Bay 12 Games Forum

My best artifact is Guzvostaz Ribar Uzan, Simplehustle the Homage of Allegiances, a yellow zircon scepter.  It catalogs the rest of my artifacts.

This is a yellow zircon scepter.  All craftsdwarfship is of the highest quality.  It is decorated with kangaroo bone and encircled with bands of round basalt cabochons.  This object is adorned with hanging rings of yellow zircon.  On the item is an image of a yak in yellow zircon.  On the item is an image of echidnamen in wild boar leather.  On the item is an image of giant toads in echidna leather.  On the item is an image of The Umber Breath the bronze hatch cover in steel.
On the item is an image of Edzul Winterportals the dwarf and The Elevation of Bites, the giant cave spider silk chausse in cave spider silk.  Edzul Winterportals is raising The Elevation of Bites.  The artwork relates to the creation of The Elevation of Bites in Violencehall by the dwarf Edzul Winterportals in the early winter of 127.
On the item is an image of a forgotten beast in cave spider silk.

I guess I'm supposed to breach the caverns now.

I'm having a great time so far, even with my FUN-free fort.  The caverns on this embark are super deep.  Like over 100 z levels down.  I will only end up breaching them with serious effort.  Also, with no military threats, I'm guessing the militia dwarfs are going to be pretty unskilled for a long time.  I guess I could Danger Room them or something, but I'm pretty content to plod along and see if I can figure out how to juggle all of these workshops and stockpiles without spending so much time micro-ing everything.

I'm quite afraid of the tantrum spiral.  I'm terrible at keeping the dwarfs busy, so they just socialize all the time.  Even without a party going on, there's usually at least a dozen of them hanging out in the dining hall, gossiping up a storm.  The first sign of trouble and it'll be the entire population taking offense at everybody else.

Maybe the luxury spa will help.  Maybe I need more statues and other fine crafts scattered randomly and hopefully spreading good thoughts.  That said, I'm already plotting out a huge mega-jail.

Newbie here, with my first post.  I'm just starting out trying to learn this game and I ended up abandoning a batch of forts early while I was trying to figure out how things work.  I still don't really know, but I thought I had figured out enough to give it a solid try and I guess I wanted to talk about my first real fortress.

I had this great EZ mode embark all ready for this.  A volcano, good amount of hematite, no coal but lots of trees.  It's on an island with only Dwarves as neighbours.  The actual embark was super sweet - a fair sized plateau at the same z-level as the top of the magma and about a dozen levels above the marble layer.  There's a small aquifer at around the same depth.  A nicer spot for The Rough Gorge to Strike the Earth could not be imagined.

First year everything goes tickety-boo.  Dwarves are super-happy in their new home, productivity is only slowed by the parties they keep throwing all the time.  They feel so secure that we even get a pair of babies in the spring.  A time for rejoicing!  And then the first challenge - a monster migrant wave.  The population of Violencehalls swells from 25 to 66 and from 2 children (not counting the babies) to 17.  I setup a burrow to toss them all in with their dining hall set up like a classroom.

Second year is time for me to learn how to balance all of these labourers.  The extra haulers are greatly appreciated, but I'm certainly not using these guys efficiently.  Number of idlers is pretty high almost all of the time.

I start on a military and have a handful of steel clad soldiers.  Some of the newcomers are Hunters and Rangers and my larders are being filled with meat, allowing most of the farm output to go straight to the stills.  But otherwise it is pretty uneventful, except the migrant waves.  Because of course there are more migrants.  And they bring their children.  At the start of the second winter, I have 102 dwarves with 3 babies and 28 kids (and one thirteen year old graduate - congrats Kubuk Mutegalleys).  Nearly a third of my population.  I had originally envisaged Violencehalls to be an arms factory, shipping out masterwork steel axes and silver warhammers for the mainland Dwarfs to to show to their neighbours.  And yet here I find myself, running a day care centre carved into the side of a volcano.

But I guess running a day care centre is great training for playing Dwarf Fortress - so onwards we go.