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[atomfullerene]

Ok, I've got a thing...

It's a small bit that's been constructed so far.  I'm liking it pretty well.  I seriously need a better imager than this old version of khazad though
By the way, one thing I need to know are the rules of support for blocks of natural stone....do adjacent ramps hold them up? adjacent floors?  I guess I'll just go look it up.

[Amalgam]

@atomfullerene: Nice! I recommend you either get the latest version of khazad or use stonesense for a visualizer. Or if you want full 3d just use visual fortress.

From the testing I've done it appears that ramps (natural or otherwise) function effectively like a floor, creatures can walk on them without having a wall under them and they can also support adjacent buildings. So, yes and yes.

[atomfullerene]

I thought I'd show my planning for this thing too.  It might help people understand what's going on a bit better. Top portion is a side view, bottom portion is a top view of a small portion


Here's a version from stonesense, which I already had but didn't think would work out quite perfectly.  I was right, the field of view was a bit too small.  guess I'll have to get visual fortress.


This is actually coming along pretty easily.  Its very convenient that you can walk on ramps and build off of them.  I just fought off my first ambush, and I've only had one cave in--and figured out how to avoid them in the future.  I'm currently nearly done with the lower four pyramids, and building the basic scaffolding for the top...you can probably see the ramps up there.  There are a couple more z-levels at the base to carve out as well.

edit----
I wanted to tell what's been going on without double posting, so here goes:

The Multiforce fractal tower is coming along nicely now, with the base of the final major section rising out of the foundational pit.  I have divided my dwarves up into three main groups: the builders who are working on the project that is our goal for being here, the food prep dwarves who grow the food, catch the fish, butcher the animals, and brew the booze that keeps us all going, and the craftsdwarves who run a sideline business in trade.  Everything has been going well with the builders, aside from a few minor cave-ins where no one was hurt.  A season back we did lose a fisherdwarf to a goblin ambush...curse them.  They attacked while we were trading with an elf caravan, but I managed to raise the inner drawbridge before the goblins got inside.  Only one elf made it into the inner keep, the rest were destroyed.  Fortunately it doesn't take much skill to shoot goblins from atop a wall, and a handful of newly drafted marksdwarves soon ran off the cowardly creatures.  I expected the elf to leave quickly after this unpleasant experience, but he just stood around, though the way out was clear.  Then I noticed that his donkey had been dropped into the drawbridge pit, and I had to draft one of the miners to come dig  him a ramp out (literally draft, they were all obsessed with digging out the foundations and didn't want to waste time on an elf's donkey-- not that I blame them).  About this time we were besieged by a small force of humans.  I still can't figure out what the tall folk are angry about...they traded with us earlier.  Perhaps they are envious of our architectural creation....or perhaps they just want to gawk at it, since they are just standing in a clump far outside our walls.  Anyway, it was up with the gate again (fortunately no dwarves were roaming the lands about when the siege arrived).  Raising the gate somehow crushed one of my poor guard dogs chained up next to it, and tossed the elf into the moat with his donkey.  So here I am, in the fort, with a pitiful human siege outside, an idiot elf standing dazedly on the ramp out of my moat, and a heavily wounded donkey limping toward the borders.  Back to building, I guess.

[atomfullerene]

All finished (well, there are a few missing ramps here and there down at the bottom).  Here are some lovely 3d pictures, spoilered this time.

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[slink]

Wow, you are way ahead of me, and it looks great.   

I'm only doing the original challenge.  So far I have one of the four lower pyramids completed and the foundations laid for the other four.  I have one level belowground which contains the underground farms, the tunnels connecting the central staircases of the five pyramids, the levers controlling the floodgates which allow for the filling and draining of the moat around the pyramids, and a west-facing tunnel connecting the complex to the small trade depot building on the other side of the moat.

The bedrooms are all in the one completed pyramid, as well as two wells in case of failure to distill enough booze.  The coffins and tombs are in the upper pyramid.  The offices, dining rooms, and all the industry are on the first three aboveground levels of the three incomplete lower pyramids.

View west towards the chert/granite/bauxite quarry (used for the interiors and for the depot building).  The claystone quarry (used for the exteriors) lies to the south.  Bauxite for the depot building and to line the roads between the pyramids came from the western quarry.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[atomfullerene]

Looks nice, and bonus points for making an actual functioning fortress...mine was just a quick and dirty proof-of-concept for fractals.  It looks cool, but my very basic 40 dwarf fortress is stuck into the side of the quarry and not incorporated into the construction at all.  Although it did give me some ideas for building some sort of weird constructed fortress in the sky, with lots of girders and whatnot. 

