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[Goron]

I shall get cracking then! Just a quick question... what's the simplest way to get images and screenshots onto these here fora? I must admit I've never had cause to do it before.

I would guess photobucket or imageshack...
I use my own personal webspace for stuff like that- something I think everyone should look into... For as little as $5/month, you can have essentially as much space/bandwitch as you could ever want and or need as a casual person... Its also great for backing up files online or doing big file transfers... Thats just my two cents. (notice I did not name a specific webhost, so don't think I am advertising Any work fine, for the most part)

EDIT:
I know this is not the appropriate time for movements, but I will bring it up now since I think it is very important to discuss ASAP.
I suggest 'executive power' is granted to the fortress controller (person playing) at a time of emergency. The executive power enables the leader to basically do whatever needs to be done in a time of crisis - within reason. I use vague terms for now- details should be discussed.

A non-binding example would be: Fort becomes Sieged. The fortress leader could resolve immediate 'no-brainer' situations without deliberation or vote... such as moving non-combat dwarves inside and patching up that hole in the wall from ongoing renovations. The fortress leader would be exempt from any punishment for performing such obvious tasks without holding them up for vote. We can discuss just how far that should go- can they resolve the siege? should they bring the situation and possible actions to vote (fight, hole up, run for lives, etc)? etc.

Just a thought.

[Hilscher]

I shall get cracking then! Just a quick question... what's the simplest way to get images and screenshots onto these here fora? I must admit I've never had cause to do it before.

I use Greenshot and TinyPic. Saving as .png is good quality and low file size. However, just pressing Print Screen and then Ctrl+V'ing into paint is also an acceptable way to take a screenshot.

I took a look at the fortress again, and I'm afraid the water simply doesn't drip down. I suppose a spigot from the brook is necessary after all. Also, for fun:

I shall get cracking then! Just a quick question... what's the simplest way to get images and screenshots onto these here fora? I must admit I've never had cause to do it before.

I would guess photobucket or imageshack...
I use my own personal webspace for stuff like that- something I think everyone should look into... For as little as $5/month, you can have essentially as much space/bandwitch as you could ever want and or need as a casual person... Its also great for backing up files online or doing big file transfers... Thats just my two cents. (notice I did not name a specific webhost, so don't think I am advertising Any work fine, for the most part)

EDIT:
I know this is not the appropriate time for movements, but I will bring it up now since I think it is very important to discuss ASAP.
I suggest 'executive power' is granted to the fortress controller (person playing) at a time of emergency. The executive power enables the leader to basically do whatever needs to be done in a time of crisis - within reason. I use vague terms for now- details should be discussed.

A non-binding example would be: Fort becomes Sieged. The fortress leader could resolve immediate 'no-brainer' situations without deliberation or vote... such as moving non-combat dwarves inside and patching up that hole in the wall from ongoing renovations. The fortress leader would be exempt from any punishment for performing such obvious tasks without holding them up for vote. We can discuss just how far that should go- can they resolve the siege? should they bring the situation and possible actions to vote (fight, hole up, run for lives, etc)? etc.

Just a thought.

Lav already essentially said exactly that in the opening posts, which is why I assumed this was a succession game from the start.

Also: You only don't mention a specific host because you're the ring leader of a vast webhost conspiracy and you get a cut either way. You cunning bastard.

[Emmanovi]

We have authorization from previous votes to build the foundation of a tower, and to work on our outer walls.

My motion to finish of the walls failed, didn't it? Looking through my list of successful motions, I see digging a moat succeeded, however. Does this give me clearance to finish the wall?

(I'm now in a position to start the turn, having been a little busy earlier. I just want to make sure I'm doing what I ought to be.)

[Hilscher]

We have authorization from previous votes to build the foundation of a tower, and to work on our outer walls.

My motion to finish of the walls failed, didn't it? Looking through my list of successful motions, I see digging a moat succeeded, however. Does this give me clearance to finish the wall?

(I'm now in a position to start the turn, having been a little busy earlier. I just want to make sure I'm doing what I ought to be.)

We already voted to create the walls. The motion that failed was the distinction of where to build the walls. I wanted to channel out the brook, instead of the, in my opinion, larger than necessary original boundaries of our outer walls. Since that motion, too, failed, my interpretation is that the Status Quo remains in effect and the original, larger confines are greenlit for you. Meh.

[Emmanovi]

{Right. I've done the season. Some points I'd like to make (those which relate to updates below are in a spoiler):

- I think I took far too many screenshots. For that I can only apologise, but I was actually excited - first succession for me an' all. I haven't included all of mine (there were a few comments, like "why are they sleeping? THEY SHOULD BE BUILDING", which I haven't posted).
- Images are in spoilers
- I play with a slightly different screen size...
- At points where I was unsure, I decided to trust my own judgement in doing things for the good of Equalvoice as a whole
- I did change several labours, such as turning masonry on/off, and suchlike. I don't recally anyone saying "my dwarf will not do X" - I'm sorry if I did something you wouldn't like.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

- The wall was not finished, nor was a tower started
- The farm was irrigated, but not built
- I foolishly re-irrigated the old farm plot
- We got immigrants. Three of them.

