Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[mainiac]

Hematite 4, 1050
My journeys brought me to a sleepy backwater dwarven fortress today.  It was my first trip this far out into the wilderness but they were a good welcoming sort and I'm liking the place well enough.  But honestly, they don't seem to comfortable around a cosmopolitan dwarf like me.  You'd think they'd never seen a beard less then a foot long before I showed up.

Hematite 5, 1050
Saw a newborn child today.  It seems these people never have seen a beard less then foot long before I showed up.  As a city dwarf, I feel quite out of place.
Tried to talk to the head of the siege engineers about work.  It turns out I'm the first siege engineer to live here!  I tracked down the Mayor to inquire about setting me up with a workshop but he seemed doubtful.  Siege engines were strange and foreign to him.  I promised him he was worried about nothing.  I had a few engine components with my possessions in the caravan and promised to bring them around tomorrow.

Hematite 6, 1050
Wow, that went really well!  I brought my wares around and the Mayor was really impressed!  He asked where I'd aquired such craftdwarfship, to which I humbly replied that I'd made it myself at Nisam Acak.  He was amazed!  I mean, yes, Nisam Acak is a nice place and all, but these dwarves spoke of it like it was a legend.  I wonder if I've started something...

Hematite 6, 1050, continued
... I think I've started something.  News of my hometown appears to have spread like wildfire throughout the fortress.  I'm apparently some sort of overnight celebrity.  I was mobbed at the beer hall by a crowd eager to hear stories of my home.  We stayed up the night long as I told them every tale I could bring to mind and they shouted out in drunken revelry, singing songs and shouting my name.

10th of Limestone, 1050
I have a dream.  I dream of a fortress of my own, a place of industry and innovation.  And this dream is going to be a reality.  The Legend of Nisam Acak has earned me a close group of friends willing to join me in this endevor.  My siege crafting has earned me the goodwilling of the mayor, who's willing to back the endevor.  In a few weeks we set off!  Time to start preperations!

1st of Granite, 1051
Today the hills which will one day host Orlokum finally graced our eyes.  A cheer went up through our ranks!  I lept off the wagon and turned to face the troops.  "Strike the earth!  Today we begin work upon a new fortress which will put Nisam Acak to shame!"

There was a murmur of surprise at that.  I shot a quizical look at everyone wondering what the matter was.  A dwarf spoke up.  "Erm, you mean Nist Akath.  You're homeland, the legendary Dwarven Keep of Nist Akath!"
Comprehension dawn.  "No, no, it's Nisam Acak.  Nisam Acak.  Erm, the accent makes them sound the same.  You didn't think I've been saying Nist Akath this whole time, right?  Wait, how many of you thought I was from Nist Akath?"

Six of them.  Out of six.  And zero of them had ever heard of Nisam Acak.  "It's a human town in the northen lands.  It's-"
"Wait, you're from a human town?"
"Yes.  Born and raised."
"But we thought we were following a child of the legendary keep of Nist Akath!  The dwarves so hardened they can make life from the ice itself!  You're nothing but a namby pamby surface dweller!  Gods, we're damned!"

Needless to say, my new project has not gotten off to the most audacious start.

1st of Granite, Continued
Well, despite the unpleasent news of this morning, we're getting to work, unloading, digging and surveying.  The new spot we've picked seems good, lava, water, what more could you want?  I'm sure we can figure this out as we go along and have this place up and running in no time.

Highlights of the locale in my mind.

We've got Magma!  Loads of it!  This will be the lifebread of our eventual industry, gods willing!

Here's the river.  In my mind an absolute must.  I have no clue why more dwarf fortresses aren't built near to rivers.  Where else will you get an endless supply of water?

There were some opals just lying on the surface!  I'm loving this place!

So, here's my plans for our initial dig.  The first shaft will be for the farms.  I wanted our first crop to be longland grass, but the dwarves had apparently never heard of it.  So we'll dig a cave and fill it with plump helmets.

I also have a plan for the top two floors of our eventual gatehouse.  One day it will be the enterence to our mighty fortress.  For now, it will store some workshops and a stockpile.

The second floor will hold some bedrooms.

-----------
Okay, here's the deal. I'm a newbie to this game, I've only had it a few weeks now but I think I've learned a good bit in that time.  But so far I've been just nibbling around the surface, I made a couple tentative fortresses but they weren't too impressive and I hid from the goblins on islands.  Most recently, I made a human tower, misguidedly thinking that would be easier.  So, this time I'm going to plunge right in and do this properly.  No sissy giving up and digging a proper dwarven stronghold, a mighty underground keep.  No more experimenting with throwout maps, if I fail, loosing is fun!
So, seeing how cool community fortresses are, I'm going to invite you all to join this brave expedition.  Either it's going to be a glorious success or a glorious failure.  Feedback on how I'm doing, in character or out is welcome.

