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[Stivsko]

Hi, first post here =]

I just felt like sharing my current experience with DF mode.
So our seven brave dwarves found a volcano near some habitable glacier (I'm using the glacier world on Magma Wiki) which resulted in lots of hematite and native gold. Such riches enabled the fortress to grow quickly: dwarven traders and settlers, elven traders and even a goblin caravan came. The population hit 55 and we had a working iron industry (no steel because I had precious few trees and I needed beds), accomplished masons and a sealed area of the caverns to grow food.

Goblins started ambushing us, first in ones and twos (thieves and baby snatchers; only one snatcher ever got away, with a newborn baby girl =[). Then ambushing in tens. We got them with fairly few losses. My dwarves seem to worship and rever armor and hammers so much, they actually DIDN'T use them militarily (for some reason, they were all wrestlers and hammers and spears were left behind, even metal armor was left in favor of leather armors xD).

The cavern I conquered wasnt 100% sealed off: I expanded a bit to get a small lake for my hospital, and I then sealed it off except for a small, 8 square area on the edge of the map. I was planning to do something about that, when I found out one of my dwarven lumberjacks was stuck outside our obsidian wall. I de-constructed and he stormed in with a foul mood. I let him be and immediately started to replace the obsidian wall section...

Then it all went downhill.


Osman Fonutkulur Dungdaomli, a trifle pewter forgotten beast appeared. Oddly enough, it was already slightly injured and missing a foot. My first idea was to lead it off the still-unsealed wall and close myself in. But some rabbit pet was there, and lured the monster into my base. My army was comprised of 18 dwarves (pretty high considering I had 55 pop, 7-8 of which were children). My army of wrestlers in leather armor charged in, and was -obviously -slaughtered. The beast got 4-5 in the first rounds of combat, but my brave dwarves kept hitting it. By the time the beast was severely wounded all over (and covered in my dwarves' blood!) my militia was almost wiped out. I kept sending in recruits from the least-important areas (leatherworkers, bone carvers, some miners and engravers), but they were just dying or nearly dead in the caves.

Just when my pop dropped to 17-18, new migrants arrived, a standard-issue 22-dwarf expedition, which was immediately sent off to fight the beast. Elven traders got to my base but my depot is so far away from the caves, they might just have wondered why dwarves were so impolite to let them wait like that xD

Even the new conscripts got massacred, and a dwarven child lead the now-agonizing beast into the main area of the base. It followed the poor scared boy up lots of stair cases and into the forge and smelter area. My few still alive dwarves were either holding their guts in, tending to the throngs of wounded and corpses or trying in vain to reach the beast.

It must be noted that the captain of the guard and my best fighter was currently disabled after the last goblin skirmish: all fight long he tried and cancelled the "grab weapons" task while the base got butchered. He had a revelation, I guess: warhammers and breastplates are to be WORN, not left in stockpiles. Lucky for him, a woodworker who got with the last wave heard his plead, and actually grabbed a warhammer and a breastplate (I don't know why he got the items but the rest just charged in bare-fisted).

The hero, Bembul Togalalath, a mediocre wood crafter, went into the tunnel, where the enraged beast awaited. Smeared in blood, snarling and bloody, the thing charged but Bembul effectively used his hammer. His leg was broken during the fight, but the creature had no energy left, having killed maybe 40 dwarves. Bembul crushed its skull with the iron hammer and immediately set up to rebuild the fortress.

Right now, I've 15 pop, 5 of which are children. Bembul and one useless beekeeper are the only dwarves capable of actually moving. The rest are either at the hospital or somewhere dying. I thought this couldn't get worst, but right now, a goblin ambush just showed up. I'll see how it goes and report back =]

[Loud Whispers]

I think the Elves are thanking their tree gods for the Dwarves letting them live that long. Also, a trained equipped military >/= TONS of conscripts. Plain and simple :/

Bah, you seemed to have handled the FB slaughter rather well

Trust me, your confidence with them will grow until you use them to kill goblins for you

[King DZA]

Exquisite tale. eagerly awaiting to to hear of your battle with the little green ones.

[acetech09]

You sure you had the military screen/uniforms configured right? Dwarf fortress combat mechanics are close to real life. In most games, punching a tank enough times will kill it, doing a few points of damage each time. In dwarf fortress, if you try to punch a hundred-ton metal beast, it won't even feel it. Trifle pewter (if I remember right) is a fairly soft metal that would give to most edged weapons.