Anyway, on with the actual update...

Emmanovi walked away from the meeting with a heavy heart. Together, the dwarves of Equalvoice had decided that Kat was, essentially, out of order and needed a talking-to. As acting organiser, the job fell to Emmanovi to talk to him. He headed outside, and found Kat wandering, picking up some seeds.

"Kat." The dwarf looked up, but said nothing. "We're concerned, I'm sorry. You've said yourself you don't feel up to discussions and talk of politics, you'd rather keep yourself to yourself. However, that means that you do lose certain priveledges. One of those is the right to name yourself. I hereby call you Kûbuk, Lance. You are still the representative, so it's your job to talk to the liason, whenever he gets here. But until you feel up to participating, or have some change of heart, you're just a normal dwarf. Okay?"

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Emmanovi sighed and looked at his list of tasks. The first which sprang to his attention was getting a drawbridge set up. This is quick and easy to do. He made a note to have the area in front of the gate mined out, and asked Lav if he would kindly see to it.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Drawing a quick sketch for a reservoir system, he worked out the logistics of irrigation. A large chamber would hold water, whilst a smaller tunnel would feed to the farms. All would be controlled with floodgates. He slipped the plans to Grail, asking her to look over them. She gave a cursory nod and pocketed the sheet.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

{I actually revised these plans a short while later, you'll see this in the actual dug-out version}

Suddenly, Emmanovi heard the cawing of another giant eagle. With a grim face, he rushed around looking for his hunting equipment, then walked slowly but surely towards the noise with his troupe of dogs. Spotting the vile creature, he loosed of flurry of bolts, a couple of which struck the beast in the leg. It flew off, shrieking in pain.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Trapsing back to the fort, Emmanovi stopped on a hill and took out some of Grail's fine wax boards to sketch out the look of the walls. Connecting what existed with two neat straight lines to the opposite hill, he made a workable plan for the outer wall of the fortress.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Heading back inwards, Emmanovi bumped into Lav again. "Metalcrafter, I thought we had decided we needed some metal goods to trade? I don't see any in the stockpiles!"
"I'm sorry, Emmanovi, but there's no bars to make things with."
"Well, surely you could make some? I was under the impression that was all your department."
"Sure, it is, but I need a smelter for that, and no-one has designed nor built one yet."
Emmanovi sighed, and made a note to find a mason who wasn't busy.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Yawning, he lay down in bed, his dogs lying next to him. But five minutes later, an excited Goron rushed into his room, waking Emmanovi with a jolt.
"The caravan, it's here!"
Emmanovi grumbled to himself. They still hadn't anything to trade, but it was up to him to greet these traders. "We need to show them we have something. Grab some mechanisms and chuck them in the depot, make it look like we're ready to trade."

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Strutting outside once more, Emmanovi noticed the bridge had been rebuilt over the beginnings of the moat. He grunted a note of satisfaction and trudged to the depot. Suddenly, he heard a yelp and a yap of pain. He swivelled round to see one of his war dogs lying on the floor, writhing around. He stared in wonder, as within a few minutes, three baby puppies were crawling around on the hard basalt floor.

Turning in wonder, he headed to the trade depot, leaving the responsible mothers in charge of their pups. He hailed the dwarven trader with a loud shout. "Welcome to Equalvoice, home of the free!"
The head merchant scoffed. "Yeah, well, as far as the King is concerned, you're still his loyal subjects. What have you got for us?"
Emmanovi, annoyed at the merchant's brusque manner, looked around the depot. They'd still not gotten any trade goods made, and had only some mechanisms that were left over from a large set Legon and Goron had made earlier. "Well, there are these very fine mechanisms here. Better than what you get back at the Mountainhome, I shouldn't wonder."
The merchant looked over them. "Not bad, I guess. What would you like?"
Momentarily caught off guard, Emmanovi wondered for a second. What did they need? Remembering Grail's comment before she went to bed the previous evening, he asked for some food, some metal bars and some barrels.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

As the merchant handed over some Rose Gold bars, an idea suddenly made itself known to Emmanovi. "Excuse me a second," he said, and dashed down to the lower levels. He met Lav in the newly built smelting and forging area. "Metalcrafter," he said, "if I make you some charcoal, can you make these" - at this point waving the bars - "into some goblets to trade?"
"That's rather sneaky, selling the caravan their own wares made into something else. I'll get right on it!"

