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Dwarf Fortress => DF Dwarf Mode Discussion => Topic started by: alamoes on June 13, 2010, 11:58:00 am

Title: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: alamoes on June 13, 2010, 11:58:00 am
How did you're fort fall.  Elves? Magma? Both? I want to know how most forts die!! If you have an "Other" vote then describe it please.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: DarthCloakedDwarf on June 13, 2010, 12:00:26 pm
Goblin sieges are easy to deal with. Just raise the drawbridges and watch them sit helplessly outside with their grubby hands in their pockets.

Goblin ambushes, on the other hand... suffice it to say things can get difficult when they suddenly appear inside your fort.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Eagle_eye on June 13, 2010, 12:01:04 pm
tantrum spirals.... bad memories... very bad.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Eidako on June 13, 2010, 12:01:31 pm
I've lost more forts to FPS than to any horror of the deep.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Cheddarius on June 13, 2010, 12:03:45 pm
You should add the options FPS, as Eidako said, and Boredom(get Dig Deeper).
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Asellus on June 13, 2010, 12:07:18 pm
Skeletal deer. Every time a Skeletal deer shows up, my fort dies. Every single time.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Indricotherium on June 13, 2010, 12:31:32 pm
Yeah, Other, to me, reads as FPS, Boredom and Repeated Crashes.

Mine last one fell to the last named.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Rafal99 on June 13, 2010, 12:34:48 pm
Low FPS, boredom, or simply more interest in new fort with new ideas.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: doctorspoof on June 13, 2010, 12:38:38 pm
/hops on the FPS bandwagon :)
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: loser on June 13, 2010, 12:43:58 pm
FPS
Boredom
Disinterest
planning failures
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Old-one-eye on June 13, 2010, 12:55:31 pm
FPS
Idea for new fort.
Deliberately caving-in my meeting hall from boredom and watching the tantrum spiral.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Shurikane on June 13, 2010, 01:01:43 pm
I abandon after I've completed my fort's goal and posted the screenshots.  :D  FPS is often a hurdle though.

I almost lost a fort to a modded beast followed by a tantrum spiral, but miraculously recovered.  It was one of my favorite moments of dwarven play, and to see the fort covered in blood everywhere was awesome.

Then I got six megabeasts and had to figure out how to survive for years on end with the entrance completely sealed off and the traders progressively hating me for failing to protect them.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: moki on June 13, 2010, 01:08:07 pm
FPS and boredom. My first few forts died from water and not understanding z-levels, but that was a long time ago.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Sorcerer on June 13, 2010, 01:13:30 pm
my own goddamn sense of perfection

what.. oh shit! that one room five floors down does not ALIGN TO THE MAIN STAIRCASE! NOOOOO!
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Niloc on June 13, 2010, 01:16:15 pm
 Hmm, in order:

A little bit of everything.  I'll probably vote "Other'.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: smigenboger on June 13, 2010, 01:17:20 pm
Since it's almost run into the ground, FPS and boredom

And strangely, boredom strikes more when the fps is lower
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: darkrider2 on June 13, 2010, 01:28:53 pm
Quote
And strangely, boredom strikes more when the fps is lower

I wonder if science could figure this out...
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: shoowop on June 13, 2010, 01:37:29 pm
just lost my first 31.06 fort to a forgotten beast

well technically I havent yet. considering in the initial fight the beast had his feet chopped off and every single body part is cut open and wounded (he's made of clear glass, but he's a flyer) I'm watching a very very slow forgotten beast slowly eat up my fortress while my useless dwarves are gathering wounded.

Awaiting the inevitable flood of suicidal melancholy to strike
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: BodyGripper on June 13, 2010, 02:13:25 pm
I usually abandon after one of the important dwarves gets killed, or something happens that is fixable, but not worth the effort.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Rafal99 on June 13, 2010, 02:33:44 pm
Quote from: darkrider2 on June 13, 2010, 01:28:53 pm
Quote
And strangely, boredom strikes more when the fps is lower

I wonder if science could figure this out...

I am rarely getting bored while FPS is still high.
With less FPS, seasons take more time, every project takes longer to complete, and less interesting stuff happens at a given time, so game is generally much more boring.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: smigenboger on June 13, 2010, 02:36:09 pm
Are you implying the fps is actually a happiness/interest per second meter?

Or more profoundly, building/creating/digging creates interest/happiness, but takes it away from the HP/I per second?
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Kza on June 13, 2010, 03:44:26 pm
Other. Boredom gets almost every fort I've known of, the only exception being when I got too rich too fast and the goblins got interested before I got an army. I'm VERY slow to get an army. I prefer traps, those big elaborate ones that set fire to mass amounts of goblins WHILE DROWNING THEM.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Inspiration on June 13, 2010, 03:54:12 pm
Quote from: DarthCloakedDwarf on June 13, 2010, 12:00:26 pm
Goblin sieges are easy to deal with. Just raise the drawbridges and watch them sit helplessly outside with their grubby hands in their pockets.

Goblin ambushes, on the other hand... suffice it to say things can get difficult when they suddenly appear inside your fort.
That's why I always employ multiple AAC's (Anti-Ambush-Countermeasures, aka AWACS, Ambush Watching Attack Cat System). It's especially important for me, since 90% of my fledgling fortress' defense is a ballista battery in a long hall, and the other 10% is a drawbridge.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Biag on June 13, 2010, 04:00:50 pm
Mostly I abandon because I get bored in the first few years, or I don't like the site. I've never lost a full-fledged fort, but I abandon the upstarts like crazy because I only have two miners, and no military, and no spare labor for megaconstructions.

I also lose the early forts to threats that would pose no problem to a larger one. Seven deaths are uncommon, but still likely in a larger fort. However, in a larger fort they just mean "Oh bugger I liked Urist. And Catten. And Bomrek. And Urist. And..." rather than "Your settlement has crumbled to its end."

Six deaths extends my usual playtime by a lot, though, simply because I like the hermit challenge. I started a fort in 40d where everyone but two people were immediately killed by fire imps igniting the world... and the survivors were lovers. That was fun.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Cheddarius on June 13, 2010, 04:17:26 pm
FPS correlates with interest. Low FPS, of course, makes a game boring. High FPS is usually at the start, when things are still exciting and you have to get a fortress up before you are ambushed. Low FPS is at the end, when you have all the food, rooms, etc. you need and there's nothing left to do.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: AngleWyrm on June 13, 2010, 04:47:11 pm
I quit playing forts due to an accumulation of problematic architectural designs.
I knew I shoulda put a hallway there.
Or No, wait, I want the armory to be part of the military wing of level z-2.
Or I could've done that better.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Jordrake on June 13, 2010, 05:10:26 pm
I hesitate to say starvation, but when you come down to it, it's true. With my forts, no matter what happens- be it a siege, a berserker or a tantrum spiral- starvation is always what ends up getting my forts. I pull through every other problem, but after them, I have no food. I generally play conservatively, so no digging for forgotten beasts or turning elf merchants into a fine paste. In the end, it's a failure, one way or another, to meet such a base need that brings down my fortresses. Not an enemy without or within, nor a major flaw in planning or a catastrophic accident. They may be a part of it, but what ends up taking me down is always hunger.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Duke Drake on June 13, 2010, 05:11:56 pm
Boredom. Yeah, I feel like an elf for saying it, but it's true.
At some point, usually in the first year, I get a wave of 20+ immigrants -- soap-haulers and idlers, the lot of them.
I just want to build a fortress, not babysit my untrained (and apparantly untrainable), unequipped, burgeoning militia, trying to get them to do anything other than "Attending a party at the Limestone Table".

Edit: Technically, they don't "fall" to boredom, in my case. The (moody) player demands "entertainment", and walks away from them. I've never found an entertainment deposit, or obtained it as a side-effect of butchery.

Perhaps I just need to dig deeper, sooner.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Captain Xenon on June 13, 2010, 05:31:26 pm
i feel that the leading cause of fort failure is the 'learning curve'. right now i am still trying to re-learn the military in the new version, and not dealing with it in the best manner yet.

the number two cause of doomy doom is sheer boredom, where we do something we know is stupid on purpose.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Itnetlolor on June 13, 2010, 05:37:59 pm
A majority of my fortresses fell due to starvation. At least, that was the case with Bloodfist most the time. Wavehandle almost fell to a goblin siege a few times.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Encased in burning magma on June 13, 2010, 06:09:02 pm
Magma trap near the entrance corridor: it sprays magma (from a giant reservoir) on the invaders and then an emergency floodgates seals the entrance corridor off until the magma dries up.

Floodgate got stuck.

=> Tantrum spiral...

Tried to dig away but to no avail, plus food was destroyed by the advancing magma sea. Last dwarf died of thirst.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Nether on June 13, 2010, 06:48:02 pm
Most die due to boredom. I tend to kill all my dwarves because I find abandoning boring.
Last fort was filling with water for hours untill all dwarves had died.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Lemunde on June 13, 2010, 07:49:52 pm
Do you want to know how my last fortress fell!?  Do you really want to know!?  One word...Camels!  Yes, fracking camels!!  They meandered into my fort before I had a proper defense or military set up.  They didn't really hurt anyone.  I just got spammed with job cancellations because "OMG CAMEL!!!"  So I got a whole bunch of dwarves not getting anything done because....CAMELS!!!  Of course I tried to draft a quick military to take care of them.  That turned into a Benny Hill segment real quick.  Fun to watch for the first couple of minutes but after the first month or two it gets really old.  So there was only one thing left for me to do.  Abandon and start over.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Jacob/Lee on June 13, 2010, 10:38:39 pm
Generally FPS.
Perhaps I should've atom smashed the 16000 fucking stones I had that one time..
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Urist McFumbler on June 13, 2010, 11:07:18 pm
FPS nuff said even on a small region and 2x2 embark. With all industries going full blast and no restrictions on immigration, my forts come to a 1 FPS halt by year 17 - 20. Temperature, Invaders and Flow Numbers on.

