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[smakemupagus]

A band of Orcish pioneers are setting out in Orc Fortress 0.4 (installed in Peridexis Starter Pack of vanilla DF 44.12) for some testing.  This is mostly to make notes for myself and get feedback rather than a proper story mode, which is why i'm posting here rather than in Community Games.

One test I'm doing is to check a question raised in the forums about whether Orcish site nobles are working properly.  Our world Legends do show all ranks of clan nobility (thains, jarls, and overlords) properly represented, but I haven't gotten a fortress promoted in game, so let's try to grow a military fast and conquer a couple sites. 

We embark at the source of a stream and along a road, in the wetlands of The Sunken Murk.  Less than a day's travel in either direction along our road are a large orcish port town Greycrushes to the east, and the human harbor of Bronzelures to the west.  The mountains southwest are absolutely riddled with Dwarves.  Forest elves, ashlanders, and goblins all also have large settlements within 2 days travel.  (Note, in vanilla, we can't trade with Goblins, probably because they don't have pack animals).

Spoiler: "Map of Surroundings" (click to show/hide)

Geared up for a quick start, with an anvil, coal and ore; and an Uruk with some military skills.  Breeding populations of dire wolves and wild boars for easy food supply.

Spoiler: "Orc Pioneers embark Profile" (click to show/hide)

[PROFILE]
   [TITLE:Orc Pioneers]
   [SKILL:1:MINING:2]
   [SKILL:2:DETAILSTONE:1]
   [SKILL:2:MASONRY:1]
   [SKILL:2:MECHANICS:1]
   [SKILL:2:DESIGNBUILDING:1]
   [SKILL:3:MINING:2]
   [SKILL:4:WOODCUTTING:2]
   [SKILL:5:AXE:2]
   [SKILL:5:SHIELD:2]
   [SKILL:5:ARMOR:2]
   [SKILL:5:MELEE_COMBAT:2]
   [SKILL:6:PLANT:2]
   [SKILL:6:HERBALISM:2]
   [SKILL:7:BREWING:1]
   [SKILL:7:COOK:1]
   [ITEM:2:WEAPON:ITEM_WEAPON_PICK:INORGANIC:COPPER]
   [ITEM:2:WEAPON:ITEM_WEAPON_AXE_BATTLE:INORGANIC:COPPER]
   [ITEM:1:ANVIL:NONE:INORGANIC:IRON]
   [ITEM:22:DRINK:NONE:PLANT_MAT:ROOT_MUCK:DRINK]
   [ITEM:22:DRINK:NONE:PLANT_MAT:WEED_RAT:DRINK]
   [ITEM:21:SEEDS:NONE:PLANT_MAT:ONION:SEED]
   [ITEM:21:SEEDS:NONE:PLANT_MAT:POTATO:SEED]
   [ITEM:21:SEEDS:NONE:PLANT_MAT:MUSHROOM_HELMET_PLUMP:SEED]
   [ITEM:21:SEEDS:NONE:PLANT_MAT:GRASS_TAIL_PIG:SEED]
   [ITEM:21:SEEDS:NONE:PLANT_MAT:ROOT_MUCK:SEED]
   [ITEM:21:MEAT:NONE:CREATURE_MAT:WOMBAT:HEART]
   [ITEM:21:FISH:NONE:FISH_SOLE:MALE]
   [ITEM:21:PLANT:NONE:PLANT_MAT:BERRIES_PRICKLE:STRUCTURAL]
   [ITEM:4:THREAD:NONE:PLANT_MAT:REED_ROPE:THREAD]
   [ITEM:2:CLOTH:NONE:PLANT_MAT:REED_ROPE:THREAD]
   [ITEM:2:QUIVER:NONE:CREATURE_MAT:ECHIDNA:LEATHER]
   [ITEM:20:BOULDER:NONE:INORGANIC:COAL_BITUMINOUS]
   [ITEM:20:BOULDER:NONE:INORGANIC:TETRAHEDRITE]
   [PET:2:SQUIG:TERRIER:STANDARD]
   [PET:2:DIRE_WOLF_ORC:FEMALE:STANDARD]
   [PET:2:DIRE_WOLF_ORC:MALE:STANDARD]
   [PET:2:WILD_BOAR:MALE:STANDARD]
   [PET:2:WILD_BOAR:FEMALE:STANDARD]

Lucky enough, the wagon is pulled by an auroch pair, bull and cow.

