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Author Topic: THE tantrum spiral - from 120~ dwarves to 2  (Read 3437 times)

Danarca

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THE tantrum spiral - from 120~ dwarves to 2
« on: September 10, 2009, 01:34:14 pm »

Little backstory first:
I wanted to try a fort whose entire population was created directly from the starting seven.
I also wanted this to go a bit faster, so I removed the children tag, and the multiple-birth-is-rare tag.
I also removed migrants, or so I thought.
In return, I reduced a dwarfs life expectancy to 2 - 4 years, genned and embarked.

The year was 105.
I took inspirations from the caves kobolds live in, and "planned" the fort from that design.
However, 2 - 4 years proved to be too little for the dwarves, the starting 7 never managed to reproduce, even though 6 of them married each other.

Second time, I reclaimed upon the first fort, and had the modifed the raws to give the dwarves a lifetime of 4 - 9 years.
The year was 108.
I went to bed yesterday with Dtil unpausing it the entire night, at 2219.
Today I get up to a message informing me of the fortress' withering awayness.
Dtil tells me the last unpause was at 0345, (This was at 0600~) the fort lasted until year 120.
4 artifacts was created from 116 - 118.

I reclaim again, the year is 121.
51 dwarf skulls on embark, not bad I think.
I feel ill, so I go to bed again, leaving it genning.

I get up again at 1446, to meet 72 dwarves, all legendary in hanging out, with 50 of them being peasants, rest being migrants for some reason.
The year is 131, there's 5 artifacts, and a lot of the dwarves got grandmothers, uncles etc., just like a king!
Around year 132 the population have peaked at 120 - 130, with a 1/3 of the fort being babies (They're babies for one year before growing up to be a productive member of society peasant).
The food production begins to falter, since the entire fort and it's limited industry was made for 20 or so dwarves.

The tantrums begin slowly, dwarves being hungry, then angry when their parents die.
Everyone in the fort was either related, or friends, due to a 2x3 dining room, to promote breeding.
This was going to be glorious.

The mothers die due to old age, the fort reaching an age where the first babies are just too old, the babies, often triplets, plunge themselves into the well.
The miasma rises, further enraging the dwarf population, tired of being hungry and electing mayors who often die of old age before finishing their terms.

The riots start, dwarves plunge into each other, the larger dining room I made was a battlefield consisting of toppled over tables, bedrooms are being ripped apart by their owners and the ponds are tainted by the rotting corpses of the orphans.

Forward to Mid-winter 133, maybe 1½ year after the first dwarves went hungry, theres 2 0 (The engraver killed the remaining sane dwarf) dwarves left.
And now for some pictures, unfourtantly I got none of the tantrum going on, but I think you'll get the picture...
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
MAP
« Last Edit: September 10, 2009, 02:02:32 pm by Danarca »
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Necro

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Re: THE tantrum spiral - from 120~ dwarves to 2
« Reply #1 on: September 10, 2009, 01:50:14 pm »

Jesus, those empty halls look eery. Truly savage.

I've never had a single tantrum spiral, and nowadays almost wish for it whenever a dwarf starts to tantrum.
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RavingManiac

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Re: THE tantrum spiral - from 120~ dwarves to 2
« Reply #2 on: September 10, 2009, 02:43:53 pm »

The dwarven mind was not made for 4-9 year lifespans. Considering that the average dwarf dies from old age at about 160 years old, your dwarves were having friends and relatives die at about 25 times the normal rate.
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Danarca

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Re: THE tantrum spiral - from 120~ dwarves to 2
« Reply #3 on: September 10, 2009, 05:08:19 pm »

The dwarven mind was not made for 4-9 year lifespans. Considering that the average dwarf dies from old age at about 160 years old, your dwarves were having friends and relatives die at about 25 times the normal rate.
Yup :)
10 - 12 years and a fortress is doomed it would seem like.

