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[fehtuh]

Sup guys. I've currently got a human fort on the go(all races playable mod) and am really struggling to get into a rhythm with how to play a surface fort.

I've thrown up a temporary meal hall, dorm, offices etc and am churning out stone blocks but am at a loss as what to build up next.

Are there any particular priorities a surface fort has compared to an underground one? How do you guys tend to lay out your forts topside?

[Nefarian]

I tend to play surface forts extra-safe so, when i'm playing one, the first thing i do is to prioritize building walls. I start by making simple 3 wide segments so i can fit stuff inside (and because it looks good when the wall is complete) and later upgrade them to be a couple stories high.

Since farming is effortless, after the first wall segments are done, i start making huge farming areas for trading funds and food.

Happiness can become an issue real fast since you can't engrave anything and Rain causes bad thoughts (Dunno if it's only the dwarves). I suggest embarking with a good crafter and place masterwork statues/furniture everywhere to keep the happiness high.

Since Humans aren't addicted to alcohol, you can also remove all booze, embark close to a river and take some building materials instead to kickstart things.

Dragons will be your worst enemy. I always build an underground tunnel network that connects all the buildings together and leads to a burrow, in case dragonfire starts melting stuff

Other than dragons being 10000x times worse, i play them like any other fort.

[Sarmatian123]

1. Entrance. Make sure your bridge-gate is hidden entirely under roof. This makes cleaning entrance from blood pools created by rain using construct/deconstruct much easier.
2. Make sure your entrance and first floor with Depot is placed 1 lvl below in underground, so your Dwarves can clean the entrance from any squabbles with wild life. Make sure to wall floor between your Depot and rest of your fortress with cage traps.
3. Build walls first and build double walls. Put outside of your walls, but close to entrance 2 upstairs first, then 2 up-down stairs on them. Build floor as a sort of roof.
4. Make sure to have inside wide hallways not only to sides, but also down-up stairs.
5. If you are concerned by low fps don't build high towers with 3x3 stairs in the middle, but more wide levels with more up-down stairs inside. Even if it takes your Dwarf 4x, 10x longer walks, your fps will be 1.5x 2x higher. It beats logic maybe, but this is what extensive experimentation with DF house building on surface teaches me.
6. Place general meeting area for visiting diplomats outside, by your entrance. Cave adaptation is a thing in DF and cleaning vomit from constructed floors and stairs IS NOT FUN. During invasion just deactivate it and activate one inside. Diplomats should move automatically there.
7. I have "feeling" that swarms of flies and mosquitoes do travel through single walls and floors. So on top of your fortress, do build extra empty floor and entomb it. It should be like an empty cave and keep vermin from spawning inside or traveling through.
8. Contain your brewing and alcohol stores underground. Alcohol pools is a thing. I still can't figure out what to do with alcohol "stored freely" without any mugs, barrels and buckets inside different workshops on top side.
9. Build your mass pit underground. It makes cleaning it, even from mud, way easier. No mud in fortress means mass pit is working as intended.

gl

[wierd]

The first thing I do is the moat/pit, and the perimeter wall.

Next comes the bridge.

This allows reasonably safe berry picking (ahem, herbalism) inside the corodoned off area, and allows for reasonably safe tree felling.

Next comes basic dormatories and the brewery and food stockpiles.

If there are suitable surface textile plants (ropereed being common enough) I set up a surface clothing operation next. This provides a high value trade good to get valuable commodities, like gems, metal bars, meat, and surface plants not native to your biome.

Fuel production comes next, then metalsmithing.

after that comes military squad organization and practice regimen introduction.

If there is clay on the surface, clay collection comes next. (raw clay boulders make a good building material that is basically free, if low value. You dont need to fire it to use it to make walls, floors, and the like.)

Proper fortress construction can then commence, with priorities being based more or less on play style rather than need.

[snow dwarf]

There are quite a few interesting tips here.

[StagnantSoul]

I suggest having your storage underground, it's very useful for keeping keas away. I usually have a warehouse with two levels above and two-three below ground, around 15x11.

[jecowa]

It might be best to keep all of it underground, probably. Nature is somewhat disturbing.

[Montieth]

You're building in a hostile region.

Getting a palisade up is useful. Next, work on a bastion building, at least a tower, then a keep added to that, with walls up....and get outlying town walls up. Like in Castle.

A palisade and ditch is useful as initial defenses.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=9&v=JGbPShUpjpg

[fehtuh]

Wow there's a lot of amazing tips here, quite a bit I didn't take into consideration(including the Dragon living a few map squares away!)

How do people approach housing on a surface fort? I'm building apartment complexes for thematic reasons. Is dorms more common or do you need rooms to help offset the rain penalty?

[Cathar]

I must admit I haven't read the other responses so forgive me if I repeat what have been said, but I did what you're doing, same mod etc and maybe I can share my experience. I hope it helps !

