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[Salmeuk]

very cool . no, thank you VERY much for working with my stated rules and re-forming them into a refined object. I have played around with your version of the generators and they capture my written implications perfectly.

Gotta say, one thing I really like about this challenge idea is that it definitely guides you straight into learning more about the game (e.g. unusual materials that you maybe wouldn't usually make things from, but are still possible). For example on one of my test rolls I thought it'd be awful because I only got one 'achievable' tribute goal... but then after some wiki'ing around I realized... I can make pots from glass! (and I had magma glass furnace as a workshop pick option). And there was something else I could make out of glass too that I hadn't realized. Suddenly, I had three 'achievable' goals instead of one! xD Maybe that's not such a big deal for old hands at the game, but for me it's definitely making me look at things I hadn't thought to look at before.

YEAH i agree. glad you got to see this side of DF!!

 vanilla DF continues to remain more simulator than game, but this is not very clear to new players who are filled with imagination and inspired by narratives from old fortresses. this ruleset is born from a long decade spent trying to determine where exactly DF is game and where it is simulator, and trying to refine the demands of the game to better entertain the player.

Another idea might be to come up with some way to generate additional goals/rewards in addition to hitting the caverns, so we're not SOL if we hit some impossible condition and already hit all caverns + magma sea and got bad pulls for all of them, etc. Not sure if that would make things too easy though.

any ideas here? I was thinking that we could come up with some kind of explicit tribute goal that pushes the player to amass a certain quantity of goods, however this is too same-y to the already existing goalsets. qualifications for this feature would be:

1. the player must choose to engage with the goal, and cannot be forced into taking on the challenge
2. almost all embarks must allow for this challenge to occur

==

i'm enjoying your writeup. i haven't had much time for my own test but this is great to see how the rules play out in context.

And the milk we brought... is FROZEN. Oh dear.

I recall picking up a school lunch milk carton and finding ice crystals due to the lack of thawing time. . for these dwarves this must have been horrifying. . .

[BlueTrillium]

Eeewww, ice-crystals in milk. xD Fortunately for my dwarves, all the frozen stuff thawed almost immediately. I did discover that I evidently can't mark stuff on the wagon for 'dumping'. That is, I can mark them, but no dwarf will take the job. I had to get stuff off the wagon somehow first, and THEN I could 'dump' as needed. Which was not tenable for the frozen stuff so it just stayed on the wagon 'til it thawed. (I suppose I could've just disassembled the wagon too and that probably would've worked.)

Anyway!

Quick question: Are you able to see the images in my last couple of update posts? Just want to make sure they're visible to everyone and not just me.

Brief challenge update (no pictures right now unfortunately) --

• My lone, idiot war dog from embark decided a wild boar all the way across the map was a threat and picked a fight. The dog did NOT win. So now I have no guard dog.
• Winter was spent on experimenting (fruitlessly so far) with zones/locations trying to keep dwarves happy, and getting cooking set up (in the middle of a corridor for now... blegh, but it's not permanent I hope), as well as a carpenter to get beds and get started on next year's goals. Made some minecarts and set up a couple quantum stockpiles for stone and wood. Yeah, feels cheaty but I really can't do without my quantum stockpiles now that I know how to make them. Stuff just looks so much cleaner.
• The newest dwarf, the woodcutter with the steel axe, is apparently one of those permanently-cranky types, perpetually in orange or dark-orange (thankfully no red yet). He's also 'Pusillanimous' according to his personality summary, which is a word I haven't seen in years so I had to look it up to refresh my memory, and apparently it means extremely timid and lacking in determination. I dunno about that, he seems determined to bring everyone's mood down. He gets into arguments constantly.
• Empty barrels and pipe sections for the next tribute are complete! I realized I couldn't 'gift' the barrels I brought on embark to the caravan so yeah, I just made 16 new ones.
• I still can't find the light aquifer that's supposed to be on this embark somewhere, so I still have no water. >_< Here's hoping nobody needs health care before I find it.
• But while looking for the aquifer, I struck microcline! I should be able to get the stone bonus after all!

On to the thoughts then...

For additional opt-in or boost goals, hm. I agree they should preferably be something that engages some aspect of the game we don't already have covered. A couple quick ideas:

• Something architecture-related - maybe something like Build a Temple to one of your civilization's gods, up to the Temple Complex level (or whichever is the highest level). Would be story-cool if it had to be a temple to a deity that the Monarch themselves favors, but I assume that finding out the Monarch's deities would require a trip into Legends mode which not everyone might want to do. Or it could be a non-denominational temple. But yeah, since gods are procedurally generated for each world, the rules couldn't specify a god so the user'd have to pick one.
• Or any other location that has quality goals and/or that people might not build as often (Library? Tavern with x-sized dance floor? Top-level Guildhall?)
• Capture and display x number of hostile/exotic/giant creatures in cages? (definitely easier in some biomes than others I assume...)
• An x-sized gift of 'candy' to the caravan (repeatable?)
• Something military-based - I know we already mentioned possibly attaching reputation rewards to retrieving/stealing artifacts etc. Maybe we could have a reward pick for successfully taking over and occupying an enemy site? Or razing a tower completely, etc. If there were diplomatic/peace options I could see rewards for those as well, but as it is currently...
• Capture the boss of a plot against your settlement/civilization? (difficult because they usually send agents?)
• Attract guests of 5 (or whatever number) different species to your fort at the same time? (e.g. a dwarf, a human, an elf, a goblin, a bear-man)

Not sure how good those options are, but the gist being again to get people out of their comfort zone and try new things in the game. xD For instance, I've still never yet done a libary (or a justice system... or allowing guests... heh)

[King Zultan]

Quick question: Are you able to see the images in my last couple of update posts? Just want to make sure they're visible to everyone and not just me.

