So, a while ago I tried to attack the circus. It was actually semi-successful in a sort of epic fashion. I won the battle, but lost the war: I had to savescum quite a bit, my FPS was terrible, and everybody died from syndromes in the end. Yaaaaay Dwarf Fortress.
This time, I'm going to put a base down there. First step was to make Slade diggable. Easily done.
I've embarked on a small, 3x3 map. I turned off temperature and weather. I'm not going to make Dwarves superpowerful or turn off invaders: that's cheap.
The embark screen showed a hilly, cold region with several layers of Sandstone with a gaint igneous volcanic moutain jutting up through the center of the map, with a small stream in the upper left. Now, the igneous volcanic mountain has several layers of Marble immediately after the Basalt ends, and the Basalt is at "surface" level, so I don't have to dig too far for Flux.
Combining the Flux with the massive amount of Coal in the Sandstone and the volcano and I'll have a very functioning Steel industry soon enough.
For the fortress, I plan on walling off my base with a rasing bridge, lowering it only to let in useful migrants and caravans, as I don't plan on producing any food. Any useless migrants will be made into Funrace Operators/Soldiers.
The Soldiers will train half a year, and smelt the other half. I plan on all their armor being masterwork quality, as I melt back down anything that doesn't meet my standards, or sell it to Humans.
I try my best to keep Dwarves sepperated from one another, in the very likely case that many of them die.
As for breaching hell, my current plan is an insanely long hallway filled with Spear Traps made of various metals that I would normaly use, but plan on turning into trinkets to sell for food to the Humans. Mainly, Tin Bronze, Arsenical Bronze, Bismuth Bronze, Brass, and Wrought Iron. At the end of the hallway will be my Dwarf soldiers. I plan on arming them in a mix of Steel Halberds and Steel Picks, to tear limbs off.
All Dwarves will be armored as follows:
Leather Trousers, Leather Tunic, Masterwork Steel Helm, Masterwork Steel Chain Shirt, Masterwork Steel Breastplate, Masterwork Steel Chain Mittens, Masterwork Steel Gauntlets, Masterwork Tin Bronze or Arsenical Bronze Shield, Masterwork Steel Chain Leggings, Masterwork Steel Greavers, Masterwork Steel Low Boots, Masterwork Steel Weapon, Leather Hood, Leather Robe.
Since around 2/3 of my fortress will be military, I don't think I'll have enough funobtainium to give Dwarves more than a candy weapon and perhaps a candy helm.
And, yes, I know how long it'll take to outfit them this way. It's worth it.
My major problems are as follows:
- No surface wood for barrels/beds, and I don't plan on beaching the caverns if I can help it.
- I plan on killing all animals migrants show up with to try and keep my FPS bouyant, so I don't have a long-term source of fat for soap as I can't import that from Humans.
- My Civilization is currently at war with a nearby Civ of a custom race called Hrafnkin.
- There don't seem to be any Prometheans, another custom Civ that dwells in wastelands and badlands, on the world. I was planning on importing all my Arsenic from them, if I couldn't find any.
Any advice? Also, I am playing with a custom realism/diversification mod that's not entirely finished.