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[jimboo]

Sidenote: That Aquifer has been – frustrating.  Will comment at the upcoming wrap up. 

14th Slate

Our first mood: a possession.  New migrant, he’d have been a Tanner, anyways. 
From the other messages:
- the glassmaker has gotten by with our embarked bags but now the Farmer’s workshop is taking a few and our single, purchased bin of cloth has run out.  The Plant Gatherers have come across some ramie so we’ll be planting that outside for some thread.  It’s about the worst plant, useful for thread and nothing else; shame there isn’t any hemp in this biome.  But we need cloth and who knows if those dwarves are even coming back again?  (I joke – I hope.)
- Out of leather; have been making suits to pair up some of the new migrants to train with wooden weapons.  THOSE we have although that’s about the only weapons we have. 

16th Slate – Rhino attack.

Our dog ran a rhinoceros to exhaustion, dropping it right in our Trade Depot:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

At first, all I saw was the wooden training weapons from a squad of nearby Trainees.  Then Axe came along and – his iron battle axe mostly bounces off the rhino’s head.  I do miss steel weapons.  Oh, our Hunter and those mithril bolts: just scratched a couple of legs on another rhino, no damage.  Someday we’ll go pick ‘em up but there’s a half-dozen of the big beasties still hanging around that shore. 

17th Slate
Odd; the rhino is finally down but deathcause says it was our Expedition Leader, Bookie.  All Hail Bookie!  Bookie for Mayor!  (Bookie is an unskilled, unarmed pencil pusher fem who dreams of someday mastering a skill.) 

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Shoot  -- one pic is missing, top half of the screen. 

Like all our fortressfolk, she’s not happy about not yet having a Dining Hall.  After punching out a rhino (albeit a tired, bloody rhino) barehanded, she’s vengeful and
“unfettered after doing something exciting.”  No kidding. 

[pikachu17]

It seems bookie is unable to pray. did you at least make a temple meeting room somewhere? it doesn't have to be a special temple room or the dining room, it can just be in a hallway somewhere.

[jimboo]

Yeah, there’s always been one (small) generic, no-Deity Temple, now there’s one dedicated to Urek, the God of Aquifers.     Wiki says there’s no benefit to single-prayer systems but as Smake points out, this place is an exception.  In the current Thoughts and Preferences (1st Galena, Late Summer, final Save), she’s “enraptured after communing with Datan,” the Deity of The Rare Road civ and associated with minerals.  She’s never satisfied with the size of the Dining Hall, though.

[TheImmortalRyukan]

Wow, I'll take a shot at this...

Maybe I'll do a orc castle,

Or an adventurer

[smakemupagus]

Wow, I'll take a shot at this...

Great, welcome! 

[jimboo]

Check back in an hour -- I need a break from Imgur loading.   

[jimboo]

23rd Slate, mid-Spring.

Our moody possessed peasant, Sigun Mub made an artifact bone shield worth all of 440; mule bone w/ a mule bone image.  What the hey, it’s our first artifact: glassmaker Stukos is making crystal blocks with some purchased raw glass to display it in the Tavern.  And speaking of the Tavern, we got our first visitor today: Dosngosp DoomWandered, a Goblin Thief.  We’d kill her outright except she might be buying drinks and we need the coin  –

11th Hematite 202, early Summer.

Getting ready to hand off in two months; clean up, mostly, not much else can be done w/o stone or metals.  Stockpiling spiked wooden balls for the next player; Woody is now a Great carpenter, lvl 11, and a ☼spiked wooden ball☼ is worth 1,512.  If the Dwarves do come back, the next player will have plenty to trade.  I should save general notes for the end –

14th Hematite

Did the guys somehow eat the plump helmet spawn??  It’s turned in the kitchen to ‘brew only,’ we still seem to be out.  Whatever.  A couple of more small farm plots were placed outside; without the plumps, booze might be tight soon unless we go forage for dropped fruit.  Our Herbalists aren’t all that skilled, they don’t come back with much.  A season or so ago, I targeted individual plants (I was bored with all this dirt digging) and so there are cotton plants and longland grass to supplement the textiles and booze, more raime and some rye.  I’ve preferred Hemp for the oil + textiles but looks like Cotton is mostly the same; in my last fort, I was astounded, though, at the amount of seeds coming off one Hemp plant (cue Commander Cody & the Lost Planet Airmen here, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGsq1K7f_yc).   

[jimboo]

16th Hematite.

