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[Girlinhat]

That works better, in fact, because the goblins will attack the dog and uncover themselves.  However it only works once, revealing one squad, maybe two, and then must be reloaded.  That dog corpse then becomes unbutcherable and takes up refuse pile space (if you use one) or requires some sort of handling.  The watchtower, on the other hand, is a permanent fixture and only needs to be fiddled with once every 20 years or so, giving a bit worse detection but with the advantage that it's always working.

If chains work find for you then that's great!  If replacing dogs and chains is too much micromanagement while you'd like to be focusing on other things, then use a tower

[Number4]

What, simply plotting dogs down with a +rope reed fiber rope+? Build a building and a proper Nickel chain or something!

[Naz]

You guys are kinda missing the point here, though your ideas are very dwarfy. The entire idea here is that you have something that serves the exact same purpose as chaining an animal up outside except when an ambush is spotted the watch beast doesn't get immediately killed and require reloading. Allowing you to concern yourself with whatever project you're working on and minimizing risk to your dwarves by having to go outside regularly. The structure is entirely protected from all forms of attack and the only time you need to reload it is once a generation or so.

I think I'm going to go build a couple of these.

[Starver]

If chains work find for you then that's great!  If replacing dogs and chains is too much micromanagement while you'd like to be focusing on other things, then use a tower

What's worse (FCVO...) than chains, I've found, is 1x1 pastures with bird chicks in 'em.  The pastured birds run, and if they by chance survive, some civvie decides to wander out and put them back in the spot recently approached by the enemy.

What's even worse than that, is using your huge surplus of guineafowl chicks for this duty, because it's pretty hard to tell whether a g is guinefowl chick or one of the goblin military unit whose speciality weapon gives them this same appearance and colour.

[evileeyore]

If chains work find for you then that's great!  If replacing dogs and chains is too much micromanagement while you'd like to be focusing on other things, then use a tower

Lately I've been using "skyboxes and hunting dogs" stationed over my outer most "roads" (areas I've channeled movement through via walls and moats)...

But your Watchtowers will be an amazingly useful addition to my early and almost non-existant Ambush detection defenses.

[ashein]

I remember using the design like this back in .40d, but that wasn't a tower, but a bunker. The thing ruining by life then - flying creatures, though I floored the square right above the animal, the flyers seemed to move diagonally from above. Apparently I hadn't floored the whole roof.
I'm also hesitant to use hatches as a building-destroyer-prevention mechanism, as now they get destroyed from below as expected. Happened in a previous version, .1x or so.

The design is nice, but if the destroyer-type-2 bugger is a flyer... That goes out of ambush detection scope, though

[Girlinhat]

Flier pathfinding is a bit odd, I've never heard confirmation of a creature destroying a building while flying.  That being said, this is not meant as a be-all-end-all line of defense.  It does a simple job and it does it extremely well, for practically no cost and no upkeep.  That is the point that needs stressing.  This is easy, effective, and it looks good.  Sure you can chain dogs around outside, but with this you have nice little watchposts dotting the map, looking fine and adding scenery to an otherwise sparse surface!

[khearn]

I'm trying this out in my current fort. I'm having some success, but have discovered a few points that others might be interested in:

- I spaced mine out about 30 tiles apart, thinking that with a 20 tile range, this would give good enough overlap. But I've still had a few ambushes decloak at my front door, so I appear to have gaps in my coverage. Some of it may be due to hills, but it's something to watch for.

- The first time I tried it I left stairs in place next to the towers and was surprised to see trolls beeline for the towers and head up to the second level and just sit there. Eventually, they managed to destroy the window next to the stairs and kill the watchbird inside. The lesson is to remove those stairs after pitting your watchcritter.

- When designating the stairs for removal, be careful with your designation. I apparently only hit enter once for one of my towers, then moved on to the next and ended up accidentally designating the entire second level  of a couple of my towers for removal. This was noticed when a cave-in occurred into my underground bird hatchery. The dwarf doing the removal survived the fall with moderate injuries, but a few turkeys in the hatchery didn't. It could have been much worse if it had been over my barracks or a meeting area. I was also amused to see that all four green glass windows survived the cave-in. These dwarves make some pretty tough glass.

