So over the weekend I had another goblin siege. They showed up during the winter. Fine, no big deal. But I had to scout around to see where they were to know what bridges to raise. To the south is an axeman regiment and a bowmen regiment. Alright, far southern bridge goes up. To the north is a crossbowmen regiment. Raise the northern bridge. But I can't find the damn fourth regiment. I scout all over, can't see them. Aw damnit, alright, just holdout here and hopefully they don't have some secret way in. The season progresses on and I start getting a little antsy. Spring is close and the Elves should be showing up soon. It's looking like I'm going to have to break the siege to get the elves through. Ok, double check the goblins. Crossbowmen regiment to the north still, to the south the axemen, the bowmen, and oh hey, there's the fourth regiment. A crossbowmen regiment. Aaaaaaaaaalrighty then, guess I'm heading north. I ain't dealing with that group to the south no way no how. So I muster my champions and group them up in front of the northern bridge. Ok, here we go, drop the bridge and charge! Hey, guys, guys, I said charge. Guys, why are you going inside? You're not even going to sleep or eat or drink, you're going to hang out by a statue? Oh you bastards. And the goblins are coming this way. Shit, raise the bridge, raise the bridge! Everyone pull back, regroup. Ok, good, everyone has regrouped.
Except for that idiot Erist, who decided to charge the goblin regiment by himself. Brave soul. Foolish, but brave. The thing is, he holds his own, manages to kill four goblins before being forced to retreat, and by that time a couple more champions have shown up and they take care of the rest of the regiment. Ok, nice. Broke that side of the siege, no casualties.
And then I get a message.
A dragon has showed up.
Oh FUCK. A dragon. A dragon. A freaking dragon. Ok, where is it. It's down south, right near the goblin regiments. Huh. Hmmmmmmm. Lower the far southern bridge and raise the near southern bridge. Maybe I can get lucky and it'll wander into a cage trap, cause, let's face it, the only thing cooler than a pet hydra would be a pet dragon. No such luck though. The dragon notices the goblins. The goblins notice the dragon.
I..uh....I....let's just say I'm glad the goblins had to deal with the dragon.
The goblins advance on the dragon. The dragon advances on the goblin. The goblins advance on the dragon. The dragon BREATHES FIRE ON THE GOBLINS. WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH! The entire screen fills up with flame. HOLY SHIT! That's...that's evil. Freaking evil. I say, out loud, "the world is burning!" And it is. Everything is on fire, and I can't see a damn thing. Smoke everywhere, and they are fighting in it. Goblins are running around on fire, everyone is choking on smoke. Eventually, the smoke clears and the dragon is dead. How, I have no freaking clue. It is. And amazingly the goblins came out ok. The only real casualty is one goblin that lost his right arm and is wandering around falling unconscious every few feet. Plus, you know, lots and LOTS of burned mullets. Eventually the goblins go away, I run in, grab the dragon bones and decorate a platinum statue with them. Finders keepers. The elves don't show up. Bastards.
So another year rolls by, and spring has arrived. I deploy my top two military units to protect the roads and get the elves safely to my trade depot. We're waiting and we're waiting and we're waiting. AMBUSH! Damn goblins. One crossbowmen unit from the north, two melee units from the south. My champions unit the south takes care of the melee units no problem. Things don't fare as well in the north. My dwarves are on the move back north, coming back from a meal, when they run into the ranged unit. Arrows rain down from the sky on the leading dwarf. Oh he's going to be toas-NOPE, he sidesteps all the arrows like he's freaking Neo. Hops into the fray and starts killing goblins. But he gets beaten up pretty bad. His arms are heavily damaged and he's taken a shot to the head. He's slowed down enough to where the goblins can pepper him with arrows and he dies. Damnit. The rest of the dwarves close and take care of the goblins. I lost a champion. Gravelscarred has a day of mourning.
I decide to reward my best military dwarves with a special burial ground called the Hall of Champions (under construction). When I built my new barracks I had niches built into the walls, smoothed and engraved by my finest stoneworkers. True heroes of Gravelscarred are interred there, in coffins made of their favorite material with accompanying statue (or made of gold if their favorite material is unavailable). There are three such burial sites prepared, for Momuz, Kogan and Lor. But the other champions deserve better than the plebeans, so that's where the Hall of Champions comes in. It will be a long hall, engraved floors and walls, with coffins for all my champion fighters that don't reach true hero status.
After all that the elves finally come...and all they bring with them is a bunch of bins of cloth. I'm so pissed I could spit. I have half a mind to kill the fuckers. I lost a champion for this?! Bloody useless hippies.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Chapter 6: I Sing of the Dwarf Electric
Yeah, I know it's been a while since the last Gravelscarred story. I've had some stuff happen, but nothing that really warranted a story of its own. There was the wounding of Kogan and his subsequent healing for 6 months while I figured out how to get the arrows out of his thigh and hand. There was the near abduction of the Kings youngest son and subsequent gruesome death at the indifference of the dwarves. There's the tales of the true badass of Gravelscarred. Kogan may be the Hero of Gravelscarred, but no one...NO ONE...is more badass than Momuz. At one point I watched Momuz single-handedly destroy 3 goblin ambushes at the same time, without getting injured. Momuz now has two artifact armor pieces and a wields a fucking awesome artifact golden sword. Momuz doesn't have a nickname. Why? Cause the freaking GAME gave him one, The Defensive Scale of Bronze. Strangely enough, Momuz also has decided to wear a dress, despite being male. I can't tell if he's a transvestite or going for an ancient roman look. Frankly, I think he's doing it in the hopes that someone will make a comment. Fortunately for the rest of Gravelscarred, no one has been that stupid. Since then, Lor the Butcher has also received a title, a freaking awesome one too. The Infinite Net of Winds.
But finally last night I had something interesting enough happen to write it up.
I've been having a problem with goblin ambushes lately, mostly coming with the caravans. One year I didn't get to trade with anyone because of goblin ambushes slaughtering them. So now I've taken to stationing my top two military units on the roads at the change of seasons to wait for caravans and escort them in. I now have two really good melee units. There's still my champions unit headed by Momuz, 6 dwarves, all of them legendary in everything and maxed out attributes. That's the special forces unit. Then there's my other unit headed by Lor, where all the dwarves are listed as champions, but they don't have quite the legendary skills or attributes like Momuz's unit. Still, they hold their own.
So spring rolls around and I station the units on the roads to meet the Elven caravan. The elves may be prissy bastards, but they do bring the exotic animals and I'm trying to get an exotic animal breeding program going, so I have to make sure the elves get through. I tell my dwarves to carry food and water, and sleep on the ground. That keeps them stationed in position as much of the time as possible. This has worked the past couple of game years to get the elves through.
So my dwarves are stationed and hanging out, waiting for the elves to arrive, when I get the most dreaded message.
A vile force of darkness has arrived.
Oh.
Shit.
Goblin siege.
Quick, where are they? Please let them be far away. Please let them be far away. I zoom to the bottom of the map where Lors 8 dwarves are stationed. Ayup, there they are. Two full regiments of goblins, one of axemen, the other of bowmen, all lined up there along the bottom of the map, three feet from my secondary champions unit. Now, I have taken these dwarves against ambushes before and they do well, but each ambush unit is only 6 goblins or so. A single regiment of goblins in a siege will have around a dozen or so, headed by a champion of their own. Plus there's an archer unit. But oh well, there's nothing to be done about it, can't retreat now, they are right there. Unpause the game, let her rip.
The goblins never stood a chance.
My 8 dwarves in the secondary champions unit SHREDDED the two goblin regiments. Not only did they not have any casualties, they didn't even get WOUNDED. Half the goblin axemen retreated in terror, only to come back later and get slaughtered as soon as they entered the map. The bowmen when down like a sack of bricks. The entire bottom of the screen is littered with corpses and pieces of corpses. Many....many pieces. I'm laughing my ass off, that'll show those goblins who's boss around here. I don't know if I'd march my squads out against a full arrayed siege, but the goblins sure picked a bad time to invade. I can just imagine the scene.
Scooter, leader of the goblin forces: Ok, Snarltooth, Billy Joe, Mullet Bob, get over here. Now, we're near Gravelscarred. They'll see us coming, but they won't have time to react. We should have a clear path all the way to their gates. They don't stand a chance. Alright, ready boys? All together now. CHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGOHSHIT!
Lor the Butcher: OHAI
*SMASHCHOPMAIMKILL*
Lor the Butcher: thanks for coming
It's like that scene from Star Wars where Han is chasing the stormtroopers and then runs into a room full of stormtroopers. Really. Bad. Timing.
So I'm watching Lor chopping up some goblins and then I realize, hey, goblin sieges tend to have four regiments, not just two.
Oh crap.
I zoom up to the top of the map and find the four dwarves present in Momuz's unit mopping up the last of the goblins on their side. Two full regiments, swordsmen and crossbowmen. Taken apart by my champions unit. Momuz is looking happy, Kogan looks slightly less pissed off than usual.
You boys kick ass.
So I spend the next 20 minutes designating all the goblin armor for melting/dumping and the MASSIVE cleanup project gets underway. Well, at least I'll have a lot of goblin bones to make bolts for my marksdwarves to use for practice. I keep my units stationed in their spots during the clean up process in case some ambushes arrive (they prove useful to kill the axemen that had fled earlier and returned). All the dwarves are busy, life is good. Then I get the message: The Titan Aton Fancypants has arrived.
Now, there was a time I would've panicked. I'd have called all the civilians in, mobilized every military dwarf I had and marched them out against the titan. Now? Not so much. One, I have learned that titans are the wussiest of the megabeasts to lay siege. It's basically being attacked by an NBA center. Two, I know how badass my champions are.
The titan shows up at the bottom of the screen, where Lor's unit is stationed. Ok, whatever. Lor, go over and take care of that. Civilians don't even notice. Lors unit wanders over to the titan. Aton Fancypants snarls at Lor and demands gold. Lor snaps her fingers (yeah, turns out Lor is a woman, GIRL POWER) says "bitch please" and chops off the titans foot. The titan falls over and Lors unit piles on en masse. Dead titan. Cool, more bones to decorate a platinum statue.
My champions are awesome.
After all this, the goddamn elves don't even show up. My best guess is that they arrived at the edge of the map, took one look at the field of dead goblins and turned around. Wusses.
