Bay 12 Games Forum

Making a special alert for sieges and giving a schedule order to your marksdwarf squad to defend a special burrow that only includes tiles next to the fortifications over your front gate helps immensely in getting marksdwarves to be effective.

When told to defend a burrow they will not leave it except to get ammo(or eat drink and sleep).  That allows your entire marksdwarf squad to fire at the enemy, instead of the one or two that happen to be close to the fortifications regular station orders do.


Also, make sure if you use dodging traps, any fallen goblins that somehow manage to survive have a way to get out of the pit (preferably still outside your fortress).  Squad leaders are often the first to fall into those, and sometimes if the rest of the squad can't reach their leader they stall and stand in place instead of moving forward.   

While that sounds good it isn't.  They will often stall outside of the range of your archers, which requires you to send a squad out to deal with them...in the middle of your dodging pit bridge...if the goblin squad happens to be archers it is even worse, as they will still open fire upon your squad, again, while they are on the dodging bridge.

And that is why I have a cover for my magma pit.  Cover the pit before you send your squad out to beat on the goblins who are camping.

Though I also have a bridge that raises to block the tunnel on the far side of the dodging bridge.  So it raises to trap the goblins in, or raises to allow me to mass melee dwarves with supporting marksdwarves just inside it to allow a short range rush on the goblins waiting on the far side.

My current fort and one previous that that have been desert/wasteland for 75-100% of the map.  I am not doing any "challenge" embark though and carry in tools and such (plus additional wood with the one.)  In both cases there are mixed biomes with one having (and the other not having) an aquifer - so I have water available once I dig a bit.

So far I like deserts.  Less wood has you thinking more about how you use it and what you can substitute for it in some constructions.  It also makes livestock handling different since grazing space is limited unless you take it underground.  Plus the wildlife mix is interesting - I'm seeing things like giant jaguars and camel herds.  And if you think rhesus monkeys can be annoying, wait for the buzzards and vultures to decide that it is time to raid your food stocks.

My idler/low skill dwarves are generally given engraver and set to smoothing sections of the fort to make it look nice and/or prep it for the high-skill engravers to work on later.  If I have a project going building walls, etc. a lot get given mason to work on that, or mechanic to link up things, etc.

I also have just about every dwarf assigned to a militia squad so that instead of idling they go do combat drills.  Most of the squads are made just for that, they do not have active training schedules.  That way all the civies end up eventually with a few levels of weapon training, some dodge, and hopefully some shield skill.  This makes them better able to defend themselves (or run away) if ambushed, and also easier to incorporate into the military units as replacements.  And since they are not partying and sitting around they don't develop as many friendships.

Murderconstructs enters its first winter with a mix of news.

Aquifer found to the east - so a secure cistern should be fairly easy to set up, plus water available for traps or other projects.  (The main fort is on a biome to the west that does not have an aquifer, so there was no issue getting down to stone.)

First two waves of migrants came in, adding six dwarves to the founding seven.  Including a high master armorer and another trained miner.

Some initial fortifications are up to protect the initial position of the Trade Depot.  Walls, a roof, and a second level to hold a barracks is being worked on.  Lower levels have a smattering of workshops and more elaborate areas are being worked on such as a larger dining room in a marble layer and some levels of individual rooms to replace the current dormitory.

Dwarf caravan arrived, traded, and left.  I realized that this dwarf kingdom (and probably the goblins as well IIRC) have *no iron*, tin, or some other metals.  So trading will be for bronze and steel equipment.

Exploration tunnel downward hit SMR without encountering the third cavern level or magma.  Implication though is that magma will be ~140 Z levels down when located.  This favors a "deep fortress" with at least part of the population concentrated well underground and the migrants and caravans coming down to visit (or being ignored) while the dwarves take over the caverns.  So more tunnels being dug to find the extent of the caverns and whether there are vertical routes that pass all three to potentially be used for access shafts.

On the flip-side all the metal ore discovered so far is shallow.  Tetrahedrite and galena for the most part.  That is, until a tetrahedrite vein suddenly transformed into a large deposit of magnetite.    With a deposit of chalk right beside it.  Limitation right now is very little charcoal and the fact that 2/3 of the map is a treeless wasteland.  Thus the need to find magma in order to get our armorer some steel to work with.  And then work out something to get the materials in one place with some efficiency.

I drain mine out via a magma-proof floodgate that leads to a grate over a "sump".  Grate holds the good stuff for picking up.  And the same access tunnel is also where I have a pump installed for pumping magma from the sump back into the pit.  The sump itself is connected to the main magma reservoir of my fortress via floodgate and fortifications in case I ever need to refresh the supply (and for the initial filling).

Oh, and depending on the surface you want to floor/pave the sump.  Otherwise you might get a tree growing there that blocks the drain.  Imagine being the dwarven woodcutter "volunteered" to go and clear that out... 

Imagine getting a Tholtig migrant...

The one that is, or is not, a vampire?

My one fort got a breeding pair of giant scorpions from the elves. 

My current fort is collecting cats (jaguar, leopard, lion, tiger, cheetah) in both normal and giant forms.  Only breeding pair is giant cheetah and we currently have five adults and five cubs about the fort.

I've had a few.

1. A siege arrived.  And then I notice eight trolls pathing not towards my access tunnels, but the hill behind the fortress where I had some secondary walls and tunnels put in to protect my pastures from being used for goblin archery practice.  Turns out that in putting up a few more walls I opened up access across the top of a wall into the tunnels that led into the fort.  (Luckily there was a locked door somewhere on the path since the goblins headed to the tunnels and their eventual slaughter.)

So eight troll go in, pound down a door, and start towards the main part of the fortress.  I have a minimal militia with so-so training, and its mainly marksdwarves.  And they're busy elsewhere.  So I order my sole squad of melee dwarves to armor up and head off the attack.  Two hammer dwarves comply, and they meet the trolls in the tunnel.  Where one dwarf proceeds to destroy the lot of them with some cover help from his partner.  Seven kills and an immediate nickname.

2.  Testing a magma pump stack out.  Levers pulled to open floodgates, power up the pumps, etc.  I start tracking magma coming up the shaft - and then see it going off through a gap I didn't fill after letting a miner out who cut himself off making channels for power transmission.  I manage to get a fireproof door in place and the pumps shut down before the flow reaches the main stairwell and starts flowing down into sensitive areas.  However, an alcohol storage area and associated breakroom were set on fire and the place was off-limits for a while.