Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Neoskel]

This is the result of my appreciation for glacier sites, and sitting up all night figuring out a way to produce water in such a location.

So here's the idea: Embark on a glacier site, preferably a completely flat area of land ice. Build an entire fortress out of ice. And i don't mean build in the traditional sense, i mean cast a huge fortress out of ice, like you would with obsidian. Mine and smooth out all the rooms. Engrave to taste. Fill in all temporary dwellings/storage areas once finished and move everything into the ice palace.


Requirements: Magma, strangely enough. You'll need it to produce water and keep it liquid until it is where you want it.

Lots of initial building materials for all the scaffolding.

A 'not-too-cold' temperature so that merchants don't die on arriving at your depot. It is also required for your dwarves to accept rooms in the ice fortress.


Bonus points for: Having an aquifer. They're really hard to find in glaciers.

Making all the furniture ('cept beds) out of microcline. Major mucho bonus points for making all the furniture out of clear glass.

Guard polar bears. More points for breeding them and making all your clothes out of polar bear leather/fur (when fur is in).

Bulding giant statues to guard the gates out of ice. Bonus bonus points for casting them out of ice instead.

Smoothing out a 'road' on the glacier leading to the fortress entrance, more for lining it with something made out of ice. Particularly for cast pillars of ice that have been smoothed and engraved.

Having a defensive measure that involves freezing attackers.

Having a defensive measure that involves dropping cast blocks of ice on attackers' heads.

Capturing enemies in cage traps, taking their armor/weapons and freezing them (not in their cage) in a block of ice in a large gallery made specifically for this purpose. Major mucho bonus points if you engrave the resultant pillars and savescum until each pillar has an engraving depicting that particular goblin's death.

Having a Queen rule your civ and having her move to your ice fortress. If she has an ice/cold related name you must be cheating somehow. Please let me know how. 

Having something ice/cold related as your local symbol.

[Kidiri]

Major mucho bonus points if you engrave the resultant pillars and savescum until each pillar has an engraving depicting that particular goblin's death.

Serious major mucho bonus points if you engrave the resultant pillars and savescum until each pillar has a masterpiece depicting that particular nasty's death.

[Maggarg - Eater of chicke]

Major mucho bonus points if you engrave the resultant pillars and savescum until each pillar has an engraving depicting that particular goblin's death.

Serious major mucho bonus points if you engrave the resultant pillars and savescum until each pillar has a masterpiece depicting that particular nasty's death.

This idea now can't get any better.
Thread over.

[Mephansteras]

Hehe, doing lots of Glacier sites was one of the things I like best about playing as Frost Giants while I was testing them. Lots of neat things you can do with Ice.

[Vattic]

Serious major mucho bonus points if you engrave the resultant pillars and savescum until each pillar has a masterpiece depicting that particular nasty's death.

Wont this get easier as the engraving gets properly under way? I've found that once dwarves start engraving images of a certain theme the frequency of that theme seems to increase.

[Kidiri]

Well, yes. More masterpiece engravings will occur when you've got a Legendary Engraver. But even on Legendary+5, there's 'only' a 27% chance of masterpieces, and thus 73% chance it will be exceptional.

[Phazer]

well if anyone find any good site please post it as im having a hell of a problem to find an glacier with magma.

[Albedo]

And i don't mean build in the traditional sense, i mean cast a huge fortress out of ice, like you would with obsidian. Mine and smooth out all the rooms.

If I'm reading this right, this would be nigh-unto impossible.

It would require temperatures that cause water to freeze, which happens (almost?) instantly.  To cast a fortress would require getting it to flow, which requires magma for warm tiles immediately next to it.

So you'd have to build some sort of "reverse radiator" to keep the water warm enough to flow before it freezes in the mold - which would happen the moment it left the warming/holding tank.

I'm not sure you could achieve this, given the tiles needed to hold both the magma and water.  Maybe in 1-tile incriments, and certainly only by constructing the pouring system on the z-level immediately over the mold, deconstructing and re-building the whole thing (requiring emptying it of magma) one z-level higher each time.

Or am I missing some trick here?   

[LegoLord]

Yes.  Ice can be cast by bucket brigade.  That is, designating a pond above ground where the dwarves can dump water into.  They need two trips per square, otherwise you just get a muddy ice floor.

[Neoskel]

And i don't mean build in the traditional sense, i mean cast a huge fortress out of ice, like you would with obsidian. Mine and smooth out all the rooms.

If I'm reading this right, this would be nigh-unto impossible.

It would require temperatures that cause water to freeze, which happens (almost?) instantly.  To cast a fortress would require getting it to flow, which requires magma for warm tiles immediately next to it.

So you'd have to build some sort of "reverse radiator" to keep the water warm enough to flow before it freezes in the mold - which would happen the moment it left the warming/holding tank.

I'm not sure you could achieve this, given the tiles needed to hold both the magma and water.  Maybe in 1-tile incriments, and certainly only by constructing the pouring system on the z-level immediately over the mold, deconstructing and re-building the whole thing (requiring emptying it of magma) one z-level higher each time.

Or am I missing some trick here?   

My idea is that you make the mold above the chosen location. About 2 z-levels above the target top level. Magma goes on top of that to keep the water from freezing and then you drop all the water at once. It'll freeze in mid air and then fall to where you want it in a great 'cave-in' of icey doom. It was great fun imagining the tremendous thumps this process would produce.

[LegoLord]

of course, that can still be done by bucket brigade.  I think walls of ice still float.

[Randominality]

What happens when a water tile is moving through the air, does it freeze? If so would a waterfall be an instant lag fest cave in trap

[Neoskel]

of course, that can still be done by bucket brigade.  I think walls of ice still float.

Have you actually tried this? A bucket brigade would wind up creating 'water' impurities that dwarves will clean away, not walls of ice. In fact, the water in the buckets would freeze once introduced to the outside air, rendering it into completely useless 'water' items. at the entrance to your reservoir.

[Phazer]

and how would the waterfall get its watersupply from above?

[LegoLord]

of course, that can still be done by bucket brigade.  I think walls of ice still float.

Have you actually tried this? A bucket brigade would wind up creating 'water' impurities that dwarves will clean away, not walls of ice. In fact, the water in the buckets would freeze once introduced to the outside air, rendering it into completely useless 'water' items. at the entrance to your reservoir.

Plenty of times, no, and no, respectively.  DF physics don't exactly respect the real world.  When a pond is filled, 10 "water" items in a bucket are deleted and one depth of water is created in the tile one z-level below the one designated as a pond.  This will first freeze into a muddy ice floor, and on the second try will create an entire wall, since those are the only ways walls can be divided.