In other news, despite my attempts to seed for certain types of artifacts (which worked to a surprising extent), I still manage to have a dwarf make the MOST USELESS ARTIFACT EVER. A dwarf, despite being a mason, decided to take over a leatherworks and make a..get this...cow leather flute. A COW LEATHER FLUTE. Honestly, leather artifacts are mostly useless anyways, but a cow leather flute?! You can't even PLAY the damn thing. Upon closer inspection, that dwarf was found to have a pair of gauntlets pinned to his tunic. He's "special".
Lastly, I have a pet hydra. That's right bitches. A hydra showed up, and while I was contemplating a way of luring it into a cage trap, it obliged by making a bee line straight for one. Caged hydra. I then assigned a dwarf to tame it, and despite wetting himself, the dwarf was able to. So I have a pet hydra. I was hoping to use it as a new method for executing goblins, but when I released the goblin thief into the hydra room all the hydra did was roll over and beg for a tummy rub. I think they did too good a job taming it. So now the hydra is chained up in the kings throne room by an artifact chain. The hydra is now the official symbol of Gravelscarred and I'm working on making a hydra temple. If I can pull it off the way I want, I will have no choice but to post pictures because it will be the coolest thing ever.
My greatest hope is that another hydra shows up and I can capture it and tame it. The hydra I have now is female. I want to start a hydra breeding program. Think about it. Would that not be be coolest thing ever? I don't consider this a likely prospect as it was something of a miracle I caught the one hydra, but hey, here's hoping.
But finally last night I had something interesting enough happen to write it up.
I've been having a problem with goblin ambushes lately, mostly coming with the caravans. One year I didn't get to trade with anyone because of goblin ambushes slaughtering them. So now I've taken to stationing my top two military units on the roads at the change of seasons to wait for caravans and escort them in. I now have two really good melee units. There's still my champions unit headed by Momuz, 6 dwarves, all of them legendary in everything and maxed out attributes. That's the special forces unit. Then there's my other unit headed by Lor, where all the dwarves are listed as champions, but they don't have quite the legendary skills or attributes like Momuz's unit. Still, they hold their own.
So spring rolls around and I station the units on the roads to meet the Elven caravan. The elves may be prissy bastards, but they do bring the exotic animals and I'm trying to get an exotic animal breeding program going, so I have to make sure the elves get through. I tell my dwarves to carry food and water, and sleep on the ground. That keeps them stationed in position as much of the time as possible. This has worked the past couple of game years to get the elves through.
So my dwarves are stationed and hanging out, waiting for the elves to arrive, when I get the most dreaded message.
A vile force of darkness has arrived.
Oh.
Shit.
Goblin siege.
Quick, where are they? Please let them be far away. Please let them be far away. I zoom to the bottom of the map where Lors 8 dwarves are stationed. Ayup, there they are. Two full regiments of goblins, one of axemen, the other of bowmen, all lined up there along the bottom of the map, three feet from my secondary champions unit. Now, I have taken these dwarves against ambushes before and they do well, but each ambush unit is only 6 goblins or so. A single regiment of goblins in a siege will have around a dozen or so, headed by a champion of their own. Plus there's an archer unit. But oh well, there's nothing to be done about it, can't retreat now, they are right there. Unpause the game, let her rip.
The goblins never stood a chance.
My 8 dwarves in the secondary champions unit SHREDDED the two goblin regiments. Not only did they not have any casualties, they didn't even get WOUNDED. Half the goblin axemen retreated in terror, only to come back later and get slaughtered as soon as they entered the map. The bowmen when down like a sack of bricks. The entire bottom of the screen is littered with corpses and pieces of corpses. Many....many pieces. I'm laughing my ass off, that'll show those goblins who's boss around here. I don't know if I'd march my squads out against a full arrayed siege, but the goblins sure picked a bad time to invade. I can just imagine the scene.
Scooter, leader of the goblin forces: Ok, Snarltooth, Billy Joe, Mullet Bob, get over here. Now, we're near Gravelscarred. They'll see us coming, but they won't have time to react. We should have a clear path all the way to their gates. They don't stand a chance. Alright, ready boys? All together now. CHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGOHSHIT!
Lor the Butcher: OHAI
*SMASHCHOPMAIMKILL*
Lor the Butcher: thanks for coming
It's like that scene from Star Wars where Han is chasing the stormtroopers and then runs into a room full of stormtroopers. Really. Bad. Timing.
So I'm watching Lor chopping up some goblins and then I realize, hey, goblin sieges tend to have four regiments, not just two.
Oh crap.
I zoom up to the top of the map and find the four dwarves present in Momuz's unit mopping up the last of the goblins on their side. Two full regiments, swordsmen and crossbowmen. Taken apart by my champions unit. Momuz is looking happy, Kogan looks slightly less pissed off than usual.
You boys kick ass.
So I spend the next 20 minutes designating all the goblin armor for melting/dumping and the MASSIVE cleanup project gets underway. Well, at least I'll have a lot of goblin bones to make bolts for my marksdwarves to use for practice. I keep my units stationed in their spots during the clean up process in case some ambushes arrive (they prove useful to kill the axemen that had fled earlier and returned). All the dwarves are busy, life is good. Then I get the message: The Titan Aton Fancypants has arrived.
Now, there was a time I would've panicked. I'd have called all the civilians in, mobilized every military dwarf I had and marched them out against the titan. Now? Not so much. One, I have learned that titans are the wussiest of the megabeasts to lay siege. It's basically being attacked by an NBA center. Two, I know how badass my champions are.
The titan shows up at the bottom of the screen, where Lor's unit is stationed. Ok, whatever. Lor, go over and take care of that. Civilians don't even notice. Lors unit wanders over to the titan. Aton Fancypants snarls at Lor and demands gold. Lor snaps her fingers (yeah, turns out Lor is a woman, GIRL POWER) says "bitch please" and chops off the titans foot. The titan falls over and Lors unit piles on en masse. Dead titan. Cool, more bones to decorate a platinum statue.
My champions are awesome.
After all this, the goddamn elves don't even show up. My best guess is that they arrived at the edge of the map, took one look at the field of dead goblins and turned around. Wusses.
In other news, despite my attempts to seed for certain types of artifacts (which worked to a surprising extent), I still manage to have a dwarf make the MOST USELESS ARTIFACT EVER. A dwarf, despite being a mason, decided to take over a leatherworks and make a..get this...cow leather flute. A COW LEATHER FLUTE. Honestly, leather artifacts are mostly useless anyways, but a cow leather flute?! You can't even PLAY the damn thing. Upon closer inspection, that dwarf was found to have a pair of gauntlets pinned to his tunic. He's "special".
Lastly, I have a pet hydra. That's right bitches. A hydra showed up, and while I was contemplating a way of luring it into a cage trap, it obliged by making a bee line straight for one. Caged hydra. I then assigned a dwarf to tame it, and despite wetting himself, the dwarf was able to. So I have a pet hydra. I was hoping to use it as a new method for executing goblins, but when I released the goblin thief into the hydra room all the hydra did was roll over and beg for a tummy rub. I think they did too good a job taming it. So now the hydra is chained up in the kings throne room by an artifact chain. The hydra is now the official symbol of Gravelscarred and I'm working on making a hydra temple. If I can pull it off the way I want, I will have no choice but to post pictures because it will be the coolest thing ever.
My greatest hope is that another hydra shows up and I can capture it and tame it. The hydra I have now is female. I want to start a hydra breeding program. Think about it. Would that not be be coolest thing ever? I don't consider this a likely prospect as it was something of a miracle I caught the one hydra, but hey, here's hoping.
Chapter 5: Tragedy Falls Like a Rain of Arrows
The life of a Defender of Gravelscarred is far from easy. But first things first.
The arena project was finally completed and I spent much of the weekend executing goblins by having them ripped to shreds by packs of wardogs. It was thoroughly entertaining. Given the use and history of the arena, it has since been renamed the Michael Vick Memorial Coliseum. I was pleased to see that the event was immortalized on an artifact created by one of my dwarves. A fey mood brought on the production of an artifact chain that had a picture of dogs attacking a goblin. For some reason, my dwarves are particularly fond of making artifact chains. I have three, count em THREE, artifact chains. At least they are somewhat useful, unlike the artifact toy forge that one idiot made. But the second chain really pissed me off. On it was a beautiful picture, in sunstone, of the FIRST artifact chain. What kind of freaky bondage dwarves do I have? The first chain in is the Kings throne room, anchoring a legendary war dog to the floor.
Anyways, I decide to slightly reorganize my military. I take all the champions and elite dwarves and put them in one unit under Momuz. This is my special forces unit and main peacekeeping force. The group I send out to protect civilians while working outdoors. The marksdwarves unit stays roughly the same, I add one dwarf that just reached the age of maturity, a child born and bred in Gravelscarred joining the Gravelscarred military. It's like Israel. New entries into the marksdwarves unit are given a full suit of plate armor and must at least reach wrestler status before they are even allowed to TOUCH a crossbow. Hopefully this will prevent them from dying so easily. Also, one dwarf managed to create a truly badass artifact crossbow that no one is using. Marksdwarves truly are idiots. The rest of the melee dwarves are put in their own unit under Kogan. This is my training unit, kept off duty most of the time unless truly needed so they can train and get better.
Kogan continues to be a badass. I decide that since he is the Hero of Gravelscarred, he should be a little different from the rest. So now Kogan wields two steel short swords I forged especially for him from my precious steel stocks. Steel is one of the best materials in the game, offering damage and armor bonuses. How Kogan has not reached champion status by now is beyond me. He's an elite hammerdwarf, high master wrestler, legendary armor user, legendary shield user, legendary macedwarf, legendary axedwarf and legendary sworddwarf. He is the master of many weapons and thusly has been dubbed Kogan "The Weapon" Roundgloves. The reorganization of my military meant that Kogans woman, Nil Redpulleys was now under him. I'm sure this made him very happy.
Things are moving along well, when I get the Ambush message. Ok, what's the deal. Turns out a band of goblin hammermen are heading to my fortress from the uppermost cliff where I am building the Absurdly Pointless Giant Tower. That entrance is protected by a trench with a retractable bridge and two chained wardogs (the entire area is known as the Attic). Unfortunately, cause I'm an idiot, I forgot to raise the Attic bridge since I was last up there, and the goblins are about to come storming down INTO my fortress. Fortunately, I did plan for that possibility as the Attic stairway leads into a hallway with two doors that I can lock. So I quickly lock the doors and scramble my fighters to outside the doorway, preparing for a fight and cursing my ineptitude. The dwarves that aren't sleeping/eating/drinking/being useless finally show up, and I wait for the goblins to come pouring down the stairs. I wait. And I wait. And I wait. Nothing. What...the hell? I jump to the Attic to see what's going on. What do I find? I find that the goblin ambush ran into my two wardogs, killed both of them while sustaining minor injuries, but became so disheartened by their scrapes that they were retreating. You bunch of PANSIES. Oh no, you're not getting off that easy. Boys, get up there and take them out.
