inevitable
I should have known better than to comment on the amazingly good luck I was having in Dwarf Fortress.
My fort finally collapsed not too long after that last post I made about it.
I had a string of moods and possessions that all wanted to make something out of metal. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a metal industry up and running yet. Again, I’d been focused more on digging out tunnels and leaving something lasting behind when the fort eventually fell.
So, the first moody dwarf didn’t even have a metalsmith’s workshop to claim. He wandered around the dining hall, brooding, and eventually wasted away. I didn’t want any moody dwarves going on killing sprees, so I quickly built one of every workshop I could – each in its own little 3×3 cell, with a door that could be locked. So the next couple moody dwarves claimed the metalsmith’s workshop and got locked inside until they died. A little gruesome, perhaps, but it worked.
I got kind of tired of killing off my dwarves, though, so I started trying to build up a metal industry. Started making charcoal, started smelting whatever was lying around. I also finally built a trade depot, figuring that I could import some metal if necessary. And I finally got around to working on my water supply. Started digging out some aqueducts and a cistern and whatnot.
I had another dwarf go moody, looking for metals I didn’t have, and I locked him in the metalsmith’s workshop. Then I went back to working on my water supply and trade depot.
I completely missed it when he died. I also missed it when another dwarf went moody, but couldn’t claim the workshop because the door was still locked with a dead dwarf inside. I didn’t even notice when that second moody dwarf went inane and started rampaging through the fortress.
I happened to notice a death message, and thought it was my original moody dwarf who’d finally died. I paused the game, unlocked the workshop to let them remove his corpse, and then un-paused the game… Only to see another death message. And then another.
I looked to see what was going on, and we were in the midst of a full-on tantrum spiral.
The wanna-be blacksmith had gone insane and started killing people. He charged into the dining hall and attacked everything in sight. One of his first victims was a baby, which caused the mother to enrage and attack other people. Then we had more deaths, and more enraged dwarves… Lots of bad thoughts since bodies weren’t being properly buried… More enraged dwarves…
The only ones unaffected were the 20 or so dwarves that were busily digging out the water supply. I had three miners digging out the tunnels, a few masons smoothing those tunnels as they were being dug, and some peasants hauling away the debris. They were completely oblivious to what was going on in the rest of the fort.
I contemplated trying to save the fort. I could probably have locked some doors or built some walls and kept those 20 dwarves safe until the riots ended. And you can do a lot with 20 dwarves… Especially if some of them are already miners… But I’d always figured this first expedition was expendable, and I’d been planning on reclaiming the fortress anyway. So I let things play themselves out, and watched to see what would happen.
Part of the work being done in my water supply involved digging out the cistern itself, and that’s where most of my dwarves were located. But there was also some work being done up above, preparing an aqueduct that would link the cistern to the river. I’d dug out a tunnel, and smoothed all the stone, and built some floodgates, and linked them to a lever. All that had to happen now was for a mason to carve a fortification in the right place, run for safety, and then yank a lever to close the floodgates before too much water was let in.
I’ve done this very same thing several times before, and it always worked fine. Of course… There was always a lever to pull to stop the floodwater.
I’m not entirely sure what happened or when, but there was no lever. One of the rioters must have destroyed it. I’d been watching the chaos unfold… But it seemed to be largely contained to the living quarters. I didn’t think anyone had actually made it as far as the waterworks. But, obviously, somebody did.
My mason carved out the fortification, and water poured in. He ran up the channel, through the door, and up the stairs to safety. I then tried to order somebody to pull the lever… But there was no lever to pull. No way to close the floodgates and stop the water.
Water poured through the channel, down several floors, and began filling the cistern. The dwarves within were trapped – the only passage out of the incomplete cistern was a series of ramps and stairs built in the shaft that was now carrying water down into the cistern. Roughly 15 dwarves were in the cistern when it flooded – none of them survived.
Another 5 or so were behind doors, working on the stairwell that would eventually grant access to the cistern. They survived the initial flooding, but were cut off from the rest of the fortress – trapped.
The intrepid mason who’d carved those damning fortifications found himself unable to return to work in the cistern below, and decided to head off to the dining hall for a pint. And walked right into the raging brawl in the living quarters.
The fortress hasn’t actually crumbled quite yet. I just saved my game and quit at that point.
I’ve got 5 dwarves trapped in an incomplete stairwell leading to the now-flooded cistern… I’ve got at least 20 enraged dwarves rampaging through the living quarters… There’s another 10 unhappy dwarves moping in various corners of the fortress… And maybe 5 more dwarves outside chopping trees, gathering plants, fishing, or whatever – happily oblivious to the disaster within.
I’m not sure if I’m going to straight-up abandon the fortress, or wait for it to crumble on its own, or make an attempt to save it…
But that decision can wait for now.
