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[Core Xii]

Since I tried out DF I've been kindof working on tweaking a certain design style into a "perfect" form. This can be either good or bad. So I'd like some comments on my latest and probably last revision (unless, of course, there will be an unforseen incident that forces me to yet again plan more).

See, sticking to the same thing means that a) either it's a good thing since it improves all the time, but b) it might be bad if I'm doing something wrong!

    :p

Some stuff might need some explaining. The light blue are empty channels, light red fortifications, light green stockpiles and yellow rooms. The rest is fairly self-explanatory. Well, the oranges are siege engines.

I realized I forgot to place down a control room. Also the "apartments" can be improved a bit by placing horizontal doors.

I haven't tried yet but I figured and assumed that you can burn refuse with magma, hence the incinerator. The wiki said only iron/steel objects don't melt.

The blueprint is vertically symmetrical as far as corridors and such go, so the top half shows the drawbridges in up form and the bottom the down form. By flipping a lever I can turn my 5-wide hallways into chokepoints for ballista-food. (except that drawbridge below the siege workshop, it's down. I needed to split the top-part bridge because of the siege workshop)

I haven't actually decided if I want to get rid of the chasm yet... I hear it's a good source of bone and since marksdwarves don't train on anything else than wood and bone bolts, I might need that. So, I included some features for both cases.

I think the biggest problem will be actually fitting this between the chasm and magma flow. From my experience, it's a rather tight fit and might call for compromises.

[ April 05, 2007: Message edited by: Core Xii ]

Edit: Just realized I can squeeze off 1 tile from the bottom part's width by trunctuating the dining hall's width by one. Of course, the fortress is full of possibilities like this for the unfortunate case where it won't fit between the mountain features, but generally I like to keep things "looking good". A room filled with nothing but beds isn't a very nice-looking barracks (simply had to compromise with the apartments 'cause the "tower" would otherwise span way off North).

[ April 05, 2007: Message edited by: Core Xii ]

Come to think of it, I'll just do the apartment doors horizontally and shift the whole thing down 2 tiles for more compact-ness.

[ April 05, 2007: Message edited by: Core Xii ]

[Combatjuan]

It's a pretty looking fortress.  What tool did you use to draw the picture?

One concern that I have is that there is no buffer for noise between the workshops and the quarters, especially the noble quarters.  I'm not sure to what extent this angers dwarves, but being a picky sleeper myself, I'm especially careful to keep work done 16 squares away from my sleeping quarters.

The other concern would perhaps be traffic.  It looks like you're planning on keeping your population pretty low, but nevertheless, it may be a good idea to consider having some wider hallways.  I always figured that the difference between 1 width hallways and 2 width is rather phenomal in terms of movement efficiency.

-Charles

[Combatjuan]

Regarding the hallways:
I misunderstood how your bridge system was working.  That is rather clever.  You should have plenty of hallway for a low population fortress.

[Core Xii]

I drew it with Flash.

I built this fortress just now today, and found out that you can't aqueduct channels over each other. So back to the original revision where water and magma channels are on the opposite sides of the fortress.

I've never really considered noise much... 16 squares is an awful lot of space to manage to cram between workshops and quarters, space is already sparse as it is. At least I haven't noticed any major effect to the work force. But I haven't even seen a noble yet so I wouldn't know about them.

It's a low-population fortress, yes, the version I built today (there were some extra space around so I expanded stockpiles and few other facilities wider, including apartments) was designed for precisely 67 dwarfs - A workforce of 45 (apts. turned out 5 x 9) plus a 22-dwarf military, with ability to push up to 44 if neccessary - Total of 89 plus nobles tops.

I figured the forward fort was a bit inefficent, removed the top half entirely and extended the bottom curve way down.

Otherwise, everything seemed to be working pretty smoothly. Being so deep in the cave, the massive group of carpenters that migrated was a big help for supplying a steady stream of wood. Managed to get 2 legendary dwarfs too, the other starting miner and a smith that went fey.