I absolutely refuse to limit my immigration numbers and industries just to conserve FPS as that would defeat the point of playing DF in the first place.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Bryan Derksen on June 14, 2010, 01:23:59 am
Boredom is the main killer. Most of my forts never actually fall, I simply stop playing them once the challenge is gone and the particular goals I may have had for them are met. FPS isn't quite so big a problem for me - I've got a hefty computer and an equally hefty patience for slow forts as long as there's something interesting to look forward to. If all I have to look forward to is another flawless siege-mashing or another unicorn-soap-and-clear-glass-pyramid just like the one I've already finished building there isn't much point.

I stopped playing a few forts recently due to frustration at bugs, I guess those probably count as "falling" since I stopped playing them due to catastrophic failures or insurmountable problems. But those problems were usually of the variety of "there's a lone goblin pikeman hanging out in my entrance for years on end, but my military refuses to pick up any weapons or train and therefore get completely massacred if I send them to clear him off". I don't think those count as regular failures.

I have yet to open the new Fun Stuff, though my current fort is getting close to considering it. That may shake things up a bit. Though they're actually equipping both axes and armor, and training somehow, so I may do okay. We'll see.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Jacob/Lee on June 14, 2010, 01:28:28 am
Quote from: Bryan Derksen on June 14, 2010, 01:23:59 am
I have yet to open the new Fun Stuff, though my current fort is getting close to considering it. That may shake things up a bit. Though they're actually equipping both axes and armor, and training somehow, so I may do okay. We'll see.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Deathworks on June 14, 2010, 03:51:44 am
Hi!

FPS making the game unplayable lead the list, followed currently by new version release.
Also a favorite one is death of a dwarf I like.

Deathworks
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Libelnon on June 14, 2010, 03:53:30 am
Usually death by thirst.
Not helped by the fact that dwarves in .06 seem to be reluctant to drink from water unless it is designated a water supply, and I don't usually have a farming industry up quick enough to get some brewers going.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Ieb on June 14, 2010, 04:08:25 am
My first fort to die in the new version(outside of issues with immortal undead and so on) died recently due to extremely bad luck.

Up until then, whenever a forgotten beast made of inorganic material arrived, I sent my military to fight anyway. They break all of it's limbs and the whole thing has body in the red? They won, use an utility to kill the thing.

What I didn't expect was that what would trigger the end of my fortress was a beast with deadly dust. A huge worm of some sort. It went down fast, but during the battle there was a lot of dust going around.

Turns out that dust made the soldiers bodies swell up with their own blood, while their bodies rotted both inside and outside. All but two soldiers died. Luckily I had kept my fort pumping out goods, and it seemed the survivors were too happy to be devastated by the death of all their friends.

But this still left me with a military of two and not seventeen which used to be moments before.

Migrants arrive, and the military is remade, twenty dwarves strong, weapons are handed out and so is masterwork steel armor.

Then the goblins arrive.

The civilians flee for their lives, the military stands strong. And that's when things went really bad. The goblins broke the backs of the military and the new recruits, and one of the two surviving veterans died when charging the enemy after the ranks at the gates were smashed apart.

The goblins did flee and only a few civilians died, but now I had a military of four people, two of them hospitalized.

Miraculously, a small migrant wave arrives soon after. All of them were drafted.

That's when Ost, the towering humanoid of horn silver arrived. So I sent my military to fight, again.

Things went bad again.

No one was able to put even one dent to the thing, I don't know if it was something off with horn silver values, or if my dwarves simply weren't strong enough(the two surviving veterans weren't even close to the best dwarves my military had).

Whatever it was, Ost took blows like being slapped with wet noodle, and one by one, punched my poor military to submission, crushing skulls and so on. And then he/she/it grabbed a pair of masterpiece steel greaves from one of my soldiers, and began beating everyone to a pulp with it.

And he did.

Every single dwarf in that fort at that point died because a horn silver humanoid grabbed a pair of steel greaves, and bashed them all to death with it. I think the defining moment was when Ost lodged the greaves in someone's wound and twisted them around.

So while this was a combination of things that went horribly wrong, I would have to say the forgotten beasts pose the greatest of potential threats a fort can face. If you're unlucky, of course. The beast before the worm, which also had deadly dust, only made blisters appear on the skin.

I might have gotten a tad careless at that point. It was still fun though.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: snelg on June 14, 2010, 05:40:34 am
Boredom and new ideas mostly. The first few years are more fun.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Nether on June 14, 2010, 05:44:59 am
Quote from: Jacob/Lee on June 14, 2010, 01:28:28 am
Quote from: Bryan Derksen on June 14, 2010, 01:23:59 am
I have yet to open the new Fun Stuff, though my current fort is getting close to considering it. That may shake things up a bit. Though they're actually equipping both axes and armor, and training somehow, so I may do okay. We'll see.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: cyks on June 14, 2010, 06:32:01 am
I keep abandoning sucessful forts to try each new version of df2010.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: palsch on June 14, 2010, 07:14:28 am
Quote from: cyks on June 14, 2010, 06:32:01 am
I keep abandoning sucessful forts to try each new version of df2010.
The saves are compatible you know...
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Libelnon on June 14, 2010, 09:48:47 am
Right. My present fort has been condemned to death when an ocean titan turned up. Natrually, with only 18 residents and no military, it was a case of PANIC GET EVERYONE INSIDE SEAL IT OFF.

Problem. My farms and food are on the surface.

As is my drinking water.

And the plants I was going to make into booze.

I'm now watching in abject horror as my entire fort succumbs to thirst, as I can't dig up to the sea as the damn titan would get in, and I can't dig down to the caverns because my first miner has gone stark raving mad and is clinging onto his pick, and the other is tantrumming and bashing people with his.

Either way. I'm boned.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: SpacemanSpiff on June 14, 2010, 10:13:54 am
Sounds like both miners have to die, and quickly.  Draft everyone else and dogpile them. 

Then, instead of going down to the caverns, you could either collapse a surface section with food and plants, or release your pets onto the surface as sacrificial bait before sending a few dwarves out to retrieve supplies.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Orris on June 14, 2010, 10:16:32 am
Quote from: Sorcerer on June 13, 2010, 01:13:30 pm
my own goddamn sense of perfection

what.. oh shit! that one room five floors down does not ALIGN TO THE MAIN STAIRCASE! NOOOOO!

This, this, a THOUSAND TIMES this.

I restarted a year-old fort because I realized my meeting hall was one tile off from being symmetrical to a workshop room half the fort away.

I am so goddamn messy in real life, why do my forts have to be completely and utterly perfect?
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Eagle_eye on June 14, 2010, 10:28:56 am
oh also, crying and pleading for the caravan to come because my cistern wasn't full enough to have a well when the winter freeze came.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: TomiTapio on June 14, 2010, 10:40:02 am
Quote from: Captain Xenon on June 13, 2010, 05:31:26 pm
I feel that the leading cause of fort failure is the 'learning curve'. right now i am still trying to re-learn the military in the new version, and not dealing with it in the best manner yet.
I suggest embarking with 3-7 short swords, and never crafting crossbows(clubs) or training weapons. Make a short-sword and metal armor uniform and never command an uniform change after the initial one the squad gets.
Un-designate barracks to stop them from training. That's what I do.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: grufti on June 14, 2010, 10:42:34 am
Bugs - most of my fortress end atm with bad, bad bugs. I can cope with lost dwarfes due to tantrum spirals or due to goblin master lashers (they seem to be really badass in the latest versions), but I can't bare a screwed up military, health system or some other plot stopper alike bug.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: TomiTapio on June 14, 2010, 10:47:36 am
Quote from: Ieb on June 14, 2010, 04:08:25 am

That's when Ost, the towering humanoid of horn silver arrived. So I sent my military to fight, again.
Whatever it was, Ost took blows like being slapped with wet noodle, and one by one, punched my poor military to submission, crushing skulls and so on. And then he/she/it grabbed a pair of masterpiece steel greaves from one of my soldiers, and began beating everyone to a pulp with it.
Yeah, the non-flesh FBs spell "fortress over", being quite unkillable. I had a giant FB made of Amber, slowly harassing my people after being broken in all body parts. And being in Genesis mod, the paralysis-breath dwarf's breath suffocated 90% of my 30 war dogs. (Deleted firebreath/webber/paralysisbreath from dwarves after that.)
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Virodhi on June 14, 2010, 12:05:08 pm
I keep falling off the catastrophe curve. Keeping moody dwarves happy? No problem. Keeping the stumpy bastards fed? A bit of a dance, but mostly okay. Sieges and ambushes? Traps EVERYWHERE. Dealing with a population boom, particularly nobles who want everything yesterday? My perfectionism makes me fall behind, and...well...splat.

I think the game is catching on too. The second I start feeling good about myself, BAM! A craftsdwarf decides to prove that they are indeed all bastards and makes a 200k useless artifact, and suddenly I'm hip-deep in migrants and lesser evils.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: afoninv on June 14, 2010, 01:52:33 pm
My .31 fortresses are lost mostly to pathfinding. And that's annoying.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Psieye on June 14, 2010, 02:20:25 pm
Yep, +1 to Death by Boredom tally. It's why megaprojects are so popular - there's nothing else to do in the lategame once your fort is fully settled. Years in the future that'll be different, what with the Army Arc and Caravan Arc, but right now it's about waiting for death by either FPS or getting some unkillable thing (either Forgotten Beast or opening up the Final Spoiler... which kills FPS really fast).
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Truean on June 14, 2010, 02:49:17 pm
My own insanity/OCD. It's not perfect... never perfect and I can't undig the squares!
It's either too inefficient or too square and boxy.