[Amalgam]

I give up. I've never attempted anything of this scale before, but I'll reveal my plans. I was planning to dig under the ocean and channel out the layer(s) with the aquifer, which are hopefully a few levels below the sea floor, and dig out all the levels above that, taking care not to flood the area. After that I was going to build a giant magma caisson encircling the ocean and drop obsidian above the channels I dug, which should crash through the floor above the channels and seal off the aquifer. I'd repeat this step several times until I have a wall extending above sea level and fill it completely with obsidian. Then I would carve scaffolds out of the obsidian and channel out any remaining aquifer tiles in the center. Then I would hollow out this area all the way to the bottom of the map, leaving only one level undug, build the pyramid out of glass at the bottom, dig a channel going under the pyramid and build a tube going through the bottom of the top pyramid and out the top, and use this for a magma cannon - the dwarves would be completely safe as magma pours over the sides of the pyramid. The real beauty of the project is that you could turn the walled off area in the ocean into a massive obsidian caisson and completely encase your dwarves in obsidian, forever entombing them in their pyramid.

Of course that's pretty ambitious, which is why it never took off -_-

[AtomicPaperclip]

I might try this out some time, looks like a lot of fun.

Bonus points for making it out of limestone?

[Thomas Winwood]

Definitely bonus points for making it out of limestone.

Atomfullerene, sir, you bring a tear to my eye. Bravo.

[slink]

Another interim report.  The bottom four have finally been completed, as well as the central column leading from the top pyramid to the basement.  I now have 40 adults and 102 children.  There are 12 clans with dedicated quarters for each, and 11 single non-nobles living in a small dormatory (not a barracks).  There is a small dining room, and a small burial area.  All of the Dwarves on the nobles screen have their requirements filled by private rooms.  The one thing I have not yet constructed is an indoor refuse area for the non-bone/skull/shell refuse.  That is currently outdoors, on the top floor of the unfinished pyramid.  The bone/skull/shell refuse is stored in the corridors of the basement.

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[Thomas Winwood]

Simply marvellous, my good man. Keep up the good work.

[slink]

I'm not a man, but here it is anyway.  Enjoy.   

First, three views in Visual Fortress.  The top pyramid has the topmost portion clad in metal, with a point on top to let the stored time bleed off so the map doesn't collapse into two dimensions.   

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Now some inner views using Stonesense.

NW pyramid level 0 features the stockyards and plant processing.  The meat supply is primarily 1-humped camels, with the elephants herd beginning to show some growth.  There are also bonobo and gray gibbons but they don't seem to be thriving.  There are way too many giant leopards, and since those are sacred to the settlement, we can't slaughter them.  I shouldn't have bought them in the first place, but oh well.

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Next level up is the private and public dining rooms, and the offices.  The public dining room is decorated with four pieces of artifact furniture.

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Above that is a statue garden meeting area.

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NE pyramid level 0 features the wells, which no one needs to use because they have plenty of great booze.

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Next level up is the private bedrooms of the nobles and the officials, and the dormatory for unmarried founders and immigrants.

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Levels 2 - 5 are each divided into four areas.  I only show one of the levels.  Each area is a bedroom for a clan, descended from one couple consisting of founders or immigrants.  There are 12 clans now, counting the Baron and his wife as one clan.  Each area has two statues at the doorway, one in a favorite material of the wife and one in a favorite material of the husband.  I was lucky this time, and no one had all their favorites in something impossible to make into statues (such as sandy loam, or bismuth).

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Level 0 of the SW pyramid features the lumberyard, crafting, and gem-working.

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Level 0 of the SE pyramid features the smelting, metal-working, and some above-ground gardens.

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The 0th level of the top pyramid is where everyone is buried.

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Above that is a refuse dump for things which need to rot.

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Below it all are tunnels filled with bones, skulls, and shells, the underground gardens, and the levers that control the floodgates for filling and draining the moat from the brook.

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A tunnel to the west goes under the moat to the depot which is on the far shore.

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The depot faces west.

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At 18 years the population is 169 with 103 children and 26 grown-up descendants of the original 40 adults.  Total value of the fortress is 2,793,989.  I had invasions turned off for the entire time, and also turned off caravans for the past several years because it was taking too much of my time to deal with those.  I don't manage my fortress with Dwarf Therapist, but I checked just now and I have 143 Dwarves Ecstatic, 13 Happy, 11 Content, and 2 Fine.  I only had one death, in the early years, when my one and only hunter took on something he oughtn't to have.  It was probably one of the Tigermen, who sometimes hang around scaring my workers but never hurt anyone except possibly the hunter.

The base of the lower pyramids is 41 tiles wide.  The aisle between them is 5 tiles wide.

[Thomas Winwood]

Nice to see the challenge completed, and it's fun to know more about how you laid things out. Thank you very much.