Welcome!
This is a Masterwork 4e Mod fortress (Dwarf Variety), and I am going to play/post it as an exercise in learning and teaching Masterwork Mod and hopefully provide some entertainment for you guys. I’m not going to go nuts on in character posts, as there will be a lot to learn and cover as the game gets going, but if you want a dwarf, I am more than happy to dorf you up. I’ll provide updates about the dorfed as I have time or interesting things happen.
If you are unfamiliar with the Masterwork mod, check out the whole section of the forum devoted to it. Meph has done a really cool job on this mod. It is also mind-bogglingly huge. I may be exaggerating, but I think the mod at least doubles the number of buildings in the game. It also introduces magic, frost giants, diseases, landmines, guns, and more.
So much more, in fact, that it’s rather daunting. The point of this fort is to try and explore as much of the game as possible before death, !!fun!!, clowns, updates or boredom stop me. With all that said, here is the basic info on my embark:
About the Fort:
I am using Masterwork Mod version 4e, with diseases, warlocks, frost giants and tunneling sieges turned off for now. I have diseases turned off because they are tad strong at the moment. All the other features are enabled, including harder smelting, mining, and farming. I genned a world off a custom Mandelbrot profile with the age turned down to 100 and the embark points jacked up. Why? I’m glad you asked.
The most immediately obvious part of Masterworks is the harder farming system. Put simply, underground crops take a year to grow, above ground crops take about 2 seasons, and die if left going through winter. So in a base embark the first year can be a bit hairy, and slow. Because of this, I am bringing a little bit more food, and a few more animals than a normal embark allows for. I want to make it through the start without huge problems, as this is supposed to be a tutorial/exercise dammit.
So here is what I took with me on embark:
A double ration of starting food and alcohol
3 Picks
3 Axes
6 of each above and below ground seed, with about 20 Plump Helmet Spawns
3 Mastiffs
3 Badgerdogs
3 Changelings
4 Frill Lizards
Whatever the hell else is in the starting embark profile, probably some wood, stone and random nest boxes.
I chose an embark with a volcano, a brook, and lots of everything. Again, this ain’t no single pick challenge, it’s a test fort! I want to show off all the fun stuff, so I need them big sieges to get there.
(http://i.imgur.com/rXEBH6E.png)
Without further ado, strike the earth!
Write-ups
Year One - Farms, Caverns and Furniture (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=134046.msg4820860#msg4820860)
Year Two - Research Bedrooms and Bloodsteel (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=134046.msg4827309#msg4827309)
Year Three - Digging down, Building Up, and Moar Farms! (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=134046.msg4842123#msg4842123)
Dorfs
Grimmash - Expedition Leader, Overseer
`Grimmash' Izkilbothon has been happy lately. He received food recently. He slept in a very good bedroom recently. He made a friend recently. He admired a fine Door lately. He admired own fine Cage lately. He has been satisfied at work lately.
He is a worshipper of Basen Wadeflies and a dubious worshipper of Uzol.
He is a citizen of The Meditative Tins. He is a member of The Sands of Crucifixion. He is the expedition leader of The Sands of Crucifixion. He is the chief medical dwarf of The Sands of Crucifixion. He is the overseer of The Sands of Crucifixion. He arrived at Umgankor on the 1st of Granite in the year 101.
He is fifty-two years old, born on the 27th of Malachite in the year 51.
His sideburns are clean-shaven. His very long moustache is arranged in double braids. His very long beard is braided. His short hair is neatly combed. He is short. He has low cheekbones. His somewhat narrow nose is broad. His teeth are gapped. His eyes are wide-set. His eyes slightly sunken. His lips are thin. His ears are somewhat narrow. He is average in size. His skin is pink. His eyes are rust.
He is very rarely sick, but he is flimsy.
`Grimmash' Izkilbothon likes frozen wasps, bronze, chrysoberyl, seahorse tooth, the color pale blue, traction benches, animal traps and water buffalos for their water wallowing. When possible, he prefers to consume prickleberry juice. He absolutely detests shrikes.
He has a great ability to focus and a good kinesthetic sense, but he has poor empathy, little linguistic ability and a poor memory.
He is very distant and reserved. He is bored by reality and has a wonderful imagination. He is eager for new experiences. He admires tradition. He whispers when he is thinking hard about something. He needs alcohol to get through the working day. He likes working outdoors and grumbles only mildly at inclement weather.
`Meph' Kasbenral has been quite content lately. He slept in a very good bedroom recently. He has complained about the draft lately. He admired a fine Trap lately. He had a satisfying sparring session recently.
He is married to Ingish Ochrehells and has one child: Zeg Stuckoiled. He is the son of Asob Bushyimmoral and Unil Hatefulmonkey.
He is a citizen of The Meditative Tins. He is a member of The Sands of Crucifixion. He is a former member of The Lamented Evils. He is a former member of The Fortress of Recreation. He is the military commander of The Sands of Crucifixion. He arrived at Umgankor on the 16th of Slate in the year 102.
He is seventeen years old, born on the 13th of Opal in the year 86.
He is fat. His eyes have very thin irises. He is fat. His sideburns are clean-shaven. His very long moustache is neatly combed. His very long beard is braided. His short hair is neatly combed. He has very round chin. His nose bridge is very convex. His nose is slightly hooked. His skin is pink. His eyes are rust.
He is very agile and tough, but he is susceptible to disease and slow to heal.
