When i finally got to start fixing stuff in the fortress i found out that everything was EVEN WORSE than it was on first look.
I've found some children working in sweatshops, something that's banned in all dwarven laws. In addition, when i asked people about their jobs, many actully had no idea what they were supposed to do. I had a smith who was doing the farming, i had some miners who have never held a pick in their hands. My god, who the hell set them all to these fucked up jobs?
Anyway, since ive found out that we have been overproducing EVERYTHING for at least a few yers now, i've simply cancelled most of the jobs and rearranged them in a more sane manner.
Then i saw the drawbridge at the entrance. What about it? It isnt there because some useless garbage got in the way and dwarves dont want to remove it for some reason. I ordered the garbage to be dumped so we can finally build the bridge.
The next order was to build coffers and cabinets in dwarves' rooms in the slums. Hopefully this will give us some space in the storage.
I've also cancelled all the farming as we already have too much shit and not enough barrels. With our current population of 38 it will take very long to consume all those fucking plump helmets.
The military system has been reformed as well. All dwarves that were marked as trainees are now soldiers. There is 1 melee squad and 1 ranged squad. Led by Overkill and Alcari respectively. The squads are activated and have started their training.
Yep, that means that alcari will have to get the fuck out of his stupid home and sleep in the barracks.
Now only if i could find some weapons and armor for those suckers...
Then i checked back to the construction of the bridge. I've cleared the site, but dwarves still dodnt want to build it. Reason? they need wooden blocks to build it, and guess where they are? Right! on the opposite side of it! fuck the bridge and the idiot who ordered its construction. We'll just rebuild the floor so my dwarves can go outside.
On 4th of granite my fortress reconstruction plans were interrupted by a bunch of Chaos dwarf ambushers. Alcari fearlessly charged 2 dark dwarves with his crossbow. The idiot took only 1 bolt for it, so i guess it will be his fault if he dies.
Yep, here we go. He didnt make it to the enemy marksdwarfs. He got a steel bolt in his left leg instead. There were a few more arrows hitting him but i have no idea wher they've gone. Anyway, the sucker died, but worked as a perfect meatshield for melee dwarves lead by Overkill. Overkill and his squad have quickly dispatched enemy marksdwarfs, which aparently was enough to send the remaining 3 enemies running. Overkill has caught one of them thugh. Poor chaos guy.
After that, military dwarves got back to sparring, while peasants started looting some pile of shit, which they got acces to after i removed bridge and made regular floor. The fuckers are so busy they dont even bother helping a heavily wounded dwarf, who's lying in one of the hallways. Most of the dwaves are currently busy carrying seeds 1 by 1 to a bag located on the opposite side of the fortress.
A high elven caravan has arrived in spring, but our dwarves are still too busy hauling useless shit from one place to another. During carvan's stay, another group of chaos dwarves has ambushed us, but the carvan escort has killed them easily. This probably made the elves unhppy, and they leaft shortly after, not letting me do any trade.
The migrants were supposed to arrive in Mid-spring but i got this instead:
Good fucking job whoever got our pop down from 80 to 38. NO idea where we will get new dwarves from to fill the missing positions.
Later in Mid-Spring one of our dwarves got a strange mood. The fun thing that this dwarf had a small *accident* during sparring, and had been lying on the bed for quite some time. Hope he wont die while making us another useless artifact. The guy's leg is badly hurt so he moves very slowly. Dunno how long it will take him to get all the needed materials.
On 24'th of hematite we got ambushed by some bugbears. They have killed some random civilian dwarf who was wandering around before our warriors arrived. Overkill led the charge, even though he has been demoted from leadership position because he was still a recruit while others got their professions.
I have no idea how he got there so long before the rest of his team, but his fight against 5 bugbears didnt end in his favour.
Right after the fight, our posessed dwarf has finished his work on an epic...millstone.
Meanwhile, some dynasauri arrived to sell us some shit. With so much stuff in our stockpiles, we have bought everything that has any value to us, and gave em fuckloads of useless stone crafts in return.
