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[Stuebi]

[NINJAEDIT ON REQUEST: Currently planned as a Community Game, NOT a succession Fort]

Hey everybody!

This is more or less just a crazy idea ghosting around in my head for a while now, so if interest is low, i'll scrap it right away.

I have been a member of Bay12 for quiet a while, altough I definetly belong to the "Lurker" variant, and only post from time to time. The game itself I play on and off on a regular basis, but I recently realised that I never actually really got _into_ the game. After years of haning around here, and posting from time to time, and talking to my friends about the game, I'm still basically a Newbie when it comes to being an Overseer for my Forts. The longest one I ever managed to built, lasted close to 10 years. But that was with the help of turtling with draw bridges and basically absuing cage traps like crazy. And even then I had ignored most of the industry. My Military consisted of 10 Dwarves barely able to swing a spear and I was eventually taken down by myself, when I built a big underground Arena where I wanted to hold pitfights with my huge amounts of prisoners. I did not really grasp how caging and releasing creatures "safely" from their pisons worked, so my inpenetrable mountainfort died from within.

With Masterwork, I tend to loose quite a lot of Forts to starvation (harder farming), or the first ambushes. I love the Mod and the setting, but I'm quite frankly horrible at playing. I have yet to start a FOrt that actually reaches more than 2 years in lifetime.

You might be wondering now, why would such a sad incompetent Overseer start a Community Game, instead of submitting himself to the next avaiable atom crusher? Well, after quite a lot of thought I came up with the idea to actually capitalise on my moronity, and maybe even learn something out of it:

Meet a Dwarf nicknamed "Stuebi", who was just thrown out of "Overseer-Academy"™. To get rid of him, his family ordered him to create a new outpost for the mountain homes, prefferably as far away as possible. 6 others have the very questionable honor of going along with the young Dwarf. Luckily for him, his social skills are quite a lot better than his skill at managing Forts. So he has quite a few friends and aquaintances back at home aand the academy, promising to regularly send him advice via letter, as long as he delivers regular reports on the situation.

You guessed it, this is where the "Community"-part comes in. People can either be dorfed directly, and thus provide help on site (and probably die horribly due to my incompetence!), or simply pretend to be a helpful advisor back in the mountain homes, providing helpful tips and strategies via letter. You can either plainly post your advice into the thread, so I can incorporate it into the next entry of my Diary. Or you can write a little In Character bit, which I will also integrate into the thing.

Things you need to know:

Masterwork Mod is being played.
I'm gonna play as Dwarves.
I disabled Aquifiers.
Sadly, can't use Rendermax since it crashes my game after a while. I will use the new item graphics however.
Tileset can be suggested, world has not been genned yet!


And that's basically it. I'm open for embark and worldgen-suggestions, "I want to be dorfed" requests and of course general brainstorming. I'm aiming for 2-3 Updates per week, should people be interested.

[4maskwolf]

If I'm reading this right, I think you should clarify it to "community fortress", since you don't appear to have the intent of having others be overseer.

Requesting dwarfing as Mask, the miner-engraver. A good friend of Stuebi's, he volunteered for the task to help his friend establish a lasting impact on the world. Starting with founding a new fortress.

[Stuebi]

Added an Edit on top pointing out it's not planned to be a succession Game.

Also, Mask is on my list. I'm probably gonna go with the standard embark-setup (except anyone suggests something else) from Masterwork, so we're gonna have 3 Miners, one of which is gonna be engraver on the side.

[Urist Mc Dwarf]

Make sure you have mechanics Stuebi. Also, use your families influence to gget more food and drink, amd lots of valuable metal. Also some ore, coal, and nest boxes.

[Quartz_Mace]

Sounds like a good idea to me. I'd like to be Dorf'd into your inept military and see how fast I die.

No offense, militaries are the hardest part of the game when you're new. Also, nothing wrong with a bit of throw-away infantry. I'll also try to give of character tips and pointers.

[Stuebi]

Allrighty, I will post the initial embark preparations and the starting seven, two of which will be named. I'm probably gonna dorf you as the Woodcutter Quartz, with some skills in axe and dodge, so I can draft you into the military later. And as you correctly pointed out, I struggle a lot with the military because of the complexity, so do expect to die horribly somewhere around year two. 

[Stuebi]

The letter seems to be written with a somewhat shaky hand, altough the author seems to be fairly decent at provding sketches at least.