I can see the images just fine.

[BlueTrillium]

Quick question: Are you able to see the images in my last couple of update posts? Just want to make sure they're visible to everyone and not just me.

I can see the images just fine.

Awesome, thank you for confirming.

Got to the second caravan! (Time is flying, wow) The year is 101.

Springtime brought no visitors (as expected. Pop cap is reached so no migrants, and elves live far away with no contact currently. There don't seem to be any wars going on, and I've got little wealth, so no sieges. Just those dang Kea-people stealing honey out of my beehives!)


Summertime however, brought the humans! I don't know why I was surprised, they are literally our direct neighbors (our embark is almost touching one of their settlements). I guess it was because they showed up as just 'Peace' and not 'Allies' on the civilizations screen. At any rate, I was able to scramble up a few clay trinkets and extra prepared meals to trade, and managed to snag an iron anvil (though I don't have a spot ready for my forge yet). One of my dwarves loves rainbow trout so I bought some of that from them too. Too bad human clothes are the wrong size. Ah well, clothes are not a problem here... yet.

I was also happily surprised when Mafol (from the married couple that came in our first migrants) had a baby girl! With children capped at 10%  as per challenge rules, we are now truly full up until I can earn us some more population. Which I could really really use. Note to self: buy a couple toys from the dwarven caravan to keep the kiddo happy.



And at last, autumn came and with it the King's caravan. I recalled from last year they would pay extra for tools (and windows but heck with that). Noting for next year, that they want cloth... well unless we can expand our farming space and get a loom, that's not gonna happen, but we'll see. At least for this year, I had a good handful of stoneware jugs to trade (in addition to a few more prepared meals).


But first, the tribute! Delivering 16 barrels (no bonus) and 17 wooden pipe sections (yay bonus) was no problem. 56 raw plants was also no problem (so far no bonus, but I'm trying to get another 56 together before they leave so we'll see on that one). The 55 microcline however... well, I had it, but there was no way the caravan could carry it. They couldn't even carry 10 stones before I completely overloaded them (even after I bought out their heavy stuff). So I will dispose of the stones another way (prob drop them in magma, unless I can get a mechanic from the rewards here so I can atom-smash them).

So let's roll the rewards so far. First, the bonus rewards:
- bonus workshop for all wood pipe sections:

Awesome, finally a Stoneworker!! I can at last make a slab for poor Tosid.
- +5 popcap for all microcline stones, excellent.
- I may yet manage to deliver another 56 plants for +5 more popcap, but we'll see.

Now the basic rewards, I get to pick 4 for fulfilling the base of all goals. First I need to decide which I want, hm.... I really could use a mechanic for a whole bunch of things (including the atom-smasher, traction beds, and traps), and a loom would definitely be nice if I want to try and make some extra money next year (or if I get a cloth goal). But I really need to get working on reputation, and would like more farming space too, so... all right. 2 workshop rolls, +1 reputation, and +6 squares of farming (I'm experimenting with that idea of earning more farming space this way -- 6 squares for free on embark, every 6 squares after that must be earned).

workshop roll 1 - - crud, already have smelter, and hopefully won't need wood furnace if I can find some coal (which I haven't yet, but still...) yet... Ashery needs Wood Furnace so I guess Wood Furnace it is.

workshop roll 2 - - Dangit!!!! So much for hopes, lol. Well, already have Farmer (and why-tf is Siege Workshop showing up so often, I should check that out), so I guess I get Soap-Maker for the (very distant, if I survive that long) future, lol.

All right, so my base rewards are Wood Furnace, Soap-Maker, reputation +1, and +6 farming squares. Bonus rewards are Stoneworker and +5 (possibly +10) popcap. I will wait to adjust the popcap until after the caravan leaves.

The caravan hasn't left yet (and I'm still hoping to give them those plants), but so far I have bought: a puzzlebox and a toy axe for the kiddo, another iron anvil, a few cheaper bits of clothing (mostly shoes) just in case ours starts wearing out, and a few bags and some cheap wooden chests for future bedrooms, and probably some other bits and bobs I'm forgetting. They did not have any animals to sell this year. I've requested they bring a dog next year to replace our idiot that killed itself.

So now... the moment of agony and truth: what demands are placed upon us for the coming year?

Spoiler: Tribute Roll (click to show/hide)

Yeeowch. Our Most Just and Benevolent Ruler isn't making it easy on us! And we need to pick five, now, so...

• 71 scepters -- I won't be able to do ivory/tooth, so no bonus there.
• 68 prepared meals -- bonus workshop for all easy/biscuits.
• 19 rough semi-precious gems -- 2x for bonus workshop.
• 31 altars -- 2x for bonus workshop.
• 17 crossbows -- 2x for bonus workshop.