The topside entrance to the fort is a sandy cave excavated where the road meets an outcropping from a small hill.  Miners are now delving out some quarters in stone about 10 layers down.  There's a cavern only 20 layers down with water and tetrahedrite exposed.

Spoiler: "Fort Topside" (click to show/hide)

[smakemupagus]

The first traders' caravan brought us a bit of seeds, cloth, and an anvil, along with news: A neighboring Orcish civilization is sending expeditions to reclaim a ruined Dwarf holding not too far away.  We asked them to bring more iron and tin in the future.

Among 9 summer migrants are two Artisan caste orcs, so we set up Alatuul Wracktoned as a leather and bone worker, and Buur Southstolen as a metal worker.  The rest of the sods draw lots and end up as farmers, fish cleaners, or masons. 

I finally get around to giving the clan leader, Agradbug Loafdevil, an office with desk so he can take on the Hoardmaster job and start taking work orders.

A crude but functional forge.  Copper axes, spears, mail, helms, and wood shields will do to get started.  There is tons of wood to burn.

Spoiler: "Workshop level" (click to show/hide)

There was a report that one could incorrectly appoint a Huscarl without having a higher site nobility (thain, jarl, overlord) in the fortress.  I can't reproduce the error.  Indeed, the Huscarl's squad shows up on the military screen, but if I try to create that squad I get no candidates because "You need somebody who can appoint that position."  Huscarl correctly does not show up as an available position on the nobility screen.  Please let me know if this doesn't address the question.

We appoint our (now rusty skilled) axe- and shield- trained Uruk, Zalatat Machinehates, as Warchief with a squad of 4 - the Cruelties of Bejeweling - and get them training part time.  No other residents have any notable weapon skills so we sign up our Olog and two other random volunteers.

The hill above our gate is converted into a three-level armory, barracks, and fortifications, to serve as a rudimentary strongpoint.  I assume we'll make some vengeful enemies when we start raiding.

Spoiler: "Hilltop Fort" (click to show/hide)

[smakemupagus]

Added option for gem-studded macuahuitl to v0.5

[REACTION:TRIBAL_MACUAHUITL2_ORC]
   [NAME:Handcrafted gem studded macuahuitl]
   [BUILDING:ORC_TRIBALGEAR:CUSTOM_SHIFT_G]
   [REAGENT:gem:4:SMALLGEM:NO_SUBTYPE:INORGANIC:NONE]
   [REAGENT:wood:1:WOOD:NONE:NONE:NONE]
    [PRODUCT:100:1:WEAPON:ITEM_WEAPON_MACUAHUITL:GET_MATERIAL_FROM_REAGENT:gem:NONE][FORCE_EDGE]
   [SKILL:BOWYER]   

other notes:
* fix profession skills on tribal warcrafter (probably BOWYER isn't the best choice)
* keep an eye on fix-sentient-butcher?   
* fix text descript of snaga (no bows)
* blacksmoke furnace lead glazes can't be used in vanilla.  There are glazing reactions in the Archive.  (Is CAN_GLAZE a vanilla reaction class?)

[smakemupagus]

Our first squad is armed and armored (copper, with a purchased steel battleaxe for just the warchief), and they've gotten a solid half-year of training under their belt.  Time to pick some targets.

The small dwarven hamlets nearby are part of powerful civilizations -- that might be asking for a lot more trouble than we can handle right now.

A tomb just one day away is occupied by a Human entity with no notable leaders; and we encounter no opposition when we raid, and then pillage, it.  (We do take away some instruments and a bronze halberd, which is nice).

What's next for our intrepid warchief?  To get promoted to Thain ASAP for the sake of testing nobility, it's probably best to conquer and occupy this tomb.

[smakemupagus]

A goblin snatcher was killed outside, the military are happy for the martial experience, but our clan leader is horrified. And now we know that a goblin civilization is at war with us.

We are also visited by an elvish monster hunter with an Orcish name (Ugburb), wooden armor and a named orcish weapon (Pushuurzashnarat Lugbuukrakhark, "Bandcry the Factional Competition," ashland glass toothed spear, encrusted with octagon cut prases, menacing with spikes of bismuth bronze).  The spear has only been used once, to kill an orc.  Who is this guy?  If he's so eager to find death in the caverns, maybe we should open a door and let him go.

Our second squad easily conquers the nearby tomb.

