Celebrity Survivor, Outpost Ginggeshud

[mrsimperless]

You've watched them from afar. Now experience their lives up close.

Celebrity Survivor, Outpost Ginggeshud

What do Martha Stewart, Donald Trump, Tom Cruise, Paris Hilton, Mike Tyson, Snoop Doggy Dogg and Hillary Clinton all have in common? They've all been stranded in a dwarven wilderness! Join us this fall for the newest rage in reality programming as these 7 celebs battle the wilderness, the elements, and each other, for survival.

[mrsimperless]

Episode 1, Welcome to the fortress!

First off, this is my first time ever playing this game so be warned that things could get ugly for those unfortunate souls living in our little world. I have done a bit of reading on the game so I have at least some idea of what to expect..

Meet the Characters
Our dwarves brought with them 2 war dogs (just like normal dogs but bigger and stronger – these will hopefully serve as our early protection), 2 cats a mule and a horse. From looking at the units list there is also apparently an alligator wandering around not too far away. We’ll have to watch out for him, but I didn’t see him anywhere. Here are the stars of the show:

Martha Stewart – Miner, Interior Decorator
Donald Trump – Miner, Real Estate Mogul
Tom Cruise – Fisherdwarf, Scientologist
Paris Hilton – Novice Fish Dissector, Novice Animal Dissector, Fish Cleaner, Brewer, Cook
Mike Tyson – Farmer, Animal Trainer, Animal Caretaker, Boxer
Snoop Dogg – Farmer, Mechanic, Rapper
Hillary Clinton – Woodcutter


Food
Obviously our first concern is going to be getting a regular source of food. We have two fisherdwarves with the idea of one of them being dedicated to fishing and the other one operating as both another fisherman and also as the designated fish cleaner.

Two farmers were brought along as well, but they won’t be doing any farming until we get that ball rolling. I have a little plan in mind for the farming for our first year here. For those not in the know farming in this game occurs inside your fortress, not outside, and consists of flooding a room to create a fertile mud where plants can be grown. This consists of tunneling into the rock until the underground river is found and then setting up some sort of gate contraption that allows the needed flooding to be contained. However, when you first find the river an initial flood usually occurs as well. What some people do is use this initial flooding to perform their farming the first year and then set up the flood gates for the next year. I’m going to use this same approach, but hopefully plan it a little better. What I’d like to do is to build not one area into the rock, but 2 separate areas. The first one will be our main fortress where we will live and do all of our normal dwarfish activities. The second area will be designated for farming only in the beginning and this is where we will dig our path to the river. It will contain a farmng chamber a ways in where we will plant our crops. If all goes well we'll have this area prepared first and then when we hit the river our farming room will flood right away and we won't need to build floodgates for the first year. Also this way when the tunnel floods the rest of our fortress will be kept safe and dry. Then at a later time we will join our two areas back into one. We’ll see how this plan works out.

Things To Do
Here are some initial things that we need to get working on:
- Start fishing
- Start chopping wood (we can also salvage our wagon for some wood as well)
- Start building workshops
- Start Making furniture (we need chairs, tables and beds initially)
- Start tunneling the main area
- Start tunneling the farming area

And here are some longer term objectives that we need to at least start thinking about:
- Protection from animals and monsters
- Creating crafts so that when the caravan comes by in the fall we can trade for more food
- Making alcohol (dwarves are happier and work faster when shnookered)

Risks
As of right now we of course still have plenty of the food left that we brought with us, but it won’t last forever. We also don’t really have anyone who can fight to protect us if we’re attacked by anything. Also, our dwarves will soon turn unhappy if don’t get living quarters and a dining area established.

Let’s get started!

[Godzilla Blitz]

Cool! I'll be reading.

The screen shot is a nice touch. I'll have to add that feature to mine as well.

Good luck!

[mrsimperless]

Episode 2, The Wheels, They Are in Motion

After much fumbling around and lots of browsing of the wiki things are now starting to take shape. We’ve started both of our tunnels. The one on top is our main living area. We’ve already completed 7 bed rooms, a dining room and a storage room. In the bottom tunnel we’ve finished our 6X10 farming area and are ready to dig into the river if we can find it.

Hillary is a wood chopping machine and we’ve put our stone and wood to good use, building masonry, carpentry and fishing workshops. For now we’ve built them outside, but eventually we’ll be moving these indoors once we have a workshop area completed to house all of them.

From these workshops we’ve been crafting tables, thrones (chairs) and beds and everything has been placed in their respective locations. We’re now in the process of building some barrels for food storage as we don’t want our raw food to rot. The fishery has been busy processing the turtles and frogs that Tom Cruise dredges out of the many small ponds near our new home.

