You guys will have to forgive me for the relative lack of roleplay in this update- I'm tired, and want to get on to other games...
My first orders of business, were to secure the caverns and close the hole in the shooting gallery floor:
Shortly after that, a nasty-looking FLYING Forgotten Beast arrived (it would later make mince-meat out of Voracious Cave Crawlers and some wild Trolls wandering the caverns- it certainly would have been a threat to our Dwarves). Good thing I secured the Caverns early on!
We also got a Ghostly Wrestler wandering around somehow. I wasn't sure how this happened, as the catacombs had plenty of empty coffins- but then I noticed a steel shield, pick, and helmet in one of the magma channels for the Magma Kilns. It looks like he died ages ago by falling into the lava, leaving no corpse to bury... I started production of a slab for memorializing him, but even as of the end of my play session didn't get around to it... He's little more than a Restless Haunt, so somebody else should find a spot for the slab in some Noble's bedroom (to add to room value) at their leisure...
We also got a Dwarf claiming a workshop! We actually got several of these (3 in the course of a few game-months), but the first one had me rather excited...
As the Dwarf worked on his artifact (and I micro-managed making sure he had the available supplies, and forbid/unforbid various components to increase the amount of materials used in the hopes of getting something more interesting than a piece of glass jewelery) the Dwarves put the finishing touches on securing the Caverns with a second wall so that, even if a Forgotten Beast glitched through the newly-placed floors, he'd still end up in a small 3x3 room with no way into the fortress. The Dwarves then promptly held a party!
I also got to work at this point on replacing the Clay boulder walls with proper Earthenware Brick walls...
Soon after, my Glassmaker began construction on his artifact! Due to a quirk of the order in which I forbid/unforbid items he was using, he actually began work on the artifact (at a Glass Furnace, and his highest moodable skill being Glassmaker) without any glass gems tasked. This led to some interesting results, as you soon shall see....
Yes, that's right, he made an Iron Flask! At a Glass Forge! Somehow, he superheated iron hot enough to blow it into a flask- or something like that...
It was also the most valuable artifact the fortress has EVER produced- partly due to the selection of cut gems used...
The next runner-up in value is the Artifact Steel Spear that was made early in the fortress' history... Not bad for a mere Glassmaker- and unlike many of the other Finished Goods artifacts, this one can actually be used (to hold water/booze of military Dwarves). That could make for one happy Militia Commander! (or Adventurer, pillaging the ruins of the fortress someday...)
No sooner was the artifact complete than ANOTHER Forgotten Beast showed up! This one was a fire-breathing Snail (try hacking through THAT shell without getting burned to a crisp!) Boy I was glad I sealed the Caverns before!
A bunch of time then passed without much of particular interest occurring. I continue work on adding another z-level to the fortress walls, and improving some of the buildings off the main courtyard (you guys DO realize we have some nice, spacious rooms topside, right? They would make excellent bedrooms, workshops, or even just stockpiles...)
Some more migrants eventually arrived, though, despite the "Danger". Not a bad thing, actually- we need to keep the Dwarven gene-pool sufficiently diverse that if the fort ends up having to close its gates permanently or getting retired, Dwarves can still find spouses and continue the fortress line... (they aren't allowed to marry any named relatives- include brothers, sisters, aunts/uncles, and first or second cousins)
Most of what happened of interest for a while after this point was a few Dwarves growing attached to their weapons and shields, and their acquiring names...
I think that names weapons and shields count as artifacts, and are tracked throughout world-generation (even with an active fortress or Adventurer) as long as they aren't destroyed, right? So even if a Kobold ran off with one of the names Swords (perhaps with it embedded in his guts!), it would show up in his home Kobold cave, for instance... I still don't know what would happen if an Adventurer died with an artifact on an unloaded location (such as a road) though...
Regardless, the fortress made it to Summer! And with it, we started getting LOADS of ripening blueberries, cranberries, and bilberries (Bilberries are a close relative of Blueberries, with a similar taste and texture, by the way- the main differences are that they're a little sweeter and a LOT softer- which makes them difficult to commercially harvest and transport to distant cities in real life...) The herbalists, and some loafers I assigned as herbalists, had a field day! (forgot to take a screenshot, of course)
Then, as my attention was mostly focused on herbalism and completing the additional z-level of fortress walls (good luck climbing over them NOW, Goblins!) a Child began work on another artifact:
Things were going well, and the Dwarves seemed quite content with my rule. I guess that's part of why the Mayor got re-elected (OK, so I know it's REALLY just because he's still the biggest slacker with the most friends, but humor me will you?)
And finally, we got a second (or was it third? I might have missed some little trinket) Artifact. This one was just some worthless crown, though (boy I can't wait for when Magic is implemented, and these "useless" artifacts start actually doing something interesting...)
And then I played for a few more game-months, but nothing interesting happened. I've become bored with Dwarf Fortress; and I'm off to go work on gigantic electromagnets, and launching little green men into the cosmos using them! (or rather, I'm off to induce a supernova in my Kerbal Space Program save, and update to the newly-released Beta, and then see if my Mass Driver mod I originally forked off a dying mod with an open license has any new bugs in 0.90)
http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/103511-WIP-0-90-Mass-Driver-Mod?p=1606733#post1606733It might be a while until I make an appearance in Dwarf Fortress again, so here's the save to do whatever you want with. I'm thinking about personally retiring this fortress anyways, and playing an "alternate history" timeline where I go off and establish other forts in the same world, or just starting a new world entirely (the changes to army combat have made it significantly less likely for the Goblins to drive the Dwarves and Humans to near-extinction like in this world), while occasionally checking back in here to make sure everything is running smoothly. The sprawl and mess levels induced by other, less OCD overseers have simply become too much for me. I prefer the life of a simple gentleman farmer/astronaut running a small fortified Villa to a giant, bustling, but infinitely complex succession fortress...
I'll have a DFFD file link to the fortress up *very* soon though. Enjoy!
EDIT: Here's the link!
http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=10270Regards,
Northstar