User:Squirrelloid/Nodxusta Lide Zuden

And on a cold day, the first of Granite in the year 205, a group of not especially brave humans, Autumnal Splatters, set out to found the Town AnguishedDirge the Sound of Insanity. Yes, you heard me right, humans.

Starting Build

Mason/Leader
Mason/Architect
Mason/Weaver
Clothier/Herbalist
Cook/Leatherworker
Brewer/Siege Engineer
Grower/Metalcrafter

2 copper picks
2 iron axes
6-21 of each booze
16 turtles
1 ea. other meat worth 2 or 4
1 or 11 seeds ea. type (11 strawberry, hide root, bladeweed, longland)
random assortment mood goods (copper bar, cat leather, cloth, thread, etc...)
32 wood
3 cats
1 muskox
1 horse
1 cow

Embark

Quick glance around reveals a relatively flat map, which i'm on the highest z-level. The road is made out of stone blocks, and the bridge out of wood blocks (good to know for later). The brook has a small waterfall. There are 3 soil levels, so the fear of the unknown accomplishment means no stone at all. Well, screw that, i brought masons not carpenters, i guess we're digging.

My wagon animals were a muskox and a bactrian camel, giving me a muskox breeding pair.

Target accomplishments:

Walk to Work (mine is 40 squares from center of town)

Dragon-proof (all (b)(C) structures are built out of stone or metal).

The map has no magma, so I'm going to ignore most metal tasks (except metalcrafting, which doesn't require fuel for some applications, namely studding). I plan on doing a lot of building though, hence the 3 masons.

Entertainingly, the blocks in the road and bridge count as value you created... ok then...

I think I need to map out my intended town before i start designating anything - like farming plots...

Year 205

Spring and Summer

Spring is mostly dedicated to basic tasks, namely making a cellar, digging a moat around the area for defense, and starting a mining operation. Also, building a Depot *somewhere* so i can trade. Beds, dining facilities, and so forth optional.

By the time summer rolls around, I even have a chair for an 'office', a pair of chairs and tables for a 'dining hall' (ha ha, its in the cellar right now).

A 3D view. Blue circle is the location of my (first?) tavern, on which building just started. Brown circle is where the farming currently is. Light brown circle is where my wood industry (such as it is) is located for now. Grey circle is rock-related industries (mason/mechanics), right around the mine entrance. Note that the mine entrance is ~60 tiles away from the intended center of town, and in fact is that far from the entire road (around which i plan on building the town and building some real bridges over my moat).

The caravan sees not too much exciting when they arrive, but i manage to trade for what I need (including an anvil - just in case!)

Shortly after the caravan leaves I get my first wave of migrants - I must be really close to my civ or something... They are:

Gem Setter (tapped for siege operation training)

Stoneworker (mason/engr - more masonry = good)

Tanner (useful, also given butchery)

Fish Cleaner (handed a pick)

Brewer (possibly useful, but also handed a pick)

Craftsdwarf (Stonecrafter/Woodcrafter/Glassmaker*, * is useful)

Peasant (set to Bowyer + Wood burner... yeah, I actually want a bowyer, WTH...)

Peasant (set to Bonecarver + Dyer)

Well, they are all exceedingly useful to me, I actually wish there were more. (I could use another ~2 dedicated mechanics, a dedicated carpenter, and masons++)

Autumn and Winter

Autumn starts off looking good, with industry getting going.

Then my nascent glassworker discovers a kobold thief! I draft him, and he throws the kobold and himself into a murky pool... oops... I suppose its time to build a coffin and decide what i'm doing for a graveyard...

Fortunately, more migrants arrive shortly thereafter. I've never seen migrants back-to-back seasons of the first year before. Well, I have work for them!

Miller (possibly useful, told to be a mason as well)

Milker (might actually try to use, told to be a mason as well)

Bonecarver (but i just trained one... ok, former bonecarver becoming a mechanic)

Leatherworker (useful, but i have one... hmmm.. could use a third miner...)

Weaponsmith (useful...?)

