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[PatrikLundell]

I'm trying to build a wall several z-levels high. The first level is reasonably easy (you still have to take the uneven ground into consideration), but then it gets messy. If you just add a new 10 length wall section on top of the first one, your builders will grab the work in reverse order (whatever reverse order means for a 10 segment wall defined at once, but defining one tile at a time is doable). However, since they are at different distances from the wall, there usuallyend up being gaps in the middle, because other builders insisted on building their segment to either side before the mid section was built. Using a single builder sort of works, if you use burrows, but they then have to be applied in reverse, i.e. the other builders should be allowed to go anyware except to the build site, while the builder ought to be allowed to go back to the fortress to eat and sleep.
I've also got a problem with trying to build a wall from multiple directions. You should be able to select wall segments, and then build stairs beside the wall (like scaffoldings, basically), that would allow builders to build from a mid point between each stair back towards the stair (apart from cutting down on build time to allow multiple workers, it also means hauling the material a limited distance upwards rather than to the end of the wall and then inwards). However, this works quite erratically for me. Using a ramp or staircase to get up to the second level seems to work all the time (unless one of these hostile trees has gone to attack and claimed the air space), but any higher than that it fails. I assume a long ramp (ramp, wall with ramp on top, two level wall with ramp on top, etc, ancient pyramid building style) would work, but it's a lot of work for something you want to tear down in the end. I do want the option to have a staircase to the roof, though (with a drawbridge to get hostiles out). I just can't understand why a simple up/down staircase doesn't seem to work; it should be sufficient for it to be high enough (i.e. higher than the current wall top should be OK).
Something completely different: A hostile tree attack (more powerful than that of a dragon, I believe) led to a mother and her two babies getting badly injured. She was taken to hospital and treated, and I think I saw one of the babies with her in the hospital bed (the other was left behind), but later both babies were crawling around unattended with broken arms in the fortress. Eventually the mother was treated and rested and picked her babies up, but they're still not diagnosed. Will they have to remain untreated until they are promoted to children, at which time they can walk to the hospital themselves?

[NullForceOmega]

Bridges.  You build a stairway from the bottom of the wall to the top, then use bridges as temporary scaffolding on each level.

[Absentia]

Build up/down staircases instead of ramps. The simplest way is to build a "wall" of u/d staircases first, and then build the actual wall around the stairs. Takes some extra build time and materials, but you only have to designate twice.

Babies never get diagnosed until they become children, at which point they'll walk to the hospital on their own.

[Walen]

Bridges.

Makes me wonder why the simplest solutions are the hardest to think of.

As I have yet to build walls higher than 2z-levels (and this only because once horde of zombies just swarmed over my standard 1z-level wall - enemies just don't tend to path through walls even if theoretically capable of traversing them) I found basicly two methods that work ok:
1. Use stairs every 10 tiles and manually designate blocks one at a time to avoid blocking the path (dorfs just love to screw up if you leave any place for errors), which is a chore to do if you are a fan of large outdoor pastures like me, although you can enclose medium size one by the first winter without concentrationg solely on the wall and thus crippling fortress development.
2. Use a pyramid-like scheme and build the wall two tiles wide. You can either use it as a patrol route with carved fortifications on the upper level or deconstruct the inner ring after your unsupervised dwarves manage to erect the second level at this particular section, in which case you don't even need more blocks than in the first method if you plan ahead. The problem with deconstructing is that it takes a lot of time and during the first year dwarf labor is in short supply.

Building walls higher than that smells like a semi-mega project to me but with bridges (relatively cheap and quick to make/unmake) the scaffolding method suddenly is not absurdly consuming.

[Kneenibble]

This method takes a little more of labour and materials, but no scaffolding is required and you can go as high as your heart desires.  Build two walls with one tile of floor between them, and stairs coming up from underground.  At each z-level, you have the up/down stairs, a thin floor, and another set of walls.  Then on the very top you can, as you say in your option 2 there, build fortifications and have snipers patrolling.

In my current fortress I have built a castle in this way -- four walls connecting four round towers accessible only from underground, surrounded by a moat connected to the river with two raising bridges for entrance (I wanted to do a mosaic in the courtyard, but it is a perennial sea of vomit and the colours would be lost under green splatters).

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[Linkxsc]

Do you need your wall to be flat going up?

A simple way to build a wall multi levels (and now with climbing, more effective too) is to build the first layer, put a few stairs around for your dwarves to get on top of it. Then build the second layer around the outside edge of the first(do the corners first though)

say your first layer is a 10x10 square. The second will be a 12x12. 3rd a 14x14.

Youll end up with a wall that constantly expands as you go up. A little wonky to look at, but works just fine. And much less micro on your part.

[NullForceOmega]

Excepting the part where the corners do not meet, allowing fliers to path through them.

[Linkxsc]

Been doing it this way for years and havent had a flier come in because of it. And if that really is such a fear, than build them 2x thick so the corners are all filled in.

[NullForceOmega]

 Missed the part where you emphasized corners, sorry about that.  Bridges are still really damn fast to assemble and disassemble tho'.

[Linkxsc]

Np I actually honestly thought you were meaning they could path diagonally up though the wall

From the side, the wall will look like this. Sry i cant fo better art, cellphone

Code: [Select]

■/
/■
  ■■ are wall sections, / is the diagonal path going up through the wall.


Though yeah, whenever building construstions, 90% of the time, building the corners first will save a great amount of time smacking you head off the wall wondering why your dorfs are skipping the corners.

[NullForceOmega]

My methodology is generally this:

Code: [Select]

wfwwwfw
wfffffw
wfffffw
wff<ffw
wfffffw
wfffffw
wfwwwfw
And then fill the last four spots.  Bridges can be easily substituted for floor, if speed is your concern.

[PatrikLundell]

Thanks to you all!

It turns out my problems were caused by very uneven terrain combined with my own ineptitude, so I ended up with a number of staircases that didn't actually reach the ground (built one level up from the ground). Also, it took some time to realize a staircase actually has to be built on the to level (in my mind they have to be one level higher than expected).
Another thing that's bitten me more than once is that they can walk diagonally, but not work in those directions (the corner problem, but in my case I've accidentally ended up with a wall right in front of the staircase, but work has proceeded successfully on both sides until it comes time for the last piece on each side). It doesn't help that blocked sites are just ignored, rather than being suspended, so you don't really get any indication that you've missed something.
I can also mention that a reverse burrow does NOT work. Excluded workers happily bungle up the construction. I suspect building targets are not evaluated for burrows; only the building material source (in my case logs scattered all over the place).
I'd say the staircase/bridge method seems rather attractive. It can also be used for a different purpose, namely to build the second level prior to (parts of) the first one. The reason I may want to do that is to let the second level use up the logs that block the building of the first one.