Print

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

[Kalphoenix]

I'm an on and off again player of Dwarf Fortress, the detail usually overwhelms me and I have to take a break, haha, but I hope they never make it LESS detailed.

Anyway, I'm starting to think about fortress security, and I'll be honest, I'm not really sure where to start.  Any suggestions on how to defend my fortress against invaders?  I have ideas as far as keeping enemies out (Moats and drawbridges and stuff), but I'd really like to set up some way to kill/trap invaders eventually.

Any examples/screenies/movies/explanations of traps and such?

[Blackburn]

Well, a suggestion before you start building defenses is to throw random peasants into the military. They'll make a good distraction, at least...

[slink]

Make your entrance 3-tiles wide, with walls on both sides.  Put three rows of three stone-fall traps outdoors, between these walls.  Outdoors, because you want to set options to Only Soldiers Go Outside during attacks, and if the traps are indoors the Dwarves will rush out into danger in order to gather the loot.

= walls
+ floor/ground
^ stone-fall trap
R ramp down

=====
=RRR=
=+++=
=^^^=
=^^^=
=^^^=
=+++=
=+++=

Beneath the ground, make a right-angle turn in the 3-wide corridor before it arrives at the 5x5 space for the trade depot.  This keep archers from shooting at caravans without having passed over the traps.

Later on, replace the stone-fall traps with weapon traps, or have both.  You can put one large iron dagger in a weapon trap and it does a pretty good job.  These can be collected from goblins who die from the stone-fall traps.

Eventually you want to extend the wall behind the ramp so it includes a section of aboveground gardening area that can be reached only from a set of stairs within the walls.  Build another set of stairs up to the level of the wall and put a floor behind the ramp at wall level.  Enclose that in fortifications and station your archers up there.  Set stations for them and keep them there all during caravan visits.

Hunters and rangers can be recruited as soon as they immigrate.  They come with their own crossbows and metal bolts.  Alternatively you can make crossbows out of wood and draft peasants.  Bone bolts can be made from both goblins and turtles.

Some people will say that this makes it too easy, but I find it better to learn with the easy way and then challenge myself.  Also, goblin seiges don't wait for you to be ready, so it is possible to lose troops and even civilians using this setup.  You have to call everyone home and ambushes can still take out critical personnel.

Detecting thieves is done by tying dogs on either side of the corridor, but around the bend so that, once again, they cannot be shot from outside.  I actually usually put mine behind the trade depot, counting the exit ramp as "in front".  That way any visiting caravans take the brunt of an attack before my tied-up dogs have to fight.  All of your dogs should be trained as war dogs.

Some megabeasts can destroy doors and don't get stopped by the traps.  If you are lucky, your archers will see them and kill them.  If your archers alll decide to go have a drink at the same time, you'll have a hydra in the fortress.  That is when you will decide to graduate to more elaborate defenses, but the above will do for a start. 

[Phantom]

1.Build a few towers.
2.Get some xbowdorfs.
3. Throw in some melee types for secondary line
4.Build an archery line
5.Mimic shifts by putting one xbowdorf in one tower and after sometime replace him
6.
7.Profit/Slaughter

[Kalphoenix]

Great ideas, thanks!

[Quietust]

A minor correction:

Make your entrance 3-tiles wide, with walls on both sides.  Put three rows of three stone-fall traps outdoors, between these walls.  Outdoors, because you want to set options to Only Soldiers Go Outside during attacks, and if the traps are indoors the Dwarves will rush out into danger in order to gather the lootreload the traps.

This alone has caused me lots and lots of headaches.

[slink]

A minor correction:

Make your entrance 3-tiles wide, with walls on both sides.  Put three rows of three stone-fall traps outdoors, between these walls.  Outdoors, because you want to set options to Only Soldiers Go Outside during attacks, and if the traps are indoors the Dwarves will rush out into danger in order to gather the lootreload the traps.

This alone has caused me lots and lots of headaches.

Yep, the engineer will also rush into danger unless the traps are outdoors and there is a general order to stay inside.  It is bad to lose your best (only?) engineer, but even worse when all the others go running to the traps.  Their greedy little hearts have to be made to wait. 

[shadowclasper]

Spikey Ball Weapon Traps

Lots and lots and lots of spikey balls. They'll murderate everything, and don't need to be reloaded too often.

[Kalphoenix]

If you have any more thoughts, keep them coming!  I appreciate it a bunch and the ideas are very interesting!

