I've been away from DF for about a month or two, so I'm not up on the 31.10 release, but I read something in the update log that suggests Toady's fixed ranged combat. Feel free to bring up other relevant fixes. I'll probably be getting myself up to date on the wiki.
I've got a map I generated in .08 to be the next spot for Sandcage The Time-Keeper: Nestled in a cubbyhole near the Mountainhome is a one region tile flat (with a long, gentle hill in the west) black sand desert where a brook meets its end. The surface is absolutely dead: No trees, no plants, and Calm surroundings. There is a layer of marble to provide flux and quality stone furniture.
---The Big Dream ---
In this desert, my dwarves will carve out a living and create a giant hourglass megastructure with cast obsidian caps. All who visit must walk by this marvel of dwarven engineering. Caravans will pass over a safe drawbridge on the left while enemies must brave a gauntlet of traps as well as a fortified wall manned by marksdwarves. (I may include a 'pillbox' for a balista or two.) As the fortress expands, there will be many smaller hourglass towers manned by marksdwarves to soften up the enemy before they reach the main entrance. No point in letting the enemy meet with the caravans if I can do something about it. (If I want an elven caravan dead, I'll magma them myself). These outpost towers will be the supports for a winding aqueduct that bends at precise 120° turns to show the dwarven mastery of the elements.
Underground, dwarven planning will have achieve a new level of stubbornness organization by rigidly following a hexagonal grid. Each cell will be of a size to contain seven standard workshops each with one space on all sides. As the fortress expands, each workshop cell will be surrounded by raw material stockpiles appropriate for the relevant industry.
Surface:
Largely untouched at first. Once the fortress gets well established, outpost towers will be built for marksdwarves, as well as some ranches for the animals. Darn elven- and human-bred livestock just isn't happy without some of that accursed sun. Statue will be placed there and made a meeting spot so that animals will probably favor that place after being milked in a nearby indoor farmer's workshop. They'll be walled in by stone, instead of some sissy wooden fence. (This is mostly out of aesthetic thoughts, since there's no in-game reason... Especially since there's no grass for them to eat up there.) Ponds will be made for fish farms, if any fish will show up. The brook will also be extended to provide power to an array of waterwheels, six tiles wide, covered in green glass. Later, I will carve the western hill into geometric perfection.
The first undergound layer will be skipped, since I think I might include some cave-in traps on the surface to deal with any Titans that might show up, and single layer floors don't stop those. Odd-numbered layers will be skipped to avoid complete cave-ins in case something crazy and/or stupid happens.
Second Underground Layer (Black sand): Farm/food layer, woodworking, and waterworks: Farm plots for underground crops first, as well as the top layer of a midway cistern. After getting seeds for above ground crops from caravans, greenhouses covered in glass ceilings will be made. Will include workshops relating to food and clothing.
Third Layer (Limited in size): Marksdwarf Overlook: This area will include a number of military stations, most notably around the entry paths around Sandcage, the hourglass megastructure, with fortifications overlooking both paths (just in case something goes wrong with the drawbridge).
Fourth Layer: Stone working, military training, and 'public' layer. The foundation for Sandcage will be here: The paths around it will be a trench dug down to this layer. Visiting caravans will get to see a nice smoothed floor on their way in. The major mason and mechanic workshops will be located here, as well as barracks, shooting ranges, and equipment stockpiles. This will also be where the hospital, jail, and offices for nobles who actually work (broker, mayor, record keeper, etcetera) will be located. A temporary dining hall will be built here until the legendary one inside the base of Sandcage is finished.
Fifth level: Water pipes for hospital and top layer of Sandcage's dining room supply.
Sixth Layer: Metal and Glass: Limited at first, until magma can be pumped up.
Seventh Layer: Magma pipelines for relevant workshops.
Eighth Layer and further: Residential area. Will include some vertical towers of cramped apartments for when the economy kicks in.
Deep Orchard: A layer that will be nearly hollowed out and flooded to provide a safe location for woodcutters to get proper fungal plants. Because if you have to use wood for something, you should get proper fungus that grows in very unelven places.
