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Author Topic: Rules for a good working fortress  (Read 3530 times)

SkyRender

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Re: Rules for a good working fortress
« Reply #15 on: October 22, 2010, 01:49:55 am »

28.  Always be closing.  ALWAYS.  BE.  CLOSING.

Hey, someone had to do it.
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Halnoth

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Re: Rules for a good working fortress
« Reply #16 on: October 22, 2010, 02:35:12 am »

27. Forbid death items is your friend. Really.

I disagree, instead; burrows are your friend.
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ungulateman

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Re: Rules for a good working fortress
« Reply #17 on: October 22, 2010, 04:53:05 am »

24e. The above statement is really fricking obvious.
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That's the great thing about this forum. We can derail any discussion into any other topic.
It's not an embark so much as seven dwarves having a simultaneous strange mood and going off to build an artifact fortress that menaces with spikes of awesome and hanging rings of death.

AngleWyrm

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Re: Rules for a good working fortress
« Reply #18 on: October 22, 2010, 05:45:51 am »

29. Danger Rooms are the best way to train up soldiers fast.
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rephikul

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Re: Rules for a good working fortress
« Reply #19 on: October 22, 2010, 05:47:05 am »

I'm gonna be an ahold today

  • Never embark on watery soil, unless you know a way to get through.
It's like saying dont play DF if you dont know the control.

  • Never embark next to someone else.
Why?

  • Try to embark next to a river. Chances of fish are high in those areas.
Fishing is overrated. It's even possible to thrive (and have working hospitals) in regions without either ocean, river, muddy pools or aquifer.

  • Know your surroundings. Evil areas are more annoying than calm areas.
This is true.

  • Strike the earth ASAP. The faster you are underground, the faster you can get your dwarves to sleep in a bed.
False, bed can be built on inside, above ground tiles. You just need some roofing. The no digging challenge depends heavily on this.

  • Plan your fortress ahead. Know what you want to design.
Unnecessary. Everything can be rebuilt.

  • The less walls, the better.
False, walls are strategic defense that should be built en mass I believe I have ~350 tiles of defensive walls on my 7x7 embark.

  • Farms need water, lots of them. Making a pond takes too long.
Overground crop needs absolutely no irrigation.

  • Never connect caverns directly to your fortress.
Alternatively, make it easy to disconnect from the cavern.

  • The ideal width for a large road is 3, for a medium sized road its 2, and a chokepoints is 1.
There's absolutely no reasons to construct roads.

  • Design your trading depot after the traps.
If you trade at all, design your fortress after the depot.

  • Cage traps are good, but only useful for survivors. Slaughter the enemy first, and cage any survivors.
With enough cage traps, any bloodshed is unnecessary. Unless of course, the opponent is [TRAPAVOID]

  • Never think that caverns are safe. Underground can be worse than up
The only safe place is where nothing can fly into.

  • Some animals can swim! Dont think that if you dont see animals, that they are not there!
There's always area map and unit list. Oversight is not a good excuse.

  • Always have some traps in the cavern entrance. This makes sure that nobody gets in.
Alternatively, keep the entrance sealed.

  • Forgotten beasts have trouble opening doors. Adding a door makes a huge difference between a surprise attack and a long wait for the enemy.
FBs dont open doors, they smash them open and laugh maniacally.

  • Always have an army prepared, no matter what the size of your fortress is.
Correction: Always have weapons and amours.

  • Forgotten beasts can be attacked with lots of brute force at the same time.
Doesn't mean it'll succeed.

  • Give the army weapons, else they will be wrestlers/cannon fodder
Or Misc. object users which are very awesome.

  • The ideal size to kill someone with weapon traps is 3, combined with 2 cage traps behind.
Weapon traps are very slow to reload. Upright traps are much more dependable.

  • Cage traps are effective if you want to keep monsters alive.
True

  • Flooding works best by first making the trap, then making the flood. Not the other way around.
A flood can be manually trigged. Meanwhile, a trap with nothing to do is an useless trap.