I actually started this fortress concept for the new Z stuff, with the idea of having a main "street" run through all the facilities like there is now, have the floor rise and turn it into a 1-tile-wide deathmarch with magma moats on both sides, ballista on the fire line and archers shooting down from fortifications on the level above. For now, gotta settle with 2D  :roll:

However, perfectionist as I am, I kind of broke the whole thing with the channel/aqueduct thing. Moreover, I'd like to see a siege, so I'm considering a bit more hostile climates... the worst I got were foxes, deer and an odd ratman ambush. It's rather boring. Could someone tell me a bit more about sieges in practise? When can I expect a first siege?

Another thing, I read that if a war dog is restrained, none of them breed - But war dogs and regular dogs are two different things, right? So if a war dog is restrained, normal dogs still breed?

[Mzbundifund]

My war dogs breed like mad, and about half of them are chained.  I don't have any normal dogs.  Maybe it's only chained dogs that don't breed?

Are you planning on trapping the magma vent or relying on the ballista?

[schnobs]

Ah, an engineer. That's not my way though: although I start with a general plan in mind, I will willingly adapt it depending on what I find in the mountain. Symmetry is irrelevant.

So there's not much advice I can offer; if you want to force the mountain into the shape you imgaing, that's your thing.

However, I suggest that you have the forges and  glass furnace in the middle, and the smelters & kiln at the flanks. That's because evil magma monsters will hurl their firebolts at the closest target; I can easily part with a furnace op, but skilled smiths are hard to come by.

[prklts]

I'd be interested to learn more about the ballista trap.

I'm fascinated by the design, but in my n00bness it is harder for me to appreciate everything. I've never even reached magma yet. I only recently started making progress on farming... it's a tough game!

Thanks!

Tim

[LordBucket]

Wow...you've actuallly gone and identified where the impassable squares for each type of workship are?

Ok...just some thoughts. Granted, I don't tend to like central-hallway designs much, so feel free to take any of this with a grain of salt. Just my thoughts:

1) You'll be extremely limited in the number of dwarves you can accomodate. You're obviously going to be setting an artificial cap, and relying heavily on the barracks...but how many dwarves are you limiting yourself to?

2) Wouldn't it make more sense to reverse the position of the statue garden and the dining room? That way, every time any dwarf goes to eat, they'll get happy thoughts from walking through the statue garden.

3) No meeting hall?

4) Food and drink storage doesn't look large enough to me Again, how many dwarves are you supporting?

5) The river/channel/magma is very rarely uniformly vertical. Remember how often there are branches that cut randomly in, twenty or space space horizontally. It would be a shame to design everything preceisely and end up with a map that doesn't allow for it. It might be safer to allow left-and-right buffer space in your designs.

6) You might reverse the positions of your food and drink storage rooms. Dwarves that walk on food stockpiles 'damage' the food they walk on, slightly. They also drink a lot more than they eat. The current arrangement will have a lot of dwarves walking on a lot of food.

7) In general it feels like there isn't enough storage space.

Could you explain what you're doing with the nobles rooms? I'm not sure I understand.

9) Where is your stonecrafter getting his stone from?

10) No defenses on the magma side?

[Core Xii]

@ Mzbundifund : Perhaps the dog thing was fixed in an update already. My plan is to rain death with the ballista, but if all else fails, I can go to plan B and open the floodgates. Which in fact doesn't work with this blueprint, the safety channel will block the magma at the ballista. Need to fix that.

@ schnobs: Though I've designed this in advance I always adapt to the surroundings, my design is pretty flexible. Sometimes there's just not enough space around, sometimes there's way more than I could ask for. I basically "stretch" the plan to fit the space between chasm and magma flow. And thanks for the tip, I'll keep that in mind.

@ prklts: Well what do you wanna know? I just started DF a few days ago myself and it's been a rocky road - I'll be glad to answer any questions you may have  

I'll be sure to record a movie of my first siege so you can see it in action.

@ LordBucket:

Praise the wiki. I had to identify them to lay out the doorways.

