Is it me, or is this new version significantly more difficult? Not that I'm complaining; it just makes "Interesting" events more frequent
My current fortress, which has also been my most successful this version is great fun.
Things are slightly more forgiving now I've lowered vampire causes in world gen, but the constant flood of migrants adds a desperate urgency to things.
I got lucky with this 4x4 site; flat apart from TWO volcanoes (one open mouthed, the other covered with a small hill), a river source, wooded, flux, hematite, tetrahedrite, galena, gold and a smattering of platinum.
So I dig in fully intending to exploit the magma and hematite in order to get a proper working military. Things start okay, but the migrant waves just won't. Let. UP.
It's not that I can't cope with migrants; it's that I set them to work so efficiently, well, they generate a lot of wealth very quickly :E
The first visitor was a minotaur. Thankfully, my dodge trap over magma worked to sterling effect, and only a couple of stragglers got caught. But then the Snatchers came
in force. Literally one every 10 seconds for about ten minutes until BAM, ambushed by marks-goblins. I must have lost 15 children to snatchers, resulting in widespread dwarf misery. The arragobs made short work of another 10 or so dwarves, and a flaw in my dodge trap became evident: the end opened up in to my main fortress, providing no cover for the hapless dwarves inside.
I dug in and weathered it out until the gobboes got bored and wandered off.
I still hadn't managed to exploit the riches of my fortress beyond carving out the magma channels and churning out a stream of crappy rock crafts.
Tentatively, I let the dwarves back out of the fort to bury the dead and gather socks.
However, I was periodically being raided by more and more ambushes, resulting in frequent retreats to the underground burrow. On the bright side, this reminded me that children should be confined to the burrow AT ALL TIMES.
A Weretapir appeared and proved to be possibly the most ineffectual enemy ever. He came snarling to the fortress (do Tapirs snarl?), and just as I sent my battered and beaten military to what I expected was their doom, he transformed back into an elf and scarpered.
"RAAAAAAR! YOU SHALL KNOW WHY YOU FEAR THE..." *SPLORT* "Whoops! Bye!".
It was at this point I resorted to a somewhat cheap but effective tactic. I decided that damn it all to hell, if I'm going to be constantly attacked, IMMA BUILD A WALL.
Halfway through, a giantess appeared, chased a mason around the map, then tried to follow him into the fort and fell prey to the dodge trap.
Well at least SOMETHING works in this hellhole.
Things calmed down for a bit, and I started levelling off the hillock covering the second volcano. Don't ask why. I think it breaks the uniformity of the map or something.
With children confined to the burrow and the dodge trap catching those more sneaky assailants, I had a bit of room to breathe. To grow complacent.
A human caravan appeared, lead by a Fox Fiend diplomat who they swore was a god. He seemed friendly enough, although I was wary of his deadly gas. He chatted to my mayor, complimented our achievements, and then a vile force of darkness arrived.
"Oho!", thinks I, "We have a GOD on our side!".
Yeah, but he was a bit shit.
The gobboes got to the end of the dodge trap, and Mr. Fox Fiend charged at them, but somehow ended up in the magma. He then proceeded to sit in the magma, angrily and continuously trying to kill the gobboes with his gas attack, which actually proved to be not that deadly at all really.
So in resignation, I sent some dwarves to attack the gobboes, which with a rare stroke of luck actually drew them into the fortress and into the dodge trap, breaking the siege!
YAY!
Or not.
See, the Fox Fiend decided he'd been in our crappy fortress far too long at that point and decided to go berserk.
Now while he proved to be a bit crap in combat, his hardiness and persistence, combined with a military consisting of raw recruits meant he wreaked havoc for a good few weeks, disrupting dwarves going for a drink and killing any military sent at him purely through dint of being a hard bastard to kill. While his deadly gas wasn't really that deadly, he'd stay alive so long that he was bound to get in some lucky hits.
Red down arrows flashed throughout the fortress as friends and family died to this rampaging not-really-a-deity.
But Lady Luck must be smiling on me. The ongoing fight spilled into an already exploited galena vein, and some hasty masonry allowed my dwarves to wall the crazed diplomat in. He sits there to this day raging at nothing in particular.
Things are getting back to a reasonable semblance of normality; dwarves distraught at the deaths of those near and dear have either gone crazy and died or gone berserk and been killed. The necropolis housing my fortress dead continues to grow into a thing of glory; restless spirits are restless no more. We have completed the curtain wall and are working on replicating the dodge trap as the only entrance to the compound. Steel production is in full swing, and we're beginning to see the beginnings of a professional military (finally!).
Even our latest "Unwelcome Guest" seems rather tame, being an Elf. I'm not sure if it's the return of the Weretapir or just an angry treehugger come to berate us for letting his comrades die in our hellhole. He's just wandering around outside the wall at the moment. I think I'll leave him there for the time being.
Now I think would be a good time to start a danger room
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Topic: What's going on in your fort? (Read 6213085 times)