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[Conan]

Didn't read all responses (only first 5 on page 1) but in case nobody said it yet, the trick with towers is to build the corners first, and then the rest of the walls.
Keep in mind that only walls can support walls, so your tower can only get smaller to the top, unless you trick around with scaffolding.

However, if you didn't know, you can build walls on walls.

[Azated]

Its worth pointing out that the only purpose a fortification serves is to prevent melee attackers coming through them. So fortifications at the top of a tower only prevent fly things from getting your archers (which is pointless without a roof) I lost many bewildered dwarves who figured the gobbos several levels below, and some distance away would have trouble shooting through fortifications. They don't.

To shoot through a fortification at more than 1 square away, the shooter needs a certain skill level based on the distance they're firing. All goblin archers have enough skill to fire through at least 1 fortification, I'm not sure about 2 or more layers.

[wisnoskij]

Question: if there any reason to not make it really high, will a dwarf up on the 10th z level of you fort be able to shoot at a goblin pressed up against the side of your tower at z level 1?

Will additional distance in the form of z levels add to your dwarfs inaccuracy and how much?

Will addition height add to the range of your marksdwarfs?

Is they any benefit from shooting at them from multiple angles (crossfire)?

It seems that fortifications (and everything you might put between your markdwarfs and the enemy) do not give your dwarfs any additional protection from arrows/bolts. So am I right in thinking the best thing to do is not to put your dwarfs in a big open tower the can see far in all directions but a tower that is pointed at a small entrance to your fort so that as the enemy slowly trickle in (in this case slowly might be relative) and they get killed by the squad of archers who hopefully outnumber any group single of targets at a time.

[frodo0800]

incredbly in this game high tower will reduce the range.
i've found a way to make my marksdorfs to reload i've done the following design
wwwwwwwwwwwFwFwFwFwFwFwFwFwF
w Ammo D       Dfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff
wwwwwwwwwww   marksdwarfs here^
                                                   
w-walls
F-fortification
f-floor
D-door

[Lancezh]

Im pretty sure that creatures with [FLIER] do path on diagonal verticals.  I've had cave wildlife enter my fort before getting a 'struck cavern' message before...it appeared to be phasing right through a solid wall but turned out to be pathing up from diagonaly below.

I always build a floor over fortifications anyway (since they dont come with one like a wall).

Theres some archer box stuff in the link in my sig if yer still looking for designs.

I can confirm that. I sealed off everything when breaching into a cavern assuming they dont move diagonally vertical, well the Forgotten Beast did.

This is definitely the case sometimes!!!

[Tiruin]

My archery tower, it can be part of your above-ground barracks or whatever it is. Just with less space, N by three tiles long.

If you want, you could use my archer tower/barracks ramparts design.
z-level + X (going up)

Open air/Outside
FFFFFFFFFF
Stairway Stairway
WWWWWWWW 

Ground level

WWWWWWW
Stairs, Stairs, Stairs
Ammo stockpile/Walls
Inside (where the invaders are hard pressed to get to)

You can either put the ammo stockpiles on the stairs but you'll have to deal with blinking soldiers though. Marksdwarves can shoot on stairs. More shooting, less walking-for-ammo time.
And you can switch the Fs for Walls.
F-fortification
W-Walls
I love creativity.

[Triaxx2]

Definitely a good reason to build walls, and carve fortifications, rather than building fortifications.

[Nil Eyeglazed]

I think the big point to fortifications is that they'll keep your marksdwarves from dodging off the wall.

[Tiruin]

I think the big point to fortifications is that they'll keep your marksdwarves from dodging off the wall.

They also act as part wall / part shooting holes so melee enemies will take the long way around if built on the same level as them.

[Starver]

I didn't see this thread back in June, so I'm a bit late to the game in describing how I'm currently setting up my observation posts (like Archery Towers, and usable as such, but currently populated with juvenile fowls, of various kind, as ambush-revealing guard-creatures.)

