Well today was an interestinday in the Godly City.
Managed to dscare off my traders so that all I got was some mule meat, seriously, they didn't have to be so whiny just becase i didn't want to hand over all my goods for a crossbows. now I'm looking forward to the humans coming soon. Very soon after some kobold thieves come to terioize my stock piles.
First I need to tell you alittle about my fortress, my depot is outside and many of my goods are sent there via a little back door that I usually keep closed anytime else to stop said kobold invasions. Because the traders had left before I could give them most of my goods they were just sitting there waiting to be stolen. I had forgotten about the back door being left open till I saw the anouncment and when I went to lock it...it was blocked by a turtle corpse left by my fisherdwarf when he fled in fear.
Well a thief made off when one of my goods, not that big of a deal as long as it wasn't the only meat I managed to buy, I did score one kill so that was cool, and seeing as I got a short sword in return made it sweeter. Good mini test for my army.
halp. I am on my first fortress and my dwarves are slowly losing their food supply(down to 200 although I don't know if maybe that's good? All I know is it's going down). It says I have fifty seeds and I'm desperately trying to grow some more stuff but I have no idea which seeds I have and I can't find any of them at my only food stock pile >:|
halp. I am on my first fortress and my dwarves are slowly losing their food supply(down to 200 although I don't know if maybe that's good? All I know is it's going down). It says I have fifty seeds and I'm desperately trying to grow some more stuff but I have no idea which seeds I have and I can't find any of them at my only food stock pile >:|
PS: I have 40 dwarves.
Plump helmet spawn are the seeds for plump helmet if you didn't know. You might want to take a look at the farming tutorial video (links in the OP). Also, I believe vermin will also eat your food so bringing 4 cats along can help with that.
Edit: Also, not all plants are for food. Plump helmet = food, pig tails = thread, dimple caps = dye, cave wheat and sweet pods = food too I think? I haven't gotten to those yet.
And here's something I've never seen before: I have a narcoleptic guard who goes unconscious while eating and drinking. I think he was knocked out too much by collapsing floors too many times while I was building my fortress.
Does anyone know if Dwarf Manager can work with Win 7? It keeps crashing on me right after I open it. Calls for .Net 3.5, Wins 7 apparently comes with .Net 3.51
halp. I am on my first fortress and my dwarves are slowly losing their food supply(down to 200 although I don't know if maybe that's good? All I know is it's going down). It says I have fifty seeds and I'm desperately trying to grow some more stuff but I have no idea which seeds I have and I can't find any of them at my only food stock pile >:|
PS: I have 40 dwarves.
Z for Stores, then select the Kitchen tab. This will list all your cookable/brewable foods. Generally if you can eat it, you can cook it(like plump helmets) and sometimes if you can't eat it, you can cook it(like cave wheat). This includes seeds. Sometimes I find I have way too many seeds cluttering up my storehouses and plenty of plump helmets to eat. Planting more creates more seeds, two per helmet. So it's worth it sometimes to start making plump helmet spawn biscuits and roasts to turn inedible seeds into food.
Seeds won't be listed here if they can't be cooked. If they can't be cooked, they won't grow into anything edible anyways. Note that while you can't eat Pig Tails, you can brew them into beer.
ALSO! Where it lists your foodstuffs it says Seeds. This is all your seeds, edible or not. Kinda misleading. Prepared food falls under Other, and I think a number of other things do too, so this is also misleading. But cooked food takes up less space than uncooked food, though if you cook a plant you don't get any seeds from it.
The game usually starts you off with some Plump Helmet spawn and Pig Tail seeds. These start out at your wagon, so take a look there. Seeds won't go in the same spot as food in stockpiles, so if you have food and alcohol taking up your whole stockpile, the seeds produced when your dwarves eat will be sitting around whereever they ate their last meal. And remember, some plants need to be grown outside and others inside, and farms cannot be built on ground that isn't muddy.
Around what year is everyone's first goblin siege?
I reached 80 population two seasons ago, in my third year. According to the dwarf wiki, sieges should start spawning now.
