Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

Our uniform shall be blood (red)

0 (0%)

Danger room training shall be forbidden.

0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 0

Voting closed: April 02, 2013, 10:22:42 am

[Urist McKiwi]

Diary of Urist McKiwi III, Dashing Swordsdwarf
6th Felsite

As I sit most dashingly here in my office above the magma sea, the state of affairs above me is all rather excellent. Work proceeds slower than originally planned, but it does proceed. A second minecart track for the corpse-disposal system is being assembled out of spare microcline. Fantastic stuff, microcline. The engineers are over-worked though, and a lack of mechanisms is holding up the construction of new bridges and traps. Furthermore, the blacksmiths have outright vanished....not a good sign for my equipment programs, but I feel the CDS is rather more important than steel armor. The smell here has always been appalling, but of late it's been even worse than usual.

12th Felsite

A seige! Five squads of goblins approach the fortress. I have sounded the alarm and ordered the militia to set up positions near the entrances while they are sealed off. Because the bridges were not connected, I fear I will have to abandon the outer compound for now.

13th Felsite

The gates are still not closed. People running around like headless chickens instead of pulling levers. No one even knows where the lever for the Shroud of Armok is. There are elite bowgoblins out there...if they get past the traps and into the fortress, they'll cause serious casualties. And to make matters even better, another godless spawn of the underworld has arrived in the caverns.

The goblins are in the outer compound now....if the bridges don't go up soon, it'll be down to the military to keep them out long enough to cut a path to the levers...

....the goblins cross the bridge, and the marksdwarves open fire. As the goblins charge us, the counterwierght for the bridge shoots down, scattering the goblins into the moat. Half a squad of swordsgoblins made it in, however. Looks like it's time for some dashingness!

15th Felsite

We lost two soldiers in the battle. I didn't make it in time to help out. Pity. Still, we've got 4 more squads and a bunch of trolls to take care of. The marksdwarves are heading up the towers to try sniping a few of them. Only one squad is going to have any cover, but it's worth a try until I can work out how to power up that accursed Shroud. The smoke from the dead goblins wafts through the compound.....even though the goblins have taken the far bank, we still have the upper hand.


.....apart from the fact that two squads are now out of range of the Shroud. Hmmph. I think I'll move the archers a little closer....


21st Felsite

It's now too late to fire the Shroud....the goblins have taken the courtyard. But our archers and marksdwarves are putting a dent in their numbers. McDonald's tower is useless, the floor was never finished. I have ordered its construction once the battle is over, but for now the moat tower will do. Steel bolts do a number on goblins, but the trolls are moving in for the livestock....and we need those animals to bait out the hungry goblins. if only we....

"Sir! Sir!"
"What? What is it?"
" The emu, sir! It's GONE WILD!
"......what...."
"Gone wild, sir! Tried to bite poor Iden! You can see the hate in its-"
"GET OUT OF MY SIGHT, YOU FOOL! I'VE GOT A ARMOK-DAMNED ARMY OUT-ahem. Dashing...dashing.... Yes. Yes. I'll deal with it. Later. Now..um...go make some helmets. If you'd be so kind."



------------------------

Righto chaps. Anyone able to point me towards the lever for this magma cannon thingie?


Basically, the plan I've got to deal with these guys has two parts. FIrst, I need the Shroud to work. I'll set fire to the forest (*sigh*.......again), which will either kill them or drive them into the upper part of the outer compound (which we've lost). Meanwhile, the two archer squads will take to McDonald's Tower and the moat-tower I started in my last turn, and snipe them. Because NotQuiteThere used that compound for livestock, they'll be there for quite some time, so I can ambush them fairly effectively.

Edited Edit to the Edit-Edit: Operation Turkey-Shoot is working according to plan. I suggest we use this tactic in future battles as well. Downside is that we now have sheep (and goblins) stuck on top of the walls. But on the plus side, we have sheep and goblins stuck on top of the walls with stationed marksdwarves nearby.

[CaptainArchmage]

The levers are in New Townbrush. I mean seriously? They are even labeled!

[Urist McKiwi]

The levers are in New Townbrush. I mean seriously? They are even labeled!

Ah, that room full of levers. At the other end of the fortress to where the weapon is.

Edit: A few tweaks to the burrows and alerts, and the Shroud has fired. It's not likely to do much, mind...the overgrowth hasn't recovered from the last fire yet, and most of the goblins are climbing over the walls and getting shot to hell by the militia.

