Post by Quor on Mar 8, 2009 4:52:53 GMT -5
Seeing as we have a few folks still fairly new to Dorf Fortress I thought I'd share some of my sounder ideas on fortress design.
First up, entrance design with the u-bend.
While you can set up floodgates, lava pits, crossbow towers and traps a-plenty to turn away invaders you'll often find that your attackers will have turned and fled long before they've suffered the full might of your defenses. Now while it's wonderfully reassuring to know that those survivors will run back to their respective empires with harrowing tales of how their army was laid to waste it's nowhere near as comforting as knowing that should any army dare to attack you they will never see the light of day ever again.
The u-bend lets you ensure this.
The principal behind it is simple: if an enemy force takes enough casualties they will retreat. So the only way to reliably hurt them further is to force them to retreat into even more traps.
First off take a look at the example below, imagine it with all the floor hatches open except for the three in the top right corner and the four in the top left.
In a siege invaders would enter from the top right and make a beeline for the fortress entrance directly to the west. The army is allowed to move in until they are just about to cross the hatch in front of the stairs at which point it is opened(if you don't trust your dwarves to be timely enough with their lever pulling you can always place an unavoidable one-off pressure plate to do the job instead) along with the three hatches to the north east. . At this point you can now close the three hatches in the bottom right corner and open up the escape route. Your attackers will then have to march through all you many and varied traps if they are to have any hope of escape and even if some should survive you are free to open the hatches and trap them once more.
Also, by having all the necessary stockpiles in the immediate vicinity your haulers have a minimal distance to travel.
If you do decide to try a design similar to that above there are a few key points to remember.
1. Use channels with floor hatches to protect your doors and floodgates from trolls. Trolls can't fly so an open floor hatch will stop them from vandalizing your stuff.
2. No traps along the main entrance. If you do set traps you'll run the risk of forcing an early retreat before the whole of the army is inside.
3.Decide what you want to capture when placing cage traps. If you want to catch healthy elves/goblins/humans place them at the beginning of the gauntlet, if you prefer your opponents mangled, place them at the end.
4. Have a backup plan in case it doesn't work. In the example above the gauntlet can be flooded, drowning any survivors.
5. If you're worried about the extended reach of the bronze colossus you can always widen your channels an by an extra tile.
First up, entrance design with the u-bend.
While you can set up floodgates, lava pits, crossbow towers and traps a-plenty to turn away invaders you'll often find that your attackers will have turned and fled long before they've suffered the full might of your defenses. Now while it's wonderfully reassuring to know that those survivors will run back to their respective empires with harrowing tales of how their army was laid to waste it's nowhere near as comforting as knowing that should any army dare to attack you they will never see the light of day ever again.
The u-bend lets you ensure this.
The principal behind it is simple: if an enemy force takes enough casualties they will retreat. So the only way to reliably hurt them further is to force them to retreat into even more traps.
First off take a look at the example below, imagine it with all the floor hatches open except for the three in the top right corner and the four in the top left.
In a siege invaders would enter from the top right and make a beeline for the fortress entrance directly to the west. The army is allowed to move in until they are just about to cross the hatch in front of the stairs at which point it is opened(if you don't trust your dwarves to be timely enough with their lever pulling you can always place an unavoidable one-off pressure plate to do the job instead) along with the three hatches to the north east. . At this point you can now close the three hatches in the bottom right corner and open up the escape route. Your attackers will then have to march through all you many and varied traps if they are to have any hope of escape and even if some should survive you are free to open the hatches and trap them once more.
Also, by having all the necessary stockpiles in the immediate vicinity your haulers have a minimal distance to travel.
If you do decide to try a design similar to that above there are a few key points to remember.
1. Use channels with floor hatches to protect your doors and floodgates from trolls. Trolls can't fly so an open floor hatch will stop them from vandalizing your stuff.
2. No traps along the main entrance. If you do set traps you'll run the risk of forcing an early retreat before the whole of the army is inside.
3.Decide what you want to capture when placing cage traps. If you want to catch healthy elves/goblins/humans place them at the beginning of the gauntlet, if you prefer your opponents mangled, place them at the end.
4. Have a backup plan in case it doesn't work. In the example above the gauntlet can be flooded, drowning any survivors.
5. If you're worried about the extended reach of the bronze colossus you can always widen your channels an by an extra tile.
