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[Novocain]

http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-1130-rithdbeshlaborcrazy

I've been wondering what other people would think of my fort, so here it is. I still need to expand it a bit, but I wanted to make sure I was completely stable before I got to the demons(as well as train plenty of marksdwarves...).

I can answer any questions, except why there's a piece of gold ore in one of my stockpiles, because I honestly have no idea.

Criticisms/suggestions are expected and welcome.

[THLawrence]

Still lots to do before you go after the demon.
Find and cross the chasm.
Find and cross the magma river.
Make steel weaponry.

But it is very good.
Question about the grazing fields though.
Isn't that a tree farm?
If you were to flood it to get towercaps to grow then some of your livestock might die. Which would explain why the ground is dry.

I like the defense idea.
It will get invaders to line up. Then your catapult can knock them all down like dominoes.

My suggestion would be to head for the magma river.
Using magma or coke instead of charcoal will help your metal smithing and decrease the number of trees you need to cut down.

Also the name is funny.

[Novocain]

I didn't originally plan on using the rooms as stockpiles, but I didn't feel like digging past the chasm. They are actually all meant to be farm areas, but they turned out more useful as other things. Especially since quarry bush meal production takes up insane amounts of space, it would seem.

I haven't touched metal at all, unless a noble mandated it, so I've never had to worry about fuel. However, I've got plenty of goblin equipment to melt down once I reach magma. My main concern is getting enough beds, since there are no trees and my population limit is 500...
 

[ October 07, 2007: Message edited by: Novocain ]

[Fedor]

quote:Originally posted by Novocain:
<STRONG>http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-1130-rithdbeshlaborcrazy

I've been wondering what other people would think of my fort, so here it is. I still need to expand it a bit, but I wanted to make sure I was completely stable before I got to the demons(as well as train plenty of marksdwarves...).</STRONG>

With zero deaths, you're obviously doing the big things right.  It always impresses me just how different people make their fortresses.  I can hardly see a single point of similarity between this layout and the ones I normally fumble out, except that both of us apparently like to turn the area between the mountain edge and the cave river into a shooting gallery.

Now for some - possibly misguided - critiques:

* Food haulage efficiency.  Quarry bushes are an excellent choice for food ...  but the farms are too far from many of the the food processing points, which are not adjacent to most of the food and drink storage areas, which are definitely not on the path most dwarves take to the dining halls.  You certainly have far too many dudes working on food (growing, hauling, and processing) instead of, say, training to be marksdwarves.

* Firewater.  Unless I'm missing the main keg stockpile, this fortress seems to be desperately short of it.  Without booze, dwarves get lazy.  REAL lazy.  The desert outside would explain this in a younger fortress, but not in one as mature as this.

* Congestion.  The main east-west artery is only 3 grids wide.  This impedes haulage and movement all year round, but what's really got me puzzled is how the human caravan can make it to your depot before it has to leave again.  Those wagons fill the entire available space!  Similar comments apply to certain other heavily-trafficked parts of the fort, such as the finished bedrooms I see just above the farms.

* River access.  You've had no drowning deaths, which means I might be totally off the mark, but those wide-open floodplains with widely spaced bridges have me quaking in my cave crocodile leather low boots.

* Defence.  The long shooting gallery and your focus on marksdwarves is a powerful combination, but a drawbridge, or some fortifications, or a moat would be handy to have around just in case.  I worry about goblins turning your barrier-less corridor into their own shooting gallery, taking down civilians trying to run to the river doors.  Some cage traps near the entrance might be helpful too.  I also see some open circles that look suspiciously like wells in some of the corridors; if they are, they are potential sources of cave dweller raids in places you don't want hostiles to be.  Worst of all, I can't find a shooting range where your marksdwarves are training.  You're going to be very short of training bolts, but all those animals and those dead frogmen will provide some.  And you need every +frogman bone bolt+ you can make!

* Fort extensibility.  If as and when you head for the magma to go into metalbashing in a big way, your food, dining halls, rooms, and certain stockpiles will require far too much movement to get at.  Be prepared to think hard about how the later fortress - stretched uncomfortably between river and magma - will work.

quote:Originally posted by Novocain:
<STRONG>I can answer any questions, except why there's a piece of gold ore in one of my stockpiles, because I honestly have no idea.</STRONG>

Boy, I wish you knew the answer to that.  I've seen diamonds just past the cave river, but never gold where your fortress is.

