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Dwarven Militia

22 (28.9%)

Hallways lined with [T]raps

36 (47.4%)

Magma/Melting Chamber

4 (5.3%)

Water/Drowning Chamber

6 (7.9%)

Atom Smasher

0 (0%)

Diabolical Dwarfish Superweapon

3 (3.9%)

Other

5 (6.6%)

Total Members Voted: 76

[MC Hammerbeard]

If you employ multiple means on a regular basis, post the one that gives you the most satisfaction.

Also, please post the plans/designs for your defensive perimeter.

The purpose of this poll is two-fold: firstly, to get an idea of the predilections of this community, and secondly, to expand my own knowledge of dwarfish engineering/find inspiration for further exploits.  I'm hoping this thread will lead to some constructive discussion on the subject.



Personally, I've only been playing Dorf Forts since 40d, so I'm rather new.  Only recently have I attempted larger scale constructions, however, with the coming of DF2010 and the breaking of the military, I was forced to do so.  My first construction was an attempt at a combination magma/water flooding chamber, trying to recreate what I'd heard of others making, but it ended in disaster, ultimately drowning, burning, obsidian-encasing, and then re-burning the entire map beyond reclamation.

My most successful design, which has reached MkIII status on my most recent fortress, is something I call "the flusher".  It involves a 10x10 drowning chamber with drawbridges on either side, and a 4x4 retractable bridge over a 10-z-level drop to a large grated draining chamber.  Above it are five z-levels of water cistern plugged by another 4x4 retractable bridge.  When "The Lever" is pulled, the bridges raise, and the room floods almost instantly; once everyone inside is dead, the release is pulled, and the water swiftly drains, swirling the bodies and objects about the room not unlike a toilet before pulling everything below to be collected later.  The design allows the chamber to be fired five times in quick succession without requiring any time to reload, and as I use a four-wide pump-tower design, I'm fairly confident it could operate indefinitely without ever running out of water.

For insurance, I placed a 3x3 array of weapon traps (each filled with 10 serrated steel discs) at the exit.  Just in case.  I prefer to use the drowning chamber because it's quick and, above all, clean.  Buzz-saw traps fling blood and body parts everywhere, which is amusing, but unsanitary.

So, what about you?

[dakenho]

moats, draw bridges, moats, and presure plates make a good combination, several sieges will drown in the moat and you can deploy your xbow dwarfs on one side to rain down he** on the enemy, this is cheap though
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a two story chamber leading into your fortress with a tarreis on the second floor at the end of the hall way were xbow dwarfs can shoot the enemy before they reach the fort, this combined with axe dwarfs after room works well (doesn't work well with 40d)
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currently as marksmen dwarfs do not work, I just have a 10 man squad of axe dwarfs with well crafted axes and well crafted armor (both made by legendary smiths who made artifacts), 6 of them took down a titan with out a scratch and 3 didn't even join the fight till half way through

[Deathworks]

Hi!

While I have not had enough time for getting some combat, my usual defense are several layers of weapon traps in all entrances to the fortress. Once business is really going, I also place a weapon trap into each entrance to any room (I always have rooms two tiles away from the corridor, so I can place one door and one weapon trap between the room and the corridor).

Deathworks

[Miggy]

Several layers of cage traps with a dog or two standing guard, making sure thieves don't get through and to act as bait. This is the early "easy" protection.

Later I use all of my caged enemies to train up my axedwarves to invincibility status.

[Srial]

My usual defenses are just a squad of 10 steel clad axe dwarves.  So far in 2010 I haven't found much that can stand in their way (granted I don't fight a lot of big beasts from down under yet.)

However, in my current fort my civ doesn't know how to make high boots, which means every siege I end up with 1-2 dwarves with critical knee damage and it's really starting to bug me.  I'm thinking I'll go with the highway/trap methodology for a while, but I would love a drowning chamber like you describe.  I might have to try to (over) engineer something like that!

[Hyndis]

Angry drunken beards wielding axes.

Any other way is not sufficiently dwarven.

[MC Hammerbeard]

Angry drunken beards wielding axes.

Any other way is not sufficiently dwarven.

I've been trying to build an effective military, but I seem to always lose 3-4 dwarves to every goblin ambush.  My dwarves are in full steel gear, with steel hammers and axes (even though blunt weapons were nerfed deadliness-wise, I still enjoy seeing enemies fly across the screen), and I verify their equipment as they enter battle.

Of course, the goblins love to ambush me with full squads of marksgoblins and usually one or two brainwashed Elite Elven Archers.  Not having any ranged dwarves of my own, I had to develop my large drowning project.  When I send my dwarves out to deal with melee units, well...let's just say the sarcophagus-making industry hasn't cooled its forges in years.

[Hyndis]

You can mod out crossbows for now, so that no one will be able to use any crossbows. This evens the playing field as marksdwarves currently are broken.

[MC Hammerbeard]

You can mod out crossbows for now, so that no one will be able to use any crossbows. This evens the playing field as marksdwarves currently are broken.

Now why didn't I think of that...?  Thanks for the tip!

[deoxy]

I like to build a slaughter-pit.  It works for everything but flying enemies, including trap-immune and over-sized (greater than size 10).  This is for 40d, but I haven't seen anything that makes me think it won't work in 2010.

1) build a long, 1-tile-wide, 2-levels high hallway, with the upper level having an external access and both levels having internal access.

2) use hatchcovers to floor it (bridges won't operate with creatures larger than size 10 on them!).

