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Author Topic: Screamtortures - Bunkering down like Germans, hopefully with less leader suicide  (Read 29965 times)

AlienChickenPie

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Re: Screamtortures - Get ready for Dwarf Siege 2: Electric Boogaloo!
« Reply #105 on: November 15, 2009, 07:18:03 pm »

This place is a crowded and indefensible mess, and I'm going to do something about that.
There's a nice, wide tunnel ending in a hall that borders the outside world. Is it okay for me to break a wall and turn it into a visitor center for the rape and pillage tourism industry?
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Frogwarrior

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Re: Screamtortures - Get ready for Dwarf Siege 2: Electric Boogaloo!
« Reply #106 on: November 15, 2009, 09:13:36 pm »

Hey, it's your ballgame. Tearing things down to build up a venue for inflicting painful death is always smiled upon.

Also, using war dogs is acceptable, but only if their death rate is high. Otherwise, you're a dog-lover. Nobody likes dog-lovers.
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Lately, I'm proud of MAGMA LANDMINES:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=91789.0
And been a bit smug over generating a world with an elephant monster that got 87763 sentient kills.
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=104354.0

darkflagrance

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Re: Screamtortures - Get ready for Dwarf Siege 2: Electric Boogaloo!
« Reply #107 on: November 16, 2009, 07:35:12 am »

This place is a crowded and indefensible mess, and I'm going to do something about that.
There's a nice, wide tunnel ending in a hall that borders the outside world. Is it okay for me to break a wall and turn it into a visitor center for the rape and pillage tourism industry?

I think this was its intended purpose before it was left incomplete.

***************************************************8

Turn:

The first things I noticed were the meeting zone in the zoo and the large, well-decorated dining hall. The zones were too large, in my opinion - I have played baby-splosion-type forts before, and normally I'd set a 3x3 dining room and a 1x2 tile meeting zone inside it.

---

All of a sudden I get a message that a tanner has died. I zoom to the spot, but the only out of the ordinary thing there is a cat chunk. And tons of blood.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

---

Since cats have 8-18 years to have kids, however, I decided we could afford a second distinct meeting area in the zoo around the cage in the room across the hall from the dining room.

They appear to be hanging around a single Shared Cage in the center of the room, riveted by its motley contents.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

 After setting some production orders for statues and ordering the smoothing of the hallway to the south, and the digging out of new storage rooms, I decide to check out the cage for myself.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

That's the Sheriff for Laoick's sake! :o And from the looks of it, she's also our expedition leader. She's lying in a miserable heap on a pile of bones at the bottom of the cage. Along with a kitten. Who knows what horrible things the other cats had been forcing them to do to each other...

I quickly set about releasing her with a lever in the hallway. Unfortunately, she refused to re-acclimate to normal life, and promptly went berserk. Our unfortunate leader was shortly thereafter splattered against the walls by a passing recruit.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The worst part was that she was our only appraiser.

In other news, I noted the accomplishment of the recruit by giving him a title.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Speaking of the military, I noticed that most of our military units are organized into groups of 4 and have nervous injuries. I reorganized them so that all the healthy wrestlers were in one unit, changing the titles of the nerve-damaged to "Crippled Warrior" before further drafting another 8 cats. This problem is caused by the fact that we lack large quantities of armor better than leather, and that our armory is lacking in key pieces. I attempted to remedy the problem but ran out of leather in the process.

Also, at the end of my turn, some of the healthy cats were further crippled. :-\

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I might recommend undrafting some of the cripples to let them get married, so they can still be productive in some way.

----

By the way, seeing the many animals in the fort, and the breeding pen one z-level down, I decided to help with the future drain on our fps by cutting off the animals' pathfinding map via a channel and drawbridge, linked to the lever that I had used to release the sheriff.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

---

Taking stock of legendaries, we have a legendary mason, stone crafter, and miner. Another cat got a bonecarving mood and is now legendary in that (good for the bones we'll have from slaughtered animals.) Our best warrior is an elite wrestler with nerve damage.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I left the Sheriff position blank to discourage feline justice, and in spring the Foodmaster was chosen as the new expedition leader, before being elected the first Mayor of Screamtortures.

---

I took a hauler in the fort and appointed her the broker. By the end of my turn she was performing competently in her new profession.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I mostly traded stone junk and old invader clothes, and bought wood, food, leather, and metal. I remember requesting tons of meat, as well as leather bins.

Given the fragile nature of the lives of cats, I might recommend future overseers train back-up appraisers; it's not hard, just have them be the first cat to view the goods of each passing trader, before switching over to the real broker for actual trading.

p.s. What I wouldn't give for a migrant clothier to actually make use of the bins of cloth I erroneously bought off the elves...

---

Huh, what's this?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

So that's who's been killing random cats... >:(

By the thing the markscats got there, the ranger was dead, and the culprit was nowhere in sight.

---

Four artifacts were created during my turn, and our fortress value has rocketed to ~1 million from 32,000.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I set them up in the middle of the central hallway so passing cats can rub themselves against them in ecstasy.