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Above ground, Kûbuk was sitting on the basalt ground talking to a dwarf who looked rather uncomfortable. The liason was not used to such primitive arrangements. "Do you not have an office?" he asked scornfully.
"Aye, I do," replied Kûbuk, laughing. "But I prefer the open air. Don't you? My office is currently a table and a rock throne crammed into an unused bedroom. I can just about bear eating in there, but I'd much rather talk with you out here."
The liason sighed. "Very well. What do you request from the Mountainhome?"
"Oooh, I'd love a gold brooch..."
"You are aware you don't get anything for free, I take it. We bring it on the caravan, and we take your goods and give you what you asked for. Simple, really."
Kûbuk giggled. "Well then, I think Emmanovi asked me to get some more animals. And we could always do with some wood and food. Oh, and on a personal note, bring as many seeds as you can. I like seeds. Don't you?"
The liason shifted around uncomfortably. "How about some metal bars and some drink?"
"That would be lovely," replied Kûbuk.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Emmanovi came back up the stairs carrying three fine rose gold goblets. He ran to the depot, calling out: "Hello there again! Look what I found down in our stores." He ground to a halt. The merchant's wagons had been repacked, and the depot was empty of their goods.
"Oh, there you are. We're off now, we can't wait."
"But we have trade items!"
"Sorry, King's orders. 'Don't spend too long in this Equalvoice place, I don't want you going all soft on me.' Goodbye, democratic scum." With these words, the caravan set off. Emmanovi was furious.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

He stormed off to the reservoir, hoping that someone had done something useful. To his delight, the whole place had been carved out, and not only that, but the floodgates and doors had been put in place. Now all that remained was to link everything up to topside levers and they would be ready.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Heading back out, looking for the miners to thank, Emmanovi nearly knocked over Kûbuk running the other way. "Emmanovi, I have a list of things the caravan wants next year." Taking the list, Emmanovi thanked him and walked off, looking down it.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Some time later, Emmanovi watched as the miners began to dig out the moat on the other side of the almost-finished North wall. He feared it would not be complete before the Winter, and wished to have some barrier betwen him and whatever foes might be lurking in the distance. He turned and saw Legon walk over. "The system is almost set up. Do you want to see?"
"Lead the way," replied Emmanovi.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Water flooded into the reservoir. Emmanovi was pleased. "Excellent. Soon the farm can be irrigated, and this task be gotten out of the way." He moved off, wondering how the meeting hall was progressing. It was nothing more than a reasonably large space dug out, now being smoothed and statues being moved in, but it would function as a nice discussion area - once it was ready. However, his keen eyes spotted some figures in the distance. "I daresay we have some immigrants!" He called out, smiling.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

He took down the names and professionsof the immigrants, all three from the mountainhome who had heard of their exploits and desired to join the democratic fort.

Lokum Odgúbfikod, female Woodworker. Novice Carpenter, Novice Woodcutter, Novice Bowyer.
Urdim Monommozib, female Mason.
Kûbuk Dumatzedot, male Peasant.

They would be useful, he supposed. He taked Urdim with helping build the south wall, as that was a matter of some urgency. His term was nearly coming to an end.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

.... aaand it did come to an end, somewhat unsatisfactorily. =/

The wall, as mentioned, isn't actually finished. The moat is partially dug. The farm has been irrigated, with a system of levers in place (look at the notes if you're confused, I tried to make them as clear as possible). I didn't do very well with the trade goods, as no-one wanted to build the smelter, and even when they did, Lav was unfortauntely busy with some building and mining work.

Actually, the only objectives I managed to complete were the irrigation, the drawbridge and the office. The walls/moat are nearly finished, and the meeting hall isn't far off. Status report below:



I'm going to take a short break, as writing this took a looong time. Well, for me at least (the browser lags more with the more there is in the text box). Apologies, but I'll ready the next meeting as soon as I can. Questions? Condemnations? Curses? Throw them my way. Ta.

[Emmanovi]

Bugger, save file. Give me a minute...

http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=1057

[Hilscher]

Basically I feel we should wrap up as many outstanding projects as we can. You did a good job - it's natural and efficient that we vote for more things to be done than can actually be done. For that reason I'm going to try to focus my movements on finishing outstanding tasks rather than adding new work. A couple notes: The door connected to the resevoir which has a tunnel leading to our staircase poses a flooding risk and I don't see its purpose. Additionally, I had already carved out the meeting hall, so now we have an extra room that I guess can be used for storage.


I move that a wall be added to wall off the reservoir from our staircase, unless it serves some purpose I'm not aware of. This can easily be done by adding the wall flush with the door that already exists, and keeping the door locked, which it, I pray to the gods, already is. That way no Dwarves will wall themselves into the tunnel.


I move to finish the walls, and moat, which should include an entrance and draw bridge in the south, at least for the time being, until we can realize Lav's causeway megaproject. This will require cancelling a 3 cubit wide entrance on the South side.


