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Glass castle w/ magma moat

11 (22.4%)

Glass hanging gardens

19 (38.8%)

Inside out fish bowl

19 (38.8%)

Total Members Voted: 49

[Suspense]

I spent some time (with a little world gen tweaking) looking for a site for a good mega-project.  I was looking for a fairly flat map with shallow magma.  I now have a fresh embark ready to go.  It's a 4x4 red sand desert with scattered grass, completely flat except for a hill in the southwest corner.  A stream runs horizontally right through the center of the map.  Magma is about 30 levels below the surface, so easily brought up for FUN.  Metals are a little sparse though, so they should be used in the project sparingly.

Now that I have the site I was looking for, I'm suffering a dearth of inspiration.  What should I do?  The logical answer has something to do with glass, but what specifically?  A glass castle with a magma moat?  A glass tower with a stream running down from the top through each level and gardens everywhere (kind of a Hanging Gardens of Babylon in glass)?  A hollow block with water or magma trapped between two sheets of glass?  Something else???

Ok... maybe I have plenty of inspiration.  I'M PARALYZED WITH INDECISION!!  Help me pick a project!  Or suggest your own!
Also, the fortress is named Towercrush if that helps at all.

[JAFANZ]

"Towercrush"?

Step 1) Regen the world with more levels above ground (LOTS!!!).
Step 2) Build a really tall tower, with both magma & water pump stacks (& reservoirs at the top).
Step 3) [Not sure if this is possible] Design an Obsidian farm in the sky, in such a way that any (or at least most initial) Obsidian formed isn't sufficiently supported to stay there & falls out of the sky.
Step 4) extend said Obsidifarm over as much of the map as possible.
Step 5) Trigger as many sieges, ambushes, titans, whatever as possible.
Step 6A) when your King finally arrives, kill him & his too...
Step 6B) alternately, "Send in the Clowns" & find out if dropping boulders on them works...

Edit: Oh, if you want, I have a param set that seems to be really good at generating Flat Volcanos near running water (all I checked had the magma top out within +/-2 levels of the surface, even if the cone/caldera/whateveritscalled went higher), I'm probably going to post it in the Worldgen cookbook thread.

[Aviator CJ]

So many possibilities... I suggest doing the hanging gardens thing, but with magma in addition to water. And with a name like Towercrush, you just have to have some sort of smashy-trap-thing in a tower. It's just false advertising otherwise.

[Suspense]

Step 1) Regen the world with more levels above ground (LOTS!!!).

I'd rather not regen and try to find the site again.  And the site already has like 30 above-ground levels.  So I'll just stick with the embark I already have.

Step 3) [Not sure if this is possible] Design an Obsidian farm in the sky, in such a way that any (or at least most initial) Obsidian formed isn't sufficiently supported to stay there & falls out of the sky.

Reminds me of an idea that I had for the inside-out fishbowl: let the water out at the top and filter it down through a series of levels with holes to spread it out over the whole area inside the fort so it's like constant rain.  If such a setup used water on one side and magma on the other, maybe it would be possible to combine in air for obsidian rain?  Corollary: Instead of static holes filtering the water, use hatch covers that are linked to a bunch of pressure plates throughout the tower to make sure the rain doesn't always fall at the same places.

most people so far are asking for the hanging gardens, so I'll start planning that.  A  fort totally above ground in a glass tower.  I'll pump water/magma up the center and then run it down in channels that wind through each level of the tower.  Question: If I drain the magma off the map edge, will the magma pipe that's supplying this thing recharge fast enough for an indefinite stream of magma?

[Badger Beater]

My favourite:

Embark to a glacier. Use the ice you mine to build an ice castle in the sea. In summer/spring, the sea should melt, but the ice blocks don't. I got halfway through building my own castle when all my dorfs but one died and a bug meant I couldn't reassign any noble positions (arse). Restarting it now though. It was priceless seeing yetis hassle some masons into the fort in late winter, only for the sea to thaw and the yetis to fall down to drown in the sea.

