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[blue emu]

Another quick question, how do you get rid of a ghost, a swordsdwarf from the first caravan died somehow or other and now he's haunting my place. He hasn't killed anyone but i don't understand what you do get rid of him. Oh, and his body is in the middle of a lake, so i don't think I can bury him.

Find out his name, make a stone slab at a Mason's shop, engrave it with his name at a Craftsdwarf's shop, set it up in a tomb as if it was his coffin... and that should put his troubled spirit to rest.

Also, an elven caravan arrived. Should I kill them, seize the thing or whatever, or just trade with them?

I usually trade with them. They are a good source of wood, rare types of booze (Sunshine!) and exotic animals. Starting a war with them is fun... but not until you have a trained Military. Be aware that Elves are [TRAP_AVOID], so a party of hostile Elves will waltz right through your trap defenses without setting them off.

[rutsber]

Crap, I went to let my dog out, and didn't pause the game, and the elves left... oh well maybe next year.

[wuphonsreach]

You don't even need to do the 12Z-plus deep pits at first.

Make a 1-tile wide pathway, with open space on either side, about 8-12 tiles long as the only way into the fort.  This can simply be a section of wall that extends out perpendicular from your main wall with stairs on either end, or you could channel out (and then remove most of the ramps) a dry moat on either side of a pathway.

Populate the 1-tile wide pathway with 8-12 weapon traps using things like spiked wooden balls, training spears and junky wood/copper weapons.  More traps with fewer weapons per trap is preferred over fewer traps with more weapons per trap.  Maybe have a few cage traps at the inner edge to catch anything that makes it past 8-10 other traps.

Enemies will attempt to enter your fort via the 1-tile wide walkway and promptly dodge off the sides.  Elves tend to get ground into hamburger by wooden corkscrews and trolls don't fare well either.  And packs of rhesus monkeys... end up as monkey sausage.

If/when wagons ever get fixed... you would need to put a pair of 1-tile wide retracting bridges on either side of the 1-tile walkway so that the total width is 3-tiles when the bridges are extended.  But right now, it doesn't matter (other then to make it easier on your dwarves).  Or you could do a pair of 1-tile wide pathways and have the retracting bridge fill in the space between the two paths.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

My entrance design is very much "keep the critters / enemies away from the door" at first.  So I'll have the 1-tile wide dodge-this path first, then a few cage traps, then a sealable drawbridge, then a war dog on a leash, then a twist and turn, then a few more cage traps combined with pastured war dogs and another sealable drawbridge.

Later on I create a much more elaborate welcome area designed to make them dodge off the path, into a 1Z deep maze filled with serrated discs, corkscrews, giant axe blades, etc that gets more deadly as they get closer to the exit from the maze.  And the stairs up out of the lower section puts them smack in the middle of a maze-like upper section designed to make them fall back down.  Naturally, I have places where my marksdwarves can stand and observe / take pot-shots at all this.  My goal there is to draw the siege/ambush in, but not kill them right away so that hopefully 2/3 or more of the attackers dodge off the path before any of them start dying.

[greycat]

Dig a really big pit in the ground... like... REALLY BIG. Try seven tiles wide by nine tiles long by fifteen-or-twenty levels deep.

Now totally cover the path with weapon traps, each containing 10 weapons or trap components (Big Spikey Balls, Sharp Slicey things, whatever).

Both of these are pretty advanced projects for a new player.  70 to 90 weapon components?  That means 70-90 weapons-grade metal ores you've got to find somewhere (hah, good luck with that), and smelt, and not give to your military as weapons or armor.

Sure, 70 to 90 wooden spears is a better option, but this is still an excessive amount of work for a new player.

Digging out multiple layers also presents its own Fun.  The naive approach would be to mark the entire 3d region for channeling.  If you do that, your miners will die.  I guarantee it.  One of them will dig out the tile the other's standing on, leading to plummet.  Or one of them will dig out the support for the tile he's standing on, and plummet.  Or one of them will bring down a big section of rock in a cave-in, and plummet....  The only way to do this in safety is to micromanage it.  You have to designate one Z-layer at a time, and wait until that entire layer is gone, and then designate the next.  And you have to provide a means in and out during the excavation, because the miners won't do it all at once.  They'll get tired or thirsty or hungry and they'll need a means of egress and re-entry before the project is finished.

A much simpler defense design for starting fortresses is to put a drawbridge (one that raises and lowers -- not a retracting bridge) on the single entrance, connected to a lever.  Raise the bridge when danger appears.  Lower it when it's safe.

[rutsber]

I currently have a raisable drawbridge at the entrance, but I wanted a room to kill them incase I don't have a good military.

[ponom]

I'm newbie, so here is my design of entrance to the fort:




Multicolored walls are in trolls/goblins blood. Sorry about the mess - cleaning started after siege is over.

