Greetings!
LegoLord: Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder. For me, the main interest in DF lies in its unpredictability: What will the next engraving look like, what kind of artifact will be produced, how will the dwarves behave. I think that one of the awesome things about DF is that it can be a lot of different things for different players.
So, it may seem dull to you, but to me, it has all the excitement and anticipation I could wish for.
Vengo: Well, I do hope to get dwarves who eventually die of old age. But currently, this is not a given.
General: Anyhow, I have played just past the next human caravan and the ill events have continued, but there is a silver lining by now.
Right after the last dwarven caravan, I had the biggest immigration yet to that fortress (despite the recent violent incidents): A weaver and a peasant, not related to each other.
Okay, so I had them help with the cleaning up and also remembered a good technique to quickly get the most distant logs off the map to avoid accidents caused by them. Things looked fine - until winter came.
Actually, I was happy to see that little 'r' in one of the traps - at least the raccoons were held at bay. But in the winter, sure enough, a new ambush occurred. Several wrestlers confronted the peasant north of the entrance. Actually, her position wasn't too bad - the path to the entrance was clear, and there were about 3 or 4 layers of traps the goblins would have to pass before entering the grounds from there.
So, I drafted her, set her to stay close to station and ordered her to get inside the fortress ASAP. Then I unpaused the game and cringed. Instead of moving south or south east towards the fortress, she moved north into the group of goblins ... Well, at least a coffin was already prepared for that case.
Besides that one incident, winter was relatively calm - there were other ambushes involving cats, but none of these situations got out of hand.
Spring arrived and things were not really cleared up, but at least some of the logs were retrieved. Then, I got the next pause - not the elven caravan, but another ambush! And sure enough, it was the newbie weaver probably retrieving something from a trap.
This time, it was really tragic. She was attacked by a group of crossbowmen from the other side of the trap layer she wanted to clean. She still hadn't reached the traps, so there was a bit of distance between them. So, I drafted her and sent her home. Then I unpaused.
Well, she did follow orders and turned tail, but there was of course the hail of bolts. Quickly, she was flashing from her wounded state, yet, she kept on moving. She was at the south of the fortress and the entrance is located in the western wall, so she first needed to move a screen to the west, round the corner and move up north.
Despite this desperate situation, she actually got to the corner of the fortress and started moving north. However, with all the wounds, she was horribly slow. In the meantime, the goblins had followed her. Again, the traps got jammed after 2 or 3 goblins, and one of the crossbowgoblins had somehow forgotten his profession and instead of shooting was going for melee. The weaver had really covered a good distance and given it a heroic effort, but in the end, she got pummeled to death with a crossbow. When my broker/leader arrived and cut the crossbowgoblin to pieces, she was already dead. During that incident, the elven caravan arrived, just to make things even more fun - they arrived from exactly the same direction the goblins had come. Fortunately, there were no casualties, but I got a really late start with the trading.
While the elves were still panicking and not entering the fortress, another ambush chased a cat, unfortunately taking an advantage of an incomplete outer layer of defenses so they were only one trap layer from the fortress proper. Two goblins got through - my best fighter, the broker, had decided to take a nap outside after having killed the crossbowgoblin (the nerve of her), so no help was to get there. One of the goblins seemed to be wounded, while the other quickly headed towards two woodcutters. As he engaged one of them, with horror, I noticed that it was one of the only pair of lovers in the fortress (I wish they would marry and start having children (T_T) )! Quickly, I drafted the other woodcutter who was running away and sent him in for relief efforts.
It worked, the goblin let go of the lover who wasn't seriously injured and jumped at the recruit. The ensuing battle allowed the lover to escape. However, the recruit got killed. I was really lucky, though, as the goblins then decided that it wasn't worth it and tried to flee - getting killed by the trap on the way out.
Now, my situation had quite deteriorated - 6 dwarves alive, one of the original seven (all friends by now) killed before the eyes of another dwarf ... a lot of unhappy dwarves and even more cleaning up to do. Still, I was somehow able to trade with the elves and ask for more wood.
Ah, in between, a ground hog discovered a misinformed goblin thief in the northern east corner of the map where no one had any business - I simply let him be until he left on his own accord.
Summer came and brought the human caravan. Interestingly enough, there were only some kobold thieves but no goblin ambushes thus far. However, a cougar strayed onto the map, and one of the swordsmen decided to go one on one with the beast. It turned into a draw with the cougar fleeing with a damaged eye and tail and the human having a yellow leg and crawling in hot pursuit.
When I saw that the human wasn't able to stand up, I began to sweat again - after all, traps do strike at prone friendlies, so I was worried about his safety. Fortunately, while being unable to stand, the human did not fall unconscious, and thus was able to leave my map in one piece together with the rest of the merchants (or rather, following them slowly).
Another single immigrant, a bone crafter, has brought my population back to 7.
But things are looking better. Food stocks are astronomical. As far as I can tell, there are only about three wooden logs in the dangerous wilds. There are a few items lying out there where the peasant got killed, but by and large, cleaning up has proceeded nicely.
With brewing and milling suspended, farming does not occurr that often, so the farms are not draining too much labor away. Construction of new traps to close the gaps in the outer defenses is proceeding nicely. Thus, I am getting optimistic about the chances of my fortress making a turn about.
Hopefullly, I can now concentrate on the big question - when will they finally marry??? He has been courting her for 5 years now, so please, do show what you are made of. :) :) :) :)
Deathworks
Author
Topic: I HATE GOBLINS! (Read 2355 times)