RIVER? WE DON'T NEED NO STINKING RIVER!
You could use magma as well, of which we have an abundance of EVERYWHERE.

So basically we do this the same way I played my first 2-3 successful DF games?
I'd like a turn please.

oooo I'd like to have a pinch in this game!

I'll give it a shot. No one-tile traps, but pressure plates, levers, magma cannons, drowning chambers, and stuff like that ARE allowed, right?

Yep, those are allowed. And encouraged.

Alright, let's get this party started.

Partying. Partying. Yeah.

I have two hopes for this fortress.

The first is that it becomes a safe, prosperous and well-run place for dwarves to raise children and have fulfilling careers. Since this is Dwarf Fortress, this hope will of course never be realized.

My second hope is that its death, while postponed as long as possible, is horrifying, unpredicted, pointless, avoidable, disillusioning, destructive, disturbing, and hilarious. This hope, fortunately, probably will be realized.

Here's where we'll be going. I know I originally wanted badlands, but when I saw this baby I changed my mind. It has access to all four races, it's completely flat, it's a major river, it's warm, it's got trees. Everything I've been hoping for in an embark.


Now, I have a plan for defenses. I want to get it off the ground pretty quickly, so here's who and what we're bringing:

3 proficient miners.
3 proficient masons.
1 adequate grower/brewer/carpenter/woodcutter/herbalist. He takes care of the others while they work on the project.

3 copper picks. Can't live without 'em!
A wooden training ax for the woodcutter.
50 of each type of booze.
20 of each type of seed save for dimple cups. If you want those, order them later.
45 various foods. We'll have the draft animals butchered for extra meat if necessary.
A few war dogs and some female dogs for breeding; two male cats for the pests; two guineahens and a guineacock.
And that's it. Oh, and an anvil.

And what shall this bastion of dwarvenkind be named?

...Incestchained. Incestchained. Dammit, RNG. Well, there's no use restarting now, so Incestchained it shall be.

Well, there's nothing for it but to....strike the earth!


Alright, so here's my defense plan. All merchants or invaders will have to go through a zig-zaggy maze of floor hatches across the river. If they happen to step on the pressure plate at the end, all their buddies  fall into the river. I'm not sure what'll happen to the guy who steps on the pressure plate. But I don't plan to get any invaders this year, so that's your problem.

Also, the top stone seems to be obsidian. That means no coal. If you want some, piss off the elves and make charcoal.

So, defenses. Better get started on those. First things first, however: booze, the most important thing in life. By 18th Granite, we have a place to put what we have and the capacity to make more.
So now, we have to dig out the obsidian layer below that. I'm going to train up the miners a bit first- get a future tree farm dug out a bit on the level of the river. By mid-Slate, they're all accomplished level, and the future farm's been dug out, so they toddled off for a drink, and I felt good about having the first level of obsidian dug out. Ordinarily I'd wait 'till they're legendary, but... I only have a year and want to make the most of it. I build a mason's workshop and set it to build hatch covers on repeat.

28th Slate: I've decided that the workshop isn't as close to the building site as I would like. I have that fixed. I do the same with the food. It won't be as pretty, but it's a hell of a lot more efficient. It's basically right underneath the building site.

23rd Felsite:

Well shit.

See those two dwarves? Those are masons, in their last moments. Well, dammit. They're both friends with the expedition leader and each other. Hopefully the expedition leader won't go crazy. As for the disaster itself, it's something that future leaders should keep in mind. Even if you can build just one square of a section of wall, you can designate the whole section. What happened was that hatches give dwarves somewhere to stand but no support, so dwarves were able to build walls with nothing supporting them, which instantly collapsed. Build the walls one square at a time.

Well, he might. Hopefully not. I'll have a bed and a bedroom built for him.

By summer, the project's starting to take off:


10th Hematite: Dammit. My jack-of-all trades went on break and the expedition leader had to sleep in the rain. I really hope he doesn't go crazy. He doesn't have any more friends, so it wouldn't be the end of the world, but he is my last mason. We could use some spare labour. And, on 20th Hematite (unusually early for the summer migration...)

We get:

-A woman who claims to be an "accomplished engraver". After engraving my expedition leader's bedroom, she'll work in masonry.
-An herbalist who can also do a bit of cooking. I'll let him do some odd farming jobs.
-A novice siege engineer. A potential grunt work mason if I ever saw one.