[Kagus]

1)  Infinite water sources can also come from aquifers, underground rivers, and the rare lakeside forts.

2)  Only mine gems with a highly skilled miner.  Rookies will just smash them up and make them useless.  Keep them digging through stone until they get very good, and then switch them over to ore/gem harvesting.

3)  The hallways need to be a bit larger.  A low-traffic area can have a two-tile width, a medium traffic hallway will need three (this should be the standard width for your main hallways), and very high traffic areas can take up to five or six tile width for efficiency's sake.   Rarely-used maintenance tunnels can get away with one tile.

This is because no two standing creatures can occupy the same tile.  When two creatures meet, one of them has to lie down in order for the other to pass.  This can seriously bog down the speed of your dwarves, especially when you've got nine dwarves and fifteen cats all trying to cram themselves through a corridor.

Oh, and the rooms don't really need to be that big.  I tend to make them 2x2, but you can get away with 1x3 slots.  You just need enough space to fit a bed, a coffer, and a cabinet.  You can, of course, outfit your peasantry with elegant and fully-furnished rooms, but that can get to be a bit of a bother with size constraints and digging time.

Good luck mate!

[Istrian]

Give me a dwarf. Any dwarf will do as long as he/she gets appointed to Captain of the Guard later.

Name : Istrian (M)/ Istria (F)

Now, boss. Is it me or are you going to farm plump helmets on rock ? Because from what I can see, you are going to dig the farming area in rock and not in soil.

The easiest thing to do right now would be fishing, until we can get some aboveground seeds from a caravan or shrubs. When we have some, we'll need a mechanic to build a pump alongside the river, then we'll be able to farm there.

[ April 23, 2008: Message edited by: Istrian ]

[mainiac]

17th of Granite, 1051
Bad news, bad news and good news.
First, we ended up ruining three of the four opal clusters.  Aparently, it's a bit harder mining them then I thought... well at least there's some more opals underneith.  We'll get to those later once we have more experience striking the earth.
People don't seem to confident in my leadership so far.  They've already started nagging about things like future traffic bottlenecks.  I pontificated on their concerns before explaining that this first dig was just the start, the first "tower" if you will.  Traffic will move through other areas when my final plan is complete.  Now if only I knew where that blasted plan had lost itself...
I'd just given up on looking when Istrian came to me with bad news on the new farm plot.  Apparently we don't have any soil.  This came as a surprise to me, as it never happened in Nisam Acak.  Istrian explained the dwarven fortresses usually had to irrigate the earth.  I've heard of this but never actually seen the phenomena.  It's apparently a bit of a difficult project.  Istrain recommened we switch over to forging for the time being.  I agreed but it won't be too easy, as there's not too much arable land outside.  Still, we'll get by.

For now, Istrain's going to look into gathering, as he's the best with plants.
As for the good news, we've hit some bauxite.  Not the best news in the world, but I hear it's the only rock that's magma safe.  And I'm all for safety.
Now, I've got to stop these scribblings and start doing some of that bloody paperwork.  I thought the damn stuff would go away when I graduated from the engineers accademy but it appears determined to chase me to the ends of the earth!  I've don't even know where we're getting it from!
Anyway, start of the personel lists...
Me!

Istrain

[Duke 2.0]

Ha! Perfect chance to join a community fort! And the possibility for it to all fall down the drain!

Name: Amost Tekkudakum aka "Pickcatch"
Profession: Perhaps miner. If not, whatever job will most likely get this dwarf unintentionally killed.

[Silu]

As there probably are still few dwarves left from the original seven, I'll take one. Preferably male. Make him a engraver/miner/mason. In that order. Maybe stonecrafting too if you are going to make use of anything from that profession.

Name him after me.

[Kuli]

I'd love to claim a dwarf, though that's hard to do since you haven't posted who the starting dwarves are.  Well, I'll just show my preferences:

Name:  Kuli
Profession:  Craftsdwarf and possibly Trader.
Gender:  Not important
I'd like a Craftsdwarf who does Stonecrafting and Bonecarving.  I can make stone crafts for early trading, then later on carve bone bolts for the marksdwarves.  I'd also like to be set as the fort's Broker.  You could also set me up as a temporary mechanic until you get someone else to fill that role full time.

Definitely widen the halls to three tiles.  It'll help with traffic and fort efficiency.  Also get an area irrigated for farming ASAP.