`Meph' Kasbenral likes stripped, steampowered, emerald, round shields, figurines and ducks for their quacks. When possible, he prefers to consume cave wheat tea and roasted seeds. He absolutely detests finches.
He has a great musical sense, a great feel for the surrounding space and a very good sense of the position of his own body, but he has a shortage of patience and a poor ability to manage or understand social relationships.
He is slow to anger. He doesn't often experience strong cravings or urges. He can handle stress. He tends to avoid crowds. He is candid and sincere in dealings with others. He is willing to compromise with others. He doesn't go out of his way to do more work than necessary. He gnaws his cheek when he is annoyed. He needs alcohol to get through the working day.
*LEGIONNAIRE* Having undergone the garrison training, this dwarf has learned the fundamental rules of war. Legionnaires learn to handle all melee weapons, military tactics, leadership and situational awareness. They are used to pain, have a higher willpower and recuperation then civilians. The legion training also encompasses rigorous fitness exercises, raising their strength.
`Jimboo' Thebilsodzul has been happy lately. He dined in a great dining room recently. He had a fine drink lately. He slept without a proper room recently. He had a wonderful drink lately. He made a friend recently. He admired a fine Bed lately. He was caught in the rain recently. He has been satisfied at work lately.
He is a dubious worshipper of Zas and a worshipper of Kovest Goldmarkets.
He is a citizen of The Meditative Tins. He is a member of The Sands of Crucifixion. He arrived at Umgankor on the 1st of Granite in the year 101.
He is forty-nine years old, born on the 8th of Sandstone in the year 53.
He is short. His very long sideburns are neatly combed. His very long moustache is neatly combed. His medium-length beard is neatly combed. His medium-length hair is tied in a pony tail. He has low cheekbones, and he has a round chin. His teeth are gapped. He is average in size. His nose is broad. His slightly low eyebrows are quite dense. His somewhat splayed out ears are somewhat short. His lips are thin. His eyes are slightly sunken. His hair is dark tan. His skin is pink. His eyes are rust.
`Jimboo' Thebilsodzul likes (hexer supplies), burning, moss opal, burlap, bucklers, abacuss and sky dragons for their majesty. When possible, he prefers to consume rhesus macaque, alpaca cheese and dwarven wine. He absolutely detests toads.
He has a shortage of patience, very bad intuition, a large deficit of willpower and poor spatial senses.
He is slow to anger. He occasionally overindulges. He can handle stress. He is somewhat reserved. He is a pessimist. He appreciates art and natural beauty. He has a good awareness of his own emotions. He dislikes helping others. He is easily moved to pity. He constantly strives for perfection. He inhales sharply when he is angry. He needs alcohol to get through the working day. He likes working outdoors and grumbles only mildly at inclement weather.
*ARCANE DWARF* This dwarf bears a spark of magic in him. Either a rare natural occurrence or an expansive magical experiment, either way it enables him to dip into the natural powers that surround us all. He can learn sorcery and the use of magic staves. When posed with great danger he can conceal himself and might slip away unnoticed.
`Fergus' Mividrisid has been happy lately. He admired a fine Container lately. He slept in a very good bedroom recently. He has been satisfied at work lately. He admired own fine Bed lately. He talked with the spouse lately.
He is married to Tobul Constructdusk and has one child: Sisal Wallskirt. He is the son of Vildang Snarlrack and Kadol Pageobscene. He is a faithful worshipper of Basen Wadeflies.
He is a citizen of The Meditative Tins. He is a member of The Sands of Crucifixion. He is a former member of The Cradled Disloyalties. He arrived at Umgankor on the 27th of Hematite in the year 101.
He is nineteen years old, born on the 6th of Granite in the year 84.
His hair is extremely long. He is short. He is average in size. His ears have nearly fused lobes. His ears are slightly flattened. His eyes are slightly protruding. His eyebrows are slightly low. His head is somewhat tall. His hair is dark tan. His skin is pink. His eyes are rust.
He is quick to heal, but he is clumsy and quite susceptible to disease.
`Fergus' Mividrisid likes acid gem, mechanized, fossil, lanky grey lach bone, rope reed fiber fabric, broadhead javelins, crutches and goats for their eating habits. When possible, he prefers to consume sunberry juice, aurochs milk and longland flour. He absolutely detests large roaches.
He has great creativity, a very good sense of empathy and a way with words, but he has a meager kinesthetic sense, a questionable spatial sense, an iffy memory and very bad analytical abilities.
He is self-conscious. He can handle stress. He is rarely happy or enthusiastic. He is uncomfortable with change. He loves new and fresh ideas. He is confident. He mutters under his breath when he's annoyed. He needs alcohol to get through the working day. He does not mind being outdoors, at least for a time.
*CRAFTMANS GUILD* This dwarf is a member of the craftdwarves guild. Most artisans of the smaller industries fall under this category, be it working bone, leather or cloth. The guild even houses the few dwarven scribes and musicians that roam the realm.
Spring
Our new home:
(http://i.imgur.com/rXEBH6E.png)
Our starting seven are pretty normal dwarves, with the exception of one arcane dwarf. While that is not important now, he may become very useful later once we a chance to look into the mystical world of magick.
Moving on, we need to get the usual start going for the fortress. For me, this means getting some basic space dug out for under ground farms, getting as many animals inside as possible, and getting out stuff off the surface. Normally I would send my miners a digging, and that is the same I do now. However, I also immediately get some above ground farm plots going.
