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[deepspaceprobe9]

Ok, so for RP reasons, all of my fortresses have an above ground portion, which consists of a "castle" (which is really basically a multi-story square room) surrounded by a wall, which in itself is surrounded by a moat. There is enough space between the castle and the wall to allow for farming of above ground crops. I'm aware that this might not be the most effective design.

The thing is, I'm curious about what other members of the DF community have/can come up with, along some constraints. These are:

The castle must

• Be above ground
• Be easily defensible
• Have space for some agriculture (at least 50 square tiles)

Optional stuff (no bonus points unless specified otherwise)

• Moat
• Production areas (butcher/tanner shops, etc.)

I guess, over the course of writing this, it went from curiosity to a design... I was going to say competition, but it's more of a comparison. Here's mine:


Oh.
How embarrassing.
It appears I've deleted the save files with the design I use described above. Oh well, this picture gets some of the idea across, though it doesn't meet the constraints. So, how about you guys?

[Dunamisdeos]

Blazecooks is 100% above-ground, except for mines.

It will soon feature a combination castle-fort/royal palace. I'll post the results eventually.

[jfsh]

Many years ago, I made a rather very insane defensive fort/castle called Rimslaughters:

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=66201.msg1570071#msg1570071

Check it out.

[Starver]

I have tended to go for a moat/wall/entryway sequence, for quite a while now, sometimes to extremes (edge-hugging moat with wall just one or two tiles inwards of the most edgeworth construtable tile, so that overhangs can still be made above that, even before wall-climbing became 'a thing') and sometimes with provision for through-routes (four compounds in a square, roads, or a sequence of retractable bridges across dug chasms, letting wildlife path across the map between them).

I'll add drawbridges at distinct points as either main enteances or sally-ports often feature and (if I don't aim to control most of the map anyway) subterraneanously-connected sniper-towers at the corners and centre-edge positions that might themselves have sally-ports that I can open for migrants to quickly ingress or my own forces/workers to exit far from any other excitement on the map.

My 'outside' fields, I tend to make 'sunken' (easier to roof over with floor, access from Z-1 tunnels and a guaranteed boulder-free soil, so long as it is soil, and not rock) whetherb within or without the curtain-wall. Since the dawn of seriously hostile fliers, I've also striven to roof over the entire space within the curtain-wall (a floor-based gantry/grid, delineating the largest retracting bridges that I can array across the top).

A lot of the details depends on the terrain (flat vs rolling vs canyonesque, though I don't see so many canyons these days; river or bodies of water present; the preponderance or otherwise of trees... many variables) and whether I think I can take my time over some of the civil engineering or not.

I have yet to get into Taverns/etc, for visitors to... visit.  But I suspect I would integrate them into the design much as with the Trade Depot, with security measures often betwixt them and the innards and at least two, independently securable, routes to the resources from the brutish world beyond.

(Underground is far more formulaic. But as long as I avoid future moat-deepening expansions, made easier with Marked Digging Designations, I make that a mostly self-contained environment for which the outside is just a megaproject-sized necessary distraction whilst still not complete or needing to be used for resource gathering and trading.)

[RocheLimit]

[Removed]

Lately (hah!) I have been favoring a different design.  In the circular towers before, I would have a 'tunnel' spanning the width of the walls leading to the trade depot.  I took that covered 'tunnel' and just started creating keeps out of it.  This one started as a small tower with hatch-covered up stairs leading into it and down stairs leading into the fort.  The trade depot was the encircled, a roof added on the 3rd z level, and a guard house built over the opening with tame animals on the lookout for weres.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Removed]

Many years ago, I made a rather very insane defensive fort/castle called Rimslaughters:

I actually just found my way to it a few days ago.  That is one amazing fort, about the same level (for different reasons) as Flarechannel and Undergrotto.

