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[Foxite]

My standard defense plan is as follows:

1) Build a basic fort, don't pay much attention to military
2) When you reach self-sufficiency, fill your hallway with traps
3) When you reach a population of 50, start sending migrants to the military (so that you have a capable military when you reach 80)
4) At some point build a large wall around the fort enterance, about 2 3 levels high, with strategic gates and fortifications.

About this wall - it's important to make overhangs so invaders can't just climb over the walls. For this, you make overhangs, and keep the surrounding perimeter clear of trees.

Now, a part of this wall is currently on a hill and higher up than other parts. I can't easily create an overhang because the height is not even. I am also not going to extend the wall to the highest elevation needed, because that's far too much work and I'm sure it can be done better.

How can I protect this wall against climbers? I'll post some screenshots and a link to my save if you want.

[PatrikLundell]

You can lower the ground (i.e. channel a moat through the hill) to make the wall height even.
As far as I understand the overhang should be 3 levels above ground, not two.
An alternative to an overhang is to roof it all over (which also keeps the serious threats, in the form of Keas, out).

[Starver]

It may be more aesthetic overkill than strict necessity, but if I try to have something like a wall that is always (at least) a certain height above undulating ground, I go by the principle that a given height above high ground extends that same amount sideways over less high ground (thus the wall being higher, temporarily) so that putting an nxn block on the ground at any point (including diagonally off a corner) always had a wall at least covering its aspect.

Umm..   Side plan?

Code: [Select]

.....?!!!!!!!!!?.
...?!!+++++++++?.
.?!!+++++++++++?.
!!++++++##++#++!!
++++++####++#++++
++++######+##++++
#################
#=ground
+=wall (standard)
!=offset wall (i.e. overhang)
?=edging overhang, to prevent diagonal or lateral wall-climbing pathing or other form of traversal.
.=air

Give or take.

[Foxite]

Just had an idea. Is it possible to make a small bridge along the points where it changes height and cover that with permanently extended spikes? Does that protect against people climbing against the wall?

I would make a roof, but I'm not going to dig out the ground against the sides of the walls. That's far too ugly for my liking.

Code: [Select]

.....?!!!!!!!!!?.
...?!!+++++++++?.
.?!!+++++++++++?.
!!++++++##++#++!!
++++++####++#++++
++++######+##++++
#################
#=ground
+=wall (standard)
!=offset wall (i.e. overhang)
?=edging overhang, to prevent diagonal or lateral wall-climbing pathing or other form of traversal.
.=air

Give or take.

That was my initial idea, the main problem is creating an edging overhang.

[PatrikLundell]

An extended menacing spike trap does nothing to block movement. Statues and windows can probably not be climbed, and if there is no way to stand sufficiently far away they can probably not be destroyed either.

[Starver]

That was my initial idea, the main problem is creating an edging overhang.

It's utterly trivial to do. I only marked them as 'special' as not the other "top of a wall of at least N high", being atop other wall-toppers (or wall-topper-toppers, etc).

How you do it just depends on what scaffolding and/or permanent walkways (e.g. patrol-paths) you build.  The most 'difficult' part is building a top down corner (regardless of vertical undulations), and that's solved by putting a temporary overhang-floor adjacent to the overhang corner, then when the corner overhang wall is supported also be the co-adjacent overhang wall (the other side of the corner) remove the building floor with immunity and replace with the second supporting corner-adjacent overhang wall...

...am I making sense, there?

I can do a diagram later, if you want.

[Foxite]

Please do a diagram. A video might also work.

[Starver]

I can work on an anigif of actual construction when I get back home and on a sensible machine, but try this...

Top Down of an inside and outside corner needing an external overhang.

Code: [Select]

........
........   .=empty space
++++....    +=existing wall top (assuming this is how your builders have access)
...+....
...+++++
........

........
wwwww...   w=wall designated to be built
++++f...   f=floor designated to be built
...+wwww
...+++++
........

........
www##...   #=once both these walls are now built
++++d...     (left one builds and hangs off wall-top,
...+wwww      other builds off of floor, but now can hang off left wall)
...+++++    d=now you can safely designate floor for deconstruction
........      then you set to construct a wall in that gap
If you want to optimise it, remember that (insofar as there is access to do so, and ongoing jobs get completed) the build-queue is Last In First Out.  What I often do is plonk walls-to-be-built everywhere but the external corners (the two # and one f spots), or just quickly undo those that I've 'painted' in haste.  Then I set the two #-position walls on every corner (the corner one cannot be built, individually, but setting the 2x1 or 1x2 pair to be enqueued works), then go round again and set the floor that will be temporily there.

What then tends to happen is the temp-floor gets built as quickly as proximity of materials (there's ways you can improve that, but I won't go into it now) and availability of builders allows, along with the near(-but-not)-corner hanging wall, because they are prioritised and possible (both being built from the wall-top corner spot). Once the temp-floor appears as reality, then the prioritised overhang-corner (if not yet surpassed by subsequent building instructions on the stack¹) gets picked up and completed pretty sharpish without any further intervention, to let you now unbuild the floor as soon as you've got both walls in place, and rebuild that spot with a wall (often with the temp-floor's freed-up material item) once the gap appears.