And a stray mule foal. We'll have it butchered.

By 10th Malachite, the project has progressed a bit:
In addition, the expedition leader's bedroom has been dug out and fully engraved. I am pleased to report that the engraver seems to enjoy creating images of elves being struck down. She shall be the second to receive a bedroom, if I get around to it this year. A true dwarf indeed. Also, we're starting to run low on food (though thankfully not on booze), so I had the immigrant farmer butcher the mule foal he brought.

15th Galena: The expedition leader is fine now, so we can safely assume that giving him a pointlessly luxurious bedroom with murals of dead elves has averted disaster.

24th Galena: Remember those dead masons?


This could be a problem.

Oh look, autumn has arrived on the calendar. That means my turn is half done, and also that the caravan will arrive soon. Since I never made anything for them, I'll just build a depot and deconstruct it to take their stuff.

19th Limestone:

We get an adequate furnace operator (have him start gem setting), a stoneworker (hurrah!), a potter (I'll make him a stonecrafter), a miner (OK), a jack-of-all-trades farmer who can also fish (I'll leave him to that, without the fishing), a bone carver (you can start cutting gems, bozo), and a hell of a lot of baby llamas.


18th Timber:

I'll order some dimple cup seeds just in case anybody ever feels like starting up a clothing establishment. I'll also order...hmm, we're pretty self-sufficient, but booze is never a bad thing to order. Or leather, for that matter. So I'll ask for booze and some leather. As for the merchants themselves, if they believe they'll return with any sort of profit this year they are unfortunately mistaken, as I have nothing to give them. They'll have to live with having the depot deconstructed on them and our taking their stuff.

26th Timber: We've finally gotten to the corner of the wall. A word on construction here. If you try to continue to plow it over with just hatches, fine, you can do that, but you'll have to put some scaffolding below and frankly it's a pain in the ass to do that. Besides, goblins'll go diagonally when possible anyways. So do this with a square of floor, like so:



4th Moonstone: I successfully used Marxist dialectic to deconstruct sexism. Wait, no. I successfully used the dwarves to deconstruct the depot. Lots of booze, food and assorted knick-knacks.

2nd Opal: Winter's passing uneventfully. I'd just like to note that work continues and we've got a food surplus.

24th Opal: I finally got a primitive finished goods/jewelry industry set up, so we'll see how that goes. I still haven't made bedrooms.

28th Opal: My expedition leader's been so busy that only now can he talk to the liaison. As noted, I'm ordering dimple cup seeds, booze and a not huge amount of cheap leather. They always bring more leather than you need when you order it. In return, they're willing to pay extra for cheese, plants, rock figurines, leather waterskins, refined coal (does that refer to charcoal in addition to coke?), windows, handwear, seeds, thread and crutches. Whatever.


And...done. Here's the save.
And here's a picture of the project as it stands.
You'll note that it's all made out of obsidian, with a few hornblende pieces (which are the same colour). There are non-obsidian/hornblende hatch covers. I never used them- I'm a bit OCDish about colour. I wanted all black. If you want it not to be all black, go ahead.
Also, that other mason became a ghost at some point. They've been pretty good ghosts and haven't done anybody any harm.

Verdict: I could have done better. I killed off two of our masons due to poor planning, didn't have anything to trade, only set up any non-survival-related industries towards the very end of the year. I was able to feed the dwarves, at least, but they still don't have bedrooms and we haven't busted into the caverns. Oh well. It survived, and nobody's going to starve (we've about 400 booze and aren't slouching on food either).

Next overseer or overseers: Can you try to continue the project? Remember that it should zig-zag from the wall on the west of the map to the one on the east and back again, with a wall seperating the hatch rows so goblins can't mix. Beyond that, try and put in some walls around the periphery of the map- as far to the east, north, west and south as you can- I think it's 5 tiles away from the edge. Goblins will eventually only be able to enter through the south end of the map, zig-zag across the river and die. It might be wise to turn invaders off until we have all this set up. I have no qualms about doing that. You might.

Mass ballistae allowed?

I'd say yes although I'm pretty sure there are more efficient/effective methods of defending a fortress that don't require us to waste all of our wood and metal on bolts

Holy carp, that hatches thing is quite a project! But how is it supposed to work? You link them ALL to single lever or what? That should keep mechanic very busy forever.