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[StrayCat]

Aaaand now I'm savescumming by restarting my computer to the last save because that same epedition leaderjust got gangbanged by two harpies and skinned to be worn as party masks for the next soiree those winged fiends'll be going to next. That woman get's it rough. Oi, and I think it's time to re-prioritize, and having decided that cave adaptation is the lesser evil of getting eaten by Nightwing's and raped by harpies, I'm gonna floor over those channeled skylights now... Freakin' frakin' flying creatures, as if I haven't had enough trouble with the fire imps...

[Kanil]

The neat part? Those skylights will still work just as well after you floor 'em over.

[WorkerDrone]

Death from above?

[RavingManiac]

The neat part? Those skylights will still work just as well after you floor 'em over.

Not in the latest version, actually. I suggest using a grate instead.

Nightwong.

... nightwong.

lol.

...I don't get it

[RavingManiac]

Oops, accidentally double-posted

[chaoticag]

The only painful death I can think of was in my first fortress to hit the dwarven economy.

I had two soldiers, an axedwarf and a speardwarf, they both became uncaring about the world, and both were the only friends to each other.

One day, I suffered a goblin seige, and our speardwarf refused to listen to orders because he was in a martial trance. I decided not to risk it, and raised the bridge, leaving our lone speardwarf to fend for himself. He died after taking a few goblins with him.

The seasons turned and a few months later, I was watching the now axdwarf spar with a speardwarf. Something goes wrong, so I check his wounds. His heart was pierced through.

I had him buried next to his only friend.

[Kanil]

Not in the latest version, actually. I suggest using a grate instead.

You are correct.

Inside doesn't cause cave adaption, but doesn't prevent it... got a bit confused, sorry.

[StrayCat]

The neat part? Those skylights will still work just as well after you floor 'em over.

Not in the latest version, actually. I suggest using a grate instead.

Nightwong.

... nightwong.

lol.

...I don't get it

If you try and imagine something pretty damned terrifying, then associate it whenever you think of it with something ridiculous, it's not nearly as scary. Calling the boogieman who's hiding in your closet with hooks to carry you away from day and live with him forever and ever... the Boogers Man, for instance, or Captain Butt-Burgler Man will make him less intimidating. I know after wiki'ing just what in the hell eviscerated my expedition leader I needed to think up something so I could go to sleep without wondering what must have been going through Toady and ThreeToe's minds when they thought THAT thing up, and to make the Nightwing less pants-shittingly terrifying, I turned a mistype I noticed into a defense mechanism.

Because damn, would you like to go to bed wondering if you'll dream you're a dwarf and you're about to get a midnight meeting with a terrific beast, one that can open doors, talk to you, reason, and suck the blood from your veins and still never cease its unending hunger? Or would you like to go to bed thinking-

"... Heh heh... Nightwong."

[Jetman123]

One of my axedwarves was fighting off a goblin siege and got picked on by a goblin axelord. Somehow, both of them dodged into one of the trenches I had dug around the entrance and they finished their fight down there; the goblin hacked both of the dwarf's legs off and then bled to death. Soon after the battle finished it started raining...so my dwarf basically laid there with no legs dying of thirst and drifting in and out of consciousness in a muddy, rainy trench with only a rotting goblin corpse for company.

This reminded me of world war 1. How would dwarves go about trench warfare?

[Dragooble]

all their trenches would have to be several z levels deep
otherwise it wouldnt be dwarven.

[StrayCat]

Trenches wouldn't be advantageous. Advantage in firing a crossbow comes from being a Z-level up, if I recall correctly, and that the loser is a z-level down more often than not. Irregardless, trenches would work by being a minimum of two wide, one deep, with a stairway/ramp on each side, and the trench as lengthwise as you'd like. Personally, if I felt the need to do such a thing, I'd dig a trench, Seven wide, all around or in front of where I need to protect, and put five by five guard towers six Z-levels tall, minimum, with the levels after the trench level and ground level having the constructed walls turned into fortifications. Close the roof, make the entrance to the towers underground and connected to your main fort (after going through a trapped area, just in case anything were to go awry somehow), and you'd have a pretty fine set up in my opinion. But that's just what I'd do, had I the dwarves with attention-spans longer than that of a concussed kitten, and forts lasting longer than five years.

[Brendan]

Irregardless isn't a word.

This reminded me of world war 1. How would dwarves go about trench warfare?

The trenches were more to do with the fact that I was too lazy to build a proper moat, but I would imagine that dwarves wouldn't engage in trench warfare so much as they would try to force the enemy into the trenches. That puts the dwarves at an advantageous position because their enemies are flowing in one predictable channel, so to speak. So their trenches would be several Z deep, as Dragooble said, so that enemies couldn't jump into the dwarven side of the trench without running the gauntlets of traps or melee-dwarf platoons without maiming themselves.

[StrayCat]

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...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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

[Tigershark13]

one point, your refering to BRITISH trenches there, they wern't expecting to stay in them long, so they wern't particuarly well planned, the Germans however were trying to defend at this point, so their trenches were very well made and worked pretty well, they only really lost because the home front fell.


anyway, as much fun as walls are, trenches do have a cool feel about them IF you use them life this.

Bunkers- for crossbowmen, only accessable via the Trench.

Two entrances to trench from enemy side, fill trench with melee units ect ect, it could make for some cool battles.

[StrayCat]

one point, your refering to BRITISH trenches there, they wern't expecting to stay in them long, so they wern't particuarly well planned, the Germans however were trying to defend at this point, so their trenches were very well made and worked pretty well, they only really lost because the home front fell.


anyway, as much fun as walls are, trenches do have a cool feel about them IF you use them life this.

Bunkers- for crossbowmen, only accessable via the Trench.

Two entrances to trench from enemy side, fill trench with melee units ect ect, it could make for some cool battles.

All trenches were utterly miserable in the end. The Germans enjoyed getting shelled and bombed and trying to attack the allies whilst taking the brunt of attacks for the Central Powers. It wasn't good times for anyone.

If the bunkers are like pillboxes, aboveground with fortifications, and there's no doors to the outside, that'd be pretty effective. As for the trenches themselves- with only melee units, it's be an utter slaughter for the dwarfs. If there were any marksmen at the lip of the trenches, they could just point the crossbow down, smile at the screaming dwarfs and their melee weapons, and let loose a storm of arrows to annihilate the dwarfs with no way whatsoever to counterattack.

I really wish Catapults could fire across Z-levels, so they could lob over walls. For that matter, I wish we could target a specific area to be fired upon with siege weaponry instead of just "Aim this way!" and let fly. Designate a selection of squares to be targeted, and anything inside that area gets pounded by catapult fire or ballista fire. It'd really make catapults more useful.