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[dth1]

I started to play couple of days ago, after about a year of my absence in the game. Created small fort, started metal industry, clothing, food was fine, I even started dropping caught enemies to the pits and then finishing them off with my military. I was distracted during designing terrain to pump some water closer to my fort, and then the Megabeast appeared. Quite soon I think, and I wasn't aware of all the combat mechanics changes... What went wrong?
1. I forgot about defence from below, so I had one big tunnel going all the way down to the place where megabeast spawned. I had only a couple of doors on the lowest level,
2. so I decided to send one squad of military that was equiped with iron and copper armors and weapons. My idea was simple: I'll try to keep it as far from fort as possible and the collapse the stairs...
3. of course I wasn't aware about new climbing mechanics, so I designated removing stairs and tried to build a wall on it.
Plan wasn't that bad if everything would go nicely. But it didn't. My militia squad was destroyed almost instantly(8 died, 2 run away), so they didn't buy me enough time to finish my sad backup plan. My first designation was too close to the beast, so I had to cancel it and destroy stairs somewhere closer. In act of despair I decided to remove stairs just below 3rd level of fort. That went quite nice, some of my dwarfs were too slow and they stayed down, slaughtered one by one. I thought that it will be over, because I destroyed only entrance to my fort... but I didn't know that megabeast will actually climb up one level above. Yeah, that was really sad. Beast entered my fort and started madness, and suddenly all cries stopped. Stoneworker killed it by scratching it's head and bruising the brain... that was lucky ending:)
I lost around 30 dwarfs and everyone is terrified, so we'll see what's next

[Aslandus]

I started to play couple of days ago, after about a year of my absence in the game. Created small fort, started metal industry, clothing, food was fine, I even started dropping caught enemies to the pits and then finishing them off with my military. I was distracted during designing terrain to pump some water closer to my fort, and then the Megabeast appeared. Quite soon I think, and I wasn't aware of all the combat mechanics changes... What went wrong?
1. I forgot about defence from below, so I had one big tunnel going all the way down to the place where megabeast spawned. I had only a couple of doors on the lowest level,
2. so I decided to send one squad of military that was equiped with iron and copper armors and weapons. My idea was simple: I'll try to keep it as far from fort as possible and the collapse the stairs...
3. of course I wasn't aware about new climbing mechanics, so I designated removing stairs and tried to build a wall on it.
Plan wasn't that bad if everything would go nicely. But it didn't. My militia squad was destroyed almost instantly(8 died, 2 run away), so they didn't buy me enough time to finish my sad backup plan. My first designation was too close to the beast, so I had to cancel it and destroy stairs somewhere closer. In act of despair I decided to remove stairs just below 3rd level of fort. That went quite nice, some of my dwarfs were too slow and they stayed down, slaughtered one by one. I thought that it will be over, because I destroyed only entrance to my fort... but I didn't know that megabeast will actually climb up one level above. Yeah, that was really sad. Beast entered my fort and started madness, and suddenly all cries stopped. Stoneworker killed it by scratching it's head and bruising the brain... that was lucky ending:)
I lost around 30 dwarfs and everyone is terrified, so we'll see what's next

Ah yes, the lovely first FB encounter. It's doubly fun if you didn't build any coffins and have to start hastily constructing your crypts to keep the bodies from rotting in the middle of the fortress

[gunpowdertea]

... when I realised you can assign tombs to dead dwarves to avoid building a ton of coffins that will be kept reserved for the dorfs idiots heroes that lie dead outside while the siege is still around, and meanwhile the dead in the hospital rot and spread miasma.

[Boogie Do Boom]

I've dug a channel and build a pump for irrigation. well... some dwarves have drowned and after 2 new fortress I've don't know why. (Mental note: after channeling, always build a grate)

[pisskop]

Just realized why my goblins dont make their towers in the 40.xx version.  I didnt re-give them their gods ^{_{(also they keep getting their asses kicked by elves, and then dogpiled)}}.  God of death, why are you the exclusive purveyor of secrets?

[utunnels]

My dorfs spent months buiding a very big bridge/smasher outside. The job was difficult because the stones were in bad positions. Before I figured that out, months had passed so I just let them finish the job.

Shortly after the bridge was finished, a goblin werezebra came. I ordered my dorfs inside and raised the main bridge, just in time(almost crashed the last dorf). The werezebra changed its direction immediately and walked into my trapped maze. My dorf pull the lever, hoping to trap the beast, but the new bridge just disappeared! Then I realized they spent months building a retracting bridge...