Must make it usable and yet a nice place for the Dwarves to live/work. They don't care that the ceiling is 3z levels high and made of gold?!?! They don't care about the artificial chasms between room clusters so they can all have windows with a view of artificially created tree ledges? There's not enough barrels for my 2000 booze and my food? A pet fox Squirrel and a Dragon occupy the same amount of squares? Can't kill the training dummy bronze colossi. Crossbows are bugged/broken in this version? No shells? He doesn't want the shells from my modified cave tortoise for his mood? The elves aren't dead yet? We're out of pizza...? [dead silence]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Truean has canceled fortress design, too insane.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: LordSlowpoke on June 14, 2010, 04:23:01 pm
Hmm. In 0.31.xx, it's been mostly failures in creating a Dwarven Microwave. In 40d, however, I had a wide variety of spectacular, not-so-spectacular and simply epic deaths, I even had a Boatmurdered-esque ending with only a kid sitting in a refuse pile surviving, scorched landscape and a lot of dead elephants outside, and of course, my legendary (according to Dwarf Companion a year before the end, lv. 62 wrestler and lv. 55 axedwarf) champion was on fire, managed to kill 96 dwarves before he succumbed to the flames, and a tantrum spiral that took it's toll near my artifact furniture stockpile. By reasons unknown, the child was ecstatic until the goblins arrived and cut off her head.
I didn't derail this, did I?
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: ChJees on June 14, 2010, 06:04:53 pm
Boredom\Low FPS

Mostly
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Particleman on June 14, 2010, 09:55:01 pm
Yep. Boredom and FPS death have killed more forts than everything else combined. It's really not hard to make yourself invulnerable to pretty much anything.

Tantrum spirals would be second.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Beardless on June 14, 2010, 11:06:03 pm
Same as the guy a page or two back--f'ing CAMELS. 'Course mine were skeletal and wandered in before the first migration... That's the only time I've had a fort actually fall. My very first fort almost succumbed to dehydration over the first winter.

The entire starting group and first wave of migrants died, save one. I'm not sure how he managed to survive--I'd assume he was the one that drank the last barrel of booze except for the fact that he was complaining of dehydration before some of the other dwarfs--but he managed to keep going as twenty other stout dwarves lay down and died. The last expired in early Obsidian, over a month before the thaw--which naturally caught my survivor at the wrong end of the fort. It was a tense two weeks watching him slooooowly crawl the length of the fortress, emerge into the sunshine, and stagger another twenty squares to the nearest murky pool, where he proceeded to drink for another two weeks.

The first thing he did after that was declare himself the Expedition Leader.

Um. Back on topic: I haven't lost a fort to boredom yet, but I shelved a few when the new version came out, so I guess you could count that. So that's what, three for "Other"? (F'ing Camels, Dehydration, Upgrade)
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Jacob/Lee on June 14, 2010, 11:26:42 pm
Quote from: Nether on June 14, 2010, 05:44:59 am
Quote from: Jacob/Lee on June 14, 2010, 01:28:28 am
Quote from: Bryan Derksen on June 14, 2010, 01:23:59 am
I have yet to open the new Fun Stuff, though my current fort is getting close to considering it. That may shake things up a bit. Though they're actually equipping both axes and armor, and training somehow, so I may do okay. We'll see.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: fanatic on June 15, 2010, 01:58:42 am
voting "other". you should really add the FPS:0 option to the poll.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: opsneakie on June 15, 2010, 03:05:21 am
Framerate, or goblin sieges mostly. I've been struggling getting the new military up and running, since I used to have about 30-50% marksdwarves in my army. Now that my military works, my fortress with triple depth in the worldgen settings is suffering. Down to 10 fps during combats, about 40 otherwise. I'm worried for a few more years down the line. I've got 130 dwarves and only the first cavern breached so far.

- ops

edit: A goblin ambush of entirely axemen just wiped out 6 dwarves, including 2 of my original 7. Looks like it's tantrum time.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Ieb on June 15, 2010, 06:56:07 am
Quote from: TomiTapio on June 14, 2010, 10:47:36 am
Yeah, the non-flesh FBs spell "fortress over", being quite unkillable. I had a giant FB made of Amber, slowly harassing my people after being broken in all body parts. And being in Genesis mod, the paralysis-breath dwarf's breath suffocated 90% of my 30 war dogs. (Deleted firebreath/webber/paralysisbreath from dwarves after that.)

Yeah, they're more trouble than worth since you can't even use their remains in some artifact. At the moment, at least.

Anyway, Ost had one thing that made him even more "OH GOD NO". All the hits my military did glanced away. They were all equipped with steel axes. Ost didn't get even one scratch during the fight he had with the soldiers. Every other inorganic FB I've met had limbs chopped off be it vomit or clear glass or fire that they were made of, but Ost was different.

To keep this somewhat ontopic:

When making a hermit fort, and you're designing a magma-drop trap in the arctic hell that is your home and your's alone, be careful when walking close to magma if there are sudden design failures that require rebuilding, it's really easy to melt just by standing at the wrong(worst) place.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Mandaril on June 15, 2010, 08:44:54 am
Continous goblin sieges, underground threaths, titans and forgotten beasts slowly gnawing away my military strength and morale until things just fall down into pieces.

When Goblin siege arrives, with their civilizations General leading the charge, with TENS AND TENS of goblins, including swordmasters, elite marksgoblins and other elite soldiers, all riding these dudes as mounts:
http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/Jabberer
And big bunch of trolls following their lead..
..when that happens, I know my fortress's lifespan is nearing it's end. This siege usually is the thing that destroys all military strength I have left. I've survived this at least couple of times, but even then all my veterans die or something, and I get depressed by their deaths and abondon the fortress. Luckily a real-life tantrum spiral has been avoided this far.

No, I won't just "raise the bridge and seal myself in". That's not what real dwarves do!
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: lordnincompoop on June 15, 2010, 09:58:28 am
Boredom and FPS. The two banes of dwarven life.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: dudemauler on June 15, 2010, 11:31:28 am
Quote from: Jordrake on June 13, 2010, 05:10:26 pm
I hesitate to say starvation, but when you come down to it, it's true. With my forts, no matter what happens- be it a siege, a berserker or a tantrum spiral- starvation is always what ends up getting my forts. I pull through every other problem, but after them, I have no food. I generally play conservatively, so no digging for forgotten beasts or turning elf merchants into a fine paste. In the end, it's a failure, one way or another, to meet such a base need that brings down my fortresses. Not an enemy without or within, nor a major flaw in planning or a catastrophic accident. They may be a part of it, but what ends up taking me down is always hunger.

10x10 farm plots, dude.

Those feed a fuckton of dwarves...

I usually have too MUCH food.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Rafal99 on June 15, 2010, 12:07:25 pm
Quote from: dudemauler on June 15, 2010, 11:31:28 am
I usually have too MUCH food.

Me too. I frequently run out of stockpile space for it and have to dig more, while excess food rots in the kitchen...
Also barrels for drinks are much bigger problem that drinks themselves.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: darksergio on June 15, 2010, 01:40:44 pm
mine got lost because of a berserk carpenter and woodcutter that grabed a hold of a adamantine axe she managed to mown down my military and two champion before of proced to paint the wall whit body parst of everything inside of the fort
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Bronze Dog on June 15, 2010, 01:58:08 pm
I've got a fair collection of "other" for myself: New versions, low FPS caused by waterfall, low FPS lowered more by a cavern waterfall, no traders due to my home civ being without significant leaders, etcetera. I probably would have continued my last fort for a bit longer if it weren't that stuff piling up.

For other forts, it's a mix of things, including a bit of OCD as well as training: I still think of myself as new, and I tend to get a place started, learn from mistakes, and start a new fort with earlier lessons in mind. I also plan further and further ahead, figuring out a modular system I can apply to the fortress on a larger scale. Currently, I've got a hexagonal grid in mind.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: alamoes on June 16, 2010, 02:26:32 pm
Lots of people are voting.  I am a terrible manager and have not gotten a fort with good food and water supply yet.  Starving is my choice. 
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Unshaven on June 16, 2010, 03:36:46 pm
Goblins once or twice, Demons once or twice, FPS alot, flying megabeast once, Think a cavespider nearly did in one fort, HD implosion once.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: scira on June 16, 2010, 04:39:38 pm
The only fort that has crumbled to its end has been from demons, in the end before all i had left was a high skilled woodcutter and the the only frog demon not set on vandalism chased him so long that the game should have started playing yakety sax.
Every other fort has just been abandoned to boredom or new ideas.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Urist McDepravity on June 16, 2010, 04:59:45 pm
Most of the time its that temporal disaster, dubbed as 'FPS' by Urist McPhilosopher.

In 31.x i also lost forts to: 1) goblins, 2) FBs, 3) FBs' bio-chemical warfare.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: lanceleoghauni on June 16, 2010, 07:20:43 pm
I have a tendency to Make Economic/Science based forts.

