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[FearfulJesuit]

In previous forts, defenses were outside the main walls; you got out the main door and there was a labyrinth of traps.

In Tourfortresses, my most recent fort, however, I had a problem; I had a wall and a door and goblins outside. I couldn't put outside traps up.

So I did something I decided to stick with; going in the front door, you come to an up/down staircase surrounded by walls. You have to go up, so then you get into the maze of traps above the fortress.
What about you guys?

[SenorOcho]

I usually do forts dug into the side of the mountain, with some walls and towers sticking out for the archers.  Melee squads usually wait just inside the underground section, ready to charge after the attackers have been softened up.  I also like to throw a few statues around with cage traps outside, to lure and trap the building destroyers.

This is the natural progression from having a nice road lined with statues, and watching them all get kicked over by trolls every siege... 

[Broseph Stalin]

3x3 room on the surface that extends down into the fort that can be closed off by a raising drawbridge. The top of structure can have archers positioned on top and a downward staircase hidden beneath the drawbridge leads sieges through a long tunnel filled with deadly traps. If anyone makes it through there's a second drawbridge that can be slammed in their face anyway.

[dwarfhoplite]

Instead of traps I use a longer entrance corridor in which end i have about 50 melee dwarves training at the entrance

[Oaktree]

I usually bunker in initially with a quick ditch and drawbridge for the first entrance. 

After that I develop tunnels from the location of the Trade Depot leading outward via the first stone layer (to save on paving and clearing undergrowth) that come out away from the fortress and outside my eventual projected footprint.  These tunnels have drawbridges on either end and a "grinder" style trap complex on the near side.  The grinder has fortifications for the marksdwarves and also spike traps at the outer side to deal with the building destroyers.  In addition I post expendable animals in the middle of the tunnel and have animal watchtowers at the entrances for early warning/detection of ambushes.  My militia can gather at the Trade Depot and then react down the tunnel as needed.

These are constructed from the inside out and not opened to the surface until operational.  The goal is to get migrants, caravans, or attacking goblins "inside" and following predictable paths as soon as possible.  Avoids the "yakity sax" chase routines that lead to militia squads scattering, migrants running to the far side of the map to be cornered, and caravans being massacred by a camped out siege.

[Proxiee]

I make a giant moat circling my fort. There is a tunnel under the moat. When anyone touches a button in the tunnel, gates overhead open up sending a cascade of water down. Then the water runs towards my fort, touches a button, and the gates on the floor opens, with a giant hole leading towards the lava lake. So my trap pushes all the badguys into the hole, in the lava, killing them and getting rid of the remains. On top of that, I get obsidian.

FPS, boredom, and the fact that immigrants kept getting killed, making everyone sad, made me abandon the fort

My other best trap fort had over 200 steel serrated blades in a big path. Sadly, 6 goblin ambushes at once choked the traps, and then everyone got slaughtered

[blue emu]

My current fort has overhead (and also pressurized underfoot) Magma defenses outside the walls, and I'm working on horizontal versions of the same weapon system. My entry is through a corridor containing 350 repeater-driven spikes, followed by several conventional traps and then a Dodge-Em Trap. My militia will greet anyone who penetrates those defenses.

... we had a guy with a whip get as far as the Big Rolling Ball last week.

[vjek]

My goal is to gather all the goblins, trolls, and ogres into a central location with which to either impale, slice, burn, or drown them.

As such, I build four vertical shafts (3x3 up/down staircases each), one on each corner of the map, which lead straight down 3 or four levels (enough to get past all the soil/water) to a layer that is designated "the killing field".

This contains very nice hallways, filled with very nice traps, typically with many corners (not seeing their friends eviscerated tends to make the goblins less timid) and allows me to collect maximum goblinite in the smallest amount of time.  I've found on my embarks so far, 30-60 serrated weapon traps arranged in a 3-wide hallway (so, 10-20 deep) has prevented any incursion.  I have recently managed to gen a world that is entirely filled with goblins (16k of them) and my hope is they will all bring their goblinite offerings to my fun-filled fortress.

However, recently, I've been considering how best to implement a magma pumping system to simply flood that level and drain it back into a reservoir.  A cyclical pumping sort of arrangement, so the magma doesn't go to waste.  The trick is... I don't want the goblinite to end up in the lower magma reservoir, which complicates things.  But aren't these little challenges what keeps life interesting?

[Ross Vernal]

This is a smooth stone post. Engraved upon it is a fine-quality wall of text on defense.


I normally throw up a 1 z-level wall to determine my inner courtyard, then make a Trader's Gate and a Traitor's Gate.

The Trader Gate is a nice, direct shot to the depot and storage facilities controlled by drawbridges; the Traitor's Gate leads to a long, winding path that sometimes choke-points that eventually leads to my front drawbridge, with the Depot safely behind an entrance tower I call the Tower of Treason.

