Year 3 was not a good year for caravans. Both the elven and dwarven caravans were attacked by beak dogs; an elven merchant, the village liaison, and a random guard died, and the survivors ran off. In the spring, when I sent the squad out to defend the elven caravan, one of my wrestlers was wounded. Before we could get out to help him, harpies attacked him. We killed them, and the spring goblin ambush spawned on top of him. Once he bled to death, though, no more problems. I guess it was just his time.
Spring was when I decided to clear the pit. I lost 2 fighters and a wardog killing the naked mole dogs, particularly "Brainraven". He just would not go down. Nothing else gave us any trouble, though. One squad ganged up to push the troll into the pit, or at least that's what it looked like. There's still one cave swallowman wandering around somewhere, but it hasn't caused any trouble. Much like the beasts in the pond - only 1 frogman has ever gotten out. It probably helps that the pond is a level lower than it started, from irrigating my future treefarm.
The goblin's timing was off for the human caravan; I managed to buy the caravan out before the summer ambush hit, and between us we made short work of the goblins. The event was commemorated on the antman bone coffin I got from my bone carver's mood ("The goblin makes a plaintive gesture. The human is laughing.") The event wasn't nearly as important as the steel grate from last year, though, which showed up in three separate materials on that same coffin. I guess they really, really like that grate. Other artifacts this year: a leather face veil and a marble quern.
Maggot ranching is not going well. I keep running out of meat to bait the traps, and dwarves keep eating the maggots (usually the trapper or the milker, go figure). I've tried forbidding them, but then the maggots get dropped and vanish pretty quickly. So I'm not putting much effort into that.
Walled off the magnetite plateau so I can mine it all out without interference... not that I need the metal, given all the other ore around, but it's right there and it needs to be smoothed.
Oh, and I found bauxite. Which will be useful if I ever get to the magma, but I'm sure I won't be clearing HFS in the 5 year time. I don't have the soldiers to do it and survive, pretty sure anyway. Although I might give it a try -- I've never actually seen HFS in a game yet.
Kill totals, cumulative:
11 dark gnomes
11 beak dogs, 2 named
1 giant eagle
8 harpies
6 naked mole dogs, 1 named
1 troll
1 giant cave swallow
6 cave swallowmen
7 antmen
1 frogman
2 snailmen
3 kobold thieves
2 goblin thieves
18 goblin fighters (1 lasher, 6 pike, 4 sword, 3 spear, 4 wrestlers)
Losses:
4 dwarves, 3 dogs, some livestock
1 elf merchant
1 dwarf village liaison
1 caravan guard
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Topic: New Survival Contest (drawing to a close) (Read 20973 times)