Winter is Coming, Autumn 256

The best laid plans of mice and men

So at the end of Summer, things in Spoonproblems were really getting in to shape, the fortress was actually functioning, we had forges making iron armour, we have a military killing our enemies, or rather scaring the tit out of them by killing innocent kitties, we had an entranceway made of stone and an expansion to the territory we've claimed going on and a booming population of 48. However I knew one thing:

Winter is comming.

Winter in Spoonproblems, damn thats a cold thing coming we needed to be ready, stockpiles of food, drink, water, everything had to be ready not to mention the King was sending his representative to see if NED was truly working out. Also apparently Lonny BoB was gonna be in charge come the end of the year! That thought terrified me more than the idea of Demon Dude taking control and he couldn't control a simple button saying "press for food"

I didn't want my baby NorthernChaosGod or my woman Milf to freeze to death in the cold northern winds and so we needed to be ready, this was my turn to shine and I intended to shine well.

With that in mind I commmenced my planning and realizing I was right, I could manage people my old boss in the Aich MMMMM Veee was wrong and he could go take a running leap. I wasn't destined to be a fish cleaner any longer I'd proven myself capable at running a fortress and whilst I couldn't run it forever (though I'd have liked to) I could leave it in a sustainable place.

Heres what I intend to have done by the end of my year:

Western Expansion; this is needed, we need more space, more land, more plants. I've plotted a large expansion here and a smaller twin on the eastern side below are the western expansion plans:




like I said, it's gonna be big.

Eastern Expansion; This is a smaller expansion, but combined it'll give us a major benefit. The wall is tricky, I'm having to build a floor tile to actually get the corner of the wall built, will have to micro-manage this quite effectively destroying the rocksalt floor I ordered when putting the final piece of the wall in to place.




Entrance Tower; At the moment even though it can be made secure, our entrance is really just a slit in the ground. I've floored off the open parts where the ice pool was but what we really need is a tower to secure the top of the entranceway, access is important, 2 doors on each side of the building will give maximum entrance/exit potential whilst securing it admirably, due to new DF building rules parts of the floor must be first ripped up.



Expanding Agriculture; We need more food, fact! therefore 4 more 4x4 fields are being commissioned, these 4x4 fields should allow us to successfully grow enough food to see our fortress through. I will also see about getting kitchens established and have people cook meals. We also need some way to keep the animals in a large enough pen where they can all get food, to this end temporarily I've established the maximum size pen zone I can outside across the bridge, once the expansions are built, we'll build them a smaller one within that actually can support them





Widening essential passages; this isn't a major point but at present the path from the main fort entranceway to the cistern path is a 1 wide chokepoint. I'm going to expand this to 2 wide. I'm also going to expand access to the new furniture storage, I forsee that being very busy!





Speeding up production; Whilst the forges and kilns work, they're still slow, Zeldy is constantly complaining she hasn't enough iron bars or coal for use, therefore a second smeltery (with a second smelter) and a second wood burning furnace have been requested. Also a second Kiln so we can generate pottery goods faster.





All of the above goals should be completed hopefully before seasons end. If not by the end of the year at most. If you wonder why it takes me a long time to write my posts and also to play my seasons out then I hope you can appreciate I'm setting quite large goals and having to micro-manage (sometimes relying on pausing every couple of minutes to check jobs are going to plan) the fortress on this scale is not always easy.