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[malroth]

Ursit Mchauler liked his life in this new fort,  lots of work was avalible,  he had admired a magnificent bridge recently,  and he had managed to get ahold of some =cave spider silk socks= of his very own.  The Expedition leader who designed and planned this fort was a little on the insane side but was certianly handy with the numerous cage traps that had effortlessly stopped the last two seiges.  Suddenly his supervisor handed him a new work order,    Pull the strange red lever sitting at the front entrance to the fort, The one that nobody knew the function of,  the one that had been marked forbidden since the spring of the first year when it was installed.   But Ursit  cheerily went on with his task,  after all the expidition founders had specially brought the stone to craft its mechanisims  from the old mountianhome,  The engineer spent months checking and rechecking all its connections ensuring everything was working exactly as designed,   after all whats the worst thing that could happen from pulling a single lever....

Contest goal:   To create a fortress with a shiny red lever of death. A perfectly normal seeming, fully functional fortress, that after pulling a single unmarked lever,  experiences complete and utter disasterfun.

Rules.
the first 6 judges that sign up and as many contestants as sign up in the next week or so

Vanilla Dwarf fortress ver 40d with no mods. alternate tilesets allowed if saves 100% compatable with vanilla
.
7 years (dwarftime) 3 weeks (playtime) from the start of contest. Autosave every spring.  year 7 spring save is uploaded as your entry,  the judges then play this save and pull the lever to judge the results. Bookmarks to the lever and any sites you feel merit attention

 Big red lever is pulled at the start of spring on the 7th year. No Noblecide before big red lever day. Expediton leader must be a Mechanic. Expedition leader must survive untill Big red lever day. Any embark location allowed.   Starting equipment must contain cinabar or petrified wood to create the red lever.

 Scavescaming is allowed but discouraged.

Judging:

The scoring will be subjective from a panel of volunteer judges who will judge on the following criteria.

Pre Lever fortress wealth.  0-5 pts  how rich is your z screen compared to the wealth of the other contestants.

Pre lever fortress functionality. 0-10 pts  How safe, secure, self sufficient, happy, astheticaly pleasing is your fort before  fun happens?

Subtlety.     0-10 points.  How obvious is the workings of your doomsday device from your fortress design,  the harder it is to find out what your lever does before its pulled the better.     

Complexity.  0-10 points,   the more mindbogglingly confusing its workings after its been pulled the better.

Thouroughness.  0-10 points.   Does your lever kill everything on the entire map ,  or just that peweter loving count and his consort. the more things die the better.

Speed.     0-5 points    A lever that traps all your dwarves in their rooms where they starve might work,  but might take a LONG time.

Originality 0 - 10 points. 

Style  0 - 10 points.   Was it the most awsome fort you've ever seen before the lever flooded it?  did they take something out with them when they died?  Here's where you reap the  reward for pure dwarfyness of the entries

Status:   Judge/ contestant signup still ongoing untill the 24th   currently 3 judges and 1 contestant

[DjZielony]

I want to see THAT.

[father_alexander]

i would love to participate as a judge, however, i think the scoring should be more simple, i dont think the wealth of the fortress is really that important and subtlety is too personal, same goes for originality and style seems like a combination of the other scores, but whatever, you can count me in as a judge

[Pie]

Yeah, I would say judging should be more like:
Brutality: How many dwarves does it kill/how much variety is present in the killing 0-20 points
Aesthetics: How good looking/awesome was the fort before the lever was pulled 0-30 points
Complexity: How cool/original is the mechanism for destruction 0-50 points
Total: 0-100 points

Fairly simple, and avoids situations where a guy who just attracts fucktonnes of immigrants and then locks them in a drowning chamber gets a significant advantage. The fort should be good enough that its destruction is epic.

[Draco18s]

I'd judge this.  I'd love to build too, but I don't think I have the time.

I submit the mental construct I had in the moments before posting:

Fortress supported by a single support, the lever does not break the support but instead fills the pit the fortress is sitting in with magma, which when it reaches a certain point floods over a pressure plate which pulls the support. 

[smjjames]

Actually, bauxite, kaolinite, and realgar are also red in color and could be used for a red lever.

[Draco18s]

Fairly simple, and avoids situations where a guy who just attracts fucktonnes of immigrants and then locks them in a drowning chamber gets a significant advantage. The fort should be good enough that its destruction is epic.

That is worth almost no points.

