Bay 12 Games Forum

I've completely underestimated the stupidity of my dwarves yet again. Firstly, I assumed that forbidding a freshly caged goblin or cobald would lead to the dwarves going back inside. Wrong. In fact, my militia commander, who was behind a wall where she couldn't possibly have seen anything and whom is also activated and stationed, and not collecting equipment, decided to run straight into them right as the gates were about to be closed. She got in a fight with an axeman and bled to death.

Second, I ordered a lever to be pulled to close a bridge while the elven merchants that hadn't traded yet were still on my side, so i could at least kill them and get their stuff. What does the game do? Selects the one person who's farthest from said lever. By the time it was pulled, not only were the merchants angry and leaving, they were halfway across the bridge. All their crap was flung into the water! there was a giant desert scorpion in there! does this game TRY to make me angry?

Back in 40d, while I was still trying to figure most things out, I managed to create a definite hell-hole, Finger the Anus of Horses.

I had learned somewhere that waterfalls generated mist, mist generated happiness, and happiness kept the drunken idiots sane slightly longer. So I dug out some stockpiles and farms at the base of a cliff up in the north-west corner of the map, the only area with trees, all of the rest being mountains. with a cavern running from about the center to the southern edge, where i immediately attempted to dig out a channel from the brook to the chasms as a waterfall area. I learned early on that sealing my fort with some form of door was a necessity, and since i didn't know about the power o the drawbridge I used a trio of floodgates. What are the chances of your dwarves leaving something right on top of your floodgates? Higher than the chances of them pulling the lever to actually attempt closing the gates. 90% of the ambushes actually fought with my marksmen and axemen squads, the entryway was a scene of death like nothing I've seen since in my forts; dozens of goblin corpses, piled atop dozens of my soldiers, piled atop dozens of idiot civilians that were doing the entrance dance, atop dozens of pets that were following their owners. The plateau above my fort was more of the same with a single center-point of pure rage; Imepereve (of endless rage, i've added), an elves' pack animal that went berserk (because they were at that time too stupid to go home when locked out.) and started wandering the countryside killing everything it came across. In it's anger it managed to slaughter dozens of goblins, and dozens of mountain goats, before eventually being beaten to death by a goblin ambush. Nobody ever cleaned up the corpses, just stole their socks.

This wasn't everything, however. Back then I didn't understand why the wiki told me to make a chamber to hold the water being used to irrigate my farms, I had no idea the game actually had some semblance of pressure. So what did I do? I tried to build a well off the chamber channeling water down from the brook, right before the pressurization chamber, and directly connected to the farms with no doors in-between. Results are clear, just not clear enough, so I'll skin my fingers on this keyboard. the southernmost end of the farms was used as the food stockpiles, and when I discovered the flooding, I ordered a tunnel be dug to channel it into the chasms. The tunnel wasn't big enough, so the chamber continued to fill until it became inaccessible. I of course had nothing outside that farming area to feed my dwarves, so a massive famine ensues. Within 6 months the population has dropped from 70+ to maybe 10-20. Over the next 6 months the tantrum spiral/my sadism kills all but a single fisherman. Needless to say nobody wanted anything to do with the place by then except the goblins and Imepereve, but I wanted this guy to suffer in his miserable loneliness so i didn't abandon. I did, however, completely and utterly forget to lock the doors (of course I really couldn't, the fisherman needed water since I had no barrels). The poor sober fool was torn to shreds by a squad of swordsmen when he went into the cellar to grab a snack. A miserable end to a miserable hell-hole, Finger the Anus of Horses.

There was a goblin ambush composed of a single maceman squad. 5 of the 7 were caught in cage traps, the remaining two ran headlong into my 2-man militia before they were actually in position. The first soldier, a novice swordsdwarf in full armor was brutally beaten for a minute or so until he died. Next my militia commander, also a novice swordsman, adequate fighter and shield user, and fully decked out in steel platemail, with 7 kills to her name (in the training arena of course), charged in and took a mace to the face and died on the spot, a one-hit kill. 4-5 more troops arrived behind him and the actual fight began. One of the two recruits died, the other was badly injured with many broken bones, nobody else was harmed. They killed one goblin and the other retreated into the cage traps. That's 3;7, with my militia victorious only because there were cage traps to save their scrawny asses. If 3 goblins had made it through the traps, they probably would have been able to slaughter all 10 of my men.

