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[FreakyCheeseMan]

So, as I'm a filthy mac user (pre-intel), I'm still waiting for the OSX release before I can play, but I'm already planning my first fort, and wanted advice making it work.
It'll be a themed fort, based off of a monestary- features/limitations include:
-Small, elegantly built fort, at least 50% above ground made with stone and wood blocks (stone walls, wood floors)
-Every dwarf trains in wrestling, no weapons or armor
-Very few industries- besides what's described here, brewing and cheesemaking only.
-Universal (or rank-based... see below) uniforms, all dyed and fortress-made.
-Caverns reached but sealed with gates(drawbridges); imigrants recruited at once, must survive tour through the least-dangerous section. Survivors actually get to join fortress. As their wrestling skill increases, dwarves must travel to increasingly dangerous areas.
-Trade limitations- can't really not trade, as need lots of wood, but maybe restricted to dwarves, or only export booze/cheese.
-"Fortress" survives fall- I'm doing this partially to make a cool place for an adventurer to visit, so I want it to be more-or-less intact after the fall. Titans/Forgotten Beasts destroy constructions, right? Any way to survive them with the fortress described?
-No traps. Closest would be pitfall-traps, where enemies are encouraged to dodge or be thrown off cliffs.
-Maybe *eventually* allow limited steel weapons and training, to the fortress masters. (No armor, ever).

So, any ideas for how to make this workable, or any other features I should include?

[derekiv]

Seems pretty simple; just make the fort how you outlined. If you want the fortress to be accessible after death, you might want to wall it of before you abandon, then have a lever that causes a cave-in, creating a bridge to the fortress.

[dwarfguy2]

make some of those little colored window things with pictures on them that i forget the name of.

[FreakyCheeseMan]

make some of those little colored window things with pictures on them that i forget the name of.

Um. Gem windows?

Ok, giving the monestary windows makes the list. Makes it even harder to build, but, hey, pretty place for my adventurer to live later.

I figure a monestary would be a good excuse to make an adventuerer-training place. Monks would do a lot of the same things an adventurer would want.

[dwarfguy2]

no, these things have a certain name... made out of colored glass... commonly found in churches and castles...?

[FreakyCheeseMan]

no, these things have a certain name... made out of colored glass... commonly found in churches and castles...?

Stained glass windows?

[dwarfguy2]

maybe.

[lanceleoghauni]

Yes, Stain Glass is what I think he is thinking of. but It's found in Palaces, not castles. Castles are designed for war.

[Hertzyscowicz]

Kind of a tall order for a first fort you ever build. I think a better goal for your first few forts should be "not entirely flooded before abandoning" 

Best of luck, though.

[FreakyCheeseMan]

Kind of a tall order for a first fort you ever build. I think a better goal for your first few forts should be "not entirely flooded before abandoning" 

Best of luck, though.

First fort in 2010, and I picked it cause it'll be a good introduction to caverns and the military, which look like the things I'll have to adapt to the most. I've played 40D plenty, including a few tricky maps (Made a bi-valved magma/water chamber so I could farm on a full glacier once. I love to brag.)

[Retro]

Great idea! I would encourage you to do everything you mentioned as it all sounds good as well as the following ideas: Make the monastery on the side of a steep mountain slope with a path winding halfway down and then inside to the caverns; create a very simple yet noticeable outdoor shrine at the very top of the mountain with a similar along-the-mountain-face walkway from the monastery up to it (possibly include decorative magma or water around the shrine); create some kind of zen rock garden.

[FreakyCheeseMan]

Great idea! I would encourage you to do everything you mentioned as it all sounds good as well as the following ideas: Make the monastery on the side of a steep mountain slope with a path winding halfway down and then inside to the caverns; create a very simple yet noticeable outdoor shrine at the very top of the mountain with a similar along-the-mountain-face walkway from the monastery up to it (possibly include decorative magma or water around the shrine); create some kind of zen rock garden.

I like the shrine. I like the description in general, though I personally plan to make the cavern entrance be in the basement of the monestary, a la Icewind Dale. Have a couple of gates covering the (big) stairwell down into the first cavern, with a similiarly covered stairwell leading down to the second, then again to the third. Depending on how tough wrestlers can get, I might give the head of the fortress (who will be assigned to train constantly) a study over the magma lake, near the GCS den.

Ooh! An upper-level monk locked away in seclusion, either playing a game of hermit within the larger fortress, or with a shaft for them to drop him down food and booze, and he otherwise spends all time in training.

[Coidzure Dreams]

The last layer needs a glass floor for proper contemplation of the magma sea while meditating.

[FreakyCheeseMan]

The last layer needs a glass floor for proper contemplation of the magma sea while meditating.

Seems a bit hoity-toity for a dwarven monk.

I'd think more a narrow bridge extending to a single pilliar sticking out of the lava, where he can sit in contemplation.

[Coidzure Dreams]

The last layer needs a glass floor for proper contemplation of the magma sea while meditating.

Seems a bit hoity-toity for a dwarven monk.

I'd think more a narrow bridge extending to a single pilliar sticking out of the lava, where he can sit in contemplation.

...I just got the horrible idea of a magma tanning booth.

Ok, so first I got the image of a dwarven monk sitting on a pillar of raw obsidian and basalt, his body sinew and skin like tanned leather from the training and the magma's light despite not having seen the light of the sun in decades.

Then I got the horrible idea of a magma tanning booth.  Followed by the horrible realization that dwarves would be doing this for their skin so they'd be getting naked. 

Now I'm trying very hard to avoid thinking of a beard wearing a bikini.