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[wypie]

Can someone give me some tips for aboveground fortresses? Id like to limit digging to basements and quarrys.

[Girlinhat]

Import a LOT!  A large map gives you more trees, which will be your main source of construction materials.  That, or quarrying, which is big time digging.

[Jinsanity]

If you've got sand available, making a thriving glassmaking industry and building something like the Emerald City (a la The Wizard of oz) is one way to get the amount of construction materials you'll need fairly easily.

[thegoatgod_pan]

Clay gathering is your best friend in the absence of wood--endless source, for which you don't (ideally) need to dig deep.  Expand your city wall as you community grows, you'll naturally end up with city districts in the long term.

[krisslanza]

Alternatively, you can mod in a workshop (there's one somewhere) that will turn logs into 10 "planks". This will make building stuff out of wood vastly easier.

[MrC]

Put food in basements or covered warehouses to avoid being mobbed by animals that steal food (i.e. Vultures). Once you have basic food production and sleeping quarters assign all non woodcutters/miners to carpentry and build a wooden wall around your map with a 3-square wide entrance that you can fill with cage traps. Happy dwarfing you filthy surface-dweller you!

[Mitchewawa]

It's far easier to collect clay then sand; though glass is worth more. Why? Well to get clear glass you need pearlash and sand. Pearlash is made from wood products. To get equal value clay you need fire clay from an underground source.

All in all, for above ground base value clay is easier to process than green glass but higher value the glass is the only above ground industry you could make.

[Girlinhat]

Clay is a great building material, if you've got magma.  If you're working with charcoal and clay, then you might as well just build the logs into the wall because it will cost the same number of trees as clay bricks would.  Clay is also fun for the uniform color, but otherwise not efficient without magma.

The "10 planks" modding has issues, namely that it tends to take one plank and make another 10 planks, because the only good way to make it work is to have a "plank" be counted as a "log" and then it'll just grab "a log" which means "a plank that is actually a log".  Easier would be to produce 10 blocks from 1 log, clean and smooth.

[squeakyReaper]

Clay can be used raw for building material (walls). Glass has to be forged first. Unless you have a volcano/exposed magma pipe above ground, clay is better for low value walls.

[Girlinhat]

Oh can it?  I could have sworn that clay needed to be worked into bricks first.  Hmm, alright then, loose clay will build up a fort rather quickly.

[krisslanza]

Clay is a great building material, if you've got magma.  If you're working with charcoal and clay, then you might as well just build the logs into the wall because it will cost the same number of trees as clay bricks would.  Clay is also fun for the uniform color, but otherwise not efficient without magma.

The "10 planks" modding has issues, namely that it tends to take one plank and make another 10 planks, because the only good way to make it work is to have a "plank" be counted as a "log" and then it'll just grab "a log" which means "a plank that is actually a log".  Easier would be to produce 10 blocks from 1 log, clean and smooth.

Actually the mod workshop will not run into that problem. I don't seem to have the raws handy, I think they're on my desktop, not my laptop. It should be in the modding section somewhere however.

[squeakyReaper]

Oh can it?  I could have sworn that clay needed to be worked into bricks first.  Hmm, alright then, loose clay will build up a fort rather quickly.

It can be used straight out of the ground for Constructions, but I think that's it. Everything else requires bricks... dunno, try making a bridge out of it. It's not worth much at all though, and glass (and glass blocks) outvalue bricks.

[magic dwarf]

WALLS
GIANT WALLS SURROUNDING YOUR FORT

[Scruga]

embark in a dangerous area, with agressive animals. Use them for leather and bones, they'll come at you for free!

[Loud Whispers]

Dig a moat first, with as much space to build inside.

AND THEN BUILD UP.

Always wins. 'Cept fun happens soo...... Above ground prison complexes are really fun too, you can build it on a single support, with one exit filled with ditches, fortifications and traps ^_^
Oh and at least one 2 - way bridge - with the levers on each end respectively

Edit*
Bonus if it's built on top of a volcanoe