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[Xazo-Tak]

Could this work, or would attackers automatically know the correct way to go?

[Max™]

It works great to slow them down but if there is a fast route they will tend to find it rather fast, it's what the pathing algorithm does.

[Xazo-Tak]

It works great to slow them down but if there is a fast route they will tend to find it rather fast, it's what the pathing algorithm does.

And I suppose that when a path is found, it's recorded for any future delvers.
Pressure plates scattered around the labyrinth that open and close doors should keep the path updating I suppose.

[NJW2000]

As would animals pastured at various points, lone dwarves and enemies, the odd FB...

You didn't just mean a big maze, did you?

[Max™]

That's basically the trick with a goblin-grinder. Get them to rush across traps towards an entrance which then triggers a hatch and stops them, they turn and try to go back, triggering those hatches and undoing the others, etc, etc, etc.

[Iamblichos]

Be warned, this approach will kill your FPS long before it kills your enemies.

[Bouchart]

Remember that wagons need a path of three tiles to the trade depot, without any doors, traps, or pressure plates as obstructions.  That will probably be the main stumbling block.

[g2knee]

Enemies will know how to get through the maze -- but you could chain animals at certain dead ends to draw them there before they continue.

But yeah, if your maze is too complex, it will slow down your computer way too much.  I have a very basic maze-type entrance to one of my forts, and my FPS is kill.

[AbanShakehandles]

Remember that wagons need a path of three tiles to the trade depot, without any doors, traps, or pressure plates as obstructions.  That will probably be the main stumbling block.

I tend to use a trade depot airlock. Once all the wagons are in, and the merchants are unloading the goods, I'll seal them in, and open the drawbridge that allows access to the fort.

[Pvt. Pirate]

in my last fortress, i tried a similiar approach:
a drawbridge shortcut that i close on enemy sight and only leaves a 1tile broad snaky path to the secondary entrance on the other end of the level going around my archer positions. on the end, there's another drawbridge, so i can switch them and the whole group runs back again past my archers.
the path is channeled and if the enemies should fall down, they have to walk to the main entrance and start over again.

[Zuglarkun]

To answer your question, yeah you want a pressure plate system to keep them stranded. Main purpose of the labyrinth is to slow them down and increase buffer time for military dwarves to respond, unless you want to work in some magma or water drowning device to kill off any invaders that get trapped inside.

I've got a design that might fit your requirements, but technically its not a Labyrinth, more like a very windy path giant dodge me trap.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

This is a fairly old design. Works perfectly fine for DF2012, but the changes to gait made it less secure due to jumping and climbing being added. The new design has a 2 tile wide space between all the floors, but also significantly increases the layout size. The entire thing is dug out of solid rock and smoothed, the winding path is suspended over a 10+ z-level drop. Basically a giant dodge me trap. Anything that drops down is stunned or crippled, but not dead. I just send my melee dwarves to mop up the survivors who fell off.

I fit a line of 9x3 bridges in the center for wagon access and just normal pathing, wouldn't want FPS problems all the time. I make sure to increase the pathing costs to 100 for the winding 1 tile side routes to prevent citizens from choosing that route normally. Then in times of siege, I get everyone inside and flip the switch, which pulls back the retracting bridges, forcing gobbos to take the long way round.



This is the z-level above, which is converted to a live archery training ground. Once sufficient gobbos get stranded inside, I pull another lever which seals them inside the windy path, and restores some of the fps lost by pathing calculations. Then I send in the crossbow dwarves to cleanup, as you can tell from all the blood stains.

[Psieye]

Main purpose of the labyrinth is to slow them down and increase buffer time for military dwarves to respond

If that's all it's intended to achieve, there's no need to make it a maze at all. I once had a fort where the entrance was at z-120 - just the sheer time to get down there was enough of a buffer.

[Quietust]

To clearly answer the original question: all creatures, whether citizens, invaders, or wild animals, automatically know how to traverse any sort of maze by virtue of the game's pathfinding logic - if any path exists from point A to point B, the game is guaranteed to find the shortest path every time, though at the expense of slowing down the game (because they need to recalculate that path every single time).

[Pvt. Pirate]

okay, so the entrance level is almost done and yes, it'snot a labyrinth, but a snaky path leading through two embarktiles, which is half of my total 2x2 embarksite.
inbetween there are 3 archer positions, which are accessable from 3 levels below, where the barracks will be built.
too bad, i had some problems and the level design is two blocks off to the north and one of the archer positions is 1 block off to the east, but as my dorfs had much FUN channeling this path (sleeping at the construction site, as the way to the dormitory would have taken several days), i believe the enemy will have as much FUN.
i'll still have to find out how to automate that design with pressureplates to have the left entrance long way open until they almost reach the end and have it connected to the right entrance to open again.
a screenshot will follow soon