Due to this jump in value, a small army of cats has migrated to our fortress, increasing our population by about 50%:
1 Glassmaker
1 Ranger (leather armor!)
6 Peasants
1 Butcher
1 Animal Trainer
1 Animal Caretaker (?????)
1 Animal Dissector
1 Armorsmith
1 Metalsmith
1 Child
1 Woodcutter
1 Potash Maker
1 Fish Dissector
1 Craftscat
1 Engraver
1 Mason
1 Thresher (so useless...)
Pets: 3 horses, cat

For a total of 22.

Also, a kitten was born:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

---

I got bored waiting for the faraway magma forges to fill up, and so I dug out a new set of magma forges nearer to the pipe. Hopefully they will be fully online during the next  overseer's turn. If not, you try try obsidianizing the magma to block off the extra connection.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Finally:

No attacks at all - fall was strangely quiet, with neither sight nor sign of dwarves, though I had the wrestlers  patrolling the fort against the possibility of attack from the hordes of snailmen outside.

Also, for ease of viewing, I bound some important locations to F1-F5, like the entrance, the forges, the depot, and I think the dining room.

P.S.
It looks like the foodmaster is due to give birth during ACP's turn.
« Last Edit: November 16, 2009, 10:00:47 am by darkflagrance »
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darkflagrance

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Re: Screamtortures - Get ready for Dwarf Siege 2: Electric Boogaloo!
« Reply #108 on: November 16, 2009, 10:25:42 am »

By the way, the Foodmaster appears to be one of the oldest cats left in the fortress other than the Leathermaster, and in my turn she got married, became expedition leader, was later elected mayor, and is about to have a child/children. I think she was the hero of my turn (other than the cat who killed the berserk sheriff).
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Servu

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Re: Screamtortures - Get ready for Dwarf Siege 2: Electric Boogaloo!
« Reply #109 on: November 16, 2009, 10:54:58 am »

Yeah, about the sheriff. I purposefully left her unmentioned from the turn report just to see your reaction. The story is that the sheriff fell asleep on a cage trap (Just a guess, I don't know how she got there) and when I later noticed her in my animal stockpile, she was already miserable and I decided to make her the centerpiece of my statue garden instead of just letting her go crazy and die. (Since the cage shoved up as "cat cage" I was putting one of the (tame) kittens there for storage. When I noticed the sheriff I decided to put the kitten there anyway, to keep her company.) Actually I found keeping the mayor in a cage was most beneficial: Not a single mandate! Though her being our only appraiser was unfortunate.
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Hortun

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Re: Screamtortures - Get ready for Dwarf Siege 2: Electric Boogaloo!
« Reply #110 on: November 16, 2009, 02:22:16 pm »

Maybe I missed it, but why is it all of the cats are taking on nerve damage so easily? Are they all just sparring injuries? Is there something in the raws that makes them more susceptible to nerve damage? And does this nerve damage render them useless in some way?
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Frogwarrior

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Re: Screamtortures - Get ready for Dwarf Siege 2: Electric Boogaloo!
« Reply #111 on: November 16, 2009, 02:35:26 pm »

These are sparring injuries. However, they're worse than usual in standard DF because (a) they only have leather (and bone/shell?) armor, and (b) wrestling cats have a 1-6 gore damage bite, rather than the standard 1-2 bludgeon of a dwarf punch.
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Lately, I'm proud of MAGMA LANDMINES:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=91789.0
And been a bit smug over generating a world with an elephant monster that got 87763 sentient kills.
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=104354.0

darkflagrance

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Re: Screamtortures - Get ready for Dwarf Siege 2: Electric Boogaloo!
« Reply #112 on: November 16, 2009, 02:39:13 pm »

They are all probably sparring injuries (very common in dwarf fortress in general). Low-skill combat skill combined with weak or even no armor is the most obvious cause - some might have gotten it from battle as well, but given the manner in which our cats would have been utterly slaughtered in melee by the next dwarf siege that came just after I ended my turn (I let my saved game run to enjoy the spectacle of twenty cats bum-rushing a pair of elite marksdwarves and a macelord), I doubt it.

Nerve damage prevents a cat or other creature from ever sparring again. A future overseer can convert them into markscats if he or she wishes, however, because they will continue to practice archery.
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AlienChickenPie

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Re: Screamtortures - Get ready for Dwarf Siege 2: Electric Boogaloo!
« Reply #113 on: November 16, 2009, 03:34:15 pm »

I've started playing. My first order of business is to build a nice gauntlet in which the dwarves can be killed more easily.
15th Limestone - The initial digging work is finished, and the dwarves are here.
23rd Sandstone - The bastards got a markscat and a few outdoor workers, bu they've stopped there. The soldiers wait for the invading dwarves, while the miners and engineers keep improving the killing zone.
12th Timber - It's as if these idiots are waiting for us to be better prepared. We're currently furnishing the first of two marksdwarf rooms with targets, and furniture is being brought into the new barracks.
10th Moonstone - Well, damn. I left the comuter for a while, went back and the siege was gone. Several horse corpses and horses in traps imply a charge into the traps at the entrance, so I guess they did that and got scared. Also, the traders are here. The cats are so fast, it's beautiful to see them loading up the depot.
16th Granite - Work is nearly done on the Baker's Dozen. In other news, elves have arrived.
« Last Edit: November 16, 2009, 05:07:48 pm by AlienChickenPie »
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sir labreck

