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[LegitMacgyver]

Every fort I make must have an arena, in fact is usually the focus of my fort.  I make one entrance to my fort, line a long hallway with cage traps and everything I get must fight my gladiator dwarves for their life in the arena.

Does everyone else always make or usually make an Arena?

My current arena is a 20x20x13 open space down in the earth with a ramp to the arena floor.  One wall of the Arena is a giant goblin face made out of solid gold blocks with petrified wood horns.  The captured animals/goblins are caged inside the mouth and released by a switch to exit the mouth and begin the battle!

Here is a screeny where I stitched a few images together in Photoshop so you can see the whole face.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Here is another shot showing the top layer view of the ramp and access:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

For those who are about to die... I salute you!

Let's see your arena!

[Dave Mongoose]

Awesome

I don't currently do this, but it seems like an awesome idea so I may start - it's a good compromise between the safety of cage traps and the dwarfy-ness of slaughtering everything that comes near your fort.

Does hooking up the lever each time not get tedious, though? That's the only thing that would put me off.

[Max White]

The arena is the biggest attraction of a lot of my fortress too.
Although instead of cage traps, I use a separated room with flood gates to control flow of goblins, saves on having to hook up that darn lever...

[Rose]

may I suggest an imagehoster that doesn't convert to jpeg?

try pix.sparky-s.ie

[LegitMacgyver]

may I suggest an imagehoster that doesn't convert to jpeg?

try pix.sparky-s.ie

Sorry Japa, I will try and do Stonesense justice next time (;

[Bryan Derksen]

My best arena was a three Z-level affair, with glass windows and a dining hall wrapped entirely around the second Z level. Yeah, the stupid dwarves panicked and fled as soon as they saw hostiles in the arena, but sometimes when there was a major show coming I'd just lock them in there and let them scream. Nearly lost the fort one time when I forgot to unlock the doors again afterward and everyone nearly starved.

The main use for that arena was to give my fort's pet werewolves names by letting them kill goblins. When just sending single goblins in against single werewolves, I'd pit them both into cells at opposite ends of the arena with lever-operated doors. When I was doing a grander show with an entire siege's worth of goblins, I'd cram all the goblins into one cage and then hook that up to a temporary lever - less chance of dwarves panicking prematurely by catching a glimpse of the cell's occupants while pitting additional goblins in.

Since the current version's military is so bugged that I'm relying entirely on cage traps, I should build myself a new arena to deal with them. Currently I'm just dropping them from the ceiling of a 50 Z-level cavern so that they land on my trade depot below, splashing body parts hilariously and leaving all their gear right where it'll eventually be sold.

[Marconius]

I want to make an arena in my current fortress, but it's in the middle of a tundra and apparently no goblin can be arsed to come play with me.

Elves though... they come every year. Maybe I should sack their useless caravan...

[Shadowgandor]

Or make a trade depot above a pit that you can collapse at any given time. They'll be trapped inside a hole, completely at your mercy

[darthbob88]

I don't usually make proper arenas, never mind grand shows like this. At best, I'll carve/build a large open area, with fortifications carved/built into one side, for military training purposes. I might build a nice little dining area for the hammerer, champions, or other nobles, so they can enjoy the sight of goblins being pureed/pincushioned, and I might even order the door-operating lever be built by the mayoral seat of honor. That's about the extent of my arena hijinx; I usually don't build rooms more than one z-level tall. Next fortress, though, I'll do that. I'll also build a nice little fish farm, a grand throne room filled with the skulls of my enemies, an apartment complex, and anything else that strikes my fancy. It shall be a most wonderful and grand fortress, my last hurrah before I give in and switch to 31.x

[Foxbyte]

My first attempt at building an arena was just a pit to train my crossdwarves on live targets. Then I found out that crossbows are even more broken than the rest of the miltiary... so yeah.

[caknuck]

I originally read this as "making love to Arenas"

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[darkflagrance]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It's the round building in the middle. I used it to give my mayors titles.

[Eric Blank]

That is an awesome fort, dark.

I had an arena once, but my delivery/cleanup system was horrid, had to link cages to levers to bust them open, then had to risk soldiers whenever the thing was opened up at the end when i was ready to clean up.

Haven't built any new ones, and if i do it'll be in 40D16 just so i can have the luxury of simplicity and ease of life.

[Urist Imiknorris]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It's the round building in the middle. I used it to give my mayors titles.

Here's your arena music. That's all you need.