Sad tidings

[Pangaea]

Things were going well and I was really enjoying this tribal colony. However, Cassandra can be right mean.

Despite Dan turning wild on a journey and leaving, we were back up to 9 people. Two people left for peace talks, and 0.1 days before sitting down at the designated table, the same buggers turn up at *my* door and siege us. Backstabbing arsehats. Most of the colony goes down because I had to try to fight them off instead of seeing everything go up in smoke from mortars. The very next day another siege shows up, with almost everybody still healing up. Thought I had forgot to click away the previous notification when I noticed a bunch of "red" dudes approaching from the map edge. We managed to fight them off, although one guy was so badly injured he had to stay in the make-shift hospital.

This was during winter, and during all this Cassandra decided to toss a cold snap at us too. But okay, we survived it all and a time of relative calm then followed.

Another psychic ship. I set up basic sandbag perimeters and a few traps we had lying about. Amazingly we managed to kill the five machines while only suffering one injury. Could barely believe my eyes. We're wrapping up the last pieces of a 37-unit war veil order and will soon set off. We have gained an ally from previous trips. They actually sent a huge army in a previous attack. But they came too late. We already killed most, and 2-3 stragglers were trying to break out of our base. They died at the hands of the allies. Our own guys were injured and on the way to the hospital. Thanks, I guess?

From previous sieges we had gained 3 mortars, which I had set up with shells nearby, and we had just learned how to build mini-turrets (and had two from previous journeys on the road). I hadn't made any more yet, though, nor set up those two others. Hard ot know where to erect them, and silly Cassandra never sent us any normal raids anyway. Grrr.

Oh great, another sapper raid. 13-14 guys with mostly clubs. I put two guys on the mortars and try to damage them before they get through the granite + wooden walls. All four shots I get off miss, and instead set the wooden wall on fire. And they're through. All of them. Meanwhile we've managed to set up some sandbags where they got through, and are firing at them with pretty solid guns. One assault rifle I bought in a neighbouring village, a couple SMGs, two melees, and the rest with bolt action rifles.

They're storming my guys, though, and one after the other is downed. It's mostly one on one combat, and one poor sod got five buggers beating him up. We've killed a fair few - and no help in sight this time - when I get the dreaded message about the raiders trying to kidnap who they can. Which is 7 guys.... We are 9. The last standing guy tries to shoot the slowly (injured) raiders trying to get off with my dudes. But he keeps missing. Thankfully one raiders gets hit and killed, so one more pawn is free, although he is down for the count.

But I can only watch in horror as 6 people are slowly dragged off towards the map edge, while the last semi-standing guy gets the others to hospital (which was thankfully right nearby). He's at 78% pain level, so darn close to passing out. He was one of the medics, though, so managed to heal up the others, before finally bandaging himself. One person was under an hour from dying, but we got there.

Feels a bit pointless now, though, with everybody badly injured and 70% of the colony kidnapped and gone for good. Unless future raids would be wildly less severe -- like one dude with a handkerchief for weapon, I'm wiped. May as well just give up really. RIP The Red Brook Union 

Oh yeah. And we have two of those instant research gadget, and an anti-grain warhead. Like in every RPGs ever, I'm saving it for a rainy day that never comes. Or in this case, came and wasn't used and things went to hell in a handbasket.



It's actually the first colony I've properly LOST. Got off the ship once, and the others have been aborted before I got very attached to them. Farewell sweet princes and princesses -- with your Legendary poker table 

Sure, I could reload at some previous point and do things differently, put everybody up north right away instead of the vain attempt with the horribly inaccurate mortars. Might have gone better. But it is what it is. Would feel tainted to re-do something like that. Given I always play at 1x it will take several weeks of hard play to get to the same stage, though. But it was fun, and that's the main thing. But sad too.




Haha, one more thing. After those double-hit siege raids Cassandra meanly threw at us, she tossed a pure gold meteor at us. Cheeky. I left it alone. A huge pack of gold would have spiked up wealth, and we might have died every earlier. Previously a uranium meteor landed too, which has also been left alone. Figured I could use it later when we got access to that kick-ass cannon.

Maybe I should have built a killbox after all? It was planned, but well... :-/ Such a nice spot to our west as well. A lake and bits of mud. Would have slowed them down a whole heap.

[Shurp]

No need to give up.  Now that you've had your ass kicked, Cassandra will set mode to "easy" and you'll get raided by fluffy bunnies for the next year or so.  Although it might be helpful to first destroy any surplus valuables you don't need to further reduce the threat rating.

And you've learned a valuable lesson.  Mortars truly are useless except against a fixed target, and even then you're usually better just going out there and shooting them with bolt action rifles from a good distance.

[Pangaea]

No need to give up.  Now that you've had your ass kicked, Cassandra will set mode to "easy" and you'll get raided by fluffy bunnies for the next year or so.  Although it might be helpful to first destroy any surplus valuables you don't need to further reduce the threat rating.

