you mean the waves are overwhelming? I've had waves of 30+ dwarves.. this can cause issues.
Yeah, I raised my popcap by 20 this last round (15 as shown from rewards above, and then 5 more from something that will occur in this post xD) and ALL 20 of them came at once. I was hoping for less, so that I'd finally get some breathing room between the actual pop and the limit, but nope I guess not.
Anyway! Year 6 recap!
Firstly, last year's caravan left, so I could check the exports -- 68k, up from 48k previous. That gets me +2 rep (now 21 rep).
As expected from becoming a Duchy, we got yet more settlements linking to us econonmically... but something is a bit strange here...
So I investigate. Apparently the Whisper-Mirrors of Confusion is just the site government for the Acecaves hillocks that joined me. Very weird that I got all those notifications for Acecaves though and I've never seen that for any other holding before or since, yet. Maybe I should've looked into Shorast instead, but that'll be some other time.
Now to get to work on those tribute goals. I checked, and nope my civilization can not make tunics. It's not an option at the clothier. So that's one failed tribute goal right there. I know, I could probably just pick a different goal but.. eh I don't like the other goal options either. I'll take the fail. I can afford it. xD
I'm hoping to find quartzite for that one bonus goal. It's metamorphic, so there's a pretty good chance... I think. So I went to the stairs way off in the corner by my water reservoir and start digging down... Good news! I found some quartzite eventually (at level -40....) Bad(?) news! I hit the roof of an immensely tall cavern to do it. Immediately sealed off, of course. The only (living) thing I've seen down there is cave swallows and a Giant Mole (which actually looked pretty cool). But this means I need to roll an extra Cavern Tribute.
The fortunate thing is that
these goals are not affected by what year I'm in. So they're as 'easy' as Year-1 goals. I decide to take the chairs/thrones goal. 26 should be easy enough for the bonus. I hit the cavern on 5th Obsidian (Late-Winter), so I have until Late-Spring to deliver. And now I can start mining quartzite boulders for the tribute!
As a bonus, along the way to the quartzite I found some marble! So I also have flux now! Slowly I should be able to get some steel going.
Seriously though. This first cavern layer is SO tall. I'm not certain I can even see the bottom of this layer yet. But for sure it stretches from level -14 down to level -55. Most of it is just open air. I have seen some first-cavern trees on some ledges though, and first-cavern moss is now growing on the dirt areas in my fort so... I didn't actually hit two caverns at once or anything. It's all just one really tall layer.
By the time the elves came I was ready to atom-smash the thrones for that Cavern Tribute, so I did. Doing so got me a base reward (+1 rep, rep now 22) and a bonus +5 popcap (popcap now 55). Yeah I probably should've taken a workshop reward but I didn't think of it, oh well.
From the elves I bought a few more grizzlies, since I haven't had any cubs yet from my existing ones. Maybe these will be more compatible.
After the elves left, bam, migrant wave. Twenty(!) migrants, bringing me all the way back up to my full popcap. There were so many I didn't even screencap all the arrivals, so no pics, sorry. The fort is now up to 15 children total. At least some of these new kids are a -little- older, like 15.
So now that I'm over 50 pop, I got a mayor... fortunately they elected the Duchess. So I don't have to worry about 2 sets of rooms, heh.
And then, disaster struck.
WHAT. Goblins have never come to my fort. And how did they get her? Only 2 snatchers showed up and I killed one almost immediately, while the other one disappeared almost immediately. Neither one got anywhere near the fort. So it must've been the one that disappeared.... it
was way up in the corner of the map near my reservoir. Endok might've been doing a hauling job up there. Ugh.
I was able to reach this screen via her mother's relationships tab.
Awww dangit this makes me feel really sad (on top of kinda freaking out, because I've never had a kid snatched before). Endok is the only child that has been
born in the fort, all the others migrated here. Her mother is one of the militia. Her father is our weaver. (and I
really don't understand the 'freed' thought, because she was most definitely
not freed...)
Now I may grouse and whine about the number of kids in the fort, yes, but once they're here, they are MINE. Ain't no gobbos taking my people! Especially one that was born here! So now I have to figure out how to get her back... with a militia of four dwarves total, decently trained but substandardly armored (half their stuff is bone, lol). Another mystery is how the gobbos found out about me. They were 'no contact' before this. All their lairs are basically on the other side of the world (admittedly, a small world, but still).
I see an option to send a mission to 'recover missing citizens' on the world map. I try that first (twice). Both times, the militia instantly returned as soon as they left the map, and their 'report' from their mission was completely empty. No success, no failure, nothing. I did notice that the gobbos had taken over a human hamlet about 1 day away from me. I assume this is how they became aware of my fortress's existence. Unfortunately, the goblins have not taken Endok to that human hamlet. No, she's now located in one of their lairs half the world away (according to the 'missing citizens' screen).