Biscuits are annoying since I go straight for roasts, but not a problem. Thank goodness they want 'rough' gems. Altars should be okay one way or another. I'll have to make the crossbows out of metal given my workshops though, ugh. Hopefully I can find enough ore...

All the other options were flat-out impossible right now, so I feel lucky to get five do-able ones I suppose xD Even if they will be tough. And it's only Year Two! Thank goodness for additional pop cap! And I better buy another pick so I can have more than one miner...

Final Status for Year 2:

• Impatience = 1 (death of Tosid in year 1)
• Reputation = 1
• Population = 11 (cap 15 maybe 20 if I'm lucky)
• Available workshops = trade depot, still, farmer, magma kiln, magma forge, craftsdwarf, kitchen, carpenter, smelter, stoneworker, wood furnace, soap-maker

I am very uneasy being completely defenseless, with no military (not enough dwarves), no traps, and no drawbridges. At least now I can build some doors I can lock, and hopefully (after making the demanded crossbows) I can get a couple dwarves started on military training this year. I am starting to enclose my pasture too, to keep my grazing animals contained. Fortunately this seems to be a peaceful world for now. Pray Armok it stays that way.

[Salmeuk]

loving these writups, it's really handy to see the decisions from another's perspective.

I am very uneasy being completely defenseless, with no military (not enough dwarves), no traps, and no drawbridges. At least now I can build some doors I can lock, and hopefully (after making the demanded crossbows) I can get a couple dwarves started on military training this year. I am starting to enclose my pasture too, to keep my grazing animals contained. Fortunately this seems to be a peaceful world for now. Pray Armok it stays that way.

yeah I've been so focused on the goals that military and the associated production of weapons, armor, etc, have been completely forgotten.

======

At the end of my last post, the dwarves of Copperskies had just received their newest technological updates from the mountainhomes, and were now huddled around the royal parchment, signed by the Queen herself, detailing their burdens for the following year:

We have received the tribute requests for the following year. The bolded items were chosen:

You must collect 25 cloth. Random workshop draw awarded for rope reed.
You must collect 27 cloth. -1 impatience awarded for animal wool.
You must craft 16 Gloves. Random workshop draw awarded for hemp.

You must craft 7 axes. -2 impatience awarded for silver.
You must craft 30 figurines. Random workshop draw awarded for Cacao wood or cotton.
You must collect 13 wood. -2 impatience awarded for Carambola.
You must craft 9 spears. -1 impatience awarded for silver.
You must collect 46 fish. Random workshop draw awarded for 2x fullfillment.

two of these are impossible with my current list of workshops.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Farmer's
Butcher's
Craftsdwarf's
Fishery Worker's
Magma Forge
Magma Glass Furnace
Smelter

If I make it to the magma sea, I can access furniture via the glass furnace. But no clothing or weapons or stone furniture yet. That's rough.

So begins - The Mad Dash to the Center of the Earth, in the Name of the Queen and her Incessant Demands.

Our population remains 10.

First thing's first - set up a fishing dock near the northern lake cliffs.



The herbalists were cross-trained to wait like herons, striking out with their beards when the fish took the bait. This was common practice in the lowland fortresses where the poorer dwarves made their way by foraging and fishing.

Miners sent to search for the second cavern, and in only a few downward staircases it was discovered. The queen would demand additional tribute for this expansion, so choices were rolled:

You must craft 11 Leather Armor. -2 impatience awarded for animal wool.
You must collect 6 star ruby (or equivalent rarity) cut gemstones. Random workshop draw awarded for exact fullfillment.

WHA ?! How. . . both of these are extremely difficult. I think we're about to take a big impatience hit this year. I'll try to find some star ruby. Maybe if we hit one of those strange mineral nodes I've heard tales of.



Then, the second discovery - a waterlogged but very spacious cavern, the third in the stack. Yet another tribute draw:

You must craft 13 maces. -2 impatience awarded for copper.
You must craft 21 Door. -2 impatience awarded for Maple wood or steel.

I cant do either of these. damn. unless i hit the magma sea real quick here.



Then - discovery. The magma. But it was breached from the side, extremely dangerous, we couldn't have known.... Ducim disappeared and the smell of burning hair filled the staircases. Ducim would be missed, but losing the pick was bad. Really, really bad.



-1 impatience for the death of our miner. 5pts impatience total.

Of course, discovering the magma sea results in yet another tribute draw. Things are not looking good...

You must collect 12 metal bars. Random workshop draw awarded for wood.
You must collect 22 demantoid (or equivalent rarity) cut gemstones. Random workshop draw awarded for exact fullfillment.

Huh. Well, without a pick we are unable to act on either of these so . . . *flips a dog* lets try to get the metal bars.

Welp. This dash to the center was disatrous and inadvisable without a full suite of workshops. Doubly tragic was the loss of my only pickaxe and legendary miner, Ducim. Yet this is just the sort of mistake I would make when overly excited, searching for magma, and forgetting the weight of decisions underneath this ruleset. Oh, the horror!


I decide here to abandon and re-attempt a new test after a finagling of the rules. I am interested in a few things..