I ignore my military and rely on a comprehensive defense grid to keep my dorfs safe (that fails from time to time, hence me picking goblins as the main cause of death.)

surprisingly my science doesn't  explode disastrously nearly as much as I'd like, I feel like I'm doing it wrong somehow.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Karnewarrior on June 16, 2010, 07:51:54 pm
Most of my forts die within the first year, because I get bored of digging out stockpiles and crap.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: lanceleoghauni on June 16, 2010, 08:04:30 pm
I got so caught up in various projects that I didn't notice that I'm apparently 12 years into this fort.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: ReverseWill on June 16, 2010, 09:47:22 pm
Usually, it's the gobbos for me. However, that's only because I'm missing something with the new military system and my soldiers die in nothing flat, no matter what they're equipped with and how long they've trained.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Duke Drake on June 28, 2010, 10:04:29 pm
Lately, my fail has occurred during embark preparation. Maybe I should just not bother preparing, since it takes me longer to finish a new embark profile than for a new version to come out, presuming I don't screw it up completely.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Jimmy on June 28, 2010, 10:11:36 pm
Mine only fall to one thing: death by FPS.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Josephus on June 28, 2010, 10:16:19 pm
I dunno, the new goblins are hardasses.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: SmileyMan on June 29, 2010, 05:24:33 am
Quote from: Sorcerer on June 13, 2010, 01:13:30 pm
my own goddamn sense of perfection

what.. oh shit! that one room five floors down does not ALIGN TO THE MAIN STAIRCASE! NOOOOO!
QFT

My forts tend to die of "concentrating too much on one thing and forgetting another," for instance setting up a fantastic industrial-sized food/booze complex, and forgetting any defenses at all, so the first goblin ambush kills everyone.  And of course, the complete opposite - spending ages getting the military trained and well-fortified, but not making anything for anyone to eat or drink!
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: nbonaparte on June 29, 2010, 05:25:40 am
Quote from: SmileyMan on June 29, 2010, 05:24:33 am
Quote from: Sorcerer on June 13, 2010, 01:13:30 pm
my own goddamn sense of perfection

what.. oh shit! that one room five floors down does not ALIGN TO THE MAIN STAIRCASE! NOOOOO!
QFT

My forts tend to die of "concentrating too much on one thing and forgetting another," for instance setting up a fantastic industrial-sized food/booze complex, and forgetting any defenses at all, so the first goblin ambush kills everyone.  And of course, the complete opposite - spending ages getting the military trained and well-fortified, but not making anything for anyone to eat or drink!
Sounds like you need to go play a succession fort.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Jimmy on June 29, 2010, 05:27:23 am
I can't stand succession forts, the design is always damned awful.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: BladeBerserker on June 29, 2010, 06:05:57 am
My fort ender is when for literally the hundredth time my dwarves do something to piss me off like refuse to work, or throw a keg stand when goblins are killing them, and knock down whatever I've been building and abandon.
(if I don't drown all my dwarves first)

My other fort ender is boredom with the current megaproject. Or difficulty with the megaproject.

If I abandon I come back as an adventurer and kill them all for their insolence.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: I am Leo on June 29, 2010, 06:43:29 am
A stone forgotten beast flew up my well into a crowded dining room. One dwarf hit it, instantly, 30 dwarves suffocated as they are hit by it's deadly dust. It went downhill from there.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: NRN_R_Sumo1 on June 29, 2010, 07:08:21 am
my dwarves drink too much in the winter time.
that is all.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Josephus on June 29, 2010, 07:12:01 am
Quote from: NRN_R_Sumo1 on June 29, 2010, 07:08:21 am
my dwarves drink too much in the winter time.

No such thing, heretic.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: fanatic on June 29, 2010, 08:37:04 am
Assuming  all the "other" voters die of FPS, FPS is in average four times as deadly as goblins.
Proposed solution :
Boost goblins, or nerf FPS....
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Jztiberius on June 29, 2010, 09:54:44 am
I voted goblins, but I meant ambushes not sieges.  A 20 goblin ambush in my second year got me the first time. That was because my military was only a few dwarfs. Next I built in a valley and the goblin crossbows sniped my entire fort before I could react.
My current fort I enacted a 25% rule for my army; meaning that a quarter of my population is military. Also I focused on heavy industry only for the beginning (real dwarfs dont need clothing, just armor.)
In this form I have survived 10 Forgotten beasts....It is promising.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Mickey Blue on June 29, 2010, 11:25:04 am
These days I often set out with a specific goal so if I accomplish that I quit, sometimes I come up with a goal I want to do more and quit, sometimes its FPS.

The only 'game related' issue that comes up would be I sometimes put off food/drink industry too long (usually trying to build some neat thing like a waterfall or what have you and overestimate my supplies) and everybody starts to drop. 

-MB
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: SkyRender on June 29, 2010, 11:53:39 am
 Boredom and FPS are the only assured fortress killers any more.  Pretty much every other threat can be nullified or conquered with a minimum of hassle, but no amount of cage traps, cave-ins and legendary Axedwarves can conquer 20FPS or the player suddenly deciding that it's time to flood the main hall with magma.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Z1000000m on June 29, 2010, 12:02:58 pm
Quote from: loser on June 13, 2010, 12:43:58 pm
FPS
Boredom
Disinterest
planning failures

This, except for planning failures, i strangly always can come up with something that fixes the problem
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: MonkeyHead on June 29, 2010, 12:09:06 pm
lost my last one as i didnt check the floodgate lying in a channel was fitted before channelling into the river. 10 mins later, i wonder where all that water came from. d'oh.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: slink on June 29, 2010, 12:40:57 pm
With a crashing but meaningless blow?   :P

Seriously, carp.  Carp have been the foremost cause of my fortress failures.  This was in 40d.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Mikko on June 29, 2010, 12:42:53 pm
Lag, boredom or both.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: CrossBolt on June 29, 2010, 12:59:23 pm
Dwarves run wild through the halls, guzzling beer and loitering as hard as they can, he's about to press the abandon fort button!!!

Or something like that
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Josephus on June 29, 2010, 11:46:44 pm
Quote from: SkyRender on June 29, 2010, 11:53:39 am
Boredom and FPS are the only assured fortress killers any more.  Pretty much every other threat can be nullified or conquered with a minimum of hassle, but no amount of cage traps, cave-ins and legendary Axedwarves can conquer 20FPS or the player suddenly deciding that it's time to flood the main hall with magma.

20 FPS is slow for you? I envy your rig.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: style on June 30, 2010, 02:57:41 am
FPS and negligent "rule of thumb" planning with facepalm results. "Hmm, looks like the water doesn't really fit in there after all...emergency floodgates were nice now...hmm...well...fuck..."
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Beardless on June 30, 2010, 01:16:11 pm
Quote from: Josephus on June 29, 2010, 11:46:44 pm
Quote from: SkyRender on June 29, 2010, 11:53:39 am
Boredom and FPS are the only assured fortress killers any more.  Pretty much every other threat can be nullified or conquered with a minimum of hassle, but no amount of cage traps, cave-ins and legendary Axedwarves can conquer 20FPS or the player suddenly deciding that it's time to flood the main hall with magma.

20 FPS is slow for you? I envy your rig.

I don't. When I started a new fort for the new version, I was majorly stressed out by trying to come up with more stuff for the dwarves to do before they finished their current jobs. Luckily, a large migration wave (12 dwarves in the first summer, before I'd done much of anything--wtf?) and an aquifer-pumping project slowed it down to a more reasonable speed. I think somewhere around 10 FPS is my idea of the best balance of not having to constantly babysit and actually seeing progress made.

Oh, who am I kidding? I do want a computer that fast (just not for DF).
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: TomiTapio on July 02, 2010, 07:04:57 pm
Quote from: Josephus on June 29, 2010, 11:46:44 pm
20 FPS is slow for you? I envy your rig.

80 fps is slow for me. 160-250 is fun.

88 fps with 3x3 embark, 60 citizens, 6+49 animals. 380k wealth. haven't opened caverns.
136 fps, 5x5 embark, 12 citizens, 2+10 animals, no caverns. cistern+well. ponds sloshing about.
106 fps, 5x5 embark, 39 citizens, 3+17 animals, no caverns. cistern+well. ponds sloshing about.
(Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600, 2.4 GHz per core.)

I have set the fort to pause when a tame animal dies, otherwise there might be a month of fleeing around when the Guiding Spirit (player) isn't watching.

Quote from: style on June 30, 2010, 02:57:41 am
FPS and negligent "rule of thumb" planning with facepalm results. "Hmm, looks like the water doesn't really fit in there after all...emergency floodgates were nice now...hmm...well...fuck..."
Never tap a stream, that's just asking for a FPS hit and trouble (and carp).
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: shadowform on July 02, 2010, 07:15:35 pm
Because I 'finish'.

Right now I'm playing with the intent of creating an world filled with unique, different, and interesting ruins to explore with an adventurer.  This includes a massive 'ruined' wall (parts between zone changes are broken because they have to be, naturally), towering spires atop mountains, at least one lighthouse, and several plans for small, rather empty forts - sometimes with stories to tell.  I'm planning on deliberately (partly) flooding one and leaving air pockets to make things extra interesting, and actually explorable.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Emily on July 02, 2010, 09:00:01 pm
My last fortress to get lost from actually getting lost, and not boredom, low fps, or me coming up a new idea I really wanted to try was killed by a forgotten beast with paralyzing dust.  Which is how I voted, because "Other" is really boring when it's the most common answer.

