This is my first post on the forums, so it seems fitting that it be in a Facepalm thread.
Okay.
I had FINALLY made a good fort with a fledgling metal industry, sustainable farms, and year round access to water. While digging out a stairwell for a new floor, I discovered a huge natural cavern. I decided to divert some of the river into the caverns to flood out any nasty beasties. While my miners were digging the channel, they fell and broke their legs on the cavern floor. Deciding I had come too far to stop now, I designated two more miners and had them break through to the river. When the first attempt wasn't flooding the cavern fast enough, I had the miners widen the hole.
I wound up with three badly wounded miners and a dead miner at the bottom of a slowly flooding cave, along with all of my picks.
I abandoned in shame.
You abandoned!?! Shameful indeed. I dont adandon till 95% of the poulation is dead, not dying you here, DEAD. You could have easily
1. Made more picks with you metal industry
2. Realized that mining is a replaceable profession
3. Realize that a rivers water is endless, i.e. if you try to flood a cavern, it will FLOOD, and overflow to the top.
4. Realize that caverns are harmless and just-plain fun training for the military and butchers, except for the deeper ones. They can be terrifying. Do you know what GCS poison does to a dwarf? *shudders* and the FBs, so random, and yet so possibly terrifying or hilarious.
Considering I had drowned most of my previous fort, I don't know why I thought breaching the river was a good idea.
But losing is Fun, as they say.
What were you doing to drown your fort? I generally design my forts in a way that water is never near the entrance, except ONCE. That was bad, one missed designation. NOw, I design my forts to be Floodable as a self-destruct. Hmm...
"Hmm, I bet if I dig a single Z-level deep channel and breach the river it will fill the channel like a little trough and I HAVE MADE A HUGE MISTAKE ABANDON FORT"
See, Thats my problem here. I started a flood in a similar manner, for entirly different reasons. I was funneling water over to the mist gereator, and I dont knowwhat happened, but a hole was punched to my farms. It quickly overtook my workshop area, though severa ldwarves on the level were saved by quick thinking. Much of the water started draining down my main staircase, isolating the dwarves on the dining room level and mining areas. A sloor hatch blocked the water from draining deeper, and the bedrooms were quickly flooded. All I could save were dwarves in their rooms; the mayor, the sick, and the wounded were stranded by lack of doors. Things could not have looked bleaker, until you realize that the fort was coming out of a tantrum spiral that had claimed the lives of 70 dwarves, 100 remained. Then as all seemed lost, winter struck, freezing the river and stopping the flow of water. This allowed for the flood to evaporate, though the water was still surging through the fort, and the stranded wounded (of which there were many, by the way. Nasty Spiral, only averted by that Mist generator.) Would drown long before evaporation had brought levels down to a place where rescue was a option. Thinking Quickly, the head miner dug down from the dining room and connected a mining area a z-level down form the Bedrooms. He then Punched a hole in the infirmary. Relief spread quickly through the fort as water drained into the sytem, and the floor hatch was opened to allopw further drainage. Unfortunately, theire were casualties, mostly sustained through falls, a large number of wounded drained along with the water, leading to further, if slight injuries. All-in-all 10 dwarves died.