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[Laterigrade]

PTW

Also, I looked and 1963 is probably the most fitting xkcd for a username.

ehhhh, imo 910’s better

If you're gonna make your username an xkcd comic, you should at least put xkcd 1223 in your sigtext.

weird as it sounds, that xkcd actually got me into DF; that comic enlightened me as to its existence — which I guess dates me, but in the opposite direction to usual

[Mobbstar]

Status update: Autumn, had to revert to a backup because a single feather achieved what its former owner could not - completely wipe out the fortress (dodging a desperate magma spill on the way too)

Anyways, back on track, I should be done by friday or so.

I'd like to be dorfed and added to the turn list.  Its been a while since I played in a biome this difficult, so it should be interesting.

Want me to pick one for you, or would you rather wait your turn and choose one yourself? EDIT: I did not dorf you since it looks like you're up next anyways.

[Mobbstar]

Music suggestion: Shadows by Rasmus Fynbo

2^nd Year

15th Granite - Aban Mebzuthïteb

Our food stocks are low. Our leader Athel Likotsosad has put me in charge of rationing and protecting what little we have left. We should be able to survive on water and scraps until the first harvest, and we will have to. The caverns are not safe and fishing seems like a bad idea too, given the curses that befall all dead in this land. Our unfortunate liaison's beheaded body claws at the fort gates at this very moment.

21st Granite - Aban Mebzuthïteb

I've begun planning a more varied kitchen to allow us the processing of sweetpods into syrup. This will take a while, but should bolster our food supplies enough so we need not tighten our belts until the farms are finished and the crops ripe.

The earth around the upper cavern rumbles. More draltha must have fallen victim to - and thereupon joined - the horde besieging us. With every apathetic step they take, their enormous injured bodies send unnerving shockwaves to our fort. They never seem to sleep or rest. It is starting to wear on our sanity, and we fear they will never let loose. What if the contrary comes true, and they continue to grow in numbers? We have reinforced the barricade with a brick wall, but will that be enough to keep us safe?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

18th Slate - Aban Mebzuthïteb

We now have enough food reserves to make it through summer, and our farms should keep us fed. We might even be able to make booze again! In light of this success, I have been declared account keeper and work manager, and will assist in all future projects.

Sibrek has requested Kulet that they go outside together and strike down any straggling husks, so that new workers from the mountainhome may arrive safely. The latter disagreed, called it foolish, and mentioned Cattens numerous scars as proof. While I am terrified by the thought of heads-on battle against such unwavering, uncaring opponents, I also wish the siege would finally be broken. Perhaps the mechanics can develop a trap to defeat the shambling corpses without casualties.

1st Felsite - Aban Mebzuthïteb, Manager

Workers from the mountainhome have arrived. The only obstacle to their entry was the headless liaison. Oh, the irony! We have locked her it in a room and hope it doesn't rise yet again. Though, if it does, we could at least use it to test traps with...

5th Hematite - Aban Mebzuthïteb, Manager

Against our better judgement, we are considering to carve a trade depot into the rockface. Such a room would require at least two sturdy gates: one to protect the inner fort, and one for the merchants to protect themselves after their arrival. Perhaps we could create this before autumn, in hope of dwarven goods, but we mustn't hurry such a dangerous matter.

The mechanics and metalsmiths have prepared cage traps, which will capture any creature careless enough to step on one. It worked against a relatively small, but no less meaningful, opponent: Liaison Dumat Lokumnazush's corpse, which the merchants can hopefully return to the mountainhome for a proper burial. I suppose that would count as an offering, though it'll hardly stoke goodwill.

1st Malachite - Aban Mebzuthïteb, Manager

We have begun walling off a section of the lower caverns, far enough that no horde can wander within earshot. Our dear leader Athel Likotsosad insisted on doing her part, despite expecting a child soon. Too soon, as it'd turn out. The boy came out healthy on a bed of moss, and is now with his father Catten, at the masonry.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

8th Malachite - Aban Mebzuthïteb, Manager

Life in Friendlytreason is getting better, but our attention keeps turning to the stampede. We are getting desperate for a solution. Tapping the volcano seems too haphazardous, cage traps require much more metal for this many adversaries, and we just don't have enough fighters to stand a chance in direct combat. These haunting dead never rest, and neither must our approach to the matter. On a prayer, we will dig deeper and try to capture a magma crab, to be used as a sentry as well as its own lure. Even if nothing comes of that, we will get more metal ore for cages.