Kogans unit rushes upstairs, pours out of the Attic and takes off after the goblins...running smack into another goblin ambush and a snatcher that decided to join their force.
They are devious bastards.
The goblins on the whole, of course, don't stand much of a chance. I believe I saw one goblin tossed a good 15 tiles away. They went down in short order. But...not without losses. See, the second ambush was of crossbowmen, and the melee has some trouble with them. A barrage took down a promising young axedwarf whom I can't remember his name but will be deeply missed. And then....then....they got Nil. A crossbowman tagged her, and she started staggering away. I watched in horror as the goblin crossbowmen turned and shot her down even as she fled to the safety of the trees. Bolt after bolt, into her back, until she dropped. Dead. Even in her last act she helped Gravelscarred as she distracted the crossbowmen long enough for the melee to close distance and engage the goblins, dispatching them with ease. Kogan was in the thick of it, but he didn't see Nil shot down. It wasn't until after the fight that he found her body. The howl will haunt my dreams. I checked his thoughts. He lost a friend to tragedy (the axedwarf) and a lover. Despite his losses, he soldiered on for the good of Gravelscarred, putting on an ecstatic face. I've checked later, and even though Nil's body has long been interred, he continues to be "romantically involved" with her. He's just not letting go. I'm fairly certain he's moving systematically through the available Gravelscarred wenches trying to fill the empty hole Nil left behind.
But life in Gravelscarred continues on. Work progresses on the Tower. Two new recruits are added to the military. The one marksdwarf and a new axedwarf. The dwarven caravan arrives. And so does a hydra....
A freaking HYDRA. One of the four megabeasts. He shows up at the bottom of the map and proceeds to sit there happily while the merchants come and unload their goods. Oh great. Um, ladies and gentlemen, no need to be alarmed but we have a little hydra activity in the south. The far southern bridge has been raised so it cannot get near the fortress. Just remain calm while we go take care of this.
I muster nearly the entire army of Gravelscarred. I leave the marksdwarves back because I don't want the idiots to get themselves killed just yet. But I activate both melee units. I figure it'll take all of them to take out the Hydra. I yank out the new recruits and set them aside, one of which is named Fissurepaddled. Is that not the perfect name for a new recruit? I think it's the dwarven military surname equivalent of Pyle. Anyways, I station the units on the fortress side of the far southern bridge, waiting for everyone to assemble so I can have them charge en masse. Ok almost everyone is there. Where are the stragglers. The one legendary spear dwarf is still recovering from an injury sustained during sparring. Another is alseep. That straggling axedwarf is coming, they'll all be together soon, good.
Oh shit. Two of my military dwarves, a champion and a mace lord decide this would be a perfect time to step back inside for a drink. Oh no you don't. You bastards aren't getting out of this. Quick, raise the near bridge, they won't be able to get back inside. Well, by the time the peasants flip the lever, the champion makes it back indoors but the mace lord is balked at the trench. Mwaaahaha, now you'll have no choice but to rejoin your brothers for the fight. Now, turn around and....fall asleep right there in front of the trench.
...
The court martial is scheduled for Wednesday.
The bastard also feel asleep right where the bridge settles. If it weren't for the investment into his training, I would've smushed the fucker with the bridge.
I figure this is about as good as it's going to get. Ok boys. Lower the far southern bridge and go get him! FOR GRAVELSCARRED!
The dwarves go charging across the bridge. I zoom back down to check on the hydra. I still have faint hopes that it'll wander into the random cage trap I set up in the middle of nowhere in that part of the map, so I can bring it back in, tame it, and chain it in the arena to tear apart goblins. Apparently people have done this. It's a slim shot, but who knows. So I pop down there..and the hydra is gone. What? Did it leave already? Did it get bored and wander away? DAMNIT! Oh wait, nevermind, it's already at the bridge, murdering my dwarves. Huh, hydra are fast. The dwarves are attacking and the hydra throws two of them over the side of the cliff. Oh shit.
I zoom down there to see if they survived. One of the tossed dwarves is Momuz, who seems to have landed face first and his entire upper body is pretty severely bruised. The other dwarf is a former butcher named Lor Fortressrecluses. Lor is...tough. Lor fell down two z levels, landed on his right side, and only sustained minor bruises. Ok, that's good, let's go check on the....OH DAMN, THE HYDRA FELL OFF THE CLIFF TOO.
So now the hydra is at the bottom of the cliff, momentarily dazed but otherwise ok. Momuz goes staggering off, out of action at least for a time. The rest of the force will have to go a long way to get to the boys (and later I realized that entire region of the map was isolated due to the Great Wall of Gravelscarred). The hydra comes to and looks very pissed off. It stares at Lor. Lor stares back. It snarls out of its seven heads. Lor LEAPS AT THE FUCKING THING. GRAAAAAAAAA! And he KILLS IT! SINGLEHANDEDLY! I don't even know how he did it. I read that if you chop off one of its heads it will die, and Lor is an axedwarf, but I didn't find any hydra parts separated from the body. I think Lor just went to TOWN and chopped into it until it stopped moving.
Let me recap. Lor gets thrown off a cliff, falls two z levels, lands on his right side. Not only is he relatively unhurt, but he's still got it in him to stand up and kill a fucking hydra all by himself. Lor is a badass. He has since been dubbed Lor "The Butcher" Fortressrecluses.
I need a way to commemorate this great victory for Gravelscarred. Currently, there are two bronze masterwork statues (aka bronze colossus corpses) in an atrium between the housing districts and the food stocks, so all the dwarves pass by them. I never was able to recover the third bronze statue, I think the goblins took it home with them. Which is fine, they deserved it. The boys have already hauled the hydra back inside and butchered it. I've got some meat and a tanned hydra leather which I can only hope gets incorporated into an artifact at some point, and some hydra bones. So I get an idea. First I make a totem out of the skull, which is pretty much the only thing you can do with a skull. Then, with a whole lot of finagling and jury rigging of stockpiles, I manage to get my bonecarver to decorate a platinum statue with the hydra bones. Platinum is one of the rarest metals in the game, usually reserved to make items for royal rooms. I had a platinum statue leftover from making my royal quarters. The bonecarver makes a design of a bright sun with the bones. I add that statue to the others in the atrium and dedicate it to Lor the Butcher. I am going to collect trophies of all the megabeasts I kill and put them there.
(I never did find out what happened to the corpse of that Titan)
Life in Gravelscarred is far from dull.
The arena project was finally completed and I spent much of the weekend executing goblins by having them ripped to shreds by packs of wardogs. It was thoroughly entertaining. Given the use and history of the arena, it has since been renamed the Michael Vick Memorial Coliseum. I was pleased to see that the event was immortalized on an artifact created by one of my dwarves. A fey mood brought on the production of an artifact chain that had a picture of dogs attacking a goblin. For some reason, my dwarves are particularly fond of making artifact chains. I have three, count em THREE, artifact chains. At least they are somewhat useful, unlike the artifact toy forge that one idiot made. But the second chain really pissed me off. On it was a beautiful picture, in sunstone, of the FIRST artifact chain. What kind of freaky bondage dwarves do I have? The first chain in is the Kings throne room, anchoring a legendary war dog to the floor.
Anyways, I decide to slightly reorganize my military. I take all the champions and elite dwarves and put them in one unit under Momuz. This is my special forces unit and main peacekeeping force. The group I send out to protect civilians while working outdoors. The marksdwarves unit stays roughly the same, I add one dwarf that just reached the age of maturity, a child born and bred in Gravelscarred joining the Gravelscarred military. It's like Israel. New entries into the marksdwarves unit are given a full suit of plate armor and must at least reach wrestler status before they are even allowed to TOUCH a crossbow. Hopefully this will prevent them from dying so easily. Also, one dwarf managed to create a truly badass artifact crossbow that no one is using. Marksdwarves truly are idiots. The rest of the melee dwarves are put in their own unit under Kogan. This is my training unit, kept off duty most of the time unless truly needed so they can train and get better.
Kogan continues to be a badass. I decide that since he is the Hero of Gravelscarred, he should be a little different from the rest. So now Kogan wields two steel short swords I forged especially for him from my precious steel stocks. Steel is one of the best materials in the game, offering damage and armor bonuses. How Kogan has not reached champion status by now is beyond me. He's an elite hammerdwarf, high master wrestler, legendary armor user, legendary shield user, legendary macedwarf, legendary axedwarf and legendary sworddwarf. He is the master of many weapons and thusly has been dubbed Kogan "The Weapon" Roundgloves. The reorganization of my military meant that Kogans woman, Nil Redpulleys was now under him. I'm sure this made him very happy.
Things are moving along well, when I get the Ambush message. Ok, what's the deal. Turns out a band of goblin hammermen are heading to my fortress from the uppermost cliff where I am building the Absurdly Pointless Giant Tower. That entrance is protected by a trench with a retractable bridge and two chained wardogs (the entire area is known as the Attic). Unfortunately, cause I'm an idiot, I forgot to raise the Attic bridge since I was last up there, and the goblins are about to come storming down INTO my fortress. Fortunately, I did plan for that possibility as the Attic stairway leads into a hallway with two doors that I can lock. So I quickly lock the doors and scramble my fighters to outside the doorway, preparing for a fight and cursing my ineptitude. The dwarves that aren't sleeping/eating/drinking/being useless finally show up, and I wait for the goblins to come pouring down the stairs. I wait. And I wait. And I wait. Nothing. What...the hell? I jump to the Attic to see what's going on. What do I find? I find that the goblin ambush ran into my two wardogs, killed both of them while sustaining minor injuries, but became so disheartened by their scrapes that they were retreating. You bunch of PANSIES. Oh no, you're not getting off that easy. Boys, get up there and take them out.
Kogans unit rushes upstairs, pours out of the Attic and takes off after the goblins...running smack into another goblin ambush and a snatcher that decided to join their force.
They are devious bastards.