1) FYI, I haven't limited anything. It's much more flexible than you might imagine - All facilities are completely expandable in the vertical direction, only limited by map height. Often I find myself expanding the furniture storage as it tends to clutter up with doors I've yet to place. The initial barracks is 22 beds, and at about 1.5 times that many dwarfs I begin construction of the apartments and leave the barracks for military. It's also infinitely expandable downwards.

2) Good point, though when I built this thing I ended up with so much space I just made it a separate room, with a small control room below.

3) Could someone teach me how to make a damn meeting hall? I tried to make a meeting hall from a table in a room but didn't see that option. I can't seem to get a meeting hall unless it's also a dining room!

4) It always depends slightly on how the apts. lay out, last one was 67. I may redesign the farm area for better flexibility like the rest of the fortress if you think that's going to be a problem?

5) I did. You think I didn't accommodate for that? The facilities in the corners are ones that generally require less expansion, and I "shift" and "stretch" the entire floor plan to fill the space between the mountain features.

6) Are you serious? I wouldn't have imagined that, the food is, after all, stored in barrels! The two stores are positioned as they are because dwarfs that eat grab food and go to the dining hall, but dwarfs that drink just drink straight from the barrel.

7) I know it looks like that. But storage rooms usually end up 6 wide and they are expandable vertically where neccessary.

I don't have a clue lol. I haven't got a single noble yet, so I wouldn't know. I thought I'd make each noble 3 rooms for dining, office and bedroom, with statues in the corners and whatnot.

9) I used to have a stone stockpile between the two columns of workshops just like the rest, but it ended up always suspending all my constructions and tasking excessive hauling tasks, so I'm just having my crafters find their own stones. Besides, I'm not relying that heavily on exports anyway. I might put that back there, but only use it once the entire fortress has been built.

10) No defenses? Those drawbridges in the main hallway rise to form a 1-tile wide chokepoint for the ballista. The hallway ballista is meant to fire to the right, not defend the chasm bridge (which I will rise if the fort fails for any reason to protect the civilians).

I'm fixing up the refuse storage a bit... the incinerator is pointless, and there needs to be two separate rooms, one for anything that smells and one for bones only. Dwarfs seem to love taking shortcuts through the current refuse dump all the time >_>

I'm seriously annoyed by having to place magma furnaces directly on the flow. Why, oh why can't we use channels? I'd move the fortress between the river and chasm to save mining space.

If you care, here's a picture of the fortress at the state it was when I quit.

[ April 06, 2007: Message edited by: Core Xii ]

[LordBucket]

quote:picture of the fortress

  Interesting arrangement for your personell quarters. I might have to experiment with that. Your dwarves aren't annoyed by having people constantly walk through their bedrooms while they sleep?

 

quote:Praise the wiki. I had to identify them to lay out the doorways.

  Yes...I like to put workshops in rooms like that, too, but often neglect to check.

 

quote:I haven't limited anything
All facilities are completely expandable in the vertical direction

  I can see that for some, like wood and furniture storage, but your aquaducts cut off progress for everything on the southern half. Also, I would think that since everything in centrally connected to your main hall like ribs to a backbone, you might tend to have traffic issues. For example, there's only one  tiny way into your barracks...and all of your sleeping quarters (for 40-60 dwarves?) share the same two, tiny hallways. Has that worked for you? I've never tried anything that compact.

 

quote:how to make a damn meeting hall?
I can't seem to get a meeting hall unless it's also a dining room!

  Yes. Meeting halls are a designation for Dining halls. 'q' on a table, 'r' to make it a Dining Hall, and then 'h' to toggle whether the Dining hall will be used for meetings or not. So...basically, you end up build two Dining Halls. I think they can be shared, but doing so detracts from room quality. If you're desparate, a well can be used instead, but I'm always loathe to build permanent channels in hallways.

quote:facilities in the corners are ones that generally require less expansion, and I "shift" and "stretch"

Actually, looking at your most recent map, I'm amazed at how nicely it did fit. Other than the slight shrinkage of the northn tip of your bedrooms, everything fits like a glove.

 

quote:I wouldn't have imagined that, the food is, after all, stored in barrels!

