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[Salmeuk]

Time to be a last-minute entrant! This sounds like a good time.

And say... wouldn't sabotaging the fort in a way that only you're comfortable playing with be a great idea? We're not trying to have a successful fort, after all, we're trying to win.

You are just the kind of player I wanted! Welcome aboard.

=========================

Ok. So here is a reminder about the rules, so read up before you start:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

1. Name one of the dwarves after yourself, and post here (preferably today) which dwarf you chose. If this dwarf is dead when you submit your final save, you will be disqualified from the scoring. There are no rules about locking them up in a small chamber, but of course, that is a free pair of hands you are unable to use for the challenge.

2. You are free to save scum. Hell, you can restart the whole challenge if you feel like it! Keep track of how many times if you want, I'm curious how often people will need to do this.

3. Please no cheating utilites, like reveal_all, fastdwarf, etc. That's no fun! Feel free to use quality of life utilities since this is DF after all. I suppose you might declare which ones you plan to use, for transparencies sake.

4. You have 1 week IRL, unless you need an extension, then 2 weeks max. In-game, you have a little less than 1 year, until the next spring comes (Granite 1st).

5. Use the following INIT settings:

[STRICT_POPULATION_CAP:80]

[VISITOR_CAP:40]


[INVASION_SOLDIER_CAP:60]
[INVASION_MONSTER_CAP:100]


[GRAZE_COEFFICIENT:100]

[PRIESTHOOD_UNIT_COUNTS:10:25]
[TEMPLE_VALUE_LEVELS:2000:10000]
[GUILD_UNIT_COUNTS:10:25]
[GUILDHALL_VALUE_LEVELS:2000:10000]

[CAVEINS:YES]
[ARTIFACTS:YES]

Every other INIT setting is fair game.

6. Remember, when you complete your turn and feel satisfied with your score, please PM me the uploaded save so I can secretly verify and tally. If you want, perform your own item count so I can double-check my accuracy.

7.Journal and screenshot as you please - nothing, some, or as normal for succession games. Just don't mention your score!

Finally, the part you have all been waiting for - the first item type that will be used for scoring is as follows:

Metal Statues of the dwarven god of death, Vesh. Any metal is acceptable, but there is one caveat: I will only count constructed statues! So not only do you need to produce these metals, and form them into statues, but you must also make space to display them.

In-game description for reference:



Good luck overseers! Don't forget to construct the statues! And may the best dwarf win! CLICK HERE FOR SAVE.

...

Oh, and it looks like you already have a visitor:



Welcome to Numbercurse.

[Salmeuk]

Here is a little flavor to get you guys started. Consider it canon, but feel free to ignore if your journaling takes you elsewhere.

Our expedition was like any other. A mildly adventurous set of dwarves who had been tricked into settling a new hillocks far from the mountainhome. And we brought far too much beer. After getting lost in a valley filled with Keas, who stole all our weapons and armor, we wandered into a swampy marshland and our progress stalled. Moving at a snail's pace through the thick reedgrass, dodging pits of muck and bubbling swampgas, we kept our heads down and trundled onward. That is, until we saw smoke rising ahead, from behind a thick wall of willowtrees. A village! Maybe even a tavern!  And real beds to sleep in!

We had to shimmy our way through the trees they had grown so close together. But soon, our party of seven came to a clearing in the middle. There stood a thatched-roof hut, with a clear pond beside, and in front a roaring firepit, upon which sat a great, black cauldron hung from wooden posts. I heard laughing from behind, a woman, but strangely I could no longer turn around and felt compelled to move towards the cauldron. It seems my fellow dwarves felt the same way - we all began to walk forward into the meadow. I felt like I was dreaming, and I saw three crows perched above the doorway of the hut. They were looking right at me.

