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Dwarf Fortress => DF Dwarf Mode Discussion => Topic started by: DwarfsAreGoodTestSubjects on March 05, 2023, 09:31:48 am

Title: Quickest death in one of your fortresses? (or quickest collapse)
Post by: DwarfsAreGoodTestSubjects on March 05, 2023, 09:31:48 am
This happened with my current fortress; keep in mind that I'm relatively new to this game.

I commanded my miner to dig into the cliffside. I then commanded them to dig an uphill slope there. Something collapsed and they got immediately crushed.

A couple of my dwarves are still terrified to this day.
Title: Re: Quickest death in one of your fortresses? (or quickest collapse)
Post by: brewer bob on March 05, 2023, 10:09:36 am
Embarked on a frozen river that happened to be in a canyon... which thawed immediately when unpausing the game. Everyone drowned before they even reached the canyon walls.
Title: Re: Quickest death in one of your fortresses? (or quickest collapse)
Post by: Telgin on March 05, 2023, 11:56:32 am
A necromancer siege in the first year is probably my fastest fort loss.  I've never been that unfortunate with terrain related hazards.
Title: Re: Quickest death in one of your fortresses? (or quickest collapse)
Post by: DwarfsAreGoodTestSubjects on March 05, 2023, 12:07:22 pm
A necromancer siege in the first year is probably my fastest fort loss.

A necromancer siege was also the fate of my "first" fortress ("first" in quotes since there were other fortresses I had, but this is the first one I haven't abandoned). Locked my dwarves inside the fortress, but foreigners kept visiting and died. I had enough of this, so I made some spears, a quick military group, opened the hatches to the outside world and commanded them to fight the corpses. They died almost immediately. Not even a second and my entire military group was gone.

My mistake really, they were underprepared with wooden spears. (Also I have no idea if you can kill them)
Title: Re: Quickest death in one of your fortresses? (or quickest collapse)
Post by: palenerd on March 05, 2023, 10:52:46 pm
Savage evil biome on a river. Wagon was barely 3 tiles from the water. Giant aligators ate three people immediately. Screwed up the aquifer and fatally injured my miners. Without a pick, the last guy didn't last long after that.
Title: Re: Quickest death in one of your fortresses? (or quickest collapse)
Post by: A_Curious_Cat on March 06, 2023, 02:59:50 am
Frozen river in a canyon in a serene biome.

Initial embark:  Ice melts.  Everybody drowns.

First reclaim:  Ditto.

Second reclaim:  everyone got gored to death by unicorns.

Third reclaim:  Made it safely to the cliffs.  Then proceeded to dig a series of ramps up into an aquifer (back when “heavy” aquifers were the only kind), which (due to the layout of -what little existed of- my fort) caused everyone (and everything) to be flushed into the river.

IIRC, it was 4 layers of stone sandwiched between two aquifers (one above, one below).  Also (as this was my second fort), for some reason I thought that leaving one side of the room that I used for my refuse stockpile open to the outside would prevent miasma from occurring…
Title: Re: Quickest death in one of your fortresses? (or quickest collapse)
Post by: delphonso on March 06, 2023, 07:21:11 am
Small embark in an evil biome - immediately the dwarves were ripped apart by ogres.

I've had that same thing happen a few times with undead frozen tundras, but that's also a symptom of the 2x2 embark.


Embarked on a frozen river that happened to be in a canyon... which thawed immediately when unpausing the game. Everyone drowned before they even reached the canyon walls.

This always cracks me up. I just love this game sometimes.

Frozen river in a canyon in a serene biome.

Initial embark:  Ice melts.  Everybody drowns.

First reclaim:  Ditto.

Second reclaim:  everyone got gored to death by unicorns.

Third reclaim:  Made it safely to the cliffs.  Then proceeded to dig a series of ramps up into an aquifer (back when “heavy” aquifers were the only kind), which (due to the layout of -what little existed of- my fort) caused everyone (and everything) to be flushed into the river.

