Nice idea starting this thread.
To fill some time until you can restart, I have tracked down a post I made some time ago of my greatest fort.
So I present to you: Betrayed within, The fall of Pinkpaddle.
It is very funny just how quickly things can turn Fun.
In the course of about 30 mins, my fortress turned from a thriving population of 145 to a mere 6.
admittedly I am still learning my way around and to date this was my
largest fortress. This fort was my 1st experience with the goblin siege
and the need of a good military.
My fort wasn’t too much to look at. An expansive single layer fort 2
Z-levels down where I had hit stone and Iron. The enterance was
protected by 2 fail-safe traps: A set of supports holding up a large
section of stone ready to collapse and seal the enterance when triggered
by a lever inside the fort and a watertight hallway leading into the
base that could be flooded and drained at will by 2 screwpumps and a
reservoir.
As my fort grew I recruited a squad of about 10 soldiers equiped with
Iron spears and gave them a barracks near the enterance. The excess
stone I used to build a sizeable wall around my fort and what I felt was
a rather cool project: a working aquaduct pumping water from a nearby
river, flowing it around the perimeter wall and dumping it back into the
river as a waterfall.
My fort soon drew the attention of some nearby goblins and I started
to have occasional skrimishes with them. I had set up some simple cage
traps near the enterance which yeilded me a nice supply of goblin
prisoners who I restrained in a pit below the barracks for combat
practice.
It wasn’t long until goblin ambushes were a common occurance so I became more lax when they occured.
One day a dwarf decided to throw a spontanious party outside in the
statue garden. Around this time one of the hunter dwarfs was interrupted
by a small goblin ambush. Judging my their size and distance from the
fort I felt there was no real danger and sent my squad to intercept the
goblins. It wasn’t long after the squad was dispatched that a 2nd ambush
hit the fort while my squad was gone.
The cage trap mannaged to stop 3 of them but the few others managed
to get between the stairs to my fort and the garden party before I could
raise the alarm to scramble everybody inside. Not particually deadly
but a few of the party goes were injured, one or 2 killed before some
local hunters were able to take down the raiding party. With the path
clear the party goes safely returned to the safety of the fort and
placed into lockdown.
Across the next few days things went downhill. The injured dwarfs and
the morners became depressed and started to throw tantrums. The
production of food and booze was interuppted and with the high
population stocks were quickly exhausted.
Worrying about an impending attack in my weakerned state I ordered
the construction of a more elaborate trapped enterance and the formation
of an archer squad to be posted above the enterance.
Things were barely in place when the real tantrum spiral started.
Production was halted across the fort, food and booze supplies
exhausted. Many dwarfs injured from fighting, some imprisoned for
murder. Children going berzerk and being put down by vollys of arrows
from the hunters. The Aquaduct that supplied the fort with drinking
water was shutdown when the lever mechanism was destroyed in a tantrum
removing access to water for drinking or treating the wounded. Dwarfs
were dieing faster then I could prepare their burials and the miasma was
just making things worse.
Things started to calm down when the population had dropped to about
100. With 50 dwarfs dead over a few mins the fort had become obviously
traumatised. Which of course made this the perfect time for a siege.
Goblins were once again sighted on my borders, this time lead by a
human spearman. Not taking risks this time I put my civs into lockdown
inside the fort and scrambled my soilders behind the walls thinking my
traps will thin the attackers out before the fight begins. The attackers
rushed the opening in the wall and not a single trap fired. In the
earlier tantrum spiral it seems that no trap was reset. A straggling
child outside the lockdown was quickly taken down in a hail of bolts
from the incomming army.
My squad took the incomming attack head on. The archer squad was not
yet trained and had lost most of its number amongst the 50 dead.
What soldiers I had left for this battle were quickly overwhelmed by the
comming onslaught. Seeing the surface battle was lost, I shifted my
sight underground to command the trigger of my 1st Fail-safe.
I went to the lever to order the heavystone above the enterance
collapsed sealing the enterance and protecting those inside until the
siege disapates. However when I tried to call the order there was no
longer a lever there, only broken stone. The trigger had been destroyed
in a tantrum.
Watching the attacking army reach the stairs to decend down to the
civilians I fell back to my 2nd failsafe, the flooding hallway. This
failsafe I was sure of as I had already tested the mechanisms during its
construction and found they worked perfectly, Flooding the hallway when
1 pump is used, and draining it back with the other. All I had to do
was Lock the hallway door and order my pump operator to release the
flood. One problem though: The door was no longer there. It too had been
destroyed by a tantrum.
The 2nd failsafe had been rendered useless, Even if the pump were
activated now all I would achive is some ankle high water flooding the
fort to annoy the invaders.
With no more army and no traps left there was nothing I could do
other than watch goblins stream down my halls firing bolts into every
room and every dwarf.
A miner mannaged to hold a room against the human spearman and in
doing so saved the lives of 5 others as the siege ended and the goblins
returned home (I guess they were out of bolts).
The siege claimed 95 lives in a few short mins.
another died soon after from injuries.
All that remains now are 4 tramatised dorfs and the 100 rotting bodies of their friends.
Conculsion: The most dangerous destruction comes from within and Fail-safes fail.
The horrors sadly continued after my story ended. It seems that there were more survivors that I saw on my unit list.
With the food expired, I sent the fisher dwarf downstairs to
slaughter a pet (well, an un-claimed cat) for food. At about that time I
got a message saying that the Mayors mandate has finished. Looking up
the unit list I saw she had been removed. I had presumed she had died,
but had no idea why.
Looking underground where my fisherman was leading the pet to
slaughter, I saw the movement of another dwarf. It was the miner who had
previously faced down the human spear-man and saved the current
survivors. I was confused, he was not on the list of dwarfs so I thought
he was dead. On seeing the fisherman, the miner ran down the hall
towards him and splattered him against the wall. I guess the horror had
rendered the miner more of an Insane-animal than a dwarf.
