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Total Members Voted: 7

[Arcturus]

So... This is why overhanging walls are a good thing, I guess - to keep good climbers from zipping over walls.

Can enemies climb by hanging on to the underside of the wall? If that's the case you would want to build away from the moat instead of over it as far as the bridge is concerned anyway.

Edit : read the wiki and apparently you're right, floors cannot be climbed

Imagine that, Shieldgates would have been saved if one layer of walls had been placed two spaces further.

[IlFedaykin]

Imagine that, Shieldgates would have been saved if one layer of walls had been placed two spaces further.

If you can't bear the defeat reclaim the city 
This time you could build it properly

[Timeless Bob]

To build it "properly", we'd need a central keep that also functioned as the temples and store-houses for food (and Artifacts), surrounded by its own moat and walls with arrow towers, itself surrounded by the city that is composed of individual buildings with lock-able doors along a series of streets such that when people are fleeing along them, no invader has more than a twelve urist sight-line for shooting at them.  Ideally, all the roads would be bridges hooked up to levers in the Keep, which would be able to dump invaders into the sewers at will.  Of course, this would require any new building to have an unpaved road first built out to its site, which then would need to be excavated into a sewer trench and then covered by a bridge, which is then attached to that "quadrant"s sector of roads. (Having a "one bridge, one lever" policy would quickly become unweildy and confusing. Especially when some tantrum or other !!FUN!! leads a bridge to need to be rebuilt then reconnected...)

One interesting FPS saver is designating all of the roads as "high traffic zones" (accessed through the traffic menu: "d", "o").  The population will tend to path along the roads rather than through buildings, which decreases the chance that they'll be blocked midway through and have to recalculate a new path to their destination. It also helps to designate any new building's doorway as a "low traffic zone", which keeps people from dawdling in their doorways, dropping stuff that keeps them from being closed tight in an emergency. (of course, setting each door as being not "pet friendly" can also do this, but that means that your beloved pets can be stuck outside in an invasion.)  Finally, it helps to set the city limits as a burrow and add everyone who isn't supposed to be wandering in the woods to it.  be sure to add the entirety of all z-levels of the city to that burrow or you'll get "unable to retrieve object" spam.  Hunters, herbalists and woodcutters will be the only ones who will wander the wilderness outside your city, which ALSO cuts down on FPS problems.  If the herbalists just so happen to be trained as the armed and armored militia every other month, then anything they encounter in their off time wandering in the wilderness picking berries and flowers won't immediately kill them, and they'll be more likely to be on the spot when called to muster.  (Of course, any who become weapon-lords should be placed in their own troop with recruits to train in the city, and that's what should be protecting the city from within, including in-city archers.)

After the first siege (if the citizens of the city survive it by retreating to the Keep and its walls where the archers can snipe at the enemy from their towers, any new additions to the city should get their own set of enveloping walls.)

The Keep doors should be on another side from where the doors through the tower's walls are.  Being sniped through two sets of open doors is no fun, and the towers should only be accessible from inside the keep, but still have line of sight for sniping anything attempting to climb the walls of the Keep itself.

Here's a picture of the city of Carcassonne, France.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Notice in particular the Keep with its walls, the inner city with its walls, and the secondary wall/tower setup around those, with the area in between kept cleared.  Archers in the outer wall's towers would be able to snipe any army attempting to gain entrance to the city because they'd have to traverse either side of the entire city from the entrance in the outer walls to the city entrance in the city walls.  There was no moats, and the walls have no overhang, (which could have been a problem),  but notice how each tower stuck out from the walls themselves, allowing anyone in them to snipe at anyone attempting to climb the walls.

Of course, flying antagonists would make roofed-over defenses more important, but with the exception of a dragon or wyvern and possibly a giant thrips, most enemies are land-bound, so building a carcassonne-like walled city would still be highly defensible

[Fleeting Frames]

@IlFedaykin:
I meant deadly engineering with baits, not actual trap buildings, maybe taking advantage of the jump/climb pathing towards enemies for hostile-only access - I tend to not consider trap buildings beyond few sprinkled to catch/smash/catch animals due werebeasts, titans, enemy armies whose liaison saw your trap setup being all trapavoid in vanilla, and thus needing a setup to deal with those, and if you have a setup that can deal with those it can also probably deal with all non-trapavoid things.

Though to be honest my first thoughts were military + tavern as meatshield ^^;;

And then there's also the crashes in 43.05 whenever anything non-weapon non-armor/clothing breaks....

And well, at least you had an exciting ride
Well, given what you know now, what will you do differently for a next case?