Fish Cleaner (hi, you're my new carpenter)

Peasant (mason)

Peasant (glassworker)

Next wave of immigrants is going to witness a lot of drafting!

...or my new leatherworker could be taken by my first mood... Damn secretive bastard, you're supposed to be *digging*!

Thanks, I'm so glad you could make that for me... At least i got a legendary leatherworker out of it...

Autumn rolls to a close and this is where my fortress is at:

Brown rectangles are siege engines (B-Ballistae, C-Catapult) with an arrow showing direction. The catapult is for training. Grey square is the (new) depot location, yellow square is the bridge across the moat (with yellow triggering lever).

Circles: Grey is stone industry, Green is glass industry, light brown is wood industry, dark brown is farming, blue is cloth industry. The open pit is my sand pit (only permanent feature of all those...

Tavern is coming along. Black Gr-> is pointing to the graveyard offscreen, which wouldn't show up anyway in 3dwarf (although if Visual Fortress would work for this map you could at least see the statue).

Winter starts and Huzzah, another mood!

Wait a minute, is that my weaponsmith? lol, and here i thought i wouldn't do much metal industry... so silly. Hmm.. i have 5 total bars of metal...

A silver pike, heh. At least its worth talking about...

Winter is otherwise uneventful (where's my orc siege?), and here's where things stand approximately at the end of the year:

(same color coding, black circle is my metal industry, such as it is...)

Year 206

Spring and Summer

Elves. Oh yay. Eh, I can use some more cloth i suppose - desperate need of bags...

And *more* migrants. *24* of them. Well that more than doubles my population, oh yay...

Miner (we'll take him!)

Gem Cutter (ew) -masonry

Armorer (lol, what metal industry?) - siege operator!

Leatherworker (another one?) -masonry

Glassmaker (win!)

Weaver (possibly useful) - siege operator!

Bonecarver (again?) -masonry

Woodcrafter (...) -masonry

Miller -draft

Milker -draft

Butcher -masonry

Woodburner (useful) -needs to dabble in something... uh... I'll think of something

Cheesemaker -draft

Fishery Worker (Dissector/Fisher/Cleaner = useless) -draft

Fish Cleaner -draft

Peasant -draft

Peasant -draft

Peasant -draft

Peasant -draft

Peasant -draft

Child (boo)

Child (more boo)

Child (Can i feed them to the orcses?)

Child (please?)

Mmm... 10 recruits to see who survives as a wrestler!

Of course, i continue my streak of a new migrant gets a mood before i can do anything to bias their mood skill... a woodcrafter... oh yay, i'm thrilled. He makes this:

By the end of spring the Tavern is... mostly... completed. I have to lay some floor tiles on the ground floor, but otherwise its done.

Summer brings a human caravan which gives me some pearlash, some metal bars, some food, and some leather, and a pile of wood. Yes, wood. Despite this map's abundance of trees, I'm burning through them pretty quickly for my glass industry. This is what the caravan sees, more or less:

Construction finishes on an extension of my walls, and on some one-way ramps. I now have a system by which i can make invaders run down a long corridor into my ballista's path. Also, automated upright spikes coming soon!

And I get yet more migrants. Dear god...

Stoneworker - good deal

Metalcrafter - plausibly useful eventually

Armorer - Siege Operator!

Woodworker - (carpenter/woodcutter/bowyer), ok

Clothier - have one, masonry

Glassmaker - more win!

Peasant - masonry

Peasant - masonry

Peasant - masonry

Noticing a trend? One of my children also grew up - guess what she's working on?

No orcs yet. Seriously, I thought i would be getting swarmed by feral goblinoids, not dealing with a trickle of mere thieves...

...ok, maybe a little more than a trickle...

And as the caravan leaves, this is the state of my fortress:

You might notice the insane number of masonry workshops i have - they're all spitting out blocks right now...

For your convenience, color and shape coding is constant with previous images. Some new designations - the black square is my current 'barracks' area - ie, an armor stand so my military will wrestle. The pink circle off the bottom is the approximate location of my graveyard and statue garden, to get lollygagging dwarves and animals out of the way of productive work!

