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[Canadark]

If you're anything like me, about half of your forts never get past the conceptual phase, and only a quarter ever last more than a few years.

One of my more recent ideas was to build a glass bridge to an isolated island, but I got bored as soon as I realized how difficult it was to move production onto the island (the bridge at this point was only one tile wide for most of its distance).

I've found a lot of inspiration from books that I've read lately. I just finished Ken Follett's Pillars of the Earth and I wanted to build a cathedral based on early gothic architectural concepts (flying buttresses, ribbed vaults etc). I was using the Bath Abbey as a design, I even printed off some floor plans to the church. I found an excellent spot with an abundance of marble, but I decided to try playing with Dig Deeper. Stupid me. After just a few years, my remaining masons and woodcutters were cut down by the second wave of orcs.

I also just finished the book Black Jacobins and I've actually been inspired to build a sugar plantation where the nobles and military dwarves live in absolute luxury while the poor slaves work the cane fields. This would work great with Dig Deeper, since sugar is a crop and a lucrative one at that. Knowing me, I'll probably lose interest before the plan goes anywhere. ahh well.

Anyways, a lot of our discussions revolve around forts we HAVE made. I'd like to see what some people have imagined for megaprojects or fortress themes, but were unable or unwilling to see through to completion.

[Skorpion]

A system to burn the grass and goblin junk left around on a map, by pouring magma onto a charcoal stockpile. The object was to regain FPS.
Abandoned due to FPS getting so goddamn low I couldn't stand it, and discovering that it wasn't due to excess items, but the excess power required to POWER the damn machine, and the multiple tanks set up to hold the magma, including a damn murky pool sat in the middle of the top floor of the fort.

An elf drowner. A system to flood the trade depot and subsequently drain it, by allowing water to flood it from above.
Abandoned when I tried to increase the flow rate, and couldn't plug the gap afterwards, causing it, and the entrance corridor, to flood.
Resumed when I plugged the gap, but then abandoned due to lack of sufficient water and a way of keeping the damn elves IN.

[AtomicPaperclip]

Making a partly above ground fort with massive walls like flamechannel,

I recently started going back to my plan of making a 170 z level tower and dropping goblins and eventually elves off of, into an armok temple.

[TheStanman]

A massive castle like fortress, perched onto the side of a massive cliff with only a narrow bridge as the entrance.

DF ADD claimed that one.

[Doomshifter]

I planned to build an underwater fortress out of glass (but, who hasn't?) but then I got bored when I couldn't figure out how to get it under the ocean (I know now, sorta). Oh, and then there was the time I planned to turn a human town into a full-on fortress, but I got bored after a few minutes when I found the aquifer.

[Count Dorku]

Anything involving magma.

[Mapleleaf]

Anything involving magma.

That.

[Dorf3000]

I have to admit that I've never 'finished' a fort.  Every time I have a cool idea for some project, my interest fades as it takes 3, 4, 7 years to just prepare the site and start building/digging/producing.

I think my best idea was to make a cast obsidian obelisk and then smooth all surfaces.  The dimensions were to be 2y 8x 18z (in proportion 1,4,9 like the obelisk in 2001) and 2/3 of it would be above ground.  I built 12z levels of scaffold over 2 or 3 years before I realized I had no running water on the map..

Second best idea was to dig a giant bowl in the middle of a flat plain map, build a tower in the center back up to ground level with bridges for access, then fill the bowl with water.  I gave up when I realized I'd dug out too much on one level and the bowl wasn't the right shape.

My current idea is going well but it involves magma pipe reshaping and other extreme landscaping ideas.  I give myself a 50% chance of finishing 

[Jackrabbit]

The entrance to my fort would be a dragon's head, carved into the side of the mountain. In the event of invaders, the 'mouth' would close, people would get underground, the inside of the entrance (the mouth) would be filled with lava with a lever, and then released. A cat would serve as bait to draw the goblins closer.

Yeah, this didn't go anywhere.

[Aspgren]

I was about to build a GIANT MAZE filled with all kinds of dangers and horrors and I would throw all immigrants into it, only those who survived the maze would be granted entry into my fortress  but it fell flat on its face when in the middle of my construction i found a underground pool. 

I had designated so many tunnels to be made and I just haven't gathered up the strength to restart it.

[MrFake]

My hidden fortress with access only behind a waterfall.

