~Year 4: Opening the Caverns~After going through and analyzing the job allocations thoroughly, it turns out that I dont have enough adult dwarves. 17 kids, but the oldest one is 2. I was about 10 dwarves short, so I adjusted the pop cap to 100/110.
Aaaannnd, we have the greatest travesty of dwarfkind. Another legendary Armorsmith and I'm not allowed to use 2. I swapped him over to Blacksmithing since my current one was very low leveled and I didnt want Dumed to feel too badly about his circumstances. 3 dwarves in jobs we didnt have yet, which is good to see. None of them are terribly skilled, but we have time.
Its unnatural to feel sympathy for the elves, but here we are. An undead owl chased one of the merchants up a tree the entire time they were here this year, so we didnt get to trade this year. When they left, they wandered directly into a pack of undead goats. A couple elves died before the army showed up, but we cleaned everything up before anyone resurrected.
Meanwhile, one of our children had a mood and created a rather boring scepter. That does give us a legendary woodworker, but since I can't actually use him yet, I'll stick with the one we are training up now. The mayor tends to request toys to be crafted, which is a good use of our woodworker's time.
Everyone, meet Mebzuth:
Hi Mr. Boss. Looket my toy boat!Thats nice Mebzuth. Having fun?Yeah, lots of fun!Glad you're enjoying yourself. I have some good news Mebzuth. You're going to get your own bedroom.You mean it? None of the other kids have their own room. Yay!Let's head on down and take a look at your new place.
Ummm, Mr Boss? Theres some water in the way.I know Mebzuth. You're going to have to wade across every time you want to grab a snack or take a nap.I don't wanna!That's too bad. Do you want your new room, or should I give it to one of the other kids?*pouts*Meanwhile, in the crafting level, Kel really outdid himself this time.
Thob will surely appreciate his craftdwarfship. We dont have much adamantine at the moment, but NRDL is doing a few exploratory digs to try and find some more.
I had been getting rather annoyed that my woodcutter was ignoring the tree chops that I had designated. I thought he was just hauling to the quantum stockpiles like most of the rest of the fort, but alas.
Its been a while since I've last played DF and I neglected to floor over the various small ponds on the map. Our woodcutter died a sad death after a falling tree knocked him in and I hadnt noticed. We began digging out a drain for the pond so we could bury him properly, as well as assigning an unskilled dwarf to take his spot.
When the liaison came with the dwarven caravan, he brought some good news. The king is pleased with our efforts and is naming Hammervised an official Barony.
Iton, a former fisherdwarf that has now been assigned to learn Siege Engineering, was chosen to be our Baron-to-be. Nothing will take place officially until the liaison leaves for his return trip to the mountainhome in the spring, but we all have a feeling of accomplishment for our trials so far.
We have several jobs that are going to require a steady stream of not-zombie wildlife passing through, so its finally time to unlock and explore the caverns. NRDL dug a stairwell down near the entrance to the fortress where the military does its training to minimize danger to the civilians. Once a passageway with a drawbridge for safety was completed, we had him formally breach the first cavern and sent in the military.
We found a deep pit and a downward passage leading to the second cavern layer. Well, a deep pit is what the dwarves called it. This thing is a straight drop down over 100 levels. Truly massive. The military headed down the passage to see what the second cavern held, but meanwhile...
A troll snuck out of the first cavern and headed towards the fortress proper while the military was out of position. Thankfully our resident beast hunters we on their way to the first cavern and were able to dispatch the beast without any casualties.
Our exploration of the second cavern proved futile. A hodgepodge of small plateaus ranging from level 53 to -2, it would take forever and a day to hook all of these up to be usable. The military was recalled back to the surface as soon as we arrived at the first small section. I am writing this level off as a complete bust. Hopefully when we breach the third cavern it will prove to be more useful.
Meanwhile, one of our idle dwarves had yet another mood. This one was anything but boring.
At first I was thrilled because I thought Dumed had crafted the artifact and was firmly entrenched in his new role as a Blacksmith, but alas. It was Libash, the dwarf he had replaced. Still, a legendary Blacksmith will prove very useful.