*edit: I seemed to have missed the requirements when reading the post.  I left in the base fort design that somewhat fits the bill.  It is easily defensible in the guard animals detect any incoming were, the hatches can be sealed against any surface threat (including titans), the guard house can be modified into a guard turret for crossbows, and a siege may be split up via the main gate.  As for arable land, the 11x11 square just north of the keep is channeled down and floored over with a bridge, allowing surface farming/grazing 3z levels down.

My apologies for failing to read.

[Urist McShire]

I usually always integrate some kind of exterior above-ground fortress design into my defence plans. Currently Combatcloistered is in the process of roofing over the higher interior walls while keeping the exterior walls open to the sky, though the majority of the fort and its operations are conducted below-ground.

[ManaUser]

I've got a pretty extensive above ground component to my fortress, it was necessary because it took me a while to get through the aquifer, but some industries are still located there. I'd call it a castle if only it were made of stone instead of mismatched logs.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

In back is my tavern and hospital. On the left, 2 barracks (one each floor), and behind that, a farm for surface crops. The extension on the right is my orchard (mainly cherries, some chestnuts), and next to that, inside the wall, is a pasture. The box in the corner is the trade depot area (there's a wide drawbridge on each side you can't see). Other entrances are through the barracks, the orchard, and near the tavern. All have traps and bridges for doors. Oh, and the pit in the center is of course the entrance to the underground.

I've had alot of fun with it, it's very different from what I normally do.

[Fleeting Frames]

I guess the fortress *checks locations* Inkymagics accidentally flirted with the requirements a bit?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Screenshot of surface level

The initial plan was to have woodcutting/plant gathering/fishing/pasture area. However, while the moats should be mostly secure, I have since discovered the kea menace (annoying to deadly depending on tactics, but acceptable) - also the cause of the inner moat due them scaring animals, that trees take 3 years to regrow, the caverns and their moss growth speed, longer minecart systems, how long does it take for water and magma to flow and their impact on FPS, running a magma river under brook....I might transport magma below the murky pools later though with no turtles seen it's likely the fisherdwarves will just pull brook fishies who swam through the subterran river.....


Well, at the very least going to leave something valuable (wheelbarrow?) above ground sometime, surrounded by 2z high walls with overhangs somewhere and seeing if the keas steal it should they still live. Theoretically, fliers should only path to things they can get to sans flying, but I'd rather doublecheck the effects before making sequestered unroofed food production area. (Then again, making it flyable and covering with flying minecarts/hanging traps might just result kea corpses raining straight on butcheries with hopefully no dwarf hit by the deadly weather. Hm, a perfectly predictive floor of pressure plates, each linked to inverter linked to floor hatches one level could theoretically ensure that it would be close to impossible....)

Once that test is done, though, going to make one that actually have reasons to stay topside in open air more...I learned about fruit trees :p

[Kogan Onulsodel]

So, this got me thinking. There are some pretty clear things that are good for defenses with the way Dwarf Fortress is. After all, pathing is the only real AI consideration. So, for example, if you have only one gate, you can have your walls extend outward and flank that gate as a place to station marksdwarves during the enemy approach. And you have to remember the quirks of your dwarves (so, for that last example, making sure that your marksdwarves get right up to the fortifications, since they won't do it themselves).

However, what really got me thinking: I assume that at some point Toady One plans to make sieges more... sophisticated. Allow sieging armies to bring sappers that can dig around under your walls, real siege engines (ones which can knock down/holes in walls)... things like that. And I have to say, that would change things. At this point, you just have to put an overhang in your wall and close a gate and you're untouchable. So I just wonder... what does the future hold? Will you have to be more proactive about, say, taking down the battering ram that's trying to beat down your main gate, since it can do that, and the AI won't just run through your trapped hallway? Or a catapult shows up on the edge of the map with the siege, and you have to worry about the possibility that it might put a hole in one of your towers, and have to weigh the risk of a sortie to take it out vs. the risk of waiting for the enemy to make a breach?

You know, I want to play dwarf fortress 1.xx someday.