How complicated would it be, as a back up in case of an extended siege where my dwarfs wouldn't have time to reload traps, to build some kind of a pit-trap after the line of traps outside?  I'm thinking something AFTER this first line of defense in case my first line fails to keep them out.

But how would a pit work, and how deep would it need to be to at least WOUND a falling creature?  I'm picturing maybe something with arrow slits or ballista or more traps.  Maybe eventually, if I got that far, I could put a tame monster or something in there.  If I did this, how could I make it inaccessible for dwarves to go in or critters to get out WHILE the pit is in active use, but still be able to get in after for loot?  How do I keep dwarfs on the other side from being attacked back?  I'm thinking some stair-levels accessible to the arrow towers from above.  Or would this be more trouble than it's worth?

I'm also not sure how arrows and arrow slits work...can dwarfs shoot across z-levels?

Also, are dwarves afraid of monsters if they aren't on the same level and there is a window or something in-between?

[sarack]

Maybe try my old favorite - I've defended against many a siege with no traps using this setup.
Basically, at the entrance of your fortress put something like this:
+ = fortification
. = floor
- = wall
> = down ramp

Code: [Select]

ENEMIES ENTER
-...-
->>>-
-+++-
..... SOLDIERS ENTER
-+++-
->>>-
-...-This underpass setup is extremely effective against invaders, especially is placed around corners. For extra Fun, you can connect it to ammo stockpiles and the barracks, or even better setup something to fill to passage on the level below with water as a last resort. I usually have something like this, complemented by several towers near the entrance.

[zwei]

What i Do:

1) Make one and ONLY one entrance. Do not bother trapping it, just station military there. If you have more than 8 military dorfs, make squad of three and set it on patrol route outside.

2) Set up early warning system. CATAF (cage trap field), usually in grid of with 10 spaces between them (shift-arrow to make it easy). Also, put then on obvious places where enemy will have to path to reach your entrance (i.e. edge of large murky pool).

This will radically decrease your worker deaths. With early warning system, they will never reach your entrance because you will just charge them ahead.

3) If you have huge 'helper' army (you know, hauler/mason (without workshop access)/carpenter (without workshop access)/mechanic(also without workshop access)/pumper/any skillless odd job), you can have backup army by enable hunting profession for them and giving them leather armor/crossbow.bolts. Just group them all to one squad and activate squad when they are on downtime to get some training (do not forget to let em train with hammers too.).

It really helps to have dedicated bone crafter and/or dedicated wood crafter to make training bolts.

Also remember to make quivers and backpacks for everyone

4) If your map lacks huntable critters, you can enable hunting on ALL dwarves and have everyone wear leather. This helps a ton if your important dwarf decides to help with carrying log inside  and gets ambushed.

5) Use dogs. Create 'ODPD' (one dog per dwarf) foundation and assign each dwarf at least one hunting or war dog. You can give soldiers some dogs too, but those generally die too fast. Also, put some chains with dogs in entrance to detect sneaking enemies (child snatchers and kobbolds)

Dog can swarm enemies and kill off weaker ambush groups and they can always distract foes while your important dwarf is escaping. You should consider giving more important dwarves several dogs.

If you have too many dogs, they stop breeding, but you can still buy dog cages from caravans.

---

Yes, basically everyone being trapper/hunter.

[Neyvn]

I say that if you don't want to bother with the Gobbo Clothing Line, A nice sound Squish with every Siege is all that is needed...
Four Wide Hallway..
build a bridge against one wall..
link to a safe lever that only when you say can be pulled...
Lift said bridge...
Wait for Gobbo's to come visit...
Pull Lever...
Prof...... Ah no mess no fuss

[Quietust]

There's just one problem with making everyone a Hunter - they'll always sleep on the floor instead of in their beds, making them unhappy and increasing the risk of a tantrum spiral.

[slink]

Part 1:

I once set up some metal cage traps just inside my fortress instead of using stone-fall traps because I was short on stone, and because I only had one marksdwarf left.  I caught four goblins.  I had nothing to do with them because I don't build combat arenas or have a pit, and you can't sell caged stuff to the caravans because the contents escape on the way to the depot.

Part 2:

The landscape burned to ash periodically because of some fire imps getting upset with the wildlife.  I decided therefore to place the four metal cages outdoors and let the goblins burn up in the next fire.

Result:

The next fire came, and I was treated to the sight of a burning goblin racing across the landscape.  I wondered what had happened and checked with "k" inside the blazing area.  I was missing a cage.  Then I remembered that one of my cages had been made out of lead...   

[Raviaric]

Muahahahahahahaha.