The cauldron grew larger as we approached, or so it seemed - it was so large you could fit two dwarves inside, and still have room for the carrots! The fire unexpectedly died down, like it was under some spell, and as we neared, I started to hear a scratching noise from inside. Like a squirrel, or maybe a bird, trying to escape. We stepped closer and closer, and peered over the lip of the cauldron. Then, horror! Some kind of gremlin leapt out and onto my face, and I fell to the ground screaming. The others were frozen in place, and I grabbed and thrashed at the creature on my head. Then, I was paralyzed, and laying there on the ground I was eye to eye with this gremlin. It was small, about the size of a rat, though it looked a hundred years old with drooping eyes and wrinkled black skin. It winked at me, then opened my mouth and crawled inside me. I will never forget this feeling, and I almost refused to write those words again, but they must be recorded. I could hear it's laughter from inside my chest.

Then, we were free from the spell, and all of us scrambled up from the ground, running back from this accursed place, only to see her. A woman, wearing some kind of ragged black shawl, and she was smiling at us. In her hand was a bowl, and perched on her left shoulder was a crow. As we stopped, unsure of where to run, she reached into the bowl and wet her hand, then formed an 'O' shape with her fingers, and blew a rainbow bubble. This bubble wafted into the air between us, and this woman began to laugh the most horrible, painful, shrieking laugh. The bubble grew closer, and as it did it grew larger and larger, taking up our whole view, until it enclosed us, and all we could see was the iridescence around us. I felt myself being lifted from the ground, and feeling a most peculiar feeling, like something was crawling underneath my skin. This was my last memory before all went dark.

---------

We awoke on the cold slope of a dark mountain. To our North, the claystone cliffs climbed gently towards the setting sun. To our East, we heard the strange calls of a dying beast emanating from a dense jungle thicket that skirted the mountain hills. And to our West and South, entire forests of dead wood that stretched as far as the eye could see. A rotting smell persisted in the air, and no amount of fine steel weaponry could make a dwarf feel comfortable here. Still, there was no sign of the witch, or the small hut, or the clearing where we encountered her, and I let out a sigh of relief. Surely I had been dreaming the night before.

Then, as I stood up, I felt dizzy, then sick, and bent double and looked at my feet, only to see it. It was here! The gremlin! As it danced between my legs, it smiled and looked up with it's wrinkled demon face and whispered to me, "You are mine now!". As it danced, so too did I begin to dance, and soon I realized that I was no longer in control of my own body. I began to feel compelled, to make and to make and to make and to make and to make. . .

I had been cursed, and this was my new hell!

[StrikaAmaru]

Well that was... um... interesting.

My chosen dorf is the expedition leader, Ast DablerBasement (I predict this will be a popular choice, unless somebody wants to play the 'shadow manipulator angle'; for my part, I'll go with something a bit different, and not even try to roleplay - there are relatively few write-ups made from the perspective of the player, or as I usually interpret that, the Maximum Munchkin.

The dwarfette's first thought upon this world: "People should listen to what I have to say". Oh you poor fool...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Quantum Drop]

Chosen dorf is 'QD' Sakzulonul, 'Smith and Suicidal Idiot'. I may or may not RP, depending on how much time and inspiration I have.

[NordicNooob]

For my dwarf, I chose Ral Dishmabsosh, the male miner, and nicknamed them 'Nord'.

The armadillo also made the foolish mistake to try to attack our animals a few days in, and obviously sent ye olde miners in to take care of it. Nord happened to get the kill, so, yeah. First blood! My victory grows more assured with each passing day!



If I post any more updates before my turn is done with expect them to be uninformative in terms of how developed my fort is.

[Quantum Drop]

Oh, you too? The manager/expedition leader in mine killed it with a punch to the head, 21st Granite.

EDIT: Had to delete the save and re-download to the initial save, as posted by Salmeuk) due to what I suspect to be a bug. Dwarves were neither eating nor drinking despite supplies being available, and any buildings were not beginning construction even with materials available and labours enabled. Not entirely sure what caused it, but it rendered the fort completely non-viable in both short and long term.

[applet]

[StrikaAmaru]

Year 01 (49)
Spring
15th of Granite.

Welcome to NumberCurse, in the first year of its existence, 49 years after the world began! There is an undead armadillo on the map, as Salmeuk already spoiled for us, but it’s relatively far away. Will keep a very close eye on it and any other that might spawn.