The goblins on the whole, of course, don't stand much of a chance. I believe I saw one goblin tossed a good 15 tiles away. They went down in short order. But...not without losses. See, the second ambush was of crossbowmen, and the melee has some trouble with them. A barrage took down a promising young axedwarf whom I can't remember his name but will be deeply missed. And then....then....they got Nil. A crossbowman tagged her, and she started staggering away. I watched in horror as the goblin crossbowmen turned and shot her down even as she fled to the safety of the trees. Bolt after bolt, into her back, until she dropped. Dead. Even in her last act she helped Gravelscarred as she distracted the crossbowmen long enough for the melee to close distance and engage the goblins, dispatching them with ease. Kogan was in the thick of it, but he didn't see Nil shot down. It wasn't until after the fight that he found her body. The howl will haunt my dreams. I checked his thoughts. He lost a friend to tragedy (the axedwarf) and a lover. Despite his losses, he soldiered on for the good of Gravelscarred, putting on an ecstatic face. I've checked later, and even though Nil's body has long been interred, he continues to be "romantically involved" with her. He's just not letting go. I'm fairly certain he's moving systematically through the available Gravelscarred wenches trying to fill the empty hole Nil left behind.
But life in Gravelscarred continues on. Work progresses on the Tower. Two new recruits are added to the military. The one marksdwarf and a new axedwarf. The dwarven caravan arrives. And so does a hydra....
A freaking HYDRA. One of the four megabeasts. He shows up at the bottom of the map and proceeds to sit there happily while the merchants come and unload their goods. Oh great. Um, ladies and gentlemen, no need to be alarmed but we have a little hydra activity in the south. The far southern bridge has been raised so it cannot get near the fortress. Just remain calm while we go take care of this.
I muster nearly the entire army of Gravelscarred. I leave the marksdwarves back because I don't want the idiots to get themselves killed just yet. But I activate both melee units. I figure it'll take all of them to take out the Hydra. I yank out the new recruits and set them aside, one of which is named Fissurepaddled. Is that not the perfect name for a new recruit? I think it's the dwarven military surname equivalent of Pyle. Anyways, I station the units on the fortress side of the far southern bridge, waiting for everyone to assemble so I can have them charge en masse. Ok almost everyone is there. Where are the stragglers. The one legendary spear dwarf is still recovering from an injury sustained during sparring. Another is alseep. That straggling axedwarf is coming, they'll all be together soon, good.
Oh shit. Two of my military dwarves, a champion and a mace lord decide this would be a perfect time to step back inside for a drink. Oh no you don't. You bastards aren't getting out of this. Quick, raise the near bridge, they won't be able to get back inside. Well, by the time the peasants flip the lever, the champion makes it back indoors but the mace lord is balked at the trench. Mwaaahaha, now you'll have no choice but to rejoin your brothers for the fight. Now, turn around and....fall asleep right there in front of the trench.
...
The court martial is scheduled for Wednesday.
The bastard also feel asleep right where the bridge settles. If it weren't for the investment into his training, I would've smushed the fucker with the bridge.
I figure this is about as good as it's going to get. Ok boys. Lower the far southern bridge and go get him! FOR GRAVELSCARRED!
The dwarves go charging across the bridge. I zoom back down to check on the hydra. I still have faint hopes that it'll wander into the random cage trap I set up in the middle of nowhere in that part of the map, so I can bring it back in, tame it, and chain it in the arena to tear apart goblins. Apparently people have done this. It's a slim shot, but who knows. So I pop down there..and the hydra is gone. What? Did it leave already? Did it get bored and wander away? DAMNIT! Oh wait, nevermind, it's already at the bridge, murdering my dwarves. Huh, hydra are fast. The dwarves are attacking and the hydra throws two of them over the side of the cliff. Oh shit.
I zoom down there to see if they survived. One of the tossed dwarves is Momuz, who seems to have landed face first and his entire upper body is pretty severely bruised. The other dwarf is a former butcher named Lor Fortressrecluses. Lor is...tough. Lor fell down two z levels, landed on his right side, and only sustained minor bruises. Ok, that's good, let's go check on the....OH DAMN, THE HYDRA FELL OFF THE CLIFF TOO.
So now the hydra is at the bottom of the cliff, momentarily dazed but otherwise ok. Momuz goes staggering off, out of action at least for a time. The rest of the force will have to go a long way to get to the boys (and later I realized that entire region of the map was isolated due to the Great Wall of Gravelscarred). The hydra comes to and looks very pissed off. It stares at Lor. Lor stares back. It snarls out of its seven heads. Lor LEAPS AT THE FUCKING THING. GRAAAAAAAAA! And he KILLS IT! SINGLEHANDEDLY! I don't even know how he did it. I read that if you chop off one of its heads it will die, and Lor is an axedwarf, but I didn't find any hydra parts separated from the body. I think Lor just went to TOWN and chopped into it until it stopped moving.
Let me recap. Lor gets thrown off a cliff, falls two z levels, lands on his right side. Not only is he relatively unhurt, but he's still got it in him to stand up and kill a fucking hydra all by himself. Lor is a badass. He has since been dubbed Lor "The Butcher" Fortressrecluses.
I need a way to commemorate this great victory for Gravelscarred. Currently, there are two bronze masterwork statues (aka bronze colossus corpses) in an atrium between the housing districts and the food stocks, so all the dwarves pass by them. I never was able to recover the third bronze statue, I think the goblins took it home with them. Which is fine, they deserved it. The boys have already hauled the hydra back inside and butchered it. I've got some meat and a tanned hydra leather which I can only hope gets incorporated into an artifact at some point, and some hydra bones. So I get an idea. First I make a totem out of the skull, which is pretty much the only thing you can do with a skull. Then, with a whole lot of finagling and jury rigging of stockpiles, I manage to get my bonecarver to decorate a platinum statue with the hydra bones. Platinum is one of the rarest metals in the game, usually reserved to make items for royal rooms. I had a platinum statue leftover from making my royal quarters. The bonecarver makes a design of a bright sun with the bones. I add that statue to the others in the atrium and dedicate it to Lor the Butcher. I am going to collect trophies of all the megabeasts I kill and put them there.
(I never did find out what happened to the corpse of that Titan)
Life in Gravelscarred is far from dull.
Chapter 4: Never a Dull Moment
So there I was last night, playing. Everything was going swimmingly. The arena was nearing completion, my new strip mining project was progressing well, when I receive the familiar "An Ambush! Curse Them!" message. Huh what? The screen zooms over to the ambush. I see about 5 goblin crossbowmen and a blue "guard" (whatever that means) at the edge of the map. But I don't see any dwarves. And the goblins aren't moving. What's going on here? Well, it turns out, the human diplomat decided to wander to the side of the map furthest away from civilization for no goddamn reason and got completely destroyed by the goblin ambush. I'm ambivalent towards this. However, for some reason a planter was out in that direction and ran into the goblins. The crossbowmen shot him down, then decided that hey, there must be something fun in the direction the dwarf was running to, so they start meandering towards my fortress. Oh great, now I have to deal with this. Ok, everyone inside. Of course, this happens right when I'm moving goods outside to meet the dwarven caravan, so I need to clean this up quick. The goblins are advancing, high-fiving each other, fist-pounding, talking about their new beer bongs.
Alright, marksdwarves, get out there and shoot them. This should help clear up my bolt problem and get the marksdwarves some experience. The 4 marksdwarves that aren't eating/sleeping/drinking/being useless head outside, take one shot at the goblins and then run at them swinging their crossbows like clubs. Good god, you guys must be the "special" unit. The goblins kill 3 marksdwarves while the fourth manages to limp away. Goblins have taken no casualties. Goddamnit. Alright, melee unit. Kogan deserves a break, so I activate my other melee unit, the group with 3 legendary champions, a mace lord, a mace dwarf and 2 elite wrestlers. It's captained by a dwarf named Momuz.
So the 3 dwarves not eating/sleeping/drinking/being useless head outside, including Momuz. I figure I'll at least lose 1 dwarf. Momuz leads the way and first hits the goblin guard. The guard puts up a good fight, but in the end he's no match for Momuz. Momuz starts tossing around the goblin like a rag doll, all the while dodging barrages of crossbow bolts. The goblin guard falls dead and the crossbowmen decide that discretion is better part of valor. Oh no no, you started it, you're going to finish it. Boys, go get 'em. My dwarves manage to chase down 3 of the retreating goblins and destroy them.
Now there is a trail of corpses leading from a side entrance to my fortress. At the moment that entrance is relatively undefended. A goblin snatcher jumps out and makes a beeline for the fortress, bag in hand ready for a dwarf child. And he runs smack into the face of one my Royal Guards heading outside to pickup a piece of equipment from a dead dwarf. Oh this ought to be good. Half my guards are champions, that snatcher doesn't have a chance. The goblin snatcher then stabs the guard with his dagger and the guard goes down like a sack of bricks.
Wait, what?! What the hell? Oh wait, let me guess, that wasn't one of my native guards. It was one of the guards that came with the king when he arrived. Meh, good riddance, scab. The goblin turns to run away and finds a stray war dog leaping at his face. MWAAAHAHAHA GET HIM BOY. The dog does a better job than the scab guard. The goblin injures the dogs paw and runs. The dog is relatively unharmed, but is slowed down by the paw, so the goblin gets away. I'll get you yet, you bastard.
Two seconds later, a different stray war dog is sniffing around and leaps into action. He found another goblin snatcher. The dog goes to town and the goblin dies horrifically. Thas a good boy. Thas a good boy! Ok, let's designate the goblins gear. Dump, dump, dump, melt, dump, what the... Goblin CHUNK?! THAS A GOOD BOY! THAS MY BOY! He took the goblin apart. Literally.
At this point there is a stream of civilians passing through the area, picking up equipment to store/dispose. It's a great setting for an ambush. So I station Momuz's unit in the area to defend the civilians.
And now we meet the STUPIDEST GOBLIN ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH. The civilians are passing through the gates to the side entrance when a goblin snatcher decides this would be the perfect opportunity to jump out of the bushes...Aha! I've come for the children!...right into the middle of three of Momuz's dwarves heading back inside for a drink. Two champions and a mace lord. I can't be certain, but I believe later a puddle of goblin urine was found on the spot. The snatcher proceeds to throw his snatching bag at the dwarves and run for his life. I'm not even remotely joking. One second the snatcher is jumping out into the trio of badass dwarves, the next second there is a bag icon on the ground and the goblin is 3 tiles away. It has to be one of the funniest damn things I've seen in this game so far. The goblin didn't even try to stab any of them with his knife. Just dropped the bag and sprinted. Not fast enough though. The dwarves caught him and, well, let's say there wasn't too much to clean up.
