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[Mik1o]

So here's the thing.




So basicly, the entrance to the fortress is from the bottom of the picture. The drawbridges are connected to levers (colour coded in the picture for the clearance). The fortress itself would at the top of the picture. Well you get the point. So a question about this layout:

Will arriving caravans choose their destination depot when entering the embark area?
In otherwords, if i close access to a depot where the caravan is headed, will it go to the other depot instead of the one it was going to in the first place?

The main use for this dwarven atom elfsmasher entrance is to get rid of those nasty tree hugging elven caravans and their filthy goods.

3 stones and reconstruction of the depot after the elfsmashing would be a small price to pay for the joy. 

Any comments/suggestions are more than welcome.

EDIT: Picture location changed to an elf-safe location

[Mik1o]

damn picture didn't load up right... Must be the work of those damn elves...
Any ideas for a better place to upload the picture?

[Dorf3000]

Remember that elves are too weak to bring caravans, so they will travel down a 1-tile corridor to their doom trade.  The real, dwarfy trade depot can remain locked behind its drawbridge during the elf season.

[Therosfire]

Isn't there an issue when you have more then one Trade Depot?

I thought if you had more then one the caravan would choose a depot upon arrival and only use that one, if it choose the one that was not accessible it would just sit there.

Alternatively, why do you even need a second trade depot to smash with the bridge?

[Mik1o]

There are two depots just because I tend to leave some traded items to the depot. So this prevents those items from getting smashed with the elves.

[Therosfire]

Ah. Gotcha.

I've always favoured putting a temporary accept anything stockpile directly under my trade depot, then when it comes time to empty it it my haulers travel less then 10 squares to dump their items. My other stockpiles then draw from that to fill up. Not the most efficient system but gets the trade depot empty quickly.

[pushy]

One obvious flaw which I'm surprised hasn't already been pointed out: the cyan drawbridge and elf trade depot cannot be built such that (when the drawbridge is down) they overlap.

Easy way to do it is to just forget having two trade depots. Move the yellow drawbridge down a bit and have the cyan drawbridge where the yellow bridge is in that picture (but still going left-to-right or right-to-left)
When dwarves and humans come to trade (assuming you want to trade with them), you can have the cyan drawbridge lowered and it acts like a floor - note that if your path to the depot is only three tiles wide then having the drawbridge up would prevent caravan access past the bridge, so it's a good idea to either dig out a part of the wall for the bridge to sit in when upright, or to try and remember to keep the bridge lowered at all times when it's not in use. When elves come to trade, you get a dwarf in the control room and get that dwarf to pull the cyan lever repeatedly - elves will come along and will not be deterred by the bridge going up and down (since there's always at least a 1-tile wide path past the bridge), and they'll get crushed as they head towards the depot (if you're unlucky and some survive, you can still get them on their way back out). The old ways are always the best

[Shima]

Easiest way is to just make a refillable/drainable drowning chamber that doubles as the depot.  Doesn't kill items, does kill Elves.

[MC Dirty]

One obvious flaw which I'm surprised hasn't already been pointed out: the cyan drawbridge and elf trade depot cannot be built such that (when the drawbridge is down) they overlap.

Easy way to do it is to just forget having two trade depots. Move the yellow drawbridge down a bit and have the cyan drawbridge where the yellow bridge is in that picture (but still going left-to-right or right-to-left)
When dwarves and humans come to trade (assuming you want to trade with them), you can have the cyan drawbridge lowered and it acts like a floor - note that if your path to the depot is only three tiles wide then having the drawbridge up would prevent caravan access past the bridge, so it's a good idea to either dig out a part of the wall for the bridge to sit in when upright, or to try and remember to keep the bridge lowered at all times when it's not in use. When elves come to trade, you get a dwarf in the control room and get that dwarf to pull the cyan lever repeatedly - elves will come along and will not be deterred by the bridge going up and down (since there's always at least a 1-tile wide path past the bridge), and they'll get crushed as they head towards the depot (if you're unlucky and some survive, you can still get them on their way back out). The old ways are always the best

I don't really know what you mean. Do you mean something like this?

The channel is there so they get through it slower. And slower speed => More death! Just tell a dwarf to "Pull the lever!" and set it on repeat and you'll be fine. The elves, however, will not.

That would probably be the easiest way. Drowning chamber is pretty good, but it's not that easy to set up correctly. And the drowning chamber doesn't destroy their worthless crap!

Using this as a fortress defense is very effective, but very cheap. And if you're on a map without iron, you should rely on the fourth iron ore.

[Elliott_Thinas]

Just provide two entrances to the depot; the 3 wide wagon road and a long 1 tile corridor filled with drawbridges, sealed with either floodgates or even doors. Lock the doors and let the bridges fall. However, I agree with the other people who suggest magma or water filling; crushing things with bridges is not very satisfying. Drowning or fire is way more fun as you can check the elf's health as you go and watch it suffer.

[Teranar]

I like just firing my ballista at them. Watching them go splat into pieces is *VERY* satisfying!

However my first merchant killing depot was a drowning depot. Had it set up right outside the fortress gates. Never even had to lower my main drawbridge.

[AtomicPaperclip]

I added a couple changes to the elves that highly discourage this behavior...

You could also just set up a lever operated barrier that stops them from getting all the way to the depot, and from leaving. Then just drawbridge away.

[Skorpion]

Drowning chamber is pretty good, but it's not that easy to set up correctly. And the drowning chamber doesn't destroy their worthless crap!

Then make the trade depot magma-safe and use magma instead.

[MC Dirty]

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[Elliott_Thinas]

The two are pretty much of the same difficulty, although the magma chamber requires magma safe materials and you need to wait a bit for the 1/7 magma to evaporate before you can open the trade depot up for business again.