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[jez9999]

I'm trying to figure out whether there's any benefit whatsoever to mining into the side of a hill when starting your fortress.  I can't see one.  If anything, digging stairs straight down will get you a "cleaner" entrance to your fortress as you won't have to rely on slopes around the entry way.  It will also let you choose an area of the map that is best, like maybe an area covered with lots of trees and grass.  Is there any benefit into mining into the side of a hill that I'm missing?

[Loud Whispers]

Defense. Much easier to guard, for depots and for staircases. Generally when one doesn't have a mountain to dig into, they either begin building a Fortress from the ground up, or dig down and then horizontally in one direction as if they were digging into a mountain.

[Drazinononda]

LW is correct, and I will expound:

Almost every defensive method that DF allows relies on having some horizontal space to work with. Walls and drawbridges, trap halls, ballista galleries, even rudimentary applications of other game principles such as digging moats or putting your barracks in the entry hall. The only defensive measures available on a staircase are hatches or a retracting bridge, neither of which does anything about the enemies other than keep them out. If your entrance is just a ramp or set of stairs dug down into the ground and you want to break a siege to get traders in again, your only option is brute dwarfpower, which can leave you at a significant disadvantage in the late game.

Any defense which gives the player a strategic advantage will require some horizontal planning, and many players consider it more traditionally dwarven to have a foyer jutting out of a hillside or cliff face than to have a building as a cap over a staircase in the plains, which may seem a more human-influenced approach.

[Starver]

(Not going to go into defence, given LW and Drazinononda's treatment.  For the record, I tend to build up (especially from a plain[2]) in order to create gantries from which I can fire down, but what has just been said is entirely a justifiable reason for going largely horizontal.)

I tend to aim straight down, these days, but I have done a lot of digging into hillsides, setting up a stockade around it[1], etc.  you can get (at least the first bit of) your fortress all visible on one level, for easy management.

A nice arable plain with a 'outcrop' of hills within which you can set your "doorway to the Dwarven Halls" is certainly a decent plan.  Expand downwards (and out underneath the plain, especially for subterranean soil) and even upwards (not breaking back out of the hillside, unless you're also planning watchtowers) to gain extra real-estate (e.g. expand out the initial bedroom area floor-plan into the additional dimension) and you can probably work on that sort of plan for the lifetime of your fort.

Going vertical from the start has the possible benefit of finding the deeper features sooner (and rooms stacked vertically have less travel-time between them than ones spread horizontally, no matter how large each room is), but those are the roundabouts to compare with the hill-door swings, really.

Ultimately, almost every fort becomes a hybrid of many different styles, anyway.


[1] Don't forget to make your stockade line the up-hill side, if you do this, and make sure no ramps remain that let anyone path onto the top of the walls from the outside.  It's annoying to be shot down upon by enemy archers, when you get this wrong.

[2] A large-looking aboveground structure belying the far larger subterranean complex.  Imagine the base in Battle Of The Planets, but in earth and stone instead of water...   The "Attol" is just a convenience.

[jez9999]

If your entrance is just a ramp or set of stairs dug down into the ground and you want to break a siege to get traders in again, your only option is brute dwarfpower, which can leave you at a significant disadvantage in the late game.

I'm obviously missing something here, but what are your other options if you're not underground?  You can shoot at them, but can't you lure them underground and shoot at them there too?

many players consider it more traditionally dwarven to have a foyer jutting out of a hillside or cliff face than to have a building as a cap over a staircase in the plains, which may seem a more human-influenced approach.

That was what I suspected the real reason for digging into a hillside was.    Purely aesthetic.

[Namfuak]

If your entrance is just a ramp or set of stairs dug down into the ground and you want to break a siege to get traders in again, your only option is brute dwarfpower, which can leave you at a significant disadvantage in the late game.

I'm obviously missing something here, but what are your other options if you're not underground?  You can shoot at them, but can't you lure them underground and shoot at them there too?

Yes, but it comes more naturally if you build into a hill.  I've made fortresses that were between the 3rd cavern level and magma sea, and just had a long ramp system for traders to come down, so it's certainly possible to just use an underground adaptation of many of the usual defense mechanisms.

many players consider it more traditionally dwarven to have a foyer jutting out of a hillside or cliff face than to have a building as a cap over a staircase in the plains, which may seem a more human-influenced approach.

That was what I suspected the real reason for digging into a hillside was.    Purely aesthetic.