So since 'recover missing citizens' isn't working.... I hold my breath and try for a stealthy 'raid' on that lair where Endok is being held. Four underequipped dwarves, 3 war dogs, 3 war grizzlies against a lair of 50+ goblin population. I leave all the options open (recovering citizens, stealing artifacts, stealing livestock, etc) mostly just because I never bothered messing with those options before. But... the stealth was a failure. One of the dogs runs into one of the goblins, and a fight begins. It ends with 4 goblins dead, one dog dead, everyone else uninjured, no treasures, but also no Endok.
I check the civilization screen again to make sure I picked the right place to raid... yes, Endok is supposedly still there. But now the goblin civ is red. We are at war because of my non-stealthy raid. Oh boy. This will be fun with my shoestring-defended fort.
Well, since I can't make things any worse (can't I? heh), I send out the raid again. This time I alter the options to ONLY recover citizens of my civilization. And... success!! Stealth was achieved, nobody was hurt or killed, and Endok is returned to her family. Her mother on the militia was touchingly happy to be reunited with a loved one.
To hopefully prevent an incident like this again, I posted some dogs up around the reservoir entrance, and placed some cage traps around it as well. Hopefully that will detect/slow-down/scare away any future snatchers before they can get at my kids again.
By the time all this was resolved, it's early autumn. The humans had come and gone. And I realized, I had effed up majorly. All this time I had been thinking I needed the quartzite for the 68 boulders goal. No. I need the quartzite for the 51
blocks goal. And I haven't cut a single block out of quartzite. So I quickly set up a big block-cutting job and prioritize it. Hopefully it will finish before the dwarves come. And now I need 68 boulders of something else. So I start digging some more.
The dwarves have come! But the quartzite blocks aren't
quite ready yet. Should be good before they leave though. Except... NO! I didn't specify what
kind of blocks to cut! -facedesk- So while I do have some quartzite blocks now, it's not going to nearly be enough. I requeue the job properly, going specifically for quartzite blocks this time. I should still be able to make it in time.
While they worked, I delivered the rest of the tribute. Boulders were no problem, since I couldn't do the bonus I was able to deliver a mix of boulders that added up to 68 just fine. 25 plant-cloth hoods (mostly pig tail, some rope reed) were delivered for a bonus, and 27 random rough ornamental gems were also delivered (no bonus). Finally the quartzite blocks finished, so 51 quartzite blocks were delivered for a bonus.
So that comes out to 1 failed tribute (the tunics, +3 impatience), 4 successful tributes for base rewards, and 2 bonuses that total out to -2 impatience and +5 popcap. For the base rewards, since I
still lack a tanner, leatherworker, and magma smelter, I'll go for 2 workshop draws, and +2 rep.
Workshop draws:
Leatherworker! YAY!
Blast it, I have to take the regular kiln, since I don't have it yet. So that's a waste, but at least I got leatherworks.
Tribute Roll for next year:
Some of those numbers are getting dang high! But a relatively 'easy' roll I think...
Goals for next year:- 40 metal bars -- I don't think I'll go for this bonus.
- 90 blocks -- +5 popcap bonus for 2x. Doable.
- 80 meals -- +5 popcap for biscuits. Easy-peasy.
- 49 coffins -- Won't go for this bonus.
- 34 maces -- Won't go for this bonus either. It's doable but not worth it.
This time I waited until the caravan left, so I could check the exports for rep right away -- we're up to 84k exports (from 68k previous), so +2 rep there.
Final Status for Year 6:- Impatience = -7 (was -8; +3 from failing a tribute, -2 from bonus reward)
- Reputation = 30 (was 22 after last year exports and Cavern Tribute; +4 from artifacts, +2 from base rewards, +2 this year exports)
- Population = 55 (cap 60 after bonus reward)
- Available workshops =
trade depot, still, farmer, magma kiln, magma forge, craftsdwarf, kitchen, carpenter, smelter, stoneworker, wood furnace, soap-maker, siege workshop, screw press, regular forge, mechanic, magma glass furnace, quern, ashery, loom, jeweler, clothier, butcher, fishery, regular glass furnace, leatherworks, regular kiln
Now technically, the theft of a child cost me +3 impatience. But.. since I got them back very quickly -- even before the caravan arrived -- I figured that recovering them would nix or balance out the loss? What do you think? I'm okay with it if I still need to deduct impatience, just let me know.But wait! 30 rep means...
I've completed the challenge!! Huzzah! It was pretty fun. xD (and probably ended just in time, before the gobbos could come attack my fort lol).
Bonus Reel!
Finally got some grizzly cubs while the dwarven caravan was there!
Awww <3
Note that it was the
untrained bears that had cubs. Does becoming a war grizzly maybe prevent (or slow down) having cubs somehow? Hm.
And bonus 2....
My efforts to turn the Duchess's lover into a spouse have failed
miserably, haha!![/list]
Author
Topic: Against the Storm inspired challenge (Read 5524 times)