The start of a fortress is, beyond any doubt, an important time. It will shape the fort, possibly for the entirety of its existence. It is, therefore, a time of intense micro-management - for me at least. I’m seriously considering lowering the FPS to a cap of 30, from the 50 I usually keep it at, so it doesn’t run too fast… and I already decided to save-scum copiously when the migrants come. I need workers. And I need them this year, not the next.

First impressions for the embark are neither terrible, nor spectacular. We have an exaggerated amount of booze, as we’ve already been told, plus some seeds and some fish. Besides that, not much - an anvil, one extra copper axe (besides the one wielded by Stakud the woodcutter), and 12 bolts of pig tail cloth.


We have a number of subpar animals; there’s a distinct possibility I’ll turn many of them to meat cuts. In the meantime, I let the wagon stand so they’ll stay near it and not meander all over the map.


As my first command in NumberCurse, I tweak the job assignments - the two miners and our woodcutter are exempt from anything; everybody else is a hauler, and a plant gatherer. The starting rooms are planned, and a few nearby trees are marked for chopping. Our first priority is to get as much stuff as we can to the relative safety of indoor space.


Let the fort begin!

18th of Granite. Day 3. I come to the infuriating realization that miners dig a lot slower than everybody else is doing everything else.


All other tasks have been completed, and I very briefly had 5 idlers; that is not permissible. I put down a food stockpile, in the nook that was dug out, and reassigned hauling to the woodcutter.

In more positive news, the zombie armadillo is loitering on the eastern edge of the map; that’s amazingly good, because there’s not a single point of military skill between either of these drunkards.

21st. It took these two amateurs this long to dig the 6x11 ‘maximum priority’ area. I immediately delete both extant stockpiles, and re-create a food ‘pile. I can see there’s a ton of food (mostly booze) still in the wagon…

The next step is to move all animals indoors; for this purpose, I define a meeting area in the space, and order the wagon deconstructed; this should allow all the critters to move indoors of their own volition, thus saving the dwarves precious time.


For some reason, I keep having idlers. There are things to haul, food and wood specifically; they just… don’t.

24th. I make a new custom stockpile, with all of the other things:


Another wood stockpile soon follows, in the newly-dug out corner.

28th of Granite. We have prevailed; all of our possessions, all of our animals, and all of our dwarves have been secured indoors. Now all that’s left is the digging.


1st of Slate. As the second month of spring rolls around, I pause the game and begin planning.

The goal is to craft as many metal statues as possible. There are 2 ways I could go about this - either make coal-fueled furnaces, or rush for the magma. My first instinct is to rush for the magma, but my first instinct doesn’t know squat about fortress layout (it’s also working against pre-established rules like “do not screw future self”; in here, I have no such constraints).

So comes the first temptation to use ‘cheaty’ commands: namely, reveal all. It would make it trivial to plan the fort in detail… but it’s also one that I consider on the wrong edge of fair. What I decide instead is that I’ll play the fort blindly, and if I run into trouble or just don’t like it, I have plenty of time; I can use my save scum privileges to roll back everything. EVERYTHING! Back to Granite 15! Free week-ends are amazing like this.

Thus I prevail against temptation, and limit myself to sketching out the edges of embark squares, so I can sink a massive shaft all the way to magma, without hitting any caves in the way:


(Results not guaranteed; I had broken into caverns like this before, and in one recent private fort of mine, the awesomely-named but mostly-dead MetalBeasts, doing this managed to reveal all three caverns. In the first year. Yeah...)

Oh, the embark is 4x3? I didn’t know that. Well, I’m definitely not complaining - the (regrettably retired) YouTuber MarcusAureliusLP got me turnt on 3x2 embarks, which are just big enough to be varied, and just small enough to not make me feel lost, or murder my FPS.

The peak in which my dwarves huddled is situated right above square 2,2. One of these corners will get picked for the stair shaft, and I’m partial to the ones on the center line; either top or bottom, I haven’t made up my mind yet.