Martha Stewart and Donald Trump were each adopted by one of our cats we brought along with us. In one exciting event both of the dogs were chasing a cat up and down our river corridor. I assigned both of the dogs to Mike Tyson to work with, but so far I haven’t seen any training going on.

Questions
There is still a lot about the game I don’t understand or know how to do. For example:

- I don’t know how to move things around. I figured out the beds tables and chairs, but the barrels of food, seeds, etc. that we brought with us are sitting out by where the wagon was and I don’t know how to move them into my storage room.
- I have no concept of time. I’ve been playing for probably an hour or so and I’ve yet to see anyone sleep or eat a meal. I have no idea how much game time has passed since I started playing or how to figure it out. A snowstorm has come and gone, but I’ve seen no messages pertaining to sunrise and/or sunsets.

Things To Do
- Now that the farming room is finished we need to find that river. Hopefully when we do the room will flood and we can starting planting some things
- Workshop room – we need to build a large room to house our workshops and start moving things indoors
- We need to designate someone a craftsman and have them start making some prettys that we can trade to the caravan when it comes.

[mrsimperless]

Episode 3, Digging In

Spring has come and gone. Summer is here and the work never ends. Mr. Trump dug and dug to the east in search of water. What starts out as a few trickles seeping through cracks in the stone turns into a full surge of water as the passageway is flooded and Donald runs for his life. His hair piece is swept away like a drowned rat in the flood, but he escapes with his life. Unfortunately, the flood wasn’t quite as strong as expected and our farming chamber is only partially submerged under the water. Hopefully this will give us enough fertile farming ground for our first year in the mountain.



Once the flood subsides farming plots are designated and dwarves start planting the seeds that will later be harvested for our critical food supply.

A large chamber is designated for workshops and the dwarves begin building the area will they will perform most of their daily tasks. Paris Hilton builds a still for producing alcohol and gets to working right away on making some dwarven wine. Pretty soon 44 bottles are filled and put into storage.

Our storage area is enlarged and stockpiles designated for furniture and additional food. Finally the dwarves move the barrels into the storage room and the raw meat is placed into the barrels to keep it fresh. Unfortunately for us this comes a bit too late. Tom Cruise has decided to try and break the world fishing record and some 20 raw fish turn rotten and stink up our hallway before they can be put into storage. We also designate Mr. Cruise as a craftsman in the hopes that he will build us a craftsman workshop and start producing some tradable goods, but it seems Tom has little else than fish on his mind these days than fishing and the underground river is stocked with game to feed his habit.

Since the tunnels are filling up with stone and ore we designate additional locations outside where stone can be stored and decide to move the fishery, and mason and carpentry workshops indoors. A spot in the middle of the workshop room is designated for some raw materials so that the workers don’t have to constantly run outside to grab more stone and wood. (Although we’re not making much right now as the living quarters and dining room are already finished.)

We consider building a well for our thirsty dwarves, but we have more than enough wine to go around for everyone at this point. Work is also begun on connecting our two main areas into one now that flooding has gone down. Hopefully this will make moving from place to place easier on our little friends.





Things To Do
- Build a kitchen and start cooking real food for our dwarves
- Start producing tradable goods for the caravan
- Ensure that farming is working and plant a good variety of seeds
- Start training someone for military service
- Fancify our dining room to impress our dwarves
- Create a bridge across the river and start exploring the shoreline (Careful, those are cave spider webs!)
- Dig, dig, dig!

[mrsimperless]

Originally Posted by mrsimperless

Questions
There is still a lot about the game I don’t understand or know how to do. For example:

- I don’t know how to move things around. I figured out the beds tables and chairs, but the barrels of food, seeds, etc. that we brought with us are sitting out by where the wagon was and I don’t know how to move them into my storage room.

As in my previous post I found out how to move things. you don't do this manually, but instead simply designate stockpiles for things to go to and the dwarves will move them there as time allows. When my barrels had no furntiture pile to go to they sat in my carpentry workshop and the dwarves coulnd't seem to use them for food.

Originally Posted by mrsimperless

- I have no concept of time. I’ve been playing for probably an hour or so and I’ve yet to see anyone sleep or eat a meal. I have no idea how much game time has passed since I started playing or how to figure it out. A snowstorm has come and gone, but I’ve seen no messages pertaining to sunrise and/or sunsets.

My dwarves did finally all go to sleep. As Godzilla noted in his dynasty the year is apparently divided into 8 distinct cycles with an "early" and "late" cycle for each season. It's early summer for me and the dwarves have only slept once so I'm not sure if they sleep during each of the 8 cycles or not.

This is the most fun I've had playing a game in quite some time!

