Year 5 (129)Spring. A new goblin siege has arrived, from the same N-E direction as the other. This one too shall pass, since the army has yet to acquire even a level by training; in fact, they don’t seem to be training at all. Some skill gain was made, from individual training, but it’s minuscule.
The cage trap corridor was completed this season too; to my great embarrassment, two of the three bridges had to be torn down and rebuilt; I seem to have a habit of forgetting to set the direction. It wasn’t the last change either; the fortifications were initially carved from natural stone; this caused me problems when body parts got stuck in them and stank up the place. I ended up digging all of them out, and reconstructing them from blocks.
Summer. Not much happened, besides trade with the humans, training for the troops, and overall fort development.
Autumn. The dwarven caravan has had a little bug - it
apparently consisted only of 2 guys with draft animals, no wagons, and the caravan was forever stuck unpacking. By sheer blind luck, I found out that most of the caravan had refused to spawn on the map edge; this was revealed by a convenient save & reload (not quicksave - full save, close DF, reload the next day; I was lucky that it was late evening at the time).
As soon as the map froze, a massive logging campaign was initiated. Not only do I need the wood, but I am sick and tired of ceding the surface to invaders whenever they show up. I’m planning a massive system of walls, towers and bridges to create a safe(ish) area on the surface, and control pathing for invaders. Fliers not included, of course.
Winter. All trees in the approximate way of the wall have been chopped; with two quantum stockpiles defined (one for willow, the other for all other surface wood), the entire fort is occupied with hauling. The only exception are the two melee squads, who are tasked with improving their skills.
A strange milestone is passed this year: it marks the first season in HopeWork’s history when we had more peace than war. Discounting the first year when no invasions are possible*, and that one time when the siege lasted one tick, HopeWork has had 7 seasons of invasion and 7 of peace; this winter is the 8th season of peace.
* Well almost; there was a time in a version of 47.03 when the tower attacked me in the first winter. Full-blown siege, too, 80+ invaders for a fort of 20 dwarves.
Also, the forgotten beast Malluzospu from the first cavern died to a giant cave spider. They have killed each other, from what I can tell.
Next year: the great wall is planned.
Year 6 (130)Spring begins with another abortive siege from the goblins; a vile force of darkness has arrived, for all of one tick. Spring then continues with an equally abortive tower siege; the enemy have come and are laying siege to the fortress, for all of one tick.
Besides that minor distraction, the plan for our new walls has been finalized:
Whatever overlaps with ponds is going to have fortifications as foundations; on the surface, the first level will be made from blocks, and at least a second level will be from fortifications. I don’t expect to finish this year, at a minimum I’m going to run out of blocks. Whenever this over-engineered monstrosity is finished, the inside should be safe from all except fliers, and what will be deliberately left in.
The large towers have an internal 7x7 square floor; this is the default size for a barracks, so I intend to move the troops in them later. I still haven’t figured out how said troops will travel into the fort, or muster outside when needed. Problems for other years.
The mountainous biome on the north-east, where all the (serious) invasions start, is left as ‘outside’ the fort, and will be watched by three barrack towers. It’s also where most of the traps will be placed,
Summer. While trading with the humans, I see a few blood splatters on the floor; they’re from a pet peafowl who wasn’t pastured. There are no combat logs involving it, so this may be a syndrome from one of the pools of ichor left by the experiments on the surface.
To check, I create a pasture on top of a two-tile pool, and assign a dog to it. The dog starts bleeding almost immediately. Other than this, there are no wounds on her, or any health conditions. She’s just splattering blood around, so far at least; I’ll wall her up and see how her condition develops in the long term. “The long term”, in this case, meant about a half the year, because an invading zombie has managed to climb into the enclosure and kill her.
Autumn. The tower’s back, and brought some new buddies: night’s hounds, nightmares of night, Anripuja’s Wolves, experiments of Vushimush, and creatures of Bunelogem (the u should have a circumflex accent, but I can’t be bothered). Several have resulted from experiments on dogs. The necromancers are taking “kick the dog” extremely literally, and also up to eleven. Million.
Besides the new faces, we’re also invaded by a ton of soldiers of Eman, HeatedDikes’ Fists, plague ghouls and normal zombies. And three living goblins, which honestly look entirely out of place…
I think I’ll dedicate a chapter to the experiments, and to the two necromancers of the world. There seems to be enough material.
Interestingly, the experiments seem to be bleeding, or at least oozing - the ground under them is smeared in ichors and extracts, despite the lack of combat so far. If any of these carry other, more dangerous syndromes, ol’ HopeWork may experience terminal amounts of FUN.
The trap corridor has finally had its inauguration. Since I knew there were some trap-avoid creatures in there, the army was called in. The two melee squads were stationed in the horizontal segment, while the crossbow dwarves were kept behind fortifications. After making double-sure the ‘safe’ civilian burrow was set correctly, and that everything was forbidden on the surface, the outer bridge was dropped. And all my precautions were for nothing because dwarves can’t be arsed to obey station orders. Five of these idiots, one at a time, have left their designated positions and walked into the teeth of an entire siege. Four of them have died. The fifth decided to return; the smartest decision in their life.
