So in my first ever playthrough I had no idea what was going on. I made my colony in a mountainous tropical rainforest, and dug into a mountain to build my base. It made for a great choke point.
What I didn't expect was an infestation. In my freezer. The smart idea would have been to turn down my 4 coolers and freeze out the infestation as best as possible (I don't even know if that's a thing but i hope it is :P). So I forbade the doors and slowly starved as I worked on a new freezer.
Couple days later I get a siege. Had no clue what that meant. Shell me with mortars OK. Just thought I'd outlast them. Force them to full on raid because I will never surrender! I built my own mortar while they built theirs. I had high hopes i could land a couple lucky shots and destroy their mortar and kill somebody. They had an incendiary mortar.
First shot missed short, I put the fire out, though OK no problem. WELL their third shot wound up hitting my infested freezer. Great! The fire can kill the infestation and I can get on with my life. It killed everything in the freezer, burned everything. But my walls were made of wood. My entire base started burning, so I sent everybody in to try and get the fire under control. Poor Doyle and Jacob passed out from superheated air and eventually burned to death in the freezer. I tried rescuing them, but lost 3 more the same way. My base proceeded to burn to the ground and kill every last colonist. At least the pirates got nothing out of it though :)
It was a...wait for it...pyroic victory. 8)
Burn, baby BURN!
Good work reacting to the mortar by getting your own underway :). I find myself building my mortar at the last minute trying to build mortar shells while under fire.
Infestations suck and are the main reason I no longer build mountain bases.
Wood is great to get started but the 2 most commonly used work stations in early game are the stove and stone cutter bench.