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[mikekchar]

I need a break from coding, so what better than to play DF in some ridiculously idiotic way.  I've mostly done this before by accident when I was trying to do a 0 point challenge in modern DF.

The idea of the Bandit Camp challenge is to recreate the awful environment that leads to a bandit camp.  Recall in adventure mode that bandit camps are basically places where thugs hang out and attack you.  There are no mines.  There are no structures.  There are no workshops.  Just thugs.

Rules of the Bandit Camp:

• You can spend as many points as you want on abilities for you dwarfs
• You can spend *no* points on equipment.  No animals (apart from the ones pulling your wagon).  No pick.  No axe.  No anvil! No fuel.  No rocks.  No wood.  Nothing.  No food.  No drink!
• Optional "I am weak" play: You are allowed 1 barrel of any drink you want with the RP rationale of who the heck would become a bandit without at least a barrel of drink.
• Set your population cap to 1.  Strict population cap can be anything you want.  The goal is no migrants (you can recruit petitioners and mercenaries, though)
• You may *never* build a trade depot.  I can't remember if traders will wander up at all without a depot, but if they do, then you are more than welcome to relieve them of their goods and/or lives.
• You must attempt to murder the outpost liason every time they show up.  Bandits can't be cozy with the man!

This is a pretty crazy challenge and probably won't appeal to people who like to build things :-)  You can't get an axe or a pick unless you manage to steal one from somebody (or recruit a mercenary that has one).  The wagon only has 3 wood, which means that you really can't have any permanent structures, although you can build and tear down 3 at a time.  If you want a barrel for drink, then you can only have 2 workshops at a time (the reasoning behind allowing the 1 barrel in "weak" mode -- a bit less tedium).  Suprisingly the most punishing requirement: no mechanism because you can not get rock without a pick and you can't work metal without an anvil.  This means that if anybody comes along to cause trouble, you have to duke it out -- make sure to give your dwarfs some combat skills!  Keep in mind, too, that you can't realistically build any items out of wood because you need it for building workshops -- so no buckets, splints, etc.  You *can* build items out of *bone*, though (crossbows and bolts are highly recommended) and *shells* (get that fisherdwarf skill up!).  Most importantly, I think it's probably true that you can't build an armour stand or weapon rack -- so no training other than live training (that's what we like to call "Bandit Style"!)

Some hints: For the love of everything holy, do no embark on a reanimating area :-) Slaughter your wagon animals for bones and build crossbows and bolts.  Go hunting to get more bones.  You'll need good hunting skills to ensure that you don't waste bolts!  Set up a tavern/temple to lure in visitors.  Consider recruiting mercenaries just for their gear -- axes are golden of course!  If someone wanders by with a pick... well, you can't let them leave with it!

"Winning" conditions for this challenge: amass 1 million urists of worth (add a point to Appraiser to one of your dwarfs so you can keep track)  OR die a glorious death.

[PatrikLundell]

Rather crazy in my view (which does not mean I have anything against people trying it).

I'd probably allow for two migrant waves to build up some pop, but disable jobs on migrants so they can't bring equipment, and add the restriction that you cannot recruit anyone, nor steal equipment (by dump marking it): if you want the equipment you have to kill the visitor to get it, and that should include replacement clothing.

Also, I'd recommend embarking somewhere where you're likely to find some drinkable surface water that won't dry up in the summer and won't freeze over in the winter.

While embarking on a cave may provide you with a natural shelter suitable for bandits, caves bring their own risks...

