This may be my best fort yet.
It started out as a quaint fort of 7 dwarves. I planned it to be a military fort. It was a pretty good site. Lignite on the first level, iron on the sec, and loads of trees for my dorfs to cut down. Nothing of note happened for a while. Just setting up my fort for excellence. Then the elves arrived. I did what usually do when the hippe caravan arrives; steal their stuff. There's even more reason to do so; I've modded them to use basic metals. In other words, I made elves a bit more dorfy and therefore better. One particular incident of note happened when the elven diplomat arrived at my fort. He met with the now countess of my fort, asking about a tree cutting quota. Offended, my countess politely declined and then sent the fort guardians (pole masters dressed in plate-armor) to kill him. I was limiting myself to only 7 at the first 5, then I would double it ever every 5 years after.
Problem solved. Tree cutting quota fulfilled.
All of this was in 3 years.
During that, I raided a couple of local gobbo hamlets (again, mods to avoid CTDs). This was done out of boredom. The hamlets were full of traitor dorfs. The raids were pretty successful in provoking war with the goblins. Or the traitorous dorfs. Nothing of note really happened until I got my first "siege". It was one dorf. He got cut down. The end. The next one wouldn't come until about 1 year after that.
I put cage traps near the bottom of the map, as my fort was in the path of wild boar migrations. Seizing upon this opportunity to start a meat industry, I set the traps appropriately. This, along with another factor, would culminate in a defining feature of my fort. I found out after my sec invasion that it also helped as a deterrent for the traitorous dorfs. Four of them were caged, the rest ran. Cowards
Seizing upon this opportunity to exploit the cowardice of my enemies, I built a small arena to pit invaders in as a form of live training for my sec squad of axe dwarves. The dorf trade caravan also got stuck during this time.
Nothing of note really happened until the new year of 257, when an 8-10 traitor dorf sized army sieged my fort. The first real siege of Begin. We met on the battlefield, like true dorfs.
My countess was right in the middle of it. She didn't even receive a scratch on her. And she's only a skilled dodger. She also didn't have her axe at the time, so all she had was her shield and random items she picked up.
A truly glorious fight indeed. Lost a miner to the invaders, but it was worth it.
The stock of caged invaders, buggy trade caravans, and a senseless need to live train on POWs. What is this all leading up to? Well, it's in the name of the thread.
I welcome you all to what I call, the Dorferdome:
It's basically with a funnel to both an arena of captured POWs and captured stubborn merchants. It's basically a way for me to solve two problems with one megaproject. The best thing about it is that I can harvest metals from it and training experience for my military. It was a moderate success. A few invaders were killed, but none were for the merchants. I also lost a mechanic during its operation. The dorf somehow got past the security measures and ended up in the middle of the fighting. Well, at the first end of the fighting. I don't know if the Dorferdome is an omen or if Armok is messing with me, but soon after a month of its operation, a massive goblin siege arrived upon my fortress. A few 10 of them (this huge for my forts scale) descended upon Begin Trial. More meat for the Dorferdome. The battle just needs to be seen to be believed.
My military held their ground in style, letting none pass.