The reclamation process is going well. I conscript a few of my more useless dwarves into the army to replentish my marksdwarves unit. Despite their stupidity, they are useful under certain situations. Later I get a message that a marksdwarf is throwing a tantrum. I figure it's one of my new recruits, upset about being drafted. But it's not. It's the marksdwarf that limped away from the fray where the rest of the unit got wiped out. Ok, what's the problem. I know you saw death, but it can't have been that bad. Oh. I see that a steel crossbow bolt is sticking out of your right arm. Well, I can see how that would make one upset.
The marksdwarf gets jailed for throwing a tantrum, which isn't a bad thing. My jail is a pleasant place, it usually calms tantruming dwarves down, plus it'll get him out of harms way while someone comes to remove the arrow. While someone..comes...to remove the arrow. Someone. Anyone? So the dwarf is sitting in jail with an arrow sticking out of his arm, getting progressively more pissed off until he loses it all together and goes berserk. That's bad. If he breaks his chains he could hurt other more useful dwarves. I just sort of...lock the door. Nothing to see here folks. Nothing to see. Move along, move along.
Alright, marksdwarves, get out there and shoot them. This should help clear up my bolt problem and get the marksdwarves some experience. The 4 marksdwarves that aren't eating/sleeping/drinking/being useless head outside, take one shot at the goblins and then run at them swinging their crossbows like clubs. Good god, you guys must be the "special" unit. The goblins kill 3 marksdwarves while the fourth manages to limp away. Goblins have taken no casualties. Goddamnit. Alright, melee unit. Kogan deserves a break, so I activate my other melee unit, the group with 3 legendary champions, a mace lord, a mace dwarf and 2 elite wrestlers. It's captained by a dwarf named Momuz.
So the 3 dwarves not eating/sleeping/drinking/being useless head outside, including Momuz. I figure I'll at least lose 1 dwarf. Momuz leads the way and first hits the goblin guard. The guard puts up a good fight, but in the end he's no match for Momuz. Momuz starts tossing around the goblin like a rag doll, all the while dodging barrages of crossbow bolts. The goblin guard falls dead and the crossbowmen decide that discretion is better part of valor. Oh no no, you started it, you're going to finish it. Boys, go get 'em. My dwarves manage to chase down 3 of the retreating goblins and destroy them.
Now there is a trail of corpses leading from a side entrance to my fortress. At the moment that entrance is relatively undefended. A goblin snatcher jumps out and makes a beeline for the fortress, bag in hand ready for a dwarf child. And he runs smack into the face of one my Royal Guards heading outside to pickup a piece of equipment from a dead dwarf. Oh this ought to be good. Half my guards are champions, that snatcher doesn't have a chance. The goblin snatcher then stabs the guard with his dagger and the guard goes down like a sack of bricks.
Wait, what?! What the hell? Oh wait, let me guess, that wasn't one of my native guards. It was one of the guards that came with the king when he arrived. Meh, good riddance, scab. The goblin turns to run away and finds a stray war dog leaping at his face. MWAAAHAHAHA GET HIM BOY. The dog does a better job than the scab guard. The goblin injures the dogs paw and runs. The dog is relatively unharmed, but is slowed down by the paw, so the goblin gets away. I'll get you yet, you bastard.
Two seconds later, a different stray war dog is sniffing around and leaps into action. He found another goblin snatcher. The dog goes to town and the goblin dies horrifically. Thas a good boy. Thas a good boy! Ok, let's designate the goblins gear. Dump, dump, dump, melt, dump, what the... Goblin CHUNK?! THAS A GOOD BOY! THAS MY BOY! He took the goblin apart. Literally.
At this point there is a stream of civilians passing through the area, picking up equipment to store/dispose. It's a great setting for an ambush. So I station Momuz's unit in the area to defend the civilians.
And now we meet the STUPIDEST GOBLIN ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH. The civilians are passing through the gates to the side entrance when a goblin snatcher decides this would be the perfect opportunity to jump out of the bushes...Aha! I've come for the children!...right into the middle of three of Momuz's dwarves heading back inside for a drink. Two champions and a mace lord. I can't be certain, but I believe later a puddle of goblin urine was found on the spot. The snatcher proceeds to throw his snatching bag at the dwarves and run for his life. I'm not even remotely joking. One second the snatcher is jumping out into the trio of badass dwarves, the next second there is a bag icon on the ground and the goblin is 3 tiles away. It has to be one of the funniest damn things I've seen in this game so far. The goblin didn't even try to stab any of them with his knife. Just dropped the bag and sprinted. Not fast enough though. The dwarves caught him and, well, let's say there wasn't too much to clean up.
The reclamation process is going well. I conscript a few of my more useless dwarves into the army to replentish my marksdwarves unit. Despite their stupidity, they are useful under certain situations. Later I get a message that a marksdwarf is throwing a tantrum. I figure it's one of my new recruits, upset about being drafted. But it's not. It's the marksdwarf that limped away from the fray where the rest of the unit got wiped out. Ok, what's the problem. I know you saw death, but it can't have been that bad. Oh. I see that a steel crossbow bolt is sticking out of your right arm. Well, I can see how that would make one upset.
The marksdwarf gets jailed for throwing a tantrum, which isn't a bad thing. My jail is a pleasant place, it usually calms tantruming dwarves down, plus it'll get him out of harms way while someone comes to remove the arrow. While someone..comes...to remove the arrow. Someone. Anyone? So the dwarf is sitting in jail with an arrow sticking out of his arm, getting progressively more pissed off until he loses it all together and goes berserk. That's bad. If he breaks his chains he could hurt other more useful dwarves. I just sort of...lock the door. Nothing to see here folks. Nothing to see. Move along, move along.
Chapter 3: The Hero of Gravelscarred
So I've had little trouble with goblin sieges lately. Instead, I've had ambushes. Which is actually worse. Sieges are easy to deal with. They come announced and start at the edge of the map. I simply find out where they are, raise a bridge or two, close some hatches, and effectively isolate the siege to one part of the map where they sit harmlessly (or even helpfully) until they get bored and leave. The ambushes are sneaky, showing up in a group of 5 or 6, usually attacking a lone fisherdwarf out fishing away from the fortress. I usually don't get casualties from sieges, but lose a dwarf or two from ambushes.
I'm happily playing along one day when the game pauses and I get the "An ambush! Curse them!" message. Oh great. I check around and find the ambush. One goblin snuck up on a fisherdwarf waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay away from my fortress. I check the dwarf to see what he's wearing. He's wearing a tattered tunic, tattered pants and one shoe. How he's fishing like that, I'll never know. He doesn't even have a fishing pole. I figure this guy's lost but what they hell. I activate his military skills and let him go up against this fully armed goblin.
Apparently the goblin decided to mess with the wrong dwarf. Fisherdwarf goes nuts. He attacks the goblin with his bare hands and knocks the damn thing unconscious. The dwarf then proceeds to beat the ever loving shit out of the goblin for 5 minutes straight. I'm checking the damage on the goblin. All his limbs and major body parts are mangled beyond recognition, this goblin is in bad shape. But it's not dying, it's just broken. But the dwarf isn't giving up. He just keeps on beating and beating and beating. That is one tough dwarf. I'm liking this dwarf. I've got a spot open in the fortress guard, when he's done killing the goblin I'm putting him in the guard, which is a really cushy position.
Then the goblins friends show up. The other 5 of the ambush come up behind the dwarf, who doesn't see them. One shot, back of the head, dead dwarf. I declare a national day of mourning.
So now I've got these 5 goblins hanging around. Better take care of them. I activate my axedwarf unit, they are a little green and I want to get them some battle experience. They shouldn't have much trouble with these lot of goblins. Alright boys, get down there and take care of the goblins.
And now we begin the tale of the Hero of Gravelscarred.
The axedwarf unit is led by Kogen Lamesreg, or Kogen Roundgloves in lay terms. Kogen is a bad man. Kogen is one bad motherfucker.
Given the name it is perhaps unsurprising that Kogan is an elite wrestler, though he also currently wields a copper mace as wrestlers have limited utility in the game. Kogen wears a full suit of steel plate armor. He is not a dwarf to be trifled with.
So Kogen and the two axedwarves that aren't sleeping/eating/drinking/being useless show up and they very quickly mop up the remaining goblins. Then they wander over to where the ambush killed the fisherdwarf. They come upon the corpse of the fisherdwarf next to the mangled and yet still alive goblin. You can imagine the scene. It's in the woods next to the river. An idyllic scene. Kogen has just finished killing goblins, he's feeling pretty good. He comes upon the scene of one of his fallen brethren, the poor dwarves head crushed in, the body mangled and lifeless. Next to the dead dwarf, the broken but breathing body of a goblin. At that time we get the message that a goblin snatcher got away with a child. First child I lost to snatchers. Kogen...Kogen got a little upset.
Kogen picked up the goblin and threw it. Across the river. Into a solid rock wall. Splat it went. Goblin chunks. Was a heck of a throw. Like I said, Kogen is a bad man.
Anyways, life goes on for a while. A few more goblin snatchers show up and blunder into some stonefall traps. A couple dwarves are outside cleaning up the mess when another ambush hits, right near my gates. Aw fuck. A goblin hits one of the dwarves out there, but both dwarves manage to run away relatively unscathed, while the goblins mill about a bridge. I quickly raise the bridge, and the invaders are locked out. Ok, let's see what we can do with this situation.
I think about sending a melee unit out there to take care of them, but the ambush is mostly goblin crossbowmen and a barrage of bolts can take down even the best melee before they get close. However, the goblins are invading the single best defended spot on my fortress. There is a double-wide trench running from a sheer cliff face on one side to a sheer cliffs edge on the other. The only way over the trench is by one bridge, which is now raised. In other words, it's impassible. In addition, built along the fortress side of the trench is a solid stone palisade, two floors tall. On the upper floor I've carved fortifications, meaning bolt holes for marksdwarves and siege operators to shoot through. And they are shooting from elevation. Ok, let's do this the easy way. Markesdwarves, get your asses up there and take out the ambush. In addition, my siege operators really need some practice, so get some of the catapults firing. I sincerely doubt the catapults will hit anything, but it's something for the boys to do.
Ok, the marksdwarves that aren't eating/drinking/sleeping/being useless get up on the second level palisade and open fire on the goblins. For two seconds. They shoot one arrow and run back indoors. What...the...FUCK?! I made quivers for you bastards. You are wearing the quivers I made for you. Why on gods green earth did you guys only put one bolt in your quivers? What kind of mentally handicapped drunkard dwarves did I conscript into the archery unit?! Oh for petes sake.
