The Demise of Dikeorgan (Dwarf Fortress)

It started with a water problem, ironically. I was experimenting with a pump and a waterwheel where my fortress met the stream. This would have been fine, except when nobody seemed to do anything about the mechanisms I had ordered, I turned the area into a walled and roofed fishing area.

However, after I had walled it shut to the outside and opened it up to the interior of my fortress, someone finally got around to building the pump.

Turns out that pumps don't come with off switches. They just pump water. A lot of it.

I tell folks to go take appart the pump, but it's pumping water like crazy, and nobody can push up against the flow - I keep seeing dwarves run towards it, then go back and forth with the flow. One guy drowns.

I then take a different route - I order miners to mine away the wall on the outside, so that the pump empties water to the outside, not to the inside. Well, empties both ways, but it cut down on pressure.

So miners dig a bunch of holes, and water starts coming out. Finally some mason struggles through the water and takes appart the water wheel. The water ceases, not much damage.

...and then the dragon Akera Thasacaci Rano Inira shows up. Gets anounced on the map and everything.

Oh dear.

I suddenly realize that there is a massive hole in my defenses - my store rooms are open on the lower hillside, completely defenseless. I quickly order dwarves to seal it up.

Those dwarves get cooked. Akera kills a few other dwarves running around the map, and I try to close the breach again. If I can just seal off the interior, I can be safe-ish. For a time, anyway.

Big gouts of fire. Masons get cooked. Akera enters into my storeroom, sets things on fire. Smoke is everywhere, and I have a non-stop stream of messages saying that tasks have been cancelled due to "dragon" and that dwarves are dying.

Everyone is running around in a panic, and they are dying. Before I know it, my population is down to 30-something. 30-something is less than 77. A lot less.

I order everyone to stand outside, to lure Akera past the entrance-way traps, going the other way. Maybe she will get caught in a cage trap, or maybe she's at least get injured by my many weapon traps.

Meanwhile, Akera roasts dwarves, workshops, food, stockpiles, farms, and anything that is flammable or inflammable. Smoke is everywhere, I cannot see where Akera is rampaging.

Eventually, I see her in the big room that was supposed to be the new textile industry center. The one that has two doors and a stairway out. I delete the burrow so my dwarves can move freely, and get someone to close the door. Said person dies horribly to smoke inhalation, heat, or something. Other folks go to wall in the upstairs farm.

Akera kills the rest of the masons, and goes from the upstairs farm to the pasture, and down some stairs into the main fort again. Slaughters everyone there.

I order everyone back to outside the door, huddling behind the traps. There are now 17 dwarves left. They start a fist-fight. Specifically, half of them go into tantrum mode.

Akera sits out the eastern staircase, just around the corner from the fist-fight. She is not moving. Corpse are starting to decay, and everyone is alternating between calming down, and tantruming over their favorite friend starting to rot. Some guy dies.

Akera rounds the corner and obliterates the dwarf who had stopped halfway with broken legs. She then wanders back around the corner.

One of the dwarves is killed by another.

Akera notices one of the dwarves down below go by the eastern staircase. She pops down below and incinerates most of the room with a fire-blast. She then returns to her roost.

Somehow three of my dwarves are still estatic. They are being beaten up by the miserable ones. Somehow an insane dwarf gets past Akera's roost and joins the others. Joining them with her fists. I see items go flying around the area they all are hiding.

Ber Berdegel, Dwarven Child goes berserk.

I set a new burrow to the other side or the river, hoping to make a home there away from the death and destruction. Some of the dwarves head over there, and Akera stays put. However, I get the unfortunate message: "Domas Dedukestun, Miner cancels Dig: Interrupted by Dwarven Child."

Eventually I find Domas. He is being chased around the wilderness by a berserk child. He has the only pickaxe, and the rest of the survivors wander around the new burrow.

Eventually he gets away from the child, but then throws a tantrum himself. He calms down, and starts digging the tunnel to... relative safety.

Then the fisherdwarf goes berserk...

Eventually things calm down. I also forbid every item in the old fortress. Don't have an axe for wood, but at least I have a pick?

Turns out Dragons can smash doors. And walls. Can't even wall myself in.

Construction on the new home goes... with lots of tantrums and upset dwarves. I still have a fisherdwarf, so he catches lots of fish. I have food and I have water. Next step is sanity. Still need an axe for beds, though

Human Caravan arrives. Heads to the depo. Somehow they get past Akera, who is one room away. Maybe there is hope. Stupid, stupid hope.