10th Malachite - Aban Mebzuthïteb, Manager

Blast! As we dug down, we hit another cavern, and a swarm of creepy crawlers ascended. They are upon our farms and our stockpiles, constantly hoping to slip into a barrel of food. The bulk of them, however, went the other way, into the secured caverns. Perhaps they smell the dead above, because they seem to wander towards a crack in the ceiling. If we are lucky, they'll eat the flesh off our nightmares, leaving only bones to be smashed. Or the draltha will stomp the crawlers and liberate us of our newfound worry.

Either way, we must focus on securing this new cavern while it is empty. The silence is only broken by our own miners and masons, and the distant wails of a jabberer. That might be a good sign, since only the living can feel pain, meaning it isn't dead. Yet. Such a collosal beast is sure to crush or withstand smaller dead, but we must be ready to retreat should it quiet.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

16th Limestone - Aban Mebzuthïteb, Manager

Miraculously, the dwarven merchants have arrived safely and taken shelter in our new depot. With great horror, they observed our captured specimen, and are willing to trade for them. A blood-thirsty, nigh-unstoppable and yet restrainable monster must seem like an excellent war animal. I hope they heed our warnings and treat the beasts with caution. As for the liaison, the merchants refused the body, therefore it has been cremated on-site.

Work on the deepest cave has taken most of the past month, but we find it quite a relief to be away from the siege. Some have even slept on the soft moss, despite the threat of hungry heads floating over the half-set walls.

24th Limestone - Aban Mebzuthïteb, Manager

A large, unfathomable beast has snuck into the cavern perimeter. Some of the armed dwarves heard the tormented jabberer die and held ground. Apparently the intruder strongly resembles a monster from a nursery tale, wherein it eats children who stay up late. Can't fight anything bigger than children it seems, because nobody got injured in the battle. Now we hurry to destroy the bodies before they destroy us. (I had a nightmare that a single feather managed to slay the whole fortress. It is quite amusing, in hindsight.)

12th Timber - Aban Mebzuthïteb, Manager

I won't need to ration food anytime soon. We could last longer than a year on Thob's glazed meat alone! (And the syrup should keep it fresh as long as we keep the vermin off it.) For the first time in months, possibly since I arrived here, we've been jolly.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

17th Timber - Aban Mebzuthïteb, Manager

The gemcutter Sigun Ekirstukos has superceeded my authority, constructed a jewelery workshop, and took a gem. At least she made up for it with a truly marvelous flask, made of pure garnet. She calls it Flickeredlead, though I do not understand what our lead cages have to do with it.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

10th Opal - Aban Mebzuthïteb, Manager

At long last, the lowest cavern is secured. Short of fish, we don't expect to get bothered from down there.

1st Obsidian - Aban Mebzuthïteb, Manager

Momuz Lalurvad, who had been spared of most labours, and Solon Isdenkogan, are now the proud mothers of the second and third children to grace this fort. The boy is particularly energetic and both are clearly healthy. What joy!

8th Granite - Aban Mebzuthïteb, Manager

The constant shaking around the upper caverns, however faded, still troubles me, and I am sick of pretending otherwise. All things natural get warped into nightmares around here, and it is up to us to make ourselves a home. I have implored the mechanics to come up with a better solution than cage traps. Time will tell if we can secure ourselves some quiet at last.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The file: https://dffd.bay12games.com/file.php?id=15644
I wish whoever continues this a very Fun time reclaiming that cavern.

It sincerely was fun, though nerve-fracking. Especially the forgotten beast. If I forgot to mention something feel free to ask!

(Edit: using different image source; if you read this, i did a history preservation for YOU!)

[xkcd1963]

Hail HailMobbstar, who created the legendary engraving of the second part of Friendlytreason in the year 2021! His reign gifted us three children and made the fortress a lot more secure for future generations.