Journal of Stuebi Sodlrcs, hailing from the Civilization of "The Town of Onslaughts".

I write these lines as we arrive at the site. It seems we stopped at the middle of the brook we were following. It seems like a nice enough site, with plenty of trees. The surrounding seem calm, at least for the moment. I can only hope that we will not be plagued by savage beasts, as we set up our camp.

With me, I brought seven others. Some seem rather unhappy with their new calling, and who can blame them? My departing was accompanied by ridicule and laughter, it will be a wonder if they actually send caravans. Or at least, caravans carrying something useful, and not just coffins. My "colleagues" at the academy seem especially glad to finally have me gone, and I heard rumours about bets being made, on how fast this whole thing will turn sour. I overheard one of my former mates betting a mug of ale that we will not survive the first month. I hope he's eaten by carps, the stupid elf.

Anyway. I will provide the basic preparations and an overview of the other fellas who joined me, on this appearantly doomed journey:

Items:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Animals:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Dwarves:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Stuebi:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Mask:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Quartz:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

From these seven, only my dear friend Mask and an old aquaintance named Quartz were chosen by me. The others were either send by their families or lost a bet. Im pretty sure I would not have dared to even attempt something like this, if it wasnt for Mask. While I dont know him that good yet, I also hope Quartz has at least a little faith in me. Anyway!

The Fort was named Kolothil, Wheelweakened. There's probably some inside joke to this, but I will not waste any thoughts on it.

I will provide an initial sketch of our surroundings, before conducting a first meeting with the others and making plans. I can spot signs of Obsidian around, and I will admit that I quite like the color. I hope we will find more underground.

Initial area:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

OOC:

I enver embarked on a place with Obsidian before. I really hope we get some layers comprised of the stuff, since blue rooms look fancy. We have a lot of trees and a brook in the bottom right corner. I gotta admit tough, in terms of survival, a Civilization by the name of "Towns of Onslaught" does not bode well. 

If you have initial suggestions, in character comments or anything, feel free. I will continue either later this night or tomorrow, as im currently sitting in a Pen & Paper session.

[Stuebi]

Second entry of Stuebi Sodlrcs journal.

After a bit of planning, I gave my initial orders and designations. We will dig an initial area on the level where we arrived, with some basic storage, a dining room, a dormitory and a foodstorage. As the miners run off, Mask looking as eager as ever, I turn around and order Quartz to fell the trees in front of our new Fort, while I start to gather some plants in hopes of getting a little food and maybe a seed or two.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

As I'm working outside, I spot some uninvited guests:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Why does it ahve to be snakes? I hope they stay clear, or if I'm lucky Quartz will get them with his axe.[/i]

OOC:

This is basically the usual thing I do, get some basic rooms going, create some furniture and once I have a basic area for my guys to work in, I start to order my Miners to dig the proper fortress in the deeper stone layers. Altough this time I started farming right away, which occupies almost a third of my allready small workforce. But I hope that an early start allows me to get a decent stockpile up to survive the first year. Starvation was one of the many things causing my past Forts to fail.

The third entry is written with a less nervous hand it seems, at least it's a lot more readable than before.

The basic work is done. As the Miners vanish into the stone layers to dig a proper dining room, food storage and a big room that will become the working area, me and Koldab start working the farms. We brought quite a lot of seeds, and it's very time consuming. But one of the reasons I was booted from the academy, was the fact that I was very bad at managing food supplies. So I want to get my first harvest as soon as possible. I also took the liberty of designating a place to get rid of our refuse, and an area where our animals can graze.

After planting the first seeds, I check on the other rooms and workers. Our initial time at this new place seems to be going great, at least for the time being.

Initial Fort after some hauling and building:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Outside:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

"Proper" dining hall and foodstorage, deeper in the earth (Note the mason and craftsdwarf, I want to use some of the Obsidian, while making room for the food later on.):

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

And lastly, our future workspace:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

And thats it for the moment. Some suggestions and the like would be appreciated. 

[heydude6]

Well honestly i would actually recommend building some walls around the fortress. Mostly to make farming outside rather safe as well as preventing animals in the pasture from dieing, what kills the majority of my forts is titans. Also don't forget to remove the ramps inside the walls as well so animals and titans can't get in through there.