IIRC, it was 4 layers of stone sandwiched between two aquifers (one above, one below).  Also (as this was my second fort), for some reason I thought that leaving one side of the room that I used for my refuse stockpile open to the outside would prevent miasma from occurring…

I appreciate your tenacity. I'm re-learning things in the Steam version and keep devastating my forts, and reclaiming them until I get it /down/.
Title: Re: Quickest death in one of your fortresses? (or quickest collapse)
Post by: Mungrul on March 06, 2023, 07:42:28 am
Giant, aggravated mosquitoes.
Title: Re: Quickest death in one of your fortresses? (or quickest collapse)
Post by: anewaname on March 06, 2023, 09:49:46 am
There was a military force on the map, maybe 30+ dwarfs that were hostile, and the expedition was slaughtered, but the funny part was that I enjoyed bringing as many turkeys as possible at that time, so there maybe 40 or 50 turkeys and the enemy needed to work for it...

Also has a fun one with 6 undead orca.
Title: Re: Quickest death in one of your fortresses? (or quickest collapse)
Post by: Justiceface on July 30, 2023, 01:13:04 pm
Small embark in an evil biome - immediately the dwarves were ripped apart by ogres.
I had the same in a 47.05 embark but with giant red-winged blackbird corpses. Attempted reclaim twice but just couldn't get the dwarves out of sight fast enough. One time it was giant crow corpses or something I think but always undead giant birds.
Title: Re: Quickest death in one of your fortresses? (or quickest collapse)
Post by: rtg593 on August 15, 2023, 01:15:10 am
Embarked evil biome for the first time, unpause, raining. Yeah, ok, whatever, dig! 3 days later, all dwarves died simultaneously.

Some very evil rain, indeed.
Title: Re: Quickest death in one of your fortresses? (or quickest collapse)
Post by: Kikkero on August 15, 2023, 11:27:29 am
My very first fort.  I didn't really understand what an evil biome was, ignored the warning pop-ups, and then was very annoyed when I had a full zombie invasion tearing through my fort within 9 months of embark.
Title: Re: Quickest death in one of your fortresses? (or quickest collapse)
Post by: Stromko on August 21, 2023, 12:05:01 am
My very first proper fort (in the Steam version), a couple undead just wandered in before the first caravan had even visited us. I should note this wasn't even a scary biome it was just regular calm forest and I was unlucky I suppose. I drafted every dwarf I had to deal with it, but one of the undead was highly skilled and just tore through everyone.

Ever since then I've been sure to get a front door or better yet a drawbridge set up for every fortress as soon as I can manage it, just in case something shows up that is way too strong to handle. I don't think I've actually had a fort crumble since then, but nothing that dangerous has shown up that early either.
Title: Re: Quickest death in one of your fortresses? (or quickest collapse)
Post by: Yone on November 05, 2023, 12:16:59 am
I recently reclaimed one of the game-created fort ruins. Instead of a forgotten beast deep within the fortress, which I'd encountered before with reclaims, there was a demon in the first cavern level. I couldn't wall off in time and all my dwarves were killed within the first season.
Title: Re: Quickest death in one of your fortresses? (or quickest collapse)
Post by: lazygun on November 06, 2023, 06:12:42 pm
Alligator in the river next to the wagon.

