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[Fishbulb]

So I did something a little different with my military this time out, and I'm not sure I like how it turned out.

I built my barracks and all that, but rather than activating anyone, I installed eight screw pumps in it, and gave my eight most useless most trusted dwarves no labors but pump operating. I let them work out for a year. Meanwhile, I had my smiths turning out giant axe blades and leggings, and my smelters melting them again, all to buff up.

Unfortunately the orcs didn't get the "don't attack me, I'm training up" memo. They sent a siege in the summer of my second year. I quickly recruited my eight — none of whom had ever put on armor or held a weapon before — gave them iron chain mail and war hammers, and sent them into the fray.

Orcs went splattering of course, but there was a butcher's bill to be paid. I lost one dwarf outright, and two lost arms (one at the elbow, one at the wrist; two years later they're both still unconscious).

But the most heartbreaking casualty was a girl who lost both her eyes and got a brown wound to her brain. I half doubted she'd wake up, and half wanted to just wall up her room and try not to look at it.

But I didn't. And she recovered. At least as much as you can when your eyes have been gouged out and you have permanent brain damage. She sort of wandered around the meeting hall for a little while, then went back to sleep in her room. I looked at her thoughts. "Medtob has been ecstatic lately. She made a new friend recently. She slept in a fine bedroom lately. She received water recently. She received food recently. She was able to rest and recuperate recently."

And then down at the bottom, "She is getting used to tragedy."

God, I just wanted to cry. I saw in her preferences that she likes realgar, aluminum and "donkeys for their stubbornness." So now she's got a huge bedroom floored in realgar, with an aluminum statute, aluminum table, aluminum chair and aluminum cabinet. I also put an aluminum cage in there, and as soon as the damn caravan comes back, I'm buying her the most adorable donkey in the world.

Oh, and I had her room engraved, of course. In amongst the cheese and the "the dwarves are laboring" ones was an engraving of Medtob Minebanners and the orc. Medtob Minebanners is striking down the orc.

I know she can't see it. But maybe it's a bas relief, and she can touch it and know what a hero she is.

Damn this game.

[askovdk]

  Beautiful.
I don't know any game that creates epic stories like DF.

[KaelGotDwarves]

It's funny we don't care about our red shirt (cheesemaker/soapmaker/peasant) dwarves until they do something awesome and you're like 'holy shit get that guy a golden tomb'!

/cool story bro

[Fishbulb]

I have an update.

In the fall of the third year, the orcs came again. In greater numbers. A squad of marksmen got into the warehouse level, and down the main stairs to the great hall before I could stop them.

Ten dwarves died. Including Medtob.

Then one of my cooks went berzerk and murdered my wounded mayor in his bed.

Then the tantrums came.

[Hoborobo234]

oh god

Don't give up, this needs to be documented

If you have "your fortress has crumbled to its end" re-claim

[Fishbulb]

In retrospect, perhaps it was unwise to try to impose some order by making my hammer lords into fortress guards.

Many have died in the beatings.

Current population: 27. Down from 49.

[Fishbulb]

My furnace operator had a tantrum and killed a pet. She was sentenced to 147 days in prison for it. While chained, another pet got too close and she killed it. Then she broke her chains. Then she broke her chains again.

She's currently up to a 503-day prison sentence, not counting what time she's already served.

EDIT: I posted too soon. After repeated tantrums, she got up to 572 days, then died from thirst. Presumably because she kept trying to bite the people who brought her water.

[sono]

Do all you people play without any defensive structures just for the challenge, or have you never seen a medievial fortress in your life?
Why would you send out green guys if you can bunker and solve problems with magma?

[RedWick]

Do all you people play without any defensive structures just for the challenge, or have you never seen a medievial fortress in your life?
Why would you send out green guys if you can bunker and solve problems with magma?

Because having FUN is more interesting than playing safe.

[Fishbulb]

Do all you people play without any defensive structures just for the challenge, or have you never seen a medievial fortress in your life?

