First of all, hi guys I'm new on this forum.
** Secondly: you might want to avoid reading this, as it may contain minor
spoilers **
Thirdly, I haven't been playing DF for too long so don't expect any adamantine equipped soldiers fighting epic battles with demons or something :/ Also, I am writing most of this
from memory. A
wall of text awaits you here, sorry for the
lack of screenshots. Maybe I'll add some, if you wish.
At first I wanted to name the subject "The rise and fall of Flameworks" but then realized that it was pretty much all just "fall".
*The beginning*[I should probably mention that with this fortress I was planning to create boatloads of wealth - I figured that was missing in my previous fortresses which I thought was the reason I never had a 3rd immigration wave.]
Alright so I embarked with my 7 dwarfs on a pretty good location, or so i thought.
Good (warm - river doesn't freeze) climate, nearby river, no aquifer, thick forests and untamed wilds which was the worst of them, no biggie.
I started off pretty good or so I thought. After most of my fortresses got overrun by goblins I started off immediately building walls around my Caravan and Fortress entrance.
The layout of the fortress is rather suitable for more than 24 dwarfs or so I believe - I like to think big - which doesn't have to be a good thing.
So I tried to get my industry up and running as fast as possible, building carpenter's, mason's and even crafts-workshops and all the others.
Soon enough my carpenter had a strange mood. He didn't need anything exotic, two logs o wood and some thread (which I had from the beginning, of course). And so "Doorhelp the Ace Vegetation" - a palm splint - was created. Worth 6000. Also I now had a legendary carpenter, which made me happy.
*The beginning of the end*Shortly after that my mason I believe had a strange mood as well, claimed a craftsdwarf workshop. This one turned out to be a bit trickier. I can't remember all the stuff he needed but the one thing I didn't have was silk cloth. After reading that silk has to be collected in the underground caverns (yes, I'm still quite a "newb"), I thought "oh shit". I probably had about 19 (which was the highest number of dwarfs in Flameworks I have had until the time of writing - 3 of them children) dwarfs at the time - and practically no military. I thought digging into the caves right now is suicide - but I did it anyway.
At least I tried. I kept digging and digging when at level 23 or so below ground I still hadn't discovered the caverns, I noticed that the time was over - he was miserable and starved himself to death.
From there on things never got better.
In the next big event in the History of Flameworks (I kinda like the name
). My (legendary) carpenter fought two gorillas. It turned out to be a short fight, as one of the gorillas, "Toothspatter" as he was named afterwards, ripped his head of.
Later I had been creating some wealth, making gold crafts with a skilled metalcrafter, and encrusting them with a legendary gem setter.
Many dwarfs were killed during goblin ambushes, so I was now down to about 14 dwarfs (2 children). This was reason enough for me to become more defensive. I set up a lot of cage traps, dug out a moat around my walls which have yet to be flooded, and designated some marksmen and a few fighters.
The first human caravan that arrived seemed to have been followed by a squad of goblins. At the trade depot inside my fortress the humans fought to their death, the surviving goblins were caught in my cage traps. Oh well.
The gorillas which killed my carpenter were still trapped in the caves, with no way up. So at some point I grew impatient and sent out my ~7 dwarfs to kill them. Little did I know, one of the dwarfs was the father of 5 dwarf children at the time. One of his children came with him, fighting the gorillas. The kid died, as the gorilla ripped it in half. My soldiers suffered no losses or wounds.
As time passed I finally dug down to the caverns - at level 37 below ground. Wealth at the time: about 300.000. Knowing that there were some dangerous creatures down there I set up some cage traps at the entrance. Soon enough I had a notification which informed me one of my dwarfs was interrupted loading a cage trap. Which was when I saw there were 3 nasty "Dralthas" down there. One of them had been caught in a cage trap. Luckily, the dwarf had a crossbow and shot it, hitting its left rear leg, causing the Draltha to faint. The dwarf survived. I then set up burrows which didn't allow my dwarfs to go down there and try to load the cage traps where the dralthas are waiting even now, as I write this.
Things were quiet then. The goblin ambushes were no match for the cage traps (quite lame actually, I know). Year after year I was hoping for a dwarven caravan to show up - or even better: some immigrants.