I really want to fight something. Anything. I don't even get ambushes. I've got a 12 person military, 8 fortress guards, and elaborate traps, bridges, moats, defense mechanisms, etc.
I've also got sufficient housing, output, and noble management. So I can't even really distract myself with fortress-improving things.
Urist cancels fishing: Interrupted by Titan smashing face in. :winky:
EDIT: Speaking of Titans... shortly after my recent siege, a Titan came wandering into town. I brought out my tired forces and called the other dwarfs inside. In the end, five champions with pointy weapons did the Titan in with no wounds to themselves... except for the Captain of the Guard (and, in fact, the only guard) whom I have no control over. He got to the Titan first and paid the price. Not death, mind you... the Titan completely ripped off his left arm. So my fortress guard is resting and no one goes to jail: huzzah!
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Fleebhas all of the fleeb juiceRegistered Userregular
Around what year is everyone's first goblin siege?
I reached 80 population two seasons ago, in my third year. According to the dwarf wiki, sieges should start spawning now.
I really want to fight something. Anything. I don't even get ambushes. I've got a 12 person military, 8 fortress guards, and elaborate traps, bridges, moats, defense mechanisms, etc.
I've also got sufficient housing, output, and noble management. So I can't even really distract myself with fortress-improving things.
I'm getting bored. Something happen.
Start killing and robbing the merchants that come to trade...
When trying to figure out how to build a great hall, I read something about getting natural light into it, which makes it count as 'outdoors' and then they hang out in the sunlight while they eat. Can I just dig skylights into it form the surface? If I do that, can angry things get in/ rain flood it/ something else horrible happen?
According to the wiki , "indoor sunlight" -- which I think means skylights into a room that was originally underground -- doesn't treat cave adaptation, so I think that's not going to help.
If you 'D'ig c'H'annel holes for skylights, non-flying angry things can't get in (though they could shoot arrows down in from above), and rain will muddy the floor but probably not drown anyone. I think the only real use of a skylight is for growing surface crops in an underground space. You can also make glass blocks and floor over the skylights to avoid arrows and rain getting in. You can apparently also put down a stone floor and it's still considered lit, but that sounds like a bug.
If there's a roof above their head anywhere it won't treat cave adaptation, but if there's an open shaft to the sky overhead it will, basically.
Well, that's too bad about the sand/glass, I guess... I should have that noble killed. Nicely, two just died in a recent siege (philosopher and countess consort), but not the one making the demand.
What a siege. While I still have a ton of crap to get underground, things are getting better down there, and I made some preparations for future sieges after getting caught unprepared on the last one.
Pics spoiler'd for large dimensions. Please to excuse all the boulders that aren't hidden.
The surface of my fort is a carved out hexagon, with two intertwined spiral channels leading towards the center. One is about 1/2 filled with magma, the other is just starting (near top center) to be filled with water. These channels drop down into the fort for use within. (Yes, it is taking a long time for the channels to fill up.)
The spiral pattern is complemented by three narrow retracting bridges (highlighted). Normally, the bridges are out so dwarfs and merchants have free access. When the siege came and dwarfs went inside, those bridges were retracted, forcing the goblins to circle round and round, while some crossbow dwarfs picked a number of them off. (They are extended now after everything is over.)
One of the best moments was the first goblin to die: a hammer lord. He was tagged by one of my crossbow dwarfs and tripped into a channel: a channel containing magma. He burns in my unit list. (As does a tanner of mine who stupidly went outside during the battle and was knocked into the magma channel as well.)
However, as the gobs finally started getting near the center, things got worse. I actually lost more dwarfs this siege, only because after the killing started, dwarfs started running outside ignoring my order that only soldiers may venture outdoors. I have no clue why these damned dwarfs needed to be outside: I set death/death items to be forbidden, and they were ordered indoors, and those that ran outside had no jobs. I've no clue what the f*ck they were doing. I think the Philosopher was trying to teach the goblins about Aristotle and Hume, but they just ripped his head off.
So there was/is a huge mess about the entrance there. Here is what it looks like one level down:
Some stone-fall and weapon traps helped turn back the siege, along with the fighting going on there. But I swear... my dwarfs are stupid. For whatever unknown reason, they kept trying to dodge around goblins to get outside when I commanded them to stay inside.