Everything has been calm until the late summer, when we got ANOTHER strange mood. This time we had a healthy dwarf though, so i dont think it will take long to build whatever he has in mind. He is asking for shells though, which is a very bad idea since we dont have any fucking turtles.
Early autumn. I realised that my attempts to clear the huge stockpile have backfired. There are now many half-empty finished goods bins there, and all my dwarves do is carry fuckloads of clothes from their dead comrades to there.
Just as i was watching this stupid show, a hobgoblin caravan and a goblin siege army have arrived. Fuck yeah. Has it always been like this?
I have prepared some traps at the entrance by then though, i hope these will kill some of the fuckers. And my soldiers should be enough to kill the remaining gobbos.
The battle turned out even better than i expected, with 0 dwarves killed and only 1 hurt.
Right when the dwarves started fixing the traps and carrying goods to the depot, the moody dwarf has finally gone mad. The idiot ran into the lake and drowned. Which is actually good because at least nobody will spend 2 weeks carrying his clothes to the stockpile. This increases this year's death toll to 10.
On 10th of sandstone (mid-autumn) we got ambushed once again. This time by violet xelics. They have passed through our traps and killed what remained of our military. Right when i was about to lead the last stand of unarmed recruits, the hobgoblin caravan has set off from our fortress. The hobgoblins kinda lacked the punch though, as they killed only 1 or 2 xelics before being wiped out. And right when i was assembling dwarves to finish off the remaining xelics, they got EVEN MORE troops from another ambush. Just 2 or 3 more xelics though, i guess they are the sams guys from the last ambush who managed to hide again.
The last stand made of all of the remaining dwarves has been assembled at the entrance. They charged fearlessly at the first two xelics, and superior numbers helped us kill these 2. The remaining xelics ran in fear seeing that our will has not been crushed and we are ready to stand to the end.
All of the bodies have been carried to the newly built graveyard area. I have decided to build a tomb for myself in the middle, because it seems that the chances to die here are quite high.
I've found a very nice engraving there.
Another small goblin ambush happened in early winter. Some of them have been killed by obsidian guardian that was passing by. The guardian got killed though, and goblins started chasing some random dwarf who was too slow to get to fort. The newly formed militia force was sent to help him, and they have successfully defeated the 2 goblins that were chasing our poor dwarf. Just as i thought it was over, ANOTHER 5-goblin ambush appeared right in front of my 2 soldiers. They fought fiercely and managed to fight off the goblins, killing 3 and sending the remaining 2 running. One of the soldiers got killed in the action though. While expecting weapon storages for our dwarves, ive found one quite nice weapon:
(needs more bugbear blood though)
It has been a year now since i have moved here. Im extremely tired of trying to fix everything here, so i give up. Ill stay here, working as a blacksmith/broker/jeweler (there areny many of us left, so we have to do many jobs at once), and hope the dwarves will find someone else to clean this shit.
This year was a hard one.
Overally, we endured 6 Ambushes (2 chaos dwarf, 1 bugbear, 1 xelic, 2 goblin) and 1 goblin siege. We had no military or traps when i came here, so we had many, many casualties in these battles.
But i have managed to fix alot of stuff. Overproduction is stopped, our supplies are enough to survive for very long. Traps have been placed near the entrance, and now the can be comlpetely sealed by forbidding passage through 2 doors. Our military consists only of 2 dwarves at the moment, so if anything serious comes, i'd suggest sealing the doors and staying inside of the fortress. Overkill and Alcari sleep peacefully in their tombs, together with their posessions (which include only clothes).
If the next year will be more safe and we get migrants, i believe we can make it for much longer. If we get in some more sieges, we are dead. I hope then there will be someone to bury me in my tomb.
Final screenshot of the fortress:
Imageshack gallery
Save file (theres a 10 time dl limit, so dont dl it if ure not going to use it). Stupid rapidshare.
(needs more bugbear blood though)