Nothing. I felt the dwarfs in my fortress were the last ones alive. But we were doing quite well, I thought. More than enough food, wealth steadily and quickly growing and a well fortified fortress which protects the entrance.
*Major setback and a fruitless siege*When my wealth reached about 370k, I somehow deleted my burrow (which, quite frankly, happens a LOT to me) which I created to keep my dwarfs safe. So had to create it again. Sloppily as I did it, I forgot to restrict the area with the unloaded cage traps and waiting dralthas. Also, my legendary gem-setter had the "mechanics" labor enabled, as he was the most skilled mechanic in Flameworks. By now you should know where this is going, he stormed down there to reload one of the cages, unarmed and unprotected as he was, he was no match for the draltha, which was then known as "Nulomkalal".
This was a major setback in my wealth - focused plan. I was down to 14 Dwarfs at the time, 4 of them are useless children.
Steadily and faster than any other. I embarked with 2 dogs and 2 cats, one of each gender. By then I had more than 100 animals.
So i started slaughtering as many kittens as possible. I thought the dogs could still be useful - as war dogs. So after slaughtering many kittens the cat growth was finally stopped. I had trained 47 animals, including war elephants, jaguars, cougars, bears and everything I could get from those useless elven caravans.
Remember how the human caravan got slaughtered? They wanted revenge. So came a quite eventless Siege, honestly. They set up camp outside my fortress and waited fall through winter. Opening the gates to my fortress would not be a good idea since my melee dwarfs are useless, as are my untrained marksdwarves. So with the last 4 logs (after chopping down all fungiwood, mind you) I built a catapult on my fortress walls. But alas, this plan was fruitless. So then I opened the gates - the humans proceeded with the attack. But this was the perfect opportunity to train my marksdwarves. From the fortress walls, they shot down at the axe-warriors of the humans. Luckily, they suffered no casualties. The Dwarf-count remained 14.
*A defense flaw*The next time I spent digging for gems, hoping more wealth would attract ANY dwarfs. But all it attracted was a human caravan. I was somewhat confused, as they attacked my fortress a year ago. But again, they were followed by a squadron of goblins.
This time, I was still improving my fortresses' defenses. So they used a ramp down in my still dry moat as an entrance to the first level of my fortress. 2 of the human caravan died, fighting the goblins. As they were almost past my last cage traps, I had to dispatch my 7 dwarf-militia. 4 marksdwarves and 3 melee fighters. The final battle took place in an underground crossing riddled with cage traps. The goblins were ranged only so the traps were of no help. Even though two of my dwarfs were severely wounded, they survived and the attack was averted.
As the two dwarfs were standing on cage traps while they fainted, they triggered the traps (bug?), which might have saved their lives. Luckily, the hospital was set up and nearby - the first medical job for my chief medical dwarf.
This was when things got retarded.
I build the two dwarf cages in order to release them and then have them treated. But for some reason, noone would release the dwarf neither bring him food or water after un-assigning from his cage
(bug?). It was only when said dwarf was dehydrated and starving (the other one being just fine) when I figured, "hmm, maybe only a Sheriff can release them?"
*Justice*As fast as possible I assigned a Sheriff. Fulfilling most of his requirements at the time, the first thing he did was "beat a criminal" for Vandalism and destroying a building. The complete punishment was beating and 26 days of imprisonment.
Said beating turned out to be fatal the the victim, my veteran legendary miner. The last lines of the combat report read:
The sheriff punches The Miner in the head with his right hand, bruising the muscle, jamming the skull through the brain and tearing the brain!
Geshud Belalducim, Miner has been struck down.
WHAT THE F***
Also, 6 years after embarking, not a single dwarven caraven showed up. I'm beginnign to think this dwarven civilization is almost extinct.
Stats as of now:
(sorry for the resolution)
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That's the story until now. I am scared of resuming the game and finding out what happens to my caged Dwarf. I'm down to 13 dwarfs - 4 of which are useless children.
Nothing gets done, I don't have enought dwarfs for a decent army, death awaits me from below and above. What can I do?
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Topic: The disaster of Flameworks (Read 1144 times)