[Huntthetroll]

New poster here, first time playing DF.  I built my jail above the rest of my fortress, just below ground at the top of a hill, with the goal of digging a channel to a nearby murky pool that I could use to flood the cells and drown repeat offenders (I was and still am having a plague of tantruming dwarves).  After looking at the wiki, I decided to use a drawbridge to control the water flow and a pump to clear out the jail after it had been flooded.  I linked the bridge to a lever placed next to the jail door.

Months passed and finally one Tulon Fikodshetbeth, a whiny Fisherdwarf responsible for killing multiple innocent dwarves and pets in his petulant rages, was in jail by himself (for disorderly conduct; apparently dwarves don't have punishments for murder), so I jumped at the chance to rid myself of this loser.  I instructed the dwarves to dig a channel from the pool right up to the bridge and underneath the exit spout of the pump, so that I could refill the pool with the water that would be pumped out of the jail.  To my shock and horror, the water flowed right over the bridge and into the cells, even though the lever was in the on position and the bridge closed.  To my disappointment and frustration, the water was not deep enough to drown Tulon, but deep enough that I could not rebuild the bridge.  It did kill all the plump helmets, cave wheat etc. that I had let sprout everywhere in the cells so that I wouldn't have to worry about feeding the prisoners.

I spent in-game months trying to figure out what happened.  Had the water flowed through a patch of roots next to the bridge?  Had the "on" position of the lever been set to correspond to opening the bridge?  The question vexed me, and so did the extra work of digging a channel down the hillside to drain out the flooded jail, since the pump would be useless if the bridge couldn't stop water from flowing back into the jail after it had been pumped out.  It finally hit me when I was working on something completely different:  I forgot to specify a raising direction when I built the bridge.  Pulling the lever just caused the bridge to retract.  I'm dumb.

[smeeprocket]

hehe that mistake has cost me several fortresses. I didn't even know you had to designate a direction.

For future reference, you would probably be better pumping the water into the jail as well as out of it because then you can control the level it goes to. Of course if you don't have enough water, it's irrelevant, and you will need a bit more water each time.

Also, I thought murderers had to face the hammerer. I assume he's not a noble and you have a hammerer, they are just one of the best features of the game. ^___^

[Huntthetroll]

Actually, I don't have a hammerer.  Another detail that escaped me.  Thanks for the advice!  And since you liked that story, there is actually a part 2, which is even more unbelievable:

While my first jail was draining out, I had my dwarves build another one across the stairway from the original.  While my miners were clearing out the new cell, I saw that there was a tree growing on the z-level above, and that the miners would wind up destroying its roots.  Since the tree would die anyway, I told my woodcutter to chop it down.  After the old jail dried out, I had the drawbridge reinstalled and made sure it would actually close.  I then left it closed, to prevent the jail from becoming an unguarded back entrance to the fortress.

Fast forward a year later, and the Plains Titan Aso Ethratunem Irum Ared (Aso Islandapes the Wave of Fog) shows up.  Checking the wiki, I learn that a titan is basically an above-ground forgotten beast.  This one is a gigantic flying snail with deadly spittle.  Nasty.

Naturally, I raise the alert level to DORFCON 1, send the civilians to their shelter burrow and remove all the pen/pasture activity zones so that our livestock and pets go inside as well.  I watch everyone file into the fortress, mentally urging them to move faster so they get inside before the bridge closes...wait, where's the bridge?!  I suddenly remember that one of the dwarves that I recently threw in prison was convicted of "Vandalism," and that at the time I wondered how that was different from "Building Destruction."  Now I understand:  that stupid dwarf smashed the main drawbridge, leaving the main entrance wide open and unprotected.

I immediately order my stonecutters and metalsmiths to grab the nearest blocks and build a wall where the bridge was.  Racing against time, they finish the wall moments after the last of the animals file in.  Crisis averted.

With that problem solved, I turn my attention to killing the titan.  I decide to have my battle-hardened top-notch militia squad, the Disemboweled Orbs, sally forth from the drawbridge in the old jail cell.  My earlier folly has turned out to be a blessing in disguise, it seems.  I check the units screen to determine where the titan is...and can't find it.  "Has it left already?" I wonder.  On a whim, I open the "Deceased" tab.  There, sitting at the top of the (very long) list of the dead, is Aso Ethratunem Irum Ared, Plains Titan.

