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[PigtailLlama]

You can always thicken up the wall, though. It's kind of recommended due to building destroyers anyways, or until you're able to pump up magma to the surface so you can improve the effectiveness of your (magma-safe) defensive walls with lavafalls.

[Lielac]

You can always thicken up the wall, though. It's kind of recommended due to building destroyers anyways, or until you're able to pump up magma to the surface so you can improve the effectiveness of your (magma-safe) defensive walls with lavafalls.

Building destroyers can't do a thing about constructed walls yet. (Yet.)

[Osmosis Jones]

Building destroyers can't do a thing about constructed walls yet. (Yet.)

When they can, it will be time to upgrade your walls with a juicy magma filling.

[Lielac]

Building destroyers can't do a thing about constructed walls yet. (Yet.)

When they can, it will be time to upgrade your walls with a juicy magma filling.

A pressurized juicy magma filling.

[Mesa]

And so the fortress defense meta has shifted overnight...

[CaptainArchmage]

Will climbers be able to hang from the ceiling?

If they can, it would cause trouble with overhangs.

When invaders get grappling hooks, you will need to completely seal off an area, or build walls and fortifications up to the to z-level. Yes, you can build fortifications on the highest level.

How much of an effect does the new dwarven personality system have on the way they work i.e. item quality?

One reason for the lack of updates seems to be that Toady was in a video game conference.

[Footkerchief]

Will climbers be able to hang from the ceiling?

Toady already answered the last time you asked this:

We will have creatures like spiders climbing on the ceilings?

With the inclusion of climbing, will invaders now be able to scale walls?

Will creatures be able to grapple a ceiling?

Will creatures be able to climb up and over raised drawbridges?

Will we be able to specify that some creatures can climb smooth and ice walls?

I haven't done super-climbers yet that can use smoother surfaces, but it'll have to go in sometime.  Climbing specifies the surface that is held, and this currently includes being able to hang in an air tile while you hold on to a tile above (like tree branches), so ceiling walking can use the floor/wall type above in the same way.  I haven't addressed buildings like raised drawbridges or doors.

[LordBaal]

Ummm so maybe rough surfaces might enable entities to hang from them... quite the nightmare of arachnophobic players if you ask me.

[Sizik]

I haven't addressed buildings like raised drawbridges or doors.

Seems like we can make climber-proof walls by surrounding them with raised drawbridges.

[Dazenith]

Building destroyers can't do a thing about constructed walls yet. (Yet.)

When they can, it will be time to upgrade your walls with a juicy magma filling.

A pressurized juicy magma filling.

What about those building destroyers made of magma? 

[Mesa]

Building destroyers can't do a thing about constructed walls yet. (Yet.)

When they can, it will be time to upgrade your walls with a juicy magma filling.

A pressurized juicy magma filling.

What about those building destroyers made of magma? 

Make an extra water filling behind the magma.
Duh.

[WillowLuman]

I remember an earlier discussion claiming that goblins should have some kind of invulnerable monster that can tunnel right through walls, magma, and water, so that players wouldn't use the "cheap" strategy of sealing their fort in an obsidian cube with water and magma envelopes around it. The conclusion we came to was that if someone can engineer such a thing, they deserve their invincible fort. Invincible right up until someone fails a strange mood, that is.

Anyway, even with climbing, walls should pose some obstacle rather than merely adding distance. It's hardly realistic to expect armored troops to come swarming up over the ramparts, else why bother building the ramparts, and why bother bringing siege engines to breach them? Will people in armor climb slower/get tired faster than unarmored climbers? How fast do creatures climb in general, compared to walking up stairs?

[EnigmaticHat]

I mean the more basic issue is that if you were to surround yourself in an obsidian cube in real life, you'd die due to conservation of matter.  You can't create more food or water or air, so you WANT access to the outside world in RL.

[WillowLuman]

Well, IRL, with sufficiently advanced life-support, you can continue to recycle the same materials as long as you have an influx of energy to keep the recycling processes going.

As we're dealing with quasi-medieval technology, though, this legendary cube of dwarven engineering would probably have some complex opening mechanism that allows stuff to get in and out, which would be shut during siege. Or perhaps shut at all times, and only opened to refill the stockpiles when necessary. The point being that something like it requires a lot of effort and cleverness to build, and thus isn't a "cheap" strategy that requires the enemy get an automatic counter to for "balance". It doesn't need additional weaknesses, and doesn't make the defenders utterly invincible as destruction from within still remains possible (failed moods, tantrum spirals, and in future releases, disease and starvation.)

[EnigmaticHat]

Yeah, I see that.  However, I also don't think 100% defense should ever be possible, barring maybe bizarre magic.  It should be a matter of resource conflict.  For example even with the super-cube on your side, it should be possible to starve you out if the attackers are determined enough.

All of which is sort of moot now, since we're a third of the way through alpha.  I'm hoping we'll see this kind of balance eventually.