I think I’ll go with the bottom corner; I already have a tendency to plan forts in an upward direction.

If I have any say on the matter, the shaft will be a 3x3 tube with an empty floor in the middle. This setup is straight up amazing for displaying artifacts, or even ‘just’ masterwork crafts. But all that is in the future, right now the stair shaft will be a single stair, to be dug as soon as possible.


O ya. I also ordered 3 workshops built - mason, carpenter, farmerrrrr… no, wait a mo’, we have no animal to milk or shear, therefore no need for farmer’s workshop. If this were one of my embarks, this is the point where I’d exploit all milk-giving beasts, and shear the unavoidable ewe and ram. In this embark, both wagon pulling beasts are male, and there are no sheep. Craftsdwarf’s workshop is better.


For now.

6th Slate.

That’s rather a lot of dirt; I suppose I can also make a small farm?


So, while Ral the miner is digging the first and single stairway with a priority of 2, Deduk the miner will dig out our first farm, with a priority of 3, in the inner elbow of that corridor. We’ll see where soil ends and where stone begins; and for my part, I’ll make sure the spot can be sealed off with minimal trouble, because we’re right beneath the surface, and any trees above will result in a potentially dangerous hole.

The stair shaft goes down a staggering 180 levels (150 to -29); I’m sure some of it is unusable, but that’s still a long way down. Wanna bet we have one of those incredibly annoying caverns that slopes over 40-50 levels and is impossible to seal? I hate those...

8th Slate. Booze time for the miners! It’s been 3 weeks, I’m sure everybody else will follow.


Until that happens though, I remove (again) all the stockpiles, and replace them with only one food stockpile, covering half the space. I also build the beds at the end of the corridor, and the least-crappy chair & table get built too; our manager/bookkeeper needs an office, and until proper rooms are a viable option, this will have to do.



The beds have been made into a 3x3 communal dormitory, by the way. I’ve learned the hard way to not leave empty spaces among dormitory beds; dwarves are exactly stupid enough to go sleep in those empty spaces, and then complain about sleeping without a bed. Then again, this was in DF2012, and it’s been a while since then.

15th Slate. The breaks have ended, and the farm has been dug out. To my surprise, all of it is usable. I lay down ‘the usual’ pattern of farm plots, and a seed stockpile between them. Obviously, I also remove all seeds from the food ‘pile above.


I take the time to also set up my preferred orders.






The next priority is to set up safe(ish) entry points. I want migrants, I need migrants, and a well-defended entry point is a pretty good way to acquire them. I’ll carve tunnels to near the map edge, then seal them with hatch airlocks. These will be locked and unlocked in accordance to where the morons migrants pop up.

Note to self: underneath the farm, there are 4 levels in chalk; being a flux stone, this has twice the value of an average stone, and is therefore a great place in which to set dormitories, locations, and nobiliary rooms.

By the way, the zombie armadillo was replaced with a zombie bushmaster corpse; this appears to be some sort of snake. There’s… not much of it left:



1st Felsite. The dwarves have paused to eat, and our two grazing animals, a yak bull and a donkey, are hungry. This is the kind of matter that will get resolved in a way they wouldn’t enjoy: I build one butcher’s and one tanner’s and enable those two jobs on every dwarf who’s not a miner or a farmer. 49 units of meat are added to our stockpiles… and I need to ensure there’s room in the food pile for them; we have 44 barrels, all of which are full.


7th Felsite. Well, it happened. At level -12, one dwarf has hit molten rock. I’m now torn between digging exploratory tunnels exploring the limits of the magma sea, and digging access tunnels for our migrant dwarves. I then recall that if I find the sea I can get more miners, and the decision is made.

There are no immediately obvious hot tiles, and the magma sea is unpredictable; it can have anywhere between a couple of levels to dozens. I resolve to make tunnels in a binary/exponential pattern; 8 levels up from -12 is on level -4; if no magma becomes apparent, I’ll halve the distance to level -8; then I’ll halve it again, either up or down depending on whether I find anything or not.

(I’ll also temporarily assign -4 to hotkey F4; that’s where I usually keep my magma forges).

