Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[RogerN]

I think I may adopt a new Dwarf Fortress mantra: "No defense plan survives collision with reality."

The first time the goblins attacked my fort, I thought I was pretty well prepared.    I could raise the drawbridge for our main entrance, forcing the goblins to attack through a large gauntlet of traps and siege engines.  All of my dwarves were ordered to stay indoors, so as to not interfere with military actions.

Hah!

Dwarves, when ordered to stay inside, are apparently similar to little children: they like to get as close as they can to breaking the rules without actually going outside.  So these stupid dwarves are crowding up in the exact worst spot imaginable - right between my military and the goblin invasion force, which is now about to come through the back door.

Fortunately, I someone managed to avoid a complete disaster.  There were only 8 friendly casualties or so (minus the entire dwarven caravan which happened to be outside).

When the battle was over, I decided that I really need to revise this plan!  I can't have all the civilians getting in the way like that again.  So how to keep them from going so close to the back door?

Easy!  I'll dig a skylight, so that part of the tunnel leading to the back door is considered "outside", and the civilians won't be allowed to use it!  Sure enough, the next time the goblins attacked (with 64 invaders, no less!), my civilians stopped at the skylight, leaving the rest of the tunnel free for military action.

"What the...?!"  I saw civilians begin to drop like flies, in a huge pool of blood and guts beneath the skylight.

Crap.  Goblins can shoot down through skylights  

[Baughn]

Hm. Maybe if you build a wall around the skylight..?

[Jusal]

If you want to be sure you could always put all the civilians in one big squad and  station them somewhere safe. It's a lot of work having to do that every time though.

[The Cube]

If you build a floor over it, it should still count as outside, but I suppose that would be taking advantage of a glitch.

[Leerok the Lacerta]

http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-1937-finderinked

Try constructing a small, outdoor gate area just outside the entrance. That should prevent your dwarves from getting themselves killed.

I keep them inside a glass tower so they're quite safe during invasions.

[dreiche2]

quote:Originally posted by The Cube:
<STRONG>If you build a floor over it, it should still count as outside, but I suppose that would be taking advantage of a glitch.</STRONG>

This does indeed work. Note that this also means that there is no way to make outside inside again. As I can tell from my own experience, accidentally created outside-spots in your fortress can be pretty annoying because they constantly generate job cancellations when the outside is forbidden. I had to wall the area off...

[numerobis]

I've had dwarves just walk right through the skylight (one goblin siege I lost exactly two dwarves: the legendary miner, and the legendary weaver -- they walked through the skylight, through the curvy trapped hallway, and on to the goblin army).  I'm in the midst of building a pressure plate linked to a bridge that is also linked to a lever.  So, when a dwarf runs across the plate, the bridge will make it impossible to go visit the death trap.  Then, when the dwarf has gone back, I can lever the bridge back into position.

Of course, I'm making sure that there's no line of sight from the one side of the bridge to the other, or I fully expect my dwarves to sit there like dopes wondering how to get to the side with the dozen happy-looking humanoids.  You know, to help build interracial connections.

[Foxy111]

The only way I've found to avoid civilian dwarves accidentally running into siege parties is to draft the civilians and station them somewhere nice and safe. Generates a few unhappy thoughts, of course...

[Quift]

quote:Originally posted by RogerN:
<STRONG>I think I may adopt a new Dwarf Fortress mantra: "No defense plan survives collision with reality."

The first time the goblins attacked my fort, I thought I was pretty well prepared.    I could raise the drawbridge for our main entrance, forcing the goblins to attack through a large gauntlet of traps and siege engines.  All of my dwarves were ordered to stay indoors, so as to not interfere with military actions.

Hah!

Dwarves, when ordered to stay inside, are apparently similar to little children: they like to get as close as they can to breaking the rules without actually going outside.  So these stupid dwarves are crowding up in the exact worst spot imaginable - right between my military and the goblin invasion force, which is now about to come through the back door.

Fortunately, I someone managed to avoid a complete disaster.  There were only 8 friendly casualties or so (minus the entire dwarven caravan which happened to be outside).

When the battle was over, I decided that I really need to revise this plan!  I can't have all the civilians getting in the way like that again.  So how to keep them from going so close to the back door?

Easy!  I'll dig a skylight, so that part of the tunnel leading to the back door is considered "outside", and the civilians won't be allowed to use it!  Sure enough, the next time the goblins attacked (with 64 invaders, no less!), my civilians stopped at the skylight, leaving the rest of the tunnel free for military action.

"What the...?!"  I saw civilians begin to drop like flies, in a huge pool of blood and guts beneath the skylight.

Crap.  Goblins can shoot down through skylights   </STRONG>

Time for some shameless bragging on my part then. just recently uploaded my fortress Tradesoared on the map archive, sp you couold check my solution out there. Basicly I have a walled, medieval style courtyard outside the entrence to my fortress. meaning that when I say that all civvies shoudl go inside they leave all fortifications manned by military solely. when they are all inside the courtyard I then pull the lever that drops down the steel grates making impossible for the dwarfes to leaver, and after that I can change the commands so that dwarfes are allowed outside if I need them to haul drinks, food and ammo to the military. Only problem with this approach is that the gobbis stop the invasion the second I pull the lever since their pathfinding causes them to stop in their tracks. a locked door is enough to keep them out and the dwarfes safe. (I also have a bridged moat with spikes in the bottom but that really just for the really big mosnters, and in case all of my 5 adamantine clad champions dies somwhow.

but ayway, outside fortifications works really well. and traps are cheese...

[Linthar]

I just had my first siege and my defense plan failed for a far stupider reason. I thought that I had all my exits covered ordered my dwarfs inside, and then while I watched by dwarfs run away, I noticed something. Due to my construction outside the goblins could walk across the top of some walls, down a staircase into my fort. Of course I just had to compound the error. First I canceled the stay inside order to try to quickly dismantle the walls. Not only did I not have enough time, half my population started rushing out towards their deaths. So I drafted them, and then in an third idiot moment, I stationed them in a position just right to be turned into pincushions. The only reason it didn't turn into a total disaster was that it was the first siege and there was only a single squad of goblins attacking. I never even got a chance to test the highly experimental deathtrap I created, which probably which given my past successes probably is going to let the goblins waltz straight into my fort unharmed.