3) put chained animals around a hole 1 level above it near (but not right at) the door.

4) create a pit/drawbridge way in to the lower level from the inside.

5) Spike-trap the lower level - EVERY tile, all linked to the same lever.

So, enemies enter, get detected (if necessary), then get dropped into the lower level, which has no exit.  When I've got ALL the enemies from one attack in the pit, I go pull the level until they are all dead - no one escapes.

I usually have the "long hallway" wind back and forth at about 15-20 length sections, then make the "lower level" all one big room.  It required quite a few more upright spikes, but it makes cleanup MUCH faster.

I like this because it leaves no survivors.  In fact, you could even collect multiple groups in there before pulling the lever, if you wanted to.

I created this to deal with all the nasty creatures from some of the user-made content, some of whom are too large/can't be drown/are immune to lava(!).  If someone (like ME, for instance) adds a flying enemy, I'll have to modify this a little, but it wouldn't be too hard - just have a section you can close instead of drop, leave the "floor" open, and start pulling the lever - they will have to go under the closed section, where the spike-traps are.  Some of them might get away though... :-(

Of course, flying building-destroyers would still be able to get through - I haven't come up with any way of dealing with them other than good old brute force (militia or long 1-level-high hallways filled with upright spike traps).  I don't think anyone has been crazy enough to seriously play with those, though.  (Not even me, and I've got a entity of dwarf-sized GCS's in mine.)

[Hyndis]

I usually have the "long hallway" wind back and forth at about 15-20 length sections, then make the "lower level" all one big room.  It required quite a few more upright spikes, but it makes cleanup MUCH faster.

I like this because it leaves no survivors.  In fact, you could even collect multiple groups in there before pulling the lever, if you wanted to.

I usually do this as well, but rather than pull the lever on the goblins I instead go the arena route.

There is of course a way to flood the chamber should I need to kill everything in there, but I usually just round up an entire siege, maybe rough them up a little bit with the weapon traps (I prefer blunt weapons, they cripple but do not kill), and then open the door to the holding pen, where my military is waiting.

Glorious combat!

It makes for good engravings.

[Psieye]

I've been trying to build an effective military, but I seem to always lose 3-4 dwarves to every goblin ambush.  My dwarves are in full steel gear, with steel hammers and axes (even though blunt weapons were nerfed deadliness-wise, I still enjoy seeing enemies fly across the screen), and I verify their equipment as they enter battle.

Steel axes yes. Steel hammers no - you want silver or preferably (with 1 tag in the raws) gold/lead/platinum. Solid density matters for hammers. Realistically the softness of those metals should be a concern but the game doesn't simulate that far.


Anyway, I prefer a trap laid corridor since I'm industry orientated and I embark on rich sedimentary layers with sand. When I pull my drawbridge front door shut, the only entrance to my fort is a 1-tile wide corridor that takes a huge detour. This gets outfitted with whatever I want. For added laughs, I then put glass weapon traps in front of it all for extra kicks - at least it should deal with wildlife before they get a chance to jam the serious steel traps. In fact, I go as far as modding in my own trap components for even more damage - like a drillspike that I can fit into spike traps that hits multiple times.

I still like a good military though - traps can't move to kill stuff far away. Since I deploy on sedimentary layers, I accept only steel (I don't ever get to adamantine before FPS death) equipment for my soldiers, nothing less.

[deoxy]

In fact, I go as far as modding in my own trap components for even more damage - like a drillspike that I can fit into spike traps that hits multiple times.

I've added a "Crushing Plate" that a good bit of impact damage (and can go in upright spike traps), I'm thinking of adding a gore type, just for giggles (well, that and gore and body parts, of course), and I'm thinking about some kind of blade damage, but I'm trying to keep it balanced against the existing stuff, so if it goes into upright spike traps, it needs to do less damage than comparable trp components that don't, so the giant axe blade is out.

Oh, I also added an enormous gear - 4-100 hits, blunt damage, no crit bonus.  So, it does the most damage, but does it in smaller chunks (so armor helps more) and doesn't crit.  Seems pretty balanced to me.

I want to make larger components that do more damage and take more metal to make (such as making the crushing plate take 2 bars to make, but do more damage to make up for it), but being able to make them out of just one glass ruins that.  Heck, being able to make them out of glass at all (for more than 25% damage or at least being breakable) is a bit silly... so maybe I should just not do that, huh?  heh.

[Hyndis]

I've added in new traps that can fit into the upright weapon spike traps. I just added the spike tag to all of the existing trap components, and in addition created others that do only blunt damage.

The blunt damage should not kill anything, but should instead merely maim and cripple. You can use this for sadistic purposes, such as utterly crippling an entire goblin siege before moving in for the kill, or stationing dwarves there to give your doctors practice.

[Saladman]

After getting wiped out by my first goblin ambush I just spammed cage traps along my entrance corridor.  I can't recommend that enough to any other newbs up against rocky starts, but it can get a little too easy.  In my new fortress I'm limiting my number of cage traps and backing them with weapon traps, and I plan to actually raise a military. 

What I learned from my first lasting fort was to make entrances longer rather than shorter, leave room for mining or construction around them, and create some internal choke points, both for trap placement and in case you need to wall something off.

I'm also now trying multiple secondary entrances with drawbridges over dry moats, which should let me direct invaders if I want, as well as give me more outdoor access.  And I'm building in crenellated towers for barracks at the main entrance, in the hope marksdwarves get fixed but also for aesthetics.