@Timeless Bob: Pet-impassable doors are terrible idea for FPS due pets keeping trying to path through them to a goal. If you want stuff to not get stuck in doorways, what I do is making the doors hanging by channeling the square, building a floor, building the door, then deconstructing the floor. The door will never be opened, but will function like combination door/hatch.

As for that keep idea however, are archers buffed in MWDF, though? They're pretty weak in vanilla, though as far as large above-ground constructions go archer minecart patrols are amusing, if perhaps expensive use for a goblin/vampire (with pressure plates can perhaps automate it so that it will return to ammo stockpile when quiver is emptied - not sure, there are some bugs with calculating minecart weights with riders properly).



Shieldgates was more of a village, which is why I mentioned raising bridges as walls...But when I look at that keep, I notice that the walls are way taller than buildings - you could reasonably build the walls/fortifications/vertical bars up to the highest sky level, which would also keep out flyers. Though not sure if flying invaders aren't bugged.

[MCreeper]

Ok,picked up the save, first update will be tomorrow.

[Arcturus]

Ok,picked up the save, first update will be tomorrow.

Remember the main priority is modifying the walls to make them naga proof.

Hopefully extending the wall two squares of the second level will do this.

[Fleeting Frames]

Well, it might be quicker to build raising bridges on top and raise them.

Alternatively, if archers are decided, then there's plenty of wood - ash bars instead of fortifications are also unclimbable, being buildings.

The issue with extending the walls is that nagas can go in the moat and thus be inaccessible to Shieldgates' archers.

[Timeless Bob]

Suppose bridges were built at the bottom of the moats and all connected to a lever before the moats were flooded? An atom smasher moat might be all sorts of fun.

[MCreeper]

      Ok, there is update. I tried again to make it from first person, but get overcomed by lazyness, so writing as I see.
     So, I get for reclaimation party two soldiers(proficient weapon, skilled teachers), two farmers, weapon and armor smiths ,miner-expedition leader and couples of badgerdogs, moleweasels and dewbeetles. When I realized, that I’ts better to take more soldiers instead of farmers, it was too late.
      Well, this reclaim is one solid bug. First, embark. It’s terribly unlucky.

    Humans spawned in vertical tunnel connecting quarry and now-filled lakes, without wagon, IN MIDAIR. Expedition leader gets sliced by sword in the leg during the fall, cutting sensory nerves, so she is cripple for the rest of her life(Also she have pretty strange name – Hoppondered. Not strange by itself but it made from 2 words, not from three). Jirdo, one of the farmers, get hit by a barrel in the arm, smashing it into unrecognizable mass. Second, Lomoth, get washed down by water from lakes into the moat, then managed to drown in it. Possibly due to a bug, Smith and Dak(Soldier) teleported to the surface. Possibly I just mislooked, and they just quicly climbed out, but why all three are standing on one tile after this?
     After sudden shower my humans spotted “hostile” tigerman thief, which is not actually hostile. Glitch?
      Wasting some time by not reclaiming blocks in block splitters, I then buit path above south bridge. Get ambushed by some more hostile-not-hostile creatures, now dingo mans and weasel mans.   
      Jirdo, lazy idiot, don’t want to get out of his place on second level of quarry, and even get thirsty, despite being conscious.

      I wondered, where the hell all armor and weapons that should be scattered around are? They are here. There are two damn pages of weapons, armor and ammunition on each tile, but soldiers totally ignore it even after reclaiming.Bug?

       From parapet near bunker bedrooms, Jamas spotted Braidflags the Shaken Dour Distraction, That Damn Saphire Golem. Gathering all humans in a squad, I ordered them to run to the main bridges trough cage traps, to repeat good strategy. Jamas raced the golem to the south bridges, spotting sadly non-hostile succubus thief. Jamas get to bridge first, cause golem happened to be slower then human. Golem then got distracted and decided to wander near a quarry. Instead, I revealed something VERY interesting.

      I got ambushed by… this guys. They are absolutely and surely dead citizens of Shieldgates, though they still can ambush me. Description says, that they are missing upper body. Apparently, They are missing EVERY body part, just like ghosts. And from beginning of the reclaim I get random messages that “randomguyname, has” and nothing more, just like this.

