.

[TheFlame52]

I don't remember if I said this before, but weight counts for a lot in offscreen battles. Any large war animal is great on a raid.

[Darkening Kaos]

   The unassigned building on the bridge could be turned into an exhibition hall, where local craftsmen/women put their wares on display, and could also be an opportunity for them to recruit apprentices.  Musicians/bards could also work here to entertain guests with ambient music.

[Splint]

I don't remember if I said this before, but weight counts for a lot in offscreen battles. Any large war animal is great on a raid.

Absolutely. There's been plenty of reports where dwarves brought pet yaks and cattle on offensive actions and they proved to be rather mighty creatures due to their bulk.


And my oh my that town is a lovely sight. Bet nobody in Mong Kima would have ever believed they'd have one of the finest human cities on the continent and be counted, perhaps, as something of a great power in scarcely a single lifetime after a century of being from the sound of things, viewed as something of a backwater bumpkin kind of people.

And here's hoping the elves come to trade next year. Maybe some high-quality gifts will help smooth any ruffled feathers.

[Maloy]

You might wanna leave one goblin pit alive and occupied when you assault the dark fortress.
It takes nothing less than a legendary leader to even stand a chance at winning the dark fortress battle and your captains grind leadership exp by leading missions such as pillaging.

Keep one alive as a leadership grinding zone

[Cathar]

You might wanna leave one goblin pit alive and occupied when you assault the dark fortress.
It takes nothing less than a legendary leader to even stand a chance at winning the dark fortress battle and your captains grind leadership exp by leading missions such as pillaging.

Keep one alive as a leadership grinding zone

Thanks a lot for the heads up. Right now Histamine is Great Leader and Professional Tactician and we have a lot of small villages to conquer still.Worst comes to worst, we will pillage the fortress in the north, that is about 400 souls so we can grind them for a long time.

I don't remember if I said this before, but weight counts for a lot in offscreen battles. Any large war animal is great on a raid.

Absolutely. There's been plenty of reports where dwarves brought pet yaks and cattle on offensive actions and they proved to be rather mighty creatures due to their bulk.

Grizzlys are definitely better than dogs in attack, but are not very lethal. They usually leave their opponents missing several body parts but alive. Some of the duels between grizzlys and goblins were actually lost by the grizzly, but when it happened, the bear could retreat safely (while the "victor" was left a couple kilos lighter).
It's a good tool, but not a wonder weapon unfortunately

   The unassigned building on the bridge could be turned into an exhibition hall, where local craftsmen/women put their wares on display, and could also be an opportunity for them to recruit apprentices.  Musicians/bards could also work here to entertain guests with ambient music.

We can totally do a small museum yes !

[Cathar]

OOC : More than 120 days without posting, I'm getting the necro warning. Very super sorry. Life is getting in the way, but that fort is still ongoing.

Summer 159

Fiasco at Ozudonxo suburb

At this point in time, war definitely left the phase of movement, where a single battle could determine the fate of vast swabs of territory. Armies were now facing each other in the mud around Stustonako, progress was extremely slow – every suburb now had to be fought for then held, and Osmite decided to contest every single pearlite step with desperation.

As static as the front line was, the armies were not evenly matched. Mong Kima had the best strategists and a line of excellent elite troops that won all of their engagement decisively. Osme, in the other hand, had gathered all of its best troops into the fortress of Stustonako, leaving to the suburbanites the very ungrateful task of slowing down the enemy.

Since the beginning of the battle for Stustonako engaged in April, the suburbs were for 1/5th under Pearlite control. This was painfully slow. The problems were always the same – not enough manpower, not enough equipment.



This is partly to remedy those issues that the commando squad was formed under Captain Idri: by liberating prisoners from the enemy’s prisons and by stealing metal from their stocks, a specialized unit would allow the army to participate to the preparation effort.

The 8th of June, because their training was progressing fast, it was decided that the Commandos would move from the Slaxugostong suburb to the much more dangerous – and much richer – suburb of Ozudonxo. Their training wasn’t enough to carry missions to dark fortresses themselves, but surely it would be enough to raid the stocks of its suburbs.

Idri lead his men during the day – he knew by experience that against goblins, it was pointless to rely on the night for stealth – sneaked into the trenches undetected, made their ways into the towers then onto the underground; the actual suburbs.

They had made their way in without difficulty. A bit strange – Idri thought, as he was told Ozudonxo would be heavily guarded, but he attributed his success to the quality of their drill.

They went deeper into the dungeon – but still met no one. No guard, no civilian. Not even a scavenging animal. Now, it was starting to feel extremely weird.

And then, all of a sudden, dozen upon dozen of well armed goblins sprang out of nowhere to charge and encircle the small team.

“Damn, a trap!” Idri exclaimed, unsheathing his sword. “Everyone retreat!”

But it was too late; the enemy was already upon them.

Thinking on its feet, Idri directed his men to force their way out, through the encircling enemy who were becoming more numerous by the second.

Two goblins had to fall by his long sword before his men could flee through the tunnels. As for Idri, he quickly found himself alone, totally surrounded by a small army counting trolls and beakdog cavalry.



He knew enough about warfare to know he was done for. At least, he thought, his men managed to retreat safely.

Feeling there was nothing else to do, Idri surrendered.



