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[1138]

Great article! I've wanted to try turrets ever since I read Nist Akath (two days ago?) and your suggestions have inspired me.

One thing jumped out at me: you said that thieves are invisible until spotted by a dwarf or tame animal; actually other hostiles and wild animals can spot them as well. I just had a wild alligator somewhere across the map spot a kobold for me (unfortunately there was no carnage, they just ran away from each other ) and I'm pretty sure I remember an ambush spotting one as well, though I can't be as certain there.

[Strangething]

You mentioned animals and thieves but you should probably have a footnote about raccoons, which are both. I've had raccoons steal giant cave spider silk mittens before.

I didn't know you could capture thieves or military prisoners. My dwarves always eviscerate them even after they've been knocked unconcious. Maybe because I use so many war dogs.

I've never played on a map with raccoons. I've seen monkey-things (macaques?) rob the merchants. Maybe I should mention animals that take your stuff.

You can only get prisoners through cage traps. It's my favorite kind of trap, so I end up with a lot of prisoners and tamed animals.

Immediately after a siege you can turn off waterskins for each squad long enough for all soldiers to get their fill of bubbly then turn them back on to get rid of the negative thoughts [Can't remember the last time he had a drink.]  Every little bit helps when your soldiers start tantruming every time their precious war dog gets squashed.

I think I just realized why my soldiers are moping around instead of training. No wonder my military sucks.

Great article! I've wanted to try turrets ever since I read Nist Akath (two days ago?) and your suggestions have inspired me.

One thing jumped out at me: you said that thieves are invisible until spotted by a dwarf or tame animal; actually other hostiles and wild animals can spot them as well. I just had a wild alligator somewhere across the map spot a kobold for me (unfortunately there was no carnage, they just ran away from each other ) and I'm pretty sure I remember an ambush spotting one as well, though I can't be as certain there.

I've seen merchants spot thieves and ambushes, but never a wild animal. No, wait, I got the alert message about a thief who was instantly squished by an angry elephant. I assumed it was the squishing part that revealed the thief.

[iskurthi]

I've never played on a map with raccoons. I've seen monkey-things (macaques?) rob the merchants. Maybe I should mention animals that take your stuff.

The rhesus monkeys are weird. I've seen swarms of seven or eight appear on the map and head immediately for the fortress entrance looking for stuff to pilfer (assuming there's no random bolts lying around for them to run off with).

[Quiller]

You might want to include something on channelling attackers for easier targetting with siege engines.  I don't think there needs to be anything on siege engine operation or training, but the fact that if you want to make siege engines a strong part of your overall fort defense you need to setup situations where attackers will spend long periods of time in the firing arc of your engines is something that needs to be integrated into fort defense as a whole.

Oh, and I think defensive towers might be a more descriptive term than turrets.  Medieval turrets were projections off of walls, and gun turrets are not normally built as towers either.  Redoubt might work, but probably best to keep nomenclature to a minimum.

My $0.02

[Strangething]

You might want to include something on channelling attackers for easier targetting with siege engines.  I don't think there needs to be anything on siege engine operation or training, but the fact that if you want to make siege engines a strong part of your overall fort defense you need to setup situations where attackers will spend long periods of time in the firing arc of your engines is something that needs to be integrated into fort defense as a whole.

Oh, and I think defensive towers might be a more descriptive term than turrets.  Medieval turrets were projections off of walls, and gun turrets are not normally built as towers either.  Redoubt might work, but probably best to keep nomenclature to a minimum.

My $0.02

There's not a lot of in-depth information on siege engines in the guide. This is by design, since I was trying to limit the scope of the guide. Siege engines and complex traps deserve their own pages.

I like "turret" as a general term. It doesn't have to be separate from your walls.

[RickiusMaximus]

Immediately after a siege you can turn off waterskins for each squad long enough for all soldiers to get their fill of bubbly then turn them back on to get rid of the negative thoughts [Can't remember the last time he had a drink.]  Every little bit helps when your soldiers start tantruming every time their precious war dog gets squashed.

I think soldiers only ever drink the water whenever they are on duty, when they are off duty -which all your soldier dwarfs should be when there is no threat- then they drink beer and train.

[Forumsdwarf]

No mention of the hideously evil "Roach Motel" reverse-trap?

(A "Roach Motel" is any configuration of traps and traffic control designed to allow goblins in without harming them but diverts their retreat through a trap-filled suicide passage.)

I'm experimenting now with tunnel-only entrances instead of the concentric perimeter design favored in my previous fortress.  I can't really say yet whether digging tunnels is less work than digging a second perimeter.  What I'm aiming for is to hold off until the last possible moment the actual application of violence so as to trap as many goblins in the tunnels as possible.  Having goblins retreat before they cross the first perimeter is frustrating.
I also expect safety within all of my territory inside the outer perimeter -- something holding off on the deadly force tends to undermine.  Running the goblins around in tunnels allows me, in theory, to delay without risk.  I'll know if it works once I put it to the test.
A few angles in the tunnel might stop caravans getting shot up, too.

[Red Jackard]

nicely done

[Anikki]

Woderful guide... Added an example section, started it with my current fortress entrance (3 bridges of doom).
http://www.dwarffortresswiki.net/index.php/Image:Defense_3bridges.png

[Strangething]

No mention of the hideously evil "Roach Motel" reverse-trap?