Locally grown food is at a premium in Masterwork. Above ground crops take two seasons to grow, so anything I plant now will only bear fruit in Autumn one season to grow, and anything that is growing in the winter immediately withers and dies. This means you have Spring and Summer to plant, Summer and Autumn to harvest. So I designate five plots above ground, and get my farmers going. I also put in some basic workshops like the normal Carpenter and Mechanic shops to get beds, bins, barrels, and mechanisms going.
As the initial digging commences, I start moving animals around to more useful locations. On the embark I brought 3 mastiffs, 3 badgerdogs, 3 changelings, 3 boozebelly goats, and 4 frill lizards. Let me explain each:
Mastiffs and badgerdogs serve two purposes. The first is as a basic frontline defense. They are both much larger and nastier than normal dogs, so they provide a decent earlier deterrence system against thieves, snatchers, and on this map they keep attack raccoons that are hell bent on distracting my dwarves. Later on they will get war training, and at some point I will try to show how you can create armored animals, which provide an even nastier line of defense. The second use for the two is a secondary food source. They breed rather quickly, producing litters, so in a pinch I can use the mastiffs and badgerdogs as a food and leather source.
Changelings are the basis of a lot of transformations and magickal tom-foolery that will come later on in the life of the fortress. So I brought a breeding stock that I can stick away in a room and get producing now, to ensure plenty of changeling stock for later.
The boozebelly goats provide milk, wool, and meat if needed. Their cheese can also be turned into alcohol, so they provide an emergency alcohol source if the farms get destroyed, lost, or occupied later.
Finally, the frill lizards are vermin killers. I took four, and I will dump them on top of my food stocks. Since I usually end up with a rather large number of food stocks to handle food processing later on, I took enough to start breeding now.
Where do they all go? At this point in the spring I have a temporary food stock dug out, so the frill lizards go there. The changelings will chill out until I get a corner to stick them in. The mastiffs go just outside the entrance, and the badgerdogs go just inside. I keep a bridge between them. This will be adjusted later, but provides a double layer of defense. The goats and horses that came with the wagon will hang out for now as well. Eventually they will come inside, but I need to breach the caverns for that!
(http://i.imgur.com/58Bbj4e.png)
Summer
Summer is mostly uneventful. I continue digging, and get three migrants. Two are relatively useless, so they go into the general labor pool. One however is a Craftman’s Guild dwarf. This brings up guild dwarves!
There are a bunch of guild castes in Masterwork. To quote Meph:
“Dwarves can be members of guilds. They do learn skills associated with their guild twice as fast. You either get a migrant that is a guild member, or you have your dwarves join one at the guildhall. This will cost 500 gold and will take 1 ingame week for the dwarf to do his apprenticeship.”
There will be a lot more on this later, but we’ll make sure this dwarf has all of the crafting professions enabled.
We find gold-bearing ore! Normally I would just reserve this for future smelting, but not now. As we will see soon, smelting in Masterwork is a bit more involved of a process, and I need stuff to trade for food and booze. While all my farms are going, they won’t produce food for a while, so I set up a Craftdswarf workshop and set it to produce mugs, and link up a stockpile that only accepts gold-bearing rock.
At this point my miners are busy digging out some exploratory tunnels, getting gold bearing rock, and getting started on bedrooms. There is a temporary dining room and dorm, but it’s nothing special. The whole first floor will likely get re-designed later.
Autumn
We breached the caverns! And boy are they pretty. Masterwork makes the caverns different, but we’ll get to that later. For now I will patch up the hole where I breached, and build a stairwell and future access to the cavern layer.
(http://i.imgur.com/EiZfWKb.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/XYm4id5.png)
That said, the caverns mean I can get cracking on building out a shelter for the grazing animals. I dig out some nice large spaces in the sand, and let the cave moss and tress grow for a while.
We got 6 migrants, all of them guild dwarves. A fisherman, engineer, jeweler, craftman, and two farmer’s guild in total. While I have no use for the fishers for now, I’ll keep them in mind, as the cavern has water. The farmers immediately get labors set up to help with farming. The others I’ll just keep in mind.
On 17th Timber, we see the dwarven caravan arrive! Time to use all those mugs….
Gold-bearing rock mugs are nice. I got all the food and booze, cheese, some rope, thread, cloth, leather, and various odds and ends that might help strange mooding dwarves. Also I got a drake, because that sounds fun, right? And a parrot for me. I asked for more food next year.
The liason was a creepy bastard. I was sleeping in my room and he just stood over my bed…
(http://i.imgur.com/Xpkpr8d.png)
Work progresses on digging, and my dwarves have been hauling non-stop. At this point it is time to start planning out the fort a bit more. The central shaft has been dug. Bedrooms go roughly 8 levels down. I like to keep my dwarves isolated from sound after initial construction, so there you have it. Dining goes above that, followed by various levels of workshops, then near-surface stockpiles. Because we are going to be digging a lot, I set up some quantum stockpiles for rocks and blocks, and spend most of the rest of autumn letting my dwarves carve out space and smooth out the bedrooms that are currently dug.
(http://i.imgur.com/K21Yvan.png)
Winter
I bet you are wondering when the hell I am going to get into Masterwork structures? Well, we have a furniture shop, the first new thing! What is a furniture shop you ask? It is a simple workshop, taking up a 3x5 space, and it makes complete sets for bedrooms, dining rooms, offices and the like. It uses blocks of stone, wood, metal, or bone. It esseantially makes it easier to get whole sets of room furniture so you don’t have to remember “Did I make enough coffers?” and finding out you made way more than you needed a few months later. Time to crank out furniture for the bedrooms, which are being smoothed and set up as we speak. I am going to make the furniture out of stone blocks, because we are dwarves dammit.
