EPTSince i'm currently procrastinating a lot, i thought i'd at least share. For a while i was worried because no games didn't make any fun anymore and i thought the time of getting hooked on building something until 4 in the morning were pretty much gone. But, on my third attempt on getting into Dwarf Fortress, it actually worked, and now i'm hooked.
That's a little bit bad, because it's the end of my semester in a few weeks which means a lot of work and i should be writing on a paper. This paper is a three people group effort. So, my one mate is chinese, thus quite horrible in german (and additionally incapable of english, which would not have helped the paper because we are required to write it in german, but it could maybe have helped communicating with him - yes it's bad, i don't understand half of what he says, neither acoustically nor grammar-wise >.> ). At least he's pretty good with matlab. And the other one, foreign as well, a lot better capable of german though, but as a trade-off quite useless topic-wise (or at least not engaged/motivated enough to really contribute). Meaning, i basically have to make this three people thing alone, except for some parts which i only have to re-write to fix all the grammar and orthography. So this is due in about two weeks, and half a week later we have to present it at the seminar. ugh.
Anyways. Thanks to dwarf fortress, i can now easily procrastinate all of that. And for now, i don't really want to stop, because i'm kind of enjoying, that i'm still capable of getting hooked. So i'll go on with that a little bit :> So here's the fun part:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/OchYZ.png)
We recently set up our magma-powered metal-industry in the basement of our fortress! The whole area is filled with native gold ore, several other ores, even flux! Recently, an elven caravan came by. We managed to trade all their wood and seeds and some plants for a single gold craft! And there are several filled bins more down in the stockpiles.
(I actually never dug this deep before. I was looking for magma, getting lower and lower on the z-level, and i started to worry as i was getting close to zero, that there just wasn't any magma on the map. Was i surprised, reading that the default world gen provides ~600 z-levels, meaning i can go down to about -450? wtf.)
Now that our metal industry is booming, i wanted to retrieve some of that precious Adamantine, which cornered the magma sea we had tapped for our forges and smelters. I ordered our miners to dig out a room directly above the adamantine column, and channel out the surrounding tiles. The current standing plan is, to get enough water down there to solidify the magma surrounding the adamantine into obsidian, so we can safely mine it.
Our first attempts on cooling the magma by pouring water over it with the use of manual labor and several buckets were quite unsuccessful. The water we had hauled down there immediately evaporated, leaving the magma completely untouched. A different plan had to be made.
Digging down towards the sea, we had previously struck a cave which contains an underground lake. Actually, it were two caves, connected by a giant pit! Scared of the lower caves, i ordered to wall off the pit. After having to arrange the wall pieces manually because our stupid masons are incapable of teamwork, walling each other in standing on a lower level wall, thus trapping each other and leaving gaping holes in the barricade, this wall actually got done. Right now, there are two forgotten beasts lurking behind that wall on the edge of the giant pit, and another one is waiting in the lower cave. This wall was the luckiest decision i had made since our arrival!
Here are those giant beasts, lurking at the edge of the pit:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/u9IpP.png)
The idea came to mind, to channel some of that sea down into the magma. However, the water lake being located at z-level 80, and the magma sea at -7, this was quite the long channel. I ordered the miners to simply dig downwards until they dropped out in the room above the adamantium. The adept miner Kikrost "Glazepearl" Fikodkovest took on the task. He started of fairly slowly, not having much experience with mining. But he slowly gained speed. Half way down, he decided to make a break. The break went over and he continued digging. 9 levels before his job would have been completed, he suddenly stopped again.
Sitting in a 70 level deep one square hole, he decided to try and hunt vermin for lunch. Obviously, there wasn't any. In an attempt to save him, i immediately ordered one meal to be dumped down into his shaft. Luckily, i had ordered the extension of the shaft to connected even our main fortress with it. So, we sent one portion of blue peahan roast on it's way.
Sadly, before the meal could reach him, Fikodkovest died from thirst. This stupid dwarf couldn't keep his work up for the last 9 levels of his 90 level journey. Unable to take another miner and throw him down the channel (just no-one was willing to volunteer. cowards!), I had to order an access shaft to be dug out, to retrieve his body and finish the channeling of the remaining 9 levels. Such an excess of effort, just because ..! well, anyhow.
Our mechanics were just working on setting up a flood gate, to control the water input into the channel, when suddenly a goblin invasion showed up! Having been in this fort for some time now, this was our first siege. I was eager to see, how my defense design would work out!
The cave see close to the shaft. The lever is already in place, the floodgate as well but one level lower.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/2omKg.png)
Immediately i ordered everybody to stay inside and stay clear of the entry hallway, were the ballistae would rain down havoc. Luckily, the goblins did not catch anybody outside of the fortress. By the time they arrived at our front door, everybody was inside in safety.
the first 8 or 9 of the 15 attackers ran directly into the cage traps i had set up. such fools, haha! After that, the remaining goblins just stood outside the door, not moving at all. They must have been stunned in fear! Here i have to admit, that i lost patience. I ordered our ballistae to fire at will. Our engineers, being well trained through our catapult training yard, did an excellent job at reloading the siege engines. They emptied the whole stockpile of about 15 iron ballista arrows in about a minute!
Sadly, they very much lacked in accuracy. Most of the arrows just hit the side walls of the entry hallway. Just about four or five arrows smashed through the goblin horde, causing minor injuries on every goblin caught in the line of fire.
The prepared siege ammunition being used up, i ordered my two squads to engage the remaining goblins. Without losses or injuries even, they cleaned up every last one of them! Praises to our self-forged steel armor! The siege being over, i allowed free passage to the civilians again. They immediately reloaded the cage traps and i ordered the construction of another 30 iron ballista arrows.
Being slightly bored after that, i decided to have some FUN with our no found goblin guests. They were already disarmed and all there belongings vanished in the atom smasher on our third level. however, i had different plans for them. I ordered all the imprisoned invaders to be dropped down into the channel we had dug! Send those little bastards flying down 125 z-levels! Let them feel what it means to besiege our fortress!
To document this spectaculum for the generations to come, i ordered a few drawings to be made. Let me first show you the upper entry into our channel. This is were we through these little grey-green imps in, haha:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/1Dt16.png)
From there it goes downward a few seconds until they finally arrive at the lowest level of the shaft:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/BufXp.png)
And just on the next level, they hit the solid rock floor. I once did ordered a tamed animal thrown down such a pit - i was informed, the animal had died from a collision with a solid object. Haha, they have some humor down in the basement. Anyhow, so, this is, what remains of about 10 goblins after smashing the ground:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/qzM0T.png)
Bones and blood everywhere! Bwahaha i wonder how they felt! What a brilliant construction this is.
So, dear people, this is it for today. The day is nearing it's end and i have to get up in the morning. Soon i will attempt to finally reach our well deserved adamantium - pray to the gods that we will not drown all our metalsmiths, or freeze all the magma that powers our industry!
as i said, i needed four tries, but it's so worth it 