Great music theme. I really like the statues at the trading entrance a lot. Ingish killed the forgotten beast, Tulon and Sakzul also had their fair share with the rodent men. I had totally ignored the liason, were you really not able to trade his corpse back to the mountain homes? Does fishing undead biome cause undead fish? Where did you get all the meat from or rather where did you capture the creatures? The feather is hilarious, maybe we could use it as a secret weapon for future sieges hahahah.

Amazing job with the walls! Awesome. I've one point of concern though, if we are to eradicate all undead on the first cavern floor, the game will have more available slots for creatures to spawn. There is much more open border space on the 2nd cavern floor than on the 3rd (I think only one opening at the 3rd) through the water, e.g. some forgotten beasts can swim and fly and could hence spawn at 2nd and 3rd floor. I'll try to reclaim the pools with magma at some point.

Can't wait to drink from Flickeredlead!

I think flexible yearspans is a very interesting idea; we could just change it depending on fort objectives, the current player's free time, and FPS. If we're struggling with undeadsplosions five year turns starting year five could become very long and very bad if somebody finds themselves unable to progress on the front of stopping them. But if we're way past that and the player has a free weekend and a good computer, I could also see somebody blowing through ten years in that weekend: the most I've done in my fort is a bit more than 10 years in a day, and I wasn't even AFKing it for half that; 16 is about the maximum for ~100ish FPS.

How about we change the rule then that the amount of years is flexible per turn (and thus we aim for longest in-game playtime as a goal) but that after claiming a turn one has a maximum of one week to post the new gamefile. Optimistically in a real year we could have 52 turns, let's say average game time 3 years, so 156 years in-game playtime.

Also, do we want to restrict the amount of dwarfes/visitors? To which maximum?

weird as it sounds, that xkcd actually got me into DF; that comic enlightened me as to its existence — which I guess dates me, but in the opposite direction to usual :D

pick a number and get dwarfed, hah :P

Want me to pick one for you, or would you rather wait your turn and choose one yourself? EDIT: I did not dorf you since it looks like you're up next anyways.

It's either BudTomazi or NordicNooob now, unless somebody else wishes to take over. What is the idea of being dwarfed, it's about having a dwarf with your name and some roleplaying right?

I've a vision for what we could build ontop of the mountain:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Barad-dûr

[Mobbstar]

I had totally ignored the liason, were you really not able to trade his corpse back to the mountain homes?

The full story is that, similar to war prisoners, trying to bring the liaison's zombie to the depot resulted in the cage itself getting hauled, with the zombie free to attack people. A single punch knocked her out but it seems corpses cannot be brought to the depot either. That's why i said the merchants refused the offering. So she got the Fun Alternative To Burial.

Also! I checked legends mode and she was a proud mother, and wife of an influential baron. We really ain't stoking goodwill here haha.

Does fishing undead biome cause undead fish?

I have no idea. If you check the combat/deceased logs you should find that even wool came to life, somehow. Given the aforementioned, undead fish stand to reason. Then again, fishing only yields "vermin" creatures, do those come to un-life? Is that why you brought no cats?

Where did you get all the meat from or rather where did you capture the creatures?

The meat comes from the same creatures as the feathers: From the Forgotten Beast and the poor beaten Jabberer (latter got killed by former). The roasts should mention that in their descriptions. I foolishly thought butchering the corpses would resolve all threat, and saved as soon as those jobs completed, thereby locking myself in feather-hell until I managed to get the danger sealed away.

On a related note, I didn't mention the rodentfolk in the story because there were actually only a few severed arms and a toothless head gently pushing against the perpetually unconscious jabberer, and those all got crushed by the Forgotten Beast too.

e.g. some forgotten beasts can swim and fly and could hence spawn at 2nd and 3rd floor. I'll try to reclaim the pools with magma at some point.

I have only ever seen Forgotten Beasts arrive on solid ground, but maybe you're right. Besides those, the only [AQUATIC] cavern creature I know are pond grabbers, who wouldn't randomly start killing each other, ergo no zombie snowballing fps death. Or at least that was my rationale. Apply magma regardless

What is the idea of being dwarfed, it's about having a dwarf with your name and some roleplaying right?

It's the DF equivalent of getting turned into a marketable plushie!