[JT]

Somewhat off-topic, but going by your statement in the map description on the map archive, I also have very few problems with idlers.  Everyone has something to do in one of my forts, especially stone hauling, and if they don't I make work for them by designating new mining areas, building new workshops for cross-training, etc.  Never quite understood how it was possible to have more than a few idlers at any given time.  In a fortress of 80 in the dead of winter I usually peak at around 15 idlers if I stop interacting with the game for a while, and I can usually bring that down to just 1 idler with a few moments' work.

[Novocain]

Aside from the human caravans, I've never noticed any issues with people moving around. I've got stockpiles spread everywhere, and workshops to match, so there's always something there for them to use. However, is there anything specific I can do to improve efficiency, besides changing all of the rooms around?

My keg stockpile is next to the frog corpses.

The rivers would have more bridges, but, well, nobody is ever on the river. My tiny safety net of bridges has managed to save the dozen or so that actually have fallen in, but since I've got very few fisherdwarves, and plenty of wells, I hardly see anyone there for long enough to actually be in danger.

Dwarves running around random places is an assumed risk. I am confident, however, that my military will be sufficient to hold off any goblins that might survive past the 105 traps. Although, I don't understand your cage trap comment, since I do have some cage traps about 8 rows in. Do you mean to capture skeletal leopards and jaguars?

The archery ranges are in the lower residential halls.

The wells seem alright to me. They always end up having a fortress guard or military dwarf nearby, but I've only gotten groups of frogmen(an example of which is the pile of corpses that my trade minister made), and a single giant toad, which got its head pierced by a pick two seconds after spawning, passed out, and died. Only four of them are actually wells, anyway, since I can't be bothered dedicating half my fort to finished goods stockpiles.  

How can I improve that? I like having my residential area in the safest area of the fort, as well as food production, and I planned on secondary quarters and food stockpiles past the chasm for my smiths to use, but I've never really built up infrastructure there before, so I'm a bit inexperienced.

quote:Originally posted by Fedor:
<STRONG>Boy, I wish you knew the answer to that.  I've seen diamonds just past the cave river, but never gold where your fortress is.</STRONG>

I probably did it the first year, when my only skilled dwarf went fey, but I can't be sure. It'd explain the single iron ore I found, as well.

quote:Originally posted by JT:
<STRONG>Somewhat off-topic, but going by your statement in the map description on the map archive, I also have very few problems with idlers. Everyone has something to do in one of my forts, especially stone hauling, and if they don't I make work for them by designating new mining areas, building new workshops for cross-training, etc. Never quite understood how it was possible to have more than a few idlers at any given time. In a fortress of 80 in the dead of winter I usually peak at around 15 idlers if I stop interacting with the game for a while, and I can usually bring that down to just 1 idler with a few moments' work.</STRONG>

Weird, I've mainly only read posts about people complaining that they always had too many idlers. Maybe my fort really is horribly inefficient...

[Sowelu]

I'll suggest that, while your HUGE amounts of stone traps in the entrance will probably kill a lot of things, you might consider them a liability once your mechanics start needing to reload them.  Also, your big stone pile is outside--That means your mechanics might feel like wading in amongst the enemy to reload the traps.  Same for your siege weapon, you might consider keeping more stones closer to it.  (And you probably won't want to practice along a corridor that everyone walks through.  You WILL need practice however.  Set up a practice catapult outside, by the rest of your rocks, maybe?  Without practice, you'll be lucky to get one shot off.)

[Tarrasque]

quote:(And you probably won't want to practice along a corridor that everyone walks through.  You WILL need practice however.  Set up a practice catapult outside, by the rest of your rocks, maybe?  Without practice, you'll be lucky to get one shot off.)[/QB]

If I remember correctly, catapults do not damage fellow dwarves, however, ballistas tend to be prone to friendly fire.

[Blackcat]

quote:Originally posted by Tarrasque:
<STRONG>

If I remember correctly, catapults do not damage fellow dwarves, however, ballistas tend to be prone to friendly fire.</STRONG>

I used to think that, and accordingly had operators train on catapults set up on the east bank of the river, behind some fortifications, aimed down the main 6 wide tunnel to the outside.

Then a legendary crafter got hit by a flying rock.

[Novocain]

I have a practice catapult in my top multipurpose room, pointing away from anywhere a dwarf would want to be. Is just one enough, though?

My cheating triple doors let me perform a Maxwell's demon setup. I just station my military at the catapult, set dwarves not to go outside, and lock the doors whenever a civilian gets close. I have to watch it very closely to control traffic, and I'm definitely going to be adding still more doors as I feel the need, but it's worked so far. Is there a way to make it more efficient without moving thousands of tiles of stockpiles into my fort?

[ October 10, 2007: Message edited by: Novocain ]