Edit2: ooh, this is going to be a fun update. The Shroud was ultimately useless (also there's a serious risk of us setting ourselves on fire with that thing if we don't tweak it some time) because there's no vegetation...our militia, on the other hand, did very well. Our fortress is actually very well set up for dealing with sieges.

[CaptainArchmage]

Magma-based weapons have declined since the zombies-don't-die-in-fire update. Based on the lets plays that I have read, they were also reduced in usefulness by the 3D version. We really need a way to properly flood a map in lava these days.

[Urist McKiwi]

Magma-based weapons have declined since the zombies-don't-die-in-fire update. Based on the lets plays that I have read, they were also reduced in usefulness by the 3D version. We really need a way to properly flood a map in lava these days.

Well we *could* channel away everything except the edge of the map so it pools everywhere. But frankly our militia would still be faster....in this battle, even though we lost maybe 4 dwarves (2 civilians, plus a couple of soldiers who were part of the 5-strong group that had to see off about 8 goblin melee troops in close combat after the bridge closed), we wiped out all bar about 3-5 goblins. For future reference, here's how to wipe out a siege with our current defenses ( I may do a diagram later):


1. Make sure we've got livestock pastured in the top part of the outer compound. This is our "killzone", and we need to draw the hapless invading army into position so we can shoot them. We *could* use cheesemakers, but we're short on those.
2. When danger comes, evacuate civilians to the inside-fortress area and the underground area (our alerts are kinda broken for now, I'll see about fixing some of them later), and close both bridges across the moat once people are inside (there's a handy lever room on the surface for doing this)...leave the bridge in the outer compound wall open though.
3. Station marksdwarves in the two towers (I only used one, because DuckThatQuacks never considered such luxuries as 'floors' to be essential to snipers)
4. Move melee squads to near the gate.
5. The invasion will be drawn to the scent of goats and turkeys and stuff, then get shot to bits by the archers. If you're really lucky, some animals will take to the walls and you can wipe out a squad or two as they clamber around up there.
6. When they try to flee, lower the bridge to the outer compound. Once I've got the darn thing rebuilt and linked up, it will also be possible to use the outer-wall bridge to seal the way out.
7. Kill. Everything. This is quite easy, because the enemy is by this stage worn down, injured, vomiting and running for their lives. So it's a bunch of 1v1 and 3v1-in-our-favour battles.


This tactic works wonders for training soldiers in the gritty art of real combat. We gained another elite marksdwarf this time, and a bunch of named dwarves (Urist the Grey II, Sebastian Flyte, Me) got quite a lot of kills...as well as our royal spearmaster, who is honestly slighty scary. When I get the new armor and weapons out of the forges, they'll be even better.

Edit: Oh yes. While it worked OK for me, using the drawbridges to dump entire squads into the moat is not advised.

[Triaxx2]

Works better if you drop the enemy squads in.

[Urist McKiwi]

Works better if you drop the enemy squads in.

Actually it doesn't. The response time is long enough that you get half a squad of axe-goblins coming across before they get killed. We lost all bar one of our casualties there. That said, I do have an idea to make it possible to actually drop things in lava safely and effectively.

Edit:  Hmm. This idea may actually work. May not be a good idea for everything, but if I can just get enough masons and architects set up, it shall become very dangerous indeed to move around the map. Downside being that it may also be a deathtrap for our workers. I'll do some more planning then update later today with what's been going on IC.

[Urist McKiwi]

Diary of Urist McKiwi III, Dashing Swordsdwarf

18th Hematite

It's been a long season. The siege went surprisingly well. Sure, we lost dwarves, but then my tactical genius trapped the invaders and routed them. With the goblins and trolls chasing after livestock in the upper compound, I sent the marksdwarves to the towers to pick them off. It was a bloodbath, but the only casualty on our side was on of our marksdwarves taking an arrow to the gut. If our doctors stop drinking, cooking and dabbling in masonry and actually treat him and the other wounded..he may just survive. My colleagues and I in the military were most dashing....when the invaders realised their folly and made to escape, I had the drawbridge thrown down and we waited for them. A few escaped.....with luck they will tell their kin not to trifle with Moltenchannels in future.

