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[DennyTom]

In my last fort I sealed entrance with a bridge. All my fort died because of its stupid placement:

Code: [Select]

sidewiew of my entrance (enter is top-left):

___...x___v
v_________^__FFFFFF

_ - floor
... - open space
x - raised bridge
v - downward stairway
^ - upward stairway
F - finished goods store for trade

Goblins attack, so I order "Pull the switch!". Bridge raises, everything is fine and suddenly dwarves start to die from bleeding. As my dwarves stored goods, they became practice targets of goblins standing above them. Few died, then tantrum spiral.

[sneakey pete]

And, goblins that were on the bridge when you raised it would also be dropped right into the heart of your fort...

[DennyTom]

Exactly - I could not make anything worse

[Duke 2.0]

Exactly - I could not make anything worse

Urist: Ha! They cannot get us if we are IN MAGMA!

[DennyTom]

Exactly - I could not make anything worse

Urist: Ha! They cannot get us if we are IN MAGMA!

I am not sure - once I tried to flood my fort with magma. I channeled some from magma pipe to my dining hall/meeting area.
Magma flows sloooooow. So slow that when it was spreading across my dining room, it took certain space and evaporated so quickly it could not spread more. Dwarves and puppies were just chilling right next to magma puddle. Circa every month one dwarf or kitten get caught by magma and burned. But legendary dining room beated all those bad thoughts.

[Savok]

"Because. They can't grab me if I'm on fire." --McNinja

[numerobis]

In my last fort I sealed entrance with a bridge. All my fort died because of its stupid placement:

hehehe.  My first time playing the 3d version, I was shocked -- shocked -- to discover exactly as you did that goblins can indeed shoot across z-levels.  That was my Landsdiamond experience, which suffered a tantrum spiral every other year.

[Zorgn]

Urist: Ha! They cannot get us if we are IN MAGMA!

Sigged.

[Old-Man-Gator]

I think that when you're designing the entrance way, there is something of an evolutionary process from poor to passable in terms of defensive value of the gatehouse.

This sort of thing might appeal to some people, but I prefer to have an element of danger to things and would much rather depend on an active and strong military than a plethora of cage traps, a moat full of magma and a drawbridge.

I think most important is defense against bow armed enemies, that is blind corridor turns and cunning placement of your own fortifications and marksdwarves.

[Cheshire Cat]

yarr, i likes to do things without traps and bridges as well. though i do have either locked doors or bridges further back in the fort to totally seal off all the annoying dwarves who keep running out to the entrance, seeing the sun, then running back in again, then seeing a goblin and deciding to flee en masse out into the wide open world where i cant save them.

careful design means you can take down really big hordes with hardly any military dwarves anyway, once they have chain, leather and especially plate armor and shields with reasonable skills they are invincible, so long as they aren't equipped with spears.

and i remember flooding my very first learning fort with magma. i first thought that if i breached the magma pipe at the lowest z level the pressure would cause it to shoot up through my forts central stairway and incinerate everything, sealing all my dwarves in their rooms. once that didnt work i channeled out my magma forges, which were on the surface. i got so frustrated at the slow progress i sealed up all the magma again, which had only managed to melt some of the ore in my stockpile, and let it fill up a few large storerooms, then dug an up ramp from the level below, leading to my stairs. that was fun. i let water in the other end of my fort at the same time just for kicks.

seeing a dwarf wake up, go "oh my room is rapidly filling with water", run out into the hallway to escape and see a slowly advancing trickle of magma, then dance between the two till he has to choose one or the other way of dying was much more satisfying then something so diabolical should be. if you want fiery craziness either make a magma rezovoir high up somewhere, or make a lot of pumps.

[Deathworks]

Hi!

Actually, my worst defense design was in the 2D version. I had a trapped entrance corridor. At its inner end, a door led directly into my main corridor which ran paralell to the cliff face (so at a right angle to the entrance corridor).

The problem was that I was intrigued by fortifications. I had never used them before, so I turned the walls next to the doors into fortifications.

Well, the goblins came, and they brought archery. Archery whose range was longer than the entrance corridor. Archery which shot right through the fortification as if it didn't exist, making a horrible bloodbath right in the heart of my main corridor. It was a complete and utter desaster as the very heart of my fortress had become unusable.

Deathworks

[DennyTom]

@Deathworks:
Yes - goblins range attack can be a nasty surprise

@Cheshire Cat:
Hehe, sounds very funny - I will try this at my next fortress catastrophy. There is one thing about magma flood that amuses me. When dwarf steps in magma or magma spreads so that dwarf catch fire, burning dwarf runs through fortress, directly in his bed, and there slowly burns to death in his smoke filled bedroom.

[Martin]

Hi!

Actually, my worst defense design was in the 2D version. I had a trapped entrance corridor. At its inner end, a door led directly into my main corridor which ran paralell to the cliff face (so at a right angle to the entrance corridor).

The problem was that I was intrigued by fortifications. I had never used them before, so I turned the walls next to the doors into fortifications.

Well, the goblins came, and they brought archery. Archery whose range was longer than the entrance corridor. Archery which shot right through the fortification as if it didn't exist, making a horrible bloodbath right in the heart of my main corridor. It was a complete and utter desaster as the very heart of my fortress had become unusable.

Deathworks

Ha! I did almost the same thing with one of my first 2d forts. I dug out a trade depot space and ringed it with fortifications so I could fire on attackers from my storage areas. I thought that I'd massacre anyone that came into the front of the fort in a deadly crossfire. The gobbos showed up with bows and then I realized I had only one crossbow in the entire fort - and that the storage areas right behind the fortifications were only food and booze with no easy way to door off the space, so dwarves would randomly walk to their death.

[Mephansteras]

One of my early forts had a seemingly brilliant design. A long entrance corridor with fortifications lining the inside walls. The only thing behind those fortifications would be my archers and some ammo stockpiles.

Except...it was all underground. And I didn't know about the entrance dance.

So the first time I got a serious ambush I ordered all dwarves inside, stationed my archers, and waited. Then I realized that all my civilians kept running out into the corridor of death!

It didn't end well. But I learned a lot about fortress defense out of it. My next fort had something similar, but OUTSIDE, with doors I could lock leading inside. That worked better, at least until one of the doors got jammed open by a rock.

I have since learned to make all main entrances out of draw bridges that can't get stuck, fired though, or bashed down.

[Cheshire Cat]

people mentioned plumbing.

you totally need to remember where you put that.

ive had several disasters when i am creating channels, for instance when i want a new line of magma forges, and i designate a channel directly over a very high pressure water tunnel directly underneath. near the magma forges. yeah.

the other thing i once did accidentally was dig into my underwater resovoir when creating magma channels near a second entrance, and ended up with it half full of magma with a little wall of obsidion dividing the other half with water in it. all my wells ended up over the magma bit. at least dwarves accidentally falling in had a rather quick death. buckets of magma for the wounded anyone?

i cant count the number of times where i have accidentally made holes in the roof of peoples bedrooms and things as well. be really aware of whats underneath you when you dig.

i empathize with the people saying they were so dedicated to a brilliant design the messed it up. i just tried doing my first preplanned fort and its ended up something like this, with the workshop stockpiles being really hard to segregate and organize.