Print

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

[Lav]

I'm currently building a fortress designed on the following structure:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

X##++###X###++##X##++###X
#+.v.^.+#+.^.v.+#+.v.^.+#
#.......#.......#.......#
#^.WWW.v+v.WWW.^#^.WWW.v+
+..WWW..+..WWW..+..WWW..+
+v.WWW.^#^.WWW.v+v.WWW.^#
#.......#.......#.......#
#+.^.v.+#+.v.^.+#+.^.v.+#
X###++##X##++###X###++##X
#+.^.v.+#+.v.^.+#+.^.v.+#
#.......#.......#.......#
+v.WWW.^#^.WWW.v+v.WWW.^#
+..WWW..+..WWW..+..WWW..+
#^.WWW.v+v.WWW.^#^.WWW.v+
#.......#.......#.......#
#+.v.^.+#+.^.v.+#+.v.^.+#
X##++###X###++##X##++###X
#+.v.^.+#+.^.v.+#+.v.^.+#
#.......#.......#.......#
#^.WWW.v+v.WWW.^#^.WWW.v+
+..WWW..+..WWW..+..WWW..+
+v.WWW.^#^.WWW.v+v.WWW.^#
#.......#.......#.......#
#+.^.v.+#+.v.^.+#+.^.v.+#
X###++##X##++###X###++##X

The idea is to get a fortress without any corridors. The entire fortress consists of 7x7 rooms, interconnected horizontally, diagonally and vertically (through ramps/stairs). Every room has a workshop, a stockpile of input resources for that workshop, and a bed for the dwarf working at that workshop. Related workareas are grouped together so most resource hauling happens between two directly adjacent rooms.

Ideally, a dwarf should never travel more than a one room away from his room/workshop except when going to eat, drink or slack off (though maybe if I designate an individual meeting zone in every room, hmm...). Haulers are the obvious exception of course.

[RAM]

Oh, another habit of mine, everything is better with ramps.

[wrajjt]

Hrm, how to describe it... I always dig a long 3 tile tunnel into the mountain, then a 7x7 room designed for a depot. Then I go east and west from that depot room, or north and south depending on what direction I dug the initial tunnel. West or north is the barracks complex, complete with prison, training areas and smithing areas. To the east or south is dining rooms, food stockpiles and goods stockpiles, aswell as workshops.

    H
    I
__O_W
B  I   F
~ I~~

F is for food area, W is for workshops, B is the barracks, H is housing, the I's are simply the main 3x3 tunnels stretching through the place. ~ is the mountain wall.

[Protactinium]

To all the ramp people, I must tell you, I am one of you.
Up and down staircases ruin symmetry because their arrows point left and right. As a result, I only use ramps except for my central pillar column that runs the entire depth of my fort, which is a 3x3 up/down staircase. The X is much more palatable than > and <.

Edit:

To keep in with the whole building habit, I had become a fan in my recent forts of making a very vertical fortress.

What happens is that there is a central pipe of 3x3 up/down staircases. Around the pipe is a very long spiral of 3-tile-wide pathway for the caravan to travel to the lowest Z-level, where the trade depot is. Each z-level has one doorway into the main shaft of up/down staircases, which is connected to a lever. So, during peacetime, the doors are up, and everyone can travel through the central shaft to go in and out of the for very quickly. When the orcs attack, I lock the doors of the central shaft, and everyone, including the invaders, must travel the very long spiral in order to enter the fortress proper. I have never lived long enough to line the spiral in spike traps.

[PTTG??]

How do you visualize staircases like that? I've found that the only way for them to make much sense is as something like a ship's ladder that switches back over long stretches. I only use stairs where I want to have something that is explicitly a ladder. Everywhere else is ramps.

[Deon]

I imagine them as spiralling staircases or ladders. But it's funny to imagine a packed mule or a dragon going down (or up) .

Actually, it's possible to make an extremely "good-working" fort with a very few space. But I like beauty and imagination of ASCII constructions, thus I have lots of unneeded things.