Not entirely.  If you can get the entire hill in your embark area (or at least the top), you can cut off parts of it and make aboveground farms, pastures, and meeting halls much more easily.  If you do have control of the whole mountain, safely cutting wood and gathering plants by simply taking away all the lowest level upramps also applies here.

[vanatteveldt]

Well stopping ground movement of enemies is easy anyway, with a single trench with the slopes removed. a good miner should be able to cordon off most of the map in a couple months I think.

What I tend to do is dig straight downwards and then build a defensive structure around the staircase. I place the depot and military outside as well.

In any event, even if you dig straight down initially, you can always seal off that entrance and make a longer horizontal entrance later.

[assasin]

Not entirely.  If you can get the entire hill in your embark area (or at least the top), you can cut off parts of it and make aboveground farms, pastures, and meeting halls much more easily.  If you do have control of the whole mountain, safely cutting wood and gathering plants by simply taking away all the lowest level upramps also applies here.

There's also the problem of flying mobs, isn't there?

[Sir Crashalot]

It is a matter of preference really.

I prefer flat embarks and tunnel straight down where my workshops, storage and living quarters are. I then wall off a decently large area around the  underground entrance and roof it over which allows me to set up my barracks and guard posts around the wall entrance. I will also have the pasture areas, refuse tip, some farms and a statue based garden/meeting point contained inside the walls on the surface. This keeps Dwarves comming up onto the surface and prevents them from getting cave adaption so they will be comfortable both above and below ground. Even a very simple and small above ground fort can be defended just as easily if not better than a delved fortress provided it has a roof, mine are inpregnable with a T junction entrance with three draw bridges that can close and trap marauders inside the T where they will then be slaughtered at my leasure with no chance to escape.

The only downsides are the time and effort constructing the fort, building the walls and mostly roofing it over which can take thousands of lumps of stone, but I always get mine up and running before ambushes and sieges start arriving.

The upsides are preventing cave adaption, safe pastures and outside farming and the fact that you can keep expanding it if you wish to build turrets etc.

[Sir Crashalot]

Ups double post.

[Isngrim]

i dig down and build up.
my living quarters are underground (easier,quicker, and usually safer),i also dig out an underground courtyard with fortification and siege (anti-siege?) engines on one side,so flyers cant escape my catapults. i also build a walled off area above ground for grazing, farming and my first line of defense (barracks and training grounds), As well as sniper towers.

[AlwayzL3git]

I usually dig a large rectangle into the mountain, and wall it off. I then build a draw-bridge in the middle of the walls, for access. If I ever get sieged, I just close off the bridge. They will start running around killing off animals and such, while I prepare my soldiers to sally out of the gate. When they are all there and equipped, I open the gate, tell them to move outside, and then close it again. I then tell them to charge and destroy the siegers.
Well, this works for me because I use Candy Armor/Weapons, so it really is no big deal. And I use danger rooms... So all of the dwarfs rape everything really.

Good Luck to Ya Mate!--
AlwayzL3git

[Mura]

The reason I always dug into a hill was so I only had to build walls on three sides.

[Drazinononda]

The only downsides are the time and effort constructing the fort, building the walls and mostly roofing it over which can take thousands of lumps of stone

But think: if you dig into the mountain, the walls and roof are already built for you.

Personally, that's why I dig into mountains rather than build up. As the Overseer, I don't particularly care if the aesthetics of my fort are built in the light with marble blocks or dug out of the heart of the earth and smoothed over. What I do care about is the increased micromanagement of building scaffolding, churning out blocks, and tying up large numbers of dwarves, bins and pause time, all of which come with building large above-ground structures and not so much with below-ground. Simply because dig designations can be done in volume and without materials, it takes a small fraction of the time to designate and dig out an underground complex as it would to designate and build an identical complex on the surface.

[Sir Crashalot]

The only downsides are the time and effort constructing the fort, building the walls and mostly roofing it over which can take thousands of lumps of stone

But think: if you dig into the mountain, the walls and roof are already built for you.

Which is why I listed it as a downside compared to 100% delving.
As I said it is a matter of preference, my main works are underground but I like having an outside fortress protecting the entrance.
It makes the game more interesting and gives more options while also making my Dwarves more durable as they can work well both inside and outside. Of course if you just want to hide in a hole that is entirely up to you, just hope you never have to leave it because the outside roof just goes up and up and up.... why have you gone that funny green colour?