No buildings below ground means no screw pumps to empty the aquifer? Unless you just channel out the ground above them, but you could do that with anything (thus negating any point I see in the challenge except for exasperating its already labor-intensive nature). Most of the evil beaches I have contain no stone above the aquifer, and the others don't have any evil civs nearby (finding an evil beach next to evil HFS-riddled mountains with no hostile civs is common for me). Of course someone else may have better luck. Also, as far as I know, you can't build beds nor tables outside, nor can you designate meeting areas, bedrooms or dining rooms from them if they exist on non-subterranean tiles. Am I missing something?
First, you have to channel out to puncture an aquifer, because you need to have an area to build your stairs, not just water to pump. 2nd, screw pumps are a (M)echanics option, so the rule as presented allows you to build it underground.
beds, chairs, et al. require they be built 'inside', not UG. So building a roof over the desired location is sufficient.
Edit: One could just channel everything down given the rules, but this makes your fortress more vulnerable, and arguably has less style than building above ground.
I understand the challenging side of it, but this is a survival challenge, so making it harder to survive, not harder to play, is the idea. The difficulty in accomplishing our goals should come from that factor. I find it no different to build within a walled area on the surface than to do it below ground, only more of a pain in the ass for players who want to pursue a different style or want to use the surface and subsurface for other megastructures. I guess what I'm saying is that I am categorically against a surface-building rule. This is a survival challenge, not a restricted playstyle challenge. We can have another thread for that. I want players to have the freedom to be as creative as they want in an extremely adverse environment.
It does increase how hard it is to survive, because it increases your exposure to the environment. Tunnelling underground is one of the best ways to increase survivability because its the fastest way to restrict access to your dwarfs, and thus makes them much easier to defend.
Please start generating with the Legendary Lands mod, as that seems to be the best way to guarantee a hard time surviving. Sure it's a kind of "everything plus the kitchen sink" mod, but it will provide the challenge we need. If someone wants to piece together a mod with a lot of its challenge that better preserves the nature of vanilla DF, please go ahead. If you want a black clothing challenge, that's fine with me but it seems extremely arbitrary, like coming up with who can have the most eaten sunshine roasts or the most legendary wrestlers. It will likely be unofficial. The other ideas sound much more interesting. Another note on no building below ground: feeding dwarves on skeletal beasts and whatever seeds the later caravans may (or may not) bring sounds a little ridiculous.
Not sure how interested i am in leg lands.
Black dye is so rarely use i thought that was more entertaining than not. Also, many people mostly ignore the clothing industry, so it gives an incentive to diversify and use dwarf-hours doing that instead of other things.
You can always use gather plants to get plants, which you can brew/process, and then use the seeds you get from that to start your farming.
Your challenges seem significantly artifact-heavy, but since that's one of your favorite aspects that's no surprise. And it is refreshing to find a way to bring in that feature of the game without further unbalancing the economic contest. It may be fun to create a social-skill heavy dwarf, though as far as I know all that requires is designating a single meeting room and keeping a dwarf with a suitable personality idle for 5 years? I tend to shoot my leader to legendary in bookkeeping and dabble him in something useful for artifacts, then employ him as a lightspeed hauler.
They were intended to be in addition to the previous awards, not the full set.
I have never actually seen legendary social skills, although i haven't tried. But i do have a fortress in its 21st year. (Admittedly, they keep pretty busy). Getting one in ~5 years will mean not using that dwarf for other things, so if you choose to do so, you're passing up on other opportunities.
Would you consider displayed wealth counting double as a bug? It really looks that way, and if we come to a consensus on that we should implement a rule regarding it in the next round.
Maybe, although it has to be WAD because there'd be no reason for it to exist if it didn't. It is something for people to be aware of if they're maximizing wealth.
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Topic: New Survival Contest (drawing to a close) (Read 21052 times)