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Author Topic: Lessons in Losing  (Read 4653 times)

SpiralDimentia

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Lessons in Losing
« on: May 10, 2011, 07:25:26 pm »

I... don't know what just happened. I have a good fort, it's been operation for years. It's self sufficient to the fact that I can close my doors outside and it not bother me.

Ever.

Anyways, I'm ready to begin anew, and lo and behold, I get seiged. 5 groups of goblins, about 10-15 in each, lead by elites.. two groups of trolls. I have 26 military dwarves. 10 crossbow dwarves in leather, and 16 melee. 10 of which are in [mostly] steel suits... chain shirt, breast plate, helm, shield, and weapon.. I have no metal on my map other than gold so equipping as been slow going. My other 6 had weapons and shields, but thats mostly it. I think their commander had a breastplate and mail shirt.

Anyways, I stationed them at my front door, and waited for the opposing army to gather. Finally, all the goblins and trolls were waiting... no time like the present.

The slaughter was glorious. Hacked pieces everywhere, blood of many colors decorating the walls and floor. My troops had been training for years, but they were still scrubs. For the first year they had no weapons save for two copper battle axes. No danger room padding, only normal ''demonstration'' type training. I stopped using my archery targets for my marksdwarves. I have a prison stocked full of enemies that I never got around to training on. Surely this would be a grand fall!

But the seige broke. Confused, I examined what was going on... my dwarves were WINNING. Slaughtering  by the goblins in droves. Crossbow bolts peppering anything with a pulse, axes and hammers and maces smashing whether it had a pulse or not. Martial trance on three of them, and they waded into the enemy, hacking them apart like they were untrained recruits.

When the battle ended, and the retreating enemy force finally got away from my dwarves, I'd lost a grand total of 2 dwarves. Both shot and killed by enemy crossbows. I have 5 dwarves in the hospital for various wounds [all 3 martial trance dwarves are not included among them], but the only might-die-from wounds are on a civilian who happened to walk by when the first arrow volley came in.

Surely, I thought I was going to lose. They outnumbered me, at a minimum, of like 3 to 1. But I beat them. I killed more than half their number and only lost two.

Why did this happen? Did toady buff regular training? Was this a fluke? Am I... incapable of losing to goblins? :(
Logged
Dragonwork, A Successful Failure.
Legacy of Insightshields
Many more made tales in this hall,
before the stronghold found it's fall.
An enemy none could stop or yield,
had taken over Insightshields.

Naryar

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Re: Lessons in Losing
« Reply #1 on: May 10, 2011, 07:53:33 pm »

My military dwarves are usually outnumbered, however it doesn't stops them from killing gobbos. Plus goblins have only iron, copper, and silver, also they don't seem to wear more than a breastplate, a shield and a helmet for armor. This makes destroying them quite easy.

Hell, a legendary axedwarf in full steel CAN go against twenty gobbos and win.
« Last Edit: May 10, 2011, 07:58:16 pm by Naryar »
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SpiralDimentia

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Re: Lessons in Losing
« Reply #2 on: May 10, 2011, 07:58:47 pm »

Dwarf Fortress : Lessons in Losing and DOING IT RIGHT while doing so.

My dwarves won't even die properly. My worst injured dwarf [I had overlooked him before, apparently, and hadn't noticed] had some sort of cut or tear on EVERY. SINGLE. PART. OF. HIS. BODY. His symptoms were:

Heavy Bleeding
Cannot Breath
Ability to Grasp Somewhat impaired
Ability to Stand Lost
Sensory Nerve Damage


I figured, damn, he's going to suffocate, and my doctors can't heal that. Well, turns out, he's tougher than the rock he lives in, because He stopped bleeding, stopped that silly suffocation crap, and is now well on his way to recovery. Even has some wicked swcars to woo the ladydwarfs with.

My dwarves don't do anything right. ;/
Logged
Dragonwork, A Successful Failure.
Legacy of Insightshields
Many more made tales in this hall,
before the stronghold found it's fall.
An enemy none could stop or yield,
had taken over Insightshields.

gtmattz

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Re: Lessons in Losing
« Reply #3 on: May 10, 2011, 08:13:33 pm »

You are underestimating the awesomeness that is dwarves.
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Quote from: Hyndis
Just try it! Its not like you die IRL if Urist McMiner falls into magma.

Naryar

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Re: Lessons in Losing
« Reply #4 on: May 10, 2011, 08:14:16 pm »

You are complaining of badassery (aka a dwarf making a complete recovery and jumping out of the hospital while spouting the ever-classic "It's just a flesh wound" or a variant) ? You are not a dwarf.

Azated

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Re: Lessons in Losing
« Reply #5 on: May 10, 2011, 08:15:29 pm »

If you try to fail and succeed, what have you done?

Dwarf fortress
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Then it happened. Then I cringed. Then I picked it up and beat him to death with it, and then his buddies, too.
You beat a man to death with his dick?

