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[CaptainNitpick]

I was poking through Wikipedia and stumbled across the following:

Sigiriya (Lion's rock) is an ancient rock fortress and palace ruin situated in the central Matale District of Sri Lanka, surrounded by the remains of an extensive network of gardens, reservoirs, and other structures.

It's a giant lava plug rising out of a forest. The fortress is mostly on top of and around the outside of the rock, rather than inside like a proper dwarf fortress. But I think it's a pretty good effort considering no dwarfs were involved in the construction.

• Aerial view
• Ground view
• Entrance, with giant carved lion paws

[Lemnx]

Where's the booze stockpile?

[SkyRender]

Well that cinches it.  Someone needs to find a massive mountain and then form a "mega-construction" out of it by carving away anything that isn't part of the mega-construction instead of building it up.

[Duke 2.0]

 This reminds me of the Native American cliff dwellings out in the desert. If it wasn't in a desert.
 But seriously, this thing is cool.
 Stairs.
 Overhead view.
 Note the water on the lower right corner. That is a moat.
 Better image of entrance stairs.

[Ampersand]

Well that cinches it.  Someone needs to find a massive mountain and then form a "mega-construction" out of it by carving away anything that isn't part of the mega-construction instead of building it up.

I attempted to do this a good time ago, but it is INCREDIBLY hard to do, if you want to have any kind of complex shape to what you're carving out. I did square blocks and  standard pillars, but I wanted to have something more akin to the shape of a fat cactus. Adjusting width at mutiple levels is hard, and the branches that stick out, then go upward a bit parallel to the main body were the hardest. But I did do it, eventually. And flooded the pit it was in with water, forever sealing off the fortress inside of the spire.

[Warlord255]

Well that cinches it.  Someone needs to find a massive mountain and then form a "mega-construction" out of it by carving away anything that isn't part of the mega-construction instead of building it up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kailash_Temple

Chew on this one.

[moocowmoo]

Reminds me of the temple in "Shadow of the Colossus". Anyway cool find, I want to go live there.

[numerobis]

Reminds me rather of the monasteries at the Meteora in Greece.

[SkyRender]

You'd really have to plan it out ahead of time to get a good-looking carved-from-the-stone fortress.  At least we have the ideal mountain to do it from that competition to find the tallest one possible.  That map's usually overshadowed by its resource-happy contest companion Dwarf Heaven, but if anybody's gonna make the attempt, that over-100-Z-level mountain is ideal for it.

[Ampersand]

You have to plan it out, and you have to be very, very careful not to accidentally dig out the wrong part, because if you do it by digging out ramps like I did, you'll get screwed over. My best advice is to do it one layer at a time, and do not designate the next layer until the first is finished, starting from the top down, until you have the desired shape. I've tried just designating multiple layers, and it's basically a shitstorm of starvation and falling five z-levels for your miners..

[Kanil]

Wow, that's really cool.

[Vicomt]

Here's another one, the Statue of Decebalus in Romania, more recent (1994-2004 - 10 years to build)

actually, the List of Colossal Sculptures in situ is a good resource for those wanting to try this sort of thing

[Retro]

Well that cinches it.  Someone needs to find a massive mountain and then form a "mega-construction" out of it by carving away anything that isn't part of the mega-construction instead of building it up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kailash_Temple

Chew on this one.

They carved that out of solid rock?... but... but where's the microcline?...

[SkyRender]

They must've found a worldgen where microcline and orthoclase are less common.  They probably also have mineral layers and veins that span Z-levels as well as X/Y dimensions.  What madness.

[father_alexander]

oh come on! has anyone here ever heard about the inca empire and machu pichu?
its probably the most dwarven civilization i ever heard about
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machu_Picchu