.. Oh right, I almost forgot - this is supposed to be a 3x3 stairway. I mark the bottom of it, on priority 5; we’ll get to it when we get to it.

Then I’m doing this on level -4:


13th. Up on the surface, the meat still wasn’t moved to stockpiles, so I ordered some lavish meals to be crafted; our cook is also our farmer, and since the 10 plump helmet spawns are now in the ground, she can do this with no issues. Also on the surface, we have decent fauna for once - no zombies loiter, but a herd of entirely mundane yaks have made their way from up north. I pick this time to place a hatch on our fort entrance… just in case.


Back down, there are no hot spots; there is, however, a vein of tetrahedrite; I’m sure you can figure out what’s gonna happen to it:


27th. In the basement, no results were brought by digging on level -4; so I moved to level -8. Immediately, I hit warm rock.

 
All other exploratory tunnels are cancelled; I designate another tunnel on level -6 (predictably towards the west; with only a bit of thinking, I put one down on -5 as well. One of these has got to be the one right above the magma sea.

And on this hopeful note, spring ends.

----------------------

Edit, 9 hours later: I'll try a replay in this morning, with the explicit intent of getting the miners to move faster - if I can get any improvements, this report gets subtly modified. I don't expect any massive changes, just to shave a coupla weeks off the magma punch schedule, because I'll fully focus on that and not waste time on all the other operations.

-----------------------

Edit, 10 hours later.

I successfully shaved about 2 weeks off the miner's calendar, at the 'cost' of not having an access tunnel dug out for migrants. It will be done, just not this in spring. Other than that, the differences were minor - I used the second ax to temporarily appoint a new woodcutter and was more daring with my woodcutting and plant gathering; the zombie armadillo was just as placid, but it went south instead of east; it eventually made its way to the fort's entrance, but after the food and wood and other gubbinz have been moved inside.


I also got around to constructing 3 of the 4 nest boxes, for our turkeys. They promptly laid 36 eggs, so we're good for meat.


The really interesting change is the budding smithy, where I've punched through on the 18th of Felsite:

Level -6:

-7:

-8:


The temporary smithy will be built on -6, on top of that little pocket. I have too much pride to not leave a well-appointed one, but for the purpose of smelting metal, and making 10-15 picks, it will do.

This is at the very start of summer; I think I'll stop expanding the room, and start digging the two veins of tetrahedrite found adjacent to the stairs & exploratory tunnels.


The dwarves themselves are coming up nicely too.

[Salmeuk]

The start of a fortress is, beyond any doubt, an important time. It will shape the fort, possibly for the entirety of its existence. It is, therefore, a time of intense micro-management - for me at least. I’m seriously considering lowering the FPS to a cap of 30, from the 50 I usually keep it at, so it doesn’t run too fast… and I already decided to save-scum copiously when the migrants come. I need workers. And I need them this year, not the next.

Nice, I hadn't thought of these two strategies but I imagine they will prove useful. For at least this first year, I bet having a few extra furnace operators might prove useful.

We have a number of subpar animals; there’s a distinct possibility I’ll turn many of them to meat cuts.

How dare you insult turkeys like that! They are the best egg layer, excluding cave crocs.

18th of Granite. Day 3. I come to the infuriating realization that miners dig a lot slower than everybody else is doing everything else.

I might have only given them a few points in mining, out of habit. Well, consider it part of the challenge.

What I decide instead is that I’ll play the fort blindly, and if I run into trouble or just don’t like it, I have plenty of time; I can use my save scum privileges to roll back everything. EVERYTHING! Back to Granite 15! Free week-ends are amazing like this.

Huh. I hadn't thought of that either. .

Whatever the case, nice journaling (I selfishly wanted to see journals so I could follow along), but you might want to obscure the specifics a little further. Now all the other players know where magma is, for instance!


Thanks everyone for posting their dwarf picks. Looking forward to the results. I'm kind of thinking this metal statue choice would have been better for the second or third rounds, since, well, the first year is pretty slow as you are setting everything up. I guess it means less counting for me in the end!