Also flooding happened frequently too... though that rarely has been total flooding of everything.  But that does contribute to increased boredom.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Johuotar on August 10, 2010, 12:05:02 pm
All water frozen, no food and starvation while being sieged by winter wolfs. And my anvil was outside...

immediately when i bust outside and beat winter wolfs (wooden battleaxe!) get anvil in a werewolf attacks from one of my unsuccessfull "drop ice, wait until melts" shafts. Luckily I had plenty of silver and with anvil I could make all the silver weapons I needed. After many deaths tantrum starts and some dwarfcide happens. My last surviors are either starving, tantruming, or have huge cuts and are bleeding to death. Only able dwarf makes some booze for himself. Caravan arrives, and last dorf abandons fort with them and flees to forests of something. (legends mode)

I couldn't feed the last dwarf so: Starvation

I'm going to recclaim it when I find way to survive in tundra. I'll probably wait until "reclaim causes cavern mud to dissappear" is fixed
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Tale on August 10, 2010, 12:18:37 pm
Three Goblin ambushes in the past three days destroyed two forts.  The first fort survived the initial ambush with two survivors.  Then a second ambush shortly after killed them.

Second fort survived the initial ambush with most of one survivor (sans one foot) who refused to leave a square going repeatedly insane until he died.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: druid91 on August 10, 2010, 12:39:05 pm
Boredom, I tend to get irritated with how boring larger forts become, then I start unfortunate accidents. Sometimes this has worse effects than I expect.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: sinister agent on August 10, 2010, 01:40:34 pm
My first fort was abandoned after 5 minutes as it fell prey to that bug where you can't assign most labours to anyone.

The second was abaonded after another goblin ambush, rendered devastating by military bugs, killed off my entire elite military and about 20 others.  I got bored of losing 30 dwarves every year and having to finish off the surviving goblins by bundling them, and abandoned.

Third fort is still going.  I suspect that it will be something from below that does for me.  If not a massive, cretinous cave-in caused by my over-ambitious terraforming project.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: GildedBear on August 12, 2010, 01:47:54 am
I rarely play a fort long enough for it fall to anything, I generally get bored after I've gotten myself established and could actually start producing weapons or anything significant. I seem to enjoy the initial stages of forts more then anything else. It started because my computer sucks and even a moderate number of dwarves ground down and down and down, but now it seems to be inertia.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: FleshForge on August 12, 2010, 01:53:00 am
I actually abandon a lot of forts at about the same point, got my infrastructure all set up and just decide I want to try a different approach, although when I do get squashed it's because I've been a complete pacifist and the first ambush slaughters all my lads.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: deltagear on August 12, 2010, 02:59:48 am
Goblin freaking siege. 7 out of 10 forts die off because of those lil bastards.

The other 3 have to do with tantrums.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Shades on August 12, 2010, 03:03:32 am
For me it's mostly boredom. The early stages of the game are more fun I find.

Oh sure I know something will go wrong eventually and I'll probably die from a combination of invaders and tantrum spirals but the rest of the time everything gets to a point it's ticking over smoothly.

I guess the solution is to break into hell but that tends to go from easy street to instant death. Would prefer something I had a chance of surviving ;)
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Lytha on August 12, 2010, 03:32:24 am
Other:

I grow bored with the fortress.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: phoenixuk on August 12, 2010, 08:46:21 am
Moat! Check!
Defensive bridge! Check!
Begin mining for ores! Where'd all this water come from?!?!
Oh hells... i extended my moat to make an above ground well for my gate guards and channelled into my own mining operation...
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Dr. Hieronymous Alloy on August 12, 2010, 09:16:42 am
Normally for me it's a digging error of some kind. I mess up my "plan" and decide to start over.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Aik on August 12, 2010, 09:21:40 am
So far:
Two from boredom.
One from thirst.
One from undead yeti.
One from kobold ambush.
One from ogres.

And another one nearly lost from a goblin ambush, but a million migrants came before they finished butchering everyone. I've started playing with pumps and such, so it will probably die of a horrible flooding accident.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: LizardKing on August 12, 2010, 09:46:36 am
Quote from: shadowform on July 02, 2010, 07:15:35 pm
Right now I'm playing with the intent of creating an world filled with unique, different, and interesting ruins to explore with an adventurer.  This includes a massive 'ruined' wall (parts between zone changes are broken because they have to be, naturally), towering spires atop mountains, at least one lighthouse, and several plans for small, rather empty forts - sometimes with stories to tell.  I'm planning on deliberately (partly) flooding one and leaving air pockets to make things extra interesting, and actually explorable.

That sounds like an awesome idea. Do you have to reclaim (and then embark somewhere else) for that or do abandoned forts automatically get added to the map? Having a single suitably varied map filled with previous forts for an adventurer would be great.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: GreenJelly on August 12, 2010, 11:49:46 am
Miscalculated the size of the magma pipe when I dug next to it. Had no lava-proof floodgates. Oopsie.  :-[
Yeah, I'm pretty new to the game. How could you tell?

Jelly
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: PecosBill on August 12, 2010, 01:53:27 pm
Quote from: loser on June 13, 2010, 12:43:58 pm
FPS
Boredom
Disinterest
planning failures
That's my most common list too.

Right now I have a fort I'm happy with, but there's a Forgotten Beast that appears to have gotten stuck on a water ramp.  There's nothing blocking it, but it just sits there.  I dunno if this is why, but no other Forgotten Beasts have shown up since.

And sieges are just silly.  Any decent fort is self-sufficient and can be completely impregnable if you want it to be.  I generally AVOID making my fort impregnable (relying on military and some rock/weapon traps) because it's just too boring to pull one switch, raise a drawbridge and be completely invulnerable.

I guess at some point I could just declare victory and start a new fort but I enjoy seeing how things play out during an attack.  My previous fort got wiped out by a forgotten beast caterpillar that tended to pick up dwarves and then shake them, tearing off whatever that part was, and his favorite part was "lower body"...
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Libelnon on August 12, 2010, 06:21:53 pm
That being said, closing up a fort and making it impregnable is the idea of a 'seige' rather than an 'assault'. In my opinion, it needs to be very difficult to make farms within the fort itself (nerfing underground plants, perhaps?) and then the idea becomes 'hope they get cold feet before food runs out'.

Although toady was planning to get attackers using grappling hooks and the like to climb over walls, and also tunnelling into your fort.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Eric Blank on August 13, 2010, 01:45:21 am
I have to vote Other. Most of them die from my lack of interest and eventual (very gradual) deletion.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Ketsa on August 13, 2010, 03:10:24 am
Other - Boredom.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Sarganto on August 13, 2010, 09:10:11 am
Just lost a fort to Harpies...NOT HERPES
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: TomiTapio on August 17, 2010, 07:10:44 am
I wish I had more forts fail due to combat and tantrums...
When the FPS hits the 30-50 range, it's boring, need to read the web while wait. 90-250 ticks per second is a proper game.

I have collected some FPS data at
http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/DF2010:System_requirements/Archived_reports
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: OmnipotentGrue on August 17, 2010, 07:16:21 am
FPS isn't a huge problem, as you can see...   8)

/showing off

Mostly boredom, though, that's one of the main reasons. Or a new version comes out and I'm too lazy to transfer my save, so I just delete it all.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: vrga on August 17, 2010, 07:57:08 am
boredom boredom boredom.



got a first recently, a mountainhome :D



and i'm thinking of abandonig it very soon.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Lurking Grue on August 17, 2010, 08:32:17 am
Most of my forts "fall" when I go from merely disliking its stupid stupid inhabitants to actively hating them.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Bronimin on August 17, 2010, 02:30:06 pm
-
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Vastin on August 17, 2010, 04:58:14 pm
Most of my recent forts have had insufficient threats to keep me interested once I get to ~100 dwarves, which is where I set my pop cap to keep the FPS manageable.

Honestly, a lot of my forts just kind of grind to a close going into year 4 when I start running out of storage room for the vast amounts of food and goods I tend to accumulate. I end up idling 2/3's of my industry to stop them from making more stuff I don't need and then I get annoyed with how inefficiently idle my layabout dwarves are.  ;D

I've started shifting towards only building in haunted zones near goblin keeps and the like to ensure that things stay interesting.

Economically speaking, I rely on the nobles to keep things interesting, as long as I don't get one with a fetish for petrified wood or some other completely impossible to find resource in my embark area.

I find that my FPS starts to suffer seriously shortly after I start large scale mining operations. Those long arrays of tunnels just seem to massacre the path-finding system. Maybe if I seal them off as I go, or mine in some kind of more open layout...?
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Vastin on August 17, 2010, 06:02:37 pm
Ugh. Figures. I open my mouth and an hour later I lose a rather promising fort to a corrupted save-file.  :'(
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Josephus on August 17, 2010, 06:04:59 pm
Do you use the seasonal autosave backups?
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: AzureAngelic on August 17, 2010, 06:19:37 pm
Boredom.

AKA "screw this i'm gonna go play team fortress 2 for a while, oh whoops i forgot to save oh well!~" syndrome.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: hlavaczech on March 02, 2012, 06:35:12 am
Aboveground fortress, main castle, several huts, all walled with fortifications.
The refuse pile outside (of course, why should we store refuse in castle), next to a dump pit.
Friendly surroundings, a raven and kea - a good fun and training for archers.

A year or two passes and necromancer comes. The first thing he does is that he revives the bones stored outside of the castle.
I thought I was ok - sealed in. yet the zombie-birds fly in and start attacking my dwarfs and pets. They kill a pet and some children, the tantrum starts, a crazy dwarf runs out of the castle and leaves the doors smashed open. Zombies get in - long story short - the fortress falls.

I wish you saw my wife when I retold her the story :-)
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: FoiledFencer on March 02, 2012, 06:54:30 am
All my fortresses that go down to demons generally do so on account of boredom.