I think I'm down about 15-20 dwarfs, and I'm sure to lose a few to misery and insanity.
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FFOnce Upon a TimeIn OaklandRegistered Userregular
Do military dwarves not not drink alcohol? I've noticed that all of my soldiers can't remember the last time they tasted booze. They're all happy thanks to all my cool swag and their near-constant sparring, but it seems so tragic that the glorious defenders of the Sparklemansions can't even partake of my brewer's finest.
Do military dwarves not not drink alcohol? I've noticed that all of my soldiers can't remember the last time they tasted booze. They're all happy thanks to all my cool swag and their near-constant sparring, but it seems so tragic that the glorious defenders of the Sparklemansions can't even partake of my brewer's finest.
Ahhhh, waterskins. I thought I was being clever by reducing the amount of time they'd spend going to get drinks. Maybe the marksdwarves will shoot at the range more now.
It doesn't seem to have hurt their combat prowess any. A pair of goblin raiding squads showed up and a fisherdwarf got caught between them. The army gathered in the courtyard outside the main gates and immediately had the opportunity to beat a goblin thief to death (my army consists entirely of wrestlers and marksdwarves. All of the wrestlers are champions, save one, who is a "mere" elite wrestler). Their leader, Rovod, who has earned the title "The Shell of Heather" for his prowess, spotted the enemy and, rather than waiting in ambush at the gates as I intended, booked it straight into maybe ten goblins.
Not wanting to lose such a great dwarf, I sent the rest of the lads after him. I needn't have bothered; by the time the first volley from the marksdwarves hit Rovod was among them, tearing the little devils apart with his bare hands. The rest of the wrestlers showing up was sort of like shooting a harpoon into the chest of a man who has already had all his limbs ripped off by an angry dwarf.
halp. I am on my first fortress and my dwarves are slowly losing their food supply(down to 200 although I don't know if maybe that's good? All I know is it's going down). It says I have fifty seeds and I'm desperately trying to grow some more stuff but I have no idea which seeds I have and I can't find any of them at my only food stock pile >:|
PS: I have 40 dwarves.
Z for Stores, then select the Kitchen tab. This will list all your cookable/brewable foods. Generally if you can eat it, you can cook it(like plump helmets) and sometimes if you can't eat it, you can cook it(like cave wheat). This includes seeds. Sometimes I find I have way too many seeds cluttering up my storehouses and plenty of plump helmets to eat. Planting more creates more seeds, two per helmet. So it's worth it sometimes to start making plump helmet spawn biscuits and roasts to turn inedible seeds into food.
Seeds won't be listed here if they can't be cooked. If they can't be cooked, they won't grow into anything edible anyways. Note that while you can't eat Pig Tails, you can brew them into beer.
ALSO! Where it lists your foodstuffs it says Seeds. This is all your seeds, edible or not. Kinda misleading. Prepared food falls under Other, and I think a number of other things do too, so this is also misleading. But cooked food takes up less space than uncooked food, though if you cook a plant you don't get any seeds from it.
The game usually starts you off with some Plump Helmet spawn and Pig Tail seeds. These start out at your wagon, so take a look there. Seeds won't go in the same spot as food in stockpiles, so if you have food and alcohol taking up your whole stockpile, the seeds produced when your dwarves eat will be sitting around whereever they ate their last meal. And remember, some plants need to be grown outside and others inside, and farms cannot be built on ground that isn't muddy.
Hopefully that clears some things up.
ah, thanks, that is very helpful and goes towards explaining why I couldn't find my seeds in my foodbins. Although now my dwarves have taken to just leaving them all scattered out which still confuses me...but at least they don't seem to be eating them.
If I had the coding skill I'd write a program that took your resolution dimensions via a text entry field and returned the init entry for your resolution settings so that you could just cut and paste.
If I had the coding skill I'd write a program that took your resolution dimensions via a text entry field and returned the init entry for your resolution settings so that you could just cut and paste.