(http://i.imgur.com/XVIJXbK.png)
On 17th Obsidian, the drow appear. A Drowavan! We trade more gold-bearing mugs for all sorts of stuff. Mostly food and drink, and that is what we are missing most. Edit: According to Meph this means we have a comparatively wealthy fortress. Invaders may come soon.
(http://i.imgur.com/HRae5RO.png)
We are still in the early stages of setting up tht fort, so the rest of winter will be digging, building and moving stuff. The new pastures are mossy, so I move in the above ground animals. Our livestock is producing well, so if we run into sieges disrupting caravans, we will have spare dogs and goats to butcher.
While digging out so far, I have found a few interesting things you do not normally find: Wolframite, Chromite, cave fungus, and anthracite. I am not going to do much with them for now, but they will become useful later on. Wolframite is a very heavy metal, so I’m thinking we might make some warhammers. Chromite is chrome rock, so that will likely go into statues and decorations. Cave fungus has some use I have not explored yet. And anthracite is super coal, which should come into play next year.
On the docket for year two: research, militia, and more digging!
I have no idea who these guys are, but I think they are stuck in the caverns. That sounds good to me.
(http://i.imgur.com/MXqZtlg.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/fojjxfE.png)
Spring
16th Slate
More migrants have come to our home! 28 migrants, with the following guilds: 1 Jeweler, 2 Carpenter, 1 Legionnaire (Looks like Meph showed up!), 1 Fisherman, 2 Beastwarden, 1 Mason, 2 farmers, 1 Engineer, 1 Merchant, 2 Arcane. In addition we got a marksman.
With all the new bodies, I have my miners working overtime to try and get bedrooms and a dining hall dug out. I also drafted our militia, a five man melee squad. So the miners are digging out a barracks, and the carpenter is working on the armor racks and weapons stands. I really should have traded for a few mor picks. Instead I am going ot have the miners sort room for an ore processor, some smelters, and some wood ovens. Might as well use all this wood!
14th Felsite
Meph has been possessed. Oh dear. His highest moodable skill is craftsdwarf, so we shall see what happens.
15th Felsite
Meph grabbed a workshop, so that’s one bolt dodged. And the elves have come, just as I ordered some mass deforestation. This ought to be fun. It appears Meph grabbed three logs of wood.
19th Felsite
Meph made this:
(http://i.imgur.com/nYBT3tO.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/IkJkS0R.png)
I honestly have no idea what any of that means. But, good job Meph, you are now legendary in… nothing. Because you were possessed. Go back to leading the militia.
I traded with the elves. I got a lot off cloth, and not much else. All they had was piles of mithril decorations. As much as I would love some mithril, we need food, so I will save the mugs for the dwarves in autumn.
Summer
10th Hematite
The Barracks is complete! Training Begins!
11th Malachite
Our fortress suffers our first death… from sparring. Etur Bibarobok threw his partner into a weapon rack and killed him.
(http://i.imgur.com/g4IaXN3.png)
17th Malachite
In good news, our Ore Processor is built! The ore processor is the beginning of the new metalworking “tech tree” in Masterwork.
(http://i.imgur.com/S0DP4Do.png)
Unlike normal DF, where you just tell a furnace to smelt some ore, and off you go, Masterwork ups the challenge a bit. You can just smelt ore, but you get terrible efficiency. To quote Meph:
“The Ore Processor is very important. All mined mineral bearing rock has to be sorted here, into rock, ore and base-minerals.
Its very simple. You mine "gold bearing rock". You "Process gold bearing rock" and you get pure gold ore and some boulders or blocks. The gold ore can now be used in the smelter. You could even smelt the unprocessed ore, but it would result in little outcome and lots of slag.”
So we build the Ore Processor, start sorting, and get to work on a Slag Pit. The Slag Pit needs two querns, so I have to build those first.
Wait, what’s slag? Glad you asked.
“Smelting ore also creates a waste product called Slag. These bars clutter up your smelter and should be destroyed in the slagpit or used up as buildmats.”
Clutter is bad, so we need a slag pit. As a benefit, ore smelting will therefore produce stone blocks we can use to build stuff later. You can either dispose of slag by thworing it in the pit, or you can combine it with ash or lye to get concrete blocks. Ash gives 8, lye 20. That’s nice, in a round-about way. More work, but more results.
You remember when I talked about anthracite earlier? I called it super coal. This is because one unit of anthracite yields 10 units of coke! Since we are getting ready to start metalworking, I might as well start processing that anthracite in the smelters.
(http://i.imgur.com/efSDSjz.png)
3rd Galena
We had our first birth, Timeless Bobette!
I also missed the migrant wave due to the sparring accident. We got 12 dwarves, among them an alchemist, a smith, a mason, a carpenter, two more Arcane, and a priest.
18th Galena
The humans have come.
Autumn
We traded for a lot of food and basics. I hope to expand into the caverns soon, and cease our need for food by trade, but a few things need to be sorted first.
Sazir Fokershomad (the subject of Meph’s possession!) has been taken by a mood.
16th Limestone
Sazir finished his artifact, a gold bearing rock trinket, which our brokers tell me is worth 138000. That is one hell of necklace. It doubled the value of our fortress!
