Dwarf Fortress 34.11 : Whereupon minecarts were loosed into the world

[Garian]

Jade, you're up! Totally excited to see what happens next! Sensai will be posting his write-up soon!

[JadeAuto]

Oh. My. God.

(10char)

[Sensai]

JadeAuto, I don't think I know you but...I feel like I owe you a drink and dinner.

I'm so...I'm just so sorry. I did everything I could.

I think I'm going to have to rewrite my write up, so I don't know exactly when I'll get it in. I'm a little busy this weekend, so I'm hoping for Monday or Tuesday. The end of my term, though, I'm going to consider a mutiny due to -- well, y'know.

[JadeAuto]

Well, a few pre-write up thoughts for me:

1) two ambushes, 3 snatchers, and 2 (yes, two!) sieges after my year started, I'm probably going to be the end of Prisonshanks. **EDIT** holy crap scratch that, I just did something incredible. Story at 10.

2) layout and design on this one... no offense guys, but holy crap full of holes

3) are we near a goblin fortress, or am I just being subjected to torture?

[JadeAuto]

Update from the front lines: My year is done. Working on the writeup.

Prisonshanks still stands! Xerol, you'll have a fun time with it. Garian's got the link for the next person, my writeup is ready to post once sensai posts his.

[Sensai]

Update from the front lines: My year is done. Working on the writeup.

Prisonshanks still stands! Xerol, you'll have a fun time with it. Garian's got the link for the next person, my writeup is ready to post once sensai posts his.

HOW DID YOU LIVE!? I cannot wait to see your write-up. My God.

I'll try to have mine done by the end of the weekend.

[JadeAuto]

HOW DID YOU LIVE!?

[Moomba]

I begin to wonder whether there'll be enough fortress left for me to put my master plan into motion when my turn rolls around...

I don't think it matters too much what order we post our writeups in (I posted mine a little bit earlier than !! despite being second in the lineup). Post it anyway so we can marvel over the survival of the colony!

[JadeAuto]

Post it anyway so we can marvel over the survival of the colony!

I got impatient and rushed my delivery. But playing sure has me spending hours on DF again.

Year 4: PrisonShanks in the year of our lord, JadeAuto

[Sensai]

I'm writing mine up now. I stupidly left the pictures back at my place, so I won't be able to add them in 'til Sunday at earliest, but I should still have the plot of things written down soon(ish).

Hey Jade (or whoever has it now): did Sensai make it? Poor little dwarf with nothing in the world but her ability to count.

[JadeAuto]

I think your dwarf is still alive, unlike mine...

[Sensai]

I think your dwarf is still alive, unlike mine...

The cruel irony of it all.

[Moomba]

I forgot to name a dwarf after myself!

At least that means when my turn comes around I'll still have a living avatar... and I can prepare a magnificent tomb for his inevitable death!

[Sensai]

I feel like I've been almost monopolizing the thread of late, which should stop after this post. Sorry about that.

Anyways, here's my almost complete write up. It's long-ish and probably a little hasty, but it'll serve. It doesn't yet have pictures, so if you're wanting those, I suggest waiting for me to update it tomorrow.

Without further ado, I give you the third year of Prisonshanks, as told by Sensai:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17670/DORFFORT.txt (text version)

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17670/The%20place%20was%20called%20Prisonshanks.pdf (text version, now with pictures!)

[Moomba]

Just a random note but trading wild animals is broken. Breaking out of cages isn't supposed to be possible, but if you try to trade them, they bug out and are released when the dwarves come to fetch them

I also vote that we should maintain a map with marked sections of the fortress so that we know where everything is. A screenshot of each floor with some text, remade after each year is over would probably suffice. It'd be interesting to compare and see how the fortress evolves as well!

[Super-Duper Sombrero]

I simultaneously enjoy and dread where this fortress is going. My turn approaches. I fear for my sanity.

[Xerol Oplan]

[Note: Any opinions on previous overseers are purely those of the character being portrayed and not that of myself. But seriously, what the hell is with those stone traps]

[also note I'm still uploading the images so you may need to refresh about 15 minutes after this post]

Click images for big

The diary of Xerol Ducimgidthur, Overseer of Prisonshanks, Year 255

1st Granite

I can't remember anything.

This isn't entirely true.