What utter bullshit. My first caravan arrives so I do the usual routine of loading up the depot and such. But when my dwarves finish loading the depot and I hit "T" they say they are still unloading. Fine, so I do some other stuff and return to the depot, same result. I'm thinking it sucks, do some other stuff, return, and get the same result. I'm starting to get cheesed off, do some other stuff, get a message that the traders will leave soon, go back and hit "T", and same fucking result. Then I see a slow as fuck wagon coming into the fort, make it five tile away from my depot only to have those miserable sons of bitches leave.
Wagons have to navigate around trees and boulders. If you want them to get to your fort in a timely fashion, clear a straight path from your depot to the map edges.
They tend to show up on the map where you have roads built, but it isn't a guarantee.
Forgot to mention one wagon made it into the depot lickety split.
BURN THE WAGONS
BURN THE ELFS
BURN THE HUMANS
ALE THE DWARFS
BURN THE KOBOLDS
BURN THE TITANS
CAGE, PIT, AND ARENA THE GOBLINS
BURN THE HOARY MARMOTS
BURN THE RHESUS MACAQUES
IN RUSSIA, DRAGON BURNS YOU
BURN THE WORLD
I gave all my starting seven novice swimmer since I decided to embark on a evil map with a river and a large lake. Here is to hoping swimming is going to delay the inevitable carp massacre.
I built a straight road from my depot to the map edge, then lined it with block pillars with only two spaces between them so wagons couldn't get in from the sides. Since the only way the wagons can get to my depot is along the road, they have to spawn there. It's also nice because I know exactly where the wagons will be at any given time.
I'm thinking of building drawbridges between the pillars and roofing the whole thing in, then linking all the bridges to a lever. That way I can seal the whole thing if, say, goblin raiders appeared after the wagons. And also because it would be completely awesome.
All I want is a 6x6 site with sand, flux, a magma pipe, an underground river, adamantine and an interesting topography, with access to all civilizations, and in a savage environment! But not that amazing site someone linked earlier. Is that really so much to ask?
All I want is a 6x6 site with sand, flux, a magma pipe, an underground river, adamantine and an interesting topography, with access to all civilizations, and in a savage environment! But not that amazing site someone linked earlier. Is that really so much to ask?
No, an unreasonable request would be to have a world that had not just one site like that, but a thousand. So you could play the game for eternity with the same world.
So I just had a Goblin Siege. No problem, I thought. I have 4 units of 3 Melee Soldiers each, 2 of those squads led by Champions, backed up by 4 Marksdwarves in separate squads and another Elite Marksdwarf.
I have the melee troops set at the gates (2 at the unfinished North, one West and one South) with the Marksdwarves set up behind them as the Goblins send one squad at the South Gate, two at the West and three at the North. Each Goblin squad is led by a Lord/Master, but I figure it's no problem as they don't have any Crossbows. No problem that is until, just before the Goblins reach the gates, 3 of the 4 Melee squads decide "Hey! Let's go get a drink!".
One Champion squad, the only ones that DON'T go hit the bar, hold the West gate, all three of them gaining nicknames from the slaughter of the Goblins. The South gate is defended only by the Elite Marksdwarf and one of his flunkies and doesn't yet have any raised defenses built. They both die. The entire North front collapses to the bridge as the Goblins rush in from both North and South towards the town center, running right into my 9 Champion strong Fortress and Royal Guard. They die in glorious fashion.
In my anger over the desertion of their duties, I set the three melee squads on waterskins.
Before I realize my mistake, five military dwarves are dragged to the bottom of the river, taking their imported steel plate with them. I may have overreacted to that whole "Loss of two Marksdwarves" thing...
Hello, long time lurker here. There's this quite specific question I have and you guys seem to know a thing or two about Dwarf Fortress.
