I think I may have to abandon my latest fortress.
I had a second invasion with a mix of frightening creatures called night something, maybe experiments?, along with their leaders and creators and while my cage and weapon traps were able to deal with most of them, the huge night experiment giant spiders just ran right by my defenses and slaughtered everybody! I believe there were like 20+ invaders in all with maybe 4-5 of the giant spider experiment things. I need to get more creative with my trap system. I did manage to have my fort all sealed up at the beginning, but the invaders didn’t seem to go away after a really long time, so I kept save scumming to see if various strategies would work and then opening up the drawbridge. I spent an awful long time building a successful (so far) fort, so I wanted to at least learn what worked and didn’t against strong opponents like that.
My best outcome was I had all of my military squads stationed just past my line of traps (I had like 30 each of cage and weapon traps). I had maybe 8 dwarfs in each squad with a melee one and crossbow/marksman one (my total dwarf count was in the 60s). The melee squad was fairly well trained with many talented and proficient fighters across many skills. Most of my archers were well trained also as they had been training for years. When I lifted the drawbridge, instead of waiting for the enemy waves to move past the traps first, my military all charged out immediately to fight just outside my main gate. This time, I actually managed to kill the entire invading force, but in the process lost most of my military, I believe, so I reloaded. That was my best outcome. The one above didn’t work as the large night just ignored my traps, which sucked, as I had all my dwarfs hiding deep underground.
I believe I was near the end of year 4, so had plenty of time to build stone fortifications, but I didn’t really have a solid plan and didn’t start them. I had just found my first cavern and lava finally, so there was no time to build any magma type defenses. I have never tried that before, so may need to explore that too. I also really want to try those marksman kill zone type defenses you can read about, although I am not sure how much it would have helped in this case. I guess I figured my traps would be enough along with my military to clean up any that got past them.
Still, I am not sure I am cut out for a game like Dwarf Fortress in the long run. I get attached to what I work on and I know it is just a matter of time for most players to have to abandon their fortresses, and that should be part of the fun. I realize you can turn off combat, and tweak your game start to help your chances of success, but I want to experience as much of the game as I can, and get more successful as I continue to play. I am just not sure I am learning fast enough to keep pushing through the many years of fort development to see if I can survive. I probably have a couple more tries in me, as I enjoy the main game play loop, but it takes me too long still to get past those first few years. I suppose it will get easier with time and experience, though, and each start has new challenges and surroundings and resources to adapt to that it can still be enjoyable. There is always the next fort and the chance that this will finally be the best one yet!
