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[StrikaAmaru]

I was wondering that too; couldn't find any data about it.

...

Now I want to doom some poor embark just to see what happens in the next one.

------
Edit: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Circus.

I generated a pocket world, and embarked in a ruin with the sole aim of digging straight to a spire and releasing the circus. This world had two ruins, both in range of a tower. I pick the closest, solely because it's named OpenBook.

My first hint of unusual happenings was in the "strike the earth" message - it listed "soldiers of Eman" instead of something more reasonable, such as wolves, lions, or bears.

My second hint was when the seven designated sacrifices miners have arrived, and some other individuals were already loitering in the outdoor tavern; no big deal, eh? Except they weren't any normal sapients; their species was "the sacred safety", they're listed as hostiles, and I'm pretty sure they're all necromancers.

Oh! A sudden human corpse! Ok, let's enlist everybody and kill it. And let's ignore the hostile Sacred Safety, the game acts weird on reclaims, and there's no need investing in an embark that'll soon go down in flames anyway.

The lone Sacred Safety is soon joined by four more of its buddies. I wasn't paying enough attention to tell you if they're from inside the fortress, or if they popped from the border; there were some visitor announcements that I ignored beyond a perfunctory "you poor doomed fools".

Soon, there are two new zombies, one of which is a plague ghoul, opposed to all life. A dwarf dies, and matters swiftly deteriorate from here. The fledgling militia is called again, but it's too late - the undead outnumber and overpower the living, and OpenBook falls again, though not in the way I intended.

The second embark was in the other ruin, whose name I don't even remember. This one is plagued by more decent beasts, namely cougars. We're met at the entrance of the ruins by a mad, hostile king; he is put down with little incident. Then the digging has begun, a spire has been located at the bottom of the world, and the goal of this exercise has been achieved. Demons are loose upon the world of Sil Kodor.

[Edit2, two weeks later: Sil Kodor got its own thread. Hopefully, it ends with something other than a whisper)

[delphonso]

Would releasing demons have an effect on other sites?

Only making raiding the old site terrible, I guess. I feel like the demons can travel around, but that doesn't seem to be the case actually.

[Salmeuk]

Alright, I've finally read through all your turn summaries. Apparently I was a FOOL not to consider swimming. I did consider pump operating, but I didn't believe it would work. A fool, indeed.

I also found out that dwarves were very creative in escaping from a swimming pool. They climbed up wells, escaped through locked doors, scaled impossible walls etc etc. It all spiraled out of control and ended with the water turning red from blood, after someone snapped. It is a good thing this alternative reality no longer exists.

Imagine that scene: a dank room full of soggy dwarves, who have been continuously treading water for 3 weeks. Then, blood! Someone's been murdered! The dwarves are screaming and climbing up the walls just to survive.

Dwarves only climb for two reasons: when it concerns their personal safety, or more importantly, their ability to drink booze.

For this year, we were in the extremely unusual situation of having the already legendary dwarves do most of the hauling, while the low-skilled ones were either crafting, or training for the military.

I was in that situation for my turn, and it kind of threw me for a loop. I kept savescumming because I would open the caverns and that damn UNDEAD OGRE TROLL CORPSE would run up and thwack all my legendaries, who for some unknown reason felt compelled to spelunk 50z levels into a dark fungal cavern with no weapons or plan. Usually I don't care about haulers, they are expendable, you know? Not this year.

After reading your comments, I believe majority would like to stay with the current embark, until we can have a proper send-off round. Let's say we'll call it after the end of the 7th round, unless otherwise influenced by ya'll.

Afterwards, we should reset with a smaller embark, something like a 2x3 plot, selected from the same world as Numbercurse.

I'll change my vote to sticking with the current fort a bit longer. If we are moving later on, it might be a good idea to try some challenges now that will only work with this map, something undead related perhabs.  how many individually caged undead you can gather, or how many dead units you can accumulate in the units list, or maybe for the final turn, something related to the spoilers below.

A very good idea indeed. Indeed. It's true that this embark is blessed with many . . . options.

I find the only real annoyance with earlygame is the the migrants casino.

If dwarves number is a problem, remember we have the dfhack option to embark with more than 7dorfs

Another way to reduce the migrants casino is to start with a low popcap and increase each year.

Both these ideas have merit. It would be interesting to start at max pop, so there is NO randomness with the workforce, unless the player chooses to purge the ranks. Bunch of fascists, aren't we? lol anyways starting with 80 would give a HUGE head start to the first year. Like a fresh canvas. .