[Stivsko]

Hi again,

I guess that when I upgraded from leather armor to metal armor, I didn't make sure they had actually grabbed the stuff. My soldiers were well-trained (they had several years worth of drilling and killing goblins) but completely unequipped =(
I don't get the military part of the game 100% yet hhaha

So the goblin ambushers were 15+, which obviously resulted in our complete aniquilation.
Bembul the Hero was actually the last to fall: I armed my few guys and let the goblins come in: we took down maybe 2-3 but the battle lasted long just because the gobllins were thoroughly killing all the animals and children.

I'll obviously go and try to reclaim it, but I hear there's a lot of bugs with that?

[Loud Whispers]

Not that I know of, no there aren't a lot of bugs :]
Also, a lil helping hand, in the equip screen, you can check what each dwarf currently possesses with [P], and it's a good idea to station all of your dwarves some where away from the fight, so that they grab all of their gear, group up and then attack together :]

aniquilation.

You sir, have invented an epic word.

[ledgekindred]

Congratulations on achieving !!FUN!!

You're lucky it sounds like your forgotten beast did not include a syndrome.  That almost certainly would have been the end of your fort if it had.

It's definitely worthwhile to scrounge around on the wiki under the military pages to get that set up properly.  Even a small group of well-trained dwarves can hold off an ambush at the least, and entire sieges once they get a few legendary combat skills.  Also invest in some traps early on until you have a military that can do much of anything.

I don't know of any reclaim bugs other than the longstanding "any units still on the screen when your fortress gets abandoned will still be there and friendly but you will be unable to interact with them when you reclaim" problem.  Go ahead and give it a try and see what happens.  The worst is that you'll have some random goblins standing around and a big mess to clean up.

[Loud Whispers]

"any units still on the screen when your fortress gets abandoned will still be there and friendly but you will be unable to interact with them when you reclaim"

This isn't a bug, it's a feature

[Stivsko]

LOL

First time reclaiming: I just prepared one soldier dwarf, and had him completely equipped.
I didn't think the goblins would linger, but actually they did (also why the hell is every item tossed around? do I really have to claim each item individually??).

So I went in without knowing and my 6 civilian dwarves got killed (when the fight started, I created a squad with all 7 and the civilians got one).
For some weird reason, my spearman (I've no idea which's the best weapon to start with) just stood outside the fortress while everyone died. The goblins even killed the yaks and the cats. When my solitary spearman ended his meditation, I assigned him my 4 war dogs and started picking the goblins 1 by 1, in a rambo or diehard sort of way. Long story short, he got killed too, but he took some goblins down with him!

So what should I do? Reclaim with a 7 soldier expedition??

[Loud Whispers]

(d) (b) (c) is for mass reclaim

Also, when you embark, if you don't know already how to, press n to order new items, pick some weapons/materials needed to make said weapons, some wood and some magma safe stone. Picks, Battle axes and wooden shields should suffice for an early early fort, then silver warhammers, steel/candy axes, spears and shortswords are the way to go, with crossbows anywhere in between. No weapon is truly perfect, and they work best as a complementing team

[Stivsko]

Yea when I started this fortress I had wood, copper bars and such, and made all there so I could carry extra food.
I'll try to reclaim 1-2 times and if unsuccessful, I'll just start over close by or something =(

[Mitchewawa]

I would have just locked it in where it was, but ok.

[Stivsko]

I would have just locked it in where it was, but ok.

I was gonna do that, but some stupid rabbit lured the thing in before the masons got there.
Second reclaim effort went way better: my 5 soldier dwarves and 2 civilian ones got 6-7 goblins so far. 5 dwarves perished, 1 is almost dead buried in stone, and I can't find the last one xD

[Loud Whispers]

I would have just locked it in where it was, but ok.

I was gonna do that, but some stupid rabbit lured the thing in before the masons got there.
Second reclaim effort went way better: my 5 soldier dwarves and 2 civilian ones got 6-7 goblins so far. 5 dwarves perished, 1 is almost dead buried in stone, and I can't find the last one xD

Check the (u)nits screen, also, WHAT WAS A RABBIT DOING IN THE CAVERNS?

[kaenneth]

I would have just locked it in where it was, but ok.

I was gonna do that, but some stupid rabbit lured the thing in before the masons got there.
Second reclaim effort went way better: my 5 soldier dwarves and 2 civilian ones got 6-7 goblins so far. 5 dwarves perished, 1 is almost dead buried in stone, and I can't find the last one xD

Check the (u)nits screen, also, WHAT WAS A RABBIT DOING IN THE CAVERNS?

He should have taken that left turn at Albuquerque.