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[Fallenworldful]

I have a long lived fortress (21 years, w00t!), and as an experienced Newb, is trying to actually beat a siege rather than wait it out.

As such, I have created a strong military and siege corps, and I'm wondering what the best way to use them would be. Below, I have my fortress' planned new entrance. Yea, I could've referenced the wiki, but I actually want responses to this personal design. What do you forumers think? (Ignore the Digging designations, please)



Stupid MS paint...

Back on topic. Given that I have that F*** huge room as a kill box, and I am going to use the forced detour method, what traps should I place there?

And also, what should I do to keep the enemies knocked from the path from staying alive and slaughtering any Siege dwarfs who decide to go down into the pit to gather ballista bolts? put a draw bridge down?

[andyman564]

looks impressive, if you actually have enough marksdwarves / seige operators to man all the stations, as well as a melee squad to catch the ones that leak through, your fort should be able to repel most seiges.

as for traps, i'd go for weapon traps filled with spikes/ spiked balls/ corkscrews. they usually don't sever limbs,  so that means less jamming and less cleanup.

and to solve the problem of gobbos diving into the bolt recovery pit, simply place a line (or two) of fortifications along the edge, ballista bolts will pass right through unaffected.

EDIT: forgot to mention, your siege operators will just run away if you position them that close. you need to keep them about 20 tiles back from the enemy or they'll panic and run.

[Cozmopolit]

Using a drawbridge will stop the siege to path to your fortress, which means that they will not come into your killbox. I close the brige once I have part of the siege in the killbox, kill those, lower drawbridge, get some more in, repeat.

Cage Traps are (too) efficient, but they create the extra problem of how to actually kill the hostiles later one (pitting them behind fortifications to train marksdwarfs works for me). Also, you can get the whole hostile (not in parts  and incl. its equipment) into the fortress in one move and deal with it later, thus cleaning up the kill box for the next siege faster.

I dislike serrated steel disks lately as they produce a lot of body parts -> a lot of hauling jobs. Didnt get around to do a lot of science on other weapon traps myself.

I use drawbriges before and after the killbox to deal/clean up waves of the siege rather than dealing with it all at once, but then again I'm paranoid 

and yes, what you got looks pretty damn good to me.

[Fallenworldful]

Thanks for the quick responses.

I guess Cage traps and spike traps it is then! My puny computer can't handle the terrifying levels of Gore serrated disk traps apparently produce.

Another thing: What to do with those boxes labled ??...? I have no clue how to use them.

[andyman564]

magma traps?

[Fallenworldful]

mmmm... Magma...

About siege operator distances: The larger box in front was to be the bolt storage, the smaller area behind it the actual ballista battery.

[andyman564]

i'd put the ammo storage behind the ballista battery; if it's kept in front, a few all of your operators may will become dwarf kebabs.

[Fallenworldful]

...
...
Armok's beard, how did I not see that?
*Headbash*
I already have lost a fortress to a Ballista induced Tantrum spiral, so I really should know that...

[WealthyRadish]

The focus on soldiers instead of traps is interesting. I just finished designating out an entrance, but mine's more turtlish.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The green part is the cage trap corridor (with lethal spear traps mixed in), the part with brown spears is the dodge pit (cage traps in pit underneath), the part with the gray spears is the lethal spear pit (dodge onto upright spears), the bridge part has various pits (some lethal, others with cage traps), and the merchant entrance is the one shaped like a... well, just ignore that...

Keep in mind that ballistae are quite weak, so probably not worth the effort. Also, I'd have auxiliary trap corridors in case of elite crossbowmen... those bastards can shoot through fortifications at a distance, killing the marksdwarves stationed in the towers. Looks awesome though! Make sure to upload a pic of it finished.

[Triaxx2]

I've never had a problem with cage killing. I build them on platforms suspended by supports. After they've been filled, I pull the corresponding lever, the platform falls, the cage and it's constructed floor smash open and the gobbo's drown. Or get eaten. (1z of water at the bottom of 10z pit, breaks enough that they can't swim. Or 10z's into some harnessed cave critters.)

I'd channel a couple of z under the path ahead of the ballista, and make a winding path for them to have to traverse, giving the operators two or three shots at them. Extra wide batteries of up to 5 ballista increase the chances of hit/kills, and since ballista only fire forward, either side of the path can be lined with additional fortifications, and archer positions. The more fire in the air the better. Two levels up of fortifications will let you put more archers in place.

The last section should have lots of dodge-me's, in a checkerboard pattern for preference, narrowing down to a line of serrated disc grinders (the most agile will make it here, and probably will be wearing less/lighter armor because they were more agile). At the very end, put your military barracks.

Any goblin that makes it through there should be shuttled into drowning boxes. Three or four 4x4 rooms, with small tailing paths that have pressure plates at the entrance. That slams closed bridges locking the gobbos in and also starts pumps, filling the room with water.

Just about the only thing that might make it through would be amphibious mounts, which if not shredded, or with busted bones and ribs, will still be easier to deal with.

[Fallenworldful]

Meh, Masterwork Ballistae with Bronze/Copper/Iron heads do serious damage, as well as harming clusters of units.

If an elite crossbowman comes, I'll let it die on the bridge network.

And I'll be sure to upload a image.

The Dwarfs have finished about half of the killroom, so far.
EDIT: Posted without reading previous post-

Thanks for your advice. This thing is eventually going to become a 3z monstrosity, fully decked with traps. The most emphasis is going to the ballista and archers, though. I really can't be bothered to smith whole suits of steel armor, and my map is overrun with trees.

And thanks again for your help, everyone. Once this thing's done, I'll see if I can post a post-carnage image.

[Fallenworldful]

Ack...
Bronze Colossus decided to attack.

Swarm of job cancellations, then I check and find it slaughtering my masons building the walls.

That pic isn't coming anytime soon...

[WaffleEggnog]

What you do.... is you make a box.... with serated disks outside the enterance...... done. But just incase you get a creature with trapavoid, make sure the enterance is cloasable (New word), and that you have somewere to shoot it from/some badass melee dorfs.

[peskyninja]

I don't think that ballista range will work, anything closer than 30 tiles will scare the living hell out of the operators.

[DTF]

I don't think that ballista range will work

Agreed, could be too close to the combat zone to be comfy. Plus you are wasting a lot of the ballistas' potential by having the bolts only fly a fairly short distance.
A long corridor with ballistas at its end works best - this way the invaders are forced to walk in a line and the bolts can cause collateral damage by going through most of the enemies.
Personally, I'd build the archer tower in the middle of the killzone with the enemies having to walk around it; your marksdwarves will almost always be in range to shoot and the enemy needs way more time to get through the killzone compared to a simple large open room.
A bit like so (only larger):

Code: [Select]

#######
#.....F......Ballistas (?)
#.AAA.#
#.AAA.#
#.AAA.#
X.#Y..#
A = archer tower
X = enemies enter here; Y = enemies leave here
You'd still need some kind of obstacle to keep the enemy away from the archer tower.

As for your melee guys: a twisty path or even a checker board pattern will prevent them from going ballistic and go on a - to them potentially fatal - killing spree. If they cannot see an enemy, they won't pursue him unless you order them to. Sadly, this setup doesn't work so well when you want to include archery support in it.

Of course, if you spice up your design with plenty of traps, nothing should be able to make it through anyway so don't necessarily change it just because we say so.
Trapwise, I suggest either the zomgwtfpowerful cage trap or weapon traps with blunt weaponry.