Code: (Side View) [Select]

_________=_____#
Fortress <____=#
innards   #  H<H
__________#___________
#=Wall, H = Fortification, _ = notable floor, < = Up-stairwell, = = Hatch (over down-stairwell)

From the wall, and without any direct path to the outside (although still vulnerable, while building, to flyers), I'm building wall-lined walkways leading to hatch-sealed downward stair into the "bellygunner pillbox" in which the creature (and, as necessary, possibly an on-call archer) resides.

Building necessitates getting the lower level built first (in the above example, from the first floor[1]) with constructed floors and then an up-stairwell (or several) in the required position and surrounding it (or them) with Fortifications (using bridges or more floorways[3] to build the corners, and then when they're secured by other adjacent walls deconstruct the given walkway and replace with that wall's fortifications), keeping the supporting 'access' floor until the second-floor walkway has been constructed enough to 'latch on' to the structure, then gradually deconstruct the temporary lower-level access floor as the down-stairs (to be covered by a hatch, to make forbidden and pet impassible while the juvenile birds reside in them, to avoid certain auto-hauling and enemy-fleeing tendencies) make it possible to fill the gap with the last fortification.  The level above is wall-lined as and when material is available[4] and a stairway to the roof (the top down-stair being givne the potential to be hatch-sealed, of course) allows the top of the walkway to be protected.

I've also developed my own (probably not unique) way to make diagonally-extending walkways, that end up fully-sealed, without externally scaffolding them at all:

Code: (Aerial view) [Select]


1) From the start corner to the end corner (located at a tile with an exact
 45-degree angle from the former) build a zig-zag of floors and designate
 walls within the corners.  (With a little (B)uild-(C)onstruction-(?)Whatever
 magic, including cancellations of specific crowd-placed items and
 re-designation of a different component, you can get it all designated in
 this pattern ready for them to complete construction with very little extra
 micro-management to that you spent a few minutes originally setting up...)

 XO
 +++
  O+O
   +++
    O+O
     +>+
      O

2) Make those internal-corner walls into chevrons/brackets of walls, and add
 some more walls as corners to the destination spot. (Noting that you could
 set this up in step (1), but separated here so as to allow minimal support
 to the downstair, as described further above, a little bit more quickly.)

 XOO
 +++O
 OO+OO
  O+++O
   OO+OO
    O+>+
     OOO

3) Remove the unnecessary floors, noting that all walls and floors (and
 stairs) that remain support all other walls and floors further out on
 the limb, and that walkway passage is still possible.

 XOO
  + O
 OO+OO
  O + O
   OO+OO
    O >
     OOO

4) Place walls into all those gaps, to form homogeneous walls around a walkway
 that can still be traversed.

 XOO
 O+OO
 OO+OO
  OO+OO
   OO+OO
    OO>O
     OOO

...Finis



[1] 2nd floor, to you left-pondians, i.e. the one at Z+1 relative to ground level[2] (often 'first floor', to you) in the above diagram.

[2] Though my first experiments in the system were of creating these "bellygunner" structures over excavated ground so that they could "hover" at ground-level over an ever-deepening pit, with the post-construction walkway being at first-floor level, rather than second-floor to support the first-floor fortification room.

[3] Deconstructed bridges return their material to safe-ground to one side of where they hovered over mid-air, but deconstructed floors drop their materials onto the floor below.  Given I usually arrange for it to be safe to recover, at various times of the dwarven year, I don't mind dropping the occasional stone below and cluttering up the place until I can bring it back into the fold.

[4] I tend to want to build in blocks of a particular stone.  A current fort has an main fortress area of sandstone blocks, but dacite blocks form the entirety of the extending bellygunner emplacements and their gangways at all points (and levels) beyond the extremities of the fort.  I'm actually more short on sandstone than dacite, mostly because I discovered an aquiver running through the sandstone deposits I was going to mine and enblockify.