Might make a good community game, and an even better challenge :p
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darkflagrance

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Re: THE tantrum spiral - from 120~ dwarves to 2
« Reply #4 on: October 06, 2009, 09:12:29 pm »

This thread inspired me to do the same thing and attempt to survive that way. I use the extra population to carve huge, empty halls in the mountainside that I could never use. By engraving at decade-intervals, I ensure that the engravings capture the deaths of the previous generations. I've actually lasted 20 years on my previous fort in this style, which I abandoned from boredom.

Did you ever continue with this style of fortress?

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Danarca

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Re: THE tantrum spiral - from 120~ dwarves to 2
« Reply #5 on: October 06, 2009, 11:24:36 pm »

No I went for a fort with DD, but I think the next one I'll be having are going to be this + DD + 1x1 embark square.
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Impaler[WrG]

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Re: THE tantrum spiral - from 120~ dwarves to 2
« Reply #6 on: October 06, 2009, 11:45:28 pm »

The passages have a very chaotic layout, I've never seen it before, is this something you did on purpose or is it something that's done by DF itself because you reclaimed the site?
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Sysice

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Re: THE tantrum spiral - from 120~ dwarves to 2
« Reply #7 on: October 06, 2009, 11:57:37 pm »

He said he did it on purpose because he wanted to have it look like a kobold cave.

Also, how did the dwarves live that long without you to watch? labors are turned off by default when a child grows up.. and with the low life-span, the growers, hunters, and gatherers should have dies long ago. Did you just build a huge stockpile before they died?
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Danarca

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Re: THE tantrum spiral - from 120~ dwarves to 2
« Reply #8 on: October 07, 2009, 02:31:19 am »

I can't quite remember it to be honest, but I don't think it would've made much difference, maybe just stalled it for a few years if the food industry were big enough.
The tantrum spiral were sparked by the deaths from starvation, but they would probably have started anyways when the natural deaths would really kick in.

It's a pretty fun challenge though, constant stream of workforce :)
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Clutter god the god of godly gods.
Om Nom nom nom nom
Ah yes the god of stone stockpiles, long randomly generated names, and gods.

AtomicPaperclip

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Re: THE tantrum spiral - from 120~ dwarves to 2
« Reply #9 on: October 07, 2009, 10:15:11 pm »

Oh the disorganization x.x
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Devast

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Re: THE tantrum spiral - from 120~ dwarves to 2
« Reply #10 on: October 07, 2009, 11:06:37 pm »

Just wondering, do you have to start a new fort/world if you take out MULTIPLE_LITTER_RARE, and how did you edit migrants?
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darkflagrance

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Re: THE tantrum spiral - from 120~ dwarves to 2
« Reply #11 on: October 08, 2009, 01:19:48 am »

You can't just take out multiple litter rare. You have to replace it with a specified litter size. I believe. Changes to the creature should not require a regen.

Eliminate migrants by setting a low population cap. Mine's set to 10 so that I get one wave of migrants for genetic diversity. You can set yours to 3 or something small, although I've heard one wave tends to arrive anyway - it's up to you to decide what to do with it.
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Sabre_Justice

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Re: THE tantrum spiral - from 120~ dwarves to 2
« Reply #12 on: October 08, 2009, 06:11:07 am »

In the words of The Heavy: So much blood.
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Shakma

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Re: THE tantrum spiral - from 120~ dwarves to 2
« Reply #13 on: October 08, 2009, 08:02:34 am »

In the words of The Heavy: So much blood.

or red sand
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Danarca

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Re: THE tantrum spiral - from 120~ dwarves to 2
« Reply #14 on: October 08, 2009, 12:34:23 pm »

In the words of The Heavy: So much blood.

or red sand
Next megaproject: using this little trick I shall paint a sunset with dwarven blood!
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Clutter god the god of godly gods.
Om Nom nom nom nom
Ah yes the god of stone stockpiles, long randomly generated names, and gods.
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