As it turns out, we pulled the military back into place at just the right time. The goblins were back for round two:
Looks like they brought some trolls with them as well.
Unfortunately for them, the trolls rushed ahead to be slaughtered by our military might, which then proceeded to pull back and let the goblins come to us. The goblins stood no chance.
A shout of triumph echoed from within the fort, but the goblins had one last tactic to try after all.
One of the goblin invaders was decapitated during the fight, and his severed head landed high up in one of the trees outside of the fortress. When it reanimated, the dwarves would not go anywhere near it. I drafted a marksdwarf to try and attack it, but the head was too high up in the tree to shoot. The woodcutter refused to cut down the tree, so I was at an impasse.
I actually had to download DFHack and exterminate the head. My macedwarf was trapped outside of the fortress and wouldnt path in until the head was gone, and she was close to dehydration. The military could have crushed the head easily if any of them could reach it, so I dont feel bad about the result.
During the siege, the monster slayers all headed into the caverns to begin their hunts. Stathra the Hammerman and Puja the Pikeman were both having relatively successful hunts. Sadly, the same could not be said for our other two combatants:
Cathar was locked in mortal combat with a pair of troglodytes. Exchanging blows back and forth, one of the trogs was sent flying down into the massive pit. Sadly, Cathar tried to dodge the second trog and ended up falling down as well. She plunged down for 89 stories, waiting for the inevitable stop at the end.
Efforts are underway to dig a tunnel down to retrieve her corpse for proper burial, but it will take some time.
Meanwhile, Cathar's best friend Solon the Crossbowman was having troubles of his own.
Quickly running out of crossbow bolts, Solon was reduced to trying to beat three trogs in melee combat with just his crossbow. It didnt go well for him. The military was called down to eliminate the trogs surrounding his unconscious body so a civilian could come in and bring him to the hospital.
Recapping the fortress for the end of the year:
Food and drink are both plentiful now. Actually starting to run low on space for storage for all of it. Mead is being brewed to supplement the foraged plants.
The two ponds around the courtyard have been floored over. The entrance to the cavern tunnel is right by the drawbridge to the fort.
The crafting level. Magma smelter/glass/kiln are in place. Magma is being hauled up to redo the forge itself.
We have added a library near the tavern. The library is open to everyone. Papermaking has just begun, but no actual quires have been made yet.
We hit sandy loam in the tunnel to the fishing bunker. We added underground farms and dedicated stockpiles. Pig tails are being made into slurry, dimple cups milled into dye, and sweet pods threshed into syrup.
~End of Year Four~
14 Legendary Dwarves (plus one extra stonecrafter and one armorsmith):
Ducim the Weaver
Edzul the Carpenter
Mosus the Mechanic
Fikod the Plant Gatherer
Kel the Weaponsmith
Libash the Blacksmith
Mebzuth the Farmer
NRDL the Miner
Obok the Clothesmaker
Rigoth the Cook
Rovod the Engraver
Ushrir the Appraiser
Ingish and Dumed the Armorsmiths
Justin and Doren the Stonecrafters
61 Legends in Training
2.5 Human monster hunters
21 Children
You have NO idea how long this is taking. One year took me just over 8 hours of gameplay, and 99% of it is due to one job. Small. Animal. Trapping. This job is way WAY worse than useless. I knew I was going to have useless jobs coming into this. I almost have a legendary wax crafter for Armok's sake. But small animal trapping is actually detrimental to gameplay. Constant pause and recenter for events. "You have caught a rat!" "A rat has gnawed its way out of captivity" "You have caught a two legged rhino lizard!" Over and over and over again. Sadly the only thing we need to catch are small cave spiders or fire snakes, neither of which are coming very quickly.
I also might not be able to get a legendary Hunter with this embark. I thought that the undead biomes would make things more interesting (and they have from my end at least). However, the first cavern has been nothing but trolls and troglodytes so far, neither of which are huntable. The second cavern is a clusterfuck, so its all going to come down to the third cavern.
Updates on named dwarves to follow shortly.
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Topic: Hammervised - The quest for legends (Read 3163 times)