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[Doppel]

Ok, weird weird idea. But the goal is for a fort to last either 5, 50, 500, 5000, etc...  in-game years.

The thing is, i can make something unique happen within a certain fortress after that period of time without actually manually making it happen. I could go as far as to make something happen after 5 billion or more in-game years without me doing anything, given that a fort doesn't crumble to ashes after all the dwarves die out. (although, its been a while since  one of my forts crumbled to ashes, i'm not sure whether time actually stops when it does? Or does time just keep going?)

I never ran a fort for more then, dunno, 20 years though so i can imagine the 50 year mark, the 500 and certainly the 5000 year mark is kinda out there though. Then again 50 years just doesn't sound epic enough.

So, what are your thoughts and did anyone ever ran a fort for, say, 500 years?

(by the by, the fort will be 3 or 4 tiles maximum and capped at about 100 dwarves, for optimal FPS)

[Nexii Malthus]

The oldest fort around here is about 200 years old as far as I know.

[pushy]

The oldest fort around here is about 200 years old as far as I know.

250 would be a reasonable estimate. The Flarechannels thread was last updated back in December and that fort was 237 years old at the time of the last update.

[labouts]

If you edit the announcement settings to avoid pausing of the game and embark on a relatively safe map, you can pretty much leave it alone and let it age. In 31.04 immigrants aren't easily scared away from your fort, so the populations tends to hover around 10-20 as immigrants replace insane and starving dwarves; too low to attract invaders. As long as you're not on a dangerous map, the fort is unlikely to collapse except by your own greed, mistakes, or sadistic acts.

[derekiv]

Aim for 500, that would be a notable achievement.

[Doppel]

Yes, i like 500 the most to. Never had a dwarf die of old age before, did anyone else?
(it could be 300 or 700 hundred though, its only a rough estimation, need to calculate it when the machinery is actually running)

[Hyndis]

Do a nanofort, just a 1x1 embark. Remove max age on dwarves. Disable all pause notifications. Have your original 7 be farmers and make sure there is water to drink. Turn off invaders as well.

Then just let it run. You can make it run much faster than usual by increasing your FPS cap from the default 100 to something much higher. You probably won't have the fortress be very productive, but it should be an eternally self sufficient hippy commune with dwarves standing around in a forest chatting and eating sunberries.

Most fortresses are eventually abandoned due to FPS issues. This would get around that problem. No digging, no building, no fighting, just hippy farmers.

[alway]

Ya, FPS is my biggest problem in forts. I've never managed to get over 20 years before FPS drops to around 20. Its really a shame, since old forts are much more fun due to having a sense of history and many fond memories of nearly Fun events. Not to mention they end up coated in an epic layer of megaprojects.

I'm not even sure why the FPS drops like it does; may be slow accumulation of socks, may be something more nefarious like size of the history file for the fort.

[Alkaios]

In my opinion, seeing as how it is possible to make a self sustaining fortress, that is impervious to defeat and walled off from the world, aging a fortress is really only a test of either one's computer's power or one's ability to control population numbers, and not really hall of legends worthy.

What i suggest is an automated clock device, set to trigger an event, such as the opening of a drawbridge or the release of trapped siegers into an arena, that would trigger after 500 years of game time.one way i can think to do this is a reservoir or river, that has an output that drains at a certain rate into a series of other reservoirs, that each fill in a certain amount of time. after the desired time, the reservoir system would fill the final reservoir, and spill out to trip a pressure plate or something. With a little thought, one could devise a drainage system to allow the reservoirs to be reset.

There may be a much simpler solution with dwarven computing, but i am entirely unknowledgeable on that.

[SpacemanSpiff]

You could do something similar with a bunch of dwarven computing frequency dividers*. Start off with your basic oscillator (e.g. the water-based one from the wiki). That ticks every (say) 100 units, and feeds into the first frequency divider, which ticks every 200 units, and feeds into the second frequency divider, which ticks every 400 units, and feeds into the third frequency divider, etc etc.  Then count how many ticks you get in a game day/month/year, and hence how many dividers you need to count to 500 game years.

Basically, you'd be building a Dwarf Fortress version of the Clock of the Long Now  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clock_of_the_Long_Now)

And of course when the final divider ticks over, it triggers the doomsday device.

*I'm assuming these are possible.  If not, time to invent them!

[Doppel]

What i suggest is an automated clock device, set to trigger an event, such as the opening of a drawbridge or the release of trapped siegers into an arena, that would trigger after 500 years of game time.one way i can think to do this is a reservoir or river, that has an output that drains at a certain rate into a series of other reservoirs, that each fill in a certain amount of time. after the desired time, the reservoir system would fill the final reservoir, and spill out to trip a pressure plate or something. With a little thought, one could devise a drainage system to allow the reservoirs to be reset.