I am absolutely flabbergasted.  How could the titan have been killed before the Disemboweled Orbs even left the fortress?  More importantly, what could have killed it?  Is there an even more powerful enemy that I have to worry about?

I check the latest combat report and become even more confused.  It says that the titan attacked and was killed by none other than Domas Zasumstiz Aroz Anist, my militia commander and captain of the Disemboweled Orbs.  This is absolutely impossible, for two reasons:

1. The Disemboweled Orbs haven't left the fort yet, and none of the entrances are open.

2. Domas Zasumstiz Aroz Anist is in prison, jailed for throwing the latest of many tantrums.  (He gained his title after a previous tantrum, in which he killed the manager, the captain of the guard and a random wood burner that was in a fistfight with a child.)

I zoom to Domas and find him in his cell, alive and uninjured except for a bruise on his right thigh.  Lying on top of him is the titan's corpse, and on the floor is a spatter of its ichor.  I reread the combat report and discover that

1. he blocked every single one of the titan's flying spittle attacks (with his shield; apparently dwarven prisoners get to keep all of their gear); and

2. he only sustained an injury when the titan's dead body fell on him.

This is almost too incredible for me to believe.  This dwarf killed the above-ground equivalent of a forgotten beast single-handedly and without letting it get in any blows, while chained to the floor.

But the kicker, and what makes this a facepalm moment, is how the titan got in the fortress.  You see, Domas was in the new cell, right under the location of the tree that I had cut down when the cell was dug out.  Apparently, cutting down the tree and removing its roots left a single tile of open space where the tree used to be.  So there had been an extra, unguarded entrance into the fortress the whole time, without my knowledge, and my dwarves had been saved from a massacre only because their unhinged militia commander was chained to the floor right under it.  No wonder Domas kept complaining about being out in the sunlight.

[gunpowdertea]

Ah, yes, the joys of the new trees: open space where you thought you'd never have it. I still have to get used to it and leave an extra layer between my tunnels (that lead to some towers outside the main castle) and the surface. I think all of them have a hole in some place or the other...

[smeeprocket]

That explains some odd open spaces above farm plots I've had recently.

I would be even more concerned about your captain now. Not only is he a serial murderer, he's a badass serial murderer. He will either lead your fort into the new era, or become the last living resident.

Just don't promote him to noble. I think hammerer ceases to be an option at that point. As far as I know dwarves will except being hit over the head as opposed to fighting their punishment.

If he lives he is probably a vampire. They laugh off hammerer punishments. But everyone gets good thoughts from the punishment, so... problem solved, I guess.

[Huntthetroll]

If he were almost any other dwarf (like Tulon the aforementioned ne'er-do-well fisherdwarf), I would definitely be trying to get him killed as fast as possible, but Domas is so badass at this point that I can't bring myself to do it.  What I would love to do would be to stick him out in front of the main entrance like a guard dog to kill anything that so much as looks askance at one of my dwarves.

Fun facts about Domas:

• He has legendary+ skill levels in at least three different combat skills.
• His name translates to Domas Crystalsizzle the Savageries of Igniting, which is too perfect for words.

[Swonnrr]

"That irriguation system is almost over. AT LAST.
I perfectly triple checked everything, the drain is largely big enough.
I don't need to wait the emergency pump to be over to pull the lever, even in the worst case scenario the flood can't be THAT fast with that little water..."

That's the third time in a row I lose a fortress because I'm too impatient and think "nah, that emergency system is for LATER, there is no way I need it right after ignition; I can go without it finished."

[Huntthetroll]

Newest facepalm moment:  the badass militia commander Domas Zasumstiz that I mentioned in my last post has died, along with his eldest son, in a horrific brawl that started with a bone carver throwing a tantrum and quickly grew to involve over a dozen dwarves.  Domas was stabbed in the skull by his own squadmate, a speardwarf, who in turn had his skull caved in by another squadmate.  His son Ingish Ustuthsolam was pummeled by more than half the dwarves involved and died after vomiting uncontrollably.  Yet another characteristically tragic and incredibly stupid calamity in the history of Cavecradle.

[smeeprocket]

Surviving tantrum spirals is probably the most rewarding part of the game for me.

I remember running out of food and drink a few times and my fort descending into chaos. The times that my dwarves mostly survived long enough to trade with a caravan were fun.