  • Automated refill of a trap gives a good boost for when under siege.
I have no idea what this mean.
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Skivverus

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Re: Rules for a good working fortress
« Reply #20 on: October 22, 2010, 05:57:34 am »

  • Burrows aren't just for keeping civilians out of harm's way. A "trade depot" burrow means you can call your broker in on your terms, not his/hers.
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AngleWyrm

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Re: Rules for a good working fortress
« Reply #21 on: October 22, 2010, 07:30:58 am »

The broker's contribution to trade is inversely proportional to the number of parties the fort has hosted. That is to say, once the social skills of all the dwarves really take off, then anyone makes a great trader.
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GL12

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Re: Rules for a good working fortress
« Reply #22 on: October 22, 2010, 09:47:16 am »

I like to make a big shaft with workshops below and stockpiles above. Square rooms stacked on top of each other, with the stockpiles in soil, and the workshops in rock. I normally put up/down stairs in all four corners, but I'm likely missing some way to make that more efficient. The point of it is, the dorfs only have to walk MAYBE 6 squares to get the materials they need, and I don't have to clear out a stone storeroom. Shorter walking distance == better FPS. I tired this once on a whim and it's now a feature of all my forts.

I also try to always put the dining hall in a stone layer. Makes it easier to make it legendary. Also, embarking on a map where half of the area has an aquifer and half doesn't will give you a ready inexhaustible water source, easy access to stone, and will give you two reagions worth of wind to work with for power plants. Lastly, ALWAYS have some brewables in a small farmplot once you get irrigation. I normally use 2x2 plots, and it really helps keep the dorfs happy and drinking.  Food for thought.
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Jake

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Re: Rules for a good working fortress
« Reply #23 on: October 22, 2010, 10:45:28 am »

I disagree, instead; burrows are your friend.
True, but forbidding death items is still useful for ensuring that priority is given to getting rid of the bodies rather than looting the battlefield. It's also rather quicker to set up than designating a burrow.
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I think Toady's confusing interface better simulates the experience of a bunch of disorganised drunken dwarves running a fort.

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shadowclasper

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Re: Rules for a good working fortress
« Reply #24 on: October 22, 2010, 11:54:56 am »

Rule 30: Whenever possible, get a tower up over your gate and fortify the walls facing the direction the enemy would be coming from. This is true even of cavern entrances. Place down stockpiles of food, booze, and ammo. Have your marksdwarves there in times of war. They will do more damage the least amount of cost and maximum amount of profit of any military unit period.
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jei

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Re: Rules for a good working fortress
« Reply #25 on: October 22, 2010, 01:35:56 pm »

Rule 30: Whenever possible, get a tower up over your gate and fortify the walls facing the direction the enemy would be coming from. This is true even of cavern entrances. Place down stockpiles of food, booze, and ammo. Have your marksdwarves there in times of war. They will do more damage the least amount of cost and maximum amount of profit of any military unit period.

Add guard doggies to watch towers. Definitely saves a lot of kobold trouble.
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Jake

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Re: Rules for a good working fortress
« Reply #26 on: October 23, 2010, 07:57:19 am »

31. Melting down metal items is very inefficient; if you've got a source of iron or bronze on the map then you're better off trading it all for a few kegs when the next caravan passes through.
31a. Even if you haven't got any other useful metal on the map, there's no point melting down serviceable weapons or shields.
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Never used Dwarf Therapist, mods or tilesets in all the years I've been playing.
I think Toady's confusing interface better simulates the experience of a bunch of disorganised drunken dwarves running a fort.

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BackgroundGuy

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Re: Rules for a good working fortress
« Reply #27 on: October 23, 2010, 09:09:52 am »

32.  Don't use dining rooms/wells/statue gardens/ any type of room as a meeting area.  Use zones, it prevents partying. 
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Double A

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Re: Rules for a good working fortress
« Reply #28 on: October 23, 2010, 09:18:29 am »

31. Melting down metal items is very inefficient; if you've got a source of iron or bronze on the map then you're better off trading it all for a few kegs when the next caravan passes through.
31a. Even if you haven't got any other useful metal on the map, there's no point melting down serviceable weapons or shields.

Goblinite is a very important ore, and necessary to my fort's survival.
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Jake

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Re: Rules for a good working fortress
« Reply #29 on: October 23, 2010, 10:28:00 am »

Goblinite is a very important ore, and necessary to my fort's survival.
Elaborate a little, please? I only said not to bother melting stuff down if there's iron or tin and copper to be dug out. Or has Toady finally started implementing the Law of Conservation of Mass?
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Never used Dwarf Therapist, mods or tilesets in all the years I've been playing.
I think Toady's confusing interface better simulates the experience of a bunch of disorganised drunken dwarves running a fort.

Black Powder Firearms - Superior firepower, realistic manufacturing and rocket launchers!
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