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It seems that workshops, and the resulting accesibility of tools, are paramount. More important than popcap or impatience or anything, really, and this would encourage proactive players to seek out the workshop rewards at the exclusion of all else. Unless, of course, you already can access everything you need. So in a sense the workshops should become their own tier of reward or be recognized as important.

I think that, overall, the challenge is interesting but can be a bit boring due to the downtime in the early years. without much in the way of tech or equipment, it becomes a mere digging and harvesting simulator. but, overall, the need to rush towards certain resources or caverns makes things exciting. Just sort of uncomplicated?

the popcap rules seem fair.

I figure that someone with some coding experience might create a series of in-game interactions via DFhack scripts that would allow for things like interactive  workshops for sacrificing tribute, or perhaps even item spawning, for lets say physical rewards given to the player like a stack of food or metal bars. These things could bring this set of rules into the game, making this challenge more accesible or automated, but I wonder if it would be worth it.

I still haven't dug into your perchance creation but I admire the complexity. I think my next steps will be to pin down what exactly we should do for embark points / allowed items and whatnot (if I had brought two picks, for instance, that problem might have been avoided). then more testing with things otherwise unchanged.

As the dwarves left Copperskies, they encountered a polite skunk:

[BlueTrillium]

Oh no, Ducim! Dang, I would've thought the warm stone would've stopped him. Reminds me of my 'adventure' with Tosid, ha. Though fortunately for me Tosid wasn't the miner. It indeed would've been devastating to lose the lone pick. Though as long as I could hold out until the next caravan, it seems like nearly every human/dwarf caravan carries picks so a new one could probably have been obtained. Still...

Hehe, love the polite skunk, courteously waiting for the dwarves to leave before taking over their holdings in their stead. Sad to see Copperskies go - that's a really cool name and looked like a super interesting site, with the lake views and all.

Definitely a stretch of unlucky rolls! I agree that at the beginning the workshops are so important it's very likely that just about everyone would go for all workshop draws on at least the first year's rewards. However all it takes is some unlucky rolls with those un-doable goals and that impatience starts piling up really fast (as you saw), switching the focus to going for -impatience rewards almost exclusively I imagine. So really reputation then starts to become something you only pick as a reward once you're relatively comfortable with both workshops and impatience.

I'm not sure the swing from workshops to impatience to reputation as a focus at different phases is necessarily a bad thing, as it shows progression, but yeah there were definite stretches here and there in the first year especially where I was just kinda... waiting for the caravan so I could continue. I imagine it'd be worse if I'd drawn un-achievable goals because then there'd be even less to work towards. I'm not sure how I'd change it, though my version of the generator does try to 'weight' the workshop draws so the more crucial workshops show up more often (though that's still no guarantee of getting what you need, of course) which makes it a little bit easier.

I'm still having fun though! And it's certainly a challenge to try and work around the missing bits of infrastructure. I wonder though, once I do have all the important workshops, if that will take the challenge away and then it just becomes pretty much a regular game of DF.

We could draw things out by limiting how many total workshop draws we can get from tribute each year (e.g. maybe no more than half of your total base+bonus rewards can be workshops? or just a straight up cap of 3 workshop rewards per year? SOS goals from cavern discovery and such would not count towards this cap) That'd force us to choose more mixed rewards. Or would that just add frustration and/or longer downtime stretches where we're just waiting for the next caravan? Hm.

-----

I've no experience or knowledge of DFHack currently, and I kinda prefer the idea of a challenge that doesn't require any mods to play, so that anyone can participate regardless of setup. Which is not to say that some DFHack (or other mod) manipulation couldn't be used as some sort of optional add-on, possibly. I'm just not sure what's possible and what's not on that front. The extent of my DF modding thus far is fixing the bismuth bronze armor sprites lol. And even that I haven't yet figured out how to do 'properly' (as a mod, instead of directly editing the raws).

------

Definitely looking forward to your thoughts on embark points/packages!

In my current run of the challenge, I definitely am seeing what you meant about the skill points being nearly totally ignorable. I'm still glad I was able to 'set up' my chosen dwarf as broker/future mayor by picking the dwarf that looked like they'd have the most doable mandates and setting them up with all the social skills, but other than that most of my skill picks went to waste thus far (and I could definitely have done better if I'd picked skills more strategically, such as actually giving a dwarf some pottery skill since I had the magma kiln to start, but eh). Tactician and other more 'future' skills have just been sitting there getting rusty. I think if I did over my embark skills I'd have given one a bunch of pottery points of course, and then probably some guild-hall-useful skills? Something to hopefully trigger demonstrations (I need to wiki...) because I tried to make a doctor guildhall to give my dwarves something useful to do in downtime, and nothing is happening there at all. xD I'm guessing my 'doctor's skills are too low/in the wrong things.

The embark points are another thing entirely. Even with a self-imposed limit of 500 points, given the restrictions I placed on myself (no anvil, only one pick, only one axe, max 5 livestock, max 15 barrels, max 5 bags) I had points to burn. I ended up bringing a bunch of stone and wood (certainly very useful! If a bit boring), some starter coke/fuel (WILL be useful shortly but right now not so much), a few mugs (which ended up being a very good decision I think), a bucket (for milking), and a nestbox to get eggs from my fowl (also good). I grabbed some splints and crutches just to fill out the points (and then those got stolen by the kea-people lol).

