After another six month long break, I've finally returned to this little fort. Hopefully I'll stick with it long enough to finish it around the time of the upcoming release.
It's been a rather odd year progress wise. The king, despite having every requirement met, didn't come with either of the two small immigrant waves. Not a single goblin siege, but a handful of ambushes. One of which killed my nearly legendary Bowyer as he was out collecting wood. Only reason I even set him to collect wood was because he was sitting idle most of the time due to dwindling bone stockpiles caused by the lack of any goblin siege. Not only that, but three children somehow managed to get abducted despite having my military stationed right outside the main entrance 24/7.
With respect to the tower itself, I wasn't able to make any progress on it at all until the last fifteen days of the year. I decided to line the future magma moat with obsidian blocks and that wound up taking almost the entire year to complete. Really happy with the way it turned out, though. I just wish I hadn't wasted an entire year working on it.
I also had to start over from scratch with the water pumps as I had forgotten to build roads to prevent tower caps from growing and blocking the flow. That ended up being a bitch to fix as my masons would frequently strand themselves after removing the bridge used to gain access to the tile that needed to be paved. Ended up having to rebuild the bridges so that they would raise inwards and attaching them to a lever so that my masons wouldn't strand themselves on the far tile. All that effort to build a road a single damn tile
I'm not quite sure what is going on with Endok as she now has a total of five living children despite losing two babies during combat. Hell, the fort's only been around for seven years and I'm pretty sure she came with the first migrant wave.
Goals for the next year include starting the process of filling the magma moat and finishing two full levels on the tower.
Can't believe this damn thing took a full year to finish. Looking back on it, though, there is a massive surface area that needed to be covered with floors, so the moat used enough obsidian to easily cover a full floor and a half of the tower.
Looks a hell of a lot better than the old moat did in Visual Fortress. I'll likely post some screenshots in a day or so. - Ashery
There are 20 comments for this map series, last post 2010-12-07
Bladeshoots
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You can download the compressed map file:
2010-02/ashery-Bladeshoots-Copy of region14-208-0.fdf-map
but you will need the .NET version of
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Submitted by: magic dwarf - 2009-01-03 to 204 Early Spring
Nice design. I hope you finish it soon.
Your obsidian farm looks dangerous, I don't think its up to DOSHA (dwarven Occupational safety and health administration) standards
Submitted by: Ashery - 2009-01-03 to 204 Early Spring
I've had a couple minor issues, but as I'm using "Restricted" pathing for the bottom level, dwarves rarely walk down into the pit unless they're picking up raw obsidian.
I've had a couple dwarves sidestep into the pit in order to avoid going prone, but even when that happened during a refill, the dwarf got out in time (There were two adjacent tiles with magma at the time).
Pets, however, ignore the designation...
...now I just have to hope a cat wanders into the pit.
[Message edited on 2009/01/03 at 07:33 by Ashery]
Submitted by: Ashery - 2009-01-03 to 204 Early Spring
Just had my first injury with the obsidian farms...A mangled left foot from someone who sidestepped into the pit as it was filling.
Submitted by: magic dwarf - 2009-01-03 to 204 Early Spring
I'm afraid that we are gonna hafta shut your farm down due to safety concerns. You get two weeks to get it up to code and get your act together. If you don't comply we're not hesitant to bulldoze your cruel and usual death trap.
Submitted by: Ashery - 2009-01-03 to 204 Early Spring
Do I need to add that, thanks to a careless oversight, I completely flooded my east farm and had to seal it off completely for the time being? ;p
Had to cut off the river supply at the source (I neglected to install any backup control systems on my main level) so will have to wait an incredibly long time for it to drain into the chasm so that I can clear out the flooded farm.
Submitted by: Unbeltedsundew - 2009-01-04 to 204 Early Spring
Your fort is already looking pretty fantastic, cant wait to see it further along.
I find that with plumbing I often spend 10 times longer fixing my mistakes and draining it then it took to build in the first place. Its teaching me to be even more meticulous in the initial stages.
Submitted by: Ashery - 2009-01-04 to 204 Early Spring
The only thing I wish I had added earlier is a bridge right before the fork in the water supply to my farms...That would've allowed me to cut off the feed and quickly drain the flooded part of my farm into my eventual cistern.
Ah well, fixing one's screw ups is one of the joys of DF, XD
Submitted by: syhr - 2009-01-05 to 204 Early Spring
can you please explain the pump system you used for all that water because it seems very space efficient although i cant figure out how you did it because of your tileset
Submitted by: Qjet - 2009-08-13 to 207 Early Spring
@shyr
Pump system
Submitted by: starcannon - 2009-10-30 to 207 Early Spring
Holy cow. How is that you accomplished so much, in so little time??
Submitted by: Ashery - 2010-01-03 to 207 Early Spring
Excessive micromanagement, heh.
Which, amusingly enough, is also why I burn out on the game after only a few years and take an extended break from DF.
Considering taking it up again, but with the new release coming soon I might just start anew with that.
Submitted by: ajr_ - 2010-02-05 - Removed
Submitted by: ajr_ - 2010-02-05 to 208 Early Spring
I can't believe this was built in only 7 years but it looks true. Just amazing work. ++++dwarf karma
Submitted by: ClsfdKidd - 2010-02-05 to 208 Early Spring
Holy crap yes! This fortress looks amazing!
There is so much to love here. Great work!
Submitted by: Demonic Spoon - 2010-03-02 to 212 Early Spring
Lovely map, especially the sandy bit near the magma pipe.
Gorgeous fortress, love it. Awesome design, really, really nice.
Submitted by: Vermadus - 2010-03-05 to 213 Early Spring
Oh wow, this design is brilliant. I'm suprised you did all this with such a tiny obsidian farm though. Nice work!
Submitted by: Ashery - 2010-03-05 to 213 Early Spring
Thanks, and while there are definitely changes I'd make to my magma duct/farm design, the size of the farm is not one of them.
Yea, it's a pain to do a couple new batches every month, but it's efficient as all hell for my dwarves. My masons just grab the obsidian right from the farm and, once they run out, they spend a bit of time helping construct the tower while I produce another batch.
[Message edited on 2010/03/05 at 10:39 by Ashery]
Submitted by: Retro - 2010-03-31 to 213 Mid Winter
Oh my XD It looks like you've run into a little bit of trouble. hopefully it won't put the fort's finish date too far back. Bladeshoots continues to looks better and better.
Submitted by: Stromko - 2010-04-02 to 214 Early Spring
That is a work of art and dedication. I'm bookmarking this for inspiration. Even though I don't think I have the patience to work out such a steadfastly fractal design I admire it immensely.
Submitted by: Markavian - 2010-04-02 to 214 Early Spring
Dwarves build the best towers
Submitted by: Eric Blank - 2010-12-07 to 214 Early Spring
I love this! Very beautiful design, a grand role model for us all.