Just for the challenge. Previously I laid trap fields that were sufficient to stop all sieges and two out of the three titans that I'd run up against. Heck, even this last time I could've just locked the hatch and waited for the orcs to get bored and leave; I had underground farms and a well. But I wanted to try the military thing. And it was, indeed, Fun.

[Hippoman]

Amazing story. I want to hear more.

[jokermatt999]

Not as tragic, but also somehow incredible story that happened to me today. It should be mentioned before the start that I don't have the best luck with cave ins, although it should be pretty quickly apparent.

Edit: Wow, I almost forgot my actual tragic story. It's after the first paragraph.

I embarked on a mission to undermine and collapse a goblin tower. However, the real target wasn't the tower itself, but the demon leader of the goblin situation, the demon the Age of the world was named after. After a glorious collapse, I checked the units screen to confirm the kill...and I found out that demons can fly. Aww, carp. So, I decided to still kill the demon with a cave in...but a more interesting one. I built a tower to the tallest Z level I could; 25 levels above it. At the top, I built a bridge (which do not support constructions, and are thus good for causing cave ins without effort), and a wall to cave on top of the demon. However, the completer of the project was the current leader of the small 4 dwarf party, nicknamed "Dear Leader". The cave in killed the demon, but Dear Leader also fell to her death. As I saw her corpse lying at the bottom of the ruins of the dark tower, I felt like the tiny smile on the dwarf icon was her smile at completing her mission.

Story 2: the tragic one

So, I was attempting to make some magma forges, and I'd got a room set up, and channels underneath it for the magma...but I messed up on how I made it. I couldn't channel out the magma from above, I'd have to actually have a dwarf mine or carve a fortification to get the magma out. I decided to go with the latter route, and set the jobs up for my 2 channels. The first channel, a child shows up. I shout at the game, cancel the job, but the child comes back to do it again. Apparently, he was a determined little dwarf. He begins carving up the fortification, and the 2nd dwarf shows up for the other channel. It's the hammerer. My mood turns around, as I'd been wanting to get rid of the murderous bastard. However, I'm whiplashed back to horror as the child finishes his fortification...and outruns the magma! I was so happy, it was all going perfectly.

Then, the hammerer decided such work was beneath his noble stature, and left his carving unfinished. Horrified, I watched as the miracle child began to carve again. He was not as lucky the second time.

(Side note: That magma channel had some more interesting times later on. I messed with megabeast size so they'd survive worldgen, but didn't realize I could not undo that. I wound up with a size 200 bronze colossus in my fort, wrecking everything. He punched out the door to the magma channel, and melted his feet. For years and several reclaims, I had a huge lumbering colossus of death that couldn't catch anyone.)

[Safe-Keeper]

Do all you people play without any defensive structures just for the challenge, or have you never seen a medievial fortress in your life?
Why would you send out green guys if you can bunker and solve problems with magma?

Because the enemy mostly have siege engines. You can shut them out by literally just locking thin wooden doors against them. Not to mention that traps are ridiculously overpowered and can be built way too easily (as discussed in Dwarf Talk and on forums).

I build big fortifications, too, and love it, but first of all it's not necessarily very dwarfish, and secondly, it tends to make things too easy.

[Skorpion]

Fortifications ARE dwarfy. At least, they are to me. I think dwarves should modify the environment. Channel holes, floor over pits, divert rivers, build huge walls of imported stone blocks.

[Itnetlolor]

Here's a pretty sad entry from the starter team of my project.

Y2S3: Tragedy Struck Hard

It was as bad as it sounded.

My team was project-oriented; the reclaim team is a little wiser; but had to make sacrifices towards working on the project in order to repair the base, beef up it's defenses, and cordon off the area, with a tree farm or 2, in order to be able to focus solely on the project, and side projects involving transforming the camp into a way-station for other airships, but especially Bloodfist itself.

Difference between leaders: the reclaimer had military experience; and also started with 70 troops; not a team of 7. However, the initial leader had engineering experience. It was fortunate most of his plans and constructions survived.

But yeah, that entry is still one of the most depressing ones.