So I'm not sure if I should've relaxed the restrictions a bit -- I could definitely have used way more bags, they are used for so many things I just didn't think of -- or reduced the starting points, or both. If we allowed up to 2 picks (or even required it) that could've eaten up more points. There are probably also some other useful tools I could've brought (wonder if I could have brought a wheelbarrow or minecarts... I didn't even look.) I maybe could've brought some armor/weapons? or even extra clothes? hm.

[BlueTrillium]

An update on my fort --

First order of business now that I have a Stoneworker. Tosid, rest in peace.

Weirdly, even his slab just says he 'went missing'. Apparently because no dwarf witnessed when he disintegrated and left just his clothes behind, they still hold out hope. But his sacrifice, acknowledged or not, was not in vain! The new home for the (future) glass furnaces, and the level above are the kilns.


Sazkul the ever-orange seems to be crankier than usual. So I checked him out:
Dude, you are a woodcutter. You are outside all the time. Stop being such a whiny baby. The actual baby in this fort handles rain better than you.

Our lone cat in the fortress has chosen their person. Nothing less than our legendary (and only) miner would do.


And with Spring comes... oh no. I knew it was coming but... (and this is by no means all of it)

Dangit, we're all gonna be angsty about worn-out clothes before the fall caravan comes around again, aren't we.

I was indeed able to get the bonus plants to the dwarf caravan, so I did raise my popcap to 20 as per the previous update, and am looking forward to whenever the next migrants arrive. I'm also concerned about my goal of 71 scepters. I know you can't just directly craft scepters: you have to 'make crafts' and hope for the best. It is NOT going well so far, lol. At this point I have 2 kilns going on crafts full-time, and have barely 20 scepters. On the plus side, I have three full bins of other crafts for trading, or future tribute goals.

[BlueTrillium]

Completed year 3! Taking up the thread from last post...

Spoiler: Migrants and an 'epic' Battle (click to show/hide)

We got some migrants! A total of 5 new dwarves, bringing us up to 16 total. They have some really complicated blood ties to each other and others in my fort. Lots of uncle/aunt/cousins that criss and cross like the strings on that Charlie Day conspiracy-theorist meme. I spent like an hour trying to draw a family tree. I failed. So yeah let's just say they're all cousins in one way or another. Anyway! Here they are:

First the married pair Kel and Mistem and Kel's 18-year-old daughter Zas. Kel's got five other children (one of them younger than Zas, none of them shared with Mistem, who has 1 kid of her own elsewhere).

The last two are another married pair, Iden and Fath, still part of the complicated relationship web. Iden has three children, none of them with Fath. Oh yeah, they also brought a cow. More milk!

Fath is my first scholarly dwarf, I think! Too bad there's not a library here, and won't be anytime soon.


So yeah I've got 3 married couples now, total pop 16.

Now I don't recall if I mentioned it, but I got a breeding pair of grizzly bears from the human caravan. I chucked them out in the pasture and promptly forgot about them.... until I belatedly noticed a combat alert on the side of the screen. They were fighting one of those dratted kea-men coming to steal my honeycombs!!! I never even trained the grizzlies for war, dangit. I scrambled the fort into a wrestling squad and sent them after the kea-man, but it was too late. So this result is my bad:

Naturally the dead bear is the female one. The male bear got off 'seriously injured' with a mangled rear foot. But it seems he'll survive. Hopefully I can get another lady grizzly. Oh and I've trained the male bear into a war grizzly now. Too little too late... But hey, I got this rather entertaining end to the kea-man fight!


Time goes on, and baby Endok has grown into a child. Yay for one more hauler!

Another wave of migrants came, bringing another married couple and 2 more singles. Three of these guys are useless animal trappers, and the fourth has no skills at all!! Bah. Oh well. The married couple is Logem and Nil. These guys brought another useless male horse. I have three of those running around now.

I am now up to pop cap of 20.

Zas, the 18-year-old child from the earlier migrant wave, grew to adult. A cranky one.

The covered pasture area has finally been finished. I moved all the useful grazers (aka, the ones with milk or wool) and the injured grizzly bear over there. For now leaving the others outside with the rain and kea-people.

A lone kobold thief approached us, but was detected, scared off, and ran away before we could catch him.

At last the Autumn caravan from the Monarch arrived. First I delivered tribute:

• 71 scepters -- I barely got this one done on time, but made it!
• 68 biscuits -- No problem, will get a bonus workshop for this.
• 19 rough semi-precious gems -- delivered a mix of red and yellow zircon, some almandine, and a few amethyst. Technically I had enough to deliver another 19 for the bonus, but I decided not to. So, goal achieved but no bonus.
• 31 altars -- delivered 2x (62 altars) for a bonus workshop.
• 17 crossbows -- delivered 2x (34 crossbows) for a bonus workshop.

So that's 3 bonus workshops, plus 5 base rewards. Rolling the bonus workshops first...



No choice on any of these. Like it or not, I'm stuck with:
Siege Workshop, Screw Press, and Metalsmith Forge
that last one being insult added to injury, since I already have Magma Forge. But such is RNG.