The Soldiers of Eman have entered first, and I close the outer bridge after them; they’re much faster than normal zombies or plague ghouls, and have outpaced the rest of the siege by a great deal. This allowed me to cut them off from their colleagues, and indulge in some defeat in detail.
The burgeoning army of HopeWork was sent in, and had had a surprisingly good showing. Except three Creatures of Bunem-whatever, all these have been brought down by dwarven steel and silver.
The three creatures in question, btw, are the ones by the inner microcline bridge; said bridge is 3 tiles long, and they stopped directly on it when I locked the marble door (not building destroyers, then). Naturally, I pulled the lever; two were atom-smashed out of existence and the third was propelled into the roof; it came back down dead. This is also the point where the Soldiers of Eman are shown to have a ranged attack - they spit globs of extract.
Year 6, Winter & Year 7, Spring.The corridor is cleaned, rearmed, and reopened; the zombies and ghouls have ambled near the entrance, and when the bridge is dropped, almost the entire siege crawls underground.
The only creatures on the surface are the (non-sentient?) Hounds and Creatures, and some 20 undead that were too far away. Seeing another opportunity, I close the corridor at both ends, and send the army outside. All of them. The surface is reclaimed without any dwarven deaths.
(I want to make it clear that the siege state was still ongoing; it didn’t end until all invaders were either trapped or re-killed; another difference between tower sieges and living sieges, and one which isn’t in the wiki).
As for the zombies and ghouls caught in the corridor, they were repurposed into marksdwarf training dummies. They keep blocking bolts with their shields, so I don’t expect a whole lot of actual dead; but they’re doing a great job of leveling up the squad. I’m considering enlisting another one… while zombie supplies last.
Observe: rapidly mounting archery skillz, and 3 kills total (one of which is a crundle):
While zombie supplies lasted, I have made a new crossbow dwarf squad, a new melee squad, and reshuffled the now four melee squads to extract a dedicated axedwarf squad. HopeWork now has 50 dwarves under arms, of varying quality. The crossbow squads are, ironically, the most skilled ones; they number five legendaries now. The zombies are beginning to die, as well; primarily by the legendary dwarves, but the others are getting some kills in too. However, it’s still taking too long; so I station the army on the surface, and open the outer bridge. The siege ends in the last month of spring, when the last of the untrapped zombies are killed, 8 months (and a bit) into the projected 12-month siege.
In total, some 60 invaders got caught in traps. They’re fairly evenly split between normal zombies, plague ghouls, and experiments. It’s still unclear what makes an experiment trap-avoid or not; in the same caste, some are waltzing over traps while others get caught. Maybe it’s a holdover from their previous identity, or maybe it’s randomized on creature generation.
It is now summer. I am waiting to see if the humans will come, or if another siege will.
Summer. The humans have come; they receive a spectacular amount of large clothes of varying quality, originating from all the dead invaders.
By the corridor, some traps are being emptied, if you know what I mean. All melee squads have been stationed nearby, then invaders were removed from cages, by way of assigning them to a nearby pasture (not pit, it’s all on the same level). As soon as they’re out of the cage, active military dwarves will immediately attack them, without any need for extra orders.
No plague ghouls have been pastured in this way; I don’t want any infected dwarves yet. I’ll doubtlessly experiment later, out of curiosity if nothing else, but for now the sanctity of the dwarven form shall be preserved.
Autumn. A large goblin siege has arrived; about 50 trolls, 60-70 mounted goblins, and their corresponding 60-70 beak dog mounts. My only casualty is FPS; it immediately craters to 12-15, and makes for a sharp change from my usual 45-50. Mounted goblins travel painfully slow; much slower than goblins on foot, or the trolls that accompany them. In any sane world, goblins wouldn’t bother with riding beak dogs, there’s really no benefit.
The trap corridor is opened, and the trolls rush in; they clog most of my traps. The rest of the siege travels as a compact mass, and slowly, very slowly, make their way underground. Even in the presence of fortifications, the goblins seem to keep formation; they keep together, and don’t want to advance outside the trap corridor and into the fortress as a whole. I shrug, and raise both bridges. I’m now into the strange position of having all my invaders locked in a narrow space underground, while the surface is perfectly safe. FPS, I should mention, did not improve at all. Crossbow dwarves are called in; the siege has some 15 ranged attackers, but fortifications favor us.
Towards the end of autumn, I get the brilliant idea to build a few cages with plague ghouls to the right of the bridge, then raise the bridge and release them; the ensuing fight results in several plague ghoul beak dogs, no infected goblins, and the extermination of the tower’s forces. I can only wonder what effects this would have on the fort’s reputation.
Winter. The siege has ended; I genuinely haven’t paid enough attention to see if it was from time, or from losses. The goblins, now noticeably fewer, are still locked in the corridor and being pelted by bolts. My FPS has gotten far worse: it’s now hovering around 6. In a bid to reclaim my FPS, I drop the outer bridge; they all shuffle out, through constant fire, and leave to the north. Two of them make it outside only to drop dead from wounds.
The rest of the year is occupied with cleaning and partying; dwarves need a new change of clothes, and in the year’s last month and a half all jobs have been removed (except food hauling, dumping, and lever pulling). Next year, jobs will be reassigned from scratch.
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Topic: [Completed] [SinglePlayer] The Doomed World of Sil Kodor 125-184 (Read 26592 times)