However, the randomness in migrant skill makes it interesting, to a degree. Avoiding the hell that is savescumming for the best RNG is a tough one, though. What if I limited savescumming to thrice per year? Obviously extending trust onto you folks even further, but it would make when to savescum into a strategic decision, one that would affect your turn. By declaring savescums, as is sort of the practice right now, we would be able to police it.


I'm still trying to wrap my head around what makes a good challenge. What have been everyone's favorites so far? If you had to pick one round of the 5? Any that you hated?
 

[Bralbaard]

Would releasing demons have an effect on other sites?

Only making raiding the old site terrible, I guess. I feel like the demons can travel around, but that doesn't seem to be the case actually.

I think they can if they become historical figures. Some people in the museum game were ambushed by demons, I'm not sure if those demons were released in world-gen, or in player fortresses, because that happened as well.
New fortresses should be unaffected though and even if a demon would visit, it wouldn't be much different from a titan or megabeast attack.

[delphonso]

I quite enjoyed the boozeathon - which I think was enjoyable because it was easy, and so was about one-upping each other at something everyone was succeeding in.

Most expensive item was a different sort of enjoyable in that it taught me a good bit about how the game works, but was disappointing when overshadowed by adamantine sawblades.

What about around 40 at embark (which is a solid number, but not too many that it might cause starvation issues) then RNG afterwards?

As someone who hasn't savescummed much and also hasn't won, less save scumming only benefits me, so I vote yes.

[Spriggans]

I'm 100% for limiting savescums. When I won my turn, I savescummed at least 30 times. Each time a bad zombie roll happened basically...

Vesh-run was good because it was year 1.
I liked the booze run, because it required lots of farms, hence lots of room, and the fortress was looking different with all that.
I liked the idea of "points" with the weapons run too. With more players, it could have been very fun, but being only 3 killed the Meta. (and Strika was just too good)
The decoration run I think was bad. Because of adamantine auto-win.
And the legendary run was good. But maybe swimers/pumps could have been banned.

[Salmeuk]

Salmeuk's Turn:

Ah, yes, the important moment where I tell you how m turn went. Essentially, I had the same game plan as Strika, where I tallied up existing skill and sort of left each dwarf to their respective roles, hoping and praying I could provide enough raw material neccesary to skill up by year's end. This was particularly worthwhile with our weaponsmiths, as we had a bunch around 7 or 8 skill, and plenty of material and facilities to give them work. In fact, this was so successful a skill at leveling dwarves, that I wish I had assigned even more dwarves to this profession, as it was only mid-summer when all existing weaponsmiths had popped. Of course, I was not willing to savescum after having lost progress to a second crash. ALAS.

 Everyone who I thought wouldn't reach legendary in their existing skill was given a pickaxe, and told to DIG DIG DIG DIG DIG DIG DIG and so on and so forth until they popped legendary. This worked alright, as excluding two, all 25 dwarves or so that were assigned to mining popped by the end of the year. Surprising, honestly, considering the skill nerf, but I think mining is a very fast skill to level as each 'job' is a single tile of stone, with zero time spent acquiring material and whatnot. If only the children could be made to mine. 

The only real change I feel like sharing was the fact I covered our dining room in gems:



My final score was 53 legendary dwarves.


Applet's Turn:

Upon opening the save, I am greeting with this disgusting muddy pile of trash and dwarf:


The place where legends are made

Can I be a little miffed that THIS was the route to unlocking our dwarves legendary potential? Just a little?

Nothing else has changed about the fortress. Just that one little room. What horrors took place in there? The dwarves all refer to each other as 'legendary swimmers', but are we supposed to take their word for it when the only place they can show their skill is a dirty mudpit full of rotting plump helmets?

These so-called legendaries are nothing but a bunch of frauds! I'll see to it that the Council on Legendary Skill hears of this. Do you know the punishment for fraudulent claims of legendary skill, if prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law? death i tell you DEATH.

. . .

Oh, you say that these dwarves flash every few seconds? Well, nevermind then - obviously they are legendary. What fool would think otherwise?

Applets final score was 71 legendary dwarves. Applet has earned the title "Minimalist" for their use of a muddy trash pit (equivalent to that scene from StarWars where they fall into a trash compactor) to turn 50 odd dwarves legendary.