Now for the 5 base rewards, I will go with...

• -1 impatience to bring us back to 0 impatience
• 2 workshop draws (begging please for mechanic and/or cloth/leather industry, please haha)
• +2 reputation for the rest

Seriously considered going for more popcap but... need to get some traction on that reputation.

So now to roll those 2 workshop draws...


Omg, finally a mechanic. Bridges, wells (if I ever get water), traps, levers, traction benches, here I come!
For the other one I had no choice (but it's not so bad) -- Magma Glass Furnace. At least I have a spot set up for that, if not the bags to really implement it. Still no loom or clothier or butcher/etc though, drat.

Which brings us to next year's tribute goals...

Spoiler: Tribute rolls (click to show/hide)

Not super bad, but not great. Let's take these:

• 31 stone -- +5 pop for anhydrite or graphite.
• 62 wood -- +5 pop for hazel or highwood.
• 47 stone -- -2 impatience for 2x.
• 32 meals -- +5 pop for 2x.
• 47 meals -- bonus workshop for 2x.

Don't really like giving up that much wood, but I do have highwood so bonus should be possible there. Meals, no problem, though that's a lot. Stone... that's a total of 125 stone if I want the impatience bonus, hopefully 31 of which are anhydrite or graphite. I don't think I've seen either of those yet. I considered breastplates instead of the 47 meals but ultimately decided I can't afford the coke, even if I could get enough silver.

From the caravan we bought as much clothing as we could afford, and four dogs (all female) to replace the knucklehead that died. The dogs were immediately trained to war dogs, I've learned that lesson. Got some more rainbow trout since I think I remember somebody liked that. For next year we asked them to bring some bituminous coal and lignite to beef up our coke supply, and more clothing. In turn they want... ...nope. Well one less thing to worry about.

Per the civilizations screen on the world map, we've exported (not counting tribute) ~11000 worth to the Ruler. I believe that earns me +1 reputation.

Final Status for Year 3:

• Impatience = 0
• Reputation = 4
• Population = 20 (cap 20)
• Available workshops =
  Spoiler: Workshop List (click to show/hide)

  trade depot, still, farmer, magma kiln, magma forge, craftsdwarf, kitchen, carpenter, smelter, stoneworker, wood furnace, soap-maker, siege workshop, screw press, regular forge, mechanic, magma glass furnace

Happiness is trending down. I think for a few reasons - one, clothing is wearing out. Endok when she grew up into a child couldn't find any legwear and keeps getting bad thoughts (and a memory too darnit) of being humiliated at being uncovered. I couldn't buy enough new trousers for her to get a pair, but maybe I can snag some worn ones for her from those that are dropped on the floor. I'm going to try and reclaim them, anyway, and see what happens. For another, for the longest time I couldn't get that kea-man corpse out of the entryway and people kept passing it to repasture animals and getting bad thoughts there too. Nobody in the red yet, though, just a couple dark orange! (Thank goodness)

Still no militia/defenses unless you count the wrestler squad I scrambled against that kea-man for the grizzly fight. I don't count them because they have no barracks and no training schedule and no armor or weapons. But at least now I can activate my drawbridges and get some traps going.

[King Zultan]

Is Impatience able to go into the negatives?

[BlueTrillium]

Is Impatience able to go into the negatives?

A good question, I don't think it had been brought up previously.

I think for my current fort I will follow this rule for now, until there's an official ruling:
- Impatience can go negative, but only from the 'bonus' rewards (the ones where I don't get to choose what the reward is). If impatience is already zero or negative, I can not choose -1 impatience as a 'base' reward and must choose a different base reward instead.

I'm going with this for now because I don't want those bonus rewards to go to waste just because I happen to be at zero impatience, but at the same time I don't want to be able to 'bank' large amounts of negative impatience against the harder later year goals. I'm definitely open to other options/interpretations though. Since a failed goal costs three impatience though, I feel like you can't really earn enough negative impatience to make a very big deal.

Another alternative (but one I'm not using just yet) might be to convert any negative impatience into reputation. Honestly that might be the most elegant resolution. We'll see how it goes and what Salmeuk says.

[King Zultan]

I'd think that Impatience could go into negatives to represent the royalty liking what you have going on well enough that they don't care about one or two bad things happening.

[Salmeuk]

hmmm. it could be good, but then it might be better to balance accordingly, like have the scale shift from 0 - 20 to -10 to 10... As BlueTrillium pointed out, banking negative impatience might be a strong strategy indeed.

I chucked them out in the pasture and promptly forgot about them.... until I belatedly noticed a combat alert on the side of the screen. They were fighting one of those dratted kea-men coming to steal my honeycombs!!! I never even trained the grizzlies for war, dangit. I scrambled the fort into a wrestling squad and sent them after the kea-man, but it was too late.