What's the average skill level of invaders and caravan guards anyway? clearly it must be miles above novice.

A dwarven pig bone door.

It may be an artifact door, but it's an artifact BONE door, which means it was affected by the no-decorations bug on bone artifacts. The 1-year-old that made it dragged a half dozen gems, an iron bar, a stone block, a roll of cloth, and one of the logs down to the shop alongside the 3 stacks of bones (30 bones in all) he used, all of them gone! It's only worth 1200 DB! it's the least valuable artifact in the fort, my chefs can make dog tallow bisquits more valuable than it!
It's being a fey mood and him now being legendary is negated by the fact that I already had a child bone-carver, and she's already 8! You're 7 years behind and 100% less likely to survive until I get bored with this fort kid, you could have at least become something more useful than a second delayed-usefulness-until-adult-and-then-still-useless dorf.

My fort had a horrible 2 years. We've been under siege the entire time, never a caravan to be seen, and my horribly untrained militia horribly outnumbered and horribly under-equipped, so the bridges were left sealed except for one attempt to capture some of the orcish swordsmen. We captured about 12 of them, including their mace lord and his spiffy silver mace, now held by my militia commander. Nobody died trying to get them in the cages, but we did suffer several casualties (only injuries, no deaths) to the bowman squad that didn't stop until they'd reached the bridge. Said bowmen then moved to the top of the hill behind the fortress walls, but still across the moat, where they took pot shots at everything in that general area, including both the fortress' owned cats, who were the only ones killed for over a year.
The next summer, there was a gap in the sieges. I took it as a full-seasons break from the fighting and let everyone out to collect the elves' trash, some logs, and the clothes people has been spamming the announcements page for for over a year and a half. Needless to say, this was stupid. As soon as the first craftsman across the bridge turned south towards the elves, they discovered a Cobald ambush. Why Cobalds? WHY?! It was the orcs that slaughtered your liaisons, not us! Despite the dorf-sized fuzzball macemen and their elite crossbowman master in an obviously wonderful position to send 100% of the dwarves on the bridge running in completely the wrong direction, only the craftsman panicked, everyone else walked calmly back to the meeting hall as they were told, allowing me to shut the gate.
I immediately decided to rescue the idiot, so i drafted him to the extra squad and had them stationed by the north bridge, which i lowered and waited patiently for him to cross. It was at this time the orcs came back for another siege, catching him way out there by the east walls and pounding his face in with their maces. I closed the bridge and forgot about the ordeal, tending to the construction of the guard towers, when i remembered I hadn't cancelled the extra squads' orders, and that there were two more idiots sitting out in plain sight of the orcish bowmen that once again walked right up to the bridge and started shooting at them. One of them, a legendary tanner, died before I could give orders. Now with two people dead some farmer, owner of one of the recently dead cats, started tantrumming and I was afraid the rest would join him. Crisis averted by the legendary dining hall and *dog tallow biscuits*.
I've since built a small arena for the schmucks we caught last year and have been sicking my troops on them. No progress yet as far as skills, but they've killed all the orcs that didn't make an immediate beeline for the door and the cage trap in it.

Apparently, yes, it is that hot outside. Are you in a scorching biome? That's the only logical explanation.

I have to agree with that. It's been 5 years since I started this fort and the only two people with personal quarters are the bookkeeper/manager, and mayor, the former because I like having an accurate stockpile count and the latter because she whines a lot. Nobody ever sleeps in their assigned rooms anyway, so it doesn't really matter until toady fixes that.

Anyway, I got my first siege in this fort today, a single spearman squad led by a master lasher on a war tiger. Frightening for the poor dope immigrants I locked outside this spring, not even a single job cancellation from anyone inside the fort. I only have one bridge left to complete and link up when i finally get a break from the migrant/siege combos.