But the unintentional fun: tantrum spirals. Oh god oh god oh god.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Sus on March 02, 2012, 07:02:02 am
Mystery Crash (FPS related?) seems to be the leading cause.
After that, lack of water, giant flyers or an early ambush.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Stefrist on March 02, 2012, 07:10:06 am
Other : FPS deaths (with a pretty high-end computer, but often due to too big embarks)

With the new version I did lose 2 forts to Zombies en 1 fort to a tantrum spiral (which I wasnt used to yet)
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Matoro on March 02, 2012, 07:10:43 am
FPS. Your Fort can have unbeatable army, it can have every single room solid gold and every single dwarf in candy and ecstasic. But no matter what you do, FPS will kill you. It will lower and lower... and then, BOOM. All you can is try destroy all unwanted things.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: hjd_uk on March 02, 2012, 08:07:45 am
What about forts being lost to new versions coming out? Last for I lost was to Undead Siege.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: jaxy15 on March 02, 2012, 08:12:24 am
My fort in 34.01 was lost to a FB who jammed his leech genitalia into my fort. He killed my military of 2. Right as I was producing more metal armor and weapons.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Nagassh on March 02, 2012, 08:13:42 am
FPS usually. The new undead surprised me and I've lost my first fort to hostile action since before caverns were added. Something, I'm presuming zombambo kobolds, unlocked 2 doors simultaneously, one "top" entrance to my fort and a side entrance used for caravans (not that any have managed to make it through the undead horde). I ended up with 170ish zombies marching through both of my entrances, didn't notice it until they were past the point where I could do anything about it.

Savescummed, I've just channeled a bear skeleton into my tunnels from the surface for a fey mood, only to find it was covered in "haunting smoke" that the goblin blood rain seems to attach to things. A hauler has now touched it and had all of his skin, muscle, bone and fat start rotting off. Syndromes like this have ruined a few forts, thankfully dwarves seem to be wearing socks this release.

I'm curious as to how effective my doctor is going to be when it comes to removing rotten tissue from a dwarfs eye.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: simonthedwarf on March 02, 2012, 08:45:23 am
I have never gotten a forgotten beast that has been a threat. And I do nothing exploity or overly specialized in my forts. They are just too well run. This also causes me to not lose a lot of fps either. My dwarves are all happy and I'm brimming with food and crafts.

The only thing that brings me down is boredom and crashes.

Though I will admit I lost a few early forts to bowgoblins/whips or trying to meet a too big siege in the open like a man.


Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Flying Dice on March 02, 2012, 09:40:47 am
FPS death.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Retales on March 02, 2012, 09:45:58 am
Most of my recent fortress deaths have been due to forgotten beasts. More specifically ones that breathe poisonous, paralyzing or otherwise deadly things.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: PotatoOverdose on March 02, 2012, 09:50:06 am
FPS/boredom. Though recently a few to zombie apocalypse  8).
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Naryar on March 02, 2012, 09:51:59 am
Boredom
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Satarus on March 02, 2012, 10:06:10 am
Most of mine are FPS or boredom.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Lemunde on March 02, 2012, 10:46:09 am
46 percent voted other. Damn I love Dwarf Fortress.

I only lost a fortress to flooding a couple of times. That's kind of a newbie problem. Once you know the risks of working with water you can easily find ways of avoiding this.

Most often I'll lose a fortress to an FB, usually by botching a trap or overestimating my military. I usually just seal caverns off and let the FBs run amok down there but sometimes there gets to be so many that I feel compelled to do something about it.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: miauw62 on March 02, 2012, 10:55:28 am
I lost my last one to flooding, but i dont think i'll do that EVER again.
(unless i get bored, it was pretty awesome to see all dwarves crawl away everywhere, some fled into the farm that was a bit higher then the rest of the fort but lower then the river, there was no way out since i walled it away. (used to be next to enterance, walled it up for obvious reasons) It amused me imagining how the dwarves would be hidden away in a corner, all togheter, the water flowing in, no way out... (actually... have you seen the movie 2012? it must be a bit like that moment when they try to get into the ark but break the doors, only, there is no heroic escape here.)
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Chilton on March 02, 2012, 11:03:09 am
Mostly, because I get bored and break into Hell.
Second would be Goblin Siege.

But, in between those two would be Early Dehydration.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Dalkar on March 02, 2012, 11:03:29 am
Ridiculous plots to massacre all my people. Usually involving zombies, dragons, magma and escaped prisoners.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Loud Whispers on March 02, 2012, 03:56:13 pm
Other, got sieged by Dwarfs
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Shininglight on March 02, 2012, 03:58:22 pm
Other

I tend to get bored or irritated by my fortresses and abandon.... then delete the world. Not sure why... I've been playing since June but still haven' had any of my forts reach max pop.... lately i've just been playing with mods and wathing the game crash.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Hatch Cover on March 02, 2012, 04:51:30 pm
When I first started in 2009, I had about five fortresses in one week. It took dying of a mistake for me to learn from it. And damn if I did not think the game was hard. I learned it to impress a boy, ha ha. I am glad that I did too. The longer I play it, the more I enjoy it. Whenever I try something new, that is what I lose over for awhile. When I was still pretty new and figuring out water and magma, I died constantly. When I was figuring out aquifiers, constant death.Traps?  Those sound too difficult.  Evil regions in either version, death. New hospital system? Awesome, I am going to ignore it for more than a year before learning it. New military system? Eh, I'll put off learning it, it looks freaking hard. Okay, I am going to learn the military! Two years later, I understand military a little . . .

Most of my forts do not ever hit the 100 dwarf mark, hell, I consider a fort extremely serious if I hit 50 dwarves. Lately I die mostly from "I changed my mind, don't like this location", my FPS sucks, I can't find ores containing iron, and lately most of all, "I want to change my design".

I have been struggling a lot with fort design. I want my forts to be efficent, but also have an interesting organization and be highly specialized towards its inhabitants . . . bleh. I'll stop OCDing on it eventually.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Flying Dice on March 02, 2012, 04:53:10 pm
I honestly can't recall ever losing a fortress to outside attack after my first couple weeks of playing.  :-\
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: MoonLightBird on March 02, 2012, 04:55:41 pm
Quote from: Asellus on June 13, 2010, 12:07:18 pm
Skeletal deer. Every time a Skeletal deer shows up, my fort dies. Every single time.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: saltmummy626 on March 02, 2012, 05:13:22 pm
abandonment. I usually abandon when more than 10 dwarves die in stupid accidents. its fine if greenskins take them out, or undead, or tantrum spiral, but if I, for example, accidentally crush half the fortress in a mining accident, screw it. I quit.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Jimmy T. Malice on March 02, 2012, 05:31:15 pm
I've never actually had a fort crumble into darkness, but the one time I got close and loaded the last save to avoid destruction was due to a goblin siege.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: -Firestar- on March 02, 2012, 05:34:41 pm
Quote from: MoonLightBird on March 02, 2012, 04:55:41 pm
Quote from: Asellus on June 13, 2010, 12:07:18 pm
Skeletal deer. Every time a Skeletal deer shows up, my fort dies. Every single time.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

That's awesome is that from something or is it original?

I've never seen one of those near my fortress.

Mine die to FPS, thirst because I can't build a well in time and umm... accidents. Like flooding the fortress.
Most of the time I abandon it because I want a new fortress design/no <insert material here> or underground water. (see FPS death)
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: wanzerm23 on March 02, 2012, 06:29:31 pm
Just legitimately lost my first fort.  Stupid Harpy Corpses killed three of my dwarves at embark, and the rest went crazy.  And thus ends the short history of Paddlewashes.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Naros on March 02, 2012, 07:19:18 pm
Other.

I've never actually lost a fort. I've just gotten ideas for the next fort, that simply needed to be implemented.
That, or a major new version came out.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: MrShovelFace on March 02, 2012, 07:22:40 pm
the ways a fort can fall are procedurally generated
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Zeidrich on March 02, 2012, 07:29:17 pm
I butchered a water buffalo in a terrifying biome.

The resulting undead skin and undead hair knocked enough dwarfs into pools of water that the fortress spiraled into chaos.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Meph on March 02, 2012, 07:39:43 pm
FPS or boredom caused by no migrants, no caravans, no invaders (if they died in worldgen, or the game is really, really long)
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Lielac on March 02, 2012, 08:48:29 pm
Nowadays most of my forts 'die' due to FPS death. They aren't actually dead so much as in stasis until I get a computer that doesn't suck or I notice how many completely unused saves I have lying around and delete them all, but they're stopped all the same and are likely to end up sacrificed to the god of 'these are completely useless -delete-'.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: rtg593 on March 02, 2012, 08:50:38 pm
Other. Tantrum spirals from fisherdwarves going missing;-)

I should really stop embarking on waterfalls:p
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: orius on March 02, 2012, 08:51:10 pm
Basically boredom or didn't like the way the fort was designed for me.  Haven't had any forts crumble yet.  My earliest forts were abandoned because I didn't like how I had set things up, the more I learned, the more I realized I was doing things inefficiently.  I think I didn't get much more than 3 years into any of those forts anyway.

My biggest 31.25 fort, Fortressdeath, never fell.  Had my first serious seiges in that fort, and there were some moments early where I thought I'd lose the fort.  But eventually, my defenses got so good that seiges were more a minor irritation than anything else.  Hell, I even toned down some of the traps because they killed too many goblins before my dorfs could.  I only stopped playing it because of the release of .34.  The fort wasn't abandoned, rather the save was archived.  However the fort seemed like it was probably approaching FPS death.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: rtg593 on March 02, 2012, 09:32:03 pm
Quote from: orius on March 02, 2012, 08:51:10 pm
Basically boredom or didn't like the way the fort was designed for me.  Haven't had any forts crumble yet.  My earliest forts were abandoned because I didn't like how I had set things up, the more I learned, the more I realized I was doing things inefficiently.  I think I didn't get much more than 3 years into any of those forts anyway.

