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I had a lot of !!fun with my second functional fort.
I embarked on a great site with a volcano and I just knew I had to make myself a lava-filled moat as defense. I build up my fort, economy is going great, everyone is ecstatic because of the 3 tile waterfall that flows through the dining room and the living area, all is good. I decide it is time for the lava moat, plan a fool(and dwarf!)proof way to make it, involving a multiple z-level spanning lava tunnel that has magma-proof floodgates (with magma-proof mechanisms too) and a line of fortifications and another row of magma-proof floodgates before reaching my moat, where it then drains through fortifications into a tunnel a few z-levels lower and proceeds to exit the map via a fortified side block. I see all this and am happy. All I need to do is channel in from the top to make my moat complete.
first facepalm: designating a 3*8 area to channel is not a good idea, Urist mcminer decided to stand in the middle and dig all around. Yay, first cave-in, no harm done tho, one guy dead and a few injured, I had the forethought not to open the lava yet.
I proceded to make a huge receding bridge over the moat, cackling evilly to myself as I imagined the goblin troops dropping in and melting in my glorious moat. At this point, I start training my militia (yeah, a bit late at 80+ dorfs), and all the def I had was this bridge and a raisable one in the entrance hall. I didn't make traps because LAVA MOAT. I finally open up the sluices and let the lava fill out, everything works perfectly, nothing can harm me, right?
So the first enemy to arrive outside of kobolds and goblin thieves? Nebo, Giant (not sure if this was there) Roc. In the description it says it is bigger than dragons. And, obviously, it flies.
*facepalm*
So I seal the fort, burrow all my civilians in, and wait. The Roc proceeds with no hesitation, to chase down every tame animal I had grazing and kill them savagely. Then I think, hey, maybe my barely trained military can beat this guy. So I open all bridges, wait for Nebo to come, who by this time had gotten a last name too. He comes flying in, I set my squad on him, and...
... all goes pretty well, one hammerdwarf dies but they beat the Roc back and he has cuts on his wings and stuff. I breath a sigh of relief, well, this should be manageable. The Roc is obviously afraid, now it has flown off and is 8 z levels up in the air in a corner. A whole season passes, I make a magma forge and start beating out iron weapons, squad is positioned in the entrance, I almost forget about Nebo Aredluthi.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, he decides to go apeshit and proceeds to rush in, kill half of my militia squad, then the other half, then most of the newly-conscripted wrestler squad I send against him, then finally a conscript miner takes him out while he is surrounded by wrestlers. Bodyparts everywhere, ALL my military dead, (okay one guy is left but he lacks arms and quickly succumbs to blood loss). I look at the numbers, down 20 dwarfs. F@#@$%. Well, I still have 80 left. Then I look into dwarf therapist. EVERY DWARF IS RED. A previously unimportant piece of information clicks as I remember looking through the militia member's relationships and there was a surprising number off both offspring and cousins, also grandparents.
*facepalm* and from here on, continuous facepalms
I conscripted the peasants into my military, not knowing that those where the grandchildren of my founders, and related to almost everybody in the fort. I issue orders to make coffins asap, and hope for the best. Somehow the dwarfs don't seem to be hauling the body parts to the refuse pile, but I put that down to grief.
Then someone starts a tantrum. One of the first things they do is push another dwarf off my bridge, into the lovely lava moat. Then another, then another tantrum. It is about 15-20 tantrums in that I realize that noone has touched the corpses still and I cant make graves for some reason. I look at my worsho- at the PLACE my workshop used to be, before a tantruming dorf destroyed it. Bodyparts start to rot and another 20 tantrums have to happen before I notice that there is an option to stockpile corpses. I put it outside, the non-tantruming dwarfs start hauling out bodies, but by now my fortress has lost as much as the Roc (full name Nebo Aredluthi Takruduslud by its death) had killed, and we are down to 60 PISSED-OFF dwarfs. Miasma is everywhere, even in my legendary waterfall-dining hall, and those dwarfs not tantruming are standing in a corner, waiting for their turn. At about 40 population, I notice a tantrumming dwarf had the consideration to destroy the bridge across the moat, I missed the fall so I don't know how many died in that (all that is in the moat is ashes). This sealed the fate of the fort, because the few sane dwarfs left (oh yeah, most became stark raving mad or insane) couldn't even get rid of the miasma-inducing body parts all over the main stairs.
I muttered a curse and ordered the wall holding back the lava to be dismantled, which was done by the last sane worker, a child who managed to run away from the initial lava but then turned around about 20 tiles later and WAITED FOR IT TO ENGULF HIM.
I like to think he did that knowingly, praising the gods that freed him of this horrible life.
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Topic: Face Palm moments you had in Dwarf Fortress (Read 2211839 times)