[mikekchar]

Ha ha!  It's unreasonably fun so far :-)  As you say, embarking somewhere warm (with food!) is pretty important.  I set up my "tavern" immediately and within a couple of days an axeman showed up.  Unfortunately he brought along 4 buddies.  But, we're bandits, dammit!  I figured as they are making their way to the camp they'll be strung out, so I'll have a chance.  What I didn't quite sort out in my head is that one of them was a crossbowman (and a skilled one at that, apparently).  As I sent out the entire camp out to get the axe, the crossbowman put bolts in the lower legs of 2 of my dwarfs.  We managed to get him (and his shiny iron crossbow replete with iron bolts), but I'm not so sure about those two guys.  One of them needs a crutch to move and... well... I don't think he's going to get it, unless we can somehow get the axe.  So the 2 waves of migrants might be a good idea.  Keep in mind that I've played less than a week so far

Interestingly the "visitors" ran off to the edge of the map, but are now making their way back, so I've still got a chance to get the axe.  I've played only about 30 minutes since I embarked.  This will probably be the fasted game of DF for me ever (not including adventure mode). 

Edit: Well, we ended up having to take care of all of them.  My chief medical officer was killed by a spear dwarf.  Another was killed by a hammer dwarf.  My militia commander got bashed up pretty badly and currently has an infection.  Two dwarfs were down with broken legs from the crossbowman.  That leaves 2 unscathed -- the expedition leader and my new medical officer.  Of course we managed to get the axe and so are unconstrained with respect to wood now.  I managed to make a bucket, some crutches and some splints.  Now the real problem is thread and cloth.  Luckily we were able to gather some rope reeds early on.  I think there are still a few on the map.  But everybody is asleep now and I probably need to be as well.

I will say it's pretty crazy.  I think I'll end up with 4 fighting dwarfs in the end.  If I'm lucky the military commander will pull through, but his fighting days are behind him.  Before I go on any other crazy attacks, I'm going to have to bolster the ranks with mercenaries, as much as I hate to do so.  It will take 2 years to bring on new citizens, even assuming I get petitions.  On the plus side, my 4 dwarfs are *very* nicely kitted out.  If I can keep them sane for the next little while I think they will be a pretty good fighting force.

I would say that if you want to try this, be careful because if a dwarf gets injured, the biggest thing I forgot to factor in is a bucket!  Without drinks, you need that bucket or else your recovered dwarfs will die of thirst.  So don't go doing anything crazy unless you are sure that you can get an axe out of the deal!

[PatrikLundell]

Taking on quester groups is bound to be dangerous, but DF (at least fortress mode) doesn't have any means to cause enemies to yield, so it's a matter of murdering them (or wait for sufficiently small groups).
It's somewhat unusual for mercs to actually be good at fighting, though, and many struggle to move under the weight of their armor.

Rope Reed should be converted into proper Bandit Booze, while clothing should be supplied by victims...

Anyway, it's good when things are fun.

[mikekchar]

Yeah, I was thinking about the industry issue because now, apart from dwarf-power it's not a problem to do most industries.  However, it's kind of against the flavour of the challenge.  To be honest, the thread and cloth were just so I could get sutures and bandages, so I think that's *mostly* fair -- and it turns out that I have webs on the map as well..  I'm debating whether or not to try a raid.  I don't actually mind if the ending of the campaign is due to uniform corruption.  It seems non-deterministic and chancing your luck seems to be in keeping with the theme.  Normally raiding to get junk is kind of silly, but in this case it might be useful.  But with only 4 fighting dwarfs and no real possibility to get more in the short term...  Probably not a good idea.  I think your 2 waves of migrants is looking more and more like a good idea.  Had I not been stupid about the crossbowman, I would have been in much better shape, though.  The visitors basically run away when you attack them and only fight back when cornered.  As long as you have a bit of fighting prowess you should be able to take on visitors 1 by 1, even without weapons because they tend not to have any skill.

Anyway, I'm going to add some more house rules to my personal challenge: no growing. We aren't farmers!  Historically bandits were often people who specifically opted out of the farmer role ;-)  Like you say, no clothes making.  Dead man's apparel is fashionable!  I think thread and cloth is OK to make for hospital use, as are splints and crutches.  I'm now thinking the same thing for bone/shell carving and leather working for armour.  You're a pretty sad bandit if you are spending your days making armour.  On the other hand, doing some crafts to keep the dwarfs sane is important, so I think you can RP whatever crafting you want -- if it's a legitimate hobby, then so be it ;-)  My own exception to no clothes making *might* be bags, just so  I can dispose of seeds more easily (I suppose you could configure them out almost entirely, though).