[xkcd1963]

The full story is that, similar to war prisoners, trying to bring the liaison's zombie to the depot resulted in the cage itself getting hauled, with the zombie free to attack people. A single punch knocked her out but it seems corpses cannot be brought to the depot either. That's why i said the merchants refused the offering. So she got the Fun Alternative To Burial.

Also! I checked legends mode and she was a proud mother, and wife of an influential baron. We really ain't stoking goodwill here haha.

Fun Alternative xD.. The hell she came to Friendlytreason; it's not like a normal tourist destination, some willform of self-preservation is genuinely expected.

I have no idea. If you check the combat/deceased logs you should find that even wool came to life, somehow. Given the aforementioned, undead fish stand to reason. Then again, fishing only yields "vermin" creatures, do those come to un-life? Is that why you brought no cats?

We need do to some dwarfen science here. Until I read about the creepy crawlers which you mentioned I didn't know food rots much faster under their influence unless mitigated by vermin consumers such as cats. Maybe we can buy some from the next merchants.

The meat comes from the same creatures as the feathers: From the Forgotten Beast and the poor beaten Jabberer (latter got killed by former). The roasts should mention that in their descriptions. I foolishly thought butchering the corpses would resolve all threat, and saved as soon as those jobs completed, thereby locking myself in feather-hell until I managed to get the danger sealed away.

On a related note, I didn't mention the rodentfolk in the story because there were actually only a few severed arms and a toothless head gently pushing against the perpetually unconscious jabberer, and those all got crushed by the Forgotten Beast too.

I remember watching Steelclutches by Kruggsmash he had a butcher workshops surrounded by cage traps in a separated room.

I have only ever seen Forgotten Beasts arrive on solid ground, but maybe you're right. Besides those, the only [AQUATIC] cavern creature I know are pond grabbers, who wouldn't randomly start killing each other, ergo no zombie snowballing fps death. Or at least that was my rationale. Apply magma regardless

You've made me unsure now, maybe I remember Forgotten Beasts spawning at the edge close to the water, but on mushroom trees. From there on they would either fly or swim through the water.

It's the DF equivalent of getting turned into a marketable plushie!

Heh, well at least I'll remember that the Manager's secret nickname is Mobbstar

[Mobbstar]

You've made me unsure now, maybe I remember Forgotten Beasts spawning at the edge close to the water, but on mushroom trees. From there on they would either fly or swim through the water.

Indeed, I forgot to check for trees at the map edges.  Regardless of whether water/air spawning is possible or not, those trees would certainly allow ordinary land creatures to spawn, climb along the natural walls, and undeaden each other.  A grave oversight the next overseers should consider rectifying, however they see fit.

Heh, well at least I'll remember that the Manager's secret nickname is Mobbstar

I actually dorfed myself as the baby "Mossbeard" (like "Mossbird", which felt fitting given his place of birth).  Similar to how you wrote from Athel's perspective but dorfed yourself as the miner.  Y'all feel free to write from Aban's perspective!  Whatever makes a good story. 

[NordicNooob]

I *might* attempt my turn right now, and looking over the fort, things look pretty good for now, aside from a few little messes and the undead horde. I'm not sure how many years I'll need to rectify these, especially since I'll be treading carefully as to not disturb FPS; I don't like the current fort design personally (bedroom value cheese isn't something I like to do and the stairs aren't optimal for pathing), but it's good for FPS and digging a real fort for the long haul should not be done lightly, especially not when we still have to deal with all the various new-fort problems.

