So as of the end of this session, here's how we are regarding the roster and the requests I've picked up on:
Polpolion- Miner/Administration
Scourge (of Ages)- Tanner
(Cmdr) DeeJay- Mechanic/Brewer
Mongoose- Farmer/Carpenter
Scotty- Miner/Gemworker
Trash(man)- Head physician/chemist
Wat(isname)- Weaponsmithing/Engineering
Kobar(44)- Unassigned, I'll give you a nice Axefighter when I start the military
Apollo- Craftsdwarf
Patriot- Armorer/Mason
(SpardaSon) Dante- Unassigned, you're in the same boat as Kobar
(NGTM-1R) Night- Expendable soapmaker
redsniper- Stonecrafter
(FireSpawn) Spark- Glassmaker
Ghostavo- Miner
Dekker- Siege Engineer
deathfun- Suturer/wound dresser
And to completely undermine the previous list, here's the old roster at the end of the first session and the beginning of this one. Not much to see here.
Rackum frackum. Our first outside trade caravan has shown up, and their wagons apparently can't navigate the vast expanses of filth-drenched sand. The remainder of the caravan is on foot and with pack animals, and they at least can reach our depot.
I'm not sure if I ever uploaded a good picture of our front gate, but here's a "caravan access" view of the area. The left side of the screen is the contaminated desert, which apparently counts as impassable terrain to wagons.
Before the caravan arrives, a dwarven diplomat went ahead of them and tracked down Polpolion. One of the responsibilities of being the leader is dealing with foreign envoys, and in this case, negotiating trade agreements. The next few screens will be of that discussion.
The first phase of the negotiations is to set up import agreements, or "what do we need?". In this case, I made arrangements to import gypsum plaster (a key component of bone-healing casts), a little bit of Raw Crystal Glass, and one other commodity I can't quite recall. We're actually pretty much OK on the self-sufficiency front, so the imports are things we can't get easily. Plaster in particular is really hard to find naturally, and I don't think bone healing can be done too easily without a cast.
In the midst of the negotiations, the on-foot portion of the caravan shows up. Polpolion is also the trade spokesdwarf, so the merchants will have to wait until he's done doing the whole diplomacy thing with the dwarven rep.
The "import agreement" simply shows the modified prices for all available commodities. Only commodities which were specifically requested will get their prices jacked up, and the price hike naturally gets worse the more desperately you request something. Hey, a merchant's gotta turn a profit somehow.
The second half of the negotiation goes a lot more easily. Polpolion will talk with the diplomat to find some stuff that the nearby dwarven stronghold wants.
We're under no obligation to make any of this, but if we do, we'll make a fat bonus in future trades with our neighbor.
All-righty then! Diplomat's on his way, and now we can parley with the merchants camped by our front door.
Right. Trading starts by first designating stuff that you want available for trade. In this case, Trash had made some trinkets from the bones of our slaughtered pack animals. Those crafts probably won't go for a whole lot, but we should be able to get something from the caravan.
I twiddle my thumbs for a bit as everybody brings the (sizable) number of trinkets to the depot one at a time. Turns out I derped a bit and didn't make any bins for the crafted goods stockpile; goods in a bin can be taken all at once rather than one by one. Oh well. We wait.
Somewhat counter-intuitively, trading doesn't really work on some medium. Money generally isn't exchanged, and actual coins make a poor trade good. Rather, goods have a value assigned to them. I'm not going to go into the finer points of value determination, but for a basic treatment: expensive materials (precious metals, gems, etc) and high-quality craftsdwarfship will crank the value of something through the roof. Bone isn't worth a whole lot, and while Trash is a decent bonecarver, her work is anything but legendary. Add in the fact that we simply don't have a lot of shiny stuff laying about for trading, and we hock the pile of bone goods for some extra food and booze.
Once the trade is complete, the dwarves gather up the goods that are now ours and squirrel them away in the appropriate stockpiles. In the meantime, a few of the dwarves head to the hospital for not-terribly-apparent reasons. Fearing the worst, I shadow deathfun. He staggers into the hospital, puking more than once, and collapses onto the nearest bed. Trash scurries over to diagnose deathfun. Fortunately, it looks like deathfun is simply nauseous, a natural side effect of our location next to an ocean of filth. A few more dwarves take breathers in the hospital and Trash checks most of them. Nobody seems to have any lingering ill effects.
Annoyed at the prior SNAFU with the depot, I begin looking for an alternative location. I find a nice little natural alcove in one of the non-sludged areas. Polpolion and Scotty dig out a nice and even room for the depot, and I direct the rest of the dwarves to build a stone roof over the depot as a defensive measure. This time, wagons should be able to reach the depot. Now, why would I go through all this trouble? It's quite simple- wagons add a LOT of additional commodities to a caravan.
