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[Loud Whispers]

The thing is, enemies will not normally jump in a moat unless there was a retracting bridge that was under them.

[Or if they got dragged down under by a swimming mount or dodged a strike or a bolt that knocked them into the moat]

Which in turn makes it a pit, not a moat.

A pit is a large hole in the ground, having a covering does not make the hole in a ground a pit. A moat is a ditch surrounding a Fortress or a castle, it need not even be filled with water (though it is often associated with it).

And enemies need to literally be hugging your fortification to shoot through it, if they are 1 Z level below and hugging the wall, they cannot shoot through it (the fortification 1 level above) as they are literally hugging the wall below.

Add a ditch or more walls and you can make sure they're never hugging the wall.

(I do notice my marksdwarves can't reach them either from behind the fortification if they're close enough but I have smaller towers that can cover those spots as well.
 the fortification design is like this:
   F d___ X     where the g is the goblin, W is wall, F is fortification and d is dwarf.
g W_____X

I prefer a more comprehensive defense.

Code: [Select]

........╫☺+
.g......╫☺+
▓▓.....╔══╗
At its weakest you'll get 1zlvl above ground level, an extensional +1 wall layer on ground level and a ditch, usually around 5zlvls wide with paved floor where possible to ensure clear shots.

Oh and ditches do also give a protection to raised bridges that walls cannot provide.

They all fit together rather nicely.

[Catsup]

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[quote author=Loud Whispers link=topic=125090.msg4177447#msg4177447 date=1366002898]
Or if they got dragged down under by a swimming mount or dodged a strike or a bolt that knocked them into the moat
[/quote]
mounts wont path into the moat though, because there is only wall on the other side, which they cannot path through

[quote author=Loud Whispers link=topic=125090.msg4177447#msg4177447 date=1366002898]
........╫☺+
.g......╫☺+
▓▓.....╔══╗
At its weakest you'll get 1zlvl above ground level, an extensional +1 wall layer on ground level and a ditch, usually around 5zlvls wide with paved floor where possible to ensure clear shots.

Oh and ditches do also give a protection to raised bridges that walls cannot provide.

They all fit together rather nicely.
[/quote]
this design maximizes offensive power, but does not work with my fort design because i need as much as level 1 as possible for above-ground farming (im too lazy to pump up water and make hydroponic towers). I also tend to relay only on marksdwarves as military, so the smaller towers that cover wall-huggers serve other important purposes as well, like cleaning up resurrected undead that refuse to move, goblins outside of the main bunker's range that refuse to move, and give me more map control in general.

[Loud Whispers]

Oh yeah. Moats tend to be more practical the bigger they get. And the more things they're protecting too!

[Tirion]

Just wait until next version when enemies learn to climb walls, you'll all use moats then

[Catsup]

Just wait until next version when enemies learn to climb walls, you'll all use moats then

i'd rather use safety ledges like in minecraft for spiders that can climb. Unless goblins can actually climb upside down against gravity...

im thinking of something way more interesting though, like a climbing-dodge trap of some sort that makes them jump off after they've climbed to the roof of your trap tower, this continues until their crippled enough that they cant climb up anymore.

[Loud Whispers]

Climbers are nothing marksdwarves can handle. At worse all you've got to do is make walls with inverted angles. Or moats. Moats are good.

[Starver]

Noting here that my own previous contribution is already equipped to deal with (overhang non-traversing) climbers, then, with that fortification.

      H_....
____   W___
####___####
###########


(Unless the qualities of the fortification allow easier hand-holds.)

[MadocComadrin]

but what purpose does a moat serve that a wall doesnt?

Place it in front of a wall to stop enemies from entering an elevated marksdwarf's blind spot.

[PDF urist master]

i recently had a siege and got one revelation: moats do not work on goblins with amphibious mounts. so i'm scrapping the whole project.

[CognitiveDissonance]

i recently had a siege and got one revelation: moats do not work on goblins with amphibious mounts. so i'm scrapping the whole project.

A moat needs at least a stockade (1 tile tall wooden wall) or proper fortifications (multi-Z walls with shooting holes, crossbow turrets and multiple sealing layers). Then, the swimming mounts simply separate themselves out for later processing.

Or you could make an underground entrance past the wall, so the non-amphibious riders drown

[Loud Whispers]

i recently had a siege and got one revelation: moats do not work on goblins with amphibious mounts. so i'm scrapping the whole project.

Make it 2zlvls deep. Fill up 1zlvl with 7~ of water.

You get all the benefits of a moat with the benefits of a ditch and the disadvantages of neither.

[☼!!Troll Fur Sock!!☼]

Moats are great and all, but what if you forgot to leave some z-levels undigged for them and you don't want to destroy your *noble rooms* to make them?
Bars. Bars, bars, and some more bars.

[Safe-Keeper]

I love moats. They take a very short time to dig and they don't require resources, so whenever I embark on a new fort, I make sure to build a channel if there's a bottleneck near my starting point . You can always follow this up by building a wall adjacent to the moat.

[Oaktree]

One of the first steps of any new fort for me is making a dry ditch perimeter (or de-ramping the edges of a hilltop if I am on that.)  Good security from non-flying wildlife and I get a defensive choke point where I bridge it (or leave it undug).  Once I get sufficient supply of excess blocks then the ditch gets an interior wall to prevent archers from firing across it and add additional fortifications for my marksdwarves to use in safety.

Never got into the habit of flooding or magma-tizing them.  Did the latter once and the thing is essentially a threat to any combat troops I deploy near it as well as to the goblins.

[joeclark77]

i need as much as level 1 as possible for above-ground farming (im too lazy to pump up water and make hydroponic towers).

I typically channel out the surface where I want my "above ground" farms and build them on the soil layer below.  That way you don't have to deal with any annoying boulders or pebbles making your farm an irregular shape.  And you can build a floor over them so that's your level 1.