Each yellow rectangle is a bridge, set up so i can allow caravans in from the side of the structure, and stop them from coming down the long corridor, but can open the long corridor for sieges and close off the side entrance. Another bridge lets me seal off the corridor - aka shooting gallery. A final drawbridge seals the depot so no stray bolts from invaders find their way into there.

The far blue arrow points to some one-way ramps at the end of the corridor - once you're in, you're in. The blue arrow marked CNTR is the future center of the town. Towards us you can see the start of the town church, and the small structures going in near the tavern are going to be houses and workshop areas.

Autumn and Winter

I burn through stone blocks at a frightening rate. Fortunately, there's all this 'road' that isn't actually a road, so I'm tearing it up to lay a real road, and netting the difference in blocks for other purposes. Also, i want a fountain in my town center, so i need to be able to drain said fountain, which means the road has to move anyway.

And Autumn brings me my fourth mood...

On one level, i'm happy to have a legendary glassworker. On another, wow, what a crappy artifact. Of course, I need them to start collecting 10 ingredients to have any decent shot at something that was worth the time to create in value, because i have no massively valuable resource like adamantine. Also, my moods have been a pretty bizarre fraction of my labor pool - where's my masonry mood?

And guess what, more migrants! That's right, 3 seasons in a row... My town is only worth a few hundred thousand... uh... humanbucks, so what are they so thrilled about? They are:

Miner (ok, i can use another i suppose...)

Carpenter (ok)

Armorer -siege operator

Glassmaker (#4)

Clothier -mason

Brewer -more mason

Peasant -obvious

Peasant -more obvious

Child (they burn!)

I spend the rest of autumn and all winter on construction.

You can see the groundwork for the fountain laid here. To the right, the church is going up. The north tower will hold water to power the fountain. The south tower may also hold water, i need to check and see if something works or not... =) Lets just say plumbing might get complicated...

And here it is in 3D.

Winter is again peaceful, with nothing worse than some Rhesus Macaques. Seriously lame.

Fortress statistics at the end of the year:

Year 3

Spring and Summer

Spring brings flowers, elves, and of course, more migrants. And another useless artifact, via possession no less...

The elves bring mostly rope reed. Considering i'm making enough ropereed on my own, this is... highly disappointing.

Migrants:

Dungeon Master - oh good, my priest arrived

Miner -mason (seriously, i have plenty)

Bowyer -mason (a third?!?)

Bowyer -mason (4th...)

Armorer -siege operator (I don't have enough fuel, i swear!)

Weaponsmith -mason (have a legendary one already)

Furnace Operator +blacksmithing?

Jeweler -mason

Jeweler -mason

Planter (win!)

Brewer -mason

Dyer +plant processing (ok, i can use a second one)

Tanner -mason + butcher + keep tanner

Herbalist -mason

Animal Caretaker -mason (animal caretaker? seriously?)

Peasant -mason

Peasant -mechanic (lets do something different!)

Peasant -mason

Peasant -mason

Peasant -mason

Crossbowman (win! Too bad my other military are all legendary now - talk about crappy wrestling/armor/shield/hammer training environment!)

Spring otherwise ends without incident, which brings us to summer.

Another possession, and another crappy artifact, oh yay. I'm thrilled.

And the human merchants arrive, finding my town in the above state. Of course...

My first siege arrives just behind them and massacres them all. Well, catch and massacre the last one of them, which causes the ones that are almost inside to *turn around* and run right back through the orcs... Brilliant...

Anyway, the orcs then promptly get themselves killed against my champions. My ballista, on the other hand, was totally useless. (Seriously, legendary siege operator, why can you not fire *straight* down a 3-wide corridor? Legendarily useless you mean.)

And construction proceeds unabated, despite the lack of traders.

Oh, and before i forget, more migrants!

Carpenter +mason

Stoneworker

Weaver -mason

Animal Caretaker -mason

Thresher -mason

Brewer -mason

Peasant -mason