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Scouredbridged is coming along fantastically.

My dwarves have made 15 artifacts so far.

The fortress is worth 3.2 million dwarfbucks and has a population of 50.

I have eight legendary miners and six legendary engravers.

And remember how I said there was no iron ore? WRONG!

I was very pleased when I found this huge deposit of magnetite. Later, I found several veins of hematite and limonite (also iron ore), and even a vein of bituminous coal!

I immediately started forging iron and steel weapons and armor for my military, which has become large and powerful. The puny kobolds and weak goblins are no match. Here’s a picture of them getting paved into the ground!

My fortress is doing so well, in fact, that I’m getting kind of bored with it. My military is unstoppable, my dwarves can now go outside whenever they want, I have tons of food and booze, everyone is always ecstatic, and I have nearly unlimited steel production. It’s boring! I need some drama! “Losing is fun,” after all.

That’s why I increased the maximum population from 50 to 80. Once I get past 80 population, the sieges should start. That will be fun…

There is still SOME drama in Scouredbridged. I think at least one of my dwarves is a serial killer. On four occasions, I’ve found inexplicable trails of blood all over my fort, with a dead or dying dwarf at the end. Here’s two screenshots from two different occasions:

I have NO IDEA what’s going on here. I checked the “justice” screen and there was no information. It seems that while my dungeonmaster is great at smelting and metalsmithing, he is terrible at catching murderers…

Oh, and I had to deal with a quintuple ambush.

I’m starting to think I settled near a goblin tower or something.

A few unfortunate citizens were killed, but once my military got out there, they slaughtered the goblins almost effortlessly.

And guess what I did with all those bodies?

This is Scouredbridged. The fortress is decorated with drawbridges, hematite, and blood. The fortress is encircled with bands of goblin and kobold skull totems. The fortress menaces with spikes of goblin skull totems.

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Written by Chris Watkins:

After weeks of doing mostly Fortress mode I rolled up a few short lived adventurers. Finally I have one that hasn’t died an embarrassing death. What’s more is he has his own tale that’s worthy of greek myth. The character is an axeman, 75% of points in axe and 25% in shield. I was pretty much wandering the countryside alone and I stumbled on a cave. As I venture in, my confidence is high since I’m doing pretty well against the rat men and ant men and mud men inside so I go deeper and deeper. I’m starting to get the hang of some of the ‘wrestling’ moves too and have gotten myself up to Novice in it.

At the 3rd level I turn a corner and a Minotaur greets me. He has little more to say than ‘prepare to die’ so, as they say, it’s on. We clash and my axe bites deep into his shoulder, and gets stuck. He smacks me hard enough to break my grip on the handle, and at this time I was unaware how to regain possession, so its to be a hand to hand fight since I sure as hell am not going to run from this big goon; he’s got my only axe! I lunge for his hand, he smacks me good with it and knocks me down. Near the hooves of an angry, bleeding Minotaur is not my idea of a good position, so I grab his knee. This time he can’t shake me free. I advance my grip to a joint-lock. He’s battering my back trying to get me loose. With a joint lock I try to break the knee. I sprain it hard on the first try. He’s still attacking, fortunately his blows are glancing away. On the 3rd attempt, the Minotaur’s knee breaks and the beast goes tumbling down!

Sensing the chance for victory my U shaped avatar leaps on the prone beast’s back and goes for a grip on his throat. My first attempt is good so my next turn advances the grip to a chokehold. The Minotaur must be thrashing about but the chokehold stays secure and I start strangling the beast. 5 turns of strangling and he passes out. Several more turns and he dies! It takes a moment for reality to kick in. My character killed a Minotaur with his bare hands. Finally I have an Adventure Mode story worth telling that isn’t about a grisly death at the hands of chipmunks.

Maybe making a dedicated wrestling character is worth the mental image of Nacho Libre I’ll have while playing.

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Written by Trevor

I got the new version of Dwarf Fortress today… I was patient for the past two years, waiting for DF2010, and the last couple weeks, waiting for the Mac Version.

I download the package, shove in the Mayday graphics, take them out again due to crashes, and “Create a New World”.

I pick a spot with some mountain and forest tiles, and strike the earth!

Now I’ve played Dwarf Fortress on and off for a couple years, since just before its creator started work on DF2010 back in 2008. I know about building a fortress, tantrum spirals, and making a pyramid out of kitten fat soap. I didn’t want to waste time on all that crap, I wanted to see the NEW stuff, NOW!

My fingers twitch with glee at the 140 z-levels below the surface of the hill I’ve embarked on. Tunneling down, I find my first new feature.

Wow! Cool! This place is HUGE! Alright, Dwarves, start carting food down there, we’re taking over this cave! Screw digging our own fortress, this is way cooler than anything I could make!

Alright, we’ll dig a new staircase through that pillar, and the workshops will go over here… oh, what’s this?

Cool a Troll! Let’s kill it! A bit of fiddling with the new military menu, and all 7 dwarves are chanting, “KILL TROLL! KILL TROLL!”

The dwarves manage to bruise a lot of body parts, and bust open a horn… but the troll’s bones are far too sturdy for the novice wrestlers to crack.

After a long fight, the troll takes down a couple dwarves, but seven dwarves is a lot for one troll to handle, and soon the troll is fleeing the bearded menaces.

Man, that guy moves fast! My dwarves can hardly keep up with the huge strides by the grey-haired, black-skinned horned troll.

Suddenly, the troll gets CAUGHT in a SPIDER WEB!

It halts Mrs. Troll long enough for the Dwarves to uselessly latch on, trying to injure it enough to bring it to the ground.

Nothing works, though, the troll is simply to strong and too large.

The Dwarves remain in forced pursuit, running around the cavern for a half hour, chasing the behemoth that keeps stupidly getting caught in several more spider webs. I’m pretty sure the troll is way less injured then he was a couple minutes ago. This could be a long, tiresome battle with Mrs. Magical-healy troll.

Finally, the Troll makes a mistake, tumbling down a shallow drop of 3 z-levels, spraying its blue blood all over the wall.

My heroic Dwarves jump the fallen Troll, beating its face in with their bare fists. The Troll still refuses to die. After a couple minutes of constant punishment, I find myself yelling at the tiny ‘T’ on the screen, “GIVE INTO PAIN! GIVE INTO PAIN!”

FINALLY the beast does. I breathe a sigh of relief, and find that my whole body was tensed and battle-ready during the final part of the combat.

I relax, and let my dwarves out of their military squad. I smirk when I see that they’re still chanting “KILL TROLL! KILL TROLL!”

One dwarf, a fish dissector, lay unconscious, bleeding and broken, the rest of the dwarves only suffer minor injuries.

Excited about making this cavern more hospitable, now that the foul troll guarding it was slain, I start designating ramps and a quarry section.

Then suddenly…

OH SHI-

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