On the third save-scum I appointed the last dwarf standing as Chief Medical Officer and designated a spot of ground as the hospital. Not much got done that spring but I eventually had 5 mobile dwarves to construct the fortress.
Title: Re: Quickest death in one of your fortresses? (or quickest collapse)
Post by: Pillbo on November 18, 2023, 05:07:27 pm
I'm not sure why it happened, maybe I embarked over another fort using embark anywhere?  Anyway, I spawned on a map with another dwarven miner off in the corner and when I unpaused that dwarf ran at my wagon and massacred all 7 within seconds with his pick.
Title: Re: Quickest death in one of your fortresses? (or quickest collapse)
Post by: PlumpHelmetMan on November 18, 2023, 05:38:00 pm
Not sure if it counts but there've been times when I've hit abandon almost immediately because the embark site had something I just didn't want to deal with right off the bat (like a herd of giant grizzly bears roaming around or an aquifer on the first underground z-level).
Title: Re: Quickest death in one of your fortresses? (or quickest collapse)
Post by: klefenz on November 22, 2023, 11:20:15 am
I'm not sure why it happened, maybe I embarked over another fort using embark anywhere?  Anyway, I spawned on a map with another dwarven miner off in the corner and when I unpaused that dwarf ran at my wagon and massacred all 7 within seconds with his pick.
Sounds like a dwarven slasher killer.
Title: Re: Quickest death in one of your fortresses? (or quickest collapse)
Post by: Eric Blank on November 22, 2023, 07:39:10 pm
Started in a terrifying evil biome recently and was immediately set upon by first carp men out of the stream and then their zombies. They managed to kill a couple dwarves, who came back from the dead and slaughtered the remainder. Fort lasted about 12 days or something, was still Granite.
Title: Re: Quickest death in one of your fortresses? (or quickest collapse)
Post by: sum1overthere on November 23, 2023, 10:47:24 am
A undead pig attacked everyone as soon as I unpaused a new game.
Title: Re: Quickest death in one of your fortresses? (or quickest collapse)
Post by: Findulidas on December 04, 2023, 06:15:09 am
Many years ago I embarked on a terrifying biome and all dwarves and animals almost instantly died to the blood rain which had some ridiculus syndrome to it. It was so quick I never had time to check in detail what it was. Atleast one turned into a zombie and one gave into pain. I was quite pissed at the time because I had given serious thought into the items, skills and such on the embark but obviously didnt save anything. I had also for some reason obssessed over embarking on a terrifying moist broadleaf forest (or was it a swamp? cant remember) next to ocean with iron, flux, all civs close plus a seemingly large dwarven civ closeby. All of it went waste because of the dumb weather.
Title: Re: Quickest death in one of your fortresses? (or quickest collapse)
Post by: sniper_231996 on December 04, 2023, 10:16:04 am
When I was new I dug straight down after making a couple of rooms for dwarves and a tavern. I wanted to find minerals. I breached a giant cavern at some depth. A flying forgotten beast came and slaughtered everyone it saw.  :(
Title: Re: Quickest death in one of your fortresses? (or quickest collapse)
Post by: Two119 on December 04, 2023, 11:56:16 am
A few days ago, I reclaimed an abandoned site (not one of my previous ones) belonging to my civilization. It had a nice limestone floor, some walls, etc and I felt pretty confident - until my entire fortress was wiped out by a steam monster. Within a week, I think. I hadn't even built a carpenter's workshop yet.

Title: Re: Quickest death in one of your fortresses? (or quickest collapse)
Post by: Tryble on December 08, 2023, 04:21:30 am
Years back, I tried downloading Masterwork DF since it was getting a lot of attention at the time. 

Immediately on embark, the wagon (or something on it) erupted into flames, roasting some oblivious dwarves and starting an inferno that laid waste to most of the surface.  Deleted the mod and have never used major mods ever again.
Title: Re: Quickest death in one of your fortresses? (or quickest collapse)
Post by: Stromko on December 08, 2023, 10:33:42 pm
My first proper fort with the Steam version, after countless hours with the ASCII version over the years but not having played much recently, I started a pretty standard embark next to a mountain in a calm forest with a brook.

Before the first caravan or migrants even arrived, a small pack of undead (2 or 3) wandered in from the south. I drafted my miners and other dwarves and sent them to fight, but one of the undead was highly skilled and killed them all. Crumbled!

That's how I relearned to always have a door I can close or preferably a drawbridge I can raise to completely seal off my fort, just in case I have to wait something out.
Title: Re: Quickest death in one of your fortresses? (or quickest collapse)
Post by: darkhog on December 10, 2023, 05:24:23 pm
So I embark for a brand new fortress (the previous failed due to the werelizard problem AND FPS death).

I name the fortress Deathspiral.

I name the group of dwarves to embark to it The Act Of Failure just to be extra cheeky.

Guess what happens in the first few hours of gameplay.
Title: Re: Quickest death in one of your fortresses? (or quickest collapse)
Post by: Telgin on December 10, 2023, 08:27:00 pm
The important question is how the Urists met their timely end.
Title: Re: Quickest death in one of your fortresses? (or quickest collapse)
Post by: DerpFortress on January 05, 2024, 10:45:16 pm
Embarked on a frozen ocean in a modded game, cave-ins enabled.

The collapse that happens on a first embark is pretty standard.
Title: Re: Quickest death in one of your fortresses? (or quickest collapse)
Post by: Broseph Stalin on January 06, 2024, 12:16:28 am
In the 2012 version that reworked evil biomes I embarked in one.  Like two frames after I closed the strike the earth message it started raining slime that instantly turned everyone and everything on the map into husks.