 Also before reclaiming, I looked into legends mode, and surprisingly get info, that near to forty last citizens not get killed by nagas, but starved to death. Fedaykin?You blamed me, that I wrighted messed and unclear report, tell everyone how it been.  Also attack of nagas led not by naga, but by water buffalo bull, and in legends I seen, that we had sieged by goblins, but I’m pretty sure we wasn’t.
This things need some !!SCIENCE!!
      An ambush! Drive them out! I camera directed to unrevealed spot 30 z-levels below ground. Seven times.
     Humans just don’t want to sit in burrow, so I decided to trap golem anyways. Station near golem, golem running for Jamas, station near bridge, Jamas retreating.They both passed trap bridge, but golem isn’t caged! Meph, damn it, if you adding [TRAPAVOID] to creature just when playing your turn, say about it!Or not, i’ts more fun anyways.

    Ok, plan has changed. Someone wants morning run around fort?No? It’s your trouble, you will get your head crushed by golem otherwise!

    Golem has just left the map, nor weaponized and not killed. It’s just unfair.
   Jirdo has not left his spot, just wandering few tiles one way or another. After golem leaves he has been hauled into hospital by weaponsmiths.Not on the bed, he just dropped him in doors, though he arrived from second level. There are currently 9 of strange ghostly guys, and it seems they can leave the map. Or I just counted some of them twice.Must find them in adventure mode and legends, and try to attack them with my militia, which are totally ignoring piles and piles of weapons and armor.Next update will be soon, but not today.Also there are road near smith guild that mysteriously transformed into FARM PLOTS and FURROWED SOIL.

[Fleeting Frames]

⇡ Exciting start!

⇡ There's a 9. Why is there a 9?

⇡ You tend to have to dump the equipment once to move it sometimes when reclaiming. Dunno why, bug it is.

⇡ The dead ...uh, not walk, exactly?

Fascinating.

Seems the reclaim made this much more interesting.

⇡ Uh, you sure you ain't having tileset issues? Sideways arrows on the ground is rather...unusual, though I haven't used the tileset you're using.

[MCreeper]

⇡ There's a 9. Why is there a 9?
⇡ Uh, you sure you ain't having tileset issues? Sideways arrows on the ground is rather...unusual, though I haven't used the tileset you're using.

1.Because there are more has come after screening first two, but i forgot to screen them too.
2.After-update save with old game folder, i guess

   !!SCIENCE!!
   Experiment one. Attacking by militia.
Result: 3 of “ghosts” just disappeared after one hit in double-unexistent upper body. Without any damage though, just “soldiername” punches “ghostname” in the upper body with his left hand”
It seems, soldiers in fortress mode can attack them only in upper body
Retired the fortress to look in other modes.
  Experiment two. Legends
Picked one of the alive “ghosts” and looked fro him in legends.
Result: Last note about him, is that he starved to death in Shieldgates.
Looked in legends mode about Shieldgates and find nothing about this guys.
Experiment three – Adventurer
  Tried talk to them, dancing and fighting.
Result: “Ghosts” don’t answer on talking, though stuck in constant “talking” state. They don’t  react on dancing either. They can’t be hitted directly or wrestled at all, but throwing object in them make them disappear. Also I found them on same spots as when I left them.
Fun: Could be better.
Usefulness: Zero.
How to reproduce: Don’t have any fucking idea.
.

[IlFedaykin]

I hate to reclaim saves because of all this bugs... When i abandoned the city lots of citiziens were wounded and dying so they starve. There were actually still a handful of survivors trapped inside the rooms and the nagas were taking their time coming in... I just couldn't bear the slow genocide. You'll notice many of the starved ones were kids, too

[Fleeting Frames]

So instead of being bitten/cut apart by nagas they got to starve away slowly. Eugh, just can't win can they >_>

[MCreeper]

    I have some questions.
1.How “Meph” get his falschion? It is unavailable on embark screen.
2.It is will be enough to build one tile of fortifications diagonally-above walls, like on towers, to make it unclimbable?
3.Is horizontal-diagonal breach in wall climbable?
4.Is there a way to easily divide stacks of coins in single coins?

[Fleeting Frames]

1. Probably taking off a corpse. Maybe trade or visitors?

2. I think fortifications diagonally above walls are climbable. You also can climb diagonally, per adventure mode. You need to jut out two tiles or use buildings instead.

3. If you mean this for from A to B underground
OOOO+++B
A+++OOOO, then no - unless the bolded tile has a down-leading staircase or branch on top of it.

4. The easiest way I know of is to make 3 stacks of coins, trade 1 stack to traders, then make a macro to trade pair of coins from the 2 stacks you have for 1 coin the trader has five times, then run the macro 99 times. If you want to do coinstar or drop loop training, I dunno how safe coins are, but wooden earrings are quite safe on embark dwarves' clothes.