Roll up for the great community colony experiement!

I've reached a weird point where playing Clockwork Empires is preventing me from playing Clockwork Empires.

Okay, I see the hotfix is live. The Stable Branch version is 41A (don't let the 'A' confuse you). Remember to turn off auto-updates.

Here we go ..

 

Turn 1
Day 1-3
Real time elapsed: 30 minutes (even with a bit of pausing here and there to write things down)

I, Administrator Alephred, have been granted the privilege of establishing a new colony in virgin territory, on a newly-discovered archipelago. I have attached the surveys of the Imperial Airship Corps. I have selected as our landing site a Temperate area in the south-eastern area of the island ring.



I have selected My First Starter Kit, and will break the ground with six overseers and one non-commissioned officer. We will name our colony New Antipodia, for it is indeed on the ass-end of the Earth.

Day 1

We have broken ground in a grassy field located between two copses of trees. Resources such as timber and stone are close at hand, and I have ordered the immediate chopping of trees and quarrying of rock. Our NCO, Elias Steelwright, has been given the task of hunting the plentiful game here, and immediately brought down two aurochs, supplying us with steak in great abundance. There is also an ample supply of rubbery black fungus, it is edible, but I hope we will not need to rely on it for food.

There were reports of a pair of Bandits in our first evening, but I have decided to watch them cautiously and take no action, for now. To be frank, I have my suspicions about Preshea Sankisson, who is Organized, Morbid, and has also demonstrated Communist sympathies. I'll be keeping an eye on her. I am also concerned about our sole NCO, Elias, who is a professed Xenophobe, and answered the 'Why do you want to travel to the Colonies' form with 'I want to kill another human being'. As our first day comes to a close, our stockpiles are filling, and our carpentry is nearly complete.

Day 2

We spent most of the day flattening nearby ground to provide a level space for farms and additional structures. With that done, we ploughed up a field to be our new cabbage plot, and began construction on the kitchen. The Carpentry Workshop is now functional, and I have placed a standing order for a minimum for five planks at all times.

Day 3

The Empire has granted us a favour, and we have taken in the usual amount of new immigrants, that is, two, for we are eager to have more hands for working. To give our colonists proper beds, I have begun construction on a large Lower Class House, and the assembly of a number of cots.

I was mildly alarmed when Preshea Sankisson expressed an interest in her geneology, which I reluctantly allowed, but to my relief, she discovered only that she was distantly related to another of my colonists, Jesse Brazenton. The kitchen is nearing completion, though no ovens have yet been assembled. The Lower Class House is making good progress, and the cabbage crop has been established.

As the the third day draws to a close, a message from the Imperial Airshop Corps indicates that there have been fishy sightings along a nearby shoreline. I'm sure it's nothing to be concerned about.

 

Good start. Sounds like we have a crazy for an NCO.

Does Mrclint have the save now?

 

I'll join.

• username - Streaky Haddock on Steam
• desired spot in the playing order - Any
• suggested turn time - Doesn't matter
• suggested biome and starter pack - It probably won't matter by the time it gets to me but I am a big fa of 21 colonist and metalworker.

 

Whoops, forgot to attach the save file, here it is. Just plop it in

C:\Users\owner\Documents\Gaslamp Games\Clockwork Empires\save

and you should be good to go.

 

Aaah no no. I just popped in with a message and so on.
I think I will pass until the NCO are back online. =)

 

Wait, you're passing? NCO is offline?

 

Turn 2
Day 4-6

Administrator Alephred has tragically gone missing after investigating a guttural roar in the forest. He's quite possibly alive, but in the meantime Unforked has been called to take over all duties.

Day 4
Our fledgling colony continues to thrive without any sign of trouble. It's strength and dominance in this region is assured. NCO Elias Steelwright awakens in the kitchen with a pounding headache and an urge to kill. Hopefully an opportunity presents itself soon.

Our middle class desperately needs sleep. It's crucial our overseers can take rightful possession of the beds they so desire. We quickly get to work on flax farm, then a ceramics workshop to supply bricks for the textile workshop. Progress!