[Starver]

I put overhangs into my defences long prior to their being necessary (because it felt like I ought to) and I am now looking at my remaining "unnecessary, but feels right" tweaks, wondering if any of those will end up as necessary.  Perhaps double-thickness walls, or digging moats down so that there's stone, not soil, acting as the base wall.

And, by the time of v1.0 I suspect that sieges will be far more complex, including sieges conducted by an Adventuring player-general emplacing (or commanding to be emplaced) siege-lines around a defended site, and even counter-siege defences (see the details of the alleged battle of Alesia, with Julius Caesar).

[Fleeting Frames]

Well, when speaking of realism, the reason why attacks were usually done at gate, by catapults flinging over walls or maybe by climbing towers is that even a fat oaken gate is a defensive weakspot compared to the several meters thick walls that can still be walked on to this day - and each df tile is like a dozen cubic meters.

When speaking of DF fort defences and your conception of them, though...Just in case you don't know, single-level overhangs are jumpable* (stronger creatures can jump greater heights as well I think?), walls can be dodged through or on top of, if your sieges are pathing to your main gate they're likely going towards something past that, thus meaning your courtyard has omnidirectional flier access^ and lastly of course all bridges can now be melted by dragonfire "battering ram" :p.

For what does the future hold, check the main site's dev goals. I don't recall it having artillery strikes and bunker busters, but it shouldn't be too hard to mod in a creature that fires cave in missiles if you want :p

I'm particularly looking forward to sending out sieges, myself.

"Just one guy, mayor?"
"Just one guy, outpost liason."
*out walks the fortress champion Cog Datanguz wearing the Mires of Soothing, bulging artifact adamantine plate*

That said, I'm not sure it is good idea to make building castles harder, given they're largely ornamental compared to their benefits - on the flip side, one can find unusual challenges fun - like no-roof outdoor farming when the weather is husking.

Sure, can just build a roof, but playing with one hand tied behind your back is rather common. Many players already avoid calm island embarks with double-airlock entrance to underground¯ or using bridges.

Digging invaders is pretty ancient idea (numerous mods incorporate them if you want).
That said, while I did find figuring out a trap design to defeat digging invisible tantruming omnidirectional clown car an interesting problem when I first encountered it (magma is love, magma is life)...
Having to implement one in every fort afterwards to be safe is differing only in scale in tedium to implementing smaller but same safe system several times. Also, it kills variety, organic expansions and interest if there's just 1 routine solution.

Perhaps you might have better RP with sieges being actual classic sieges if you limit yourself and following overseers in succession fort to only using aboveground free-range wild animals as food stock, though? I'm not sure what the food income from them is, but it might mean that letting siege sit around for multiple years like a proper invasion would run the risk of starvation.

^ I imagine if medieval invaders had flying dragon invaders we wouldn't have castles as design

* There is a story somewhere in ...what's going on in your fort thread, I think? of zombies spawning in wagon-only entrance and some getting past them to the fort.

¯ Not completely safe in vanilla game, to be fair, as vjek can attest from his ruin. Should you not deal with siege promptly, they will kill caravans and you will get unremovable ghosts, potentially killing your dwarves.

I put overhangs into my defences long prior to their being necessary (because it felt like I ought to) and I am now looking at my remaining "unnecessary, but feels right" tweaks, wondering if any of those will end up as necessary. 

Oh yes, I was suddenly very glad to have already been planning for invisible clown maybe-thieves maybe-buildingdestroyers when I learned about invisible weremammoths.

[Zebra2]

This is my favorite kind of fort. working on one now:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Also have done some previously that went not so well:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

These are all just z=1 though. I have some more impressive images from Stonesense and the like that I'll have to find.

[Fleeting Frames]

Pretty....

*looks to the east part of fort of first image*

I see you bow to no landscape, hahahaha.

[deepspaceprobe9]

I see you bow to no landscape, hahahaha.

Next time the mountain should think twice about forming in the way of my plans, hehe.

[Linkxsc]

I see you bow to no landscape, hahahaha.

Next time the mountain should think twice about forming in the way of my plans, hehe.

Sigging later