It is easier to do than describe! Most of the micromanaging is done en-mass within a particular "paused to designate constructions" phase, and it's only when you're building multiple structures with multiple phase-of-development stages that you have to check-and-redo.  And if you've triggered a building collapse then you've not noticed the lack of non-corner wall support for the corner wall when removing the floor, something that becomes obvious after only the first couple of times you do it... 

¹ When you've set up all the above then you (for convenience) designated more, but lower, priority constructions elsewhere (more walls that you aren't so impatoent about, just you had to wait for the materials for, say), the micromanaging way to 'reshuffle the queue' is to revisit every construction-in-potentia that is more vital than this new batch in increasing order of urgency. If you're 'touring' the top of a wall, it's easy to just do two full circuits. Anyway, check that they are not currently in the process of being constructed (though the dwarf concerned may still be half the map away, you can normally leave these alone and need only check later to make sure job suspensions due to various factors haven't kicked in) and if they are still pending you can cancel and re-do them (you may even get a closer building material than the abandoned one, but engineering that is more advanced), and the LIFO mechanism is reset once more to your advantage!

[Foxite]

I understand that diagram but I don't see how that applies to my situation. I'm seeing a diagram of what I should do to create an overhang around a horizontal corner, rathern than a vertical corner where the wall changes height.

I'm sorry if I'm tiring you, I'm really trying to understand this.

But anyway, while waiting for replies here, a flying, firebreathing titan just came in and although I managed to defeat it it did destroy my entire ranged squad, so I'm probably just going to build a roof.

So I guess you could still do the gif for someone else who has found a better way to deal with such attackers.

[Starver]

Sorry, thought you were asking about the other.

But there's some similarities.  When building walls atop (or jutting out from) walls, you just need to keep in mind what helps what and what blocks what.

Take the example side-profile:

Code: [Select]

.....?!!!!!!!!!?.
...?!!+++++++++?.
.?!!+++++++++++?.
!!++++++##++#++!!
++++++####++#++++
++++######+##++++
#################

The +s, as you build them, create a walkable surface above them, and the !s and ?s don't impede the walking/building on the wall-top behind.

However you go about the walls (without other urgency) I would start by just building the walls on the lowest ground elevations, the access to build those is from the ground. Then the natural rises of ground level provide the construction access to that lowest level of war. Pick a wall-top in the middle of any such stretches (or between any ends and any mid-point stairway/ramp accesses you are building) and set a single (or pair) of walls to build, access to be along from the nearby terrain (or temporary/permanent built access).

Once you have those built, set up the next adjacent walls, either side. Once they're built, the next. Terrain-flush (not wall-top) walls at that level can be set up without such ordering (but because of the LIFO, do that first and then the rest that you designate gets priority and these take up the slack in your micromanaged job queue), but leave off at least one (might need more, for some local geologies) plateau-edge walls where access to the final wall-top walls need building from, to be the last gap to fill.

(Assuming you aren't just lining the inner side of the wall with gangways (floors, or perhaps 1xN bridges) for permanent or temporary access.)

Once you have wall-tops from which the overhangs will hang (you don't want to fill those actual tiles with wall), put a ramp on the wall-top behind the ?-marked overhang (or a stairway, anywhere, but especially where it is a multi-z step change, like that to the RHS of the diagram, unless you want to modify it to a series of ramps across the cruck of that angle), and access is maintained for all further management of such constructions, so long as you have riser stairwells at some part of your site once the construction rises above any or all local terrain maxima.


Or, just build as much wall as you can, topping it off at an arbitrary level of your choosing, then go around digging channels around the outside where the wall needs to be higher than you actually built it.

I like doing this anyway (a dry moat and drawbridges across it at strategic spots makes for additional access/egress control in various useful ways), but you then need to make sure that you 'reserve' the underground just below the "just outside the wall" surface, so you don't have to reseal a tunnel out to your prime subsurface farms, or whatever.

Again, loads of words, and I could diagramise it further, but I'm aware I may yet be misconstruing your need. And in a few hours I'll be back home and not be forced to tap this out whilst walking between the places I'm visiting today, narrowly missing walking into both complete strangers and half-completed street furniture... 

ETA: I just gave a wave of thanks to a car that actually stopped to let me across a zebra-crossing. Which, given that it was a police car not otherwise in a rush, it was pretty much obliged to do. I do hope they got the nice feeling out of my gesture of gratitude, anyway.  Nothing to do with walls, but follows up on what I just closed on.  Never mind.

[eerr]

How big is the hill? Normally I just try to incorporate natural hills.
Note that siegers usually don't climb on impulse.
If they don't see a dwarf they won't climb to get him.

So all you do is make sure nobody goes to the weaker portions of the fortress.

With that settled, all you need is a one-tile wall to block line of sight, and control over your dwarves.

Especially the implusive dwarves.
They climb trees for fun, climb to bathe, climb to escape when trapped, climb to kill enemy combatants, climb to flee.
Climb AND leap off overhangs mind you! Thus trapping themselves.

All that shit about keeping enemies out with overhangs? That applies to your dwarves in reverse!

Note that flyers don't climb the highest walls, but some fly pretty high. Siegers can come with flying units capable of chasing your dwarves onto the walls.
And they WILL if and only if they spot your dwarves.

Dwarves are the weakest part of any siege.