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[Androconus]

Hi there,

I have a fort in a mountain and to make the mountain top as inaccessible as possible, I'm channeling and removing ramps on a couple of the layers to make a wee cliff all around. I'm not mad about how smoothed walls look so I'm considering engraving the cliff. (also the image of the invaders pressed up against a cliff covered in intricate engravings is cool in my head.)

Will I be making the walls easier to climb by engraving them or does it make no difference?

I'm sorry if this is an obvious question or if it's been already asked: I couldn't find it anywhere in the wiki or on the forum.

All the best,

Andro

[Bumber]

Just tried with an adventurer and couldn't climb an engraved wall.

[PatrikLundell]

I'd expect it to be as hard to climb as a wall that's only been smoothed, and Bumber's test supports that expectation.
Note, though, that hostile action can come from the air, so don't rely on the cliffs alone.

[Androconus]

Class, thank you both! I'll go ahead with it.

Note, though, that hostile action can come from the air, so don't rely on the cliffs alone.

I'll keep this in mind. I'll make sure the entrance to the upper level is sealable. I mostly want the top protected so that my beehives can be safe and accessible during a normal goblin siege. Also, dfhacks siege-engine plugin seems pretty cool (catapults firing down z-levels!), so I might put a few catapults up on the plateau.

Thanks for the help!

[Starver]

For an open top, I tend to make my necessarily "open" areas (aboveground fields, the miasma-mitigated butchershop 'surface shaft', etc) as walled-gardens (multi-Z is required for orchards/lumberfields these days) with retracted bridges ready to close off the sky as necessary.

The mechanics (literally but also figuratively) of doing that can be a bit involved to do it 'right'. Much as overhangs atop any walls have long been part of my build-plan, even before climbing was a thing. I'll probably best let you find your own level of precautionary architecture, and how to accomplish it.

[PatrikLundell]

I have a recessed "courtyard" in my fortresses. This is an area channeled down one level and then covered with a floor. Due to how DF works, this area then serves as grazing area for grazers, farming area for surface crops, and place for hives. I access this area from the fortress as well as entrance tunnels. This provides for a rather secure fortress design.

[Starver]

Aye, I do that for fields, but for other reasons[1]. I use unbroken ground for pasturing (at least until I can grow internal grazable surfaces) and maybe some fallow between infrequent surface-plant gathering[2] as well as carefully protected copses. I tend to set my hives upon the grid of groundlevel floors I only partly seal that sunken field off with.

But all these surface footprints are generally walled off (and retractably-rooved atop) from both the 'uncontrolled' areas and the 'amber routes' through which visitors are funelled from the truly uncontrolled edges. I have multi-Z deramped channelled-ditches into the ground below the outer walls (and drawbridges), smoothing the rock it digs into for long-established aesthetic reasons rather than climb-prevention, and building a combined form of jettying/machicolation above (ditto, but with forethought towards climbers too).

Perhaps with star-fort/bastion-like active defense features, but sometimes with similarly bounded tunnel-accessed satellite pillbox/watchtower positions to give theoretical coverage-of-fire should any enemy decide to cluster at the bottom of the walls. Not that they do that, really, with other pathing priorities dominating - which I also exploit.



[1] It's annoying when a surface boulder creates discontinuities in surface-places fields. Chanelling into the topsoil removes that issue - though eats up a perfectly good belowground farm I could have had as well...

[2] Right at the brginning, though, before I dig ditches I send in the woodcutter(s) and ad-hoc plant-gatherers (those yet to have their purposeful future industry established, not required to empty the wagon) to ensure that the ditches are never dug beneath trees or useful flora, stripping the footprint that I'll be shortly digging into.

[Thisfox]

I have a recessed "courtyard" in my fortresses. This is an area channeled down one level and then covered with a floor. Due to how DF works, this area then serves as grazing area for grazers, farming area for surface crops, and place for hives. I access this area from the fortress as well as entrance tunnels. This provides for a rather secure fortress design.

If I can, I then make glass, and roof over my recessed courtyard with a glass roof, making it a greenhouse only accessible from inside.

[PatrikLundell]

I have a recessed "courtyard" in my fortresses. This is an area channeled down one level and then covered with a floor. Due to how DF works, this area then serves as grazing area for grazers, farming area for surface crops, and place for hives. I access this area from the fortress as well as entrance tunnels. This provides for a rather secure fortress design.

If I can, I then make glass, and roof over my recessed courtyard with a glass roof, making it a greenhouse only accessible from inside.

I can (I ensure I will have sand), but I want to have this area covered within the first year (or, at worst, the second), and it usually takes a fair while to set up magma facilities for glass production, so I'd have to spend a number of years with only doors to protect the fortress itself, with nearby necros threatening to attack at any time (and gobbos, once the pop reaches 20, which may or may not be in the first autumn). Not impossible, but more difficult.