Bay 12 Games Forum

Shucks.

Confirmed it to be ... water. I guzzled it down without issue.

A certain amount of paranoia is good in this game. DF mode too.

Ah well ... there's a bitchin' two room lair I stumbled across that's all mine now. Great place to call my own and dump all my spare crap. Behold me cave 'o doom muh huh hah haaa!

Let's see what the cities to the south have on offer. I'm getting real tired of all this icing over at night.

Check to make sure he's not a "Forlorn Haunt"

They're not very energetic to begin with, such that I never even try to get rid of them.

I think they move, on average, something like one tile a year. Occasionally. Maybe.

Beyond that it's worth some more investigation.

Ice walls are magma safe, though.  But yeah, bridges, floodgates, etc can melt.

Now replaced with sphalerite based bridges with iron mechanisms.

Almost .. there ..

The infrastructure is all in place, the bridges ( 36 of them ) are all linked to the master lever & now raised. The pump stacks are fired up & the magma tank fills!

It's a slow process & I keep my paranoia up by surveying the surface area of the fort regularly. No leaks, nothing to note at all - well, there's some vermin that keeps appearing in the uncovered section of the tank. I'm sure glad the cats can't get at them.

Wait a while longer & I can breath a sigh of release as the whole tank is now covered in a 1-2 deep level of magma. I now know the pumps can keep ahead of evaporation, this tank will fill to 7/7 in time. So the forts just idling until the next vile force of darkness arrives & I can run a live test. Still some vermin around flying above the tank, dragon flies, lightning bugs, seen them all before, nothing to note .. wait. There's a vermin thing in the tank, in the magma. Like it's jumping around in the 1-2 deep tiles. Is that a magma crab? That's OK too but .. that can't be they're not vermin. Take a look ...

  It's a hedgehog.

  I've got hedgehogs surfin' mah magma tank!

They called this place "Sikelcatten" or "Hoodchannel" in the vulgar speech of the neighbors. Someday it might be worthy of its proper name. Until then she had another name. A better name. Since the first day she set foot here, that dreadful first day of blood and bodies, screaming and dispair. That first day she arrived and the militia commander, the final vestige of any organization to this place and all of six days old in his career, strolled up and tossed every badge of office of Sikelcatten in her face. Then he ran to the nearest pool and jumped to a watery grave. She could still hear his .. someone's .. laughter.

Ever since this place would be known to her as "Da Hood."

Leader Besmarumril slid into her office chair and closed her eyes, pausing in a peaceful repose, gathering herself for yet another exercise in futility. The capital must be made to see reason! Her lot in this life and truth be told she was a true believer. There was not just a light at the end of this tunnel, she knew it in her heart there was someone, something, tending that light. Things were looking up! With the latest wave of immigrants she resigned four of the lesser positions. The Brokership and the Military Command went to some worthy aspirants, their names already forgotten and subsumed into their titles. The Manager and Bookkeeper positions now occupied by two of the last three .. special .. arrivals. All safely locked away, she'd find something for the third to do. In time. In time. Now there was plenty of time and she looked forward to the coming days when one and all reaped more than just the barest breath of survival from the twin jaws of death and disaster.

But first the letter.

"To: Department of Colonial Occupational Appointments and Emigration, Capitol. Dear Urist Trollface - Please stop sending medical personnel. I don't care how many and long and varied their letters of recommendation are. Unless you have someone who has resided at the capital their whole life? I mean someone who is guaranteed above reproach and .. no, never mind. Just. Please. Stop. You can send another liaison. We're ready this time. I got a new office and everything."

In the capitol the clerk finished reading the letter to his supervisor. The supervisor glanced over to the copies of the recommendations - each a thick, fat, stack of promise. Above reproach? Those three dwarfs had been everywhere, done everything.

"Is there a problem with the new doctors we sent to Sikelcatten?" he asked in surprise. "Nah." the clerk replied as he tossed the letter into the fire place with all the rest "Just them country folk. They don' know how to handle professionals."

***

Current population: 1 Forlorn haunt, 3 vampires, 41 regular peeps. Also 45 occupied coffins. Seemed like a good point to pause and take stock.

Right.

The first chance I get to jump start a functioning hospital after managing to stabilize this nightmare of an embark and what do I get? Everyone who has some medical skill is a vampire. "HFS" indeed.

Meanwhile I've got a new rule-of-thumb. If one of your neighbors in the embark screen is listed as a "Tower" then reconsider. A TOWER IS NOT A GOBLIN CITADEL! Not a nice safe, sane, goblin citadel of old. Not the kind you once knew and loved. Not a good neighbor.