My biggest 31.25 fort, Fortressdeath, never fell.  Had my first serious seiges in that fort, and there were some moments early where I thought I'd lose the fort.  But eventually, my defenses got so good that seiges were more a minor irritation than anything else.  Hell, I even toned down some of the traps because they killed too many goblins before my dorfs could.  I only stopped playing it because of the release of .34.  The fort wasn't abandoned, rather the save was archived.  However the fort seemed like it was probably approaching FPS death.

This as well. This is the reason all my embarks since have been on a waterfall with an aquifer in freezing biomes:p Not ready for zombies, but I wanted a little more challenge, lol.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Deus Machina on March 03, 2012, 08:02:36 am
Mine tend to either die of boredom or starvation/thirst of some sort after goblins and beasts team up and take over my farms and make the caverns unmanageable.

Usually, though, it's because a new version comes out. I usually hate just dumping a fortress, but eventually I start having the bright idea "I'm going to draft everyone" and don't actually give them any weapons just to sit and laugh as I turn the next major siege into little more than a huge drunken barfight.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Chattox on March 03, 2012, 08:24:37 am
Either me doing something wrong (digging in the wrong place thus aggravating my OCD for uniformity) or goddamn goblin ambushes, or the tantrum spirals that result from them.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Tahlin on March 03, 2012, 10:53:53 am
Going to order some up, Just like on the first page.
I : Why can't I dig that green thing(Grass)? What? People are dying of hunger? What the hell?
II : Oh. I can only dig this black stuff. DYING OF HUNGER AGAIN!? BUGS!?
III : I read a tutorial. AH! AMBUSH! The tutorial didn't learn me about this!?
IV : AMBUSH!
V : AMBUSH!
VI : Oh. I can use drawbridges and traps?
VII : Ambush! Haha, Tricked you. I caught those goblins in a trap.
VIII : Why is titan not caught in my cage traps? D:
IX : Forbidden beast ****ing ****.
X : You have struck adamantite! Praise the mi-  :'( :'( :'(
XI : I can't believe my dwarves just got upset over a noble *disappearing*.
XII : Siege! Death! Everywhere!
XIII : (This is where I start actually knowing something about DF) That ugly wall piece of ****
XIV : Eww! I don't want to dig my fortress in this material!
XV : Read XIII and XIV about X more times.
Something like this.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: lava dwarf on March 03, 2012, 12:28:06 pm
zombie spirel
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Kogut on March 03, 2012, 12:42:57 pm
FPS deaths
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: TomiTapio on March 24, 2012, 06:26:39 am
Boredom, boredom due to low FPS, the urge to create new worlds to test the tuning of the mod.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Berlioz on June 08, 2012, 07:13:04 pm
I'm at my third now, the first was a training fortress, lots of soil, metals, etc., a river, trees, calm enviroment, flux, no aquifer, the perfect training grounds. My personal garden of Eden. I followed the wiki tutorial and learned to play. After that I experimented a bit, I made it goblin-proof and built things like an aquaeduct [sic] for my hospital and got magma to my forges. Then nothing more happend and I got bored.
So first death is due to boredem.
Second fortress on a glacier, medium evil, high savagery (untamed wilds). Thought it might be more challenging, but it went too well. Got an artifact steel battle axe (160k) at the end of the first year, along with a legendary weapon smith. The created wealth drew lots of good crafters to my fort which created even more wealth. Pierced the caves at z-level 12! The only attack in two years was a beast single-handedly killed by a caravan guard. Then some minor ambushes, that was it. After three years I got so much stuff and dwarves, dug over 250 z-levels deep through 3 caverns that my fps dropped too much.
Second one died of low fps.
So after all the cold on the glacier I sent my dwarves on vacation in a sunny spot: the middle of the desert, scorching heat and terrifying surroundings. Should be fun!

Is there maybe a mod to make the game more challenging? Imho it's too easy once you figured out the basics. I found nethack to be harder.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: jesusmod on June 08, 2012, 07:20:09 pm
Webs somehow got onto the many traps I had near the entrance of one of my fort. Everyone who left died on the traps. Then came the trap cleaners...
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Tryble on June 11, 2012, 05:03:46 am
Abandoned due to lack of motivation to continue, or wanting to start fresh on a new fortress theme.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Aspgren on June 11, 2012, 06:13:37 am
I'm hesitant to count many of my forts as "abandoned" they've just ... gone unused for a very, very long period of time.

When the fort breaks and isn't playable anymore it is usually from tantrum spirals. At a few rare occassions it can be undead sieges but mostly tantrums.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Sus on June 11, 2012, 06:14:20 am
Most likely a tantrum spiral due to either starvation, thirst or an ambush party of bowgoblins sticking my lumberjacks and herbalists full of arrows. That, or an engineering error allowing goblins to storm into the fort.

One fort fell to a FB webbing a whole lot of dorfs on weapon traps and kicking most of the rest in the head, shattering skull etc.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Iceflame on June 11, 2012, 07:32:31 am
Quote from: Tryble on June 11, 2012, 05:03:46 am
Abandoned due to lack of motivation to continue, or wanting to start fresh on a new fortress theme.
This!
But even then, I leave all doors open and cancel every Food/Booze-Production. Also the waterfalls are turned off, and all prisoners get released.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Raxon on June 11, 2012, 09:53:09 am
I found the circus before I even had 20 dwarves.

Turns out it is possible to be too industrious.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: arzzult on June 11, 2012, 10:04:24 am
Wanting to start a new fort.
Wanting to gen a new world after thinking of something kinda neat to mod in.
Having to gen a new world after realizing what I just modded in was a horrible idea and needing to get rid of it.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Broseph Stalin on June 11, 2012, 10:32:18 am
Boredom, after I get a stable fort going I usually gen a new world and start a new fort without erasing the older one then I do the same thing three or four more times until I can't remember which of my five forts is which. Then I decide I'll keep it simple by erasing all of them and starting a new fort with a large map and a nice long history then just playing on that forever and ever. Then I get that fort stable and the cycle starts again.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Bobnova on June 11, 2012, 11:40:05 am
I've lost two so far I think.
First one was due to a tantrum spiral that was due to a goblin siege. Shutting the drawbridge to keep the gobgobs out (military? What's that?) turned out to be a bad idea. Largely because the only water source was outside. Whoops.

Second one was due to a tantrum spiral that was due to a goblin siege, in this case i had to shut the drawbridge with too many dwarves still wandering around outside. They all ate it, as did the outdoor pasture. I had indoor plumbing this time, but screwed up my pressure calculations and flooded the hospital and dining room.
The siege I got rid of with traps, but finding a dozen dead farm animals, a bunch of cats and dogs, some children, a baby or five, and a dozen dead dwarves soured the population on sanity. I abandoned that one before it had a chance to completely grind down to nothing, it was too depressing.

Third fortress is still going, it has weathered no fewer than two tantrum spirals, a couple seriously massive gobgob/troll attacks, and has so many piles of equipment from dead dwarves/goblins that my FPS is suffering. I need to find some magma to fry the stuff with, or just stack it under an atom smasher. Nobody seems to be willing to haul it though, which makes things difficult.
I expect this one'll die from boredom, or a titan.


I voted goblin siege, as that was the initial cause in both cases.



Actually there was a third I forgot about, I didn't play it very long.
Had a wonderful embark site right near a cliff, had a river, peaceful, tons of metals, huge amount of iron ore and coal, and a glorious 10 z waterfall on the surface.
Dorfs kept turning up missing. After loosing six of the seven+first immigrant wave, I had a sudden thought.
Sudden thought: Dwarves don't swim well.
Sure enough, six corpses at the bottom of the waterfall.  That explained that, a bit late.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: feralferret on June 11, 2012, 01:14:25 pm
Mine almost always die of boredom or new version releases. :P Sometimes it's an incorrectly placed tile that allows invaders in...
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: FearfulJesuit on June 11, 2012, 01:40:48 pm
My last fort was carted off to the beyond by undead wildlife.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: terko on June 11, 2012, 03:07:21 pm
I lost one to a siege as I set the lever to be pulled to raise the bridge, but oh my, half the siege was already standing on the bridge and got hurled over the wall and into the courtyard. Well, my military, if you can even call it that way, was busy in the caverns.

Since then: only retractable bridges are build anymore as the outer perimeter defense with a deep chasm below them, filled with traps which are linked to pressure plates in the dining hall.


But on topic: most of my forts fall to my own stupidity, like wells that are accessable for cave crocs, walls that go over rivers but I do not floor the river (or pave road the brooks) so that cave croc pets with their riders simply dive into my forts ... and much much other stupid things you do only once, or should do only once. I do them all, step by step, failing each time but never repeating.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: peskyninja on June 11, 2012, 03:47:14 pm
1. Alligators
2. Boredom
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Scruffy on June 11, 2012, 04:55:53 pm
Boredom, really stupid mistakes when designing something related to liquids or just tantrum spiral caused by a severe dwarfplosion. It is basically kind of like a catsplosion but with more beards and berserk children.