Placing a well in the MASH unit.  Two months to go, no invaders yet.  In fact, nobody here has even DIED – very unusual for one of my forts.   As in, has never happened before.  But then, we’ve been avoiding all the wildlife (rhinos, tigers, hippos, gators, lions) since we have only the two iron axes to work with.  We’re out of mechanisms so, no cage traps, either.  The smelter is working on those scavenged mithril bolts but it’s slow going. 

19th Hematite.

Project Aquifer on hold. This is a new one for me: the aquifer is in a yellow sand layer and, above that, in a layer of loam (at least those two, unsure of below).  But it is seeping sideways – sometimes, visible tiles that are dry later become damp.  I might well have dug one here by mistake but I don’t think so – I’ve been carefully following the edges of this loam expanse, looking for some of the limestone that the original Prospect All told me was going to be somewhere on this level, 127.  Of course, sometimes Prospect is wrong.  What I suspect happened is, I last looked at this expanse two or so months ago and then it began weeping; it’s not filling fast, I watched it for a day or so and still mostly lvl 4.  But it complicates using that area, at least, for a controlled cave-in.  We need rock.  From anywhere.  Pre-embark prospect says it’s close to the surface in lvl 127 but, we can’t find it, was the reason for expanding that used-to-be-dry loam.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Blood in the water isn’t obvious.  It’s rhino blood, the rhino corpse is two levels up and 30 paces south in the Depot where it fell (damn thing turned into a corpse immediately, I tried but couldn’t get to a butcher shop menu command quickly enough), somehow the blood appears in this water.  But not for a couple of months, go figure. 

[jimboo]

Another typical day:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

1st Malachite, mid-Summer

? – we’ve processed gathered thread plants, we’ve grown our cotton and raimie, still the weaver at the loom is refusing orders for lack of “1 unused collected plant thread.”  ? – there’s a dozen in the stockpile right next to her workshop.  Not forbidden, just sitting there in a bin.  To fix this, it was necessary to direct the thread stockpile to give to the loom; that shouldn’t ever be necessary (it was set default) and will be a pain to micromanage switching later to the clothiers.  But Likol just made a ☼raimie cloth☼ worth 188.  Our lvl 10 cook just made a masterful stew – mid-tier meal – worth 1500 and that rivals the best spiked balls; we can switch this place from wood.  We can, we can. 

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[jimboo]

5th Malachite, mid-Summer

Migrants.  Eight more, bringing our total to 42.  Another great weaver, a lvl 10 dyer; maybe the next player will want a Textiles industry instead of all this wooden crap – although must say, I’m getting used to it, I’ve never played up top before.  The textiles room is acting up again; deconstructing/reconstructing the cloth stockpile fixes it but only for a little while. 

Final days:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[jimboo]

Stuff:
We have one remaining boulder of gypsum, 2 bars of copper, 8 of exotic metals including 1 mithril, many barrels and pots of seeds, food and booze.  Clothing is just now starting to show wear but the farmers are producing thread.  We need to harden the leather stocks for more armor and cloaks, short-term. 

Top o’ the Hill:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Those two wooden hatchways are above the main staircase which is only 2 wide because of dampness.  They’re closed and forbidden and as yet, unblocked by bolts, caps, mittens or butterflies.  With another mechanism, a raising bridge here would make the path up top much shorter but till then, this is where the Orcs would show up.  The staircase goes up to the top of the walls, maybe someday wooden blocks will seal it over (flyers).

Textiles Room:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Decent enough layout.  When those poults next door are grown, there’s a Butcher and Tanner shop in their pen room.  The weaver is now making masterwork cloth and there’s a decent dyer but we haven’t spent time growing any dyestuffs yet.  Or milling plump helmets, come to think of it –

Bedrooms:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

This is just sad; dwarves living in dirt.  But they’re 3x3 w/ a door and (mostly) cabinet and, so far, the mood of the fortress is surprisingly fine.  Not one tantrum yet and some admire those doors.  The glassmaker is skilling up with cabinets and maybe coffers, someday.   Bookie has her own 3-room suite.  Beginnings of the much-in-demand Dining Hall to the right. 

Main Hallway and Courtyard:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

This wasn’t the original plan, just kind of worked out this way when we failed to find the upper limestone.  The kitchen isn’t really big enough but can be expanded down one level.  Farm plots just below the food/plant storage area, one Still on the left is certainly enough.  MT barrels and glass pots stored behind the Still and next to the kitchen.  There’s a fishery that no one uses because hippos come a dozen at a time.  Just south of the (expanded) farm plots are the workshops surrounding the wood stockpile.  Pretty much one of each, almost all made of wood.  The side, wooden gate was another change as the first honeybees showed up just outside the already completed wooden wall.  Buckets stockpiled between the Ashery and the Soapmaker; no big deal but dedicated stockpiles such as this collectively make a big difference in FPS (my system, anyways).
The Trade Depot and Liaison Office are right there out front.  At least they’re behind the wall.  Next to the Depot is a stockpile for spiked, wooden balls – each of those two bins holds a dozen (!). 