That's what I've read, at least. I've never actually tested to confirm it.

 

quote:I thought I'd make each noble 3 rooms for dining, office and bedroom, with statues in the corners and whatnot.

I'm particularly fond of this design:

code:

######
#tdaw#
###.bd
#cdfh#
######
d = door
c = chair
t = table
f = cabinet
h = chest
a = armor display
w = weapon rack

It's compact, reasonably aesthetic, and nicely groups together everything basic nobles need to be happy. Note that this design does not allow for statues, though. Statues need empty space next to them to be effective. They shouldn't be necessary for your first several nobles, though. Just smooth and engrave the rooms, and that will be plenty.

 

quote:drawbridges in the main hallway rise to form a 1-tile wide chokepoint for the ballista.

Ok...but what's to stop magma creatures intent on eating the nearest dwarf, from taking an immediate turn into your living or food production areas? I would think those would be absolutely the last places you'd want an invader, and I don't see much to stop it.

[ April 06, 2007: Message edited by: LordBucket ]

[Core Xii]

quote:Your dwarves aren't annoyed by having people constantly walk through their bedrooms while they sleep?

Wiki says no.

quote:but your aquaducts cut off progress for everything on the southern half

You mean channels, and that's what bridges are for  

quote:Also, I would think that since everything in centrally connected to your main hall like ribs to a backbone, you might tend to have traffic issues. For example, there's only one tiny way into your barracks...and all of your sleeping quarters (for 40-60 dwarves?) share the same two, tiny hallways. Has that worked for you? I've never tried anything that compact.

I don't know if it works, I've never completed the apts. fully and have dwarfs sleep in them. But, how often do dwarfs sleep anyway? On top of that, each group of migrants arrives at a different time, so the total population's sleep cycle is deviated nicely. I would assume it's very rare to see a 100 dwarfs all rush to sleep at once!

quote:Meeting halls are a designation for Dining halls.

But the wiki says a noble will be embarrassed if he has to hold a meeting in a meeting hall that is also a dining room - Would be quite illogical if there wouldn't be any way to make a meeting hall without it being a dining room at the same time, no?

quote:Statues need empty space next to them to be effective. They shouldn't be necessary for your first several nobles, though. Just smooth and engrave the rooms, and that will be plenty.

Aight, won't waste space for that quite yet then.

quote:Ok...but what's to stop magma creatures intent on eating the nearest dwarf, from taking an immediate turn into your living or food production areas? I would think those would be absolutely the last places you'd want an invader, and I don't see much to stop it.

That orange 3 by 3 area there which represents the ballista. You may notice that should any enemy from the East manage to get past the ballista, he'll end up right next to the barracks and far away from food and apartments. I intend to restrain a watch dog at the magma flow so I won't get nasty surprises where I won't have the time to draw the bridges.

I'm rebuilding the fortress, I'm taking noise into consideration now... for nobles. I moved the siege workshop to the bottom right and replaced it with some more bedrooms. I also planned the population ahead now, how many dwarfs do which job and so on. This time the cap is 96.

[TotalPigeon]

You might want to change your bridge over the river too. While a safety bridge to the south is a good thing, its not nearly as effective as adding a raising bridge to the south like this:

++++++++++
++++++++++   -  main bridge
++++++++++
==========    - bridge raises north

Dwarves are just washed against the raised bridge when the river floods, they can't fall past it.
If you build you bridges carefully, you can also block any access to the river and river creatures won't attack you.

///////~~~~~~~~~/////
.....=============...
.....+++++++++++++...
.....+++++++++++++...
.....+++++++++++++...
.....=============...
///////~~~~~~~~~/////

/ - rock
~ - water
. - floor
+ - lowered bridge
= - raised bridge

This works with the chasm too, if you want a secure crossing point for your dwarves.

Another thing that you might like to know for the ballista trap - the better quality the components are that the ballista is made of, the more accurate the shot. If you ballista is made of bog standard quality, your shot won't travel in a straight line, so you'll probably miss the line the enemy siegers will walk down.

[ April 15, 2007: Message edited by: TotalPigeon ]