RIP the grizzly dream. would be very useful to have animals to fight instead of dwarves. your suffering from kea attacks and still doing this well? nice. keas are no joke honestly. the morale damage from constant harassment and potential injuries can ruin fortresses

thanks again for the updates. i haven't had much time to start up another of my own tests. if we get enough players, delphonso mentioned he might want to start a Competitive DF round 2.. that would also get in the way. so for now I will put this on the backburner 

though if you happen to make any balance changes or rule changes on your own, post about them here. I'm particularly interesting in how the difficulty scales over time, and whether we can adjust the tributes to keep up the furious activity necessary to produce those goods. in my mind, the ideal balance would really push you to the limits of what a small fortress can produce, and that would be almost every year!


 I was kind of thinking about how strongly inspired i was by Against the Storm, and how the tributes force your hand in so many ways and it made me realize that I really do play DF for the creative and relaxed elements. something about the way other games force your action into a very narrow pathway, makes the gameplay feel robotic, while DF has this feeling to it, a potential energy of sorts.

[BlueTrillium]

No problem, and thanks!

Weirdly, the only thing the kea-men (and kea-women of course) have been interested in is taking all my honeycombs out of my beehives, which are outside outlining the wagon-path to my front door. They haven't tried to get into my fortress at all thus far, and they leave the outdoor animals alone (though of course the animals are scared and scatter to the four winds every time the kea-people drop by). Seems the kea-people have a mighty sweet tooth. Or I guess, it's because the beehives are the only thing I have outside and uncovered? Hm. Makes me wonder, if I didn't have them out there, if the kea-people would come after me at all.

The kobolds are becoming an increasing annoyance, though thus far they've gone away totally empty-pawed. They run away as soon as they're detected.

All the other creatures and wildlife have left me alone so far, except when my animals (e.g. the grizzlies and the idiotic dogs) go after them first. The dogs in particular seem to adore suiciding against the wild boars. (Besides that first dog death, three of the four new dogs have already severely injured themselves going after boars -sigh- I'm starting to wonder if the dogs are worth it, but at least they keep detecting and scaring off the kobolds.) I haven't actually seen a lot of wildlife, period. There's the boars (pretty frequent), ravens (totally ignore me), magma crabs (stayed in the volcano) and an occasional kiwi (stays far away) running around, and that's about it besides the marauding kea-people. I have not been chopping trees except when needed, and then usually only the most massive (3x3) Highwoods so I get a bunch of wood at once and don't need more for awhile. So nothing's been agitated so far.

re the balance - I'm definitely feeling it as the numbers get bigger on the tribute goals. The year 3 goals (with the scepters and such) I think hit just about the perfect spot, a good mix, and I was barely able to make it, and I had to focus on them, but I did it. This new set of year 4 goals didn't end up with enough variety so while the sheer amount is somewhat challenging, and some of the bonuses rolled are unachievable, the base goals that I rolled this time are so doable I essentially have them already done by the end of Winter. Which in a way is nice to have a little breather (e.g. so I can keep working on finding that darn aquifer, lol, and other projects like happiness.) so I think the randomness still has value. It's definitely still a nail-biter each year when I roll to see what I'll get! But I'll keep going and see if I change my tune as the years go on. xD

[BlueTrillium]

Got about half a year done... some new developments.

As I had hoped at the end-of-year summary, I was indeed able to reclaim the dropped clothing and that allowed it to redistribute to those who needed it. Endok now has trousers!

Likewise, the fairly simple goals this time (just stone, wood, and meals) mean I have all the base goals covered already. I'm still striving for some bonuses, but other than that I can now focus on improving life in the fortress and hopefully turning some of that happiness around.

First step -- found the aquifer!! I dunno if it's the only aquifer on the map, but the only one I've found thus far is (naturally) in the most distant and inconvenient corner of the map, as far as it can possibly get from my actual fortress. This will be... annoying. It's also only one layer deep, which I'm undecided whether that's good or bad. I've dug a reservoir on the layer underneath and plan to fill it via ceiling drips. I dug out the area and I'll leave it be for now, and do other things while it fills up. Later I'll figure out the hauling. xD

Spoiler: aquifer reservoir (click to show/hide)

Never actually dug a reservoir before, always had running water. Hopefully this'll be enough. Note the minimap for the location of the aquifer vs the volcano where my fort is (fort is also like 5-10 z-levels up from here too)

We had our first (and if I'm understanding population vs moods correctly, only) strange mood! Fortunately we apparently had everything she needed. We got... well, it's certainly dwarfy!




What the...

Elves came?! They live on the opposite side of the world map, there is 'no contact' between us and them last I checked, and they didn't show up the past 3 years... but y'know what, this is good! -brings out all the extra stoneware crafts from when we were trying to make scepters- Nice, they did not impose a tree quota either, though I'm not sure why not. Maybe because they live so far away. Weirdly nice elves. They didn't bring any interesting animals this year, but now I have more hope of renewing our grizzly population in the future. What they did bring, and what I eagerly bought them out of, was clothes! This should stave off unclothed complaints a bit longer!

And finally... okay, look at this:
One dwarf. One dwarf is thwarting all my efforts at improving life at the fort. And it's not Sazkul! It's this wretched dwarf:

I am at wits' end with her. She's got positive thoughts out the wazoo (most of her memories are positive too). I put her in a wrestler/shield squad with staggered training to try and satisfy her martial training and fighting wants. I have her craft things for crafting wants. She's got plenty of free time to satisfy worship wants (though she rarely does...) I've tried to cancel/restrict her from any job that might take her outside. She's got a better bedroom than any of the other singles.