Here is a reply in character:

Dear Stuebi

By the time I wrote this letter you should probably be dead, but on the very unlikely chance that you actually survived the first five minutes, here is my advice.

Build defences as soon as possible! The world is filled with many dangerous animals, (grey languars and giant koatis being notable ones) and despite my pessimistic predictions, I actually want you to survive. Build walls around your farms and pastures and seal it with a drawbridge. Shouldn't be too hard to build a mechanics workshop.

Your classmate Cornelius

[CaravanCzar]

Dear Stuebi,

As I am sure you already know, trade is what keeps a fort alive. Once you have all the essentials (bedrooms, dining hall, farms, etc.) set up to meet your immediate needs, you should set up a craftsdwarf's workshop and begin mass production of stone mugs.

"Why mugs," you might ask? Because they are cheap to make, return a nice profit, and the Mountainhome is always in need of new drinking utensils.

Once you have these mugs made, and the autumn traders come to visit you, you can trade them for the food and booze your fort needs to survive. This will give ya a lil leeway until you get your farms producing food effectively.

And remember, some of us out here are betting on your success.

- Kristov

P.S.: If things get off the ground there, I may come and show ya a thing or two about craftsdwarfship.

O.O.C.: If you get a good, male craftsdwarf in one of your migration waves, can you dorf me?

[Stuebi]

Stuebi Sodlrcs journal, summer.

The summer progressed rather uneventful, I must say. We got our first migrant wave, which actually sort of surprised me. We now count 13 dwarves, and I do wonder why they would choose my fort of all places. Maybe there are some people back home with at least a little faith?

Anyway. I didnt exactly hit the jackpot on labourers, but there are some interesting ones among our newcomers. Two hivekeepers and a weaver, two peasants and a woodcrafter. While I dont see us getting a clothing industry up just yet, I definetly see the use in hivekeepers. Our food-reserves are dwindling fast, and I _do_ like honey a lot! I was just about to order the construction of a few hives when two letters from home arrived. Kristov and Cornelius both wrote with some advise. Altough Cornelius still seems convinced that we will fail. I'll show him soon enough! ...I hope.

Cornelius recommends the construction of early defenses. I planned to seal our entry hall either way, and he's definetly right that our farms and herds need to be protected. There's still a lot of hauling and producing to be done, but I will try to at least start with the construction of some walls and a bridge during winter.

Kristov on the other hand recommends producing mugs for the traders. I can see that this would be useful, altough I will never understand how our people can use so many mugs in such a short amount of time. But what do I care? Caravans carry food and drink, which might carry this fort trough the impending starvation. I order our craftsdwarf Mebzuth to start producing mugs right away, while ordering one of the three goats slaughtered. I also order one of our new migrants to start milking some of our livestock and creating some cheese if possible. Last but not least, I enable fishing on one of the peasants and construct two outside farms for berries. We just have to hold out til autumn...

Farms (Prickle- and Strawberries):

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Stuebi Sodlrcs journal, autumn.

Another wave of migrants arrives, this time 6 in total. Again nothing special, peasants, some rather untalented crafters and a butcher. I add some of them to our farming workforce, where they plant seeds, milk animals and just genreally take some work of my back. I officially accepted the title of overseer and broker, and will be quite busy in the future! As the only one with basic medical skills, I will also be looking at our wounded until a more competent doctor arrives. I really do hope one comes before I have to actually treat someone.

I also assigned Mebzuth as our manager and bookkeeper, and he went to work right away. Makes it a lot easier to keep track of all the things I gotta keep in check. He needed a dining room and a study for the job tough. I admit, I'm a _little_ jealous.

Nobles:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Mebzuth's fancy living quarters on the left:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

As time goes on, I order some cage traps to be built and palce them at the little bottleneck between two lakes. I hope to get a few animals to slaughter that way. In the past, I relied exclusively on farms for food, which spelled my doom more than once.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

As I'm waiting for the traps to be finished, I get a shocking report.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Roduk! as he gone mad? Or was he truly a heroic figure from the start? Did he finally decide to rid us of the snake-menace outside? Does he plan to protect us all, by defeating the vile beasts on their own....

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

...or not. To be fair, I wouldnt take those things on myself. Let's hope he does not get eaten, good stonecrafters are rare these days. But just as our food is about to run out, finally!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Praise Armok! The Caravan!