[thealmighty]

This is fun to read. Keep it up (that means you can't let them all die).

[Godzilla Blitz]

You are doing so much better than I am! Good stuff. Fun to read. Keep it up.

I think actually there are actually early/mid-/late stages for each season. It's a bit hard to tell but I think each season corresponds to one day. That seems to be what I'm seeing for sleeping anyway.

[mrsimperless]

Originally Posted by Godzilla Blitz

You are doing so much better than I am! Good stuff. Fun to read. Keep it up.

I think actually there are actually early/mid-/late stages for each season. It's a bit hard to tell but I think each season corresponds to one day. That seems to be what I'm seeing for sleeping anyway.

You are correct sir. It is mid-summer right now. although I've still only witnessed two sleep cycles.

[mrsimperless]

Episode 4, The Ozzman Cometh

Lots of goings ons and what have yous in celebrity survivor this week. Lots of ins and outs if you will. The biggest news? We have a new arrival on the island! A metalworker has joined our ranks. Who is the master of metal you ask? Why none other than Ozzie himself. Since we have no metal for him to work with he is immediately assigned the task of bowmaker to start putting together some weapons for our military. With the Ozzman joining us our sleeping quarters are now at capacity as well so we’ll have to start thinking about a place to put new arrivals when they come. But the community is happy to have him here as, because along with the new room construction all existing rooms were enlarged as well.

Tom Cruise finally decided to get off of his ass and make some crafts. And its going to be a happy Christmas for the little boys and girls this year folks, cause guess what the master has crafted? Stone toys! Oh yes, santa come early this year! Actually, he’s making lots of bone and shell crafts as well, but the stone toys are definitely my favorite. (Hey, its better than coal in your stocking!)

The kitchen has been completed and Paris has been busy cooking plump helmet stew. I’m not sure if this will do us any good or not, and I also know that cooking the helmets causes them to not produce seeds when consumed, which they normally do. However, we’ve got tons of Plump Helmet Spawn (the seeds) so we should be ok.

We had originally wanted to beautify the dining area, but I haven’t yet figured out how to do engravings on the walls. Instead, a dining room reorganization is in progress. You can fit up to four chairs to a table, but dwarves are happier when they have their own table. I had originally placed the tables and chairs in a schoolroom type of format. I’ve now decided to make I big table with chairs on either side. The table is two tables thick though, so the people sitting across from each other still have their own table space. However, everyone is extremely busy at the moment so our dining room has been in disarray for quite some time.



I took a look at the group as a whole and for the most part the community would like to have a well. I’ve dug out this area already and built the components needed to construct the well, but I’m hesitant to actually commence work on it until we have some military forces in place. (Apparently frogmen or lizardmen or some such are known for popping up out of wells and attacking the general populace.)

I’ve once again had to increase the size of our outdoor mining dump and its already full again. Time to find more space for rocks. We also increased the size of our storeroom and will likely have to do this again in the future.

We also again increased the size of our workshop area (for some reason I think of this as a convention center) and lots of workshops have been constructed. We’ve now unearthed some gems as well, so a jeweler is now in the works.


Our farm is running at capacity with Snoop and Mike Tyson planting and harvesting up a storm.

Work was started on a bridge to span the underground river, but apparently this is a slow process as each block has to be built individually.



One thing that is annoying me a bit is animals entering the kitchen, storage room, and farming area. I’ve designated these as no passing for pets, but apparently the freaking cats ar running under people’s feet and getting through the doors. I then have to enable the door for pets until they leave and then restrict it again once they’re out.

Things To Do
- STILL need to get a military up and running
- …and then we can construct our well
- Finish our bridge
- Make some jewelry
- Harvest for the winter (already happening really)
- Create a kennel for the dogs (no idea what this does)

[mrsimperless]

Episode 5, Trade Winds

Apparently the dwarven gods watching over the FOFC clan in GBs dynasty are the same ones watching over our stranded celebrities. Not only do we also have new kittens and puppies, but the trade caravan has come and gone as well. No new horse for us though, as we only have one of those. (If our horse DOES get pregnant then Mike Tyson is definitely getting the boot off of the island. He spends entirely too much time with the animals.)



We also experienced a bit of a close call with the caravan. When they caravan pulled up to the gate we were shocked to learn that we actually needed to build a trade depot before they would show us their wares. I put Hillary Clinton on this task as she is the only amateur architect that we have in the group. But right as she is ready to commence construction she decides she needs a meal! I consider putting someone else on the task, but I decide to wait and let her finish eating. So of course as she is eating everyone else goes to sleep. Once her dinner is finished she marches straight to her sleeping chambers and is out in seconds.