(http://i.imgur.com/AzTljtR.png)
18th Limestone
More migrants, 11 this time. Notable dwarves include another arcane, and another jeweler. And a forgotten beast! It was immediately swarmed by troglodytes and killed. That’s underwhelming.
(http://i.imgur.com/2xITbzs.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/1pN6zkB.png)
27th Sandstone
Almost have 100 bedrooms cut out and smoother, with furniture to fit. We have 70 dwarves, so I hope 100 rooms will see us through the winter. Now it’s time to show some more new buildings!
First up is one of the key buildings to unlock the beginning of the madness of Masterwork: the Researcher’s Study.
(http://i.imgur.com/CE3qseN.png)
Let’s go over the basics first. You will need 5 blocks, a journal, and abacus, and an hourglass to build the study. Each of those rather unfamiliar sounding items can be made at a Craftsdwarf’s workshop, and also at many of the new workshops found in the mod. Once you have the building, you will find a whole list of interesting reactions, some of which are shown in the shot above.
To quote Meph:
“The Researcher can conduct science. Science is awesome and needed for most buildings. Each field of science will resulst in one unlocked building, and the reactions chain up automatically. All you have to do is to "reserach in the field of...". Each reaction has a 20% chance to fail, so the longer the research chain, the higher the chance to fail. Failed research results will be sifted through, and then either destroyed or used for a 1% chance for a random success.
Once a research is finished, you will get an announcement about the unlocked building. You can even unlock magma-furnaces without the need to discover a volcano/magmalake first.
The Scriptorium can copy research results, enabling you to build more than just one building with each.”
Err, I better build a Sciptorium too! I don’t want to have to re-research things.
We also have a pair of Breweries! These wonderful little puppies allow you to brew from specific plants, so no stockpile micromanagement needed! Actually, you can do this at the distillery too, but it is more efficient here. The downside is it takes a little bit longer and requires two pots. You can also see some of the other cool features, like extracting water from booze, making rum from boozebelly cheese, and making fuel.
(http://i.imgur.com/CfCHUgd.png)
Another new building is the Gemcutter, which as you can see below makes all sort of things out of gems, allows combining or splitting of gems to go between the sizes, and lets you reclaim some gems from crafted items. Not sure if I need it yet, but I’m laying out workshops, so I built one. I imagine I will start using this more once defenses and militia can cope with the staggering increases in wealth it might bring!
(http://i.imgur.com/id5RjNQ.png)
15th Timber
The dwarves are here again. Perhaps this trading season will result in our Village being upgraded! But what to trade… I’ll unload the last of the mugs and some gems, I think.
25th Timber
Good news: Our first results from the Researcher’s study are in: We have discovered how to make weapons and armor from rocks!
(http://i.imgur.com/bI617nE.png)
Bad news: A berserking Orc sneak killed a trader, so now the rest are just hanging around doing nothing. I hope they get it together, we have mugs to trade, dammit!
26th Timber
Instead of trading, the cowards are leaving. My damn dogs have more courage that those bastards. Oh well, they should get some better guards.
(http://i.imgur.com/7Hg1XBu.png)
Winter
I was going to build a forge, but it appears I was wrong, and did not actually bring an anvil. Normally this would present a grave problem, but in Masterwork the age old question of Anvil Origins is answered: The Stonecrafter’s Shop.
(http://i.imgur.com/hSQ6tuw.png)
Here, you can make just about everything you might want, as long as just about everything you want is normally made of stone, and you have blocks instead of rocks.
1st Opal
Another new discovery – the Greatforge!
(http://i.imgur.com/EuSwCTa.png)
6th Opal
Now we are talking, we just discovered the secrets of the Blast Furnace!
(http://i.imgur.com/mcC9z1B.png)
I’ll be looking at these two buildings more when I finish off the housing situation and get some armor made up. I’ll also take this opportunity to take about research a little more. When you complete a discovery, you get a (Research Supplies) Rare Science Discovery (NAME) item, that is listed under Tools.
(http://i.imgur.com/cx1FjGO.png)
These are blueprints, one-shot consumed materials when you build the workshop. To allow yourself the ability to keep making more, you can do one of two things: Research it again, or make copies of the blueprint in the Scriptorium. As you can see from the shot above, I made 3 copies of the Blast Furnace blueprint, because I will want a few of those.
To make copies, you’ll need to do a few things. First, make some jugs. This can be done at many vanilla and modded workshops. Then, make ink. You can make ink from dye, ash, blood, or graphite. You also need some paper. There are a lot of ways to make paper. You can use leather, wood, plants or cloth. I made mine at the Tailor’s Workshop.
Oh yeah, the Tailor’s workshop is a lot like the furniture workshop, but it makes sets of clothes! In can also unravel cloth, and make sets of leather armors too. Another nice little time saver!
(http://i.imgur.com/Va6AdV5.png)
Back to research, once I get my ink, my paper, and my blueprint, I use the Scriptorium to make copies. That’s not all it does, but we will talk about books and other stuff like libraries and skill training later.
13th Obsidian
Possession! A mason has claimed a workshop.
16th Obsidian
Another drowavan comes. Let see what we can trade for.
21st Obsidian
The mason made a cabinet. Not bad.
(http://i.imgur.com/nWy9bxg.png)
We also finished trading. I got more food, more booze, cloth, and quite a few suits of Bloodsteel armor, mail shirts, helms and razorshields from the drow. That should help arm the militia for the time! Bloodsteel is a lot like steel, except that I just bought a whole bunch instead of crafting it. I also got a bunch of wolverines, predatory cats and drowspiders. Why not have a menagerie of highly dangerous and questionable animals?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And that’s the year! Let’s take a tour of the fort again, from the top down.
