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[Spoggerific]

What's with the massive alert spamming going on there? You let a titan loose in the hospital?

Nah. He just started trying to rest every single tick, and it got cancelled every single tick. It probably happened over a couple of seconds at the most.

[Marlowe]

Melting doesn't consume ice. If the Magma under it evaporates the 1/7 water will turn into an ice wall again. When the magma comes back it'll become 7/7 water again.

Unless your magma is tightly channeled and never evaporates, tapping meltwater into a cistern is just like tapping a brook, just slower and easier to miss.

This can be a very good thing if you figure out what's going on before you get flooded, of course.

[detinith]

Earlier on a map, a human and his camel got stuck in a funny 3/7-5/7 pit of water surrounded by ramps, and became stark raving mad. I had no idea where he was so I ignored it, as I didn't see him near my fort so threat to dwarfs was nill.
Later looking at my stocks list, I saw many, many random objects I know I've never created (electrium bars, +steel low boots+, etc) forbidden. Thinking "More metal!" I promptly removed the forbidden tag off everything (20+ items) and unpaused.
Ten minutes later (noting 0 idlers for all that time) I start getting spammed "Cancelled store item/drink/eat/sleep: Dangerous terrain" and it took me another five minutes to realize nearly every one of my dwarves were close to drowning in that little pool on the opposite edge of the map. A child actually did drown
I had to designate traffic zones to help them realize there's a 3/7 path up a ramp to safety. I had to forbid all those items again to stop them blitzing for it.

Don't claim stuff you can't remember seeing on a goblin

[inaluct]

What's with the massive alert spamming going on there? You let a titan loose in the hospital?

Nah. He just started trying to rest every single tick, and it got cancelled every single tick. It probably happened over a couple of seconds at the most.

No, it lasted like, 15 minutes real time before I built a wooden spike under him, connected it to a lever, and set it to be pulled repeatedly. At the time the titan was far, far away in a cage. I was sort of disappointed that a titan could be held in a tin cage, actually.

[Jisaan]

Floor grates and bridges don't support constructions... But they do fine at supporting the dwarf who's buildingv them, right up until the point they're sucked into a lake / perpetual motion machine by a cloud of dust the collapse creates.

There were three cases of this in my most recent fort. The first was a wall being built around a bridge to protect the crossers from carp, longnose gar, and other such demons. The victim was a legendary bone carver, who I wrote off as dead when I saw that he was unconcious. He managed to wake up and swim to shore though.

The second was some carpenter that built a floor next to a grate during the construction of my perpetual motion machine. Unfortunately, I had already filled it with water, and the dwarf who volunteered to pull the emergency drain lever was on the other side of the map.

The third was another carpenter, who had the exact same thing happen to her as the second victim. The difference was that I had already ordered someone to drain the water at the time, so as to give the previous carpenter a proper burial. Oddly enough, the dwarf who volunteered this time just happened to be the husband of the newest dwarf, and he was still a little ways away at the time.

As a result, he ended up in a race against time to drain the channel before his wife drowned. He made it to the lever in time, but it was a large pool of 7/7 water, and the drain was only a tile wide. Fortunately, the waves that were created sent a few tiles of 4/7 water to his wife, giving her the air she needed to swim out of the machine.

All in all, I got quite lucky, with only one death from a stupid mistake I made three times. Needless to say, I'm going to be a bit more careful from now on. In my defense though, I had thought I suspended the construction of the floors that weren't supported at the time of the third incident. Still shouldn't have had it filled with water yet, however.

[Bigulp]

I found out today that carp can pull people off bridges, it wasn't a heavily trafficked area so I didn't notice until 10 guys attempted to retrieve someones body on the other side and didn't make it back. Trying to dam the river now.

[SolarShado]

Heh, my first fort. Started diging into the cliff and straight into a pool of water. Didn't realise the water was there and not below. I don't think anyone died, but I abandoned anyway, just out of disgust.

[Forumsdwarf]

I learned that if you build a saltwater well idiot dorfs will cluster around it waiting for a drink they can never have.
They'll stand there until they either die of thirst, starve to death, or are noticed by an astute player.  Mine survived just barely when I dismantled the well and they diverted to the booze pile.
Lesson learned.  I just wanted the well to increase my fort value and give me a good meeting area anyway -- I didn't expect anyone to actually try to drink from the darn thing!
I also learned that even if there is booze available some dorfs will drink water instead.  It might be smart to put your well in some far off corner of the fort where only medics will venture or lock the door to the well room until someone needs medical care.

[Annoying]

The only way to make a brook go down a level is by sacrificing a miner to make a ramp below the brook.

When I first played with magma I came up with a better way. My fortress has a magma channel with a steel grate with a functional floodgate down the channel. I managed to create this without sacrificing a single dwarf to Armok. My magma pipe had a nice shelf arrangement on one level, so I channeled under the target spot, then dug out 2 3x3 rooms above the tunnel. Built a support then dropped a chunk of floor through the rooms. Afterwards I refloored the lower section and then had a magma channel with absolutely no escaped dangerous creatures, no dead miners and virtually no risk.

This should essentially work on a brook, channel below, then built a dropper above. Use a grate from your stairway to the floor you need to build (and then drop) and you won't have to risk stranding a dwarf on top since they can walk back across but a grate won't support.

So idiot proof, even a dwarf can do it.

[MuonDecay]

With brooks I always just tunneled from below until within 1 tile of the brook (or river), slapped a grate at the end of the tunnel in the case of rivers, then channeled the in-between tile from above to set the water flowing.

Floodgates were of course installed and linked beforehand, when necessary.

For extra fun, don't use a grate and let the doomcarp flow freely into your water supply. Then build the well directly above the water.

It shall run red, my friend. </McCain>

[Gauphastus]

My first successful fort (fourth fort I'd ever made; first three were experiments. had this above-ground area. Walls and rooms and the like.
There was a large outer wall, and then there was an inner wall that protected the entrance.
I expanded one part of the inner wall to reach over a brook to protect my fishermen. Not wanting to block the brook flow, I used vertical bars.
My outer walls all had doors next to the raised drawbridges on all four sides. Sort of a little fast escape hatch feature, just in case.

Everything I ever wanted at the time.

A few sieges later, trolls started showing up. By this point, I'm looking at about eight different units of goblins and trolls approaching.
"Oh, no problem I'm sure. Goblins are a cinch, and those trolls are probably just like goblins only tougher."
My trick was to use chained animals just outside the walls to bait in the enemy close enough to shoot them full of holes with about a dozen champion marksdwarves on the roof of the outer walls.
They begin firing at one troop on the east wall.

On the other end, I'm getting messages about trolls destroying my doors.
I look over and see that my outer wall has had a bunch of holes punched through it.
Those trolls hulk-smashed my doors!

The front of my inner walls had double doors. Knowing those were now useless, I simply constructed walls behind them.
"Hah! Nobody's getting in n--"
?!
They Hulk-smashed my vertical bars over the brook!

My champs moved in and saved the day, but man...

Learning experience, yes.

No doors.
No bars.
Drawbridges only.
Final Destination.

[peekama]

No doors.
No bars.
Drawbridges only.
Final Destination.

I lol'd

[Squeegy]

No doors.
No bars.
Drawbridges only.
Final Destination.

I lol'd

I lol'd harder.

[dizzyelk]

There was the time in adventurer mode where I was training my swim skill that I learned the sun doesn't always set in the west... After I calmed down I decided that was actually pretty cool.