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Re: Screamtortures - Get ready for Dwarf Siege 2: Electric Boogaloo!
« Reply #114 on: November 16, 2009, 05:41:19 pm »

Nice ^_^

For the sparring, that quit a problem... You should stop them training in wrestle without any chain armour or so. If you have only marskcat, the fortress won't live long trusssst me :)

Did we have any bauxite? 
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Frogwarrior

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Re: Screamtortures - Get ready for Dwarf Siege 2: Electric Boogaloo!
« Reply #115 on: November 16, 2009, 06:00:07 pm »

But leather-clad wrestlers are so catlike! The true feline warriors are the ones who can't move one of their legs.



And this map does have bauxite, in the sedimentary layers under the forested area. As far as I know, though, nobody's done much excavating there.
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Lately, I'm proud of MAGMA LANDMINES:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=91789.0
And been a bit smug over generating a world with an elephant monster that got 87763 sentient kills.
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=104354.0

AlienChickenPie

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Re: Screamtortures - Get ready for Dwarf Siege 2: Electric Boogaloo!
« Reply #116 on: November 17, 2009, 12:46:07 am »

Alright, I'm done. Changes:
-Bridge added to main entrance to block the caravan entrance and force entrants through underground killing zone.
-Underground killing zone contains a maze where enemies get shot at by markscats and siege engines at the same time.
-Siege engine room is extra-wide to allow uninterrupted operation, and has extra room for ammo stockpiles
-Markscat room has several firing ranges and plenty of room for ammo or other stuff.
-After the maze, entrants enter the barracks where they face dozens of soldiers in close quarters while the markscats keep firing at them.
-In the forested area, I've erected the Baker's Dozen. It's a system of thirteen pillboxes containing enough room for a siege engine. They should allow you to fire at sieging enemies who decide to camp outside instead of coming in.
-Pillboxes are connected to each other and to the siege engine room by a system of tunnels. Future impromevents could include secure gates to let soldiers storm out of the pillboxes or second floors to allow marksdwarves to fire from above the treetops.
-A siege engineer has been cranking out catapult parts for the Baker's Dozen and operating the engines for a while. The fact that cats are so fast means that he got to be an expert siege engineer even though he had to build lots of catapult parts and take care of other mechanical duties.
-The levers that send entrants to the maze and control the shortcut shortens the maze are located in the statue garden.

My recommendations for the next player:
-Keep cranking out blowdarts to allow the markscats to train. We can definitely spare the bone, the animal reactor (visible to the south of the barracks) could supply us with any amount of bones.
-As soon as the magma level at the magma smelters gets high enough, start smelting the ridiculous amounts of iron ore we've accumulated. Our warriors deserve chainmail.
-Since we can't designate siege operators, they have to immigrate with the skill. Make sure you don't draft them, because they are rare.
-Try to figure out why such a small fraction of the military bothers to spar.

Here's the save:
http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=1600
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darkflagrance

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Re: Screamtortures - Get ready for Dwarf Siege 2: Electric Boogaloo!
« Reply #117 on: November 17, 2009, 04:05:08 am »

-Try to figure out why such a small fraction of the military bothers to spar.

It's all nerve damage. I recommend giving their armor to fresh cats and making all the old wrestlers markscats because crippled cats still shoot at ranges. Also, since they don't spar, it might be an even better idea to use them as haulers and cheap labor until they are needed for battle. It might even be an excellent idea to draft all migrants, keep the ones that survive nerve injury till elite status, and then release the failures to act as normal civilians.

Or you can dispose of them via suicidal charge.
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AlienChickenPie

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Re: Screamtortures - Get ready for Dwarf Siege 2: Electric Boogaloo!
« Reply #118 on: November 17, 2009, 10:41:16 am »

If that's the case, they should be deactivated and considered emergency reserves. Draft some skilled laborers in their place, the attributes gained from their civilian careers would make them better warriors and less likely to get nerve damage from sparring. When a siege rolls by, draft all the reservists and put them in the barrakcs, where they would serve as decent cannon fodder and cause some damage to the dwarves.
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Hortun

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Re: Screamtortures - Get ready for Dwarf Siege 2: Electric Boogaloo!
« Reply #119 on: November 17, 2009, 01:27:01 pm »

I suppose you could cycle civilians and military back and forth from labors to sparring to get an equilibrium of skill-ups and nerve damage. Then if there's a really big siege, you can activate just about everyone and they'll all have some military competence.

That might become cumbersome and difficult, though. Alternatively, you could have the nerve damaged dwarves on pump operation or engraving duty or something to build them to superdwarven toughness despite their military inability.
« Last Edit: November 17, 2009, 01:40:58 pm by Hortun »
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