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[Numeroid]

I'm looking for any designs that I can use that allow me to defend my fort without using my military. Moats, traps, etc. Whatever works.

Here's my general area above-ground

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Thanks.

[AutomataKittay]

Wall everything up as far as you can get. Floor over the river except for a few spots to put grates in so they can draw water out of it. That's the perfect defense, nothing can go through walls!

If you want access to outside ( trade for example ) do above, except for a part of wall, and make a bunch of traps there ( put the trade deport somewhere closeby ) put a few bridges up in the way to block off the trading block and forcing the enemies to get ground up. Replace trap with upright meancing spike hooked up to a repeating lever when you can, since they can't jam!

[misko27]

I'm looking for any designs that I can use that allow me to defend my fort without using my military. Moats, traps, etc. Whatever works.

Here's my general area above-ground

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Thanks.

Well you could.. And theres.. and then... And also.. and the traps...
*misko explodes*
Could you please be more specific?

[thrush_titan]

you should read the boatmurdered LP, it'll give you some ideas.  terrible, terrible ideas.

[Halceon]

Here's an idea. Set 10 dwarves to be mechanics and another 5 to be miners. Designate a 20x20x20 cube of stone to be dug into up/down stairs somewhere underground. Then use the acquired stone to make mechanisms. Step 2, designate a similar cube. Cover every tile outside your fortress with a stone-fall trap. Profit.

[untakenusername]

What I usually do it build a small square structure at the surface (11x11 at my current fortress). It is completely walled in at all sides and floored over on the top all except for a bridge.

The bridge is one level above the ground, and connects to a 2x2 area of walls with attached ramps at ground level, which is atleast one space away from the main structure.

With that the only thing which could get in is a flying building destroyer.

[itg]

A corridor with lots and lots of cage traps is pretty foolproof, except against titans. You can use the prisoners for training.

[My Name is Immaterial]

Atom smashers/Drawbridges/improvised catapults work nicely, except for building destroyers, and everything is disintegrated when atom smashed. If you can get a tame dragon or two, then you can export !!Goblin!!. Or build a giant wall around the entire map for pastures and never leave. Your hunters will be out of work though, and so will your brokers.

[Broseph Stalin]

I like to build large above ground structures, it's mainly an aesthetic thing (the entrance to my dwarven metropolis will not look like a hovel) but it also gives me the opportunity to get creative with fortress defense. Pasture war dogs in regular intervals outside, they can kill thieves and snatchers but their main job is going to be an early warning system. Fortress defense is all about defending against the things you didn't plan for. Knowing when that ambush is coming will save your life.

Cage traps are going to be your best friend. I place a grid of them 9 urists apart and when I get enough mechanisms shorten that distance to four apart. Prisoners are an easy way to train your military and cage traps can cripple a siege.


When you control where the ass kicking happens you can usually decide which side of the ass kicking you're going to be on. I like to set up an area that's thick with traps, war beasts, and forms an airlock before the entrance to the actual fortress. I close the outer gate, position my military inside the airlock, and close the inner gate then open the outer gate.  That way my militia attacks as one. 50% of dwarven combat related deaths are because one jackass ran out ahead of everybody while four jackasses were putting their war-pants on.

Since you don't want to use your military turtling is going to make up most of your defense. The best way to know if your secure is to ask if a flying building destroyer could get through. If they can't then nothing can. Build a raising drawbridge and roof over your above ground portion. When the drawbridge is raised it's indestructible and as long as there are no hatches, doors, or gaps in your fortress nothing is going to be able to get inside. You can use siege weapons but they aren't particularly effective.

[Numeroid]

I do use my military, but it'd be nice if I could destroy or severely weaken a siege force before having to send my dwarfs out.

Cage traps are going to be your best friend. I place a grid of them 9 urists apart and when I get enough mechanisms shorten that distance to four apart. Prisoners are an easy way to train your military and cage traps can cripple a siege.


When you control where the ass kicking happens you can usually decide which side of the ass kicking you're going to be on.

I've used cage traps in older forts, mining hallways out that I forbid my dwarfs from entering and filling them with cage traps. The only problem is that before, my fortress entrance was in the side of a mountain as opposed to it being directly dug into the ground like this one, so it was fairly easy then to just mine a hallway. In this situation I'm not sure how to control where sieges will try to enter my fortress from.

I also haven't had a caravan in a while, I was hoping to maybe get some war animals but it doesn't look like that will be happening soon. I want to know if there are any ways I can make use of that river there. Even if it's not really for fortress defense, it's just sitting there only being used for fishing.

Is there a way I can tell my hunter/fisherdwarfs to get the hell inside when a siege comes? I'm tired of them getting killed, I don't want to have to deal with the bad thoughts.

[cvar]

I've used cage traps in older forts, mining hallways out that I forbid my dwarfs from entering and filling them with cage traps. The only problem is that before, my fortress entrance was in the side of a mountain as opposed to it being directly dug into the ground like this one, so it was fairly easy then to just mine a hallway. In this situation I'm not sure how to control where sieges will try to enter my fortress from.