In my turn, I plan to (in rough order of priority):
1. Destroy the zombie horde. I don't think I'll have time to secure that layer, but some minecart crushers should keep them from destroying us. As it stands, the horde has already basically won in the first cavern unless we take drastic measures NOW, since the population in the first layer is about to explode.
2. Set up a detailed burrows system to keep our dwarves from running off to dumb places as soon as they can.
3. Fix the military. We've got a hodgepodge of copper armor (so we need real sets made), and honestly hammers aren't great as the main weapon for small militaries, even those in reanimating biomes. Given that they have almost no training, I may just switch their weapons, or maybe turn half the squad into axes, even if we can't forge good ones yet. I may try to arm the civilians with swords and helmets which, when we establish training for them, will let them train armor user up and defend themselves from the occasional zombie bit or fort crisis, but arming civilians should probably wait for a bit given our lack of metal and all the other stuff we have on our plate.
4. Fix labor management. I have no clue what anybody does right now, and we'll want to use our dwarves sparingly. Also I'm more of a neat freak with labors than I am with military. I'll be leaving my pop cap at 40 (both strict and normal, though maybe I'll lower normal so we can do a birth-only fort) so we don't have to deal with the mayor, who will literally just never go away if somebody gets him.
5. Finish the seal on the third cavern layer. Enemies can and will spawn in the water, speaking from experience, though they will be limited to aquatic and amphibious types. Not sure about fbs, but a zombie apocalypse is bad enough.
6. Lever room. Having levers near what they operate is nice enough when you're one player, but it's not very standardized so some levers will end up being in stupid spots and be hard to find.
7. Clothing industry. At least until everybody is legendary armor user, we're gonna need a lotta clothes. Clothes can possibly wait another year, but most everybody is wearing xclothesx right now.
8. Maybe set up QSPs? We don't have much stuff, but it's worth considering so that nobody feels the need to make massive stockpile rooms.
9. I almost certainly won't get to this in my year (or two) but an obsidian generator would be great to have eventually, given that we're low on stone and don't want to mine a ton of empty space out. I have a rapid-fire design I used in Angelcrux that's more compact and faster than a conventional obsidian farm, and I think I can make an improvement to make it lever-speed minus the necessary time of mining out the obsidian.

So overall, a lot of what I plan is either "I'm not going to get to this anyways" or just management stuff that doesn't require in-game time.

Some actual long term goals might be interesting once we secure the fort and establish map control and beat the "survive" phase of the game. Cave dragons are pretty cool, as are birth only forts (birth-only might be too hardcore for a community fort in a reanimating biome), we can hold off on breaching the HFS until we're ready to beat it in a cool way, supersoldier programs can actually work, and megaprojects will fall before us over long periods of time, all as long as we're coordinated. Oh, and it looks like our world has been basically taken over by goblins; aside from a few low-population dwarven settlements and a single human castle (also low population) the goblins rule the world. We might be forced into birth-only eventually anyways, then.

Or, of course, we could "extract minerals for the glory of our king" on the stupidest scales possible with a massive (for us that's like 20) marksdwarf squad and a good bolt splitter, which over the span of decades will produce truly absurd amounts of candy, which we can then use for stupid megaprojects.

This is all supposing I actually do my turn; I still have one more really busy week before I might have a realistic amount of time, so if Bud takes the turn that works too; the zombies can *probably* wait another year before they're super out of hand, and I might prefer to have two years to do stuff when I have a real amount of free time anyways.

[Mobbstar]

3. Fix the military.

Frankly, that's completely my fault.  xkcd1963 had only three conscripted dwarves and not started making equipment for them, so I set up the Maxwell's uniform to deal with small pests (e.g. hungry heads) without worrying about getting a proper military.  (How they defeated a forgotten beast is beyond my understanding.  Never look a gift horse in the mouth.)  I bought and requested tin and iron stuff from the caravans, so expect ore and meltables, hopefully enough for decent weapons.  Might want to save that one steel bar for weapon moods, though.

4. Fix labor management. I have no clue what anybody does right now, and we'll want to use our dwarves sparingly. Also I'm more of a neat freak with labors than I am with military. I'll be leaving my pop cap at 40 (both strict and normal, though maybe I'll lower normal so we can do a birth-only fort) so we don't have to deal with the mayor, who will literally just never go away if somebody gets him.

I redistributed labours to best conscience.  At least there are no more hunters, haha!  Please let me know what you change (and why!) so I can become better.

Thanks for letting us know about the population cap in advance! The default of 200 is probably too great if this fort shall last long.

Oh, and it looks like our world has been basically taken over by goblins; aside from a few low-population dwarven settlements and a single human castle (also low population) the goblins rule the world.

Two human castles! ...with a combined population of around ten people.  On second glance, it seems like Friendlytreason is already the most populous non-goblin site. Setting the pop cap at this point seems perfectly reasonable.

