Bay 12 Games Forum

Steel-clad axelords were no match for daleks.

EX-TER-MI-NATE! What exactly did you expect? 


Last year, a goblin siege brought some kind of demon with them, supposedly their leader. I can't really take a giant rabbit (twisted into human form) serious. The Gilded Ones (5 legendary hammerdwarves in layered iron armor) chased it all across the site until... wait for it... the rabbit fell into a pond. Meh. The military continued to turn goblins and war jabberers into pulp and I think the rabbit devil climbed out again and ran away when I didn't look.

That year I also merged most nobles into a single dwarf. I now have a baron/manager/broker/bookkeeper who's also the captain of the guard and a decent hammerdwarf with 6 soldiers under his direct command. So basically, he's the injured party, prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner in one. I'm thinking about making him the hammerer, but I'm not too sure about a hammerer who's superdwarvenly strong, has a masterwork silver war hammer and knows how to use it.

And just now, the local vampire got possessed. He's walled into a room with only a craftsdwarf's workshop - stones go in, rock mugs come out. Now I'll have to let him out for the mood and hope he doesn't bite anyone before I can get him back in. He's not that important, but I don't want to miss an interesting artifact.
This dwarf is the best example for what happens to dwarves with no alcohol... he's a master stonecrafter by now but works like a novice, rarely producing anything above base quality and generally moving veeeery slowly.

I also started a little crafting project. The metalcrafter is churning out masterwork silver goblets by the binload and the gemsetter puts every single piece of glittery stone that can be found onto them. So far, there are only a few goblets above 3000 value, but I only just started. My aim is to have a single goblet that can buy a whole caravan. Just imagine the traders... "We had 7 wagons of valuable goods and traded them for... a glittery mug."
Sadly, caravans are rare in recent years. Everytime someone arrives, a goblin ambush appears in the same place and my military just isn't fast enough to kill the goblins before the caravan decides to leave again.

I think burying pets works the same as with dwarfs. Only with pets I don't bother at all, because the bad thought (if it even happens) is very minor and easily compensated by a nice *dog tallow roast*. Also pets don't become ghosts, so it's not urgent. I'd only worry in an evil biome where being attacked by undead fluffy wamblers is a frightening possibility.

Urist McLegendaryCrafter has been found, drained of all blood. Yay, I got my first vampire! No idea who it is, though...

I strongly suspect one of the miners, since the attacks only started after the last migration wave and all the others from that wave have very low skills and few relationships. I really don't want to lose any more skilled workers. Calling in Urist McHolmes it is then.

I usually like migrants... they add some challenge in otherwise peaceful biomes. Only in my last fort I had a bit of bad luck. Third or Fourth wave had 70 migrants, most of them fish cleaners or children. I really don't know what I would have done if my undead friends didn't kill everybody a few months later 

The easiest way to get rid of them (if you only want to keep the useful ones) is putting all the useless ones into a burrow under a drawbridge and pulling the lever. You'll have to keep some slabs ready, but it's still the cleanest solution. In previous versions without burrows I always ordered all my dwarves inside and closed the entrance until those soapmakers died outside.

About half a year later...
The dead rise! About 60 assorted dwarf and goblin corpses invaded my relatively unprepared fort. The military couldn't do much and 30 dwarves died. The militia is gone except for 4 extremely grumpy old soldiers and a squad of untrained recruits who are hunting corpses in the workshop area. Undead aren't the toughest of enemies, but the sheer number makes them quite dangerous.

I couldn't find a necromancer... can the dead just randomly walk by or do I have a hidden surprise somewhere? If the killed corpses rise again, I'm really screwed and the civilians are in for some Fun. I may have to evacuate everybody to the saferoom on one of the lower levels if this goes on.

Sadly, equipment for pets is not possible right now. You'd need to make the bears themselves out of iron or steel - which is both awesome and horrifying. Awesome if they're your war metalbears (sounds like a band name) and terrifying if you happen to encounter them in the wild.
Regular animals are very vulnerable to traps. I tried cougars once but they were of very limited use in battle and died even more quickly in danger room accidents. Well, they didn't die as fast as puppies, but got wounded easily and a cougar with punctured paws is somewhat useless.

A goblin siege came around and somehow managed to kill more than half of my military, including the very popular mayor, and a few civilians that happened to be outside. The population wasn't very happy before and now everybody is killing eachother inside a giant tantrum spiral.

Some children went berserk in the meeting area... I sent in the last functional squad of soldiers to help. Sadly, I overlooked the fact that some of the children in that hellhole were their own. So basically it's well trained and armored soldiers against their own children. Of course the children don't stand a chance, but most of the soldiers are throwing tantrums as well now. So... the only dwarves that might have been able to help are in the single most populated area and kill everything on sight. It's basically the definition of Fun.

It's madness, but I won't give up this time - this is Dwarf Fortress as I learned to love it!

[edit]
Just as a finished typing this, the most badass miner went berserk. I knew, a mining pick can do some damage in skilled hands, but this one surprised me. He got 3 of the 5 remaining militia before going down with every bone in his body broken by silver war hammers.