[codyorr]

The Ice Castle has been done a lot. Weaponize it more.

[SixOfSpades]

If I were going for a "Towercrush," I'd build a huge glass tower with water/magma pipes running up the center, like you said, and with a long, winding staircase wrapped around it. The catch: There are TWO staircases--the outer one connects the top of the tower with the base (and everything else), while the inner one connects the top of the tower to where you expect to find the circus. In case of emergency, drawbridges can be raised so that the ONLY open path to the circus is the inner staircase . . . which is collapsible. When the clowns have almost reached the top, Pull The Lever, and rejoice as the tower crushes them. And because it's made of glass, everyone outside can watch.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Edit: Oh, if you want, I have a param set that seems to be really good at generating Flat Volcanos near running water (all I checked had the magma top out within +/-2 levels of the surface, even if the cone/caldera/whateveritscalled went higher), I'm probably going to post it in the Worldgen cookbook thread.

I'd like that. Or at least a link to the appropriate post in the cookbook.

Also, watching. This should be !!interesting!!, especially if you combine the megaprojects. The inside-out fishbowl seems to be ahead now...why not mix all three?

[JAFANZ]

Edit: Oh, if you want, I have a param set that seems to be really good at generating Flat Volcanos near running water (all I checked had the magma top out within +/-2 levels of the surface, even if the cone/caldera/whateveritscalled went higher), I'm probably going to post it in the Worldgen cookbook thread.

I'd like that. Or at least a link to the appropriate post in the cookbook.

Also, watching. This should be !!interesting!!, especially if you combine the megaprojects. The inside-out fishbowl seems to be ahead now...why not mix all three?

Post #436: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=101280.msg3918427#msg3918427
You probably want to muck with it a bit to get a better megaproject map (more levels above & below ground, put Necros & things back in maybe).

[Suspense]

...why not mix all three?

Mainly because I'm not super experienced with mega-projects; that's the main reason I'm doing this.  And I'm not sure I have room for all that, but I'll see if I can come up with a workable plan.  But thinking about it, I could do a castle where the outer walls are glass filled with water, surrounded by the magma moat.  The inner keep can be the hanging gardens with its own water moat.  I should be able to fit that on the map without too much trouble.

I'm planning this all out on paper before I start the actual construction, so I expect it to be little while.  If there's interest, I may start a community fort thread for it in the story forum.

[Triaxx2]

Four 6x6 Cast-obsidian towers, 8 tiles apart. Go up 15z (What's the sky height?) Then Smooth the sides and build your fortress in the space between them of glass blocks.

For bonus points spiral a pump stack up the middle, and have it run back off the top as magma falls. Hell on the FPS, but awesome to look at.

[Suspense]

Ok, I like my last idea about a magma moat and glass walls filled with water.  Problem: I have a brook running right through the center of the map, which won't mix well with a magma moat.  How should I handle that?  Just switch to a water moat filled by the brook and use the magma to fill the inside of the walls?  Does anyone else have a suggestion?

[Gentlefish]

If you can catch some fish reasonably quickly, I say put the water in the inner glass wall. Stock with the fish. Or use magma otherwise.

If you want a magma moat regardless, channel the water beneath the moat, and fill the magma from the opposite side where the water comes from.

[JAFANZ]

@Pufferfish: If it's a Brook, the only fish will be vermin.

@Suspense: AIUI If you work out which way the Brook flows, you can actually loop it back so the water runs off the map (this generally requires redirecting the water to the edge on a z-level where there is rock on the edge tiles, into which you carve fortifications), do that to get rid of the water across the map, then build an aqueduct to divert some of the water to where you want it, but below ground so it doesn't destroy the appearance you want.

[Qwernt]

Build the floating glass castle - think disney. But make all the walls and floors in such a way as to pump them full of magma.  Some day, when sieges can break walls, the magma would pour out. (ok, not going to happen, but you can pretend)

Then add your gardens and water falls inside the castle.

Oh, clear glass would be best.

OH, and you should post your opening save so others can access this tasty site.