[NordicNooob]

Labor and military isn't that poorly made right now (haven't looked too closely at labors tbh and military will be passable once they train), it's partly just that they're messy, and I'm a neat freak about both. Not 100% what exactly I'll do with labors (I have my own preferences but obviously want to make the fort flexible so every overseer can do what they want with the population), but I will at least give everybody profession names based on what they do. I'll likely do 12 or 16 soldiers (3 or 4 squads of 4, 4 because it's two sparring pairs, a nice base 2 number, and generally the minimum for an effective squad, and we'll have easier precise control over where soldiers go) and give the squads boring technical names of weapon and squad number so I can profession the soldiers with weapon, squad, and squad position, which will distinguish them better in combat logs.

I will likely do something similar to my own forts, with extra padding in labors that I don't use much: what I've been using in my Angelcrux, my *real* long term fort, is:
1 Engraver
1 Clothesmaker
1 Farmer
1 Mechanic
1 Smith
1 Weaver
2 Farmhands (handle misc farm labors, cooking, and pretty much everything in the farming tab; I need 2 because I use only underground crops and process heavily for food variety)
2 Furnaces (furnace operating, strand extraction, and wood burning)
1 Medic
1 Mason
2 Miners
for a total of 14 workers. It has done a good job at keeping workload low for everybody except during megaprojects, where selective dwarves get overworked, along with much of the fodder citizens. Angelcrux has 12 soldiers (not counting the decommissioned marksdwarves that are still in their squad), but I choose not to use that as a good example of a traditional military because it isn't.

I will alter this somewhat (other overseers aren't so long-term in their thinking, not to mention some people like other industries and I literally do not use a few of them), and probably top us off at 20ish workers with 12 soldiers, with 8 leftover as fodder to buffer for when there's children, help with construction or megaprojects, replace workers that die, haul, or just fill in extra workers that aren't dead but need help. The extra 6 dwarves we have right now (since our pop is at 46) can probably just fall into that fodder rank, unless we want extra soldiers in the early years.

Likely I'll add:
+1 Mason
+1 Glassworker (if people like glass. This *is* a volcano fort. Or... do we have sand? Didn't check, actually. If we lack sand then I obviously won't get a glassmaker.)
+1 Carpenter/Woodcutter (woodcutter might be better as a fodder job given its often dangerous nature, even if I normally merge the jobs. Dunno.)
+1 Animal Trainer
+1 Beemaster (wax worker + beekeeping). Maybe. If we like bees. Probably not.
+1 Smith (so labors can be split; armorsmith + metalcrafting and weaponsmith + blacksmithing. Minimizes harm done by losing the fortress smith.)
+1 Gemworker.
+1 Mechanic. (I know, two mechanics sounds odd, but after initial setup like 50% of megaprojects end for me in a rush of masons, architects, and mechanics.)

I'll set up an architects guild so we get endless architects of legendary skill, though I'll probably only enable it on the fodder dwarves, so we don't need a distinct architect, which isn't a full-time job anyways.

Thoughts? Complaints? Additions? Plenty of labors like crafting or brewing fall under broaders labors; I give masons stonecrafting and carpenters woodcrafting, and farmhands brewing, so all I haven't added or suggested any of is:
bowyer (nobody uses bowyer)
plant gatherer (kinda useful, might enable on farmer or just leave to whomever might need it to enable.)
leatherworker
bone carver (maybe combined leatherworker/bone carver? I just smash all of this outside of a stockpile I save for moods, since it's largely useless compared to superior materials in terms of value, utility, and time cost. Also reanimating biome, so we don't want a dedicated leather/bone worker anyways.)
the three fishing labors (fishing is unsafe and unviable long term)
pottery and glazing (pottery is almost always useless unless you have the right combination of materials on your map. Could be alright for bricks if we have clay, but an obsidian generator is cooler than bricks.)
siege engineering and operating (they're cool and all, but kinda useless and very labor intensive. Pass.)
pump operating (which hardly counts as a job, it's a thing you enable on fodder every now and then)

[Mobbstar]

Sounds good!  The military reform should help a lot.  Best disband the existing squad altogether, assuming you use spreadsheets to pick out the candidates.