[jimboo]

The MASH Unit:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Have been expecting an Orc invasion, hasn’t happened.  The corner of the courtyard was roofed over around that olive tree (huge, 3 lvls of fruit) for beds and tables and a well.  Evidently it’s a nice wooden pump; several dorfs have gotten good thoughts from seeing it.  Above is the fairly large Tavern, the Lunches of Clasping.  Any given day, nearly a third of our workforce is in there. 


Fortress Design:
I have a folder saved to upload to Bay12 someday, showing how I plan my fortresses and asking for constructive criticisms.  This is not one of those! 

- FPS is surprisingly low, running mid-50s and sometimes dropping into the 20s.  I suspect it’s the aquifer seeping along, fluid flow is even worse than pathfinding.
- Most workshops have dedicated stockpiles either adjacent or within easy walking distance.  There’s no general ‘everything here’ so some workshops have odd items inside but not enough to slow anyone down.  I should have had one for misc. stuff.
- The jugs stockpile next to the quern and screw press is filling up with armor stands, just noticed after uploading the save.
 

[jimboo]

Notes:
- the fortress is self-sufficient, ready now to take on Project Aquifer.  Could go Textiles or Food industry, anytime.  Cooks are producing 1.5K stews and 2K roasts.
- there hasn’t been enough oil to harden much leather which is the only armor currently available; the new 3x5 farm plot Inside/Light could be set for cotton.  There’s plenty of potash.  Armok knows there’s enough wood!
- the solitary lever in the Control Room serves both gates, is marked with a Note.  The beds in there are from the original Dormitory, just haven’t been moved out yet.  The only other Note is for the single Garbage Dump tile in the SE corner of the courtyard.
- Gold is, imo, still the key to Masterwork; bring in as many caravans as possible, buy more gold, everything else just falls into place, easy.  It’s troubling, though, that the one Dwarven caravan left last fall without giving a Wish List.
- Weightlifting works but is very slow; 2 points in Strength for each set of 10 reps.  Mesthos started at 748, currently at 782.  Still a wuss.
- No library yet, can’t do everything in the first year with 7 starting dorfs.  The starting 7 do Read, at least.
- No Guildhall, no Garrison because, no gold. 
- Military training by 2’s has also been incredibly slow, I must be doing something wrong.  Most of the squads were disbanded before the final save.  Therapist shows a number of dorfs dabbling or novice in shield, dodge and armor-wearing, that’s about as far as it got.  If the neighboring Orcs do come, it’s no great fun to just hide behind walls.  Maybe a Danger Room –
- One year, not one DFHack cheat.  Hey. 
- I neglected to set a warren for civilian alert; that should be a priority.

[jimboo]

Some Suggestions/Recommendations:

A) Embark somewhere else.  Seriously.     Or, as Smake has suggested, DFHack drain that damn aquifer, with his and Uker’s blessing.
B) Load the Save, immediately abandon.  Reclaim w/ 7 skilled warriors to this self-sufficient fortress that has enough bedrooms to draw quick migrant waves.  Bring lots of rock with you to start.  Iron if you can afford it, there’s plenty of flux.  Magnetite is maybe best bang for the embark buck.  Orcs right next door. 
C) Drain the aquifer by the concentric rings method, centered somewhere out in the middle of the courtyard, there’s plenty of room within the blockade walls.  It’s more than one level wet.  Dig down to stone and then execute the “Student Body Right” play, moving the entire fortress underground and 30 paces south.  Or stay up top and play like an Elf in the dirt, whatever. 
D) Abandoning and reclaiming as another race would be interesting; there’s one of everything necessary/important.  Rotting Food and Stuffs are off, should be seeds and Masterwork always has tons of fallen fruit laying about so, extra embark points for stone and metals.

[jimboo]

Before I sign off,

This was Embark #2 which is why the fortress name doesn't match my first post.  After seven months of double-slit digging and pumping out that damn aquifer, the game crashed and took my laptop with it.  Was necessary to go to the previous day’s Set Point, 6 hours RL time wasted – a couple of dozen IMGUR pics set up, not yet written to the thread – and I just couldn’t face doing that again.  So the fort is self-sufficient, instead.  Btw, this release is very stable, that one crash has been the only problem, probably just my old laptop acting up.  Anyway, that’s why Embark #2 isn’t written up very well.  And the other fort looked way nicer …