In Progress Let's bring monocles and steam to the savage wilds in Clockwork Empires and get eaten by fishpeople.

[Hellraiser]

INDEX
0) INDEX and biome vote (this post)
1) Sogwood I: Days 1-4
2) Sogwood II: Days 1-5
3) Sogwood II: Days 6-10
4) Sogwood II: Days 11-16
5) Sogwood II: Days 17-25
6) Sogwood II: Days 26-27
7) Antipodia I: Days 1-8

The Dwarf Fortress meets Steampunk with elements of Lovecraftian Horror (played for FUN potential) game has received a new major update. Also it's more playable now, so I'll LP it.

But first, before I go to work, vote where we send the colonists so that I can settle the new Kodexian Kewl Kolony when I get back:

1) NEW ANTIPODIA - Colorado style biome. Aurochs, dodos, pine forests and rocky wastes/plains whatever. Also contains some fishpeople.

2) NEW SOGWOOD - Tropical jungle biome. Giant beetles, more fishpeople than usual, coconut trees, swamps, beaches.

 

[Tzaero]

2

 

[Tigranes]

1

 

[Kalin]

2)

:ehue:

 

[JoKa]

2!

 

[Elfberserker]

1

I Think that New Antibodia is better name than new sogwood.
I mean everitime I see that name I think forest made of smelly sweat socks.
Therefore sogwood is

 

[Ulminati]

2

BY JOVE, WE WILL CIVILIZE THESE SOUTHERN SAVAGES!

 

[evdk]

2

 

[Scroo]

1

 

[Storyfag]

Decisions, decisions...

Both have their merits. I do believe I find Option One to be preferrable

 

[Azira]

2

 

[Baron]

1

 

[Monstrous Bat]

1

 

[Comte]

2

 

[Overboard]

2

 

[Hellraiser]

Votes:

111111 - 6 for 1
22222222 - 8 for 2

Well, it seems our colonists will live on a diet of beetle stew, coconut curry and fishperson steak*.

*I am not making any of these up.

TALLY HO, WE EMBARK TO SOGWOOD FOR QUEEN AND COUNTRY!

 

[Undead Phoenix]

This may be relevant to my interests.


Bring to the playground, Hellraiser, that is your duty to this once prosperous land

 

[Hellraiser]

Diary of a Monocled Bureaucrat: Days 1 to 4

I have been chosen by her Majesty, Queen Amanda the transitioned, the third of her name, sovereign of the Home Counties, overseas colonies and what lies beyond the horizon, Blessed Protector of the Church of the Holy Cog. The task at hand will prove my worth to the Empire. I will bring civilization to the untamed wilds beyond the big blue ocean.

The Colonial Ministry has decreed that the damp and hot jungles of New Sogwood are to be the target of our expedition. I am to erect a settlement worthy of the empire and exploit the local resources for the good of the Empire and the Queen herself.

For the time being the map screen you see above is a placeholder. This part of the game, the metagame layer surrounding choosing the location of an embarkation site, as well as your supplies, is the least developed area of Clockwork Empires for now. In the future you will have proximity to rival "civilized" nations like the communist Novyrus (ersatz Bolshevik Russia) or Stahlmark (ersatz krauts of the prussian war-loving flavour), which will affect events, trade and what not.

Either way for now all you can do on this screen is pick between the Colorado and Tropical biomes. Can't change names of either your Bureaucrat or the Colony yet.

Day 1

Yet the Ministry seems to think I am an incompetent dullard. They send me a manual on avoiding starvation with a big "READ THIS" sign written on it. I have spent 5 years at the royal college of paper-pushing, I have no need of manuals!

We barely disembark from the majestic Zeppelin and nearly instantly one of our loyal soldiers spots a very fishy creature. Hopefully there aren't many of these things around...

Eunice Pater reported that the creature shouted "Ia Ia, Quaggaroth fhtagn!" and "Pesk-gemlg". Not sure where the creature learned Stahlmarkian, but I guess the cabbage-lovers must have visited these lands recently.

I gathered the proles they sent with us and made them for once do something useful in their miserable low-class lives. Shockingly, despite being barely, if at all, literate, they managed to assemble the powersaw according to instructions.

Work in the fields began and the first patches of Chilli Peppers have been planted. Other work crews got tasked with gathering coconuts, chopping wood and other work fit for unmonocled rabble. Beetles are running all around the place. Normally I'd just stomp them under my boots, as I did back home in. Sadly my shoes are a few sizes too small for that. That and there's no bloody shoe-shiner within at least eight thousand leagues of here. Not even her Majesty could make me clean that kind of gunk off my boots myself.