• The northwest has sand.  There are two decent glassmakers already, but no furnaces yet because the logistics are a pain to figure out.  Also, I found no rock crystal, but bought some crystal glass in case of moods.
• Woodcutting and silkweaving should be safe labours now that the lower caverns are (almost) secured.
• There are already three mechanics I think, though only one is actually skilled.  The other two were merely "fodder" to help set traps.
• There are four expert masons.  However, they are also the expert engravers.  I suppose some mega-projects could require more stoneworkers.

Can architecture be trained by designing-then-cancelling simple things like support struts?  In that case, if it is not too arduous, you might want to reserve the guild hall(s) for labours that are more expensive to train, like smithing.

[NordicNooob]

Also just, friendly reminder that anybody is still able to yoink the turn from me. I haven't actually had a chance to play aside from my initial look-over because I'm way behind on schoolwork. Turns out 5 classes and a job don't do wonders for your free time. Maybe I'll get a chance this next weekend, but two weeks is pushing it on the "yeah I'm just gonna let the fort sit here and do nothing"-o-meter.

[NordicNooob]

Babinushal Preliminary Progress Report

Preface: This report and those that follow are written with the intent to inform current and future leadership within Babinushal and within The Dreamy Nets as to the purpose and progress of my mission inside Babinushal. If this report (or any that follow) is read and received outside of fortress Babinushal, destroy it immediately after reading, as it is critical to the safety of the fortress Babinushal that that this report (or any that follow) not fall into enemy hands.

The Mountainhome has recognized the fortress Babinushal, Friendlytreason in laydwarf's terms, to be in need of immediate military assistance due to its proximity to the enemy, most notably the goblin fortress of Fiendpulps. Unfortunately, trained soldiers cannot be spared (even untrained civilians are scarce in these dark times), so I, Ral Gemurdatan, have been sent with the mission of creating a passable fighting force from the civilians already there. The first part of this mission has been observational, to allow me to greater understand the current infrastructure of Babinushal and determine the necessary actions to prepare the populace for invasion.

This observation period has passed, and the second phase of my operation has begun. As is tradition in a true Dwarven fortress, a new overseer is chosen to lead the fortress through each year. The overseer role has near complete control over the workings of the fortress, and with this control I will be able to effectively circumvent any administrative obstacles towards completing the necessary preparations to ensure the survival of Babinushal. These preparations are:
1. Re-designating of citizen labor structure. In order to keep the civilians pacified, no dwarf should be allowed to overwork themselves, and as such a detailed overview of labors is required to balance efficiency with prevention of riots.
2. Construction of a true military. Under my observational period the previous overseer established the workings of a basic military to keep hostile wildlife at bay. I will rebuild this into a true fighting force by establishing weapon diversity, expanding the ranks, standardizing equipment and eliminating shortages,
3. Destroy the undead plaguing the lower reaches of the world. The site where Babinushal resides is cursed to give no rest to the dead, and as such the regular conflicts of underground wildlife have spawned undead that themselves kill living wildlife and bring it into the ranks of undeath. Given the lack of a usable and sizable military, this will have to be done in an unconventional manner.
4. Secure the final pieces of the third cavern layer. My predecessor has mostly sealed the cavern layer away from intruders, and when the seal is complete it will be a very valuable resource in addition to serving the express purpose of preventing the proliferation of unlife.
5. Establish protocol for where civilians are and aren't allowed. It is important for rapid security that coordinated evacuations are able to occur.

As of 2 Felsite, 195, progress on these objectives is such:
1. The civilian labor structure has been completely re-organized into a well-balanced labor force. Extra laborers currently exist to provide unskilled labor such as hauling and construction, as well as serve as backup laborers in the event of casualties or unforseen high demand of a particular labor.
2. The military has been re-structured into four squads of four soldiers each:

• Swordsdwarves, led by myself.
• Hammerdwarves, led by Solon Isdenkogan
• Axedwarves, led by Aban Mebzuthiteb
• Marksdwarves, led by Reg Mishthemudil

Equipment is scarce, but melting the decorative copper statues placed in the main hall has yielded enough copper to forge the minimum necessary equipment to complete the existing sets of copper armor and provide basic armaments for all soldiers. Superior materials are expected to arrive with the autumn caravan, so this situation will likely be resolved before the end of the year.
3. A velocity-based trap has been devised and construction is nearing completion on its basic functionality. It will utilize a minecart loaded with heavy metal to crush the undead and render the corpses unable to be reanimated. This alone will not secure the cavern layer, but it will prevent the buildup of undead.
4. Plans for a waterfront seal to completely secure the third cavern layer have been readied, and materials have been procured for the construction of the necessary screw pumps.
5. No progress has been made on establishing siege protocol or designating safe areas. This will be remedied.