I know, for a fact, that I've recently had excellent food and drink, and I have my own personal dining room and bedroom of excellent quality, which includes a very fine table.

Despite a recently satiated appetite, I still feel cravings for the finest fisher berries and Longland beer, items which seem to be in short supply around here.

It has come to my attention that I have been chosen to run this Armok-forskaen place while the mayor is incapacitated. My first order of business would have been to investigate the reasons behind the mayor's injuries, but first I am struck by the need to check over the work assignments. My gut is never wrong about these things.

The amount of overlap in assignments which would be best served by single dwarves is astounding. Clearly the previous mayor has mismanged things so badly that the investigation of his near-demise is suddenly of lower priority, and I am now much more eager to take on the job of seeing the fortress through its next year.

The first task is to ensure that all managerial duties are run through myself, and that I have no other tasks to distract me from those duties.

Focus then turns to reassigning duties to all dwarves to ensure most efficient use of resources. Before this can be done, I require an office. I have commandeered a very well-engraved office on the third floor from which to issue the orders necessary to fix the many problems present here. A stone table, wooden chair, and plenty of space to spread out the large piles of paperwork that will be piling up in the coming months. A single shoe is on my chair, apparently forbidden for any to touch. Once the more pressing issues have been addressed, I will commission silver furniture for all offices.

Of top priority is reorganizing the workshop spaces into a more efficient form. Ideally this would have been planned properly from the beginning, but as I only have one year to bring the fortress into order, more immediate solutions are required.

This will require some digging, so I request a meeting with anyone who has mining skills. Five dwarves claim to be miners in some fashion, but only two show any real skill at the matter. Their other duties are removed; we have lost a skilled butcher and a skilled gem setter, but our food needs are well-met for the coming years and the export of goods is of low priority at the moment.

The digging of new work areas is ordered. I have selected a site in the southeastern corner of our designated territory, a small hill replete with minerals and in close proximity to the river which should afford us a more easily defended location.

A plan is laid out, complete with removing excess material on the exterior to make the location more defensible. As a large amount of stone will be extracted by the skilled miners, I have also ordered several mason's shops to be put into place to turn the freshly mined stone into blocks, which should also improve the masons' skills. Which takes us on to the next stage of reassigning work: The masons.

The ridiculous number of engravers combined with the complete lack of any masonry skill is just more evidence of prior mismanagement. These masons will have no other jobs until they have become well-skilled in masonry and their hands needed elsewhere. The "fair-handed" division of labor present previously has led to many of our citizens being of low skill in a large number of trades, rather than highly-skilled in a smaller number. More masons may be assigned in the future (for the large construction projects that are only beginning to take shape in my mind) but for now, training these three will be the order of things.

Although our food and beverage situation appears to be rather stable, I am looking over those assignments next. The first part of this is assessing the livestock situation.

A number of animals had been marked as 'available for adoption', which would make their potential as dinner severely diminished. The exisiting pasture is far too small for this number of animals, so a new one will be assigned outside the new entrance as soon as is practicable.

The farming situation seems much more tenable, but we appear to have an overstock of plants, and our current alcohol supplies will not even last one season. Our best brewer has been given the task of doing nothing but processing these excess plants into palatable alcohol, while the other, lesser brewers are removed from that duty.

Next up is assigning the specific duties of planting, butchery, tanning, and cooking to the best we have.

And overviewing the cooking assignments. The plants are reserved for brewing-only, and the use of drinks in preparing meals is forbidden.

The supply of empty barrels for brewing is fairly low, so woodworking skills are examined next. One dwarf already has legendary carpentry skills, so the others are removed from that job. Wood supplies are also fairly low, so the woodcutter situation is also adjusted, and more trees designated for cutting.

After some further job reassignments, it is now time to assess the military situation. We appear to have a single squadron of goblins bearing down on the closed front door, and some kind of "anyone who has two hands or even one hand or maybe a leg" situation appears to have been instated with regards to the military. We appear to have ample supplies of weapons and armor, but none were assigned to any of our existing military. The existing squads were removed and new squads with proper uniforms have been created.

[continued in next post due to image limit]

[Xerol Oplan]

Two squads of five are assigned. One squad of melee fighters stands guard at the gate while the marksdwarves run out and attack the speargoblins. The remainder of the dwarves are told to take refuge in the dining hall while the remaining goblin threat is dispatched. The fight is on.