Since I'm sure the boys and gals have gotten tired of the rather pitiful sandy initial accommodations, I block out a more permanent living/working area in granite and mica. In the process of digging out the new work hub, one of the miners uncovered a gem deposit. Gems themselves aren't terribly remarkable, but a nodule of emeralds this close to the surface is. This marks Wallbones' first deposit of truly valuable materials. Yay!
In the midst of the excavation project and the moving, a couple kobold thieves try to pinch some stuff. The first one manages to get away safely, but the second one isn't so lucky. The kobold gets caught sneaking and tries to flee, but Scourge and redsniper are having none of that and proceed to beat the **** out of the kobold. Redsniper tackles the thief and starts breaking some limbs. Scourge takes advantage of the kobold's compromised position and crushes the unfortunate creature's head with a mighty punch. Scourge gets credit for killing the first true invader of Wallbones, and while it doesn't officially count, redsniper gets an "assist". Bravely done, boys.
It's not entirely unusual to see dwarves from the starting group develop feelings for each other. At this point we still only have a grand total of 12 citizens, so there isn't a whole lot to do other than socializing. DeeJay and Trash decide to do more than just socialize and get married. Congratulations!
Aaaand here we go. Migrant wave, a big one this time.
This new wave pretty much doubled our current population and gives us a much larger skillbase. All good things, but I'm still sorting out the bedroom situation.
Hm. Elf caravan showing up. We don't have any real trade goods to sell, but I do find something. Some of our recent arrivals had the Hunting labor enabled; I disabled that labor because I frankly don't want any dwarves on the surface. Immigrants that arrive with Hunting skill also come with a crossbow and a set of bolts. After a little poking around I find a silver crossbow and a stack of silver bolts. Silver's a crappy material for weapons, but it's got some value. I have the dwarves take the silver stuff and a crummy copper dagger from the late kobold thief to the trade depot. The weapons are traded away for a large supply of logs, which we desperately need.
I order the logs crafted into barrels and beds, but barrels first. We can't brew booze without an empty food storage vessel, so I (in retrospect, stupidly) prioritize the production of the barrels. This is kinda dumb because beds can only be made from wood, and we now have another 20 dwarves to sleep. Oh yeah, Apollo is now a mother- congratulations!
What's this- our first Strange Mood? Looks like one of the newcomer bonecrafters just got a big idea. I'm gonna keep close tabs on this guy, just in case he goes nuts for some particular material. Basically, any dwarf can occasionally get into a Strange Mood and attempt to craft a max-quality Artifact. The artifact will generally be an object/material combination related to a high-ranked skill that dwarf has.
The dwarf will scurry around the fortress, grabbing materials as he goes. He will also claim a workshop, which can sometimes bugger workflow. If the dwarf stalls at the workshop without working on the project or gathering materials, then he wants something that you don't have in stockpiles. Checking the workshop will offer some clues as to what he wants, but he won't outright say for example: "I want some iron bars". At any rate, our bonecrafter has everything he needs and has gotten to work.
Aaand here's what he built- a legendary bone hatch cover. Well- it's honestly not that cool, but I can still put it to good use. You'll see how in just a sec.
Detailed description of the artifact. The names are randomly generated and usually don't have anything to do with the artifact itself. Because expensive stuff is good for morale when dwarves behold it, I order the hatch cover to be set up in the new common room, where the whole population can admire it.
Night is now a mother as well. Since she has all but expressed a deathwish in the past, this may lead to some !!FUN!! in the future. Also, here we get a good look at the new living and working areas. I'll elaborate starting with the next caption.
The old living areas are pretty much abandoned, but I'll keep the farms and supplementary storage areas there. Here's what we have now: The central area where most of the dwarves are hanging out right now is the common area/dining room. Up from the dining area are individual bedrooms, a lot larger than the old ones, and soon to be furnished as well! The central hallway to nowhere will eventually be part of our last-line defensive strategy, I'll show that off later. The open area to the left of the living area is storage and workshops, and there are some tunnels between the work and rec areas. (see next pic)
This is directly below the previous floor. We have the primary food storage area, the kitchens, and some crossunder tunnels. The crossunder tunnels link the working and living areas together. Once again, I'll illustrate the purpose of the crossunder tunnels at a future point. This floor also holds another block of the housing complex- I don't have enough beds to fill out the entire complex at the moment.
And we'll go ahead and end this long post here. 'Till next time!