Not that the marksdwarves are completely ineffective. They managed to kill one goblin, and two others got nicked in the arm and ran away (pansies). They can't fire back. I figure, ok, this strategy will work, it's just going to take 5 years while the marksdwarves get ammo.
And then I see one of the goblins icons turn blue, fly about 10 squares backwards, and then turn red (aka dead). What the hell just happened?
Turns out one of my civilians firing the catapults made the shot of his life. We're talking full court hook shot blind-folded lucky, and squarely pegged a goblin. I later found that dwarf at the bar, high-fiving people and buying drinks, regaling the clientèle with stories of his epic battle.
So that ambush ends and life continues on. Do do dooooo "An ambush! Curse them!". Goddamnit, ok, what now. Another fisherdwarf, at the same damn place as the first one just got ambushed again! What kind of morons are you? Clearly that's ambush country, but noooooooo, you have to fish there instead of one the nearby fishing holes. This is natural selection at work, folks. Ok, 6 goblins show up, I activate the fisherdwarf. Fisherdwarf goes ballistic and manages to kill 2 of the goblins before being killed. He held his own. I'm adding him to the day of mourning for the first guy. National Idiot Fisherdwarf Memorial Day. But I've still got 4 goblins down there. Hmmmm, whom shall I send.....
Axedwarf unit. Kogen. Go clean up that mess. Kogen grabs the axedwarves that aren't eating/drinking/sleeping/being useless. Which is TWO of them. How come whenever I use that unit my two axe LORDS are always busy, hmm? They always manage to show up after the fighting is done. I think a court martial is in order. Anyways, Kogen wanders down there with two axedwarves who, while not green, have basically just gotten out of basic training. They are capable but inexperienced.
I should've just sent Kogen alone.
They show up down there and are milling around. The goblins are milling around. Apparently both goblins and dwarves are blind as bats. Finally they run into each other and fun happens. Both axedwarves jump on one goblin, slashing away. Kogen runs into another goblin. He then proceeds to tie that goblin into a pretzel and THROW it over his shoulder 6 squares. Think about that. It's nearly the force of the catapult. Dead goblin. He comes up on the other two goblins, who go from looking fierce and snarling to shitting their armor. Two shots and one goblin is dead. He then starts folding the second one into a balloon doggie when the axedwarves turn up for a few final chops and that ends the goblins. One of my axe lords then turns up and goes "HAY GUSY, WHAS GONG ON HER?"
At this point, I'm staring at the computer screen yelling "KOGEN IS ONE BAD MOTHERFUCKER" Ok, stand down boys, stand down. You did good. Back to the fortress. The peasants will be here shortly to clean up. Kogen, go wash the blood off, my friend.
As things are getting back to normal I check out Kogens thoughts and preferences. Kogens been pretty happy lately. He took joy in the slaughter (as is expected). He just doesn't care about anything anymore (perhaps also expected). He is romantically involved?! With whom? Nils something or other. Waaaiiit, let me guess. Ayup, his love interest is a woman my other melee unit, the mace dwarves. They sparred and fell in love.
My god. This is like a movie. Champion defender of Gravelscarred falls in love with another officer.
In an effort to protect further idiot fisherdwarves, I have now started the Gravelscarred State Park and Preserve project, wherein I'm walling in a huge portion of the forest leading down to the river. Hopefully my idiot fisherdwarves will be able to fish in peace. It's a bitch of a project though, because it's huge and it requires a lot of my dwarves to spend a lot of time outdoors in a very undefended area, whilst also leaving a fortress entrance conspicuously open. I have to have my military units escort them. Plus it takes work away from my new pet project, the Absurdly Pointless Giant Tower. I built an interior stairway coming out the top of the highest cliff pass (aka the highest point on my map) and now am building a giant tower. It's going to go as many levels high into the sky as possible. It's made of smoothed microcline blocks (which are a very pretty light blue color) and the top of the tower will be a large cap made out of clear glass. The tower has NO POINT WHATSOEVER. I just like the idea of some traveler coming through and going:
"Whoa, what the hell is that?"
"That's the Gravelscarred tower."
"What's it for?"
"Nothing."
"Then why did you build it?"
"This is Gravelscarred. We built it because we could. WELCOME TO FUCKING GRAVELSCARRED."
That, or if I can arrange it I want to capture a firefly in a cage and put it up there. It's a lighthouse! Or if it ever becomes necessary, it could be the final resting place of Kogen Roundgloves. Kogen is now like my favorite dwarf. More so then the Captain of the Guard, who was the first Hero(ine) of Gravelscarred and duly-elected Mayor 10 consecutive terms. A side note about the Mayor, she is married to a planter and they have 13 children. 13. You think between being Mayor and Captain of the Guard she wouldn't have the time. But that woman's a go-getter.
I'm happily playing along one day when the game pauses and I get the "An ambush! Curse them!" message. Oh great. I check around and find the ambush. One goblin snuck up on a fisherdwarf waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay away from my fortress. I check the dwarf to see what he's wearing. He's wearing a tattered tunic, tattered pants and one shoe. How he's fishing like that, I'll never know. He doesn't even have a fishing pole. I figure this guy's lost but what they hell. I activate his military skills and let him go up against this fully armed goblin.
Apparently the goblin decided to mess with the wrong dwarf. Fisherdwarf goes nuts. He attacks the goblin with his bare hands and knocks the damn thing unconscious. The dwarf then proceeds to beat the ever loving shit out of the goblin for 5 minutes straight. I'm checking the damage on the goblin. All his limbs and major body parts are mangled beyond recognition, this goblin is in bad shape. But it's not dying, it's just broken. But the dwarf isn't giving up. He just keeps on beating and beating and beating. That is one tough dwarf. I'm liking this dwarf. I've got a spot open in the fortress guard, when he's done killing the goblin I'm putting him in the guard, which is a really cushy position.
Then the goblins friends show up. The other 5 of the ambush come up behind the dwarf, who doesn't see them. One shot, back of the head, dead dwarf. I declare a national day of mourning.
So now I've got these 5 goblins hanging around. Better take care of them. I activate my axedwarf unit, they are a little green and I want to get them some battle experience. They shouldn't have much trouble with these lot of goblins. Alright boys, get down there and take care of the goblins.
And now we begin the tale of the Hero of Gravelscarred.
The axedwarf unit is led by Kogen Lamesreg, or Kogen Roundgloves in lay terms. Kogen is a bad man. Kogen is one bad motherfucker.
Given the name it is perhaps unsurprising that Kogan is an elite wrestler, though he also currently wields a copper mace as wrestlers have limited utility in the game. Kogen wears a full suit of steel plate armor. He is not a dwarf to be trifled with.
So Kogen and the two axedwarves that aren't sleeping/eating/drinking/being useless show up and they very quickly mop up the remaining goblins. Then they wander over to where the ambush killed the fisherdwarf. They come upon the corpse of the fisherdwarf next to the mangled and yet still alive goblin. You can imagine the scene. It's in the woods next to the river. An idyllic scene. Kogen has just finished killing goblins, he's feeling pretty good. He comes upon the scene of one of his fallen brethren, the poor dwarves head crushed in, the body mangled and lifeless. Next to the dead dwarf, the broken but breathing body of a goblin. At that time we get the message that a goblin snatcher got away with a child. First child I lost to snatchers. Kogen...Kogen got a little upset.
Kogen picked up the goblin and threw it. Across the river. Into a solid rock wall. Splat it went. Goblin chunks. Was a heck of a throw. Like I said, Kogen is a bad man.
Anyways, life goes on for a while. A few more goblin snatchers show up and blunder into some stonefall traps. A couple dwarves are outside cleaning up the mess when another ambush hits, right near my gates. Aw fuck. A goblin hits one of the dwarves out there, but both dwarves manage to run away relatively unscathed, while the goblins mill about a bridge. I quickly raise the bridge, and the invaders are locked out. Ok, let's see what we can do with this situation.
I think about sending a melee unit out there to take care of them, but the ambush is mostly goblin crossbowmen and a barrage of bolts can take down even the best melee before they get close. However, the goblins are invading the single best defended spot on my fortress. There is a double-wide trench running from a sheer cliff face on one side to a sheer cliffs edge on the other. The only way over the trench is by one bridge, which is now raised. In other words, it's impassible. In addition, built along the fortress side of the trench is a solid stone palisade, two floors tall. On the upper floor I've carved fortifications, meaning bolt holes for marksdwarves and siege operators to shoot through. And they are shooting from elevation. Ok, let's do this the easy way. Markesdwarves, get your asses up there and take out the ambush. In addition, my siege operators really need some practice, so get some of the catapults firing. I sincerely doubt the catapults will hit anything, but it's something for the boys to do.
Ok, the marksdwarves that aren't eating/drinking/sleeping/being useless get up on the second level palisade and open fire on the goblins. For two seconds. They shoot one arrow and run back indoors. What...the...FUCK?! I made quivers for you bastards. You are wearing the quivers I made for you. Why on gods green earth did you guys only put one bolt in your quivers? What kind of mentally handicapped drunkard dwarves did I conscript into the archery unit?! Oh for petes sake.
Not that the marksdwarves are completely ineffective. They managed to kill one goblin, and two others got nicked in the arm and ran away (pansies). They can't fire back. I figure, ok, this strategy will work, it's just going to take 5 years while the marksdwarves get ammo.
And then I see one of the goblins icons turn blue, fly about 10 squares backwards, and then turn red (aka dead). What the hell just happened?
Turns out one of my civilians firing the catapults made the shot of his life. We're talking full court hook shot blind-folded lucky, and squarely pegged a goblin. I later found that dwarf at the bar, high-fiving people and buying drinks, regaling the clientèle with stories of his epic battle.
So that ambush ends and life continues on. Do do dooooo "An ambush! Curse them!". Goddamnit, ok, what now. Another fisherdwarf, at the same damn place as the first one just got ambushed again! What kind of morons are you? Clearly that's ambush country, but noooooooo, you have to fish there instead of one the nearby fishing holes. This is natural selection at work, folks. Ok, 6 goblins show up, I activate the fisherdwarf. Fisherdwarf goes ballistic and manages to kill 2 of the goblins before being killed. He held his own. I'm adding him to the day of mourning for the first guy. National Idiot Fisherdwarf Memorial Day. But I've still got 4 goblins down there. Hmmmm, whom shall I send.....
