Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Dwarfotaur]

I was thinking of leaving about a 5 tile width around the outside and walling off in a big square, with a gate in the north, south, east and west.

Would this mess with the wildlife, trade caravans, ambushes, sieges, etc? I'm thinking of a mega project and I plan to cover/replace most of the surface but I want everything to still work in the desired way.

[Girlinhat]

In caverns, this is fine, but the surface prevents you from building within 5 tiles of the edge, except for statues, and since statues are impassable many players mass-produce statues, and then build them along the edge.  At least, so I've heard.  Never attempted it myself.  This will cut off wildlife completely, so you'll only get cavern and river/ocean life, if you haven't blocked that also.  I've heard that ambushes/sieges/caravans/etc will appear inside the wall, near the edge, but again, never tested personally.

[Sphalerite]

Statues can't be built within 5 tiles of the map-edge either.

You can completely wall of the edge with raising drawbridges.  You can build bridges as close to the edge as you want, and raising bridges make walls when raised, so you can use these to completely block the map edge.

Blocking off the edge means nothing will spawn on the surface. No wandering wildlife.  No thieves, ambushes, or sieges.  No immigrants, trade caravans, liaisons, or diplomats.

Ambushes, sieges, caravans, etc, will appear inside the map in certain bugged cases.  This is due to a bug with the map and certain interior tiles being considered map edge tiles erroneously.  This is due to the embark site being bugged, not due to blocking off the map edge, and things will sometimes spawn on those interior tiles even if the map edge isn't blocked off.

[Truean]

Your flood the world project could be come self flooding project. No complaints (from me...).

[Darvi]

Yeah but the point is that he isn't completely walling of the embark, only most of it. So animals, caravans and sieges might appear, but they couldn't get to him unless he raised his bridges.

[Truean]

Yeah but the point is that he isn't completely walling of the embark, only most of it. So animals, caravans and sieges might appear, but they couldn't get to him unless he raised his bridges.

That's no fun....

[gtmattz]

I do this with every one of my embarks.  It is the first task after collecting enough food and mining out the rock to build the wall.  I, however, do not put gates in the wall, instead I dig out a ramp which descends a few levels underground and routes through various traps.  This is the only way into my fort from the surface and as such is also the main defense point.

Having 99% of the surface 'safe' is really nice if you like to chop wood/fish/gather plants without worrying about the workers getting molested.

[Crazy Cow]

Channeling the second-to-last tiles of the map out would have the same effect. You could build a wall and channel out a moat for it with virtually the same effect. Flying creatures could still get by, but they would be able to with a wall anyway.

[Scaraban]

actually recalling a thread I read a while ago, without a valid path on the surface caravans spawn dead center on the embark and then if possible leave through caverns

[Sphalerite]

actually recalling a thread I read a while ago, without a valid path on the surface caravans spawn dead center on the embark and then if possible leave through caverns

I have had several fortresses where I've walled off the entire edge and then never had a single caravan spawn for the entire time the edge was blocked.  Caravans spawning in the middle of the map seems to be something that only happens in certain bugged embark sites.  They won't leave by the middle of the map, but will happily leave by the caverns if possible.

[Girlinhat]

I can imagine the amount of mechanisms needed to successfully close all those bridges @.@

[Scaraban]

I can imagine the amount of mechanisms needed to successfully close all those bridges @.@

it's high

[Dwarfotaur]

http://i.imgur.com/9mWsz.png

I want to flatten the world, cover it in magma, except for the centre (my fortress) and some access paths to all sides. I will probably make them in to vertical draw bridges and wall off the inside of the magma (to create a castle I guess). I will probably want to place obsidian everywhere too (on the floor) as I have an abundance.

If I left enough space around the outside, would I still get caravans, ambushes, wildlife, etc?

[Sphalerite]

If there are any open tiles on the map edge, animals, ambushes, caravans, immigrants, etc, will still spawn there, even if their path to your fortress is completely blocked by magma.  In order to prevent edge spawns you have to completely block off all open edge tiles.