There are other objectives, but they do not take precedent as they are not critical to the security of Babinushal. They are:
6. Establish clothesworking. Many civilians are starting to note wear and tear on their clothing. A textile industry will be important to self-sufficiency, but is not an immediately pressing matter yet.
7. Construct a lever room. A central hub is important for engineering projects, as without one it may be difficult to locate the proper release quickly. Currently, a room has already been dug out for this purpose.
8. Quantum stockpiling. This is an experimental and highly effective method of mass-storage, and will be far superior to bins, which result in some difficulties in locating items. This is a low-priority objective, and has not been started.
9. Obsidian generation. By utilizing the volcano and a fresh source of water to cool it, renewable stone can be quarried from the earth for large-scale construction. This is a low-priority objective, but may be critical later on to securing vast quantities of construction material for defensive fortifications.

END REPORT

Finally got some time to work on stuff. I should be free for most of the weekend too, so I should be able to wrap up my turn. Hope you enjoyed the dull military drivel, because there's more where that came from. It mostly fits Ral's character, though there's some secondary traits that haven't really come into play yet, or won't be seen in the formal reports that Ral is making.

Overall things are going pretty well, though. Report establishes most of what I've been up to (barring a carpenter whose artifact bucket I turned into iron), and I'm ahead of schedule in most areas.

[Mobbstar]

I am intrigued and excited by how different the three overseer dwarves have been so far.  Athel strikes me as withdrawn and focused on what's within the own four walls, figuratively and literally.  The bitter sludge seems to have reinforced that in her personality.  In contrast, Aban is expressive and unforgivingly meticulous, with a strange balance of courage and self-doubt.  I'm a little surprised the two are still friends despite their different beliefs and attitudes.  Ral is more balanced, but noticably law-driven and focused on his given objectives, and this is reflected in his structuring of tasks and duties.

In order to keep the civilians pacified, no dwarf should

I agree with these

(barring a carpenter whose artifact bucket I turned into iron).

You what?!  Are you the king midas of iron?

[NordicNooob]

(barring a carpenter whose artifact bucket I turned into iron).

You what?!  Are you the king midas of iron?

Yes.   

In actuality, if you forbid the main material of an artifact after the dwarf has started work, there will be no valid main material and the game will default to the first material entry in the raws, which in the case of vanilla DF is iron. You can normally identify the main material based off the moody dwarf's profession; I just forbade all the logs the carpenter picked up. Make sure you leave at least one material unforbidden, or the dwarf will simply go insane, and if you can identify the material with less forbidding that is better, since each one of those extra materials is a decoration you're ripping off. I suspect that the main material of an artifact will always be the first picked up, but I haven't seen anything to confirm that and haven't looked too closely myself, so I forbid based off what materials said profession will take as their main material.

It's obviously a glitch and frankly a bit cheesy, but it's fun to do and isn't that OP because if you can't control artifact material through normal means chances are you won't have a great artifact anyways, with exceptions for furniture items (iron bed is hilarious) and arguably clothes, because who doesn't like iron cloaks? (not that I've gotten a cloak before, I've had two clothier moods and both made iron undergarments, I suspect kinky shenanigans)

Oh yeah, and here's what I decided on for population jobs:

Spoiler: Population menu as of 2 Felsite (click to show/hide)

I notice now that I accidentally drafted a former overseer's dwarf. Whoops. Eh, unless one of you blunders the military I rarely lose soldiers and she's a squad leader. I can find a different axe leader if'n you so desire, Mobbstar, and return you to... hm, did you even have an actual job?

In order to keep the civilians pacified, no dwarf should

I agree with these
[/quote]
And frig, I knew I accidentally left something unfinished. I hop to and fro whenever I write stuff to avoid writer's block, or maybe just for no good reason. It's a thing I do, regardless. The statement does ring true, though. Corrected, because I'm fundamentally boring.