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Author Topic: Dreamgem - last bastion of The Artifact of Depth (43.05 fort beginning)  (Read 1156 times)

Dracosophy

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I've just looked into Google account storage, and used Google Drive for the first time... so here goes nothing. ;)
The setup.
World map & pre-embark info etc

It is around year 107 and the dwarves of my medium/smallish world have had some bad luck.
The 2 dwarven civs that I am aware exist have been decimated by war(s) and/or forgotten beast(s).
One is down to only a few dozen members,
 and The Artifact of Depth (my own civ) had it's capital (main/only settlement at the time) overrun...
It's final devastation was by a humongous mole forgotten beast with a thirst for warm blood.
After the destruction, it then settled there not unlike a dragon with a hoard.   8):P :-\

I think this event happened about 20 years before the founding of my fort? Which is somewhat confusing to me....
__________________________________________ * * * ________________________________________
Now it is year 108 (my fortress' 2nd year). I got migrants during the first year, bringing the population up to 23 (no kids yet).
I first noticed strangeness when there was no outpost liaison (prompting me to open the legends viewer utility with LNP),
 and then I got no migrants in year 2 Spring/Summer  :( (that's where I am now pause/saved).
When I briefly scanned the legends with the utility I learned a few things of interest, and some things which I had no experience with,
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
causing me to wonder what the future will hold....

I was able to get 3 iron anvil and 1 steel anvil from the first caravan (started with 1 iron anvil), have melted all the iron I could find, and have perhaps a dozen iron bars, but
 so far have found zero iron ore; only copper and silver.
I do have vast layers of chalk, which is somewhat nice, plenty of sand, a dozen different food-bearing tree types [plus plenty of nice light willow & a few alder, with a ton of Larch]...
approx. 20-30 different above-ground, food-bearing plants in addition to rope reed, among other useful things at the embark site.
Speaking of which, the 3x3 embark is relatively flat on the surface (3 levels only!), totally covered in trees, and has a few ponds but no river.
2 biomes overlap inside, with 2/9 being Temperate freshwater swamp (with Aquifer), and the rest Temperate conifer forest (without Aquifer); see images for more details.

Ironhand tiled save game folder after 1 year (some trees cut, the 2 entrances, and the wall are the only major changes to the above ground)
I have some plans to build a few towers in addition to finishing the walled area, and the strangely labyrinthine hallways are my idea of a delaying tactic for invaders (they will have lots of doors to go through eventually as well).

Any thoughts? I'm particularly interested in hearing if anyone else has had similar experiences with their civ. being on verge of collapse,
or outpost liaison not coming etc.
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Stoat tales

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Re: Dreamgem - last bastion of The Artifact of Depth (43.05 fort beginning)
« Reply #1 on: January 17, 2018, 06:50:44 pm »

This kind of thing happens from time to time, it's sometimes interesting to watch the fortress drag itself to glory without any help from anything. The lack of iron will really hurt that though.
PTW
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Dracosophy

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Re: Dreamgem - last bastion of The Artifact of Depth (43.05 fort beginning)
« Reply #2 on: January 18, 2018, 08:53:46 am »

This kind of thing happens from time to time, it's sometimes interesting to watch the fortress drag itself to glory without any help from anything. The lack of iron will really hurt that though.
PTW
Yeah, I have hopes that I may find iron at some point, but I've only briefly dug down maybe 15-20 levels, and
I've only just started a bunch of exploratory mining in the top soil/clay layers (i think there are about 4), because I just ran out of my 31 bit. coal.
That's another thing I forgot to mention; I love coal.
I would have brought more in this game but I ran out of points bringing stuff like both alpacas and sheep, and putting as much skill points into my dwarves as I could.
I do not usually get around to magma-power, and usually bring 50+ bit.coal or lignite on embarks, depending on availability.

I also frequently choose embark sites with at least a little bit of river/stream and often that gets me some form of coal...
but so far I haven't found any, even with the swamp, and a river just off the embark site iirc.

Fortunately I have a ton of wood, but there's something I find distasteful about burning wood for forge fuel.

My plan is to get the wall, hospital, personal bedrooms, tavern, temple (possibly a 2-story area carved into the middle of my 2-3 layer thick all-chalk-levels),
 and more workrooms in the more defensible area I am constructing
(which will eventually have everything the dwarves could need, but right now is limited to a few rooms and stairs carved into the giant layers of chalk, but
is being expanded carefully as I plan things out)

So, I'm trying to get those things done before I do much digging down or exploratory mining for metals.
Exploring the site is actually probably my favorite thing to do in the game though so it's not easy to resist. :)
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Imic

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Re: Dreamgem - last bastion of The Artifact of Depth (43.05 fort beginning)
« Reply #3 on: January 18, 2018, 08:58:57 am »

Posting to watch. I like the look of this.
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Stoat tales

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Re: Dreamgem - last bastion of The Artifact of Depth (43.05 fort beginning)
« Reply #4 on: January 21, 2018, 04:32:49 pm »

As long as you get some sort of trade then you should be able to get most essentials.
Coal is pretty cool, i wish the game made it more useful then charcoal because it just feels like a rarer version of it in the game right now.
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