Attempts at freeing Captain Idri

When the commando squad returned to Kimaeslo Ori without their captain, it created quite a commotion, especially in the army. Of course, it happened already that offensive actions see the death of a soldier, but the capture of a captain was something new completely.

Totten immediately decided to mount an expedition to retrieve the lost captain – and to that effect, brute force was the only means left at her disposal.
The 13th of June, the tactic squad and the mobile heavy infantry squad arrived at Ozudonxo, where they proceed to unilaterally crush its garrison.

However, even with access to the suburb’s guts, Pearlites could not locate the jails and Captain Idri was nowhere to be found… The army then returned to Kimaeslo Ori, victorious but empty handed.

“We did not have a lot of time to look for the jails” reported Histamine to Totten. “We might have a better chance if we take possession of the suburbs.”

This was the best plan the pearlites had – besides, the defenders were already disorganized and abandoning a soldier without attempting to save him was out of the question.

A second attack was organized a month later, the 21th of July. The defenders, who tried to reorganize an embrionic defense, were crushed anew. The 9th of August, the suburb fell to the pearlite army and a garisson was moved in.

However, Idri could not be found either…

At this point in time, we now consider Idri to be lost to the enemy. It is unknown if he lives or not ; maybe he has been moved to the capitale city of Osme, as it is often the case with the children they capture – in which case more attempts will be made to save him when the Commando are better trained.

Birod was promoted Captain of the Commandos and they spent the rest of the summer back to Slaxugostong, to perfect their training.

Negociations break over Sanrebtekkud

Now with the slog going on around Stustonako, the manpower reserves of Kimaeslo Ori was stretched to the maximum. The army of pearls simply did not have anymore men to spare on smaller settlements. However, something still needed to be done on the southern fortress of Sanrebtekkud, dwarven ruins captured by an Osmite overlord in winter 157.

It was still a settlements of a very few number of souls, but it could be used to extend the front line dangerously, or as an advanced post to attack less defended pearlite settlements in the future. It wasn’t an absolute priority – hence why it was ignored so far – but it needed to be eventually pacified.

Now the leader of Sanrebtekkud was an Osmite war-hero by the name of Bosa “Foundation of all sacrilege” Ultanguslu, who made a name for himself by conducting a successful offensive against the northern goblins of Ansgekstozu in year 135.

Due to manpower shortages, and to honor a war hero, it was decided to give him a chance to live with his men, by simply laying down his arms and pledging alliegence to the city of Kimeaslo Ori.

5th August 159, a delegation composed of the usual tactic squad and mobile infantry was dispatched to Sanrebtekkud – when they arrived, they yelled at the goblins, asking to start discussions.



“You see” Histamine explained to Bosa, “You have no mean of victory. You are stranded in dwarven territories – multiple hostiles kingdoms separate your group from the rest of your kind. Our little army alone would be enough to wipe you out right now.”

She wasn’t lying. Bosa had two soldiers with him, and he was himself a capable fighter, but he was facing twenty pearlite masters-at-arms and their beast companions. He hadn’t a snowball’s chance in hell.

“You can live if you become our vassal.” she then suggested. “You’ll keep your land and all. You give us a little yearly tribute, in exchange we protect you, and when we’re done with Osme, you’ll become emperor. What do you say?”

But Bosa only lifted his silver sword.

“Here’s my answer!” he shouted as he made a step toward Histamine.

He did not had the time to make another. For as overwhelming that was the Pearlite’s advantage, Histamine thought appropriate to prepare a trap. In an instant, the nearby shrubs spat out half a dozen of grown war bears who immediately rushed toward the three goblins.

They were immediately rend into heaps of meat.

“That was not the outcome I hoped for…” Islas sighted, making his way toward Histamine. “Not only we killed a hero, we also locked a squad on Sanrebtekkud in the future.”

Histamine shrugged.

“We’re past the point where we can fret over every single cracked egg” she answered, taking some time to look around, preferring to lay her sight on the dwarven ruins and off the bears now feeding on the defeated soldiers.

“We can use this fortress ourselves in the future.”

Miscelleanea

This part will be very short this season, almost exclusively occupied by warfare. As I write those lines, I’m a bit sorry for that, but it is what it is.

A notable advance is the barracks now have a functional roof. It will need some microline tiles still, but can already be used to store equipment and beds could be installed for soldiers lacking a home.


Lelgo orders his armor to Kaos

A total of six tombs were finished in the mausoleum.

Since Histamine was out of town the whole summer, we had to relmy on the citizenry to perform the trades during the festival, but then again, we typically overpay anyway for import goods, as we want to make the country richer and because this is way within our means, so it didn’t really matter.

The import of metals was however not very good, and we hope the dwarves will bring up more good this fall, or we will lack materials.

And that’s about it. Let’s wee how much progress can be done before the end of the decade !

[TheFlame52]

Even if they are slow, I always enjoy your updates. I prefer you continuing at a sustainable pace over you burning yourself out trying to please us.

[Splint]

I didn't even realize it had been so long! Damn, how time can fly sometimes.

And a group of goblins being "rent into heaps of meat" was not a sentence I expected to read, but boy does it sound suitably horrific.

[Haspen]

Seeing Mong Kima show in unread posts is best time of any day

[Darkening Kaos]

      Does not feel like that much time has elapsed and has no effect on the quality of the update.