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[Bearskie]

Pretty much what the title says.  It could be the most elaborate, or the most twisted, or your proudest of creations - we want to hear them all.  Would be interesting to see the very dwarfy lengths that some of us go to . 

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To start things off, I made a pulping-birds-out-of-the-sky-device.  Tracks of impulse-powered minecarts stacked till the top z-level, all zooming around with terminal velocity until some unfortunate birdy flies across and then thwack.  Pulpy goodness. 

[Psieye]

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=85662.msg2311291#msg2311291

[Loud Whispers]

A self-supporting crystal dome built using a wall deconstruction exploit, carved out underground and flooded with river water and live fish - to give my Dwarves a legendary dining experience.

[vjmdhzgr]

One time I dug out a 100x100 artificial cavern underneath my fortress to put all my captured goblins, elves, and horses in. It was only across one z-level, but I did leave spaces open, and even put some fake ruins in too. I initially called it goblin caverns, but after I put the elves and horses in, the horses kept having children, to the point where it ended up being more fitting to call it horse caverns. I think I remember all the inhabitants trying to kill any horse babies as soon as they were born, probably due to some weird site membership stuff, but somehow enough survived to overpopulate the caverns.
 Strangely I remember the elves and goblins having children too, despite singers supposedly being unable to have children. Might have been due to a bug where I was eternally considered under siege, and so never got caravans and had to force the sieges with dfhack. Anyway, I guess it's not actually that complex, but it's the closest thing to a megaproject I've done, and I thought it was quite fun.

[Space Wizard]

Definitely was when I killed a goblin that was standing in a tree and perpetuating a siege early on in playing Dwarves.

Story from the thread I initially posted it in:

"This was maybe my third or fourth siege ever, I had a twisty entrance into my dirt-hole of a fortress riddled with way more cage traps than necessary, and during a siege as usual goblins started getting caught. There's a bug where since an attacking group follows a leader during a siege, they path based off of the leader's pathing, and if you kill/cage the leader, the rest of the group will just sort of stand around. Well, I ran into this bug here, and there were about three goblins keeping me under siege, which was bad news because I was completely dependent on trade. I hadn't gotten into building military at the time, and didn't really have a good solid way of dealing with these goblins. I decided to try digging underneath them individually, and then I was going to dig a staircase down into a passageway where they would hopefully chase my dwarf and end up running into a line of cage traps. Unfortunately, a miner was brutally killed through my inexperience during this, and two of the three goblins left the map, bloodthirst quenched or something. The third disappeared from view, but I was still under siege, so I z'd him from the unit list and he was in a tree. I didn't really know how to handle things other than dropping them in holes at the time, so I designated a five or six tile wide channel to be dug around the tree with a single tile wide bridge going up to it on the opposite side of the tree that the goblin was standing in. There was no aggression from the goblin during this time, and my dwarves were not frightened, perhaps they cannot detect each other when tree branches are involved? I dug the channel fairly deep, maybe ten or fifteen z levels, and designated the tree to be cut down. The goblin fell down the pit with a bunch of logs, and to my surprise at the time survived the impact, with many injuries. Still being under siege and feeling pressure due to the upcoming potentiality of getting fruit from the elves which was very, very important to me at the time, I dug a channel from the stream to the pit the goblin was sitting in, ending the siege."

[Albedo]

In an earlier version I had a wonderful embark over a volcano, big ground-level magma lake. But the site was infested with harpies - they just loved to spawn, and often waited far above archery range if the fortress was turtled up.  Bad for the caravan business.

So I cast a massive aerial archery platform in obsidian, complete with suspended firing turrets, in the shape of an 8-legged spider, with interior access to the upper levels up thru the legs. Cast, so it could all be engraved, inside and out, and the fortifications could be carved. Had an archer's barracks, its own booze/food stockpiles, all hauled up (long before minecarts).

