Bay 12 Games Forum

So...is all this death really gonna cause a tantrum spiral?  Everyone knows that dwarves only grieve when they have nothing shiny to pay attention to.

I was worried about it at first, but apparently not!  I've got one dwarf at 'miserable', but she's one of the ones who refuses to put on pants and then gets mad because she doesn't have any pants on.  So she was probably a lost cause anyways.  There are a couple more at 'unhappy', but as long as I get their dead friends and family into coffins they should be fine in a couple months.

Right now though, I think I need food, drink, and sleep.  That was more intense than I was expecting, and I was expecting something pretty epic.

Thank Armok you decided to train war animals beforehand.  This probably would have ended much worse had you not done that.

Nonetheless, I am quite impressed, having a somewhat intact military ( your soldiers must surely be legendary by now, right? ) is rare when opening up the HFS, when you look at all the other great forts that have done this, even with obsidianizers and other such stuff.

Give the survivors a royal everything train some more and invade hell.

Okay, damage control time.

First up, wall off hell.  A single wandering demon could annihilate us at this point - I've got six military dwarves in various states of injury and misery.  Assuming we don't all go mad and start making sofa cushions out of each other, rebuilding the military and invading hell is the next step.  I was going to execute the fleeing dwarves for cowardice and reward the victors with gold-plated living rooms.  Since it turns out they did both, I guess I'll settle for letting them live.

I don't know what the hell happened outside, but the caravan is fine, there are crossbow bolts and gore everywhere, and it looks like a handful of goblins walked into my serrated disk traps and exploded.  So business as usual.

The real kicker is going to be the tantrums.  Pretty much all the military dwarves are pissed - the fight went on long enough for them to get seriously hungry and thirsty, as well as suffering serious injuries.  On the upside, I was worried my hospital couldn't hold all the wounded - not a problem anymore!  On the downside, I think I'm out of coffin space.

Really, really, really out of coffin space.

Crap, crap, crap.  The melee dwarves are gone, the dogs are gone, the lions are gone, the siege operators are gone, all that's left are the marksdwarves and the demons just tore the doors off the archery posts.

On the upshot, I've got about 15 combat-capable dwarves left, and they're working in teams (albeit accidentally) - one brave dwarf bludgeons while the other stands back and shoots.  I just have 5 demons left, if I can take them out, I've won!

Backup plan is to mass-recruit everybody - I wasn't thinking about it before, but I've got a big stockpile of slightly lesser-quality steel weapons and armor upstairs.  Fresh recruits in full steel should be able to pull down the last five, right?

Shiiiiiiiiit.

The ballistae redeemed themselves (over the corpses of 80 or so war dogs), but they're out of ammo.  100 ballistae arrows, and they are literally out.

The melee dwarves have been decimated - the demons tore the doors off and the brave idiots ran out to meet them instead of fighting under the arrow cover.

However, the demons have also been decimated, and they're now tangling with the handful of melee remaining and the war lions.  The marksdwarves are finally able to really pitch in, and they're just slaughtering them.  Legendary marksdwarves with an effectively unlimitted ammo supply are fearsome indeed, but this is going to be painfully close.

AUGH they're in the melee room already!  Got a few lucky shots (finally), but even a direct hit barely wounds these things.  One of them just grabbed my militia captain and threw him back down the hallway.  He landed in a pile of six demons... at least it was quick.  Release the lions!

Note to self:  Find the puts who ran all the way back upstairs to eat and drink WHEN I HAD FOOD TWENTY STEPS AWAY and have him executed for incompetence.

Miner is clear, first wave just hit the corridor!  Ballistae, fire at will!

Do you have a backup plan if and when this plan fails?

Run away sobbing while my masons frantically try to wall off the lower fortress.  Then continue to sob while my dwarves tantrum spiral, since they're all party-happy slackers who make friends with everyone.  There's no way this fort can survive the loss of 40% of its population in one go.

About to breach hell for the first time!  Well, technically my second - the first doesn't count due to an odd glitch that resulted in hell being completely empty.  In any case, I thought it would be fun to post on the forums as it happens.

Now, I originally thought there was no way I'd ever play DF, so I spoilered myself like mad by reading the wiki, the forums, and the various "Let's Play" games out there.  So I'm not going into this completely blind, even through it's my first attempt.

To keep this fun, I've decided to limit myself.  No cave-ins, obsidian traps, checkerboards, webbed cage traps, etc.  I've also limited myself to 'normal' training only - sparring and executing prisoners.  No danger rooms.  Between this and various casualties, my squads are a mix of skilled warriors and fresh recruits, with a handful of legendaries.  The exception is my marksdwarves, which are almost all legendary.

I've got the following preparations:

1.  40 soldiers, out of a fortress population of 103.  All are carrying masterwork steel weapons and armor, except for the six with silver hammers.  The number would be higher, but I've had an odd problem with my soldiers going insane due to nakedness, despite the fact that I'm drowning in fresh-made masterwork clothing and their fellow soldiers (in the same squad!) don't have any problems.
2.  An absurdly long corridor leading into the side of an adamantite spire.
3.  A set of three masterwork ballistae behind fortifications at the end of the corridor, manned by three legendary siege operators.
4.  A stack of 100 steel-tipped ballistae bolts.
5.  Halfway through the ballista corridor, there is a small alcove.  The alcove contains a cage stuffed full of my entire population of War Dogs.
6.  At the end of the corridor, the path takes a small jog to the side.  There, a series of small corridors provide entry into a room that will be stuffed full of my melee dwarves.
7.  Inside the melee room, there is a cage stuffed full of war lions.
8.  Behind and above the melee room, there are a pair of fortified firing positions stockpiled with high-quality silver bolts.
9.  Everything is sealed in - walls and floors have been used to ensure the only way into the fortress from below is through the defenses.
10.  A water trough is placed between the defensive line and the fortress itself.

The plan:
1.  Soldiers are ordered into the melee room and the archery posts.  The doors are locked behind them.  Siege operators are locked in with their ballistae.
2.  Urist McExpendable is given a copper pick and told to dig through the spire.  If I'm feeling nice, I'll make him a mason and have him try to wall himself into a little alcove once hell is breached.
3.  The demons pour into the only path out of the spire - the ballista corridor.  Siege operators open fire, hopefully thinning the horde.
4.  Once the demons hit the halfway point, the dogpocalyse cage is unleashed.  The dogs aren't expected to accomplish much, but they might take out some of the weaker demons.  More importantly, they will delay the horde in the ballista corridor while the siege operators continue to fire.
5.  The remaining demons enter the melee room.  The entrance to the room is split into a series of narrow corridors, hopefully keeping the press of numbers to a reasonable level.  The dwarven militia engages.
6.  The lion cage is opened.  Lions pack a bit more punch than dogs, but their main purpose here is to get in the demons' way.  Every attack directed at a lion is an attack that isn't directed at a dwarf, and their bite attack is strong enough that they can still do some serious harm if the demons ignore them.
7.  The whole time this is happening, archers will be raining bolts into the fray.
8.  Toxins and such will be taken care of when the survivors walk through the water trough on the way out.

I just had a goblin siege, so I should be free from any distractions for a while.  I'm preparing the breach now - preparations should take about 15 minutes.