Spoiler: "Establishing an Outpost" (click to show/hide)

They stay set up a new government with their squad leader, Gluuk, as overseer.  Back home, I recruit new soldiers from recent migrants to fill the ranks out again.

Spoiler: "Overseer" (click to show/hide)

In Granite of the fort's 3rd year, we finally got some traders from the Ashlanders.  A war mumak that we lost to a werecreature attack some months ago was worth a small fortune in elf-friendly scrimshaw trade goods.  We bought some metals, books, seeds, and a giant ebonglass axeblade, which I'll use for a trap in the short corridor open to the caverns. We asked them to bring more steel, ebonglass, longswords, and bows next time. 

Our visitors also brought lots of news about wars between elves, goblins, and humans; primarily skirmishes over the hamlets in the riverlands about two days southwest, and also including the conquest of the major human town of Bouldercoal by forest elves.

The main hall of our fort now has a small temple, zoo, and tavern.  Some of the orcs have private rooms, and the clan nobles have their own small halls with private dining and offices.

Spoiler: "Main Halls" (click to show/hide)

Yeah, that elf "monster hunter" hasn't left the tavern yet.

[smakemupagus]

Ugburb Flowerwitches, our elven monster slayer finally went hunting, killed a couple beasts but got a gruesome ankle injury, and is now hanging out in the tavern listing to ologhai poetry.

"I saw a olog recite The Russet Rains at The Dinners of Stability.  It's boring."

[smakemupagus]

Had a battle with a numerically similar force of Human soldiers who came to present a siege.  From this data set the combat balance seems tuned OK for vanilla.  The humans had decent armor that deflected most of our (non-special caste) orcs' copper axes and shield bashes/punches.  Human crossbow and melee attacks were quite effective against the direwolves and lesser skilled orcs in inferior copper armor.  The grunt orcs with a few skill levels in shield were better able to stand their ground and tie up the human forces.

The Uruk warchief and his Olog wingman with high quality steel axes were lopping off body parts left and right, and the olog was also crushing enemies with shield bashes. 

Bonemold macuahuitls were not penetrating human armor at all, although causing pretty severe blunt/bending trauma instead.  As always, pretty alarming wounds when they find an unarmored surface.

Victory with no orcish deaths, 4 hospitalizations.  ~6 wolves lost.

Unfortunately, this seems to indicate we're now at war with the human town of 200 that is less than a day away.  Their civ also has numerous other towns & hamlets in the area.

[smakemupagus]

Since we have an off-site holding, I'm a bit surprised to not have received an offer for promotion from this summer's liaison (the timing was close -- maybe he was already on the way).  Time to press through another year, and try to get all the unique workshops built for testing in general.

A goblin invasion of ~30.  It might be time to start getting serious about some traps or other defenses.  We caught them in the cave entrance chokepoint and only lost two orcs total from the experienced squads, but also some serious injuries.  The warchief was a proper force of nature until catching a lasher's iron whip to the neck, and then dropped his weapon and shield, so i'm a bit worried about him.  He was only able to bite one additional goblin to death.

The newly organized tomahawk support squad suffered a bit worse.

We're going to need to convert this goblin gear into more steel weapons.

[smakemupagus]

Bad news is, there were at least two more deaths in the hospital, including warchief Zatalat, and some of the orcs are not having a great time walking back and forth to work knee deep in severed limbs.

Spoiler: "Memorial" (click to show/hide)

Good news is, our butchers are busy cleaning up the hallway a bit.

Spoiler: "fix-sentient-butcher dfhack plugin works" (click to show/hide)

[smakemupagus]

Well, this version definitely feels like the good old days of Orc Fortress, with a significant attack on the fort just about every season!  And we haven't even seen Dwarves make an appearance yet.

We fought a very large (too large) force of goblins, trolls, and beak dogs in the courtyard, because I wanted to keep the gate open for the clan liaison.  With about 10 orcs lost and a sea of battlefield detritus on the doorstep, the mental health of our population is in pretty steep decline.  If we can get through the immediate crisis I'll probably have to resort to a trap corridor at some point soon.

Regular battles are great, but there just isn't time to clean up after them well enough to stave off horrifying thoughts!  I'm going to think about whether there are Masterwork reactions that I can re-introduce that would help.

The liaison indeed arrived and was able to have his meeting -- still no promotion.  Incidentally I see in Tarn's dev log that he just fixed a major bug relating to Barons elevating to Counts.