That was back when I felt like there should be no trace of dwarfs on the surface, and this site proved perfect.  Half the map consisted of a 15 z-level plateau.  A brook ran over the top and spilled down a natural waterfall into a short valley, before running off the edge.  I cut into the rock at the end of the valley, running parallel to it, then came out behind the waterfall, into a large mined out cavern that served as the entrance to the fort.  Beyond that was going to be a very large, uninhabited, and richly decorated entrance hall that would serve as a point of defense.  Then a straight run through a traditional fort to the King's quarters alongside a massive vault for riches.

Caravans would enter from on top of the plateau and couldn't interface with the fort itself.  The brook would be dammed with a toggle switch that I was hoping could allow for an optional magma-fall.  Otherwise, dwarf exposure to the surface, both living and constructed, would be minimal.  There was even a very small tunnel leading from the starting temp fortress to the actual fortress, as a sort of back door escape route.

It just got too complicated for me after a while.  Damming the brook was a long and painful affair.  After that, I came under siege by a number of dragons.  I waffled on designing the magma-fall (I was too afraid to try it).  Finally, I got to work on the King's vault, but in the middle of that, I decided to utilize the construction space to attempt to cage an elf diplomat as part of an experiment to incite war.  The experiment took too long and he went crazy.  I burned out after that and the fortress is wallowing on my hard drive now, waiting for my attention.



Then another, the mountain peak fortress.

The fortress would be on top of a tall, steep mountain range, cut in half by a brook, leaving a shear drop between two peaks.  Only access this time would be by crossing that drop on a narrow bridge from one peak to the other, which would be inaccessible from below.  The outside would be all carvings and decorations on the path into the fortress.

It became a mess when I couldn't figure out the best way to get caravans inside through a separate entrance.  It wasn't impossible, just more design work than I cared for.  When it comes to too much uncertainty in design, I just back off.  I took a long break from DF and when I came back, I felt like starting all over.



Now I've invested far too much time in Swordbaldness, even though I've already scuttled it once.  I'm in this one for the long haul.

[Svafa]

Building on top of a volcano.  Everything was going well until a Fire Imp burned down the forest and the Elfs declared war and then a botched channeling assignment...  On the plus side, I got to watch some Elfs burn.

Building under a human settlement.  It worked well enough, but I got bored and there was very little stone on the map.  I'll probably go back and try again at some point if I can find a better location or just feel like attempting a low-stone site.

Building without caravans.  Technically, the fortresses haven't failed, or at least due to this, but I've always ended up making some sort of concession for caravans in the end.  One day I'll get around to fulfilling my goal of building a fortress that is completely shut off from the outside world.

On the other hand, building a fortress that's heavily reliant on the caravans.  Yeah, that one lasted less than a year.  It turned into a sort of survivor: who will be the last dwarf standing free-for-all with starvation as the winning prize.  I think I chose a bad location for the fortress though, and might be able to pull it off otherwise.

Finally, a goblin-free fortress.  It was built in a secluded vale on the map where only Elf and Dwarf civilizations were located.  Fortress worked great, but it got a little boring without any sieges or ambushes, and I abandoned it to rebuild closer to some greenskins.

[Grendus]

Goblin pachinko. Got halfway once, then the fort dropped to 6 fps. Tried again, the fort dropped to 6 fps with fewer dwarves before I had done anything but set up the framework. I may try again with a modified version of Dig Deeper where the orcs show up late and the goblins siege early so I can harvest the immense numbers of goblin prisoners needed for the project.

[blue emu]

At one point, I had intended to construct Valhalla, floating in the sky and reached by a rainbow bridge constructed from parallel strips of red / orange / yellow / green / blue / purple rock.

Then I got bored...

My current Fortress in in a Desert with a big mountain. The only water is an underground river (which I finally found JUST as I got my first wounded Dwarf). No trees... so I've been depending on Caravans for Wood until I can get my Tower-Cap farm set up.

Since it's a desert, I'm planning to build the Great Pyramid of Armok... the sky is high enough to allow a pretty big one.

[Vanguard Warden]

I planned to construct a fortress from obsidian hanging inside a magma pipe, completely submersed, with the entrance only showing when the magma-level was lowered. It would be hanging inside the magma tube from a few supports, so I could pull a lever and the whole fort would drop down the tube into nothingness. Construction would be achieved by pumping all the magma from the bottom layer down a bottomless pit, or off the edge of the map through fortifications until the magma level was low enough for me to build safely. When done, I'd let it fill back up until it was full. I stopped working on it because you can't build staircases from the top-down, and because I'd have to externally manufacture a ton of obsidian to get it built.