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[Fedor]

After prolonged physical toil, Cloudeater stands complete, reaching defiantly across the winding chasm like a dagger thrust into the goblin kingdom's heart. Though some have died during this effort, their minds twisted by the haunted landscape, their souls survive amidst the stonework grafted from the canyon's underside.

Yes!  Yes! Yes!  Hurrah Team #1!

Unfortunately, I cannot install the .net framework and therefore cannot use the map compressor utility to display Cloudeater in the DF map archive. I would be deeply grateful if someone posted the map in my place.

Give me a little time with the map.  I'll post a report here, and send you the map file via PM if I succeed.

[Jingles]

I put it up under my account, here is the link: http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-3273-cloudeater-cloudeater-year8

If you want anything in the discription let me know.  I was unable to edit those tiles, because I could'nt find 'em and because the tile edit feature wasn't functioning for some reason.

I think that you are able to add POI's yourself. 

Cheers.

[Fedor]

Anvilsmith, I've just sent you a PM (let me know if you didn't get it - I'm not even sure you got my last PM reply).  The map came out fine and the occupancy problem should now be sorted out.


Congratulations Anvilsmith and Team #1 for the remarkable number of blocks that form Cloudeater - and for the absolutely gargantuan mechanical systems!  I can definitely appreciate just how tedious the work must have gotten in the final year; the savefile runs at 9-10 FPS on my machine and the lag is huge.  Dwarves everywhere salute you for your perseverance!

In your final savefile, please, please do include player's notes and communications, commentary, diary entries (if any), and all planning material.  We don't just want to see the final product, we want to know what you were thinking along the way! 

[Symmetry]

Well done team 1.  It started out as a race to build the richest bridge fort and ended more like the le mans 24 hour.  Congratulations on finishing

I love the windmills.  The huge axles make it look like it has enough power to rotate or lift itself up like a modern bridge
(Actually, requiring power to raise a drawbridge would make things interesting...)

[DDouble]

What exactly is all that windpower used for?

I can see a small pumping operation bringing water up from the river, waaay up, but to what purpose?

[Red Jackard]

Maybe used to rain mist on the bridge, as if dwarves were walking through a cloud?

[TheSpaceMan]

What exactly is all that windpower used for?

I can see a small pumping operation bringing water up from the river, waaay up, but to what purpose?

I think it's to supply the possibility to farm in internal areas of the bridge and maybe supply water to wounded when needed without haveing to leave the bridge itself? It would require many pumps and things to pump the water the entire way, and since estetic taste is involved i guess some wind mills are placed just to keep it in balance.

[Anvilsmith]

Thank you, Jingles, for posting the map.
Fedor, I got the PM, and the savegame from RapidShare. Thank you kindly. I'll post the new version on DFFD, once I get around to fixing a few things, testing the aqueduct system and waiting for spring to arrive (the bridge does look a little unsightly with all the snow on it).

I'll describe a few noteworthy features of the fortress, referencing each foot of the bridge as "tower #X", "tower #1" being the southernmost tower and "tower#10" being the northernmost.

The aqueduct system is actually meant to provide irrigation for the farmland under each tower. In theory, most of that farmland is built over sandy terrain, which means it's permanently fertile, but I find that horribly unrealistic. Another purpose of the aqueduct system is to flood attackers as they travel the bridge (three floodgates exist for this purpose), to fill the currently empty fishery in tower #9, to fill the reservoir in tower #8, to bring horrible watery death upon all who survive the fall into tower #10's depths, to drown the prisoners in tower #7 (on the floor above the as-yet-unelected guard captain's quarters), and to clean the blood off the 80 steel spikes in tower #5's deathtrap.

I was considering installing floodgates along several of the drainage shafts, to provide a means for the dwarves to defecate (and therefore fertilize the farmland far below) or to dump garbage, but decided it was silly. I also intended to create two-z-level-deep moats around several of the towers, which could be filled via the drainage shafts and emptied via the pumps, but never got around to it.

The main reason I built farmlands under every tower was so that, in the event of goblin invasion, the inhabitants of each tower could survive independently, even if all other towers were cut off. This is aided by the design of the bridges on the second-highest levels, as the halves of these bridges can be raised separately.

Unfortunately, the aqueduct systems can easily be disabled, because:

*only three towers (#8, #9 and #10) can have their own reservoirs; all of them are horribly close to the goblins.
*Only one tower (#6) connects the left aqueduct (where water falls into the drains) to the right aqueduct (where water rises from the farmlands). Pull one little lever, and you can prevent flooded farmlands from ever being drained, especially since only one floodgate (in tower #5's deathtrap, on the left side) allows water to permanently leave the system, whereas a single floodgate keeps the pump system in tower #4 from continually bringing water into the aqueducts.
*Breaching only one wall tile is enough to compromise the whole aqueduct system, which lies on the outside of the bridge. This was remedied by ensuring that firm ground does not directly lie anywhere east or west of the aqueduct (which means ballistae and trolls cannot, in theory, target it), but it still is a vulnerability.
*I built only standard-issue pump towers, the kind that collapse into a heap if  the bottom pump is removed.

Also disappointing about the whole mechanical sprawl is that only one millstone exists in the whole fortress. This is poor design (and over-reliance on plump helmets) on my part.

Keeping in line with the gameworld's story, no fort exists on the northern end of the bridge, as that particular side would be constantly threatened by goblin attacks. However, I wish I had channeled part of the ground there and built bridges spanning the abyss just north of it, to force potential enemies to   charge into the line of fire of the two ballistae.

Likewise, for thematic reasons, I built a sort of military temple/theater on the highest levels of tower #7. Coffins lie behind the front seats, so that dead soldiers can be honored by the frequent sparring matches of their living kin. It's pretty small, but I liked it.

If I had enough spare time for it, I'd call a new Engineering Challenge to construct a heavily-trapped mausoleum, within the span of one year, using only supplies imported via the embark screen, or to carve a massive sculpture from a huge cliff using 7 miners, again in only one year. I would rather devote the rest of my vacation to preparing for my master's course, though.

[Jackrabbit]

HOLY FUCK

That says it