[loose nut]

I'd love to know what a good initial, first-year gate defense looks like in 0.31.25 for a site that doesn't have weapons-grade metal available. I lost 2 embarks to one and two-squad goblin ambushes finding out that stonefall traps were no good at all (ISTR that in 0.31.12 or whatever stonefall traps weren't dead lethal but could do a decent job on six or so goblins). For my latest embark, I brought malachite to turn into spiked copper balls to trap the entrance, and backed that up with heavily-loaded wooden spike traps, but the gobs haven't showed up in the 2+ years so far, so I have no idea what kind of dent that would have made. Are you pretty much stuck cheesing it with cage traps until weapons are available in decent quantities, or walling off the entrance?

[Starver]

Digging out multiple layers also presents its own Fun.  The naive approach would be to mark the entire 3d region for channeling.  If you do that, your miners will die.  I guarantee it.  One of them will dig out the tile the other's standing on, leading to plummet.  Or one of them will dig out the support for the tile he's standing on, and plummet.  Or one of them will bring down a big section of rock in a cave-in, and plummet....  The only way to do this in safety is to micromanage it.  You have to designate one Z-layer at a time, and wait until that entire layer is gone, and then designate the next.  And you have to provide a means in and out during the excavation, because the miners won't do it all at once.  They'll get tired or thirsty or hungry and they'll need a means of egress and re-entry before the project is finished.

I still stand by getting the same results from designating ramps on Z-1.  Still the same micromanaging needs (one Z-level at a time) to prevent the aforementioned plummeting, but no dwarf ever stands on the tile he or she wants to channel, because they're ramping them from the floor below.  (Notice how ramps on a so-far unbroken floor below are dug as if channels, though, so no problem getting any new layer started.)  There's a slight problem of having to refer to the floor above for the bits you don't want to channel, of course.

And I'll also generally make sure none of my miners (that I'm sending into such a pit-digging exercise) are currently or obviously in imminent need of food or drink or rest and then just let them trap themselves in there, forcing them to keep on digging the pit until it reaches the lower level, when one of them gets to dig the escape tunnel (if it wasn't already pre-dug, ready for when the ramping got down to that level).  The more miners you get into the dig, the wider and deeper (i.e. the more voluminous) you can risk the final dug-out area to become without risking dangerous levels of thirst or hunger, or miners going to sleep in the midst of the workings.

If you've got less miners available than you'd like, sink a single-tile well-shaft down (although you might as well do that as channels, given each dig is definitely from the tile above the floor-and-ramp-to-be).  Then sink a second, third, fourth well-shaft down.  In an disconnected-from-each-other way, if you want to dedicate a single dwarf to a single vertical pillar of tiles.  Even if they go to sleep on the way down, the only dwarf that could possibly undermine their "slept on bare rock" sleeping spot are themselves, once they're awake again.

Not a perfect solution, but definitely has its pluses.  You can define a whole vertical column at once, and not need to worry about cave-ins, even of any of the "final pillars" that need removing.

[Starver]

If you've got less miners available than you'd like, sink a single-tile well-shaft down (although you might as well do that as channels, given each dig is definitely from the tile above the floor-and-ramp-to-be).  Then sink a second, third, fourth well-shaft down.  [...]
 the only dwarf that could possibly undermine their "slept on bare rock" sleeping spot are themselves, once they're awake again

Before anyone points it out, I didn't mention that when trying this tactic, watch out for the bottom of the stack when you're down to otherwise free-standing structures.

Code: (Side view) [Select]

    ^     A
    #     B
    #     B
    #     B
    #     B
    #     C
___/#\___ D
A: Current top of the stack, where the dwarf is channelling, or ramping the tile below from above.  Is a "ramp spire" if not the original surface square.
B: Layers below (can be defined as a channels/ramps in advance)
D: Do not define as a ramp, because it's directly accessible from the bottom and will cause problems if removed
C: Depending on other factors, might be worth not defining this as channel/ramp in advance, either.  leaves some micromanaging, but if your final pit is going to be much taller than it is wide it should be worthwhile.

[wuphonsreach]

I'd love to know what a good initial, first-year gate defense looks like in 0.31.25 for a site that doesn't have weapons-grade metal available.

10 wooden spiked balls / corkscrews in weapon traps on 1-tile wide path over a minimal drop that has to be crossed keeps pretty much 99% of all hostiles out of the fortress.  Since there's always a chance that something will get lucky and won't dodge *off* the path, make sure you have a drawbridge after that point along with a few cage traps.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The weapons don't need to kill, they just need to force the enemy to dodge.  The wooden corkscrews can be mixed in for more killing power against unarmored foes or critters.

Alternately, a 1-tile wide corridor about 10-12 tiles long filled with wooden cage traps.

[loose nut]

Ooh, that looks solid. I like it. Thanks!