There may be a much simpler solution with dwarven computing, but i am entirely unknowledgeable on that.

This is indeed what i was planning, a clock which runs to either 99.999 (which would take about 50 years if my estimation is correct) or 999.999 (which is around the 500 year mark, planned to use this one) or 9.999.999 (5000 year mark), etc,... I think i could theoretically make one which activates a drawbridge or deconstructs a supporting pillar which outlasts our solarsystem in a suprisingly small fortress (i think a nanostrip of 10 x 1 tiles will suffice to be able to do that), but i wanted to actually witness the unique event and 50 ingame years sounded not epic enough, and 5000 years nearly impossible. hehe. I plan on making it a fortress ending event or doomsday device, flooding the fortress with magma or something. Other ideas of fortress doomsday devices are very welcome though.

Every single digit takes 300 steps (a drawbridge takes 300 steps to activate, right?), if someone can calculate exactly how many ingame years and months 999.999 digits take then that would be great. (i rather suck at mathematics)

Also, the clock (not the mechanisms feeding the clock of course) will be in the center of a legendary dining room, so dwarves can watch time go by when they're eating.

[Old-one-eye]

What i suggest is an automated clock device, set to trigger an event, such as the opening of a drawbridge or the release of trapped siegers into an arena, that would trigger after 500 years of game time.one way i can think to do this is a reservoir or river, that has an output that drains at a certain rate into a series of other reservoirs, that each fill in a certain amount of time. after the desired time, the reservoir system would fill the final reservoir, and spill out to trip a pressure plate or something. With a little thought, one could devise a drainage system to allow the reservoirs to be reset.

There may be a much simpler solution with dwarven computing, but i am entirely unknowledgeable on that.

This is indeed what i was planning, a clock which runs to either 99.999 (which would take about 50 years if my estimation is correct) or 999.999 (which is around the 500 year mark, planned to use this one) or 9.999.999 (5000 year mark), etc,... I think i could theoretically make one which activates a drawbridge or deconstructs a supporting pillar which outlasts our solarsystem in a suprisingly small fortress (i think a nanostrip of 10 x 1 tiles will suffice to be able to do that), but i wanted to actually witness the unique event and 50 ingame years sounded not epic enough, and 5000 years nearly impossible. hehe. I plan on making it a fortress ending event or doomsday device, flooding the fortress with magma or something. Other ideas of fortress doomsday devices are very welcome though.

Every single digit takes 300 steps (a drawbridge takes 300 steps to activate, right?), if someone can calculate exactly how many ingame years and months 999.999 digits take then that would be great. (i rather suck at mathematics)

Also, the clock (not the mechanisms feeding the clock of course) will be in the center of a legendary dining room, so dwarves can watch time go by when they're eating.

I dunno about you, but watching the seconds counting down to my doom would kinda kill my appetite

[Fenwah]

What about some kind of countdown triggered by caravans?

Build a trade depot which forces traders through a path with two plate. One plate is set to be triggered by only elves the other by humans. When humans show up they hits the human plate, opening a river up to a small water tank. After a couple of steps the floodgates will isolate the tank again. When elf show up they trigger the elf plate, emptying water from the tank into a deep reservois. Have a trigger at the top of the reservois triggered by 1/7 water. As long as the traders keep coming and you are careful about evaporation you have a yearly countdown. Bonus is that when the fortress is destroyed it will take the elves with it.

[Old-one-eye]

What about some kind of countdown triggered by caravans?

Build a trade depot which forces traders through a path with two plate. One plate is set to be triggered by only elves the other by humans. When humans show up they hits the human plate, opening a river up to a small water tank. After a couple of steps the floodgates will isolate the tank again. When elf show up they trigger the elf plate, emptying water from the tank into a deep reservois. Have a trigger at the top of the reservois triggered by 1/7 water. As long as the traders keep coming and you are careful about evaporation you have a yearly countdown. Bonus is that when the fortress is destroyed it will take the elves with it.

Complicated and largely pointless elaboration? Utterly dwarven!

[LordSlowpoke]

What about some kind of countdown triggered by caravans?

Build a trade depot which forces traders through a path with two plate. One plate is set to be triggered by only elves the other by humans. When humans show up they hits the human plate, opening a river up to a small water tank. After a couple of steps the floodgates will isolate the tank again. When elf show up they trigger the elf plate, emptying water from the tank into a deep reservois. Have a trigger at the top of the reservois triggered by 1/7 water. As long as the traders keep coming and you are careful about evaporation you have a yearly countdown. Bonus is that when the fortress is destroyed it will take the elves with it.

I'm gonna turn this idea into an automatic magma flooder, if you don't mind.