Full on sieges of undead with less than 20 dwarfs in the fortress? In less than a year? Wow.

Goal: Say goodbye to 31.25. This shall be accomplished by construction & testing of an anti-invasion system consisting of a giant tub hanging over the fortress, filled with magma. System will divulge the magma with a unidirectional spread coving the entire surface edge of the embark.

Steps ...

A: A more or less self sufficient fortress. ( Took a lot longer than such a short description is implied. )

B: Flail around with various concepts, learning trap encrusted hallways & causeways, military management, & the Pissed Off Pastured Predators Perimeter Defence Programme. Build up a monstrous military force as an interim solution. ( Side note: Considered this step an overall failure - the end result is a single legendary militia commander axedwarf / swordsdwarf / givemeanythingdwarf who solos full on goblin invasions, rendering all other methods redundant for almost all hostile surface situations. Hell, I can't even get be bothered to keep this guy out of the line of fire of the ballista battery, it's all the same to him. Loads of fun figuring this all out & occasionally watching hostiles fight hordes of bears was amusing. )

C: Wall off the entire embark area up to the 5x tile no go zone. Wow, this is going to require an awful lot of stone & hauling & ...

D: Discover the concept of ice construction. This is awesome but the murky pools ain't going to cut it.

E: Plow into the caverns & raid them for the water supply. Figure out power generation & pump stacks. A messy step with many causalities but the experience gained is vital for what is to come.

F: Build & deploy a giant fortress overhanging water tank ice generator.

G: Oops. "Cave ins" happen without warning & with unsurprising regularity. Add in some secondary passive flood mitigation measures for the water tank. Very valuable experience gained.

H: From this point on everything that can be made of ice is made of ice. While the primary purpose is still the magma chamber it's all ice all the time everywhere with all sorts of tangential projects.

I: Find magma sea, build & test the magma pump stack, finish construction of the ice floor of the almost embark sized magma chamber above. Construct the ice bridges that will act as the wall of the magma chamber ...

Then spring arrives & all the bridges go "poof." I'm a little disappointed that this happened before I was able to link them all up, close them, & fill the magma chamber. Would have been a much better ending. Can't always rely on the FUN factor I guess.

In spite of the wiki's reluctance to endorse sphalerite I'm satisfied it's magma safe for all things & in all ways. Back to strip mining real rock.

Once this is complete & tested I shall be able to find peace - thru undead Keas & mine carts.

1) Urist McAquaLung is drowning! *zoom to location*

2) Your fortress is melting! Nice try! *All ice based constructions suddenly deconstruct into slush* ( Should be very random just to mess with people what do ice megaprojects. )

3) Your dwarfs feel uneasy .. it could be - KEAS! HOLY ARMOK INCOMING! ( User configurable for one specifically aggravating natural species. )

4) Urist McHaddenouff has engraved a masterpiece of bitter obscenity! ( Said engraving essentially stating, in no uncertain terms, that this fortress sucks & you can kiss his hairy beard goodbye. Followed by: ... )

5) Urist McColourCommentator has emigrated!

6) Urist McWallDodger can't path to life's necessities! *zoom to location*

7) The traders have changed their minds? *zoom to location* .. Instead of traders entering the map you find a note stating: "No. Just no." or similar.

And the one I'd most like to see ...

The Elephants of Boatmurdered fame hath arrived! Bye bye. *Carnage*

And on that note I'm gonna get me some breakfast.

Egg, egg, egg, and mushroom omelet here I come!

Did you designate any zones near the water?

Note that there's stairway access along the wall to get to the top & a stair way to get down into the reservoir itself. No mystery there, it's not like the cats are flying in or something.

Well, there's a pond designation one level above it all, accessible by the walls holding the water in. I was trying to get a head start on filling it during the winter months, having the Dwarfs pour as much "ice" in as possible. I've carefully confirmed it's just a pond designation, no random refuse stockpiles over it nor inside. The pond designation is still active of course, no reason to be but laziness.

Below this is the stone walled reservoir, nothing in there. There are two refuse stockpiles located about 15 - 20 tiles away. No direct connection, the interior of the reservoir is walled off from them.

The next floor down is a stone stockpile with 3 catapults set up to hose down a near by wall for target practice ( good training for the ballista battery covering the main entrance. )

And below that is a meeting area with another water source designation next to it.

Hardly OSHA approved but what can you do? 

Can't think of what weird combination of all this would cause the cats to insist on congregating here of all places, consistently wading thru 3/7 water to do so.