The entrance looks much the same, although I am slowly moving things down into relevant stocks. As you can see I have expanded the farms significantly, in order to hopefully break free of the need to trade for food.
(http://i.imgur.com/44wLrQ0.png)
Here we have some basic stockpiles and puppy raising areas. Snooze.
(http://i.imgur.com/RejlmMm.png)
Next is the stone and metal works. You can see the larger furniture shops, slag pit and ore processor.
(http://i.imgur.com/N7pV6PT.png)
This is the start of the research wing, which be expanded greatly as time goes on. So far it’s just the Researcher’s Study and the Scriptorium, and stocks to supply them.
(http://i.imgur.com/KzqJI6X.png)
Bedroom floor one! Rooms for one hundred dwarves. My room has the parrot cage, if you were wondering. Another floor is being carved out below, for more new residents.
(http://i.imgur.com/uXB3dc9.png)
Finally, the dining room, under construction. Four wings to start, and I may add more. I hope to have a table for every dwarf, and to fill the alcoves with artifacts and statues.
(http://i.imgur.com/JT4mlmv.png)
The year in review:
(http://i.imgur.com/odY5p6b.png)
Dorfs are dorfed, I’ll put them up in the main page post.
Year Three – Digging Down, Building Up, and Moar Farms!
So this year was pretty low key. I’ll just go over the highlights, then tour the fortress again.
Most of the year was devoted to building and digging. We constructed the first floor of a large turreted entrance to the fortress, shown here:
(http://i.imgur.com/Mba0NBF.png)
While not the most exciting thing, it should provide security against ambushes and robbers, and once I have marksdwarves trained, I will put some on duty in there to keep an eye on things.
I finished digging out and finishing a second floor of bedrooms, and appointed all of the first hundred, and a portion of the second hundred.
We did have a nice summer-time scrap with a dual attack of raccoons and nymphs that refused to leave us alone. Between the caravan guards and the military, we took out all of them, but it severely disrupted building for a time.
In Autumn, we got another research breakthrough: the Crucible.
(http://i.imgur.com/nL42cYt.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/cwflkbS.png)
This is a handy building that allows for more efficient processing of metals and working some of the new ones. Although the building does not have the raw speed of the blast furnace at making steel and bronze (it makes 3 bar batches) you get a free bar, and a small chance for another. So that is nice! You can also process things like Wolframite and chromite, melt the rust out of <rusty> items, and melt stone into obsidian and slate.
I copied the blueprint 4 times, and saved them, as I will be working on using magma soon.
This led to the last major project of the year: the Lavaworks. This is not a masterwork thing, per se, but something I like to do. I dug down under most of the fortress layers, and carved out a giant room to flood with magma, and to place all of our metalworking above. You see, I forgot that having seen magma from the start, I had access to the magma powered versions of masterwork furnaces and forges without needing to do the research that unlocks them. Handy, no? So it’s time to stop wasting wood and start cooking with molten lava.
A small annoyance on this map is a distinct lack of flux stone. While normally this would be problematic, we have a solution. The millstone can now grind various remains into a variety of useful things, including bonemeal. Bonemeal is a flux stand in! So I built a millstone, and a small defended windmill to power it, and have started grinding the bones of the dead livestock and the few invaders that havefallen to guards, dogs and trade guards.
(http://i.imgur.com/dm2NnTF.png)
But before I go nuts with the liquid death, I had to sort out our farms. I dug into the last soil layer and created a massive underground farm and pasture system with workshops, stockpiles, breweries, and just about everything the food industry needs to be self sufficient. Her are the farms in all their glory at the end of the year:
(http://i.imgur.com/oSBKtfw.png)
What is that big blue thing? It is a Fish Pond! For the price of 10 blocks, you can make a pond that you can fish at and catch all sorts of stuff. In the reactions menu you can choose to fish with a variety of implements. The bucket is the worst, the pole is better, and the net is best. You can also fish for other assorted things. You also make the poles and nets at the fish pond. Best of all, it uses the fish farming skill instead of fishing, so you can get fish without sending dwarves to their inevitable death outside.
(http://i.imgur.com/QaVFNXa.png)
We discovered the Coin Mint, which lets us mint… coins. I was all excited to get going, but realized I was missing a bunch of other workshops that let us do this, so for now just know that coins are in fact useful, and we will talk about them again next year.
(http://i.imgur.com/cuDpGuC.png)
After the coin mint, we discovered the secrets of the Gemforge. The Gemforge can make weapons and armor from gems! Meph wanted a gem greatsword, so I’ll see about getting on that for him. Apparently they are very sharp…
(http://i.imgur.com/WcQfoiO.png)
With bedrooms, farms and the entrance in order, I turned to the Lavaworks. Digging was completed, but flooding has not happened by the end of the year. Next year should see a rapid surge in our metal production.
(http://i.imgur.com/aBkUqgW.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/k2XvCNW.png)
We also became a barony this year! I made myself Baron, and have started a wonderful collection of birds. Since we now have a mayor and a baron, I got cracking on noble housing, and I’m rather happy. I accidentally processed most of the gold-bearing ore into blocks, so to salvage that oversight, I made myself a ton of gold-bearing rock furniture.
(http://i.imgur.com/HwEJ6cR.png)
And we finally have proper mausoleums. Someone died, I can’t remember who, so I figured a lot of coffins and tombs for the starting seven was appropriate.
