Great News Everyone!

So the 10th of Malachite had seen our fotress being busy as hell, in fact I was so worn out running around building walls and making sure everything else was in check I forgot to report that the cistern was completed and we filled it with water!

So yeah we have our own cistern and it works! I just need to build a couple of wells on the platform out there in Autumn. The cistern overflowed actually but my plan for the lower drainage gate worked a charm (if agonizingly slowly) Only thing to note, even though I constructed a fortification, I noticed a trout spawn down in the lower level, I think the cistern being so close to the edge caused the fortification to not have the desired effect, not a big issue to be honest though. I may put a second cistern in at a later date for fish farming.

Here's some screens I have of the cistern filled and filling:


Lower level filled.


Cistern overflowing!


Drainage gate opened


It appears to be working


Cistern completed, with rocksalt platform constructed for wells.

The 3 gates system really worked well, if slowly, you don't need much time on the gates to flood the chamber so remember keep the 3rd gate shut when doing the refilling of it!

On the 16th of Malachite I took the following screen cap of the fortress management screen:



Pike and BoB also finished digging out the chambers for the new production areas and the forges/kilns and workshops are in!


Forge chambers in, need a second woodburning furnace because coal production at the moment is below demand, probably gonna make a second ore smeltery too, we've got plenty of iron we can at least have a selection of iron armour and weapons for our military.


Pottery chambers, I had no experience with pottery at first, I have to say it was relatively simple to figure out and the wares should hopefully be worth more than the trinkets Dignified Pauper chucks out, Rocksalt and quartzite whilst plentiful and quicker to get than clay are very low value rocks economically speaking. I am considering using a second kiln here to make clay products quicker.


Glassworks, unfortunately not in time to save Melissaur from going insane. However, the large chamber in the background is actually a store room, I figure with redesigning and expanding the surface fortress I will have to move the current workshop locations, this means we need a large furniture storechamber, also our current workshops are listed as cluttered, this slows down production.

So there we have 3 new ways to keep the fortress going I'm quite pleased with this, we should soon be able to buy everything we need and provide for our dwarven community even when it swells up in size.

Around the same time the outer wall of the new expansion was also completed, I managed to get the following capture in before it was done so:



I have since opened it up and begun the construction of the second wall layer:



I'm considering the east/west expansion, I'll lay it out in suspended walls if I run out of time to finish the project. BoB can then work on it :P

I've also considered if we ought to make a small fortified fishing/hunting compound above the lever room to the cistern, it could work considering the cistern lever room already has a stairwell to the surface (currently capped by a floor hatch and locked) I won't have time to build all these walls though of that I'm certain but I think BoB will see exactly what I mean by it when he looks

Now I did entitle this entry as "Great News Everyone!" and whilst our new forges, workshops, filled cistern and expanded fortress are good news it's not truly great. However I don't label great news great news for no reason! Something I owe Demon Dude for has happened again! Julian was probably wondering why I had used names like Bolivar, Xalibar, Devore and other obscure members but not his but son, I was saving it for a special place:





Now get on my knee and call me Daddy! Again.

We also had some human merchants come by and so Psychotic proceeded to buy as many items of food and meat/fish/cheese also any animals as he could from them because the last thing we really need is more drink



The trading prompted me to get the following announcement:



Ho tit son! You just leveled up! (though not being silly I left you actually in the leaders office considering your skills in the role so the expedition leader was already you to begin with xD)

Other than that we lost a water buffalo to starvation, I really need to move the animal pens to the expansion or outside the walls so they can eat! And then all too soon and yet after a lot of action and micro-managing challenges I got the final announcement of the season:



Here is a copy of the fortress management screen for the end of the season:



And so I begin the journey in to Autumn.