"I don't feel like myself. Maybe I should have Doc take a look at me" ~ Dreamy
 "You're gonna trust a dwarf that got his medical degree from a pickaxe?" ~ Bossy

greycat

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Re: Lessons in Losing
« Reply #6 on: May 10, 2011, 08:18:33 pm »

A dwarf wants to heal.  A dwarf is motivated to heal.  A dwarf is, by Armok, going to heal or die trying!  Because if he doesn't heal, he doesn't get alcohol.
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Hell, if nobody's suffocated because of it, it hardly counts as a bug! -- StLeibowitz

Fredd

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Re: Lessons in Losing
« Reply #7 on: May 10, 2011, 08:28:15 pm »

Amen, greycat. Its a dwarven medical conspiracy that by only supplying water to drink, it gives the patients a good reason to heal faster, and get back to work. Besides the fact that a dabbling surgeon could be operating on you in the future. Also, without any insurance, loading them out of the hospital in record time saves costs. Hmmm, that sounds familiar
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Should you fail to comply, strict !!disciplinary actions!! will be taken. Also, we feel we should remind you that one of the "criminals" on your list is the chief medical dwarf. If he ends up too badly injured to do his job, you will be fired. Out of a magma cannon.
Sincerely,
The Administration

SpiralDimentia

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Re: Lessons in Losing
« Reply #8 on: May 10, 2011, 08:48:11 pm »

I suppose those are valid points. I was trying to end this world so I could make another, clean slate sorta deal. But my dwarves refuse to go down. Like what just happened. Let me explain. After making this thread and commenting and whatnot, I went outside with my brother to smoke a bowl. Anyways, I just came back in. While taking ym seat, I happening to notice a message flash up. ''Soanso cancels task: Interrupting by Forgotten Beast''

I had forgotten to save. While I was gone, a forgotten beast had found my floor hatch to my magma forges and smelters [I don't know why I thought it was safe, this forgotten beast had shown up ages ago and was just apparently never close enough til now], destroyed it, and him and his Draltha minions were in. Blood everywhere. 6 furnace operators, dead. 2 miners, dead. a carpenter and 2 masons, dead. All but two of my metalshiths [blackmisth,armorer,metalsmith,weaponsmith] dead. Only one weaponsmith and one armorsmith remained, of those. I still have 80-something dwarves left, the others just hadn't decided to go downstairs yet. One of my military dwarves had, though. I'm not sure why he was down there, but whatever. He'd beaten the thing into submission, has broken or amputated all it's legs [one eyes spider with 4 horns. beware it's poisonous bite!], and was busy pummeling it with his shield. It hasn't died yet, but I suspect it won't take long.


Armok does not want me to end this fort yet, it seems.
Logged
Dragonwork, A Successful Failure.
Legacy of Insightshields
Many more made tales in this hall,
before the stronghold found it's fall.
An enemy none could stop or yield,
had taken over Insightshields.

Mercenare

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Re: Lessons in Losing
« Reply #9 on: May 10, 2011, 09:43:24 pm »

Dwarves are and can be resilient creatures. Some times they go into a heavily outnumbered battle and crack skulls, sometimes they trip on a rock going into said battle and break their skull. This is dwarf fortress, anything can happen no matter how ridiculous it is.

EDIT: Its kinda funny how you're talking about the utter epicness you're dwarves are achieving. The dwarfs in my fort seem eager to jump in their coffin -.-
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SpiralDimentia

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Re: Lessons in Losing
« Reply #10 on: May 10, 2011, 09:50:47 pm »

Yeah. I'm just beating off ambushes like you wouldn't believe. It seems my dwarves are now strong enough to steamroll. I may have to abandon if I want another fortress. I normally get super boring fortresses, then dying in the first spurt of violenc,e or becoming so locked in that I'm just self sufficient forever. This is awesome, and quite unexpected.
Logged
Dragonwork, A Successful Failure.
Legacy of Insightshields
Many more made tales in this hall,
before the stronghold found it's fall.
An enemy none could stop or yield,
had taken over Insightshields.

Avo

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Re: Lessons in Losing
« Reply #11 on: May 11, 2011, 02:20:25 am »

Its the martial trance, ive seen dwarfs take on incredible odds with that. Meanwhile my legendary wrestling dwarfs get picked apart by beak dogs.
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Psieye

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Re: Lessons in Losing
« Reply #12 on: May 11, 2011, 08:39:52 am »

Might be time to look up "Nist Akath" in the community stories Hall of Legends sticky thread or "Morul the most interesting dwarf". After April 2010 when v0.31.* came out, dwarves were nerfed compared to the old days. They can still dish out wanton epicness even if they're not at legendary-everything skill.
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Military Training EXP Analysis
Congrats, Psieye. This is the first time I've seen a derailed thread get put back on the rails.

Kestrel

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Re: Lessons in Losing
« Reply #13 on: May 11, 2011, 10:00:50 am »

Once my fort is up and running, I can't wait for the next siege.  I start killing Elven traders just to inspire more attacks.  I let the first few dozen wander through cage traps, then the next through spinning death blades, then they go under my marksdwarf fortified overhang, then through another series of cage traps, then more death blades, and behind that my axelords patiently await the remaining bloodbath.

But in practice, gobbos get as far as the second row of traps and either die or just stop completely. 

It's also important to change your ethics raws to allow butchering and devouring of gobbos.  Who needs farming?!  Now if I could only figure a way to brew goblin remains...
Logged
Goblin 6 (to Goblin 7): I heard that I died.
Goblin 7 (to Goblin 6): I died.
Goblin 6 (to Goblin 7): It was inevitable.
Goblin 7 (to Goblin 6): It was inevitable.

Psieye

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Re: Lessons in Losing
« Reply #14 on: May 11, 2011, 10:35:32 am »

Now if I could only figure a way to brew goblin remains...
Hmm, this doesn't sound hard... go look at reaction_other.txt for how Make Mead is tag-coded. Replace the honey (and jug) reagent requirements with say...

Code: [Select]
[REAGENT:A:1:MEAT:CREATURE_MAT:GOBLIN:SPLEEN]

The "A" part might not be required. Do experiment and tell us of the results.
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Military Training EXP Analysis
Congrats, Psieye. This is the first time I've seen a derailed thread get put back on the rails.
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