(http://i.imgur.com/ndC0apo.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/ENMVaPg.png)
From an industry standpoint, I have shifted the focus from mugs to clothing. Clothing is nice. My dwarves can use it, and I can trade it, new or used, for great profit. So most of our trading sessions consisted of getting rid of the last of our gold-bearing rock mugs in exchange for food, drink, cloth, leather, and in the case of the drow, every piece of bloodsteel armor they had. I seriously love those guys.
So all in all, a rather low key year focused on making the fort more defendable, sustainable, and preparing for fun with lava!
Year 4 - Alchemy, Guildhalls, and Magma
Spring
Flooding of the tunnels begins! We also discovered the magma sea.
(http://i.imgur.com/5MIt8Nq.png)
12th Granite
My barony has been confirmed! Hooray!
15th slate
Four dwarves died due to magma related issues in setting up the magma forges. A pity, but progress requires sacrifice…
18th Slate
Three more reported missing… Maybe I need to work on this whole digging and lava thing. Usually I do better.
27th Slate
Migrants have come. And we built a Guildhall.
(http://i.imgur.com/h4WVFie.png)
For the low, low price of 500 sovereigns (gold coins), this lets you turn a dwarf into a member of one of the 12 guilds, massively increasing how fast they learn the guild skills. The best way to do this is to restrict the workshop to the dwarf you want to change, then run the reaction. The dwarf will go into a trance for a week, and emerge as a new guildmember. I am going to start slowly guilding useful dwarfs.
8th Felsite
I hit a snag – I need coins to use the Guildhall. Coins require a Mint. A mint requires 3 sorts of dies to be built. To make those, I need a Toolmaker. I get the Toolamker built, but run into a snag.
(http://i.imgur.com/8KF1hBF.png)
I need spring steel to make parts for dies! Spring Steel is new, and used for many reactions in the mod. To make it I need steel and nickel. Steel is no problem, but nickle needs garnierite. I have no garnierite on this embark, but there is the Alchemist!
Well drat, I need more stuff to research the Alchemist. Specifically I need stone, rough gems, bars, flux, SOAP_MAT (lye!) and oil. I can get oil from a screw press, so I’ll build one of those, and press some oil out of plants. I’ll make lye from ash, which I have been making anyway for slag processing.
Time to get working…
19th felsite
Elves. I’ll lock them in and take their stuff.
Summer
5th Hematite
Our researchers have discovered the secrets of alchemy! Now we can build the alchemist’s shop.
(http://i.imgur.com/bCxKSGr.png)
Now we need a mortar and pestle. I’ll send the orders to the craftdwarves.
28th Hematite
More damn migrants. I mean, great, more bodies!
9th Galena
The elves finally went nuts!
(http://i.imgur.com/elF4vkG.png)
Autumn
20th Limestone
We have an alchemist’s shop! This wonderful building lets you transform metals from one to another around a circle of alchemy. The circle is in the manual, so you can look it up there. Basically, two bars and one flux transmute into a bar of the next metal. It is not efficient, and not all of the transmutation make perfect sense, but they generally go up in value, so all in all, in works to plug holes in the missing minerals for your embark, assuming you have something to work with. You can also use sprites to make water and lava sources, but we have both, so we will leave that for now. Time to transmute some copper to nickel.
(http://i.imgur.com/FOxyJ48.png)
We also have a necromancer in disguise! I’ll send Meph and his squads to deal with this.
(http://i.imgur.com/73VLX8I.png)
Well, that was quick. In one motion Meph charged down the stairs, drew his dagger, and cut the necromancer in half.
(http://i.imgur.com/sU3Uzkc.png)
13th Sandstone
I’ve been making great gem axes at the Gemforge, but I’m having issues. It seems random dwarves are picking them up as soon as I make them. I’m not sure what the deal is, but I’ll try to figure it out and get Meph his great axe.
And, we finally have enough spring steel! Time to make coin dies!
16th Sandstone
We have unlocked the secrets of magick!!! Magick is a complex addition to the game. Just now that for now we have unlocked the first step in magickal awesomeness, and this will be returned to later.
(http://i.imgur.com/hzCJB89.png)
19 Sandstone
Even more migrants have come. We have also finished two Shrines to Armok. The shrine lets you pick an item to pray for, and you have about a 3% chance per prayer job to get something. Another nice way to try and get some stuff for free. Great if you have lots of useless dwarves.
(http://i.imgur.com/eCwWWyk.png)
26th Sandstone
The coin mint is built. I’m going to start making gold coins (sovereigns) to use in the Guild Hall. The building uses bars of metal, and turns them into coins. Pretty simple.
(http://i.imgur.com/ttTGEUP.png)
28th Sandstone
We have a new Monastery. This building makes a lot of the stuff that gets used in various religious reactions, like ceremonial items, allows praying, and can be used to induct dwarves into the Priest Guild, creating Apostles of Armok.
(http://i.imgur.com/YNzL6mL.png)
We need ceremonial statues and totems for an altar of Armok, so I’ll have some built.
5th Timber
Now that we are making coins, it is time to get some use out of that guild hall! I am going to make a few more smiths.
In all the hubub, I missed the announcement that we discovered the secrets of the Golemforge a few days ago. We’ll be returning to this topic.
(http://i.imgur.com/CtbonG4.png)
11th Timber
At long last, a siege! Orcs…
Time to test the new airlock system.
26th Timber
While trying to lure in the orcs, a forgotten beast has come to the caverns.
