Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Anathema]

It was probably just an ambush, not a full-on invasion. Think of ambushes as raiding parties - about 6-8 of them will sneak around until they get discovered by a friendly unit (one of your dwarves, animals, traders, etc), then they do as much damage as they can, and run off at the first sign of trouble. Killing two is usually enough to scare them off, although if you get multiple ambush groups at once (you'll get a separate announce for each), they operate independently and you'll have to kill a few from each group to drive them off. Sieges are a different story, you'll know one when you see one.

I just feel so far behind the curve and events and like I can't catch up. Is this the normal new guy experience? I just want to do.... BETTER. Looking for magma, ores.

The normal experience would be having your dwarves starve inside the first year, if you see goblins at all on the first try you're doing well, even better if you survive them (although it's lucky to have the caravan fight them off for you successfully).

By the way, check out the saga of Oilfurnace [warning: some spoilers at the end]. That is, I'd say, your pretty typical Dwarf Fortress experience - including the four failed embarks before the fifth "successful" one. Granted he chose a haunted island, which means less goblins and more undeads, but similar effect in the end.

[Manic Typist]

The normal experience would be having your dwarves starve inside the first year, if you see goblins at all on the first try you're doing well, even better if you survive them (although it's lucky to have the caravan fight them off for you successfully).

Well, that makes me feel somewhat better I suppose. I will say in my dwarfs defense that the caravan didn't fight them off. They were just the very first targets which allowed my dwarves to rush in to close quarters over the bleeding forms of the caravan guards.

Good news: the goblins wasted most of their times attacking and killing cats and donkeys on the surface (also dwarven babies).

Bad news: a troll smashed through the door to the caverns, and killed several before being put down.

Fun news: I'm currently experiencing my first tantrum spiral. I started today with 91ish dwarves. Right now I'm at 77. I kind of hope things just completely implode so I can start fresh, you know? But I'm determined to see it through to the bitter end...

[Manic Typist]

I'm down to..... 61 dwarves or so. Then a wave of migrants show up. Twenty plus of them.

They're showing up to a fortress filled with madness. Artifacts and mastercraft items being forged while comrades run rampant and murder one another. Children turning on one another. Empty caskets lying useless in the halls because those who would carry them have to run for their lives, or have gone mad themselves. Corpses being consigned to the refuse pile because it was the only way to keep up. Bodies rotting in the dining hall because even the refuse piles aren't fast enough to keep up with the slaughter.

A laughing, mad diagnostician trapped in a cage.

I'm going to try designating a zone outside of my fortress and see if I can get all of the sane people out. Maybe salvage this?

I was definitely contemplating trying to flood the fortress just to purge it. I'm not sure there's anyone even qualified to do that anymore.

[Reelyanoob]

ARM the Immigrants btw as a militia. Being new here they won't tantrum or freak out from death, and the killing will make them less sensitive to death in general (or so I've been told). Instant army.

slowly (cautiously) reclaim the fortress from top to bottom.

Use dwarf Therapist's sort feature to sort by happiness, bring the happy dwarves to safety. Sounds like those 20 dwarves turned up at a good time. Try building a jail too, with ropes as restraints and food/drink stockpiles + beds, so you can restrain rather than kill tantrumers (you need to assign a captain of the guard too, make him not one of your squaddies).

[gentgeen]

As long as you have one dorf, you have life. As long as you have life, you have hope. As long as your one dorf has booze and a nice place to eat, you have happiness. Much of the tantrum spiral can be avoided with a communal, giant, legendary dining room.

[Number4]

A wise man once said: "Dwarves are funny creatures, they balance out at "content" because on the one hand their wife was eaten by elephants and on the other hand they've eaten in a REALLY NICE dining room." If you have any precious metals, forge a statue or 2 and put them in there. If not, buy some from the caravan. Steel is high value as well, you may consider sacrificing a bit of armor/weapon for happiness. In addition decorate them with gems and stuff - should make a noticable impact, as every dwarf encounters the dining and therefore drinking room quite often.