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[Derro]

I'm currently working on an aboveground fortress (I'm a filthy elf sympathizer, I know it, you don't have to tell me) and would like to add a tower to it (not too big, but taller than the surrounding trees). One minor problem; I can't actually find a practical use for it.

I'm considering building some cage traps, adding bait and trying to catch flying creatures with it, but was wondering if there's any other ways to use a tower?

[LMeire]

I used one once to set up a fountain, since you need a fairly large water reservoir located on a z-level higher than the spout to keep it flowing steadily.

You could also set up a library in there, the whole 'ivory tower' thing and all.

[Fleeting Frames]

Multi-level fruit harvesting, if you build your tower around an orchard.

Archery training, via bolt splitting tower and a bogie.

Undoing cave adaptation via meeting zones, of course.

Departing/arrival point for minecart sky patrols.

Something to hang windmills off of, either inside or outside the tower.

[Ironfang]

Good, now I have reason to make my hanging dog soap tower.

[FantasticDorf]

Nobody suggested throwing PoW's off it as a prison (a mix of that tower in GoT for pushing people in & subsequently out to go splat via 20+ z levels and also the the tower of London) to punish elves and other non-urists, im slightly disappointed.

Actually in serious talk that'd be a nice theme, you could divide some floorplan to a 'cell' using chains & grates so its not immediately possible for dwarves to just run away for bumping into cell bars (because actual iron bars are not pretty & also pretty expensive for doing the same thing as stone grates)

[bloop_bleep]

A tower would be a good vantage point for your archers during an attack, for example (look at http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Archery_tower). Make sure to put fortifications and build floors on the side of it to prevent goblins from climbing the tower and harassing your marksdwarves!

[mikekchar]

I just had this interesting idea...  Put your mayor's office on the top floor.  Put a retractable bridge in a gap in the middle, with a drop all the way down (bonus points if it continues underground).  When someone comes to petition, pull the lever.  You might go through a few mayors along the way, but that's just part of the fun.

[anewaname]

I'm considering building some cage traps, adding bait and trying to catch flying creatures with it, but was wondering if there's any other ways to use a tower?

One fort had a large tower was built to encompass multiple fruit trees. The ground level was left alone for fruit gathering. Up/down stairs allowed dwarfs to walk directly onto the branches. The upper floors had shops for butcher, tanner, and crafts (only bone bolt production), two military barracks, and a temple meeting area. The tower had no fortifications and no hatches for certain safety.

The goals of the tower were multi-level fruit harvesting and undoing cave adaptation that Fleeting Frames mentioned.

[Skorpion]

How about a waterfall? Everyone loves those. Bonus points for obsidian casting at the base.

[StagnantSoul]

I use them for beast containment, just have a 10 or so z level high tower filled with things I don't wanna work with, and stairs set about so they'll walk around for me to watch as people slave away.

[StarWars1981]

As above stated, simply a tower from which to hurl various unsuspecting/suspecting/who cares creatures onto such things as water, spikes, hard ground, magma (lava at this point), arena floors, other creatures, or random trees you forgot to cut down first.
Also it could be used as a dwarven pressure washer assembly, just requires additional engineering.
Put your nobles' quarters inside the tower and suspend it or support it with just one support. Extra mandates? Pull the lever.
Bonus points if every floor has an assembly for throwing the floors above it down onto it. For instance, lower-level nobles less likely/unable to issue mandates get lower floors. More likely to issue mandates get upper floors. After all, no need to kill the broker if he never asks for anything ... but plenty of need to kill your resident baron brigade if it starts issuing mandates.
I'm sorry, arrange unfortunate accidents involving stressed and unhappy dwarves and available levers that might've been connected to that beautiful support pillar in the room.

[Tiruin]

A fun thing with aboveground fortresses--you are not limited by architectural instability :3 I've been doing aboveground since a few patches ago, and said creativity can be combined with bridges (like a double bridge connection between towers), or an inward facing tower so that invaders inside your 'courtyard' suddenly get sprung by dwarves training in the skies!.

Also it works well with waterfall-based fortresses if you build in the valley to go past the aquifer, but that may be a bit too derailing for this topic

A good point, however, is creativity is your limit here. Given that all structures still don't collapse by weight, single attachments can hold up several points of passage and movement versus both flying and land-based enemies. You can even channel down into the caverns for cavernous foes to path up land to attack you that way

Also, falling 'stones'. You can make 'controlled' collapses but I wouldn't advise that as the range is at LEAST 1 tile away from the tower edge, unless that's your plan--it works even against climbers (I've tried it, it's wonderful, if there is a ledge to make that difference so all falling debris passes on the climbing area). The dust and otherwise also make nice details, especially in ASCII.

[Kyubee]

Personally, I always make aesthetic towers in my forts. Typically I assign the various floors to various purposes. For example, once I made like a 15x15 central tower for my fort that had various nobles quarters up top and as it went down, plenty of varying social buildings. If you have the DFhack script that generates new sky layers as you need them, perhaps you can solely make your tower for the purpose of a Tower of Babylon!

"Look upon ye mighty and despair" Or, you could do something weird; use it as a fancy entrance tunnel! How, you ask? Make two; one with an entrance, one connected to that one through a tunnel at the very top. for bonus points, set up the towers using ramps and the like to make it take as long as possible to get through, and set up defenses throughout; you will never get seiges again

[Skorpion]

Build it higher and blot out the sun?

[FantasticDorf]

Build it higher and blot out the sun?

Break the earth and propel your site into space by dropping a block (or a minecart full) of slade from 100+ z levels crashing down.