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[Ter13]

I began a new project today, something I'm calling the "God Dam". After realizing that my map is prone to severe flooding due to some unlucky biome placement, and the joining of two rivers, I've begun work on something I hope will solve my massive flooding problem.

Really, the major inspiration was due to the unique way my map floods. The south part of the map freezes later than the central and north part of the map, meaning the south-to-north flowing river has nowhere to flow out. This wouldn't be a problem, except the fact that there is a second river in my map that flows west to east, and falls into the major river via a three story drop. What ends up happening, is the river freezes, and the second river continues to fill the canyon with water until it too freezes, then in early spring, that flood thaws, and continues to flood even worse until late spring when the center of the river actually thaws, thus releasing the floodplain to wreak havoc on my fortress.



This dam solves two problems: 1) The west bank will no longer be cut off from the east, and my migrants won't have to starve anymore. 2) My front yard will no longer be a massive floodplain.

I totaled up all the stone it's going to require, it's a 34x7x9 dam, and it's going to take about 3740 stone to make the entire thing including mechanisms. It's going to be a beast of a project.

Luckily, I'm working on tapping a magma vent, and will be making obsidian to create all of this stone easily without strip-mining my map too bad.

I built a 25x25 chamber, with a 25x25 chamber above that I'm using bauxite bridges to drop water onto the lava, creating an even water distribution over the lava. I think it ought to work pretty well.

As for my question: Has anyone ever dammed a river this big? It's 34 tiles wide.

I've heard of streams and minor rivers being dammed, but not major rivers. Major rivers are kind of a pain because of the likelihood of aquifers. --And I had to get past two of the things (lucky for that magma vent!)

[Tormy]

As for my question: Has anyone ever dammed a river this big? It's 34 tiles wide.

Not me, and good luck with this project. When it's done, don't forget to post screenies. 

[Kagus]

You know, we need more difficult areas like this.  Your map has a serious hazard on it, which can be solved through a massive construction project.  This is a real challenge, thus providing you with a real goal.

Keep us posted.

[Hishan]

Ooo nice idea, and thats a mighty fine dam, whats the graphics program you used to generate that preveiw?

[sneakey pete]

I almost "dammed" a major river once. By dammed, i mean, was started to pump it back on its self so i could install floodgates. Nothing beastly like what your doing.
And by almost i mean... the edge was to close to the edge of the map for me to build the last pumps (i found this out after i'd already built 30odd of the suckers).

Too add insult to injury, it froze for a month in winter.

[Erom]

Ooo nice idea, and thats a mighty fine dam, whats the graphics program you used to generate that preveiw?

That's Blender, probably the most popular Open Source 3D-modeling program. Much like DF, the UI is not for the faint of heart.

[scribbler]

One person pumped out an ocean:
http://mkv25.net/dfma/movie-301-underwaterwalling

Still, I think this is way cooler. Post a map.

[Warlord255]

One person pumped out an ocean:
http://mkv25.net/dfma/movie-301-underwaterwalling

Still, I think this is way cooler. Post a map.

uhkm is your friend for construction.

Still, pretty damn cool.

[Maggarg - Eater of chicke]

/love

[nirodragon]

I think I would panic if I encountered the flooding problem you've discovered.

[Bryan Derksen]

Awesome. It's always kind of bugged me that I can't embark in a canyon, build an enormous dam, and then have the upstream side of the canyon fill up - water entering a map isn't under pressure, the stream just sits there. It'd be wonderful if my megaengineering projects could actually alter the layout and climate of the world map eventually. If I divert a major river into a chasm it should be terrible news for the elven nation downstream that depends on it.

[ShadowDragon8685]

This seems like a good plan, but I'd make one major alteration here:

Build it high, and build it smooth. Determine what the highest point absolutely required for your dam's sides are, then build the whole thing about five Z-levels higher than that.

Overengineering is better than underengineering!

[DanielLC]

You mentioned mechanisms. Is this thing made of flood gates? Does it just have a few in it?

[Carcer]

Not bad idea if the waters flood higher than expected, either.

[Ter13]

This seems like a good plan, but I'd make one major alteration here:

Build it high, and build it smooth. Determine what the highest point absolutely required for your dam's sides are, then build the whole thing about five Z-levels higher than that.

Overengineering is better than underengineering!

I am! The Canyon is only four Z-levels deep, and my dam is about 9 Z-levels tall at the highest point.

You mentioned mechanisms. Is this thing made of flood gates? Does it just have a few in it?

The bottom level is made entirely of floodgates on the south end (the back), with grate walls abutting them. (about 40 of each), and then I have another set of floodgates staggered to go with the curvature of the dam. The center of the dam has them at Z-level 2, the second tier is at level 3, the third tier is at level 4, and the fourth tier is at level 5.

This makes it so that I can effectively drain my dam quickly if need be.

On the front of the dam, there is another layer of grates, making it so that the water flows through the dam without danger of annihilation.

I think I would panic if I encountered the flooding problem you've discovered.

I did. I had to close off my fortress until late-summer, as my front gate was under water.

One person pumped out an ocean:
http://mkv25.net/dfma/movie-301-underwaterwalling

Still, I think this is way cooler. Post a map.

uhkm is your friend for construction.

Still, pretty damn cool.

Thanks for that link! And I'm new, how exactly do I post a map?

Ooo nice idea, and thats a mighty fine dam, whats the graphics program you used to generate that preveiw?

That's Blender, probably the most popular Open Source 3D-modeling program. Much like DF, the UI is not for the faint of heart.

I like blender. I use it to model DF blueprints a lot, using only the extrude command and the grab command. It's pretty easy to learn, actually.

I almost "dammed" a major river once. By dammed, i mean, was started to pump it back on its self so i could install floodgates. Nothing beastly like what your doing.
And by almost i mean... the edge was to close to the edge of the map for me to build the last pumps (i found this out after i'd already built 30odd of the suckers).

Too add insult to injury, it froze for a month in winter.

The month that my river freezes for is actually advantageous. I'm using that time to build the first floodgates, and shut down the minor river that causes the severe flooding.

You know, we need more difficult areas like this.  Your map has a serious hazard on it, which can be solved through a massive construction project.  This is a real challenge, thus providing you with a real goal.

Keep us posted.

Is this kind of area rare? I have never settled outside of the safety of mountains, so this is my first real river experience. I sort of assumed that flooding was pretty common, after all, boatmurdered had serious flooding issues.