----

I was going to do season-by-season posts, but there was so much in the initial situation that I decided to post the first day now. The rest of Spring will probably be posted today at some point.

[JadeAuto]

I think we can all learn one thing from Xerol: images when not rushed, do so much better.

P.S.: I had too many ambushes to really think of fixing anything... other than the front door. And... yeah, I didn't know of dwarf therapist until after my year was done.

*mutters like a rage filled dwarf*

believe me, it makes a world of difference. Night and Day.

Also, the sound and 3d engines someone coded add that much more to it. Lazy noob pack for life.

[HoopyFrood]

Well I'm not playing, (obviously) but you have my permission to use my name if you need it. I doubt that I'll be any more helpful as a dwarf than I am as a person though.

[Garian]

here's the release we've been working on for nearly eleven months. I've tried to collect the major changes below, but it won't be a complete list. I hope you enjoy the game!

New stuff

cities in adventure mode that have various buildings, dungeons, items, livestock, etc.

Protect your community from secret vampire dwarves or hunt them as an adventurer

defend your fort during the full moon or risk a werewolf infestion -- hunt/be hunted as an adventurer

face armies of the dead in dwarf mode or visit their necromancers' towers and learn their secrets as an adventurer

evil regions where the dead and pieces of the dead can come alive, with evil mists and rain

tombs built in world gen which can be visited in adv mode, either beneath towns or out in the wilds -- beware the dead!

Revamped justice/witness/death notification system in dwarf mode

immigrants to your fortress will now be historical figures whenever possible, which means more family relationships and history for each one

dropped items/bodies tracked between plays in the wilderness anywhere in the world

more battlefield information tracked/war dead raisable in world gen

all sponsorship animals and their giant/man versions are in the game now

various new abilities for creatures (see file_changes.txt for list and syntax)

adventurers can use creature abilities/learned powers and they can be tested from the arena

new site travel map to make navigating towns easier

reading/swimming/observer (for traps) relevant in adv mode now

established historical figures can lead bandits

rivers block movement in adv mode travel

eating/drinking required in adv mode

ingested syndromes are now possible

ability to make campfire (from 'g') and warm items at campfire/fire/magma (from 'i') in adv mode

traps work in adv mode, once spotted they can be ignored

gems now have different cuts

necromancers can write books about various topics (all books are in their towers as it stands)

moon phase indicator in fort

alphanumeric world gen seeds and some more world gen params (see file_changes.txt)

the legends xml has a lot of new info for historical figures

major bug fixes

buffer overload from aborted world gen fixed

fixed cave-in-on-embark issue with hidden underground structure, and a few others

other bug fixes/tweaks

designations over z levels all at once now possible

unit screen divided into four sections

rivers/pools have ramps now

able to trade portions of stacks in both modes

messed with adv mode currency trading and made items teleport to you

tweaked how fire damage works

made vision work through flesr grates and bars properly

fixed some road/bridge problems

crystal glass items possible again

tweaked adventure mode swimming and alt-movement readout (use alt-movement to get into a river you want to cross)

skeletons/zombies replaced by animation effect

demons masquerading as gods will try a little harder

restricted mandates so they'll be more reasonable

stopped blank map from being exported when you back out of detailed map export

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

[Moomba]

Damn. Those are some awesome additions! I want to hunt vampire dwarves!

[JadeAuto]

designations over z levels all at once now possible

biggest change IMHO. much easier to create symmetrical, nice looking fortresses instead of painstakingly matching each floor...

[Sensai]

I was fearing I was going to get sucked back into DF, but the new update and the lack of a Lazy Newb Pack to go along with it assures me that it won't happen.

When it does come out, though...well, who knows.

[Xerol Oplan]

My update may or may not have been delayed by the game's update but also I'm working on a webpage version of the update since 10 images per post is going to mean a dozen posts to post all the screenshots I took. Also I feel it's going to be very important to have the full update posted before I post the save, for reasons that will become obvious once it's posted. Here's a bit of a teaser:

e: I'll try to have the writeup posted at least to the point where I can post the save before the weekend.

Also

We have #df registered on espernet now. Come join us for .34 discussion and cat-based framerate puns.