This gate starts out with wooden weapons outside and just inside with high-quality mechanisms to discourage entry, and a few wood menacing spikes past it, which collect a few kills per siege. This is followed by the Tunnel of Goblinite Mining, which is eight metal picks spread across eight squares. This usually gets jammed early. The path from there is then lined with stray weapons from previous sieges as it takes several turns before leading (usually) to a one-tile-wide dodge-em trap, anywhere from 10 to 30 squares long, rigged with *serrated disks* and *enormous axe blades*, leading to a 4 Z-level drop onto *menacing spikes*. After that, there is usually some sort of mechanical trap just outside the main gate. Inside the Tower of Treason are cage traps. Finally, the exit from the Tower of Treason becomes another choke point, where the only acceptable traps involve Artifact Mechanisms and Artifact Weapons.

This entire path has statues and pets tied up to it to encourage pathing.


Since I find that dodge trap to be incredibly brutal at keeping everything out, I'm making the one I use in my fort shorter. I'm also planning on making four different mechanical traps - one for burning, one for drowning, one for drowning and then burning, and one for cave-ins.


Once they get inside, I have five types of squads, three military, two civvie:

- the Suicide Squad, which is a bunch of random dorfs with leather armor and weapons taken from goblins, training full-time outdoors, who waits just outside the Tower of Treason. A year of survival in the Suicide Squad is grounds for promotion to...

- The Reservists, who are Pump Operators / Masons / Wood Cutters / Bone Carvers / Mechanics / Haulers. They train 1 of every 4 months, and wear a full set of armor. After a year of training, they become...

- the Professional Military, which has two months off per year, individually picked weapons, and multiple layers of armor. They have their own barracks, with artifact beds, masterwork prepared food, stockpiles, an armor stand and weapon rack per dorf, and a nice set of statues and cabinets (usually, statues of dorfs becoming militia captains or striking things down.) They're also in squads of three for easy commanding.

Then we have the Civvie Squads.

- the Assassination Squad, which is 10 random dwarves with breastplates, hunting, and no other labors. I never activate this squad - they just wander around with their crossbows, shooting flying creatures and the occasional thief.

- the Civilian Sword 'n' Board Squad, which is every single non-legendary, non-mining, non-noble non-vital dorf, given an obsidian short sword (or metal, depending) and a metal shield.

Every single squad spends the last month of the year training together.

Also, my dorf raws have

[PRONE_TO_RAGE:10]
[ETHIC:TORTURE_AS_EXAMPLE:ACCEPTABLE]
[ETHIC:TORTURE_FOR_INFORMATION:ACCEPTABLE]
[ETHIC:TORTURE_FOR_FUN:ACCEPTABLE]
[ETHIC:EAT_SAPIENT_OTHER:ACCEPTABLE]
[ETHIC:EAT_SAPIENT_KILL:ACCEPTABLE]
[ETHIC:MAKE_TROPHY_SAPIENT:ACCEPTABLE]

Or, in other words, when I see "A vile force of darkness has arrived!", I read "A delivery of *goblin roasts* has arrived!"


Also, it makes tantrum spirals FUN. An enraged, tantruming dorf with an obsidian short sword and an iron shield is epic.

[Monkeyfacedprickleback]

I train 4/5 of my dorfs in the mass pitting excution chamber/arena. I get the training fodder from a single lin of trap directly on the out side and in side of my doors. i have sixten door (8 double doors) around a square outer wall leading into the inner bailey. Once the numbers have been thinned out by traps and my marxdorfs fire at them invader through fortifications connected to the outer wall while the main keep is kept safe with a moat.

[Psieye]

I mod ethics to process everything a siege brings - organics and inorganics. My forts are industrial complexes and sieges are a delivery of fresh organics which happen to be gift wrapped in inorganics. As such, my defences are industrialised kill zones with lots of drawbridges and some magma plumbing so I can vaporise the undesirables after I've harvested what I want from that siege. There's a dodge-me trap at the end to keep invaders contained inside the kill zone. I happen to use lots of archers as otherwise haulers would have nothing to do when I tell civilians to not go outside.

[Kilroy the Grand]

I have dodge traps over a volcano, in the center of the volcano is a small platform filled with GDS. Goblins either fall into magma or get ripped apart by Mr.Snippy-Snip

[AWdeV]

Generally a two-thick wall, with the outer layer made of blocks. There's either a moat or a ditch (1 or 2-wide, 2-3 deep)  with a bridge as entrance into the fortress. Traps spread around the map, usually cages for the interesting enemies.

A squad of crossbowdwarfs and one or two meleesquads.

Entrance into the cavern (only ever first so far) is a narrow alleyway with some weapontraps leading into a medium-sized chamber with bed, small foodpile and a loom.

[Frogwarrior]

I have an elevated 1-tile-wide marksman shooting gallery (1 tile wide so that I can be sure they will walk RIGHT up next to the fortifications since you now cannot be sure that any soldiers will move exactly where you put your cursor), magma landmines covering half of the map, several dozen war animals pastured right inside my main entrance, and four squads of mostly legendary melee troops.

It's been a long time since a siege cost me anything.

[Cocoprimate]

I have a large number of axes.