If you've avoided goblins so far, you may be unprepared for ambushes.  Be sure to set up an entrance hallway full of weapon traps.

[DoctrZombie]

Name: Derul
Profession: Farmer
Sex: Male if available, not a huge concern. If female name her Deruli

Very concerned with setting up irrigation, even if it's just a small floodplain next to the river. Gotta have those plump helmets!

[mainiac]

17th of Granite, continued
Ugh, turns out those reports of zombie carp were just my imagination.  Guess I'll have to finish the paperwork...
Here's Amost Tekkudakum.  His name is almost as cool as mine!
   
Here's Silu
   
Here's Kuli, who has some idea's about irrigation.  They're ambitious, so I like them.
   
And here's Derul, who's also a fan of irrigation.
   

Hm, seems we have a bit of a gender disparity.  It's one of those things you don't notice with dwarves, what with everyone having a beard and smelling of beer and cat piss.  But it's 5 guys for the two of us gals to share.  Go me!

But uh yeah, irrigation.  Derul and Kuli really want to do it.  But I explained that them that when I was doing my surveying, I measured the river at nearly 9 shift-arrows from the farms.  Apparently they don't measure distance with shift-arrows outside of Nisam Acak so I changed it to dwarven units like they taught us in Academy.  Uh, there's like 153 shift-arrows in a mule stride and a mule stride has...
[illegible scribbled calculations follow]
...so the river and farm are clearly fifteen million axe-handles apart!
Still, the only other source of water is the pond up to the north.  We use that once, and it'll be gone forever.  They taught us in academy that renewable supplies are important, you can only fire a balista bolt once.  I'm sure that's true for water as well.  So, I order Derul to get a digging.  That'll show him for being helpful.

Ugh, back to the personel logs.  Wait, is that zombie elk I hear outside?

1st of Slate,

Damn.

 

12th of Slate,

The fire imp swarm had reached 4 before I cancelled the irrigation channel.  We're back to digging up the fortress.  Some of the dwarves are back to grumbling about the slow progress on that.  They're not psyched about sleeping in the dirt.  Whatever, we'll have bedrooms soon enough and I'm at work on carpentering some beds.  Also, I've told Silu to get his lazy rear in gear and start crafting us some knick knacks out of stone.  I've got a worried premonition that that might be the only way we're gonna feed ourselves at this rate.

[ April 23, 2008: Message edited by: mainiac ]

[mainiac]

How do you delete posts?

[ April 23, 2008: Message edited by: mainiac ]

[Dwarf Fanatic]

I few tips...

First, I'm also a noob... a Pre-teen at that! Losing is FUN!
Second, if you just doing the basics than save space... nothing is more embarrassing when you started with a 1 tile and when you try to expand you hit tons of now useless doors.
Also, you just need soin to grow stuff. Not Kaolite. Dig up stairs or a down stairs and toward the creek. You'll hist soil.
About imps... easiest way is to make a 1 x2 tower with 10 walls and 1 up stair, 1 down stair on floor 1 and then fortifications of upper floors. Access is from the bottem. Station a pair of marksdwarves near the lava.(2-3 tiles away!) and place bolts under the 'tower'. Soon, you get the buggers!

Also. how do you get Human Towns?

Also... Name a metalsmith from migration 'Stupid Fanatic' or just 'Fanatic' thanks!

[ April 23, 2008: Message edited by: Dwarf Fanatic ]

[Jack A T]

Dwarf Fanatic: [CIVCONTROLLABLE].

[mainiac]

I got a human town by just fiddling around with the raw files.  The wiki tells you everything you need to know.  But towns seem pretty tough to me.

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

14th of Slate,
Damnation and Jubilation!
We've hit an aquifier and are going to have a tough time digging.  But we've hit an aquifier and can now easily farm our abundance of damp soil!  All we have to do now is figure out how the heck to get around this bloody aqafier which denys us access to our damp soil!  Sigh... I think I might have seen something on this in my old Academy textbooks...

[Istrian]

Boss, I know a risky but sure way around the aquifer. If we dig around the magma vent, we might avoid water. There should be a few spots like that.

Now about that farming business, we still need a pump to irrigate the floor above the aquifer. We can't survive on shrubs alone.

[mainiac]

17th of Felsite
With a little trail and error we got a screw pump up and running.  We pump some water into the area.  Several dwarves ran into the room to celebrate and take a drink of the fresh mud...  Must be some sort of country custom, I prefer booze myself.

Digging on the main site continues.  Although the aquifier renders half the second floor unusable, it seems to just be a local affair.  Hopefull we can just dig around.