I get everyone to carry the mugs and the newly cut gems I ordered at the start of the season to the Depot, just as the caravan arrives. Sadly, I'm stricken with a sudden urge to nap, followed by the talk to the liason. It takes quite a while, but after some hard haggling with the trader (Who ripped us off good, at least as far as I can tell. I really need to get better at the whole trading thing.), our food stocks are massive. We have meat, fish and tons of plants. I still hope our Plump Helmet harvest will hit soon.

I also took the liberty to get some cloth, two anvils and a few leather quvers for a future hunter.

As the caravan leaves, a pack of Dingos strays too close to the Fort, and is greeted by our dear Tuskox Bull. One might think he doesnt really like Dingos a lot...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The guards from the caravan also join in on the fun:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

By the time the caravan leaves the site, 4 Dingos lie dead by our feet. We also managed to catch two of them! And... some other things as well:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I have no idea what those are, but they look nasty. The butcher says he has no idea how he would turn those into food, and they dont look tameable. So what are we supposed to do with those? I leave them in the cages for now, maybe someone else has an interesting idea. Checking my reports, I discover that there was at least one casualty this year:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I dont have the slightest idea what a Changeling could be, but it seemed to be a pet of one of the migrants. I might build a coffin to please the former owner. We wouldnt want someone throwing a tantrum. As we reach winter, I ponder what our next project should be. Start on the walls, moat and drawbridge? Or order our miners to dig personal rooms to increase happiness? I also dont know if I should order our cook to create some meals, wouldnt that consume more food? Or maybe something compleely different? I hope for some more letters or advise, as I close this entry.

OOC:

Coral Snakes are dangerous, it seems. Either that or Changeling Breeders arent very strong. It bit the breeder once, and it died seconds later. I'm not keen on repeating that with our dwarves. Luckily, they left for the moment, and the Dingos got owned pretty hard, by the looks of it. I'm glad the thing with the cagetraps worked, even tough we catched some really weird things. I'm consdering building more. Foodstocks seem stable, at least for the moment. I do wonder when our Plump Helmets will be ready tough, we're getting close to a year and they are still not done.

We're getting close to the point where I usually start to struggle, so any advise on our next moves and the like would be appreciated! I also hope the read is somewaht enjoyable.

[heydude6]

Do we spoil what xen infectors do?

[Stuebi]

I can guess from their description. I got lucky tough and they walked right into the cages as they entered the map.

The question is, what do I DO with them? I could dig a slightly deeper pit somewhere in our future moat for them, thus incorporating them in some kind of alien-esque defense mechanism. On the other hand, it would be interesting to know if killing them yields anything useful. If all else fails, I'll put them in a closed room and use them as target practice for some Marksdwarves.

I'm open for suggestions tough. 

[heydude6]

I think target practice would be the best use. you can't trade them and if you use them for defense purposes you might create even more enemies especially since you would have to kill the xen infectors as well.

[CaravanCzar]

I dont have the slightest idea what a Changeling could be, but it seemed to be a pet of one of the migrants. I might build a coffin to please the former owner. We wouldnt want someone throwing a tantrum. As we reach winter, I ponder what our next project should be. Start on the walls, moat and drawbridge? Or order our miners to dig personal rooms to increase happiness? I also dont know if I should order our cook to create some meals, wouldnt that consume more food? Or maybe something compleely different? I hope for some more letters or advise, as I close this entry.

I'm liking the read so far! It seems like Cornelius and I are two sides of the same coin: a defensible fort, or a profitable one? The best forts work both at the same time.
 But:

Stuebi,

It seems your fort is coming along pretty well! Word has it that you caught a xen - those are bad news. Your best bet would be to kill it as quickly as you can. Not only will you save yourself from future danger, but you will also give your militia some practice, as well as insuring that they will never fall asleep at their posts. Ha!

But onto more serious matters. The folks back home appreciate your shipment of mugs (plus I'm making quite the profit off reselling them). If you want to maximize the amount of trade value you have, I would take any gems you have on hand, cut them, then encrust some of your finished goods with them. Mugs decorated with gems are worth more than selling gems and mugs separately.

On the matter of defense, I will have to yield to Cornelius. Ol' Corni is a far better tactician than I. But, the advice that I can give is that you should at least make sure that your trade depot is well defended. Whether that be with a nearby militia, or with a small curtain wall, I will leave up to you.

Best wishes,
Kristov