Sadly, the calm was not to last, as a forgotten beast erupted from a stairwell north of the fortress and caused several casualties. Apparently this was part of Nurse Cutie's "brilliant plan" of last year which resulted in so much carnage around the fortress. Given we're still alive though, I can't really fault her for her efforts. I do wish she'd left me a note about it though. Anyway...since I cannot seem to get any specific item made in this fortress, I've ordered another bridge built on top of it so we can control what comes out from below. In the meantime, the military will stand guard. I'm off visiting the wounded, assuring them that, eventually, the doctors will stop "chasing the crundle" and get on with actually treating them. Not all that dashing as dashingness goes, but an important part of being a dashing hero such as myself. Besides, I owe them for their aid in battle....even though I've been smiting riff-raff and ruffians left, right and center....it is an important lesson that one learns early in ones career of dashingness that going into battle alone is never a good idea. Unless you're that speardwarf in the Royal Fist...."Adil".....she waited around the corner of the walls as the goblins fled, then impaled them one by one as they passed. I am proud to stand beside such talent when I fight. Preferably well behind such talent as well, well out of range of that spear.

A thought came to me the other day while hacking at the beast.....we destroyed an entire squad of goblins by throwing them into the moat. Admittedly, we also lost 4 dwarves because of the ones we didn't get, with several more injured. But still.....that kind of ability would be useful if we could just control it better. Now how would we do that? I think I'll have a word with some of our engineers about it....once the corpse-hurler is finished, of course.

Equipment procurement proceeds very slowly. I've ordered some novices to take up the forges. I don't care if our armor is built by an idiot with a spade, as long as it can stop an arrow. Or a stinger. How does a crystal humanoid thing have poison anyway?

I had really hoped this fortress would give me some peace when I came to power. It seems though that every time a McKiwi takes charge of this place, all hell breaks loose.

[Triaxx2]

Heh, I meant as opposed to dropping your own squads.

I actually had, during my first turn set up traps along the one wide bridges formed by the interaction of water and lava. You might consider using those to shred the gobbos.

[Urist McKiwi]

Heh, I meant as opposed to dropping your own squads.

I actually had, during my first turn set up traps along the one wide bridges formed by the interaction of water and lava. You might consider using those to shred the gobbos.

Right now I'm more worried about FBs...that stairwell from the depths has no security at all. The goblins are mincemeat, and that's *before* I started re-equipping the militia with better gear (which...is still painfully slow. May not be able to get that done within the year). Between the latest FB and the goblins though, we've lost a few soldiers and even more of them are sitting in McUrist's General Hospital (Sponsored by McUrists Family Restaurants!) resting their injuries and waiting for our surgeons and doctors to stop screwing around and actually diagnose/treat them.


May I also say I am really darn glad I built McUrist's General earlier in the year, because that was a seriously good move. It's a state-of-the-art-apart-from-not-having-a-decon-system hospital built near the original McUrists (and McDonald's tomb). I'm still hoping to have a second hospital built in New Townbrush before the end of the year, which *will* have a decon system.

My first plan for lava-traps was to set up more lava channels....minimum of ~5 tiles wide. One at the top of the map, one at the bottom. Then I'd use bridges to cross them (or set up dodge-me traps). Pull a lever, drop the enemy squad into the moat. I don't really have the dwarfpower to do that, sadly.

THe second plan was to just use walls to force some of the squads to cross a bridge (again, either retractable or using a dodge-me system) that goes over the volcano itself. I may still do that, but I'm worried about magma crabs/fire imps sniping the builders.


Edit: Oh, and if you thought I had a lot of blood in my last turn, the fortress exterior is currently painted a wonderful shade of vomit mixed with blood mixed with other blood mixed with ash from the fires. And magma from the SHroud that's still not cooled enough to make working around it safe, not that this is stopping the dwarves.


And the third plan I've just had? The Shroud of Armok may be useless unless you fire it at exactly the right time of year (after the regrowth from the previous forest fire is good enough to catch alight again, but before the semi-annual fire we get anyway).....but it's right next to the tunnel to the caverns. This is possibly the worst idea ever, but it's probably possible to modify the terrain under the weapon so that, in addition to setting the world on fire, it also floods the caverns with lava every time it's fired.

[CaptainArchmage]

During the first turn I took, I installed some magma pumps in the depths for a trap. You can probably still use them.

[Urist McKiwi]

Diary of Urist McKiwi III, Dashing Swordsdwarf

2nd Malachite

Disaster! Yet another forest fire started by the volcano. This time, it trapped a group of citizens and burned them to death. That makes 15 deaths this year, all up. Not good for my re-election chances, and most undashing! I fear it is time to abandon the outside and focus on securing our outer compound.....no merchants come here any more, neither do migrants. So it's not as if we're missing anything this way.