She'll pile up several positive thoughts and then, bam, "Oh no, I walked by a dead kea man once a year ago. I got rained on a couple times a while back. The world is ending." And then she pulls shit like in that picture above. Annoyed sleeping in the dirt? Annoyed sleeping in the dirt?! DON'T SLEEP IN THE DIRT THEN, MORON! YOU HAVE A BEDROOM! AND YOU WERE LIKE 3 STEPS AWAY FROM IT!!! And don't try to claim I was overworking you girl because you were on free time when you chose to sleep there. You are literally sleeping in the booze stockpile. Ugh.

xDDD So anyway, I'm doing what I can for her (and letting her yell at the expedition leader frequently, not that she feels anything from that) for now, while I am working on making an actual dining hall/tavern with what will hopefully be a mist generator once I figure out how to power it and how to get water up there fast enough to get it going instead of just evaporating. Here's hoping that will be sufficient to at least get her off of red.

[BlueTrillium]

Now to finish off this year... (stuff is going really quickly, I'm trying to pace myself lol)

So I looked at the world map to check out the news & rumors and such, and it seems like there's a lot of invasions and takeovers going on. Seems almost half of the elven retreats have been conquered by goblins (but are now occupied by humans?!) so maybe that's what triggered them to visit me -- desperation. Or more likely it was just some fame I gained from all my exports. Who knows. Some dwarven settlements (including at least one from my own civilization!) have also been conquered. It's pretty concerning. Hopefully the goblins won't come after us, isolated as we are. And also hopefully we don't somehow inherit the king prematurely. *fingers crossed*

The human traders came, nothing special. They did not bring more grizzlies, so my next hope for those is the elves next spring. Since I can't use their clothes I basically just bought food and some tools and materials for potential strange moods.

Speaking of which --

They're a legendary potter already, so I was a bit confused why they went for a Stoneworker workshop... This is how I (re)discovered that Potter is not a moodable skill. At any rate he only grabbed obsidian and a chunk of wood, so I didn't expect much.


Huh. Even in a mood, the goblin encroachment is worrying my dwarves, too. Well I don't blame them. We still don't have any military to speak of.

Progress on the fancy dining/tavern is going well. But one of those statues is looking familiar...


Tosid! My 'missing' dwarf! At least they finally acknowledge that he was 'mortally wounded', though they still don't seem to have any idea how, lol.

And at last, the Monarch's caravan arrived. After the usual introductory bowing and scraping, we... became a barony!! I considered turning it down, but the lure of those wagons (and the increased capacity thereof) convinced me. Meng our expedition leader is now also our baroness. Maybe someday she'll even get quarters. Hopefully I correctly picked someone that'll have manageable demands. At any rate, the rest went on as usual, with a note for next year: Sure, I can make a bunch of green glass ones, if I remember. xD Also this:

All righty, then.

Bought 4 more (female) dogs, 2 (female) cats, all their bituminous coal and lignite, and all the clothing I could afford. Overall a good haul.

I delivered all the wood (all highwood), and all the meals to the caravan first (and smashed all the stone) for tribute. This achieved all five base goals, plus four bonus goals that added up to -2 Impatience, +10 population cap, and a bonus workshop. Rolling the bonus workshop first...

So I have a quern now. Which could be useful, but I still have no way to make bags.

For the base goals I chose... +5 popcap, +3 reputation, and a workshop (I still really need to break in to the meat and cloth industries!). So here's the workshop roll... ...Really? RNG is absolutely desperate to keep me away from meat/bone/cloth, it seems. I really really hope nobody has a mood that requires bone anytime soon. Anyway, since fishery is useless on this map, I take Ashery. At some point I'll get (hemp oil) soap going for the hospital. Eventually.

Now goals for next year.

Spoiler: Tribute rolls (click to show/hide)

Clearly the King agrees I had it too easy this year. Dang. There aren't five achievables so for sure I'm going to fail at least one this year. Well that's what my extra Impatience is for. Anyway -

Goals for next year:

• 59 wood -- -2 imp for larch or walnut
• 48 metal bars -- -2 imp for billon or sterling silver
• 30 metal bars -- -2 imp for zinc or lead
• 24 shields -- bonus workshop for 2x
• 50 cut semi-precious gems -- impossible so doesn't matter

After the caravan left I checked the civilization screen to see if I earned more rep for my exports to Mountainhome, and yep, I'm at ~21k, so I get +1 more rep from that.

Final Status for Year 4:

• Impatience = -2
• Reputation = 8
• Population = 20 (cap 35)
• Available workshops =
  Spoiler: Workshop List (click to show/hide)

  trade depot, still, farmer, magma kiln, magma forge, craftsdwarf, kitchen, carpenter, smelter, stoneworker, wood furnace, soap-maker, siege workshop, screw press, regular forge, mechanic, magma glass furnace, quern, ashery

Happiness (really, Zas, the red dwarf) is very slowly turning around. For some reason she's 'stressed' all the time, but her memories are slowly turning more positive, and she's up to dark-orange now. Maybe if I can get that tavern finished and the mist generator going, I can get her back on an even keel.