At this point I was starting to panic. The trading dwarves who had come to visit were growing impatient, and I couldn’t blame them. After sitting and waiting for what seemed like forever Hillary finally wakes up. Everyone is pleased to see that she gets straight to work on the trading depot and it is soon up and running. Hooray!

We then take a look at what they have to offer and we’re once again shocked to learn that we actually have to carry our goods out to them before we can discuss business! We hurriedly set someone to the task and Snoop starts lugging our bin of goods out towards the depot. He must have smelled something good coming from the kitchen though, because on his way out he proceeds to drop the bin and head in to grab something to eat! Finally along came Paris Hilton to save the day and our goods are ready for trading. We give them the entire lot of goods (no, not the stone toys! Think of the children!) for a large variety of meats to help us through the winter.

With winter coming along any day now at this point all we can really do is harvest as much more plump helmet and cave wheat as we can and hope for the best. I don’t think we’re in too bad of shape, but we shall soon see. Here is the current stock of our kitchen. I don’t believe the plump helmet spawn are edible, so I’m not sure whey they’re shown here.




Things To Do
- Survive the winter!
- Train some military units. For serious this time. I mean it. We really need to. Before something bad happens.

[sachmo71]

Yeah, my caravan left before I was able to build a depot, as well.

[mrsimperless]

Episode 6, Oops!

I've heard that mistakes build character. Well our dwarves did some character building this winter! The plan was to complete a new farming chamber along with irrigation facilities so that things would be ready to go for farming once the spring starts. Everything was going fine; the chamber had been dug along with the control room and a channel for the water was dug as well. A switch and door were installed for the control room and floodgates were added to the channel. The problem arose when we attempted to attach our switch to the floodgates. Apparently, you need to attach the first floodgate to the switch BEFORE you place the second floodgate. Oops! Now I can't get to the floodgate to attach it and operate both gates together. I've taken a look at the farming site and unfortunately I dug out so close to the river that I can't even get around to the other gate without going through a lot of trouble.

And now a quick confession. At one point in time I played ahead and tried to "fix" my floodgates. Now my game, and this is the truth, was lost and I had to revert back to the save just after I had placed my second floodgate and screwed myself. Now I know this seems a bit odd that it happened at such a convenient time, but it really is the truth. I started the game up right before a long night of drinking and ended up playing it only sparingly as I got sucked into a few games of Ticket2Ride online. I was down in the hotel lobby, and by the time I realized what was happening in my drunken stupor I had lost all battery power and my pc shut down. It didn't go into hibernate mode, mind you, it shut. down. So anyway, I had to revert back a bit and lost some of my game progress. And besides, it wasn't THAT convenient. I'm still screwed with being unable to place the switch to the first floodgate!

So what I did in the game that was lost was I dug out a new control room and attached it to the farming chamber. I then moved the switch, opened up the wall between the old control room and the new one, connected the two floodgates to the switch and hoped for the best. However when I pulled the lever nothing happened. So no luck there.

As I look at the setup that GB has I'm noticing that his 2nd floodgate is out in the middle of his farm chamber! So the next thing I'm going to try is to open up the spaces around the inner floodgate and then try the switch. If that doesn't work then I will put another floodgate closer to the first one (as in GB's dynasty, 1 space away). Failing that we'll relocate the farm across the hallway and try it all again.



Things To Do
I'm a little bit upset with myself because I haven't been following the plans I'm laying out for the clan very well. When I go back and look at past episodes I see that I'm not only not doing the things that I say we need to, I'm also doing other things that I haven't even previously identified. Part of this is I'm a bit shortsighted in the planning. I don't think things through enough before I post my report and continue to the next phase of game time. (Which is a completely arbitrary point of time by the way.) Another part of this stems from ending up with idle dwarves, which I can't stand. I want them to always be doing SOMETHING, so I usually decide to build or expand on some area of the fortress at that point. I will make an effort to improve on this area of the program and try to give a more accurate picture of what the current strategy is.

As far as the military goes I've been hoping that some new brave dwarves will show up that we can immediately draft into our army. I have set up a room for the barracks and have created an armor and a weapon stand. I've also started constructing some weapons for them to use when they do arrive. So I haven't completely neglected the need. Let's just hope that our recruits show up before the bad guys too. (This has also been delaying me digging deeper into the mine as well as constructing my well as I'm fearful that I'll stir up some trouble that I can't handle.)

So here are next things to do:
- Get the floodgate system up and running so that farming can begin once winter is over.
- Continue weapon and armor production. Draft the next immigrant into our fortress into our army if they possess no or redundant skills.
- Examine more closely what workshops we already have and report on these. Build some new workshops that we don't yet have and start creating new stuff. (wealth!)