And you've learned a valuable lesson.  Mortars truly are useless except against a fixed target, and even then you're usually better just going out there and shooting them with bolt action rifles from a good distance.

Actually did end up playing the save a bit more yesterday. It was quiet for 10-12 days or so, when a 9-dude raiding party hit us. They came too fast to prepare properly, but my 3 guys took out 6, and the last 3 ran off, so all in all a big success. We got injured ofc, but survived.

Mortars do indeed seem useless. I've used them previously with some success against sieges. That's why I hoped to get off some successful shots this time before the raiders (sappers) got through the wall. But they got through fast as you like, and I missed. Then chaos and death ensued. Lesson learnt indeed. Next time I'll ignore them and try to get all pawns in position instead.

Damn shame to lose all those people though. Some of them were great too, a few even had kickass traits on top. Food won't exactly be a problem, although I lost all the good planters. Can't grow new healroot until they level up, or more likely I manage to recruit somebody capable. Since we could collect the healroots despite low skill, we should be able to collect devilstrand too I would think? First time I've ever grown those. Won't be able to replant them, but would be nice with some strong devilstrand clothes. Provided they don't all die in a cold snap or something naughty like that. I don't trust Cassandra any more!


Another almost funny event earlier in the game... Decided to buy two cows on the road, thinking the milk would be useful. Up comes the message that the caravan have entered the colony map. Not one second later another messages pops up. RAID! Please be in different places....

Yeah, you know what happened.

It was a "prepare" raid, so I tried to tip-toe the guys and animals around them. Then one raider started punching one of my cows, and all hell broke loose after that. Both cows died, one bleeding out and the other blown up by a grenade. They survived less than one minute on the map. Sad panda.

This game throws some really weird stuff and situations at us. Great work in that regard with the story aspects.

[Pangaea]

Kept going.....


9 guys vs my 3.



We actually got them, and the last few ran off 


In fairness I probably shouldn't have taken this on, but I wanted a recruit (he could barely have been worse if I had tried to design him horribly myself, so I banished him, utterly useless)...



Oh, this again, huh?



With that, I only have the man in black left (first time for me), which like the previous refugee, is utterly useless.

Just as the fleeing raiders are leaving the map, another raid message. Oh joy. Thank you Cassandra!



Strange thing is the useless git actually killed some of them, and the last 3 ran away. He went behind the walls and hoped it was possible to take them one by one. It sort of was, but that was pure luck. I had a bunch of chickens (they sure breed fast!), and they happened to be in the area of the assault. So the silly raiders were tossing motovs and shooting the chickens instead of Man in Black. Bright lads and lasses...

One raider survived and he captured him. But err.... 0 medic, 1 social. He's Sickly a Wimp, can't do research, is horrible at cooking and planting (1 and 2) and essentially can't shoot.



So with that, and fire possibly starting to consume the base, I will toss in the towel. Three guys was sort of okay, but one useless git? Sorry, that's just not going to work.

Hopefully the next colony survives better

[Pangaea]

Oops, sorry about the giant pictures. I thought the forum would auto-resize them, as often happens.

[Limdood]

Something i often do when i get a "chased refugee" event and the refugee is garbage, is draft the refugee the moment he enters the map...

...and leave him there.  Almost every time the following raid knocks him incapacitated (they seriously never seem to kill him, it's amazing) and decides to kidnap him and leave.

[Pangaea]

Something i often do when i get a "chased refugee" event and the refugee is garbage, is draft the refugee the moment he enters the map...

...and leave him there.  Almost every time the following raid knocks him incapacitated (they seriously never seem to kill him, it's amazing) and decides to kidnap him and leave.

Nice, that's a good tip -- especially if it actually plays out like that. I have sometimes drafted him and tried to suicide him in battle, often without succeeding. Will try your way next. Though I do kinda like to take on these fights too, and it's a good opportunity to get prisoners. Just not when they kill or kidnap everybody and burn down your base

[Limdood]

Additionally, you're getting big raids because your base has a wealth level for the large number of pawns you used to have, but only have the remaining pawns. 

So if you used to have, say 14 pawns, and were getting raids of 25, and now you have 3 pawns, but the same wealth, you end up with raids of like 13....it's nearly unwinnable.

So, you can avoid or cheese the raids - use traps and AI abuse or some such...OR you can remove some wealth.

Take some loot in a big caravan and gift it to another faction (that might be from the hospitality mod...dunno if it's vanilla) or just abandon the loot...or destroy it with a molotov cocktail....or put it in a building with propped open doors in front of your base (the next raid will loot the stuff and leave).

[Canute]

In your case, you shouldn't mine that much steel. Just so much you will need for the next building and maybe 150-300 at the storage.
Same for wood, don't chop so much tree.