Grafitti Layer: Hidden Layer with limited access: A skilled engraver will record the fortress's history on a series of walls made for that purpose. I may hand the save over to an adventuring player to see if he can find it and piece together what happened.
The Master's Workshop: Possibly one of the last places built: An isolated area built for a legendary metalcrafter and filled with all the adamantine I can get before I open the circus tent.
Cemetery Layer: Not sure where to put this one. Probably going to end up partially determined by how the story of my fort turns out, as well as how the caverns shape up.
--- Sandcage Itself ---
Sandcage is going to be the central feature of the fortress, roughly in the middle of the map. Its base will be a hexagonal cap of cast obsidian, 38 tiles from north point to south, 3 z-levels tall. On top of that will be a clear glass middle (36 tiles long at the base, including ramps) that tapers to a central point and expands again to support a second cap of cast obsidian. The center will feature a clear glass stairway between the two caps.
The lower cap will feature a legendary dining room with black bronze furniture (hopefully) on the top z-level, connected to the rest of the fortress by underground stairs and six glass tubes that pass over the entry trench. The bottom section will be a shopping center. Underneath will be a large reservoir for water that will be accessed by wells in the dining room. (The pipe that'll provide water will also provide water for the hospital)
Edited to add: The top cap will have a royal bedroom, dining room, and throne room for the monarch... Along with a few levers he can play with.
--- What I'd Like Help With ---
Suggestions for starting out in the desert: I've never really given much thought about completely treeless maps. Some suggestions about how much wood I should start with, as well as how to safely tap into caverns for woodcutting would be nice. For skills, I imagine I can just skip herbalism since the surface is dead, and just bring along extra food in case I don't irrigate fast enough. I should probably also think about how to deal with the meat industry, since there won't be much wildlife until I can feel confident about sending hunters to the caverns. Though I suppose with some time and management, that'll be moot with my ranch.
Getting burrows and military sorted out: Still mystified by the new system. If anyone's set up some sort of step-by-step system for organizing and training my military, I'd like to be pointed to it. If marksdwarves have been debugged so that they'll actually shoot, I'd be interested in knowing about that. I'll probably favor crossbows, axes, and maybe hammers if something's been done recently to help bludgeoning weapons. I'll probably be checking up on the wiki to see if anything new has been posted.
The hospital: Another new thing I still have to get used to. Last time I played I got a guy who was seriously injured in a goblin ambush, with many broken bones, who laid in bed for a while, woke up to finally get off military duty (and regain his civilian job title), and then proceed to limp out to sort stockpiles until he collapsed from the pain and died during his immediate second hospital visit.
Suggested mods and utilities: Normally, I play fairly vanilla (though I picked up a copy of Kobold Camp since I like the little guys), I'd like to hear about neat ideas, like some medical training workshops I've heard about... And has Dwarf Therapist been updated for .10, yet? DT was a real blessing when I first saw its power.
Setting up stockpiles: It can be tedious to get custom stockpiles. There anyway to streamline the process? Any list of suggested 'templates' I can use to set things up appropriately, so that I'm not having to change settings after all the hauling?
The Caverns: I tend to have trouble figuring out how to seal off sections quickly, since they tend to have all that vertical space and many openings. I'm open to suggestions. For now, I think one possibility is just finding a large, flat area, building a wall around it, and then putting a roof on it to keep out fliers. Also, a question: Does making a farm plot prevent underground plants from spawning on their tiles? I've had some trouble with encroachment when I broke open the caves before finishing my irrigation project. I may just crack them, assign a bunch of war dogs to a woodcutter for the initial supply of wood (or hope the traders carry plenty) and make the Deep Orchard as quickly as I can.
Defense: I have a nasty habit of getting caught flat-footed by the goblins. The last ambush I went through featured my dwarves running around in partial armor with training axes, possibly in part because my arsenal dwarf was knocked unconscious by the goblins while carrying stuff to the trade depot, and I couldn't switch them from training uniform to combat uniform. I've got the big trap plan out, but I would appreciate suggestions on early game defense.
So, post away, if you weren't scared off by the length of the OP.
Author
Topic: Just Another Planning Thread For Sandcage The Time-Keeper (Read 1780 times)