Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Agent_86]

I'm currently in the middle of a 0 pop. cap fort.  While planning out defense, I quickly realized two things:

1) Because I'm sitting at 16 dwarves + 2 babies, I'm not going to be able to support a large army. (most of my forts end up pretty much being like Sparta - the entire fort built to support a couple of squads of legendary military dwarves)
2) I want to use as few weapon traps as possible, and I have little to no weapons-grade metals.

Could I get some help designing a more creative defensive system?

EDIT: I should mention that I'm in range of a tower, so eventually I'll have to deal with a necromancer.

[NRDL]

PTW

I'm no mad scientist, the only thing I can suggest is to channel a several z-level deep pit. 

[MrWillsauce]

Magma.

[NRDL]

I thought undead couldn't get hurt by magma/lava?

[MrWillsauce]

I thought undead couldn't get hurt by magma/lava?

Undead? The magma is for the dwarves...

[Talion]

The wiki is your friend.

Generally speaking the type of defense to use depends most on time constraints. Water and particularly magma based defenses need time to be set up. In the short term the best defenses are simple.

I'm particularly partial to the spike studded water entrance. Essentially mechanically repeating spikes spread out enough for there to be safe routes through the entrance. The spike squares are restricted so the dwarves avoid them. Then I add a low level of water over the top to help spread the blood around. You may wish to add grates and a washer on the inside side to keep the fort clean.
There are numerous methods of having the spikes repeat this point. The water in this case is purely decorative so it can be added afterwards provided enough space has been prepared before hand. Knowing that I'm going to be using this type of defense all I have to make sure to do is have a dip in the entrance where the spikes and water will go.

[Agent_86]

Whelp.  I'm at 20 dwarves, including 4 babies, and I've had to seal up the fort.  The undead are here.

I'm fairly lucky I finished the outer wall and drawbridge mechanism in time.  I'm currently building a series of drop traps over the path to my main entrance, because the only thing I really have in abundance right now, is rock.

[Noobazzah]

Pitfall traps are easy to make and highly amusing. If you want instant splatter kills, the pit has to be about 10 levels deep. I personally use a 5 level deep pit that has upright iron spikes at the bottom and a flooding mechanism. Once the gobbos drop in, they get seriously hurt (both legs broken, stomach piercings, sometimes impaled through their heads) and then I either drown them or use them for live training. You should propably make a few passive marksdwarf squads and deaft ALL your citizens in them. Then make bone and wooden bolts for them. This way they'll fight back even when they are inactive, pincushioning your enemies. Line up your entance tunnel with fortifications, dig a 1-tile wide tunnel behind them and dig a moat to the front. This allows you to kill any hostiles running through without losing any lives or limbs, unless the enemy has master bowmen or worse.

[Di]

Could I get some help designing a more creative defensive system?

I guess you've solved your problem:

I'm in range of a tower, so eventually I'll have to deal with a necromancer.

As for zombies, I guess best would be to set up atom smashers.

[GoombaGeek]

The wiki is your friend.

You know you're a DF noob when all those links have already been visited in your browser.

[Urist_McDrowner]

I'm currently in the middle of a 0 pop. cap fort.  While planning out defense, I quickly realized two things:

1) Because I'm sitting at 16 dwarves + 2 babies, I'm not going to be able to support a large army. (most of my forts end up pretty much being like Sparta - the entire fort built to support a couple of squads of legendary military dwarves)
2) I want to use as few weapon traps as possible, and I have little to no weapons-grade metals.

Could I get some help designing a more creative defensive system?

EDIT: I should mention that I'm in range of a tower, so eventually I'll have to deal with a necromancer.

Menacing spikes are your friend. They can be made of wood and are fantastic for improving carpentry skill.

[Trojanhamster]

This sounds like my current fort Sorrowsalt, we're currently at 29 dwarves (12 of which are children) and we are surrounded by 493 hungry zombies due to being in range of not one but two towers. The above ground portion of our fortress consists of a large outer moat with drawbridge and an enclosed inner fort with four enclosed fortification towers for archers to amuse themselves in. This was working fine and we were largely keeping on top of things until two zombie sieges arrived at the same time. Our formerly usable trade depot in the outer courtyard which had until recently a surprising 50% survival rate for caravans is now completely overrun. My new strategy is an underground trade depot which has a beautiful view of the magma sea while on the surface we are working on setting up a central tower with a catapult to hopefully put a rock through one of the necromancer's faces one of these days, unfortunately about half of that shambling horde is made up of giant keas, kea men and other flying monstrosities so it's going to be an interesting year for my steel clad masons...

As far as suggestions for defenses, zombies are easy trap fodder, just make sure you dispose of the bodies and parts pronto either through butchery (for more bone bolts), magma or smashing if all else fails. Being surrounded by an army of the dead has its advantages though, they've devoured several werelizards in short order and watching the goblins make failed assaults against them is incredibly entertaining. Most importantly it makes the 0 pop cap seem justified, because who the hell would ever want to come here? 

[adasdad]

The important thing is to have fun while preventing just enough Fun that you can keep having fun, while still having a little bit of Fun.

Set up a system to push zombies into a giant spike filled pit, filled to the brim with a variety of war animals? either that or nuke the place.

[itg]

A long corridor of atom smashers (drawbridges) set on repeat would probably do the job. It's an especially good option for your situation since it doesn't leave any corpses for the necromancer to reanimate.

[doublestrafe]

A long corridor of atom smashers (drawbridges) set on repeat would probably do the job. It's an especially good option for your situation since it doesn't leave any corpses for the necromancer to reanimate.

I did that once. Then a siege showed up on rutherers and it was all over for that fort.