(A "Roach Motel" is any configuration of traps and traffic control designed to allow goblins in without harming them but diverts their retreat through a trap-filled suicide passage.)

I was considering sections on bait animals and roach motel tactics. Somehow, abusing path finding AI made it in, under Goblin Control. I may have been the first to use the term "roach motel," but I didn't invent the tactic. I first read about it here, in Frankmanic's thread.

My research lead me to all sorts of strange ideas.  See Stupid Dwarf Trick to see how crazy it it got. I had to cut some stuff to keep the madness to a minimum.

I'm experimenting now with tunnel-only entrances instead of the concentric perimeter design favored in my previous fortress.  I can't really say yet whether digging tunnels is less work than digging a second perimeter.  What I'm aiming for is to hold off until the last possible moment the actual application of violence so as to trap as many goblins in the tunnels as possible.  Having goblins retreat before they cross the first perimeter is frustrating.
I also expect safety within all of my territory inside the outer perimeter -- something holding off on the deadly force tends to undermine.  Running the goblins around in tunnels allows me, in theory, to delay without risk.  I'll know if it works once I put it to the test.
A few angles in the tunnel might stop caravans getting shot up, too.

Isn't this just moving your buffer zone underground?

[Calenth]

 a comment on levers:

one useful trick is to have your lever room near your noble apartments. The nobles are never doing anything else, but there'll usually be one close by who'll pull the things.

THat's of course if you don't just put 'em near the dining hall. I like to have my levers positioned at the top level of the fort though, since about half of them usually are to stop or start water flow projects.

[Forumsdwarf]

Isn't this just moving your buffer zone underground?

Yes, except that "just" doesn't do justice to the significance of tunnels versus perimeters.

Tunnels completely break line-of-sight, so that projectile users won't have a clear shot at civilians who happen to be nearby.  They extend the outer perimeter inward in quarantined filaments while all the land above them remains usable and technically part of the "inner perimeter".  The ability to arbitrarily extend the minimum distance between inner and outer perimeters, between drawbridge and traps, makes additional perimeters unnecessary.

It works best when there is no good reason for your citizens to venture past the perimeter, so the narrower the outer perimeter the better.  That's really the problem with the classic outdoor perimeter defense: civilians wandering around outside the wire.

If you need the bad guys to advance 40 tiles before they start dying you either have to build a 40-tile no-man's-land or a 40-tile tunnel.  It makes a significant difference.

[Marlowe]

I think soldiers only ever drink the water whenever they are on duty, when they are off duty -which all your soldier dwarfs should be when there is no threat- then they drink beer and train.

Nope. You tell them to carry water, they drink water. And then get sad about it.

An ambush is a small number of enemies (less than ten) that are invisible until spotted, like thieves, but somewhat easier to detect. The alert message is "An ambush! Curse them!" They skulk around the outside of your fortress, looking for a target of opportunity. They will often attack caravans as they move to your depot. Ambushers have random weapons, and typically have a leader (with a career title of "guard") with a different weapon from the rest.

You didn't mention that ambushes will almost always appear while you have a caravan, or that they will TEND to move straight towards your fortress same as a siege. On some maps where going outside was lacking in attraction I've had ambushes detected right at the gate. Ambushes also tend to come in twos and threes (of squads) at a time, although if an ambush party doesn't approach the fort while invisible it may not be detected until much later.
Ambush squads that are detected will apparently always go for your entrance as long as there's a way in.
Traps will catch ambushing goblins but they don't seem to reveal them. What seems to happen is a goblin will get brained by a trap, a dwarf will run out to grab the corpses' socks, he'll run into the rest of the squad and THEN you get the warning. Sometimes there's 6-7 dwarves out there fetching dead gobsocks. Pray the goblins aren't crossbows or bows.
Ambush squad leaders aren't always "Guard". Sometimes they're just "axegoblin", or et cetera. I think the difference is whether you're at war.
If ambushing goblins kill their detector, make sure you forbid the victim's items toot sweet, otherwise you'll get dwarves marching out to steal his boots or die trying.
Because goblins that are visible and determined to assault a fortified gateway guarded by traps, your military, and caravan guards are a lot less of a threat than goblins invisible and lurking outside you might want to NOT shut in your trade depot. Fortify it, yes, but don't close the door/raise the bridge while you have a caravan.

[Jake]

I've tended towards a bit of a middle way between the two camps. I usually dig a long entrance tunnel and carve fortifications on either side and between the doors at the very end, with one row of traps just inside the tunnel mouth to soften them up and another right before the doors as a last-ditch defence. The trade depot generally gets its own separate tunnel close to the finished goods stockpile with a single row of traps as a deterrent, or even stays up on the surface; my fortresses are always set up with an eye towards self-sufficiency in the essentials so it's generally not a catastrophe if the goblins trash it. Both tunnels can be sealed off by rows of floodgates, so I can position my marksdwarves at my leisure and either wait for the goblins to get bored and wander off (my preferred option if practical, as the others tend to make rather a mess), send my small squad of intensively-trained and well-armoured melee fighters out of a side door to flank them or raise the gate in apparent surrender and let the poor gullible sods wander into a shooting gallery; a gauntlet of twenty-odd crossbows on either side of a tunnel that's only wide enough for four creatures to march abreast would give even a megabeast some trouble, and even if it survived to the very end and booted in the door, every able-bodied dwarf in the fortress would be waiting to scrag it.