Most of my time has been spent micromanaging the digging of a semi-elaborate underground waterway to the fort. The idea was that water would flow down a long shaft from the river, and the water pressure would turn it into a fountain as it spurts out a hole under the apartments. The fountain water would collect under the floor in a large separate cistern, and be removed via pumping stack, preferably towards the river.
That was the plan anyway. I got as far as most of the digging, before everything went back to Hell...
Things start off swimmingly when a kobold gets spotted by a zombie tigerfish. I didn't even realize they reacted to each other. The other two thieves escaped empty-clawed, but this one was immediately dismembered by multiple Hellish beasts. It will soon be a recurring theme for this update.
Huzzah! Tombcities has its first fey mood, and it's actually useful. Amazingly, Akigagak needed just one metal bar to begin his masterpiece, and he was kind enough to grab a hunk of steel. Oh boy oh boy oh boy.
I don't have much chance to savor the anticipation, as I have to save the miners from their own incompetence while digging the river-side part of the waterway. They're constantly harassed by walking-distance and monsters, but the military should be able to kill at least one of those problems...
Goddammit. For what it matters, the gazombies might as well be on another planet, but
nooo sure as fuck can't dig with them around. I revise my plans slightly and work proceeds, but I notice some packs of zombie warthogs approaching the worksite. Time to send that valiant six-dwarf military into action! Commander WorkerDrone, to arms! WorkerDrone? Hey Worker...
Goddammit. Okay, so I just drafted the miners and let JoshuaFH kill them all. It's work four times already, don't mess with success. While those shenanigans wrap themselves up, Akigagak gets busy-
I have no idea who Thob Channeledaxes is, but they sound important and dwarfy. Soon after, the principle digging finishes up, and I get started on cleaning out the tunnels of loose stone. Partly because I don't want it cluttering up the stock screen, and because hey, you can never have too much stone right? I've got eighteen dwarves idle anyway, so let's put them to work.
You could call this "poor labor management". You could also call it "where everything went wrong". One of the problems with coming back to Dwarf Fortress after a long hiatus is that you forget exactly how the game, and your own strategies, are supposed to work. See, the fort was already running on a razor's edge of booze, and after I ordered this big cleanup project the stocks plummeted.
I figured my farmers were too busy hauling and set their jobs straight, but nothing seemed to help. It wasn't until much later that I realized I'd inadvertently forbid all the microcline boulders composing their shops in my mad quest for construction. This set off a chain reaction of dwarves filling out over the stupidly hostile terrain to drink from the accursed river. I knew it was too late to set things right, but at least I could clear the way for them.
WorkerDrone finally finished hibernating, so I sent the squad out to do battle with the two undead hippos accosting the pathway. Hey, they whomped ass last time I sent them out, what could go wrong?
Goddammit. What can go wrong? Everything, apparently. Cheeetar gets torn asunder soon after, leaving the entire squad and virtually all my weapons and armor strewn about the field in pieces. Weirdly, some unarmed farmers fare much better against only slightly smaller foes-
Confidence restored in my dwarves' abilities as warriors, I send them and the miners into battle as well. Gnawing on WorkerD's corpse probably wore them out, so those two hippos... couldn't... possibly...
Goddammit. Okay, this is getting silly now. Duke 2.0, you've got the only other battleaxe, take a half-dozen expendables, and come back with your axe lodged in a hippo skull, or don't come back at all!
Goddammit... What have I done? All my friends... Fine. That's how it's going to be then. You want the rest of their blood Tombcities? Let's see just how much you can swallow now!
The words echo across time...
None can fault their bravery. Only their results.
Goddammit.The corpses are left where they fell as I order a full retreat. It's pointless anyway, the survivors have their own ideas about where to spend their last moments and flee in a mad rage. The hippos manage to chase down most of the pets and couple of the children, while the grief and angry stricken remnants of the fortress do their best to tear it apart by hand-
I'd say Goddammit, but I'm going to treasure this screenshot forever.
They're hanging around outside the doors now, but do wander off as the fancy takes them. Six dwarves are left alive - Smokeologist, Emperor_Jonathan, and the original Cog are all laid up with relatively minor broken and mangled limbs, but because they wouldn't drink booze if they had any, they'll be dead within the season. Only Vester, Cthulhu, and smigenboger are still able bodied enough to walk around, but all three are on the verge of insanity. They won't stop tantruming long enough to brew booze for themselves, so they keep trying to trek to the river, which is essentially suicide anyway. Technically, there's also hillburra and Baby Logem, but the baby will die when Cog does, and hillburra's just hoping to bleed out before another hippo comes along.
Funny, I'm pretty sure this is exactly where I came in. Fuckin' Tombcities man. But there is one ray of hope in this wretched predicament...
Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night, nor the winds of change, nor a fortress challenged, nor murderous Hellspawned wildlife will stay us from our appointed delivery of useless goods and overpriced food.Pity I can't get anyone to take stuff out to them. The liaison immediately left in a huff of course, because the mayor he was looking for now rests in itty bitty pieces hanging from the fleshless tusks of a hippo. Maybe I can still squeeze some useful action out of these survivors...
Poll
3 (15%)
Author
Topic: One For The Road: The Return To Tombcities (Read 11432 times)