Axedwarf unit. Kogen. Go clean up that mess. Kogen grabs the axedwarves that aren't eating/drinking/sleeping/being useless. Which is TWO of them. How come whenever I use that unit my two axe LORDS are always busy, hmm? They always manage to show up after the fighting is done. I think a court martial is in order. Anyways, Kogen wanders down there with two axedwarves who, while not green, have basically just gotten out of basic training. They are capable but inexperienced.
I should've just sent Kogen alone.
They show up down there and are milling around. The goblins are milling around. Apparently both goblins and dwarves are blind as bats. Finally they run into each other and fun happens. Both axedwarves jump on one goblin, slashing away. Kogen runs into another goblin. He then proceeds to tie that goblin into a pretzel and THROW it over his shoulder 6 squares. Think about that. It's nearly the force of the catapult. Dead goblin. He comes up on the other two goblins, who go from looking fierce and snarling to shitting their armor. Two shots and one goblin is dead. He then starts folding the second one into a balloon doggie when the axedwarves turn up for a few final chops and that ends the goblins. One of my axe lords then turns up and goes "HAY GUSY, WHAS GONG ON HER?"
At this point, I'm staring at the computer screen yelling "KOGEN IS ONE BAD MOTHERFUCKER" Ok, stand down boys, stand down. You did good. Back to the fortress. The peasants will be here shortly to clean up. Kogen, go wash the blood off, my friend.
As things are getting back to normal I check out Kogens thoughts and preferences. Kogens been pretty happy lately. He took joy in the slaughter (as is expected). He just doesn't care about anything anymore (perhaps also expected). He is romantically involved?! With whom? Nils something or other. Waaaiiit, let me guess. Ayup, his love interest is a woman my other melee unit, the mace dwarves. They sparred and fell in love.
My god. This is like a movie. Champion defender of Gravelscarred falls in love with another officer.
In an effort to protect further idiot fisherdwarves, I have now started the Gravelscarred State Park and Preserve project, wherein I'm walling in a huge portion of the forest leading down to the river. Hopefully my idiot fisherdwarves will be able to fish in peace. It's a bitch of a project though, because it's huge and it requires a lot of my dwarves to spend a lot of time outdoors in a very undefended area, whilst also leaving a fortress entrance conspicuously open. I have to have my military units escort them. Plus it takes work away from my new pet project, the Absurdly Pointless Giant Tower. I built an interior stairway coming out the top of the highest cliff pass (aka the highest point on my map) and now am building a giant tower. It's going to go as many levels high into the sky as possible. It's made of smoothed microcline blocks (which are a very pretty light blue color) and the top of the tower will be a large cap made out of clear glass. The tower has NO POINT WHATSOEVER. I just like the idea of some traveler coming through and going:
"Whoa, what the hell is that?"
"That's the Gravelscarred tower."
"What's it for?"
"Nothing."
"Then why did you build it?"
"This is Gravelscarred. We built it because we could. WELCOME TO FUCKING GRAVELSCARRED."
That, or if I can arrange it I want to capture a firefly in a cage and put it up there. It's a lighthouse! Or if it ever becomes necessary, it could be the final resting place of Kogen Roundgloves. Kogen is now like my favorite dwarf. More so then the Captain of the Guard, who was the first Hero(ine) of Gravelscarred and duly-elected Mayor 10 consecutive terms. A side note about the Mayor, she is married to a planter and they have 13 children. 13. You think between being Mayor and Captain of the Guard she wouldn't have the time. But that woman's a go-getter.
Chapter 2: The Enemy of My Enemy
Last night, I'm still technically under siege. My dwarves are wandering around, doing their thing. The same goblin siege as last time is bivouacked at the bottom of the map, doing whatever it is that goblin armies do in their down time. Playing cards, looking at dirty magazines, dreaming about Coney Island hot dogs. They are pretty harmless, other than taking some pot shots at a couple dwarves stupid enough to wander too close to the base of the cliff the goblins are occupying. No real damage is done, other than they managed to tag a furnace operator. He got shot in the right hand and now, inexplicably, falls unconscious every 15 minutes. Personally, I think he's faking narcolepsy to get out of work. I mean, come on, I've got one dwarf that lost a leg in an earlier siege and that bad boy is hopping around on one leg getting shit done. That's what I call a dwarf's dwarf.
Anyways, yeah, I'm sieged, when I get a message. A Titan has showed up. Oh for christs sake. First of all, as if I didn't have enough to deal with. Second of all, the titans name is Thithi Thinomenalith. I've got a titan with a freaking lisp! Alright, where is he. HAHAHAHA he showed up in the middle of the goblins!
He runs into a horde of goblin axemen. The axemen take a look at him and go "huh, a titan, don't see one of those every day. Your deal, Snarltooth." The titan stands there, confused at the indifference of the axemen. Then the goblin crossbowmen see him. I think they must've forgotten their cards and were bored or something, because they just opened UP on the Titan. Arrows blotting out the sun. The titan goes down in 3 seconds (unfortunately he doesn't leave any cool trophy like the colossus). The crossbowmen gather round and dance on his corpse a little. They are so easily entertained.
I'm thinking of asking the goblins to move in. They have been ever so helpful!
Anyways, yeah, I'm sieged, when I get a message. A Titan has showed up. Oh for christs sake. First of all, as if I didn't have enough to deal with. Second of all, the titans name is Thithi Thinomenalith. I've got a titan with a freaking lisp! Alright, where is he. HAHAHAHA he showed up in the middle of the goblins!
He runs into a horde of goblin axemen. The axemen take a look at him and go "huh, a titan, don't see one of those every day. Your deal, Snarltooth." The titan stands there, confused at the indifference of the axemen. Then the goblin crossbowmen see him. I think they must've forgotten their cards and were bored or something, because they just opened UP on the Titan. Arrows blotting out the sun. The titan goes down in 3 seconds (unfortunately he doesn't leave any cool trophy like the colossus). The crossbowmen gather round and dance on his corpse a little. They are so easily entertained.
I'm thinking of asking the goblins to move in. They have been ever so helpful!
Chapter 1: A Bronze Horizon
So as the game goes on, I more and more realize what an awesome settlement site I have. My main fortress entrance is the most defendable site on the map. I only have one problem.
Apparently I moved into Bronze Colossus country.
Bronze Colossuses (colossi?) are megabeasts, which means they are very very hard to kill. The Bronze Colossus especially so because it doesn't bleed and minor wounds heal almost instantly. So you have to do heavy sustained damage to kill them. And they don't get bored and wander off, so you can't just wait them out like goblin sieges. The cool thing is that when you kill them they leave behind a masterwork bronze statue for you to keep.
So a little while ago my first, FIRST, bronze colossus moves in. Oh crap, I think. Panic. Ok, standard operating procedure. Everyone get inside, yank up the bridges. The bronze colossus comes charging through the forest, hits my double-wide trench with retracted bridges and becomes very confused. He stands there, staring across the trench, scratching his big stupid bronze head. Ok, let's see if we can do this the easy way. Boys, get out there and fire the catapults at him. Alright, here we go, smashed bronze coming up.
Hmmmmm. The catapults fire up or to the side, not diagonally where the colossus is standing. Well then. Glad I built those. Ok. Marksdwarves, get up there and start firing arrows at him. Ok, let's see how this goes. Marksdwarves run up and start shooting. 90% of the arrows miss completely. Did I not build an archery range for you idiots to practice at? Good god you guys suck. The 10% of arrows that do hit ping off the bastard, leaving small dents that heal almost instantly. Plus, me being the cheap bastard, I forgot to make quivers for like half my marksdwarves, so they are running up, shooting (and missing) then searching their pockets for more arrows before running aaaaaall the way back downstairs to get another arrow. Ok, this isn't working. Screw it. Melee unit, get your asses up here. Ok, now lock the front door. It's steel, the colossus will have a hard time getting through that. Damnit, there's some clutter in the doorway, the door won't close. Ok, lock the backup doors. Oh for the love of...more clutter, only 2 of the 4 doors close. Screw it. Lower the bridges, let's take this bugger out. Valiant defenders of Gravelscarred away!
Well they tried. The melee unit charges, and immediately 3 of my best warriors get knocked into the trench. This turns out to be fortuitous as it saved them from getting slaughtered. The rest of the unit, most of them fighting with their bare hands, start wrestling with the colossus. Some of them are holding their own. I check the damage on the colossus. We're doing a good job of mangling his lower and upper legs. Well....dwarves, I guess that's to be expected. He dispatches the last of my melee dwarves and turns attention towards the marksdwarves, who are trying to beat the thing to death with their crossbows. They don't last so long. Oh god, he just threw that marksdwarf a hundred feet, over the side of the cliff and impaled on a treetop. This is getting ugly. Bronze colossuses apparently hate dogs, because this guy takes special measure to kill, mutilate and hurl every single chained war dog on the plateau, then starts going towards the main entrance.
There was a human caravan around at the time. Now, the main wagons made their escape, but there are a couple of mules with human riders wandering around still. The colossus starts chasing these guys down, but since his legs are so mangled he can't move fast. So the mules are running around in circles while the colossus chases them. In my head there was circus sideshow music. Doo doo doododododododo do do doooodo. And that's when I notice my tax collector got locked outdoors in the first antechamber. The colossus notices him too.
Huh. I wonder when the new tax collector will arrive.
The colossus starts advancing on the tax collector. The tax collector is looking veeeeeeeeeeeeeery nervous. This is not going to be pretty. The colossus wanders into a small field of stonefall traps. BAMBAMBAMBAM statue.
What? That's IT?! Four stonefall traps and I have a free statue? Screw that, next colossus I get I'm inviting him for dinner. I've got 4 billion stonefall traps set up around here. Ok, haul that badboy in here, and some of you are joining the army.
Now, the second colossus. He shows up when a dwarven caravan is in. Ok, easy enough, let the sucker in, he'll hit four billion stonefall traps before he even gets near the door. Lower the bridges. Oh for christ sake, he's just sitting there at the bottom of the map. Someone go get him. Eventually one of my dwarves gets his attention and races back towards home, colossus in tow. It comes charging across the bridge. RAWR! and hits a field of stonefall traps. I rub my hands greedily together. The caravan defenders see him and attack. He hits the first trap. And then another. And another. And another. He's...he's not going down. Huh. Maybe my melee unit did a better job on the first one than I thought. So the defenders engage the colossus, they're wandering and fighting all over, the colossus is setting off like 50 traps. It's a frenzied fight, but the caravan defenders manage to take the colossus down. At which point I send my dwarves out to abscond with the statue. "Hurry up, damnit, they may want it for themselves. Screw that they did most of the work."