[NordicNooob]

We have a number of subpar animals; there’s a distinct possibility I’ll turn many of them to meat cuts.

How dare you insult turkeys like that! They are the best egg layer, excluding cave crocs.

Thanks everyone for posting their dwarf picks. Looking forward to the results. I'm kind of thinking this metal statue choice would have been better for the second or third rounds, since, well, the first year is pretty slow as you are setting everything up. I guess it means less counting for me in the end!

Blasphemy! Peafowl are the best egg layer, as they give full meat as soon as they're adults and lay pretty close to the same amount of eggs as turkeys.

Also nah, first year metalworking is hilarious, you've got to do whatever industry is the hardest for the fort to work with to make sure it's not just dull industry and instead is "how the heck do I start up an entire x industry in one year?!". So when the surface gets overrun by the undeadsplosion tell us to make wooden animal traps or something, and when somebody sabotages the fort by opening up the circus just before their turn ends, you tell us that we need to make our next object from candy.

[Radipon]

Played out a dry run. Should have my entry in by the end of Sunday.

[StrikaAmaru]

For at least this first year, I bet having a few extra furnace operators might prove useful.

Ho yes. The mason ain't doing much masoning, just saying.

How dare you insult turkeys like that! They are the best egg layer, excluding cave crocs.

The turkeys are amazing, and have laid eggs already *points at crafts-shop orders*. The dogs and the tomcat are... ugh. Friggin' terrible autogen. The cat will be spared, but the dogs are going to the choppa as soon as I can manage. Tbh, I might have slaughtered them anyway; in evil biomes dogs are a liability, not an asset. Even when war-trained, they're crap.

The miners: yeh, 2 guys with 2 levels each... not the fastest ones. My usual choice is 3 miners with 5 levels. Absolute godsend in the first year, and worth every embark point.

you might want to obscure the specifics a little further. Now all the other players know where magma is, for instance!

Knowing where the magma is and exploiting where the magma is are different things I'm fine with it.

I'm kind of thinking this metal statue choice would have been better for the second or third rounds, since, well, the first year is pretty slow as you are setting everything up. I guess it means less counting for me in the end!

... you know, I never thought about it too much. But yeah, a better challenge for the first year would have been "Have the highest trade with the mountainhome, AND make sure all traders leave the map unharmed".

[Edit] This last bit spiraled off into its own tangent: I'd play a challenge like this as a balancing act of cooperation and competition. Individual players have a vested interest in competing with one another, in "sabotaging the fort in a way that makes only them comfortable playing", as it's been said already. So I'd consider my job as over-overseer to set goals that result in a stable fort and cooperative behavior even when everybody wants to compete.

...

This is starting to look like politics. Or at least politics done well.

[Quantum Drop]

Run complete. Savescum count: two (one due to glitch).

Should have the save up by tonight, if I don't choose to attempt a re-run/third savescum. Sorry for the lack of a journal so far - may post one later, if I can get enough pics and find enough time to write it.

[StrikaAmaru]

Congratulations, Quantum Drop!

I guess you're not going to spoil us on the total number of statues? Just so the rest of us have an idea if we've already lost or not.

(My own play time dried up suddenly, all my evenings besides Monday were busy with other things . A this point, I just pray for Saturday)

[Quantum Drop]

Congratulations, Quantum Drop!

I guess you're not going to spoil us on the total number of statues? Just so the rest of us have an idea if we've already lost or not.

(My own play time dried up suddenly, all my evenings besides Monday were busy with other things . A this point, I just pray for Saturday)

I'd rather not spoil the number of statues. So, I'll just say it's enough that my Dwarves weren't able to finish constructing them all before 1st Granite hit, even with all non-hauling/'build this statue' tasks disabled.

That said, I'll admit I didn't do too well in the early months (as in, statue production only started in ~Sandstone or later). Too much time carving out the housing/work areas and not enough digging for ore, coupled with those parrots deciding to pull a reverse Monty Python's Flying Circus every five seconds. Still, happy enough with the results.