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Author Topic: Above ground city/fort designs  (Read 4239 times)

dwarfhoplite

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Above ground city/fort designs
« on: January 17, 2011, 03:12:57 pm »

I'm planning to make aboveground city(again). I have habit of failing them miserably as far as in the design. Now i have excellent location with large flat area, strange underground volcano(1lvl underground) and a about  30z high mountain.

Give me ideas how should i carve this mountain into glorious dwarven capitol.
I'm thinking of making dwarven version of Minas Tirith.

Tell your experiences and ideas please! do you have any succesful aboveground forts?
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Excedion

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Re: Above ground city/fort designs
« Reply #1 on: January 17, 2011, 03:17:20 pm »

I've never made a completely above ground fort. I've made a few half and half forts. Only problem i've had is idiot masons not using stone stockpiles, apartment blocks are a good idea too.
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SkyRender

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Re: Above ground city/fort designs
« Reply #2 on: January 17, 2011, 03:26:59 pm »

 First thing you want is an outer wall.  Otherwise the local beasties and invaders will make your life miserable.  It doesn't have to be absolute (you can expand its boundaries later), but it'll definitely make your life easier.  Once you have that, building up your outdoor living area isn't so hard.  What IS hard is dealing with the endless waves of migrants.  Every aboveground fort I've ever made has attracted more hoopleheads than any underground fort could hope to, for some reason.  Expect your population to triple yearly for a while as you struggle to keep them all sheltered.  As mentioned, having apartments is a great idea (even moreso if you make them part of the outer wall's inner perimeter and save yourself some building materials).  Exploit those Z-levels too.  When there's no more room on the ground, the rest live upstairs.  Expect to spend more time scrambling to accommodate your newest batch of lazy bums than actually designing anything for at least the first three years.
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Darvi

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Re: Above ground city/fort designs
« Reply #3 on: January 17, 2011, 03:35:54 pm »

If you're concerned about space, build skyscrapers :D

And if you want the eintire thing to be like Minas Tirith, then I suggest using a natural slope as a basis, while removing most of the ramps, to get that level-y feel Minas Tirith has.

Kinda like that:

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Zrk2

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Re: Above ground city/fort designs
« Reply #4 on: January 17, 2011, 05:20:56 pm »

I'm thinking of making dwarven version of Minas Tirith.

Just do it!
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Vinnie

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Re: Above ground city/fort designs
« Reply #5 on: January 17, 2011, 05:25:59 pm »

Honestly? I'd recommend starting off building a large central tavern-ey building, after you get the wall up. Communal eating, resting, area. W/food storage + production in the cellar. Nothing wrong with using cellars in Aboveground settlements.
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slothen

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Re: Above ground city/fort designs
« Reply #6 on: January 17, 2011, 05:36:08 pm »

multi z-level rooms with open space in the ceiling is a must!.

Also i'f you're doing dwarven minas tirith, how about carving the entire city, buildings and all, out of the side of the mountain?  Lots of digging and collapsing and channeling to do, but that just sounds the best.
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dwarfhoplite

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Re: Above ground city/fort designs
« Reply #7 on: January 18, 2011, 08:42:57 am »

multi z-level rooms with open space in the ceiling is a must!.

Also i'f you're doing dwarven minas tirith, how about carving the entire city, buildings and all, out of the side of the mountain?  Lots of digging and collapsing and channeling to do, but that just sounds the best.
yeah thats what I'm planning. digging the city out of mountain slope. building all that stuff takes too much effort :D

If it ever succeeds it will be very inefficent but very amazing =)

Damn. round city is difficult to plan
« Last Edit: January 19, 2011, 12:41:32 pm by dwarfhoplite »
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