[smakemupagus]

Still knee deep in the dead, and mood in the fort is getting very poor.  Orcs are dying of fistfights, depression, etc. faster than they're being replaced by migrants.  (On the other hand, the smelters have converted enough small iron looted junk into steel mail and weapons for our warriors, so we continue to be able to fend off invaders).

It took me far too long to think of it, but it seems like having multiple small garbage Dumps lets the clean up crews work much, much faster than a single dump.

[smakemupagus]

Talatapushak is now pretty much in Cirith Ungol mode, with the bloody riots in the hallways.  I order the military to go pillage the nearby human town of Bronzelures, rather than shaking our snagas  around by the spine.  Which i kind of regret since they've been gone now for longer than i expected, and the fort is basically defenseless.

The library is a great success -- it attracts elves, who sometimes get punched or murdered instead of our own peons.

Update:

The mission seemed to have be stuck until i removed from the squad an uruk soldier who was laying about in bed.  It was a great success too -- only one casualty on our side, and dozens of humans and other assorted pinkskins down on the other side of the field.  We may have to schedule a return visit.

Since i can't convince the orcs to focus long enough to clean up the severed bard limbs from the floor, i move the tavern to a new location.

[smakemupagus]

The murder rate had spiked dramatically in the week that our military was home, so we sent them back out to capture Bronzelures.  The warchief stayed home, so that the attack could be led by an orc sergeant revealed in combat to be a vampire (Buruk Spurtseduces the Bold Twinkle).  With any luck he'll die in battle, or win and stay as the overseer. 

Indeed, the Bold Twinkle outmatched the remaining defenders with a cunning plan; our forces are victorious and establish a new site government, "The Enjoyable Scorpion".

Now with 2 offsite holdings, including a town of ~200, i would expect to get promoted next time we get a liaison from the clanhomes (about 2 seasons from now).

[smakemupagus]

My goal for year 5 was to have no more orcs at the worst happyness level (miserable).  We got off to an interesting start facing a ~100 enemy strong siege of mixed gobs, humans, and dwarfs, probably representing a nearby goblin civ.  We had to hide behind the gates for a season, of course. 

Emerging in the summer we had a pretty strict clean up regimen to get the battlefield finally cleaned up.  Multiple sorted refuse piles and about 10 dumps, behind walls to minimize lines of sight to the garbage heaps.  Many more butcher shops and butchers assigned, but I started removing people from the job if they were too squeamish.  By mid summer we had a huge stock of elf bone amulets and goblin roasts for export and offerings to the clanhomes.  Still no promotion to jarl.

I dedicated 5 new temples to specific deities, upgraded the tavern/dining halls, and upgraded most of the individual bed rooms with storage and tables & chairs.  Over the course of the year the rate of actual fatal barfights and tantrums decreased dramatically and happyness began to stabilize.

We did face a few more troubles including 2 more cavern forgotten beasts.  The first flew up the well and snatched a kid before being dispatched.  The second is a non-flying webber, and we just locked him out; we're now cut off from the cavern for the time being.

Luckily our warriors were skilled enough to defeat a werebeast without being bitten, and handled a ambush from elves that was a bit dicey because of a pretty good number of warbears.

With the population diminished to less than 60, I started building more weapon traps at chokepoints in the curtain wall, using macuahuitls, serrated discs, and miscellaneous junk weapons left behind by our enemies.  I also build a bit of a trap & bridge corridor suitable for softening up and dividing bigger seiges and filtering them into a combat room.  Initially went pretty slowly as tantrumers kept tearing down the levers & traps, or punching the mechanics & haulers, but by the end of the year there was a lot of progress. 

By year end i ended up just exiling the remaining Miserable orcs to our formerly-human town holding of Bronzelures, with the exception of the clan leader, Krat Terrorbuzzards, utterly harrowed by the nightmare that is his tragic life.  But he doesn't feel anything anymore except when rapture when visiting his favorite temples -- i think there may be hope for him to turn it around.  Or at least to be miserable in an interesting way.

Not sure what's next -- I would like to get all the buildings in and have a fort to test reactions;  I'm also tempted to Retire for The Time Being, start a dwarf settlement nearby and see if it works smoothly to hop back and forth. 

[baldamundo]

Yeah, I had really extreme and kind of inexplicable problems with tantrum spirals as well. Suspect the balance of that needs tweaking somehow (although I've not played vanilla lately, so maybe it isn't specifically an OrcFort problem?)