StrikaAmaru's Turn:

A large trap corridor is seen on the surface, perhaps foreshadowing for challenges to come?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

A half-finished individually-roomed masoleum of sorts can be found further down:



Overall, I get the sense of everything in it's place from this fortress. Not many additions were made, but an overall refinement of existing room flow has occurred here. And the legendary dwarves are actually useful!

Strika's final score was 39 legendary dwarves. Strika has earned the title "Worshipper of Vesh", for their use of Vesh's metallic idols in the creation of a mausoleum.

Bralbaard's Turn:

The best for last, eh? NO, NOT AT ALL, HE IS ANOTHER DIRTY SWIM-WINNER

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

would that be called a swimmer?

, DISRESPECT DISRESPECT

. . .wait what? What is this set of rooms, on level 144? Individual chambers for the roosting turkeys?!



What an hornorable fellow, this one! Magnanimous! Take notes, competitors, this is how you play to win!

Hmm, what's THIS then?




I approach the door to my west. Strained grunting and groaning can be heard from behind, and a foul odor leaks from beneath the frame, halfway between hot dogs and body odor. I enter the room, only to regret it immediately. A majority of the fortress is present in this long, thin hallway. In two rows, mechanical screw pumps have been constructed, and on each sits a sweaty, red-skinned dwarf, churning away at a high-geared spindle that creaks and shudders on each revolution. The dwarves are mostly frail and thin, excluding the arm and shoulder they use to turn the pump: this arm is generally huge and muscular, and threatens to imbalance the dwarves when they walk away from the pumps, which they only seem to do when they are near to death from dehydration.

For what purpose do these dwarves slave over the mechanisms? Who has cursed them to this hell?

. . .


The only non-legendary is Radipon, a fact I find kind of hilarious and saddening at the same time.

Bralbaard's final score was 95, and he will be declared WINNER OF THE FIFTH ROUND. Bralbaard has also earned the title "Legendary," for his ability to turn a fortress 100-strong into double-legendaries in less than a year.

GLORY AND PRAISE TO BRALBAARD! HE HAS WON! WHAT ENVIABLE SKILL IS POSSESSED BY THIS CHAMPION OF CHAMPIONS!

[Salmeuk]

And with that, Round 5 has concluded in entirety. I like to think that Bralbaard's save is the the first chapter in some mad scientists attempt to drain an ocean: An army of swimming pump-operators can only be used for so much. Still, we have literally NOTHING to fear from water, except for total lack of air, which makes me realize that I don't actually know if dwarves literally die from lack of air or from some gamefied drowning mechanic. Is it that simulated?

In any case, much thanks to everyone for the entertaining writeups, which I realize after playing my first actual turn, I enjoy reading the strategies more than actually playing them. Though both are still entertaining, and the latter is necessary for the creation of the former. . alas.

Finally, thanks to Bralbaard for inspiring the scoring method for round 6. I believe this might have been mentioned MUCH earlier in the thread by someone else, when we first discovered the reanimating nature of the southeastern biome. In any case, without further ado:


Undead Zoo! Vesh's demon has whispered in your ear - variety is the spice of Death! Each unique 'species' of caged undead creature is worth a point at the end of the year. (clarification below). High score wins, ties are unlikely and will be dealt with in a democratic fashion.

So, clarification and examples:

1. Species, not kinds. A creature is a creature, regardless of sex or profession. For example, gobbos: A Bowman is the same as a Lasher, and a female goblin is the same as a male goblin.

2. Caged body parts will be counted as representing a member of their original species. So, an undead dwarven hand and an undead dwarven torso are equivalent to a 'complete' undead dwarf. The list of potential 'unique' undead body parts totally dwarfs the list of potentially-acquirable unique species, and would sort of ruin the challenge, since splitting apart a creature or two and caging the results would nullify someone elses concerted effort in capturing, killing, and reanimating a variety of species.

3. Thralls, Husks, Intelligent Undead and other basic varieties of undead will count as the same category and therefore worth the same points as the dead created through reanimation. So if a player had captured an intelligent undead Dwarf, and a Thrall Dwarf, they would only be worth 1 point and not 2. We are unlikely to encounter any other types, AFAIK. Perhaps a captured tavern visitor.

4. Vampire creatures will count as a separate category of undead entirely, for fun, and vampire creatures of varying species will be worth their own points. So, assuming you can capture or create two vampires of different species, you would receive two points. do this it would be legendary


Please reply with questions / clarifications, as you guys have a much better ability to see through the rules than I. We'll run this round for another 2 weeks until December 2, unless early submissions are received from all declared players.