[rutsber]

Thank you everyone for your help. I made the 1 tile path with the pit by it and the weapons. Even though I'm a newb, I was able to do it. What a SHOCKER! I also put in cage traps at the true entrance and some war dogs for thieves. I plan to dig the pit deeper, because it is only 10 z-levels deep.

[tolkafox]

Just channel out a 4x20 area either in your entry tunnel (if there isn't a floor below it and it's straight) or more generally leading into your fortress. Make two 2x10 bridges (I like retractable) over the area and connect them to a lever. When the goblins come, put the lever on repeat. If it's one Z level deep, it'll just stall them, if it's 3 Z levels deep it'll start to break things and convince them to leave, if it's 10-12 Z level deeps it'll make em as good as (or) dead. Add wooden spikes to help them bleed out, most goblins don't wear greaves or boots so wood is fine.

If you want to close off your fortress though, make a raising bridge so the trolls can't reach it. Raising bridges are fun too, they fling goblins, and contrary to popular belief they don't fling goblins into your fortress. Just don't squish/fling the wardogs. Make sure the bridge is wide enough to cover your entrance when it raises.

All you need for both of these is rocks, a mechanic, a miner, and a mason. Difficulty is fairly easy. Fun is laughable with retractable and hilarious with raising.

[Starver]

All you need for both of these is rocks, a mechanic, a miner, an architect and a mason.

A little addition there.

Also, raising bridges can still only be length 10 but must be anchored on their respective edges, so the effective length of a double-drawbridge pit would be 18, not 20.  Or a 19-length pit if you're only 'drawing up' the fort-side.  By this plan, the layout might be something like the following.

Code: (Side view) [Select]


Gateway open
__
_H <- Double-decker fortification overview of the bridge, as an example
_H
 ----------~~~~~~~~~~  -: raisable bridge
##                   # ~: retractable bridge
 #                   #
 . .. ... ... ... .. . (as many levels as wanted)
 #                   #
 #                   # (lower exit not shown)
 #####################


Having closed the gateway just as the goblins cross

__
_H       g
_H                      g <- a lucky goblin, perhaps
 B          g
##                   #####  B: drawn-up drawbridge
 #     g             #         (seals the fortress up completely,
 . .. ... ... ... .. .          at least at this point...)
 #             g     #
 #    ²g²            #
 #####################

While first digging out the pit, I'd probably leave the digging access on the outside (whether ramp or stairwell), and immediately remove inward ramps (even if faced by built walls/other non-natural barrier tiles).  If it's attacked while still being dug, the only ingress/egress is the outside, and your bridges (quickly placed and wired up as soon as there is a gap to be bridged) serve as simple barriers/removed-crossings.  Once it's deep enough to near as damnit guarantee plummeting deaths you can re-engineer it to be accessible from the inside, removing the external route just before the inner link is connected if I'm feeling paranoid about anyone sneaking through that way.

A design I sometimes use, for situations where I want to make very sure that no (ground-hugging) building destroyer could possibly get out of a pit that I still want occasional access to is to make an "island ramp" to which I bridge across a higher level from the pit wall.  (Also useful when I want to be able to dig something "nothing can possibly get out of", and yet also get my miners out.  Not as aesthetically pleasing as a completely flat bottom but more aesthetically pleasing than the irrecoverable corpse of a starved-to-death legendary miner, I'm sure most people would agree. )

Code: (Side view) [Select]


Sealed           Access

##        ##    ##        ##
##        ##    ##        ##
##        ##    ##        ##
 B        ##     ----     ##
##   #\   ##    ##   #\   ##
############    ############

(You could make the bridge "atom smash" the pillar top, but the point of this example is you want to recover things, right?)

((With a sealed bridge, you can even flood the pit.  Not useful in this particular example, but if you're just making a moat (water or magma), again you still have an egress, and as long as you don't destroy/deploy the bridge (take note about magma-safe bridge building concepts!) it's a tight seal against whatever liquid sits on the other side.))

[Saiko Kila]

I like these designs, though having more constant work for miners than for masons, but having many masons, I do it a bit differently: I build a tower to the top Z-level, a narrow floor path with traps and another tower, outside of my walls (because I prefer to have as many outside, green area protected as possible, and consider most of the outside area my property). The outside tower is built starting at one or two Z-levels above ground, and workers access it using a narrow floor path used as a scaffold (similar to the projected one at top Z-level, but may be wider) branching from the first tower at the same level on or two. This way they are safe, and need to go outside only to build floors 1-2 of the second tower at the end. When the second tower is properly attached then the scaffold is discarded - it may be carefully cut off and cave in, to save work. That way the goblins jump to death near my entrance or even inside fortress, at ground level. For added fun I have murky pools near these towers, but I will probably cover them. Retrieving something from murky pools is hard.