Edit: Down to 3.  The requirement to kill the outpost liason is *tough*.  I recommend not having any visitors around when it happens.  Also, the caravan parks at the edge of the map, so if you are feeling especially brave, you *can* try your luck with it.  Without a way to replenish your ranks, I think you need to have a much more conservative approach.  But if you like action, then this is quite fun.  I think I'm probably done with it now, though ;-)

[daggaz]

If you could find a hollow log and some sulfur deposits, maybe you could craft some kind of primitive, makeshift cannon...

[mikekchar]

Dammit daggaz, I'm a bandit not a starship captain!

[daggaz]

I cant tell you how relieved I am, that you got that joke 

[smakemupagus]

The wagon only has 3 wood, which means that you really can't have any permanent structures, although you can build and tear down 3 at a time.  If you want a barrel for drink, then you can only have 2 workshops at a time (the reasoning behind allowing the 1 barrel in "weak" mode -- a bit less tedium). 

Does turning the wagon into a wooden training axe on a no-item embark not work anymore?

[PatrikLundell]

The wagon only has 3 wood, which means that you really can't have any permanent structures, although you can build and tear down 3 at a time.  If you want a barrel for drink, then you can only have 2 workshops at a time (the reasoning behind allowing the 1 barrel in "weak" mode -- a bit less tedium). 

Does turning the wagon into a wooden training axe on a no-item embark not work anymore?

Yes...

Given the number of negations in that sentence an elaboration may be in place: Yes, it does not work anymore as a wooden axe cannot cut wood anymore (which was a bug in the form of a missing implementation).

[Archmonk]

This is a fun challenge.  A couple of observations:

• kill the outpost liaison who shows up with the trading caravan from the Mountain Home, and (at least sometimes) the traders just drop all their goods.  If they had an axe or pickaxe, you are set.
• you can have 5 crossbow/hammerdwarf dwarves pounding, over and over and over, on a donkey's head with bone crossbows, and it does nothing at all.  Donkey doesn't care.

Also, I simplified the rules list thusly:

• No starting equipment or pets
• No migrants (set population cap to 1)
• No trade depots
• Always try to kill the outpost liaison.

[Tilmar13]

I took the challenge and ran into a few issues that culminated in multiple tantrum spirals, which makes sense I guess since they're bandits

• Even with a tavern, it took 3 seasons to get an axeman to kill. My only 3 wood was used for a craft shop, butcher, and a still.
• Food wasn't an issue, with a few fishers and herbalists. No wood for barrels meant no booze.
• Without any kind of equipment to defend themselves with, 4 dwarves fell prey to the axeman. Either directly or through their injuries
• Only caravans I got were elves...useless.

This challenge was a lot of fun though. I think next time I'll have an adventurer build a camp, and embark over the top of it

[PatrikLundell]

Note that one way to utilize the wagon wood to the limit is to tear down a workshop to use the log to build a different one, possibly freeing up one log for the (permanent) construction of a booze barrel.

[Schmaven]

Doesn't killing the outpost liason result in no more caravans showing up from that civ? 

[mikekchar]

Wow!  I'm really happy a few people tried it.  I really enjoyed my stint.  I *am* thinking that the limit of 3 wood is a bit hard, though.  2 reusable wood plus one barrel is doable, but it's quite tedious.  However, I really want to try doing a raid the next time.  Theoretically you should be able to get some useful stuff (possibly a barrel?) I'm going to give that a try instead of encouraging "visitors".  I don't have a lot of time, though, unfortunately so I'm not sure when I'll get to it.