Wealth: 5
Functionality: ?
Subtlety: 0
Complexity: 0
Thoroughness: 5?
Speed: 5
Originality: 0
Style: 0

15+ (30 max) out of a possible 70.

[SolarShado]

I'll join as a contestant. I've got an idea...

But when should I start? I probably won't get a chance to check here again until friday...

[64-bit]

Im not good at working with deadlines in DF time, i will sign up as a judge

[Pie]

Fairly simple, and avoids situations where a guy who just attracts fucktonnes of immigrants and then locks them in a drowning chamber gets a significant advantage. The fort should be good enough that its destruction is epic.

That is worth almost no points.

Wealth: 5
Functionality: ?
Subtlety: 0
Complexity: 0
Thoroughness: 5?
Speed: 5
Originality: 0
Style: 0

15+ (30 max) out of a possible 70.

I'm really just talking about work arounds in general, a more detailed example, that's just designed to hack the system:
Have cooks working around the clock producing syrup roasts = 5 points for wealth
Seal off fort from outside world completely, engrave every inch of the (fairly small/one room) fort = at least 3/4 points for fortress functionality (this one is difficult to hack)
Have an easy to make cave-in = Maybe 0-1 points subtlety and maybe 1-2 points complexity (again difficult to hack)
Lock everything in the cave-in room = 10 points thoroughness
Cave in = 5 points speed
Originality = 0 points (difficult to hack)
Style = 0 points (difficult to hack)

So I'd say that'd get a minimum of 24-27/70 under the judging system that was suggested by the OP and maybe a maximum of 20/100 under my proposed judging system. I'm just saying that it is a good idea to set up the criteria so that the most awesome, original, aesthetically pleasing fort of death wins. I personally wouldn't want participants churning out engravings and food products just so they could compete on the wealth criteria, or use instantaneous cave-ins to just fulfill the speed criteria, or have a dull, enclosed fort just so they could get some extra kills.

[zwei]

I am not going to have time to participate, but here is one idea for quite :

Designate damp wall to be dug. Hide it behind door, link door to lever.
On the other side of fortress:
Desigante warm wall to be dug. Hide it bedind door, link door to lever.

Bet on who is going to burn and who is going to drown. bonus point for guessing who is going to be instantly petrified and who will starve to death in rooms sealed by obsidian

[malroth]

i would love to participate as a judge, however, i think the scoring should be more simple, i dont think the wealth of the fortress is really that important and subtlety is too personal, same goes for originality and style seems like a combination of the other scores, but whatever, you can count me in as a judge

Glad to have you aboard  thats 1 judge slot down.
Wealth is there mostly as a tie breaker between  equally awsome seeming forts,  but to also ensure that its both a fort and a deathtrap not just a deathtrap with dwarves.

Actually, bauxite, kaolinite, and realgar are also red in color and could be used for a red lever.

my bad,    any bright red stone is allowed for your embark stone

I'd judge this.  I'd love to build too, but I don't think I have the time.

I submit the mental construct I had in the moments before posting:

Fortress supported by a single support, the lever does not break the support but instead fills the pit the fortress is sitting in with magma, which when it reaches a certain point floods over a pressure plate which pulls the support. 

okay make that 2 judge slots filled

Yeah, I would say judging should be more like:
Brutality: How many dwarves does it kill/how much variety is present in the killing 0-20 points
Aesthetics: How good looking/awesome was the fort before the lever was pulled 0-30 points
Complexity: How cool/original is the mechanism for destruction 0-50 points
Total: 0-100 points

Fairly simple, and avoids situations where a guy who just attracts fucktonnes of immigrants and then locks them in a drowning chamber gets a significant advantage. The fort should be good enough that its destruction is epic.

we'll keep getting contestants and judges for a week and then the judges will vote on weither or not to switch to your scoring system instead

Im not good at working with deadlines in DF time, i will sign up as a judge

okay i somehow missed this post my first read through ...  3 judges

[SolarShado]

Contest to start in a week then? I'll gen a world or two and pick out an embark...

[vturtle]

I tend to get too attached to my dorfs to participate in this myself, but I have no problem watching other people's dorfs die!  I'd like to sign up for a judge spot.

I think the judging rules are suitable Dwarfy enough to try to use as is.  It's horribly confusing and we might mess it up royally, but that kinda seems appropriate.

[expwnent]

I know this probably wouldn't be worth too many points because it's so slow, but I think it'd be interesting if you could make a tantrum spiral happen because of a lever pull.