We're offered a favor and decide to accept a naturalist, Everett Ores, a frightened yet very organized man who seeks to start a club of some sort--probably stone collecting. Long may he endure. Immediately after arriving he discovers Hematite! We may one day seek to build a mine there.

At nightfall, there's a report of a mysterious group approaching...

Day 5

More bandits! Now we have Leopold's Spotless Lads and Genevieve's Spotless Pirates. We decide to continue our non-aggression policy, especially since both groups have such an affinity for cleanliness.

We also accept another foot soldier, thank Cog.

What crime against nature is this? People-shaped Fish? Y'hadultul's School? Cog is surely testing us, and we will not fail. We decide to attempt communication, so that one day they might come to see us as the benevolent masters we are. NCO Steelwright is surely disappointed.


The day concludes without incident. Our cabbage stew supply is steadily growing, to the point where we can't possibly consume it all. Luckily it doesn't seem to ever decay.

Day 6

Mecharepublican troops are scouting near us! They're neutral, but one must stay vigilent. I'm personally more trusting of those Fish monstrosities. Luckily they didn't attempt to enter the colony proper. Had they, I fear NCO Steelwright may have come to blows with them. Or worse.

Our sworn enemy, XIV Pekhota of the Novorusians has arrived! How did they find us? Oh good Cog I fear we're unprepared for an attack! We may need to conscript some of our fine workforce.

What more could go wrong today? Enoch Frabjous has become an opponent of our policy with the Fish Filets due to excessive patriotism! We have no time for such frivolous objections at the moment. We will ignore him, and ignore him well.

Shots fired! Colonists are fleeing! Steelwright is injured and leaving battle! Luckily it appears there's only one Novorusian to deal with, as the rest have wandered off, the craven miscreants. I've conscripted most colonists, and I pray they can stand
up to the onslaught.

As for me, I must... tend to a very serious matter in the homeland. I wish my replacement the best of luck. Cog be with you!




EDIT:

Uh oh, it didn't seem to keep my manual save... Stand by. Also I forgot the pictures.

 

There seems to be something going wrong intermittently with colonists recognising they are under attack, although I've not been able to pin it down sufficiently to make a useful report. It does seem to be vaguely related to this error that pops up with every bandit raid notice though.

Seems to be this bug: https://community.gaslampgames.com/...-hostile-foreigners-at-all.15952/#post-103762

Colonial request: Could we try to avoid military action until this is cleared up? Based on my experience in a normal colony, you will lose a substantial percentage of the entire population if this hits us. Coming back with 2 or 3 workcrews and not many labours takes a long time, especially as reaching production milestones at that rate takes an age. (although inhabiting half the town with a minimal population and half the buildings creepily unlit does have a fun vibe)

So I'm delighted we are apparently terribly good friends with nearly all our national enemies.

 

Ok, I think this is it. For some reason it's not showing up on my in game load screen, only in my save file.

 

Hey. Loaded it myself and regardless of whatever your game copy is doing, it seems to be running ok.
I've also tried renaming the file to prevent my own save files getting overwritten/actually be able to find it in the list and that seems to work fine (confirmation from the devs would be handy )

The colony buildings seem much more nicely decorated than the sheds I build. Also how do we have fluffy wabblers without the fluffy wabbler related building? (in case anyone doesn't want spoiling)

 

Glad it worked! If you mean what I think you do, I just used the starting wabblers.

One thing I forgot to do and should have done was to get a wide shot of the entire colony at the end of my turn, to show progress. Oh well.

 

Turn 3
Days 7-9

Day 7

I woke up to the sound of screaming and people running about, and finding that nearly the entire colony had been conscripted after some sort of attack.
I took a quick look around, and.. it appeared that the danger had either taken off or been dispatched, so I set everyone back to work, assigning shops and taking point on what I believe to be most important.
Food!
Thankfully my predecessors chose a rather nice spot in the forest, full of fungus and berries. I quickly gave orders to forage the surrounding area


I also cranked up food production in the kitchen. Soon a steady stream of cooked cabbages and the aroma of steak filled the air.
I also set up a wheat farm, so bread and booze can be made in the near future.
Construction is still heavily underway, and I also took the liberty of adding additional stoves and another ceramics kiln.
A group of fish-looking folk had a stroll through our camp towards the end of the day.
...they seemed non-hostile.
For now.


