Bay 12 Games Forum

I'm curious to know what your fort defenses are? A hallway of sharp slicing things? A lock-and-forget drawbridge? Something incredibly dwarfy, ala Boatmurdered? Extra points for screenshots!

Personally, I lure my attackers in with a fluffy kitten before giving them a shower of sharp, sharp bolts. This fort is a cavern-challenge, so there's not much breathing room for elaborate meat grinders. Also, the best metal I can churn out is bronze, so I tend to avoid melees.

EDIT: While we're at it, what crazy dwarfy defense ideas have you got? My latest is a water cannon at the front gate, looking something like a giant tower (but filled with water and a floodgate at the bottom.). Automated pumps would keep it topped up. Can pressurized water make things airborne?

.
I have decided to end my lurking with a let's play! I figure if I'm going to stumble through learning Dwarf Fortress I may as well work on my writing and drawing skills at the same time. I also hope that I can get advice on how to better build my forts from all you pros out there. Oh, and I live in Australia, so excuse my awkward posting times. I hope to do one every 1-2 days if all goes well.

As a disclaimer: I'm not great at Dwarf Fortress. I've played for about a week and have two semi-successful forts, but they're both in fairly quiet forests. I'm past the hilariously aggravating stage of flooding my fortress making a well, or dropping a house through eight z-levels because of bad channeling. I still manage to find some hilarious mistake nearly every dorf-year, so this let's play should be interesting enough!

I've also grown accustomed to calling my dwarves "dorfs", as I think it better describes their intelligence.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

LÉ CONTENTS

Spring, 127 - Fun! in the first few seconds! Also a lot of digging
Summer, 127 - A lot more digging
Autumn, 127 - Flooding farms and wrestling bears

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

DORF ME!
I'll try to match you up with the roles you request, but this might not always be possible. If that fails, I'll dorf you as something interesting, such as an adamantine miner, gladiator or !!SCIENCE!! dorf. ;D
I'll also just name them exactly what your username is, for recognizability's sake.


_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

HALL OF HEROES
Here lay the fallen dorfs of Swordstruck (named dorfs highlighted in orange):