(http://i.imgur.com/Jo81KeW.png)
Winter
The squad of orcs seem content to wait, so I’ll see if the drow caravan can whittle them down. They are mostly bowmen, no sense in wasting troops. These orcs are smart invaders. They do not randomly charge in, but instead wait for you to attack them.
23rd Moonstone
Our School of Wizardy is up and running. I’ve set some research to be done in various fields of magic.
(http://i.imgur.com/fKKFkmH.png)
1st Opal
One of our dwarves is an acolyte of the carp god! Time to dispatch the military. It appears to be hitting our dwarves with waves of paralysis.
(http://i.imgur.com/rRdKnIU.png)
All of our sqauds attack, and the acolyte punches one of the first dwarves on the scene, hitting him in the head and crushing his skull. As the dwarves pile in, our chemist, with a gem great axe, slices of the acolyte’s right arm. Another swing cleaves off the right foot. Finally, the creature bleeds to death. While no one gains credit for the kill, it Sigun Raluzar, a chemist who inexplicably took a gem great axe, that severed both body parts. She has been given the title “Carp Slayer”, and will receive military honors and likely a rank in the militia.
(http://i.imgur.com/P2N1LmO.png)
9th Opal
Our hospital killed a dwarf due to lack of water. Time to get cracking on the wells.
16th Opal
We discovered the Town Portal at the Wizardry school! I’ll come back to this, but it basically allows you to summon dwarves from the Mountainhome directly to the fortress. Cool, if you need more dwarves.
(http://i.imgur.com/P2N1LmO.png)
14th Obsidian
Another artifact, this time an hourglass.
Work progresses on the well system full speed.
21st Obisidian
Two long overdue additions have been made to the fortress. And Archeologist’s Study and a Biologists Study. The Biologist allows our doctors to study fallen corpses of our foes in order to learn the weak points and improve our ability to fight them. In short, the reactions have a chance to provide benefits reducing skills of the enemy. I’ve queued up a bunch of research into orcs and goblins, as they seem to like attacking us.
(http://i.imgur.com/9dm2pNK.png)
The Archeologist picks up those random relics and fossils, and randomly turns them into things. Could be useful, might be junk. But it’s kind of a nice flavor addition.
(http://i.imgur.com/7OuDstN.png)
That’s it for year 4. Year five should see use of magic, wells, and more use of advanced workshops.
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/2tIPeMY.png[/IMG]
☼Cathedral☼ was started as a religious-themed fort so perhaps it will serve as an example of ‘how it can be done.’ The defensive dust cloud thrown around by the earth mage is certainly useful, as it hides him and everyone close by from incoming projectiles. The rules seem to change quite a bit with each new release and that may be preventing most everyone else from having the data of “ten, ten-year forts” for evaluation. Just from my limited experience, praying is too “iffy” – possible exception of mood items – and the Bloody Armor is too heavy to be of practical use. Some of the other mage skills look good in theory but I’ve never been able to skill one up sufficiently between releases. In ☼Bannerheart☼, the Iron Colossus was one kick-ass defender to be sure; even busted up, he could more than hold his own against a squad of armored Orcs (btw, is it possible to heal/fix those things?) but there’s another way to obtain one in the current release besides praying. You tend to nerf things when they get too good. :) Even with current limitations, souls are still worth the effort but it used to be pretty easy with changelings to have legendary skills. I stayed with ☼Bannerheart☼ another couple of years after the FPS was fixed because it was such an outstanding fort and it was fun to watch the steel-clad raptors and sauropods make short work of even large invasions. After a flippin’ year of RL time, I’ve managed to learn the tricks to having a decent military from the get-go (with your early help, thanks for that)
Embark with plenty of the cheap leatherwing bats and something to give chiten when butchered and you can have good armor even before the autumn caravan. Turn off auto-tan and use dedicated stockpiles to make studded leather, which is good enough for the first two years if you keep total wealth below the trigger. ASAP, make chiten cloaks: they’re equal to iron but lightweight and multiple cloaks can be stacked without going over the size restrictions, training the dorfs in armor-wearing. Spend embark points on a good weaponsmith and Guild him right away; the trap components are the best early trade goods and he’ll soon be making masterwork weapons. Use light wooden shields until you have enough of the better-coverage bloodsteel shields from trade – wooden shieds will train the skill and they can still cave in the skull of an iron-helmed invader. Improve all squad skills by hunting to prep them for the heavy metal armor. Use some of the early steel to make battlepicks which are very effective in the hands of a skilled miner (trade away all others). Quality helms and mailshirts are an early priority, hopefully with breastplates before elite marksinvaders come; everything else is just down time in the infirmary unless the fortress has the resources for full armor sets. Trade for all the silver and titanium you can, the Alchemist is just too damn slow and Teduk is too expensive and never has enough, anyhow. Mithril edges are more than good enough even after the trigger until you get Volcanic. Then, on to clown-town!
but there’s always something new and interesting in each subsequent release. The library, for instance, was the best way to train dwarves to great agility (the most useful military skill; armor is good, not getting hit is better) and sufficient armor-wearing to handle the heavy metals. And skilled soldiers encased in steel are good enough until way late in the game. The library is still ‘good enough’ with level 5, but I preferred the “slow but sure” rules previously to higher levels. But then, I like the long game with quasi-historical accuracy and mega-projects while most players are likely “slash and kill” fans.
When someone demonstrates an effective way to employ all the new magic from scratch, that’ll be one less humongous learning curve and a great help.