Day 8

A stampede!


Giant beetles awoke the colony, (accompanied by yet another bandit raid) apparently attracted to our crops and growing food supply.
I know its generally frowned upon, but I don't feel quite confident enough that our military could withstand such an assault this early in our colonization, so I let them take what they would.
Apparently they only wanted a couple blocks of stone and a bushel of berries. I scratched my head and turned back to the giant beetles that were munching on our precious crops.

One of the prison workers tried to jump in to help, but the poor sod found out that wasn't such a good idea


It chased him through the forest for most of the day and well into the night, till he finally stood his ground and pummeled the thing to death with the butt of his pistol


The remaining bugs were dispatched as well.
Beetle steak seems to be on the menu for the next few days.


Day 9

Immigration!
A new laborer and a soldier were added to the ranks, and quickly put to work.
With it being my last day of command, I let the colonists work and whittle down their massive, and steadily growing list of jobs one by one.
So much land to flatten and clear. So many rocks that still need to be mined.
No new constructions at the moment. I figured we had enough work to be done already.

I found a particularly interesting spot that we may want to take advantage of later, a rather rich looking vein of iron, coal and copper


Also a strange artifact was found while mining.. such an odd looking little trinket. I'm sure its nothing.. perhaps we can study it more later?



And so, my shift ends on a rather uneventful note, and I leave my next in command with a larder full of food, a thick field of crops, and what is hopefully a prosperous future for our little colony!


Good luck!

 

Turn 4
Days 10 - 12

I started to feel ill, so this is going to be a little to the point

day 10
Dear diary, I awoke this morning to discover that due to a clerical error, I am now leader of the colony. I made an initial survey of the colony and discovered a giant beatle corpse burying half the wheat plot, which no one seems to know about. I also checked the workcrew records and discovered that our idel rate was -1/10. I know not what this means, but it can only end badly.



I asked at the kitchen and no one there has any orders regarding the wheat, and so as a mature wise leader naturally saw this as an opening for the commissioning of a still. No sooner had I done this than the ministry representative and several others approached me. One Enoch Frabjous requested for the first of several times that day that we make war on the fishpeople for some weak patriotism related reason. As I've heard several reports of redcoats failing to obey orders in nearby colonies after being attacked, I fobbed him off.

i struck a deal with the man from the ministry for a temporary naturalist, who are apparently much more co-operative now the union has been broken.As our colony has been productive, he brought an NCO my predecessor had requested. Feeling that our position would not be secure against a co-ordinated attack, I requested further military support.

Finally, we offered sanctuary to a brutish bandit, on the basis it might encourage the others to return to civilisation. Slept on the floor of the still.



Day 11
At the crack of dawn I was awoken to greet three migrants, I do not know why - they were mere labours .

I marked out a new stockpile, as our prosperity has now reached a level where we will soon struggle to store it all. The first still was also completed - I set a standing order for beer and spirits, my true legacy here.In other good news we discovered several metal ores in stockpiles that had somehow been overlooked.

Our temporary naturalist has discovered native Gold. Praise the cog, someday we will be a colony worthy of the upper class!

I've setup blue prints for a middle class residence for our overseers, which will serve for now. In checking our supplies, I also discovered an oversight in our textile shop, where it appears no production orders were ever authorised.



Day 12
Our productively continues to impress the empire, who have sent the additional NCO I requested. Next time I request an overseer to help handle our mining needs.

Otherwise, a rare reasonably peaceful day. Bandits arrived in the area, but given our numbers, they are not greatly concerning. A squad of friendly forigners alos sent a runner to inform us they would be visiting as part of a patrol.