I have a few successful fortresses under my belt already and just started a new one to celebrate the end of finals. My plan is to build a series of huge water cisterns as my main defense - I already have a perfect site with four peaks that I plan to hollow out and fill up with the help of a complex system of water pumps and aqueducts. I plan to go the obvious route and just install floodgates in openings on the lowest levels of the cisterns to make it possible to let the water out when needed, and will also make it so that activating the floodgates raises bridges around a large area so that the goblins/water can't escape until I pull a lever again. However to add insult to the injury I would also like to make it so that the goblins activate said floodgates and bridges themselves, like nazis in Indiana Jones finding this huge ancient (dwarven) temple surrounded by four mountains, thinking they will be able to plunder its incredible riches only to be utterly decimated by a trap of insane scale they activate themselves. Gotta get my megalomania on! :winky:
Now the obvious thing to do would be to use pressure plates, but due to the nature of the trap this would IMO be too dangerous since the area that will be flooded is in front of my fortress entrance - the water would not be able to enter it but any dwarves caught inside the area would be dead. If only goblins triggered the plate this would be an acceptable danger but I don't want to risk that any wild animal running around potentially could kill several dwarfs and disable my defense for a long while.
So my actual question is the following: will goblins pull random levers they happen to stumble upon? That would provide a simple solution to the problem, and even if it was slightly unreliable the fun-factor would be large enough for me to accept it. I tried searching the wiki and several DF threads but couldn't find an answer. Help would be appreciated if you can come up with any better way of doing this (I am quite unexperienced in building complex contraptions):?:
(I also plan to have some cage traps and use the captured prisoners as ammunition for a huge water pressurized cannon I'll attempt to build on the side of one of the cisterns.)
Posts
Managed to dscare off my traders so that all I got was some mule meat, seriously, they didn't have to be so whiny just becase i didn't want to hand over all my goods for a crossbows. now I'm looking forward to the humans coming soon. Very soon after some kobold thieves come to terioize my stock piles.
First I need to tell you alittle about my fortress, my depot is outside and many of my goods are sent there via a little back door that I usually keep closed anytime else to stop said kobold invasions. Because the traders had left before I could give them most of my goods they were just sitting there waiting to be stolen. I had forgotten about the back door being left open till I saw the anouncment and when I went to lock it...it was blocked by a turtle corpse left by my fisherdwarf when he fled in fear.
Well a thief made off when one of my goods, not that big of a deal as long as it wasn't the only meat I managed to buy, I did score one kill so that was cool, and seeing as I got a short sword in return made it sweeter. Good mini test for my army.
PS: I have 40 dwarves.
On the black screen
Plump helmet spawn are the seeds for plump helmet if you didn't know. You might want to take a look at the farming tutorial video (links in the OP). Also, I believe vermin will also eat your food so bringing 4 cats along can help with that.
Edit: Also, not all plants are for food. Plump helmet = food, pig tails = thread, dimple caps = dye, cave wheat and sweet pods = food too I think? I haven't gotten to those yet.
And here's something I've never seen before: I have a narcoleptic guard who goes unconscious while eating and drinking. I think he was knocked out too much by collapsing floors too many times while I was building my fortress.
On the black screen
Z for Stores, then select the Kitchen tab. This will list all your cookable/brewable foods. Generally if you can eat it, you can cook it(like plump helmets) and sometimes if you can't eat it, you can cook it(like cave wheat). This includes seeds. Sometimes I find I have way too many seeds cluttering up my storehouses and plenty of plump helmets to eat. Planting more creates more seeds, two per helmet. So it's worth it sometimes to start making plump helmet spawn biscuits and roasts to turn inedible seeds into food.
Seeds won't be listed here if they can't be cooked. If they can't be cooked, they won't grow into anything edible anyways. Note that while you can't eat Pig Tails, you can brew them into beer.
ALSO! Where it lists your foodstuffs it says Seeds. This is all your seeds, edible or not. Kinda misleading. Prepared food falls under Other, and I think a number of other things do too, so this is also misleading. But cooked food takes up less space than uncooked food, though if you cook a plant you don't get any seeds from it.
The game usually starts you off with some Plump Helmet spawn and Pig Tail seeds. These start out at your wagon, so take a look there. Seeds won't go in the same spot as food in stockpiles, so if you have food and alcohol taking up your whole stockpile, the seeds produced when your dwarves eat will be sitting around whereever they ate their last meal. And remember, some plants need to be grown outside and others inside, and farms cannot be built on ground that isn't muddy.