Rimtar the Bone Carver goes insane and is struck down by the miner. I unforbid a few beds and a table and a chair. Perhaps I can sneak in the same way Akera go in - she's on a different level, after all.

...and then goblins show up. They finish what Akera did not - they go to the new hole and kill everyone there.

There is one dwarf left. He was trapped in the dwarven catacombs when the dragon first arrived. He is dying of starvation and thirst.

Remember! Losing is fun!

Thoughts on MTG Deckbuilding, and What I Like

For me a beautiful deck is a deck that interacts with others, protects itself as it needs to, has the offense that it needs to, etc. all in perfect balance and harmony. Thus a deck that has great offense, but is fragile isn't my ideal; a deck that is solid, but can't do anything isn't my ideal; a deck that does one thing and then uses some completely different method to be good at something else is disharmonious and isn't my ideal.

But it's never the deck itself that is beautiful. It's the play of the deck. I measure and value decks in terms of what they will do, and the art is in the doing. The most beautiful game for me is one where both decks are preforming plays and counterplays, each one just barely having the answer to the problems posed by the other until someone slips. But I strive for what happens in the mean time.

I play a red deck against a big, nice midrange deck. I attack with my creatures, and they encounter spot removal, a counter to my creatures that keeps them weaker while the opponent builds up his mana. That, and my decks responses to sacrifice creatures to deny him lifegain or burn him one little bit more (all the mini-plays) are beautiful to me. My deck says, "look what I can do! I'm getting killed, but still getting stuff through!" and his deck is saying "Look what I can do, I'm lessening his creatures so I can buy time, just what my master needs!" ... and later there is another play between the decks - the midrange deck drops its fat, and my creatures stare down a 4/4. Strategy on the players' parts is employed - for me, should I attack into it so some guys get by for damage, or should I wait until I find some removal, and combine the two.... But on the deck end of things, they get to show off their stuff. I fight through for a little more damage while my creatures die against that 4/4, it is my plan. He beats with the 4/4 as soon as he can, trying to take me out before I draw enough burn to finish him - the final act is in motion. Will my deck show off it's goodness and provide me with the burn I need to win before the five hits take me to 0? Will his deck counter with some life-gain kill-spell aimed at one of my creatures, now that I don't have a mechanism to sacrifice them? The optimal would be for me to draw enough burn, but for him to counter with, say, Faith's Fetters to buy him just enough time to win. Because then both decks would have shown off their stuff.

But all decks do things, right? They all make their plays. But for me, if one deck does something that the other deck has no counter to--and that's defined vaguely--then that's not a beautiful game. Because all the playskill in the world won't help you if your deck doesn't have the right cards, and the deck will be sad, not having any way to provide me with the tools I need to use to fight. And the other deck is sad, because it can't really show off it's stuff, winning in the face of adversity, it's just follows it's rote form and wins.

I guess that's the main thing, perhaps - adapting to win in the face of adversity. My blue-white Mastermind deck can't do it's game plan against your land destruction, and so it turns to using the masterminds to protect lands and keep people busy while little guys run across and win. That adaptation is my joy as a player, and my pride in my decks come from their ability to provide me with the tools I need to adapt when the deck loses the plot. Which is to say that I am a bit funny as a johnny player - I want my plans to be ruined, and my fall-back plans (and ideally new ones I came up with on the spot) to be the ones that get to show their quality.

Any deck can build a plan, and execute a plan... in a vacuum. Even WLGYLSTYESFD could do its thing, given the chance. But the ability to execute a plan through adversity, or to be able to deal with adversity, that's excellence in a deck. And I don't mean adversity as in the challenges the deck was built to resist - I mean ones different or much stronger than expected. A deck fails when it can't adapt, and that makes me sad, and a deck doesn't succeed if it just does what it's supposed to do - that's just meeting expectations.

So play a game with me, and kill my key creatures, destroy the enchantment the deck revolves around. Your deck has the answers, doesn't it? Well, so does mine - watch as my deck brings back the piece from the graveyard, or converts itself into a beating machine during the lull as you found your removal, and tries to capitalize on the position it already got. Or watch it pull together a much weaker synergy, and try to win with that. Your deck answered my threat, but can it beat down to finish me off faster than I can finish you off? What do you do if I play the key piece again? Watch my deck as it tries to stall you before you beat me down - it's a race of sorts, and maybe I'll lose. Or maybe not.

Don't let me win against you by pulling off my plan. That's just boring. Don't beat me by doing something to which I cannot respond. That's just sad. But if you struggle to do something, and I struggle to resist, then each deck gets to show off all the things it was made to do, and maybe a little more.