When I embark on flat areas, I make a hallway in the first stone z level to be turned into a blender.  The soil areas above that are just ramps leading down into it.  I run a stairwell back up behind the blender for farms, but otherwise I tend to ignore the soil layers.  If you didn't include a trappable hallway underground, use walls to make one leading to your entrance.  One three tile wide for the caravans that can be blocked off forcing sieges to go through a twisty one tile wide chop expo.

I also haven't had a caravan in a while, I was hoping to maybe get some war animals but it doesn't look like that will be happening soon. I want to know if there are any ways I can make use of that river there. Even if it's not really for fortress defense, it's just sitting there only being used for fishing.

Is there a way I can tell my hunter/fisherdwarfs to get the hell inside when a siege comes? I'm tired of them getting killed, I don't want to have to deal with the bad thoughts.

You could make a moat, a cistern for projects, set up water reactors to power magma cannons, waterfalls, water cannons, drowning chambers...

In the military screen you can set up an alert for sieges that restricts all dwarves to a specific burrow.  Press w to define a burrow (my early emergency one is just the food/drink stockpiles and a path between them) and then go to the alerts screen (m -> a), create a new alert (c?) and then arrow over to assign your burrow to that alert.  Now when you get a siege, go back to the alerts screen, highlight that alert and hit enter.  All civilians will drop what their doing (mostly) and rush to the burrow.  "Rush".

[Findulidas]

This is how I would do it:

Yellow is the channeled entrance 3x3.

Blue are floor grates linked to a lever. If pulled they open up to a fall of 15+ z levels ending in pointing spears (this kills or seriously cripples even a bronze colussus). Seeing goblins drop several z-levels and get crushed on a rock floor is really something.

Green are cage traps (these are op as fuck, you got a war dragon attacking? A cage trap will stop him, thats one stone and one piece of wood. Doesnt work on some legendary creatures like forgotten beasts though).

Pink are raised bridges, ready to crush whatever is beneath them. You could change these for something else like serrated blades traps. Those are pretty strong, although they can jam and when the dwarves release the trap it cuts them in two. They are also bad against zombies (creates huge amounts of zombie limbs walking around), although after the fall and cage traps there probably arent many zombies left.

The dark yellow spots are where dogs are chained, so that you can see those sneaking goblins and kobolds, which otherwise walk over your traps.

The red is a 3x wide area free of traps where the caravans will travel to get to the depot (remember to cut down mushroom trees), if you make this one particularly long and have the trap area suffienctly wide then the invading creatures are bound to take the trap road. If you still feel unsafe in that red zone then you can mine 1 step to each side and put cage traps in the corners, that almost guarantees to catch those rare monsters running in there. Perhaps in the one in a thousand event when a dwarf actually runs back in the hole through that zone while being chased (I have yet to see a dwarf run back into the fort when attacked, the idiots just run in a random direction as fast as they can.)

Really though, having only traps and no military leaves you with less flexibility and ability to save dwarves outside of your fort, and it also reduces the chance of survival if something goes wrong. Even having a moderately trained squad with copper armor/weapons can make a huge diffrence.

The weakness with these traps are that if you open the grates then the only pathable way in is though the red zone, which means they will take that way. This can be prevented with a bridge in the red zone which can be raised to create an instant wall, few monsters can destroy. Another flaw is if you somehow get a flying forgotten beast outside. It will fly over the grate holes, ignore all your traps (since it got trapavoid) and ignore the bridges falling on its head (some monsters are immune to it, probably to prevent abuse). Really though, if you are avoiding a military the only sure way of being safe is walling yourself in and thats just lame imo.

[Numeroid]

All civilians will drop what their doing (mostly) and rush to the burrow.  "Rush".

Only civilians? Meaning soldiers can ignore the burrow?

I might have used this too, but I went ahead and made a moat with my river.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Findulidas]

I generally dont touch water because it eats fps, such a small moat wouldnt make much diffrence though.

[Bigheaded]

Also remember if water is not 7/7, units can pass through it.

You can consider chucking some more traps down inside your moat. What you have is somewhat effective, but what about when you get armies of ~20+ goblins? that usually only takes ~3 years to get ambushes of that size.

Also, how do you know when to raise the drawbridge? You need either some animals attached to ropes or more cage traps outside in areas along paths where ambushers would move. I.e if an ambush came from the bottom, they'd move along very close to your moat, so having a few cage traps each side should give you warning there, then quite a few cage traps along the top to keep an eye out for any ambushes from that area.

As currently i would be worried about an ambush just simply walking in. Although looking at where your fort is, and the river blocking most entry points from the top, just be sure to have plenty of protection from the sides.

edit:
On my save, i'm trying to catch some cave crocodiles and giant olms to have wander around my entrance. A cave croc is generally going to win against 1 goblin, perhaps 2, if they begin to get crowded they lose pretty fast though. Makes for amusing reports against thieves/snatchers of them just getting devoured.