Irregardless isn't a word.
* StrayCat hands Brendan a red armband with a swastika made out of interlocked G's and N's on it.
Good for you. I'm actually a little awed by that statement. Normally I only get irked by people who don't capitalize or leave off periods or type nothing but one continuous sentence without so much as a flick of the fingers over the tab button, but you? I'm thinking I should marry you for such a pointless, pompous, and proud attack upon my language. I mean, more often than not, I shut up and let others shout WALL OF TEXT for me, but you have the gall to go right on ahead, boldly showing me the total of what you've taken away from my post, and having at me with gutless abandon! Oh wait.
I am afraid Dictionary Dot Com disagrees with you! Try and attack someone who uses numbers in their words- they're easier targets than, say, anyone intelligent enough to use google, and look up a dictionary, and type in the supposedly offending word. Heck, by QUOTING me, you could've seen in your very own browser the distinct absence of a little red line indicating a failure to construct one word of the many inside the English language. But you didn't even bother with that, did you? Too quick to jump, took a leap of faith, trusting in your gut- fell two stories, and don't have legs to stand on now. Guess you shouldn't mess with a real grammar nazi, pal.
* StrayCat pets Irregardless, cooing to it softly.
Irregardless of your linguistic attack and my counterattack-
Trenches are still an inferior defensive tactic with their one advantage to them taken away when they're used in your way, Brendan- they take too long to make by how you use them, with little bang for their buck. Trenches can be made fast, and it's all you need to stop a goblin siege in it's tracks. Turn all labor but digging off for your miners. Cancel the next lines of digging designations in your fortress. Sketch a perimeter about your fortress with trench designations. Call it a day. Excluding the few dwarfs idiot enough to stand on the other side of the perimeter when they're digging that hole, remedied by quickly laying down a constructed floor, you're sailing smooth my boy!
The way you use them, as an offensive tool, is NOT how they were used in the Great War. They were shelter, and meager one's at that. Trenches were the perfect representation of how offensive warfare had made leaps and bounds, whilst defensive warfare and medical procedures were still lagging behind. Artillery, machine guns, and bombing- these must be remembered as the reason why anyone advancing across no man's land had so much difficulty. Not to mention the poison gas, barbed wire, and in the end, a melding of defensive possibilities and offensive equipment- the tank. Trenches were sad, terrible holes dug by the same men who were to die in them.
Much better to build a wall.
DF Trenches and Walls: A Comparison
Trenches
Trenches: Advantages
Quicker to build than walls
Stops melee units
Can be used to channel units into a certain area
Trenches: Disadvantages
The enemy can fire across them
Inadvisable to occupy them with friendly forces
Walls
Walls: Advantages
Stops melee units AND marksman units
Can be used to channel units into a certain area
Can be outfitted with floodgates to either allow or prohibit entry selectively, unlike trenches, which are either a total perimeter or contain a breach in the defenses
Can build ramps on the inside of the wall closest to the fortress to allow friendly marksmen to have the Z-advantage over others and stand on the wall
Can turn sections of it into fortifications so that areas can be fired through- or a ballista arrow.
Can include doors for easy access to things outside the perimeter (though in later affairs, trolls WILL break down your doors).
Walls: Disadvantages
Cannot be fired across by friendly units
Slower to build than trenches, by comparison of simple walls to simple trenches
And there you have it gentlemen and women of the internet. If you need a memory trick, remember this for this chart:
Walls > Trenches
And just for those clever, clever people out there who are looking for a real advantage and bloodshed- imagine this as your main entrance, with walls going all the way across the sides and back of your fortress...
W FORTRESS W
W W
WdWWW W
WbbbWWWWWWWWWWFFFWWWWWWWWWWW
WbbbFf fCW
WbbbWWWWWWWWWWFFFWWWWWWWWWWW
WWWW
W = Wall
bbb
bbb = Ballista
bbb
F = Floodgate
d = Door
f = Fortification
C = Channel
Imagine somewhere within your fortress there's two levers. Pull the first lever when you hear there's a siege a-coming, and it locks down the floodgates closest to the fortress. The floodgate at the ballista starts out closed. Order the ballista loaded and ready to fire. Wait for it to be loaded and with a dwarf there to fire it. Lock the door so the dwarf can't flee in case some bolts come through the fortification. Pull the second lever, which closes the floodgates farthest from the fortress, and opens up the Floodgate in front of the ballista. Order your ballista to fire. The bolt goes straight along the path with no deviation, cutting through the massed horde of goblins accumulated there. All of them die. The bolt hits the far wall through the fortification, and falls down the channel into a collection area. The single bolt is maintained, due to a bug about Siege ammunition falling a z-level. With the floodgates farthest from the fortress closed, no more goblins can come in while the siege weapon is reloaded. When you're ready for the next batch of goblins to be slaughtered, pull the second lever, closing the floodgate in front of the siege weapon and opening the farthest floodgates from the fortress. Wait for a new wave of goblins to get in nice and close, then pull the second lever again. Repeat the reaping. Or raping. Both are pretty accurate for what's happening to the pitiable souls inside that corridor.
I've got more to contribute defensive-wise, but that's pretty much the most efficient dwarfs lost to kills to time to resources used thing I've come up with yet. And it's also pretty damned fun to watch. The only need for a standing army once that's built is if a creature comes along that can destroy floodgates, or you don't pull the first lever in time, getting a small group of irate goblins who want to wear your skin inside the perimeter. That's when you call in the champion axedwarfs who're your best soldiers to reap some souls. Bringing us nicely back on topic