Had to form a "mold" for each level, pour magma, then water on each level, construct the next mold level (which was often a different shape as the "spider" progressed up) and de-construct it all back down again as it was engraved. Built a tall(!) pair of water/magma pumps and just let it fall onto each new level as it rose up. Built a catch-floor over the magma pool to gather the waste obsidian as it was carved away (and for dwarven safety, I guess).

Took forever. But the first harpy shot at altitude was totally worth it.

[Alfrodo]

I built a giant rainbow octagon tower on a lake, then a replica of the ragged flagon beneath it.

I am not as impressive as the others.

[StagnantSoul]

The most elaborate thing I've ever made would have to be a fort-shifting device. It basically cut off one half of my fort in a pull, released tons of animals (including giant badgers) in the half that was cut off, locked up the half that was opened up, and shut off all usual defenses on the original half. This was used to bring invaders into a massive snake-badger-big cat filled death zone, which actually worked pretty well. It also had a failed attempt at throwing the food from the old fort into the new one with bridge-apults. Instead, it scattered it around the map.

That, or the rather interesting metropolis I made above ground. It was made from limestone, and had everything a large fort would need in fifty eight buildings. Each building was at least 25x30, that was the usual size, and also had a small keep for the nobles to live in and had a lot of patrols around the map. The fort had a full-fort militia, with every single dwarf except miners and one wood cutter drafted into the military. There was a 4 z-level wall with several 7 z-level archer towers placed around it, with a big fancy gate with a lineup of gold statues leading up to it. This was on an 8x8 map in 34.11, and took me two weeks irl to finish. It was a perfect set up, but eventually fell to a hydra attack when the guy who was supposed to pull the level got a strange mood once he was a few tiles from the lever, and the hydra was a few tiles from the gate.

[Dunamisdeos]

A fortress wide water system, fed by an aquifer and driven by constant water pressure. Each section of pipes was able to be sealed off at each intersection (including the aquifer that provided water pressure to the whole system). It could be isolated both from the pipe system and the aquifer independently.

Each section of pipe could also be fully drained directly into the caverns at need. They each had foot access that was safety sealed at the drain, the point of exit into the caverns, and the foot access point to prevent flooding.

The functional levels of the fort was 4 z levels and at least 150z wide and/or tall on each z. The water system reached all of it. It was completely sealed to cavern and surface life.

[NW_Kohaku]

I once had a very odd "stalagmite" of mountain in 40d.  It was an extreme cliff and part of a mountain range, but only "connected" by a diagonal to the rest of the mountain biome near the base, which left it like a natural rock tower above an almost pancake-flat savanna. 

I found it rather odd and noteworthy and interesting, so I decided to build my entire living quarters into it.  It was very narrow at the top, where I built the mayor's suite one floor per room, with a glass balcony near the top, but lower down, I was finding clever ways to carve up an irregular shape to fit my rooms in.  It had two peaks, with one lower than the other, and slightly Southwest of the taller peak, so it was a challenge fitting everything into the natural stonescape. 

The end result was a strange, organic-looking set of blob-shaped rooms trying to fit into the living andesite with fortifications and windows peeking through some of the floors (for nobles).

Maybe not all that "hard", but it was noteworthy, and I always remember that.  In terms of hardness, I've made water reactors and cart machines and a flooding device, but other people have done those.  This one felt unique, so it's my favorite.

[VerdantSF]

Not so elaborate compared to others, but definitely elaborate for me was a network of underground trade tunnels to help caravans (and migrants) reach safely quickly.

[Bearskie]

Can safely say that all the stories so far have been good reads. Dont need to worry, keep up the great stories fellow Urists

[TheFlame52]

A 170z magma pump stack to fill my moat with magma.

[Magnumcannon]

 A 5x5 two-stories tower

 I thought it was pretty nice

[TheFlame52]

A 15-z 11x11 tower made entirely of gneiss blocks. It houses my trained roc and giant sparrow hatchery. I call it the Eyrie.