Intrigued by a though I had in the night, I 'm going to the shoreline to attempt to establish diplomatic relations with the fishpeople. I leave this diary as a record of events during my overseership.

 

Seen it, response in 3-4 hours.

 

Dear Diary, my Dethwurm Importation Scheme was an ignoble and entirely unmitigated disaster. While Leechcraft is surely the height of Medicinal Science, the actual suction rate of the Far East Dethwurm turns out to offer some difficulty for the patient vitality. Well, as Mother always said, the best lessons come from burnt laboratories.

Am I not FIbs I. Niachi, the greatest Capitalist Entrepreneur, Confidence Man and Harmonika Enthusiast of our times?

And I am about to embark upon my GREATEST SCHEME YET.

The Amateur Naturalist, Geology, Dendrochronology and Habberdashery Correspondence Circle recently received an interesting missive from a newly established colony. It appears that Colonial Naturalist Birdie Cord - inbetween her bouts in the Penitentiary for the Criminally Insane - have made a startling discovery of veins of the purest gold.



Ripe for the taking. All I have to do is make my way to the colony by way of air transport, acquire a companion inclined to hitting rocks without asking questions and, ha-ah, it's caviar and hobnobbing from there-on out.

What could possibly go wrong?



My first inkling that my optimism may have been somewhat pre-mature was the curious state of the colony. The previous Adminstrator appears to have taken ill and retreated to the wilderness, muttering about rocks that move. A Stalkmarkhian delegation, our staunch allies, was visiting the Colony, bereft without the proper welcome.

Well, always trust the foreigners to give you the outside view is what my Mother said, and if I could drop straight to the top by pretending to be the Assigned Colonial Adminstrator all the better. so I asked one of the lads his name. He was a little pre-occupied whispering to a deceased mega-beetle, seemingly out of sorts. His only response after some prompting was that he was "One of the Legion, The Kaiser's Ever Walking Wind Up Dolls, Oath-bound to ceazelezzly march akross the doomed war-skapes of the World ".

Terrible accent, really. The least you can expect is for the blighters to learn the language, eh?(1)

I left him to it, turning instead to witness the chaos all around.



Bones and meat strewn about, cabbage as far as the eye can see, your bits and your bobs. I don't think I've ever seen so many bloody stumps just sticking out all over the place. I grabbed a likely looking fellow and shouted, and she replied that everyone'd nicely been asked to work in their workshops.

Well that's a lark. I don't have time to sort out the economic peculiarities of backwater colonies when I'm on a hunt for GOLD. Of course if they're all idling about with naught to do odds good some spotter'll see me slink away with my treasure. Hm. It took some doing but I slipped in an out of the tiny workshops, flipping papers and forging signatures. Mother did say calligraphy would come in handy. With no standing orders to complete and re-assigned to work at "Whatever Crops Up, Yea', Verily, Just About All The Things" I'm sure no skulker'll even have time to look for me! (2)

I was about to grab a pick and sneak away when a spot of a bother presented itself.



"So run that by me again, Mr. Steelwright"
"Well it's 'em blasted bandit foreigners, sir! Them's coming to loot and steal n' steal and loot all out crumble! And cabbage! And damn sight well the precious fluids that make up our morale fibre! They've got some kind of cleaning and bathing and SOAPING issue, the sods, all squeaky spotless. We seem 'em sneaking about at night, y'know, 'cause their polished sabres are easy to see. Unlike my proper layer of camflage dirt!"

What an odd man.

"Well, according to the manifests I filched through while re-organizing your paperwork, we have as standing total of one musket. What are we, Novyrusians?"
Elias Steelwright seem to blanch at that. Tough crowd.
"Don't'cha worry none, we'll give 'em steel sir!"
"Yes. I have always felt a heroic last stand outnumbered 3-1 is about the proper Clockwork way. But about we just let 'em take the cabbage?"

I don't think I've seen a NCO look so dejectedly sad before. If they're occupied stealing cabbage, they won't think to grab the gold that's rightfully going to be mine!