• Enclose your building

When you just embark, your very first priority should be to design a hall, be it temporary, to clearly define what is in and what is out. Humans are give or take as strong as dwarves when it comes to fighting, so they will be preys to wildlife very soon in the game. Cut trees, build a place where you can retreat and be safe from wildlife. In the long run, use drawbridges to make it completely hermetic ; but having walls and doors between you and the wild is a must have at the very beggining.

• Keep an eye to the timer

This is especially true if you're playing in a young world. There is a lot of werebeasts around, and they have a chance to visit you every month. Having a military early on is a very good idea, if you can position their barracks between you and the wild, the better.
You can make use of chained animals to detect werebeasts early on. As a outdoor fort however, you have no way to absolutely prevent werebeast attacks, and you want to be super prepared for them

• Make careful use of renewable ressources

Wood is necessary for everything. From early building blocks to charcoal, which is the basis of human industry, you need it a lot. Make sure to keep an eye on your wood stockpile, keep it stocked up, and diversify your industry when you can. Having leather and rope reed industries is a very good way to generate dorfbucks, especially if you can dye threads and items.

Wood is plentyful at the beggining of the game, but when you advance in years, it becomes precious especially on small embarks. Glass require wood, clay require wood, metal require wood, wood require wood. So make sure you have plenty of it and don't rely on wood consuming industries if you have alternatives. For exemple, make your crafts of cloth, as it is easy to produce. Human traders come in every summer, and have some weapons and bars with them you can use to gear your troops.

• A strong military is a must have

As soon as you can, start a militia. Train them like theres no tommorow, and use your ressources to equip them. If you have a leather industry, make shields and early armors with that. Switch to metal when you can reasonably do the transition.
Especially if you don't mine, your military is a raw material industry, you use it to extract goblinite. 20 legendary fighters can defeat 150 goblins without losses.

I'm sure I'm forgetting a lot, but that's the lessons I learnt from my last game

How do people approach housing on a surface fort? I'm building apartment complexes for thematic reasons. Is dorms more common or do you need rooms to help offset the rain penalty?

If you play as humans, don't worry about the rain penalty. Common rooms are enough for all your non nobles. If you can, train your woodcrafters by having them making wood blocks, then have them draw mastecraft beds and furnitures. Your little people will soon forget the rain outside. Also, alcohol. It helps a lot.

[snow dwarf]

I've got two questions. How do you guys do roofs and are there any plus sides of building on the surface?

[se05239]

I've got two questions. How do you guys do roofs and are there any plus sides of building on the surface?

Floors are roofs.

[Encrtia]

I've got two questions. How do you guys do roofs and are there any plus sides of building on the surface?

It removes the green carpets due to negating cave adaption. Other than that, you can grow sun berries?

[Sarmatian123]

I grow 3 sorts of berries in my fortress.

I get covered and walled safe pastures, so animals stay put in their locations and Dwarves do not need to lead animals back to them.

Cave adaptation issue gets lessened. Not solved entirely. There still are underground parts to fortress and under ground mining for metals and lava. Caves and "FUN" for adventures with well trained and armed military.

You get cool massive bunker like fortress in sea of tree tops or above smoothed and leveled through channeling land around. If you fancy with fortifications, but those are currently a fail due shooting crossbow mechanics, you could put sweet fortifications on top. All Humans should be mighty impressed and bow before your Dwarves visual might.

You have to wage benefits of weather and temperature of biome though. Hospital and its well needs to be underground, just in case, always. Mass Pitt maybe same.

REFUSE! You can put huge 11x11 refuse, wall it off, roof it, build doors in it for entrance. All inside of your fortress. All while there is no stink cloud forming, which is such a blessing on your DF's FPS.

Just to mention few. I am against constructed blocks to be tracked, but smoothed wall needs to be engraved before it has any value at all. Block is 5$ always. Architecture still will be your fortress lowest value for some reason. No matter what you do. More blocks you put in, the sooner your fortress dies to low fps death too. Ha! For pathing algorithm sake, if walls are not necessary just don't build them. Even for Dwarven sleeping rooms. Try digging walls out of some mountains, you intend to level later on, caving in pastures, subterranean fields and above ground fields down into your fortress from mountain/hill tops, are maybe some solutions to using too many blocks for construction. Anyhow lots of fun trying it all. Sometimes you wish DF vanilla client had some 3d ASCII snapshot view of paused game. There are apps you can install that can do just that, but they will come with their own textures  and not all objects have textures in them and not always work in linux either... grrr...

[anewaname]

I've got two questions. How do you guys do roofs and are there any plus sides of building on the surface?

The best basics of topside buildings and roofs are in wiki's archer tower page. Take a look at the first image...
- The "ground level" has no fortfications so enemies cannot stand adjacent and shoot through them at your dwarfs inside.
- The "archer level" has fortifications so the archer's can shoot out. These fortifications are walls that were constructed and then designated to be carved. Constructed fortifications do not receive roofs over them and so should be avoided for this purpose.
- The "roof level" only required 9 blocks to construct, as the surrounding roof tiles are actually the top of the walls below.

To get a dwarf on top to build the roof, construct a temporary ramp in a non-corner wall tile on the archer level and after the roof is done, remove the ramp and build the wall.