Before reading this story, remember that it took place in 40d, and therefore the sizes of reclaim parties were scaled to the estimated difficulty of the enemies on the map, to a maximum of 70 dwarves.
I embarked on a savage river, and noticed that the river was full of sturgeon and carp. I decided to set up my fort as normal and deal with any contingencies that arose from the fish as they happened.
Within only a few minutes, all of my dwarves had charged the river and perished miserably. Several named fish now glared angrily at me from the frothing waters.
Out of curiosity, I launched a reclaim expedition. To my surprise, 70 steel clad dwarves were allocated to this mission. When I arrived on the map, I soon figured out why: in addition to the teaming carp and sturgeon from my original embark, the game had further added to them a full new complement of fish, resulting in an effective DOUBLING of the monster population.
I ordered my brave dwarves to ready their crossbows and charge the river. Scores of dwarves crouched by the banks, emptying their quivers futilely into the waves, while fish occasionally leaped up to drag an unfortunate dwarf with them to watery graves. Soon the waters ran red and severed body parts bobbed on its surface. Many of the dwarves soon ran out of bolts, and still being filled with an unquenchable desire to slay fish, dived into the treacherous river to engage in hand to hand combat. These would-be heroes only succeeded in joining the dwarves who had already become fish food.
Before long, most of the dwarves were dead, and the remainder tantrumming or going insane. Between the infighting and the continued onslaught of the carp, the numbers of my once-proud reclaiming army were quickly reduced to the single digits. The last sane dwarf managed to punch a berserker to death before the misery of the situation filled him with an unquenchable melancholy, and in his insanity he threw himself into the waves.
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Topic: Dwarf vs Wild (Read 4033 times)