I move we channel out a space for a water wheel, add a channel adjacent and to the east of the visible channel topside, so that mechanical energy will be sent down to the next zlevel. The waterwheel and mechanics of our waterfall should finally be finished. A grate should be added, too, to keep critters out.


I move, perhaps most importantly, that we finally create a two level tower, the first level guarding our entrance and serving as a barracks; hopefully we'll get some peasants in the spring to serve as a small town guard force equipped with pick axes. The second level should have compass point exits to the north, east, south and west, for catways to be built later. The bottom level should have exits to the east and west, preferably off the north 'wing.' The east wing should feed into a very short gauntlet with a few traps that can be expanded farther next season. The west should feed into an inner courtyard with its own drawbridges (but no moat) tied to the same lever as the ones guarding the outer walls, the siege lock-down lever, these exiting north and south (similar to the 10.2 figure which I believe failed due to semantics) except that the gauntlet will be in the east instead. The inner courtyard will still enclose the well and depot, but that's hardly the point.

Lastly, I move we mass produce picks of whatever kind of metal we can. Most our dwarves are going to be either farmers, wood cutters, or miners, and our military should consist almost entirely of reservist miner/soldiers, as iron picks make excellent weapons in the hands of professional miners. This provides expandable vocational training for peasants as well.

[LegoLord]

I vote for the completion of the wall, the flood-protection measures from the reservoir, and for the beginnings of a water wheel battery.  Grates will be unnecessary, as anything in the brook will be vermin, and those sneak through everything.  Anything big enough to be blocked by a grate or fortification will be too big to travel through the shallow brook, unless we channeled the cubits that lie both under the wall and on either side of the wall (which would create a water tunnel).

[Org]

I vote for the completion of the wall, the flood-protection measures from the reservoir, and for the beginnings of a water wheel battery.  Grates will be unnecessary, as anything in the brook will be vermin, and those sneak through everything.  Anything big enough to be blocked by a grate or fortification will be too big to travel through the shallow brook, unless we channeled the cubits that lie both under the wall and on either side of the wall (which would create a water tunnel).

I agree.

Now, what animals do we have?

[Emmanovi]

Right. The time is currently shortly before 01:15 GMT on the 30th May 2009. (I'm sorry, I'm very bad at time conversion. I'm going to log things using my local time zone, apologies if this is confusing). I hereby call to order the second official meeting of the League of Liberty.

Within the next 24 hours, motions may be made. Any motions made after 01:15 GMT on the 31st May will automatically fail.
Within the next 48 hours, motions may be seconded. Any motions which are not seconded by 01:15 GMT on the 1st June will automatically fail.
Within the next 72 hours, motions may be voted on. Any motion whose "for" votes do not exceed its "agin" votes will fail after 01:15 GMT on the 2nd of June.

EDIT: Let it be noted that with 10 dwarves, a majority vote is 6 ayes or nays.

List of motions moved to next meeting post along.

[Emmanovi]

Now, what animals do we have?

Animal population of Equalvoice:

Two cats, both female
One horse, female
One muskox, female
Four trained war dogs, two female and two male
Five puppies, two female and three male

Three wild groundhogs

[Org]

Okay. We need two male cats.

Then we breed. and we kill a few. Keep cat pop low.

[LegoLord]

Okay. We need two male cats.

Then we breed. and we kill a few. Keep cat pop low.

Nay.  Too much risk for catsplosion as is - there are migrants.  We'll have male cats from migrant waves before we need to worry about cat population.  They last awhile.

Of course, we could order cats every year and only buy more females.

[Org]

Okay. We need two male cats.

Then we breed. and we kill a few. Keep cat pop low.

Nay.  Too much risk for catsplosion as is - there are migrants.  We'll have male cats from migrant waves before we need to worry about cat population.  They last awhile.

Of course, we could order cats every year and only buy more females.

I know. But this is safest/best/meat way.

[Emmanovi]

{Argh, crash means I must rewrite this. It is now briefer, sorry.}

I have seconded and voted on some measures, I shan't excplicitly state which as they can be seen above.

I could agree with creating picks for every able-bodied dwarf, but I do not wish to waste too many resources. Hence I do not support the mass production of picks.

I do not agree with breeding cats. It is far too dangerous, they are too difficult to control.

However, I would like to motion the gathering of livestock, say cows, horses and so on, from migrants and caravans, and placing them in a pen to breed. Livestock create more meat and so on, and we can limit their growth and suchlike much more easily. This pen could be above or below ground, I don't mind. The easiest way would be to designate a pit from above (only 1 z-level fall) and then have a walled off or otherwise enclosed area which is only accessible by two doors which are tightly closed. Ideally this enclosure should also have a source of water - I know there is no in-game effect, but aesthetics are excellent. If it could be above ground with plants and trees, even better.