Meanwhile, a zombie broke into the underground and attacked a child. I don't know how....there must be a gap in our walls. Our hospital is going to be overrun at this rate, even assuming the accursed doctors and that fool of a nurse actually deign to treat their patients for once....

Undead below, fires above. Aint life in Moltenchannels fantastic?



10th Malachite

The fire burned itself out in short order...the landscape is so desolate even the fires are giving up. I'm not going to allow anyone out to retrive the bodies just yet....it's just too dangerous out there. The channel for the Shroud modification has been dug to an extent....I've no idea if it will actually work. Only one way to find out, I suppose. I'll order a short burst.

The equipment orders are finally being taken by the smiths.....now if only I can get our doctors to start working....the fire has caused even more injuries.


14th malachite

At last, Nurse Cutie took a look at my fallen men and burned citizens. It's not looking good. 4 dwarves with nerve damage. They'll probably never walk again. That includes one of the fresh faces in the Royal Fist... At least they're alive, I suppose. Still.... It's hard to be dashing when the young ones are dying for it.

The new minecart track has been a failure. I don't know what's wrong with it, but the dwarves tell me it won't work. They won't tell me why it won't work......just that it won't work. Fantastic. I suppose I'll have to command another fantastically successful battle before they'll deign to let me know what's going on. I'm a dashing swordsdwarf...if I had less class I'd have the option of threatening people. For one of my class (and dashingness) there's far too few options for getting things done around the place.

THat said....preparations have been made for the latest test of the Shroud of Armok. The results will be interesting, regardless of whether my ideas have merit...
Fortunately, some migrants arrived before the firing. Only two of them though. THere's some creepy chap hanging out on the edge of the field though.....we waved at them to come in before the fires start, but they ignored us. The two migrants said they hadn't even talked for the whole trip. Ah well. Their funeral, I guess.

19th Malachite
The test was a failure, but not because of any flaw in my idea. The Shroud has a fatal flaw in its positioning....at present, most of the flow is directed into the magma moat. I think that by creating a wall on the other side, it will be possible to redirect the flow further north. This will make the Shroud a far more effective weapon, as well as reducing the risk of an overflow in the moat. I may not be able to do this before my term in office is over, I fear...but I think it is the only way the Shroud can become an effective weapon.

Some of the invalids are learning to walk on crutches. I've released the poor young recruit from military service. We just need that new bridge built....and we might finally have some peace on the surface.

------

Editing this as I go.

So my new cart track is broken somehow, but I don't know what I've done wrong. Someone in the future will need to take a look at that. Everything's ready for it....but it's not working.

The shroud is actually seriously fatally flawed....it just dumps lava into the moat. But if we do direct the flow to the north, it should become far more useful at starting fires and burning stuff. But I am not sending dwarves up there, because the last 3-4 times I've done that, we've had things go wrong and kill them.

I'll update again later on, need to switch off and revise for my EIA test tomorrow.

[Triaxx2]

Did you build up/down ramps? And remember to assign a mine cart?

[Urist McKiwi]

Did you build up/down ramps? And remember to assign a mine cart?

I had thought so, but it kept telling me the track wasn't connected when I was trying to assign the minecart. I'll dismantle the ramps and rebuild them, see if that does anything. We're in no hurry, I built a massive corpsepile on the other side of the fortress and told it to give to the minecart-stockpile (it's almost invisible from outside the fortress so while i is a problem if we get necromancers, that's easily fixable. And more fun. More importantly, it's getting all the crud out of the fort and away from our dining rooms for the time being. And the other minecart is working at a reasonable rate...the new one is just supposed to increase the dump rate.

Edit:
Things have gone rather interestingly wrong.


Short version of events: AAAAaaAAAAAAAAAaaaaAAAAAAAAAAaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAH!!!!!

Long version:Another seige turned up the second I moved dwarves out for body-recovery.....and the evac didn't work. We lost soldiers and vital civilians who got left behind.......and then our marksdwarves got hammered when only three of them went into the towers to take on a full squad of bowgoblins+some elites. When I ordered them up there the speardwarves decided to go up instead.

Maybe 5-10 deaths or so. I'm not sure yet.

[CaptainArchmage]

Can you provide pictures of what the aboveground looks like? I'm interested.