And for now, no changes to savescumming until we reset the embark, but I like the idea more and more of a 3-reset limit. And agreed, I think a starting pop of 40-60 dwarves would make for an interesting play environment. But more on that later!


Save is here! Don't forget to rename or re-dwarf yourselfs if you have become an applet

[StrikaAmaru]

Hoboy. This turn will be !!FUN!!, I suspect everybody will attempt to exploit the caverns. Not even hesitating to say that, it's an obvious course of action.

This may be the round that depends most on luck, instead of skill or planning.

An important question (for me at least): are raids still verbotten for this fort? Because I'd be tempted to go ste - errr acquire. Yes. I'd be tempted to go acquire some unique beasts from our neighbors.

Edit: I've looked at the first page, and there's some odd formatting about the table; Braalbard's row is kinda just piled at the bottom. And given that we seem to have more rounds than players, I'd suggest inverting the rows and columns in the table (I think that's called pivoting?).

[Spriggans]

Sound like a FUN turn !!
Time for some research

[applet]

Are intelligent undead a different species from their base race? E.g. Forlorn ghoul human vs human

[applet]

I'm still trying to wrap my head around what makes a good challenge. What have been everyone's favorites so far? If you had to pick one round of the 5? Any that you hated?

A good challenge to me:
* There are multiple potential strategies
* It is mostly skill based (either in game or meta game)
* There is a bit of randomness to manage (games become boring without it - df has no shortage here though)

For these reasons, round 1 was my favourite - the only annoying element was the amount of migrants coming in.

[Salmeuk]

Are intelligent undead a different species from their base race? E.g. Forlorn ghoul human vs human

hmmm. I would say no, as I don't want to have to track or count multiple variations of the same animal. So excluding my special rules about vampires, undead are undead are undead, intelligent or not.

Hoboy. This turn will be !!FUN!!, I suspect everybody will attempt to exploit the caverns. Not even hesitating to say that, it's an obvious course of action.

This may be the round that depends most on luck, instead of skill or planning.

An important question (for me at least): are raids still verbotten for this fort? Because I'd be tempted to go ste - errr acquire. Yes. I'd be tempted to go acquire some unique beasts from our neighbors.

Edit: I've looked at the first page, and there's some odd formatting about the table; Braalbard's row is kinda just piled at the bottom. And given that we seem to have more rounds than players, I'd suggest inverting the rows and columns in the table (I think that's called pivoting?).

You are right, this round may require some luck, however - I would encourage you all to not savescum too much so you don't kill the fun of it. Plus, I think the technique used to zombi-fy creatures and cage them will be the all-important factor in deciding a player's final score. Does it work EVERY time? Is it clean and efficient? Where and how do you trap creatures, and how do you go about transporting them to the killing room? How do you go about killing unwanted visitors, so that new varieties can spawn? Etc etc etc. Caverns are the hot spot for sure, with the lack of surface creature variety. This round might be a bit micro-heavy, sorry everyone, but it was too good of an idea not to try!

No raids for now, I want to get at least 1 more round out of this embark, and I was already having issues with crashes last year. I wish this version was more stable, seeing as it is the last version before Steam, and all those large changes to interface and menu's that I'm honestly a little scared for.

And yeah Strika you're right about the pivoting. The OP looks bad right now, I was screwing around with the table last night and realized it would take a lot of work to pivot so I gave up. I'll get to it soon lol

. . .

Thank you for the feedback everyone, and keep it coming. Also I will be partaking in this challenge, and I think we'll have a good crowd this round.

[applet]

By the way, I think the decoration challenge is workable, but requires 2 years. Perhaps also banning of divine metals and adamantine. Trap components would be less of a problem, I would think, since you would have more time to decorate. The trouble is you want a high level decorator and time to apply decorations, which you cannot do in 1 year, unless you already have legendary decorators.

[Salmeuk]

Yeah applet, the decoration one I think is still interesting, but the rules would have to change to make it actually fun.

I poked around a bit and set up a quick little reanimation chamber, and I'm hoping to test it tonight. I'm having trouble make cage traps without my dudes getting killed. I also need to figure out how to remove Buqui from the lower caverns. Maybe a cave-in trap? It might be easier to just make a trap chamber for it, with raised bridges. We'll see, but suffice to say, this challenge is a tough one.

I also need to decide which of my dwarves to kill off for reanimation puposes.