Hopefully that clears some things up.
I reached 80 population two seasons ago, in my third year. According to the dwarf wiki, sieges should start spawning now.
I really want to fight something. Anything. I don't even get ambushes. I've got a 12 person military, 8 fortress guards, and elaborate traps, bridges, moats, defense mechanisms, etc.
I've also got sufficient housing, output, and noble management. So I can't even really distract myself with fortress-improving things.
I'm getting bored. Something happen.
Urist cancels fishing: Interrupted by Titan smashing face in. :winky:
EDIT: Speaking of Titans... shortly after my recent siege, a Titan came wandering into town. I brought out my tired forces and called the other dwarfs inside. In the end, five champions with pointy weapons did the Titan in with no wounds to themselves... except for the Captain of the Guard (and, in fact, the only guard) whom I have no control over. He got to the Titan first and paid the price. Not death, mind you... the Titan completely ripped off his left arm. So my fortress guard is resting and no one goes to jail: huzzah!
Start killing and robbing the merchants that come to trade...
She named her artifact – a bone idol – after herself.
Worth nearly 50K drubles.
I was pretty certain I didn't have sand, but one of my nobles now wants a clear glass item.
What a siege. While I still have a ton of crap to get underground, things are getting better down there, and I made some preparations for future sieges after getting caught unprepared on the last one.
Pics spoiler'd for large dimensions. Please to excuse all the boulders that aren't hidden.
The surface of my fort is a carved out hexagon, with two intertwined spiral channels leading towards the center. One is about 1/2 filled with magma, the other is just starting (near top center) to be filled with water. These channels drop down into the fort for use within. (Yes, it is taking a long time for the channels to fill up.)
The spiral pattern is complemented by three narrow retracting bridges (highlighted). Normally, the bridges are out so dwarfs and merchants have free access. When the siege came and dwarfs went inside, those bridges were retracted, forcing the goblins to circle round and round, while some crossbow dwarfs picked a number of them off. (They are extended now after everything is over.)
One of the best moments was the first goblin to die: a hammer lord. He was tagged by one of my crossbow dwarfs and tripped into a channel: a channel containing magma. He burns in my unit list. (As does a tanner of mine who stupidly went outside during the battle and was knocked into the magma channel as well.)
However, as the gobs finally started getting near the center, things got worse. I actually lost more dwarfs this siege, only because after the killing started, dwarfs started running outside ignoring my order that only soldiers may venture outdoors. I have no clue why these damned dwarfs needed to be outside: I set death/death items to be forbidden, and they were ordered indoors, and those that ran outside had no jobs. I've no clue what the f*ck they were doing. I think the Philosopher was trying to teach the goblins about Aristotle and Hume, but they just ripped his head off.
So there was/is a huge mess about the entrance there. Here is what it looks like one level down:
Some stone-fall and weapon traps helped turn back the siege, along with the fighting going on there. But I swear... my dwarfs are stupid. For whatever unknown reason, they kept trying to dodge around goblins to get outside when I commanded them to stay inside.
I think I'm down about 15-20 dwarfs, and I'm sure to lose a few to misery and insanity.
That's probably bad, right?
Take away their waterskins?
It doesn't seem to have hurt their combat prowess any. A pair of goblin raiding squads showed up and a fisherdwarf got caught between them. The army gathered in the courtyard outside the main gates and immediately had the opportunity to beat a goblin thief to death (my army consists entirely of wrestlers and marksdwarves. All of the wrestlers are champions, save one, who is a "mere" elite wrestler). Their leader, Rovod, who has earned the title "The Shell of Heather" for his prowess, spotted the enemy and, rather than waiting in ambush at the gates as I intended, booked it straight into maybe ten goblins.
Not wanting to lose such a great dwarf, I sent the rest of the lads after him. I needn't have bothered; by the time the first volley from the marksdwarves hit Rovod was among them, tearing the little devils apart with his bare hands. The rest of the wrestlers showing up was sort of like shooting a harpoon into the chest of a man who has already had all his limbs ripped off by an angry dwarf.