That was the second bronze colossus. Now for the THIRD.
So, I'm sick of all the clutter around my fortress, my stocks screen is almost useless, so I set all my dwarves to picking up crap from all the dead goblins throughout the life of Gravelscarred and dumping in my trash compactor. This effectively stops production of everything but food, while trash is getting toted around. It doesn't make for enticing gameplay but it needed to be done. Like cleaning your apartment. That's when the third colossus shows up. Oh screw it. I raise my far southern bridge, isolating the colossus to a small portion of the map and let my dwarves go about their business. I'm not even going to deal with it until the spring cleaning is done and I have a usable workforce. The dwarves are moving trash around, the colossus is sitting at the bottom of the map, looking fairly content. And then the Elven caravan arrives. Huh, I wonder which side of the map they are on. Oh, they ran straight into the colossus.
Well, I never really liked them anyways.
Plus, when they're dead I'll get to loot everything they brought with no cost to me. I don't really see how this is a bad thing. Act of god and all that. Well, act of colossus anyways. So he murders all the traders and mules and starts chasing the elven diplomat who picked a REALLY bad time to show up. That diplomat is pretty spry. The colossus is chasing him around but not catching him.
And that's when the goblin siege shows up.
Oh come on. Alright, what side of the map are they on. They...are right at the colossus and diplomat. Well, at least the bridge is up. All I have to do is sit and watch. When the siegers get bored and leave I can go out and take care of the colossus. So the colossus is chasing the diplomat, the diplomat is running away, waving his hands in the air and screaming like a little girl (ok, the game didn't say that last part, I'm just assuming that's how it went) when he ran right into a full contingent of goblin crossbowmen.
It was kind of like that scene at the end of Hero. There was an elven diplomat-shaped hole in a field of arrows. Well, that's over. And...wait...OH MY GOD THE GOBLINS ARE ATTACKING THE COLOSSUS. AAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. I can't believe my luck. The goblin army will kill the colossus for me, this is awesome. At that point, I'm thinking the only downside is that I'll have a lot of dead goblins with their resultant clutter to deal with. And that's when the Colossus falls in a pond.
BWAAAAHAHAHA. Oh shit, that might be bad. The colossus can't drown, and my markdwarves can't do the damage needed to kill it, so it'll just sit at the bottom of the lake and scare everything within 5 miles of it. But the goblins are not to be denied. They sit up there, just peppering that sonuvabitch with arrows. Two very brave (and stupid) goblins dive into the water after him. I should note that later I found the lower half of one of those goblins. The goblin crossbowmen are still letting him have it and somehow they manage to kill the bastard! So now there is a bronze statue at the bottom of a pond and the goblins only lost two fighters. All I have to do is wait for the siege to leave (which they do after a while), then go drain the pond, claim the statue, deal with the clutter from two dead goblins which is nothing compared to that of forty dead goblins. I was laughing so hard at this. It was like the best possible outcome. Aside from the dead elves. Which depends on how you look at it.
Apparently I moved into Bronze Colossus country.
Bronze Colossuses (colossi?) are megabeasts, which means they are very very hard to kill. The Bronze Colossus especially so because it doesn't bleed and minor wounds heal almost instantly. So you have to do heavy sustained damage to kill them. And they don't get bored and wander off, so you can't just wait them out like goblin sieges. The cool thing is that when you kill them they leave behind a masterwork bronze statue for you to keep.
So a little while ago my first, FIRST, bronze colossus moves in. Oh crap, I think. Panic. Ok, standard operating procedure. Everyone get inside, yank up the bridges. The bronze colossus comes charging through the forest, hits my double-wide trench with retracted bridges and becomes very confused. He stands there, staring across the trench, scratching his big stupid bronze head. Ok, let's see if we can do this the easy way. Boys, get out there and fire the catapults at him. Alright, here we go, smashed bronze coming up.
Hmmmmm. The catapults fire up or to the side, not diagonally where the colossus is standing. Well then. Glad I built those. Ok. Marksdwarves, get up there and start firing arrows at him. Ok, let's see how this goes. Marksdwarves run up and start shooting. 90% of the arrows miss completely. Did I not build an archery range for you idiots to practice at? Good god you guys suck. The 10% of arrows that do hit ping off the bastard, leaving small dents that heal almost instantly. Plus, me being the cheap bastard, I forgot to make quivers for like half my marksdwarves, so they are running up, shooting (and missing) then searching their pockets for more arrows before running aaaaaall the way back downstairs to get another arrow. Ok, this isn't working. Screw it. Melee unit, get your asses up here. Ok, now lock the front door. It's steel, the colossus will have a hard time getting through that. Damnit, there's some clutter in the doorway, the door won't close. Ok, lock the backup doors. Oh for the love of...more clutter, only 2 of the 4 doors close. Screw it. Lower the bridges, let's take this bugger out. Valiant defenders of Gravelscarred away!
Well they tried. The melee unit charges, and immediately 3 of my best warriors get knocked into the trench. This turns out to be fortuitous as it saved them from getting slaughtered. The rest of the unit, most of them fighting with their bare hands, start wrestling with the colossus. Some of them are holding their own. I check the damage on the colossus. We're doing a good job of mangling his lower and upper legs. Well....dwarves, I guess that's to be expected. He dispatches the last of my melee dwarves and turns attention towards the marksdwarves, who are trying to beat the thing to death with their crossbows. They don't last so long. Oh god, he just threw that marksdwarf a hundred feet, over the side of the cliff and impaled on a treetop. This is getting ugly. Bronze colossuses apparently hate dogs, because this guy takes special measure to kill, mutilate and hurl every single chained war dog on the plateau, then starts going towards the main entrance.
There was a human caravan around at the time. Now, the main wagons made their escape, but there are a couple of mules with human riders wandering around still. The colossus starts chasing these guys down, but since his legs are so mangled he can't move fast. So the mules are running around in circles while the colossus chases them. In my head there was circus sideshow music. Doo doo doododododododo do do doooodo. And that's when I notice my tax collector got locked outdoors in the first antechamber. The colossus notices him too.
Huh. I wonder when the new tax collector will arrive.
The colossus starts advancing on the tax collector. The tax collector is looking veeeeeeeeeeeeeery nervous. This is not going to be pretty. The colossus wanders into a small field of stonefall traps. BAMBAMBAMBAM statue.
What? That's IT?! Four stonefall traps and I have a free statue? Screw that, next colossus I get I'm inviting him for dinner. I've got 4 billion stonefall traps set up around here. Ok, haul that badboy in here, and some of you are joining the army.
Now, the second colossus. He shows up when a dwarven caravan is in. Ok, easy enough, let the sucker in, he'll hit four billion stonefall traps before he even gets near the door. Lower the bridges. Oh for christ sake, he's just sitting there at the bottom of the map. Someone go get him. Eventually one of my dwarves gets his attention and races back towards home, colossus in tow. It comes charging across the bridge. RAWR! and hits a field of stonefall traps. I rub my hands greedily together. The caravan defenders see him and attack. He hits the first trap. And then another. And another. And another. He's...he's not going down. Huh. Maybe my melee unit did a better job on the first one than I thought. So the defenders engage the colossus, they're wandering and fighting all over, the colossus is setting off like 50 traps. It's a frenzied fight, but the caravan defenders manage to take the colossus down. At which point I send my dwarves out to abscond with the statue. "Hurry up, damnit, they may want it for themselves. Screw that they did most of the work."
That was the second bronze colossus. Now for the THIRD.
So, I'm sick of all the clutter around my fortress, my stocks screen is almost useless, so I set all my dwarves to picking up crap from all the dead goblins throughout the life of Gravelscarred and dumping in my trash compactor. This effectively stops production of everything but food, while trash is getting toted around. It doesn't make for enticing gameplay but it needed to be done. Like cleaning your apartment. That's when the third colossus shows up. Oh screw it. I raise my far southern bridge, isolating the colossus to a small portion of the map and let my dwarves go about their business. I'm not even going to deal with it until the spring cleaning is done and I have a usable workforce. The dwarves are moving trash around, the colossus is sitting at the bottom of the map, looking fairly content. And then the Elven caravan arrives. Huh, I wonder which side of the map they are on. Oh, they ran straight into the colossus.
Well, I never really liked them anyways.
Plus, when they're dead I'll get to loot everything they brought with no cost to me. I don't really see how this is a bad thing. Act of god and all that. Well, act of colossus anyways. So he murders all the traders and mules and starts chasing the elven diplomat who picked a REALLY bad time to show up. That diplomat is pretty spry. The colossus is chasing him around but not catching him.
And that's when the goblin siege shows up.
Oh come on. Alright, what side of the map are they on. They...are right at the colossus and diplomat. Well, at least the bridge is up. All I have to do is sit and watch. When the siegers get bored and leave I can go out and take care of the colossus. So the colossus is chasing the diplomat, the diplomat is running away, waving his hands in the air and screaming like a little girl (ok, the game didn't say that last part, I'm just assuming that's how it went) when he ran right into a full contingent of goblin crossbowmen.
It was kind of like that scene at the end of Hero. There was an elven diplomat-shaped hole in a field of arrows. Well, that's over. And...wait...OH MY GOD THE GOBLINS ARE ATTACKING THE COLOSSUS. AAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. I can't believe my luck. The goblin army will kill the colossus for me, this is awesome. At that point, I'm thinking the only downside is that I'll have a lot of dead goblins with their resultant clutter to deal with. And that's when the Colossus falls in a pond.
BWAAAAHAHAHA. Oh shit, that might be bad. The colossus can't drown, and my markdwarves can't do the damage needed to kill it, so it'll just sit at the bottom of the lake and scare everything within 5 miles of it. But the goblins are not to be denied. They sit up there, just peppering that sonuvabitch with arrows. Two very brave (and stupid) goblins dive into the water after him. I should note that later I found the lower half of one of those goblins. The goblin crossbowmen are still letting him have it and somehow they manage to kill the bastard! So now there is a bronze statue at the bottom of a pond and the goblins only lost two fighters. All I have to do is wait for the siege to leave (which they do after a while), then go drain the pond, claim the statue, deal with the clutter from two dead goblins which is nothing compared to that of forty dead goblins. I was laughing so hard at this. It was like the best possible outcome. Aside from the dead elves. Which depends on how you look at it.
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