The Diary of Salmeuk: Winter of Year 181
A Vile Force of DarknessOn the second day of Moonstone, the goblins arrived.
Not too concerning, with our dwarves safely locked up, and instead it was kind of
exciting. Our crossdwarf squad was posted to the southern fortifications.
Oooh boy there were a lot of 'em. Three pages of this:
The first thing the trolls did was destroy the exposed axle powering the waterfall. Huh. I forgot about that. Luckily they didn't feel like climbing further down the hole.
Our marksdwarves waited until the goblins meandered within range, and opened up fire:
But only to little effect. The goblins themselves were mostly dodging the bolts, and for some reason our dwarves weren't using those nice iron bolts I had made earlier. I didn't worry too much, I just let them get some practice.
This did reveal that the fortifications weren't of the best design. Simply 'm'oving the squad to the hallway would end up with most of the dwarves hanging out in the training range, instead of shooting like they should.
I had to assign the entire squad to a patrol route via the military menu. This didn't work as well for the northern side of the fort, so this is something the next overseer should think about fixing. Or maybe build a couple new archer towers closer to the map edge.
The Part Where I Let All The Trolls InI soon grew bored of waiting around for the goblins to approach, and opened up the depot bridge in an attempt to bait them closer. Little did I know, almost all the trolls managed to sneak inside before I closed it again! I blame the grey coloring being easy to miss. But this was the situation:
That was a
very large number of trolls. Still, I trusted our soldiers, and after closing the bridge behind the intruders I readied the squads for attack.
There they stood, Dwarf, Human and Goblin, with only a single (admittedly fairly thick) stone door in between them and thirty trolls. Then, the order came to attack!
Short work was made of the hulking trolls, since they run in terror at the sight of their own blood. Almost anticlimactic, really. Look at that blood splatter!
Above ground, the goblins made an error and walked right underneath the fortifications. Our squad had reloaded with those masterwork iron bolts, and many goblins and beak dogs were skewered with ease.
With that, the siege broke, and the rest of the invaders went running for the hills. Success!
Still, there was a lot to clean up. I resigned myself to taking care of all the junk and the corpses, rather than pursue my intended winter project. It will just have to wait.
It All Comes TogetherThe bedrooms were completed halfway through winter. Take a look:
Every bed is masterwork quality. Every cabinet is gold, and each dwarf has a microline coffer for whatever junk they want to hoard. A series of jeweled windows flanks the central room, which for now remain undesignated but would make perfect spaces for temples or other greeting halls. On the left side sit six Noble rooms, though these are still bare. Two streams of refreshing water stream past the entrance in an infinitely-circulating waterfall, ensuring happiness to all who pass!
This is all powered by a network of axles and gears connected to eight surface windmills. The staircase is closed off by an artifact floor hatch, so climbers cannot enter. However, now that I think about it, a Dragon might be able to destroy the windmills and get inside through the hole in the floor. Yeah, well, I've never seen a Dragon, have you??
So, that took
literally my entire turn to complete. But well worth it! Happiness is already increasing, and if the next overseer prioritizes making new clothing from all that silk I collected (hint hint) I doubt it will ever be a large issue again.
I added some fortifications to our depot entrance, for the next siege:
I also created a small guildhall for the farmers guild that keeps petitioning us for space:
I moved most of the artifacts into the jewel vault, and put them on pedestals for safekeeping. This dramatically raised the value of the temple.
I don't have an image of this, but I also dug a centrally located dumping hole that goes straight to the magma I discovered. Oh, right, I forgot to tell you, I dug to the magma sea! But I didn't really do anything with it. There is a magma pit that brings the magma fairly close to us, but I would still recommend future overseers bring the magma up with minecarts, since the forges are so well organized already and moving them would invite great chaos.
To continue about that dumping hole, it destroys everything throw in and can be closed with the lever right next to it. And SHOULD be closed if anything untoward enters the second layer of caverns. I can only imagine someone forgetting to do this and losing the fort over it, so take care!
Finally, here's a zoomed-out view of the workshop levels.
And with those things completed, the world passed into year 182, and surprisingly into The Age of Legends. I wonder if Zon's killing of the Roc had anything to do with this.
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Let me know if you have any questions. This save is absolutely ripe for megaprojects or death labyrinths or what-have-you. FPS isn't too bad, but if you let things get to disorganized or invite too many more entertainers, that could change for the worse.
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