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[Shininglight]

Hallo there, i have a short but as with anything df related, oddly complicated question, I'm building a large fort right now, in the process of digging down an entire hillside next to a volcano, it's going to be at least a couple seasons to finish it but i can't begin construction of my fort proper until i'm done clearing the hill, as such i'm trying to set up a temporary fort nearbye and i was wondering if anyone had any design ideas for one. This is an area with extreme cliffs so i need to be careful. Help would be awesome.

[Crashmaster]

make a wooden stockade with a gate and a building. My dwarves lived in this elvish wood-hole for five years while Stormrack's entrance was built. Then we burnt it for charcoal.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

indoor dorm, dining area, hospital and morgue with a tiny freeze-proof well cistern.

[joeclark77]

The challenge is to make it invisible when it's taken away.  Above ground would work, either with stone or with wood (or metal, or bricks, or soap).  Another way to do it would be to carve it all out on a single z-level of sand or soil.  Once the fort proper is built, deconstruct the buildings and carve away the walls, and the dirt layer will look like it was your tree farm all along.

[celem]

Be careful with above-ground building on your extremely cliffy map.  If the prep work for the big dig takes long enough that goblins show up then a simple pallisade may not cut it, as goblins will just climb the hills and shoot over the walls.

I always roof my above-ground builds (though its a throwback to old FortressDefense games where I suffered a great many flying opponents...not that they pathfind worth a damn these days)  This will stop your workers getting peppered with bolts and arrows as well as preventing them from seeing anything scary that is clambering about in the nearby hills and fleeing back and forth across the compound.

[Shininglight]

Thanks for the help guys but i had to abandon, I managed to drop 6 z-levels of cliffside right on top of my recently dug temporary fort. One thing i learned, cave-ins do NOT destroy all tiles that are no longer connected, it merely destroys a few. Yes, i'm a newb, well on to more FUN.

[Abraxis]

Are you sure you can't begin fort proper?

Generally when I have overly ambitious goals for fort design, and don't want to sour the environment with a temporary fort I'll dih down (with a general idea of what the fort will eventually look like) until I get to where I'm going to place my cellars, underground farms, sewers, ect...  Set up a 'temporary' fort in there, and by temporary I mean, carve it out for its future purpose, and just kind of have my dwarves slum in it until they carve out their gigantic movie-esque fort design above.

Cut the chute off from above, then dig upwards.  This allows your nicely designed areas to be near the entrance, and your shotty earlier temp designs to be converted into utilitarian catacomb-ish areas under your kitchens, leaving 0 foot print, and being thematically interesting.

[Wastedlabor]

I'm actually doing the same project, cutting a fort in a volcano hill (with a bit of help from DFHack's fastdwarf ), and I just dug the bottom fort level and use it as a reference template to dig the upper levels.

[Shininglight]

Yeah i was doing it without fastdwarf. I embarked on a new location this time, and dug about 6 z-levels, at LEAST 2000 spaces, down so now i have a flat space around a volcano with only a single entrance to where i'm digging my main fort, i'm in my second year and have about 38 dorfs, 3 kids were born last season before i saved to start planning the main fort. Anywho the temporary fort is dug into a hill right next to my main one, connected via bridge and i intend to use it as a self sufficient barracks for my military once i get it running. I'll put up pictures if anyone wants.

[Werdna]

I build similar forts into the sides of cliffs.  What I do is determine the 'face' of the real fort early on; its usually a sheer flat face.  Since the ground slopes outward as you go down in z-levels, there is typically a large area near the base that I plan to completely dig away.  I build the temp fort in this base.

Code: [Select]

------\           ------|\          ------|
       \                | \               |
        \     ==>  real |  \    ==>  real |
      tmp\         fort |tmp\        fort |
      fort\___          |fort\___         |_______

The only trouble is the micromanaging the removal of the temp fort.  I channel it away from the top one layer at a time, being careful about cave-ins since the area has been hollowed.

[mobucks]

Yeah, be careful. I channeled down an entire volcano side only losing one dwarf, but on the very last z- level, where Werdna's "temp fort" was, I lost 5-6 miners to cave ins.