One of our surveyors sent west reported a large bounty of local exotic fungi. Might as well gather and eat that. However what was more interesting was that he found gold. Mining this precious deposit will no doubt increase my station and bring about the envy of those wankers back at the Ministry.

Also there's clay and iron ore of the haematite variety, chalk as well. This land is quite rich in resources, I believe I can turn this into a proper industrialized centre of manufacturing. That will show those sods at the Capital who is a proper bureaucrat!

DAY 2

Construction of the Sawmill and Kitchen goes slow and I can swear there are beetle dropping everywhere. Luckily the ministry dropped off a sorry lot composed of the poorest royal subjects the Capital's slums have to offer. I assigned them to menial manual tasks that are probably well above their mental capacity.

Prestige does nothing for now, but it will probably influence events and what kind of migrants you get, as well as trading prices.

DAY 3

I requisitioned more building materials to jump-start construction. We have more than enough food stockpiled to feed every orphan in the Home Counties, if anyone cared about feeding bloody street urchins that is. "Good Sir, might you have a cabbage for a 'lil orphan like me, Sir? I haven't eaten in four days. Please Sir, give me anything to eat." Get a job in the mines or in the factories you lazy tiny parasites and bugger off!

Right, supplies. We could have used more guns, but at this point I barely trust the lot of lice-infested buggers to safely use a shovel, let alone a fine Cogschester Rifled Musket. They would probably poke their eyes out with the bayonets.

The kitchen is nearly ready to begin cooking, the ovens are mostly assembled, there's one table, out of three planned, though I swear I told them to do four. Can't trust commoners to count to more than three I guess.

A diet of coconut curry will hopefully stave off starvation and scurvy. Should probably start hunting these damn beetles. I wonder if beetle steaks taste like chicken....

One of our colonists, Cyril Bronzesander, is missing, supposedly he was last heard screaming of fishpeople before running off somewhere. Bloody nonsense if you ask me.

Yes, that dolt ran to the edge of the map.

I heard rumours of some kind of new religious movement gaining popularity in the settlement. Probably another cretin had a falling cog hit him on the head and thought it was a sign from the Holy Cog itself that he is chosen.

Zeppelin dropped off more dirty working class rabble, with the Kitchen and Sawmill done I assigned them to work in the Maize fields. Also decided that I may need to build them some shack with cots, if only so that I stop tripping over people sleeping on the bloody floor.

DAY 4

Cyril Bronzesander has been found dead, his corpse was full of holes. Oh well, he'd probably end up getting stabbed in the back for three shilings back in Rivetside at the Capital anyway.

BODY COUNT: 1

Wolfram Rivetsly has been awfully chatty recently. First he only started talking about these weird things he heard lately.

Then he babbled on and on about incomprehensible geometries and divine fractals, combined into altars to the cosmic order. I filled and rubber-stamped the appropriate form H3R3-5Y to help him with his motor-mouth of a problem. He claims to be a patriot, I am sure he will understand what my duty to Queen and Country is.

Well, back home there are at least ten grown-up orphans ready to take the place of any cultist we execute here, in exchange for a meal.

BODY COUNT: 2

One suspicious conversation he had with somebody is not a problem, but if he starts dreaming about building eldritch altars twice and talking about it in addition to enjoying talks about things-man-was-not-meant-to-know he is probably already tainted. Thank the Holy Cog for Frontier Justice(tm).

To be continued...

This update would be longer but the game crashed around the end of day 7, last save was at day 4.

 

[agris]

Bravo! Keep at it, I've been reading their missives for a while now, and it's nice to hear about the game.

 

[Elfberserker]

:kwafuckyeah:

 

[Azira]

 

[Storyfag]

I say, your prose is splendid and enjoyable Keep at it old boy!

And the game itself is a marvellous jewel. Do show us more, won't you?

 

[Hellraiser]

And the game itself is a marvellous jewel. Do show us more, won't you?

That's the plan, however due to circumstances outside of my influence I probably won't be able to play today. Hopefully tomorrow the circumstances will change. I definitely will continue this over the weekend, as I got an unfortunate case of the dreaded office plague, bane of the corporate drones. So the smart thing to do is stay indoors over the weekend and recover from the microbe menace, while joyfully running my little settlement in the jungle to the ground.

 

[Hellraiser]

Uh oh, the current save file may be doomed to crash. May have to restart the colony. Not sure what causes the crash, I just hope it is not related to the jungle biome.

 

[Kalin]

That would be doubleplusungood, all that enforced race-mixing the game throws at you makes jungle-Brazil the only acceptable setting.