- I also was leaving the center space open on the top after pitting the animal through it. My first ambush squad that was definitely spotted by a tower was spotted by this tower as the squad of goblin archers came down a hillside above it. They then proceeded to slaughter the poor watchturkey by shooting arrows through the open roof from above. Lesson here is to completely floor the roof after pitting the animal (and before removing the stairs).

- It takes 21 stone to build a 3x3 watchtower with external stairs (and full roof). I've found it best to set up a 4x5 stockpile set to non-economic stone next to where I want to build each tower (3x7 would be even better). Wait for it to get filled, then start building the tower. This way your stone is close by when you designate things and your masons spend little time walking to fetch the next stone. Once you build one wall and that stone is replaced, then remove the stockpile (p-x) so more stone doesn't get brought. The main thing is to always have stone nearby when you designate the builds. When you select the stone for the build, it is marked as "in use" and it will not be moved until the mason goes to get it. So setting up the stockpile after you designate the builds does no good, the masons will walk through the full stockpile to go across the map to get the predesignated stone.

- As with any outdoors construction project, keep soldiers stationed outside during the construction because you will be spotting ambushes with your masons/haulers until you get the towers up and running. That can get messy if you don't have troops close at hand. It can get messy with them close at hand too, but it's better for the mess to be goblin blood rather than dwarf blood.

But with those sorts of details in mind, they do seem to work pretty well. Now I just need to figure out what the optimal spacing really is. I'm wondering if the walls in the corners block some lines of sight and thus give me less coverage that I was expecting?

[AutomataKittay]

Excellent ideas in this thread, inspired me to use up some gems to make window above my fort entry and hook up a critter there. Caught a few thieves and ambushes before they ran into my soldiers!

[Girlinhat]

I play on flat maps, so I hadn't considered archers and hills.  That's a good point though!  The rest seems mostly like conventional construction tips, not really specific to this idea.  Still good advice, of course.

[khearn]

Excellent ideas in this thread, inspired me to use up some gems to make window above my fort entry and hook up a critter there. Caught a few thieves and ambushes before they ran into my soldiers!

Gem windows! I had forgotten about them. I don't have any sand so I've been scrounging it from caravans to make glass windows. I've got plenty of gems to make windows. Thanks!

[Starver]

Cheers for the necro.  I've got a good excuse to mention that I'm using inverted pillbox-towers in my current fort.

Eventually, the land beneath these will be channelled away to many, many levels, so before I get round to that I've been doing the following, slightly convoluted method designed to avoid dumb-builder trapping, circumvent cave-in possibilities (if done right), remove the possibility of even momentary hostile-by-the-back-door access, uses a different method of tethering the animal (with option to stop them running away or not), gives maximum view-distance (i.e. same Z-level) and you don't get the un-aesthetic knowledge that beneath the built walls there technically exists the soil floor it might have been built on...:

Code: (Construction method) [Select]



  Z-1     Z=0     Z+1
####### .......
####### .......
####### .......
####### .......          Start on your flat grassland...
####### .......
####### .......
####### .......

####### ;;;;;;;
####### ;;;;;;;
####### ;;;;;;;
###^### ...v...         Dig a channel
####### ;;;;;;;
####### ;;;;;;;
####### ;;;;;;;

####### ;;;;;;;
####### ;;;;;;;
####### ;;;;;;;
###^### ;;;<;;;    .    Build an Up-stair
####### ;;;;;;;
####### ;;;;;;;
####### ;;;;;;;

####### ;;;;;;;
####### ;;;;;;;
###^### ;;;v;;;     
##^^^## ;;v<v;;    .    Dig some more channels
###^### ;;;v;;;     
####### ;;;;;;;
####### ;;;;;;;

####### ;;;;;;;
####### ;;;;;;;
###^### ;;;H;;;    .
##^^^## ;;H<H;;   ...   Build fortifications (windows possible?)
###^### ;;;H;;;    .
####### ;;;;;;;
####### ;;;;;;;

####### ;;;;;;;
####### ;;;;;;;
##^^^## ;;vHv;;    .
##^,^## ;;H<H;;   ...   More channels
##^^^## ;;vHv;;    .
####### ;;;;;;;
####### ;;;;;;;