Perhaps I should try using the same once gender solution as with cats and building the immigrant enterence above a magmapit and setting a "no beard, no entry" -rule. (killing females instead of males will also prevent accidental spore impregnation from happening in the inside of the fort.) On the down side that would lead to a fort full of dwarven YMCA.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Broseph Stalin on June 11, 2012, 04:58:47 pm
I've abandoned six forts today every time I get an idea in my head and it doesn't seem as awesome as I thought I just scrap the whole thing.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Hobbie on June 18, 2012, 01:04:11 pm
If I don't lose it in the first five minutes to, say, reanimated yak bulls, I don't usually lose it at all.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Loud Whispers on June 18, 2012, 01:11:22 pm
Quote from: Hobbie on June 18, 2012, 01:04:11 pm
If I don't lose it in the first five minutes to, say, reanimated yak bulls, I don't usually lose it at all.
This, but ravens.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: orius on June 18, 2012, 02:28:30 pm
Quote from: Loud Whispers on June 18, 2012, 01:11:22 pm
Quote from: Hobbie on June 18, 2012, 01:04:11 pm
If I don't lose it in the first five minutes to, say, reanimated yak bulls, I don't usually lose it at all.
This, but ravens.

Yeah.  Generally whatever doesn't kill me in this game makes me stronger.  My military dorfs improve their skills and I find and remedy any weak spots in my defenses.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: floundericiousWA on June 18, 2012, 02:55:15 pm
Quote from: Bobnova on June 11, 2012, 11:40:05 am

First one was due to a tantrum spiral that was due to a goblin siege. Shutting the drawbridge to keep the gobgobs out (military? What's that?) turned out to be a bad idea. Largely because the only water source was outside. Whoops.

Second one was due to a tantrum spiral that was due to a goblin siege, in this case i had to shut the drawbridge with too many dwarves still wandering around outside. They all ate it, as did the outdoor pasture. I had indoor plumbing this time, but screwed up my pressure calculations and flooded the hospital and dining room.
The siege I got rid of with traps, but finding a dozen dead farm animals, a bunch of cats and dogs, some children, a baby or five, and a dozen dead dwarves soured the population on sanity. I abandoned that one before it had a chance to completely grind down to nothing, it was too depressing.

This.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Sprin on June 18, 2012, 04:57:35 pm
no dwarf worth his beard would dare lose to elves>:(
only the old fashond way operation fuck the world went horibly wrong.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Bobnova on June 18, 2012, 06:29:24 pm
I forgot one:  The fortress that fell due to a siege during a tantrum spiral (due to a previous siege...) when Urist McRampage destroyed the lever that raised the drawbridge.  This has been remedied in later designs, with multiple levers for multiple drawbridges...

One (1) dwarf survived the slaughter, he only survived because he was actively mining way the hell down under the basement in the GoblinLandingZone, 16 levels or so beneath the trap storage depot. As it happens he was the mayor, too.
He started digging to get to the drainage shaft for the hospital (well overflowed...) that leads to the caverns. Got most of the way there before he died of thirst, too. That one was somewhat tragic.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: kujpat on June 18, 2012, 08:21:45 pm
A Dwarven Caravan has come!

An ambush! Curse them!
An ambush! Curse them!
An ambush! Curse them!

I order the lever that closes off the only entrance and saves the fort to be pulled -

Apparently this is the best time for every goddamn dwarf to be on a break.

"Urist! You have to pull this lever to save your friends, family and our whole fortress from certain bloody death!"

"Nah mate, I'm on a break y'see"
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Viking on June 18, 2012, 09:40:34 pm
My forts more often than not fall to internal problems rather than external ones.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Shininglight on October 05, 2012, 03:07:04 pm
As of yesterday, a failed FTWM and a zombie siege...... buggered me badly.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: krisslanza on October 05, 2012, 03:41:51 pm
My forts usually fall because I abandon them. Usually caused by another 20+ migrant wave, after a 20+ migrant wave, when I can barely feed what I have...

Or if I design my settlement, and something is wrong, and I don't feel like carefully managing the deconstruction of 100's of 'roof' tiles so it doesn't kill someone, or worse.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: RedMageCole on October 05, 2012, 07:58:02 pm
FUCKING ZOMBIES MAN
THEY'RE EVERYWHERE
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Xob Ludosmbax on October 05, 2012, 08:45:18 pm
For me, it's that my elaborate plans got messed up somehow.

For example, the obsidian farm that was really an accidental cave-in generator.  Hint: if you drop a bridge full of water and a bridge full of magma from the same lever, you need several z-levels between them, because it doesn't all fall as one.

Another example, the realization that once the ambush squad leader is dead, the others flee.  So, my elaborate repeating spike trap would kill one goblin, and I could only kill the rest if I closed the backstop so they couldn't flee.  But the other path into the fortress wasn't protected, and the other 17 ambush squads would go that way. 

A third, fourth and fifth example -- ballista.  The first time, I abandoned because I realized I need to trap the gobs in a kill-zone, because the ballista are not that quick.  I also learned that putting a channel around the outside of the kill-zone means that the arrows fall down a z-level and don't get destroyed. The second time, I abandoned because I learned that you need a really long anti-flee gap between the siege equipment room and the kill-zone hall.  The third time, I abandoned because even with everything perfect, and the siege operators at legendary, ballista arrows are incredibly inaccurate, so putting them at the end of a 3-wide hall is pretty much useless. 
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Aidoboy on October 05, 2012, 09:18:12 pm
Gliches.  :'(
So far, Crashes and unloadable saves.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: GreatWyrmGold on October 05, 2012, 09:22:06 pm
Probably been said,but...


ALL OF THE ABOVE.
AWESOMEST FORT DEATH YET.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Sabretache on October 07, 2012, 12:34:05 am
I forget to setup a pasture in a Haunted biome and my Yak Bull died of starvation. It became undead and proceeded to break all of my dwarves' skulls.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Callista on October 07, 2012, 12:45:00 am
My most common cause of death nowadays is loss of interest when the fort is stable and prosperous...

I'd really like a feature where you could abandon anytime except during a siege and let the fort stay in the world as a dwarven mountainhome or town. That way you could visit your dwarves in adventure mode and see how they're getting on, maybe trade with them or see if your badass adventurer can take on your badass hammerlord.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: thiosk on October 07, 2012, 03:23:02 am
At this stage, I'm betting its going to be boredom followed by a reckless opening of HFS.

I'm in a boring biome with no towers, and my dwarves are god damn pimp.  Gonna let big baby boom finish coming of age, then its time for a new fort.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Scottzar on October 07, 2012, 04:12:03 am
Never went the whole way and made a functioning fort because when I would do so an update always comes out.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Gaybarowner on October 09, 2012, 11:10:03 am
Necromancers when your refuse is next to the graveyard
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Ringsea on October 09, 2012, 09:16:07 pm
I'm tied between a 3-way cycle of doooooom. First, I see someone has died of a vampire attack, and I look around, and see someone likes this: Pale, Survived major injuries, and no food/water thoughts. He HAD to be the vamp.... right? So, I draft him, lock him in a room, and forget about him, and he dies of hunger/thirst. I look at his body, and he had A LOT of good armor on him, for some reason, so I open then door to reclaim it, and an ensuing temper tantrum cripples the fort, but I manage to survive.
HOWEVER! A all-lasher goblin raid strikes, and the tantrum leaves all my mechanisms/levers for the drawbridges broken, and most of the army and traps unarmed because the forges were destroyed...
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Triaxx2 on October 10, 2012, 09:23:27 am
Definitely boredom. I'll set out with a specific goal in mind and either accomplish it, or more often, screw it up to the point I can't complete it.

Or I'll be in the middle of a project then think It'd be better with a different location, or some idea strikes me to use another fort. Plus I keep ending up in safe spots. I had an island desert fort, where I completely messed up a mine cart track. I decided to start a new one on the mainland and got my defenses all set up, only to realize that there were no enemies except for the occasional incidence of wild boars. So I started playing at building in a river, and found that it was not much fun.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: katwithk on October 24, 2012, 08:34:05 am
These are the ones I can remember. In chronological order, as best I can remember.

Dehydration due to frozen water and no booze.

Goblin Siege.

Nemesis Error.

I learned about building destroyers.

Flood.

Forgotten beast that flew and shot webs, in addition to excreting paralytic dust.

Goblin Siege.

Wildfire spread to the inside by !!dwarves!!. (the three survivors were killed when one went berserk)

Ghosts.

Magma Mishap FUN.

Triple Siege, locked outside (barely), tantrum spiral

Nemesis Error.

Nemesis Error again.

Nemesis Error a third time. (this is when I learned to do autosaves + autobackups)

Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Findulidas on October 24, 2012, 08:46:33 am
Fps on the last 10 forts. Today I will do some evil biomes without cage traps and a standard design. The fort Im playing now already has trouble.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Cthulufaic on October 24, 2012, 03:26:35 pm
Most of the time my forts fail due to my sheer stupidity and mostly giving up because more important things had to be done.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Joben on October 24, 2012, 03:42:36 pm
Fort 1: Oh man this is confusing how do things work? - Necromancer ambush
Fort 2: Hey I understand workshops and farms now! - Goblins plus goblins, then more goblins plus me not knowning about drawbridges
Fort 3: Still going. Proper military and defense design make sieges a non-issue. Almost got wiped out a couple times by nasty syndromes. Probably would get wiped out if the spoilers get unleashed. Sloooooooooooooowly dying by attrition because of lack of new migrants in about 10 years. Also heading for FPS death.
Title: Re: Wonder how most forts fall?
Post by: Azated on October 24, 2012, 07:51:54 pm
My last three fortresses have crumbled because of outdoor weather and lack of plentiful booze, beds and dining room space. It gets to the point where a single dwarf dying topples my entire population like a collapsing Jenga tower.

The many hazards of building an aboveground city.