You got a growing zone at the wind turbine, basicly a good idea. But not when you didn't protect it. Then a raider just set the field on fire and before you got time for fire control the fire will pretty strong and destroy the turbine too.
You should either build (double) stone walls around the area (best choise) or don't have a growing zone next to the turbine.

Sandbag's are nice, but you will miss a fast retreat point. So a combination of 3x1 wall with sandbags are better. The 3x1 wall give 1-2 pawn to option to hide behind. Then you can play  hide&seek.
You can shortly retreat behind the wall out of side, so the raiders will move out of cover, then you can attack them again. Work's well with centipedes too.

The the chased refuge you can either leave at the border like Limdood suggest, or move it to your colony as target dummy, if he survived you still can banish him later.

[Shurp]

BTW, never accept a refugee when your base is under strength.  The raid that follows is an "extra" raid -- it will be on top of whatever other raids will be coming your way.  And the refugees are rarely worth having.  They're just bait to draw in raiders who might actually be worth having.

And like Limdood said, if your colony is sized for 14 pawns and now you have 3, it's definitely time to downsize.  Tear down everything and build turrets to defend the rest.

[Pangaea]

I'm going to start over, as having just one useless git feels pointless. Thanks for the advice, though

Don't really like to cheese things with burning down half the base or burning or gifting away all the gold and steel and suchlike. But these events and your advice shows that too much appears to be based on Wealth -- a longstanding issue from what I have gathered from other topics.

Loaded up the "Abandon this!" save just to show that the base is more protected than it looks. I have (had) a stone and wood wall around the whole thing, plus being quite well protected by hills. Obviously not enough in the end, but yeah... 

The granite wall in the south doesn't show despite being fully zoomed out, but it's there. Next to a large cemetary. Yeah, right here there is the fire in one farm because I just quick-sped ahead to daylight, but never mind that.

(Click for the bigger version)



PS: Obviously, if you had advice for how to improve the design or approach for my next colony, I'm all ears I may not adapt overly cheesy stuff (except maybe a killbox next time), but I'd like to hear your thoughts nonetheless. Typically I use an "open" base instead of one giant super-structure, but that's just a style choice that I like.

[Canute]

But these events and your advice shows that too much appears to be based on Wealth

You can change the difficult of the storyteller each time ingame (Option menu).
At this way you can reduce the raid strenght a bit.

[Pangaea]

But these events and your advice shows that too much appears to be based on Wealth

You can change the difficult of the storyteller each time ingame (Option menu).
At this way you can reduce the raid strenght a bit.

True. I've not used the toughest. This was on Rough I believe. Can tune it down further, but wanted to try a little tougher setting this time. I like to build bases, but the combat side is fun too. Figured Rough would be a good balance, which it was really -- for about 3 years

[Shurp]

PS: Obviously, if you had advice for how to improve the design or approach for my next colony, I'm all ears

I don't see anything obviously wrong with your base structure, it looks pretty solid.  I think your decision to try to blow up sappers with mortars was the biggest problem.  If your forces had focused on defending the palisades you'd have been in better shape.

Also, I see plenty of doors and indoor opportunities to execute a running defense.  When the mob does break through, be prepared to scurry and hide.  Let them burn everything down while you pick them off from a safe distance.  (You did have bolt-action rifles, right?)

(Note that letting them burn everything down solves your wealth problem... and you'll still probably have enough to rebuild with afterwards)

[Pangaea]

I don't see anything obviously wrong with your base structure, it looks pretty solid.  I think your decision to try to blow up sappers with mortars was the biggest problem.  If your forces had focused on defending the palisades you'd have been in better shape.

Also, I see plenty of doors and indoor opportunities to execute a running defense.  When the mob does break through, be prepared to scurry and hide.  Let them burn everything down while you pick them off from a safe distance.  (You did have bolt-action rifles, right?)

(Note that letting them burn everything down solves your wealth problem... and you'll still probably have enough to rebuild with afterwards)

Yes, I think the mortar move was the main problem. Could probably have held them off if not for that -- even if we took heavy injuries. It was just dudes with mostly clubs and knives after all. There just was a lot of them. Won't try that again. At least against invading forces. It may still be an idea against sieges -- though I try to take them on tbh. Just awkward without the usual defensive structures. And since I can't exactly let them pummel my base with mortars over and over, there is little time to build something myself (and leave builders open to potshots and sniper fire).

What I like with these somewhat open bases is that it's easier to deal with all the drop pod attacks. Depends a bit where they land, but often they take a little time to break out of bedrooms and such, and then I can take them on in the hallways and semi-open terrain. Which is why I went with 3-tile wide hallways this time.

However, I have started a new game now, where I hope to survive longer. It wasn't fun to try to keep going with one total dud. Bad luck with geysers and rich soil, but it's been enjoyable so far. Just need to take time and plan out how to build stuff. I tend to just start and then plan and expand as I go.

On bedrooms: Is 4x5 size too small? I've used 5x5 earlier, but figured I'd try to save some space in these games.