Besides, 16 bandits and our fighting force have to share a single musket? That'll end well.



In the end, they did steal the cabbage. And my jar of preserves, the cads.



Since the woods around the colony are apparently rife with soapy bandits, I've pushed back my plan of making it away with a few bars of gold. If I can get some unwilling patsy to get it all for me, so much the better. Suppose I might as well turn my prodigious talents of Entrepreneurship to rounding up the lay-abouts and finishing the great plans of my predecessors.

Our efforts were only mildly hampered by a ghostly Automatique footsoldier no one else could perceive. I've taken to drinking heavily, but Cog bless the colony has a staunch and growing supply of alcohol.

It took a day to finish the house. It's a marvel of architecture efficiency and headache inducing roofing patterns!



The night being full of bandits, I've taken the liberty of ordering everyone ( No one else seems to ) of installing lamps near every door. A bit of light will help prepare us for the next bandit warband, I hope.



I've decided to up my intake of alcohol. It turns out the previous adminstrators have made diplomatic overtures to some kind of sentient fungus in the vague shape of a vague shape. Now, they blunder into the Colony on occassion, dropping oddly geometric cubes of raw, oozing meat and buckets full of bones. I've taken to watching the ground carefully, lest I stumble over a bushel of mangled iron.



It was while nursing a twisted ankle that I had an idea. If I could merely process the gold after acquiring it, surely sneaking a bar or two out of this fish and bandit infested backwoods wouldn't be a problem? Industrial ENTREPRENEURSHIP strikes again, and we have converted two dozen rocks and some old scrap to a workshop. Someone informed the Minisitry shortly after and a wave of immigration and a new overseer dropped of a zeppelin.

I watched it fly away, idly sipping on a bottle of whiskey.

The next day, the Bandits struck again. All 16 of them. Elias waved his sabre about and bristled. Someone pointed out him and the soldiers were still outnumbered by a tactically unfeasible amount of bandits.

Being a proper Gentlemen, he then helped an old madame carry off her choice of cabbage.




(1) Foreign visitors names aren't shared in saves
(2) Standing orders and jobs allowed/disallowed turn on and off erratically, mostly when ordering people to switch between order-types in a workshop (Make 6X or Standing Order6x), and upon auto-saving/loading. This has a chance of "Sneak" killing your productivity if you don't check the Workcrew menu every five minutes.

 

On the night of the 16th, while I wandered in a drunken stupor something quite problematic happened. The metalworkshop that will hopefully allow this damnable colony to eventually acquire enough arms to fight off the Bandit Menace neccesitiated the re-location of some farms. The Fish-Envoys (Fenvoys? Fishvoys? Ugh, my head) have taken great joy in this and started rampaging across our the new plots of wheat.



Well, no one has the guns to see them off and Mr. Steelwright won't come out from under the blankets for fear of catching the "Fish-ness", so I've just decided to damn well do not a thing. Someone else'll have to deal with this! Talk to the Fishpeople for all I care! I didn't sign up for a diplomatic overture to a creature who thinks dropping raw meat in the whiskey is a party starter!



No, I'm here for the gold. And it's night, and every NCO is asleep in our their new beds. Gruel looks quite pleased. Or perhaps it's the rictus grin of a cruel nightmare. I've become unable to tell the difference between a grimace of terror and a smile somewhere along the way.



But my scheme has borne fruit. GOLD, precious GOLD. And not one soul will be the wiser! I just need some kind of way out of this forsaken place, surrounded by bandits and the those weird rocks that keep not being where they where a minute ago!



But what's this? A forgotten pistol?



Hey, you
come over here
yes, into this secluded corner
Closer, closer...



Greatest. Scheme. Yet

The sound of the furnaces in the metalworkshop just intermingles well with the short crack of gunfire. I'll leave it to my predecessors to find a way to extract the metal from the mine up north and use it to perhaps finally take back the cabbage from the bandit menace all around. I'll take my precious, precious gold and slink away while dawn rises. Who will suspect a lone Stalmark courier?

Wait, what's that sound?