trap-lined hallway for merchants, surrounded by lava. you use the path or you burn.
Quite a few delays have happened with the continuation of the save, but as it happens, they've made everything happen the way it was meant to happen - in fact, we managed to improve on the Mayans. Apocalypse? We made a lava cannon, flooded the whole region, and survived. We even tested it in an
incomplete state, without the coolant safety system and its emergency steam reliefs.
There's a plan to allow magma to be diverted into the river area if there's ever such a need. I just need one more floodgate linked up before I can order the aqueducts. We'll drain the entire length of the Lance of Armok and fill it with water, so we can build bridges to the north. This massive machine is so great we're even going to make our population cross it in their walk from the workshop to the dining hall.
I've read on the wiki that in this version, gold will be destroyed by magma so I'll have to replace the gold drawbridge with something else. Right after I deal with the entrance being totally undefended. In fact, that's so bad I'm ordering our fisherdwarves to build our traps.
Edit: Apparently, because the ten or more dwarves who were farming and fishing in the other seasons now don't have anything to farm, or much to fish, we can get a lot of dwarves to do the stuff we didn't do in other seasons. There's a one-line row of weapon traps at the entrance but I think we need more. I'm ordering more weapons now, made out of steel. These traps need more blades.
I'm also going to try out the "removing channel" thing right now. If that works I will place the trade depot deeper inside the fortress and put a moat.
To get the lava into the right area, I may need to build another aqueduct over the river. You can see from the fortress image that the Lance of Armok doesn't have any channels after the cave river.
If I had the choice, I'd completely redo the entrance. Personally, I liked the Boatmurdered entrance because doors actually hold back floods. Then Boatmurdered had a vast array of channels where we have the trade depot, and the trade depot there was outside, and I want the merchants to be inside, and have clear glass window looking outwards. That way they get to witness the power of the Lance of Armok in action.
Edit2: Apparently I can't designate a channel over a channel, even if its larger.
I also cannot "remove" the channel building. Nevermind, I designated a channel next to it and then cancelled the designation. The channel is still there on the ground, but not as a building. Can I get rid of the channel floor permanently now?