Can't wait for my first real siege!
ah, thanks, that is very helpful and goes towards explaining why I couldn't find my seeds in my foodbins. Although now my dwarves have taken to just leaving them all scattered out which still confuses me...but at least they don't seem to be eating them.
On the black screen
Now I realize I'm not a total moron. I built this correctly. Turns out the mechanism melted.
Calculators are awesome. And this: http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showpost.php?p=9906580&postcount=2360
Pretty sure that wouldn't block the magma even if it were intact.
They tend to show up on the map where you have roads built, but it isn't a guarantee.
Exactly.
BURN THE WAGONS
BURN THE ELFS
BURN THE HUMANS
ALE THE DWARFS
BURN THE KOBOLDS
BURN THE TITANS
CAGE, PIT, AND ARENA THE GOBLINS
BURN THE HOARY MARMOTS
BURN THE RHESUS MACAQUES
IN RUSSIA, DRAGON BURNS YOU
BURN THE WORLD
EDIT: RUN AWAY FROM CARP! RUN AWAY!
I'm thinking of building drawbridges between the pillars and roofing the whole thing in, then linking all the bridges to a lever. That way I can seal the whole thing if, say, goblin raiders appeared after the wagons. And also because it would be completely awesome.
No, an unreasonable request would be to have a world that had not just one site like that, but a thousand. So you could play the game for eternity with the same world.
I have the melee troops set at the gates (2 at the unfinished North, one West and one South) with the Marksdwarves set up behind them as the Goblins send one squad at the South Gate, two at the West and three at the North. Each Goblin squad is led by a Lord/Master, but I figure it's no problem as they don't have any Crossbows. No problem that is until, just before the Goblins reach the gates, 3 of the 4 Melee squads decide "Hey! Let's go get a drink!".
One Champion squad, the only ones that DON'T go hit the bar, hold the West gate, all three of them gaining nicknames from the slaughter of the Goblins. The South gate is defended only by the Elite Marksdwarf and one of his flunkies and doesn't yet have any raised defenses built. They both die. The entire North front collapses to the bridge as the Goblins rush in from both North and South towards the town center, running right into my 9 Champion strong Fortress and Royal Guard. They die in glorious fashion.
In my anger over the desertion of their duties, I set the three melee squads on waterskins.
Before I realize my mistake, five military dwarves are dragged to the bottom of the river, taking their imported steel plate with them. I may have overreacted to that whole "Loss of two Marksdwarves" thing...
I have a few successful fortresses under my belt already and just started a new one to celebrate the end of finals. My plan is to build a series of huge water cisterns as my main defense - I already have a perfect site with four peaks that I plan to hollow out and fill up with the help of a complex system of water pumps and aqueducts. I plan to go the obvious route and just install floodgates in openings on the lowest levels of the cisterns to make it possible to let the water out when needed, and will also make it so that activating the floodgates raises bridges around a large area so that the goblins/water can't escape until I pull a lever again. However to add insult to the injury I would also like to make it so that the goblins activate said floodgates and bridges themselves, like nazis in Indiana Jones finding this huge ancient (dwarven) temple surrounded by four mountains, thinking they will be able to plunder its incredible riches only to be utterly decimated by a trap of insane scale they activate themselves. Gotta get my megalomania on! :winky:
Now the obvious thing to do would be to use pressure plates, but due to the nature of the trap this would IMO be too dangerous since the area that will be flooded is in front of my fortress entrance - the water would not be able to enter it but any dwarves caught inside the area would be dead. If only goblins triggered the plate this would be an acceptable danger but I don't want to risk that any wild animal running around potentially could kill several dwarfs and disable my defense for a long while.
So my actual question is the following: will goblins pull random levers they happen to stumble upon? That would provide a simple solution to the problem, and even if it was slightly unreliable the fun-factor would be large enough for me to accept it. I tried searching the wiki and several DF threads but couldn't find an answer. Help would be appreciated if you can come up with any better way of doing this (I am quite unexperienced in building complex contraptions):?:
(I also plan to have some cage traps and use the captured prisoners as ammunition for a huge water pressurized cannon I'll attempt to build on the side of one of the cisterns.)