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[Heliomance]

I've decided to embark on my first megaproject, and preparatory construction has started. I'm building a bridge fortress spanning a gorge, but I have no idea how I should lay it out. I want most if not all of the fortress's workings to be held in the bridge, though the trade depot is carved into the rock and I'm fine with storerooms being in the cliffs as well. I was also planning to double-space the layers so I could fit plumbing in between - a whole-fortress mist generator sounds like a good idea to me.

So, hints, tips and guides on how to fit my fortress into a bridge?

[Silfurdreki]

One thing comes directly to mind, and that is to build from the bootom up, since building over empty space can be incredibly tedious, and not to mention hazardous to your dwarves. Also, I'd recommend using several z-layers, I think it will be much easier to organise that way.

Otherwise, go crazy! make it epic, with arches, huge entrances and so on!

Also don't forget to upload maps to DFMA as you go!

[Burtjoneson]

It may annoy you that you can't smooth or place any engravings, etc.
Otherwise make sure you follow basic megaconstruction rules, and build the corners of walls first and the like. Remember that planning is essential, so make a provisional fortress first to pump out blocks. Good luck 

[nil]

I did one of these a while back, Legendford (map in my sig).  I recommend checking it out to see what sort of scale you need; I built mine way too small.

Then when you're done looking at that, look upon this and despair.

[slink]

*looks at Mountain-Banners and sighs*   

[Heliomance]

Hmm, both of those seem to be a fairly flat bridge leading to a central tower which houses the fortress. I'm looking to have the actual fortress span the chasm. I have 37 squares across to work with, but plenty north-south, and pretty much as many z-levels as I want.

[Lord Dakoth]

Keep in mind that while you can build across the chasm, you won't be able to build into the chasm itself.

[Heliomance]

It's not actually a chasm, I was imprecise with my terminology. I'm playing with the "You want a waterfall?" site that's further down the page at the moment.

[slink]

I started building on that site at the level just under the surface of the two equal-height plateaus.  I got very tired of watching my four masons build the floors bridging the river chasm.  If I were to return to that fortress I would make everyone help build, and just control access to the mason workshops.

Also, be careful about approaching the waterfall.  I "cleverly" built floor gratings to prevent carp from being washed down while I provided a mist to the levels below.  It never occurred to me that I had connected a walkway for the hippos to wander out onto the party area I had built on this outside/light area to prevent cave adaptation.  Then I accidentally stranded my mayor inside the streambed, which is only about 2/7 - 3/7 deep for quite some distance back up the stream, when I isolated the hippos on their own side of the gratings.  Even though I rescued him, he went mad from unhappiness.

The smaller plateau makes a great place for timbering, farming, and easily constructed workshops because of the soil layers.  I made the mistake of putting my barracks there also, because at the time I did not know that cutting timber makes noise for 8 levels down.

In the end, the lag killed my interest in it.  If you can somehow avoid that, it's a very interesting site.   

[blue emu]

You might want to add an underground "bomb shelter" to each end of the bridge-fortress... without that, you cannot order "All Civilians Indoors" during attacks, and you must expect your civvies to take pointless casualties as they wander out to pick up dropped items or corpses while the battle is still raging.

[Heliomance]

The way I'm building it, the only entrance to the fort is a long way from anywhere civilians have any business being anyway. And as for the hippos and carp, after the fourth reclaim I got tired of them sending me on a tantrum spiral to oblivion and modded the raws to genocide them.

[Heliomance]

Question: How do you keep your dwarves happy before their wondrous palace of delights is ready to move into? Due to the fact that I was focusing all resources on building the bridgefort and was trying not to mar the landscape with anything not part of the final construction - so no temporary bedrooms, etc - I'm now entering yet another tantrum spiral and I have a horrible feeling I'm going to have to reclaim again. Halp?

[Blacken]

Question: How do you keep your dwarves happy before their wondrous palace of delights is ready to move into? Due to the fact that I was focusing all resources on building the bridgefort and was trying not to mar the landscape with anything not part of the final construction - so no temporary bedrooms, etc - I'm now entering yet another tantrum spiral and I have a horrible feeling I'm going to have to reclaim again. Halp?

Bring a couple dorfs with proficient brewing and cooking skills. The happymakings will help a lot. I haven't had an upset dorf before a fort hit 50 dorfs in a long time.

If you REALLY need dorf-happymakings, dig a little bunker underground for them to live in while building stuff. That may help because they won't be getting rained on so much.

[Heliomance]

*sigh*

Succumbed to the tantrum spiral and reclaimed. Hopefully this time I'll get it finished. I hate to think how many dwarves have died to make this project, and I've not even built one room yet!

[Dorf3000]

*sigh*

Succumbed to the tantrum spiral and reclaimed. Hopefully this time I'll get it finished. I hate to think how many dwarves have died to make this project, and I've not even built one room yet!

Reclaiming is actually harder than starting over with the same world gen seed.  When you reclaim, all dwarves are friends with each other, and they also seem to be harder to please.  Once one goes miserable, the rest soon follow him.  If your previous fort died due to lack of wonderful things to see/eat/drink, its likely that the reclaimers will survive even less time.