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[RabblerouserGT]

I'm thinking about building a moat now that I've settled in a new ocean-front fortress.

My question is.. is there a proper number of steps to create a moat? At first I was thinking to just make a channel and let my dwarf channel around the ocean front to have the water sweep in, but wouldn't that drown my dwarf in the fortress?


What's a proper way to make a moat?

[Zsword]

Simplest answer to that, is an Extension of what you just said.
1: Channel out the entire moat EXCEPT where it breaches the ocean.
2: Behind the last line of tiles, build walls of Floodgates.
3: Attach said floodgates to lever somwhere nice and safe in the fort
4: Channel out last few tiles.
5: Pull Lever.
6:
7: Profit!!!

[malroth]

6. Watch as only Ursit Mc Miner drowns

[Loud Whispers]

9. Don't bother with water at all. A dry ditch does a lot better, more fall damage and things can't swim across.

[wanzerm23]

For added fun dig it two levels deep and add spike traps all around the bottom floor!

[Kestrel]

9. Don't bother with water at all. A dry ditch does a lot better, more fall damage and things can't swim across.

This.


...Or magma. </obligatory magma suggestion>

[RabblerouserGT]

If I wanted "fun", I'd stick with water.
Also, water's prettier. 

I can always (hopefully) pump the water out later if I want to change my mind.
But I've got a fairly new fortress here, so loads upon loads of spike traps doesn't sound doable.

[Teneb]

Add weapon traps before flooding to kill anything that falls into it.

[RabblerouserGT]

Add weapon traps before flooding to kill anything that falls into it.

...

Fine. I'll wait to activate the floodgates only after the baddies show up. >_>
Will work on making traps around and under the bridge first.

[Loud Whispers]

Repeating spikes > Weapon traps - you won't be able to unjam the weapon traps if you decide to flood them

[RabblerouserGT]

Well I gotta wait for two useless immigrants to show up before I do anything.
Like I said, I just started out.

But yeah, going for the spikes.

[ASCIt]

Also, trapavoids can't do squat against repeating spikes. You just need a lever.

[Psieye]

Shhh you're scaring the newbie. He's at the stage where he's asking questions about how to dig and fill a moat with water. Don't make him give up before he even completes that stage by giving him a task that's way beyond his comfort zone. His SECOND moat fortress should aim to have spikes at the bottom. This one? Bare floor, or maybe a few cursory spikes for decoration not for effect.

Because really, putting spikes at the bottom of a moat AND linking them up to a lever can range from a few hundred spikes (a lengthy involvement for a newbie) to about ten thousand (we're approaching multi-year megaproject territory here) depending on size and desired thoroughness.

[Girlinhat]

If you have a river, then moats are easy (or an ocean).  Dig a moat as you'd expect.  I usually like to go underground to dig a path, so the surface is still solid with the water flowing out of sight.  Channel your moat, then dig towards the river/ocean, until you're at the "moist stone" point.  Then designate ramps to be dug at the moist stone edge, and if you've done it right your miner should stand at the river's edge and dig down - if you've done it wrong then the miner will stand in the tunnel and drown himself quickly.

Alternatively, if you have a LOT if useless migrants, you can bucket brigade with a lot of effort.  Designate a pond zone at one point, and dwarves will go fill a bucket with water and empty it at the zone.  However, they do this one at a time, so to be effective you'll need a lot of pond zones.  Trouble is that water evaporates at 1/7 depth, so to keep it deep you'll either need a LOT of dwarf power, or use creative floodgates to stagger the water flow in such a way that it always remains deep.  Pond zones also go to 6/7 naturally, though you get a few 7/7 tiles because of delayed jobs, and that 7/7 dancing around can (in theory) drag your FPS down just a tiny bit.  Plus it always gets on my OCD...

Either way, if you're using the pond method, get like 150 idlers, a greater number of buckets, and learn how to use macros or autohotkey to designate multiple pond zones at once.

[thegoatgod_pan]

Also using the d->(r)amp rather than d->c(h)annel command will reduce the cave-ins you might inadvertantly cause