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Ichabod · December 7th, 2012, 21:13

THE CATS MADE ME DO IT! THE CATS!! WHY DON'T YOU MOVE THE FURNITURE BACK TO THE STORAGE, DAMNIT!?!!

How about plastering my dwarf behind a wall with all my cats? A good, literary death. I could do it, if I knew hot to make a wall. I find out how to dig one, but making one is still a mistery.

Poor me. I was positive that my dwarf would make a beautiful artifact to crown my most sucessfull turnset, with most objectives accomplished and no dwarves lost. It made it obvious to everyone that I'm a DF noob. Id I knew what I was messing with, I wouldn't be optimistic. There's nothing like your avatar dwarf slaying half a fortress and having your pet cats eat your corpse and then be sacrificed for food to teach a guy a lesson. I know better now. I know that I shouldn't be optimistic about this game. Tragedy is always around the corner. just waiting for your pickaxe to break the last couple of blocks until some firey, watery, magmay or berserkery death.

mostly_harmless · December 9th, 2012, 16:42

I started looking around the fortress and familiarizing myself with the situation.
Some things that stand out! (Don't take this as critique or anything. Just for information and story telling.)

Jkaen Nökoruzol, the huntress, is currently sleeping outside in the grass. The grass is red from elephant blood and the heavily wounded but not quite dead elephant is is on the ground not far away! The situation is even more bizarre, since Jkaen still has her newborn with her!
Btw., Jkaen is married to Gustaran Möruletost, the clothier.

The second farm plot was not assigned any crops in autumn, winter and spring. If you create a farm plot, it is best to assign crops for all four seasons straight away, otherwise you might forget.

Waaaayyy too many fishermen! :D Their catch is scattered all over the place and not picked up.

I can see a lot of wooden bolts are ordered up. Those are not really needed, as you can picku up the spent bolts from the hunters if they are still intact. There is a global order [o] [F] [p] that allows the pick up of used ammo.
That is only in effect from the moment it is toggled, so any bolts scattered around must be un-forbid in the [z] menu under stocks.

Here you can also set to pick up the belongings of the dead goblin. (you can do this at his place of death as well, of course.) His giant cave spider clots are quite valuable. It's dagger is one of the few weapons we currently possess, and the bag is useful as well.

Luckily we have breached the cavern but not yet dug a walk-able path into it. We kind of looking into it from the side walls. I will leave it at that for now.

Also, our refuse stockpile is too small and we remains of dead animals everywhere..

In the [o]rders menu I also set only the farmers to harvest crops. I believe this will make them level up faster and not "waste" the experience on a random dwarf. I also switch off "Auto collect webs" in the [o]rders-[W]orkshop orders menu. This will otherwise result in dwarves entering the cavern to collect the spider webs and I rather have the exploration somewhat controlled.

One of the workshops I immediately order up to be built is the Tannery, as it will auto-tan any hide the butcher creates into leather. Otherwise the hide will just rot. And leather is nice to have for various things (bags, backpacks, waterskins, quivers).
My idea would be to become a fully self sustained fortress.

Which brings me to the review of our stocks.
And the dwindling reserves of booze (26!) are worrying. That needs to be fixed! Food is ok.
In the Kitchen ([z] screen) I disallow the cook to use any existing alcohol for cooking. We need it for drinking and some fancy sauces! Also the cook should not use tallow. It is a low value ingredient and needed (some of it) for soap. Soap cannot be traded for and needs to be self-created. It is needed to prevent infection when washing the wounded.

Which brings me to the situation of Ichabod, the miner going berserk! :D
Unfortunately all that digging has made her our most experienced dwarf. A legendary miner! I also fear that she has grown quite muscular and skilled with swinging the pick axe around.

Our militia is ill-equipped, unarmed and not trained.
We have two axes, two picks, two crossbows and the goblin silver dagger. Not much.

I tell the militia to pick whatever weapon they fancy and get ready.
The two miners and the two woodcutters are put off schedule, so they drop their tools, which then should pickable by the militia.

And un-pause. Lets see what Ichabod is up to.

mh

mostly_harmless

Only Brian and a couple of unnamed dwarves follow the call to arms, while Ichabod heads for the central staircase!
Ready or not, the militia squad is told to kill Ichabod. [s]quad-[a]-[k]ill -> select target.

The first creature Ichabod meets at the stairs is a war dog, which immediately bites Ichabod in the leg and latches on firmly. A good start!

But as feared, Ichabod knows how to swing her pickaxe!
[Image: ichabod1.png]