Bay 12 Games Forum

JW: Have we spoken before?
Me: No, I just learned about you.

JW: Oh, interesting. And where did you learn about me?
Me: Dwarf Fortress forum mentioned you.

JW: I think you mentioned it to somebody else, because I have never head of Jugambu.
Me: I never said Jugambu.

JW: Quite right, you didn't.    
Me: Are you trying make my head explode?
JW: Yes.

As I was quick-panning around the plans, a flash of blue went past the screen.
Wait, blue? My dining room isnt blue. Go back.

Flood.

As a fun frivolity, I had built in a self-filling reflection pool in the ornate dining hall. This was my first attempt at using pressure plates for anything, but initial tests seemed to work - the pool filled, the flow was shut, everybody happy and we were assured of fresh water from the surface forever. This was one of the first things I had built, maybe in year 1. Since there had been no end of  watered dwarves, I assumed it had been working without error for some time. But, apparently this was the first time the mechanism kicked in.

By the time I noticed the spill, the water was too deep to get in and flip any switches, too deep to wall off the feeding channel. "MASONS!", the cry ran out, "Seal off the dining hall!". Tense moments went by as water poured into the dining room.

"Where are the masons?!"

Sleeping.

"Oh, hell. All you dwarves, pick up mortar and brick and get busy!"
"No good, its too deep, we need to fall back!"
"Wall off the throneroom and treasury!"
Screaming dwarves were blocked in with the rising water, rotten dinner and all our fortress's jewels, but we couldnt spare a minute. Whats the status?
Water spilling down the main stairway. Dungeons, jails and crypts flooded, 3 dead in the lowest levels. Think fast.

"Seal off the stairways!"

The population was trapped on whatever level they happened to be in, as the central staircase was turned into a column of water that terminated on the surface. The flood was contained, but the central architecture was ruined. Dining room, treasury and throneroom lost. Crypts and jail lost. Apartment level: ruined as dwarves ripped down walls and tore through bedrooms to get to the staircase in time. dozens dead, the rest starving.

Emergency egress staircases were carved wherever they could be to allow the starving, trapped dwarves access to food and water on the surface, and we faced the decision of how to go about rebuilding when so much of the integral structure had been compromised and lay underwater.

In the end, I decided to hold a very important meeting about the matter.
Under a drawbridge.
Smoosh.

The old mountainhomes must be heavily populated. Why? Because the king allows hundreds of immigrants to expatriate and run off to fledgeling fortresses(dangerous ones). If their loss would have impacted the needs of the population greatly, he would put a stop to all this immigration and lock down the mountainhomes. So, huge basic dwarven population in the mountainhome. QED.

Next, the new fortresses are dangerous, short of food and high in danger. Even elementary studies of animal population growth and reproductive health shows us that hardship and danger result in less breeding, while safety, security and reliable food results in more breeding. This is a simple question of energy consumption - when you have to devote more energy to survival, you have less to put into gestation and raising young.

So, if we can assume that the dwarven race, in some of its base ways, is fundamentally animalistic, then it stands to reason that fresh fortresses will not share the same breeding rates as the comfortable, secure mountainhomes. In fact, they are probably breeding like bearded rabbits back home.

Some dwarven hypothesists fiercely debate this point. They point out that human populations are quite different than animal populations, in that larger, established societies typically result in a greatly -reduced- birth rate as individuals aquire different pursuits than simple survival. To them, I simply recommend they go ahead and imply to the next dwarf they meet that they are similar to humans in any way, and see what happens.

So, to sum up: behind the scenes, there is an enormous population of horny dwarves back home, keeping up the numbers for the good of dwarfkind. No worries, friends!