####### ;;;;;;;
####### ;;;;;;;
##^^^## ;;HHH;;   ...
##^,^## ;;H<H;;   ...   More fortifications
##^^^## ;;HHH;;   ...
####### ;;;;;;;
####### ;;;;;;;

####### ;;;;;;;
#^^^^^# ;vvvvv;
#^^,,^# ;vHHHv;   ...
##^,,^# ;;H<Hv;   ...   Nearly separated with channels
#^^,,^# ;vHHHv;   ...
#^^^^^# ;vvvvv;
####### ;;;;;;;

####### ;;;;;;;
#^^^^^# ;vvvvv;
#^^,,^# ;vHHHv;   ...
##^,,^# ;;H<Hv; +++..   Floor along from the upper floor, just the edge
#^^,,^# ;vHHHv;   ...
#^^^^^# ;vvvvv;
####### ;;;;;;;

####### ;;;;;;;
#^^^^^# ;vvvvv;
#^^,,^# ;vHHHv;   ...
##^,,^# ;;H<Hv; +++>.   Down-stair from above
#^^,,^# ;vHHHv;   ...
#^^^^^# ;vvvvv;
####### ;;;;;;;

####### ;;;;;;;
#^^^^^# ;vvvvv;
#^,,,^# ;vHHHv;   ...
#^,,,^# ;vH<Hv; +++>.   Dig away the last tile
#^,,,^# ;vHHHv;   ...
#^^^^^# ;vvvvv;
####### ;;;;;;;

####### ;;;;;;;
#^^^^^# ;vvvvv;
#^,,,^# ;vHHHv;   ...
#^,,,^# ;vH=Hv; +++>.   Set a 1x1 pasture in the pillbox
#^,,,^# ;vHHHv;   ...
#^^^^^# ;vvvvv;
####### ;;;;;;;

####### ;;;;;;;
#^^^^^# ;vvvvv;
#^,,,^# ;vHHHv;   ...   Put something non-foraging in the pasture
#^,,,^# ;vHtHv; +++c.   (e.g. a poult, of which I currently have a million)
#^,,,^# ;vHHHv;   ...   and a hatch on the top stair (which can be set to be pet-impassible
#^^^^^# ;vvvvv;          if observer is completely expendable and needs to be kept there!)
####### ;;;;;;;

Key, in case you can't work it out (and I haven't made any errors!):
# = raw soil   ; = raw surface   , = exposed ground
^ = up-ramp    v = down-ramp     . = something below
< = up-stair   > = down-stair    H = fortifications
= = pasture    + = built floor   c = floor hatch
t = turkey poult

Alter to taste, and the building usually ends up being done a bit more asynchronously.  Also, the Z+1 access floor often travels onto/between other similar pillboxes and gets itself lined with walls (for protection of all dwarves) and/or further fortifications (for ranged sniping down from, although the hanging pillboxes themselves could also be used for that, if and when it all kicks off), as desired.

Yes, it is a lot of work.  Especially if you insist on every bit of the thing (including walkway) being made in marble blocks, like I currently am doing.

(OTOH, it has detected ambushers, plus easily survived a siege (everyone stayed inside, without any need to use alert burrows and instead just by dint of no-one needing to exit the inner compound... eventually the siege walked onto my bridge entrance with doubly-isolating ingress/egress where I could trap them and use them for target practice.)

[Girlinhat]

Your setup is similar but suffers two major drawbacks which I've modded out of my design.  1) Fortifications won't stop arrows.  Any elite bowman will ignore them completely and slaughter your poults, and 2) The hatch can be walked to, so a building destroyer will happily walk over and smash the hatch open.  I solved both of these issues by using windows instead, and flooring over the whole thing.  It's harder to reload, but you never NEED to reload, so it doesn't matter.

[Saiko Kila]

But with those sorts of details in mind, they do seem to work pretty well. Now I just need to figure out what the optimal spacing really is. I'm wondering if the walls in the corners block some lines of sight and thus give me less coverage that I was expecting?

Optimal spacing is about 7 tiles. Animals can detect ambushers from 3 tiles away.

[Girlinhat]

100% coverage is about 7 tiles.  Realistic coverage is about 20, as the chances of getting detections are fairly high at this density.