Bay 12 Games Forum

For a quick defensive setup?  I would say start with a 1z high wall.  Then add another z to that.  Then floor the top of the walls.  And finally add the overhang.  By putting the overhang 2z levels up, I do not believe a unit can reach up to gain a handhold on it.

To build (using constructions) a wall that cannot be climbed, you must realize these three things:

• Climbers & Fliers can move Diagonally in the Vertical direction
• Each Z level is composed of a 'floor' region and a 'wall' region
  
• Constructed Walls fill in the floor below them but not the floor above them.

These three points are shown in the two images below:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

In this image, a side view shows a Forgotten Beast finding a poorly capped stack of up/down stairs and climbing in.  As down stairs and up/down stairs only reveal the tile directly below them, the presence of caverns just off to the side went unnoticed, while the 'hole' in the floor allowed the FB to fly or climb right on in.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

This image shows a side view of some constructed walls on the surface.  Each constructed wall also builds its own floor beneath it; this is why you cannot build a wall on top of an already constructed floor.  However, it does not build a floor above it.

Combine the two situations, and you have enemies ignoring the overhang and simply climbing right onto the top of the wall through the 'gap' in the floor, as shown here:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The solution for the wall pretty simple: construct floors on top of all walls that could potentially face the enemy (don't forget walls holding roofs up!)

However, remember they can still climb diagonally away and up with this design, though this doesn't seem to happen often.  In which case they may bypass the gap you closed off and just climb over the wall entirely, like this:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

At which point you shift the upper wall out one additional tile with a floor, so this is what happens:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Which makes an outer wall that cannot be climbed.  Which is the exact point the game sends a Flying Titan your way:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Quote from: Ghills on January 29, 2016, 01:29:57 pm

Quote from: miauw62 on January 28, 2016, 06:48:20 pm

Bay12? Free of flamewars? I'll give the gay dwarves thread as a recent-ish example.

Also Deon dorsi specifically mentioned "without external utilities", which seems fair. There is no way to get to know more about dwarves' previous groups without legends viewer or opening a copy of the save in legends mode. Same goes for figures on engravings and many other things.

There was a flamewar about that? I vaguely remember people disagreeing, but nothing serious.

Practically requiring people to use external utilities and/or mods to understand, and quite often to play, the game is a shoddy, amateur mistake that other game studios get crucified for.  I will never understand why people give Toady a pass for it.

As it stands DF absolutely does not require external utilities to play. I'm not sure how people manage to get stuck on the idea that the obtuse interface is literally impossible to wrangle. Utilities have their function, and one can hope to see them incorporated into the base game one day, but everything great about vanilla DF can be enjoyed without DFhack or therapist or stonesense. Yes, even 3-d visualizers can be substituted by imagination.

And if you can't see why DF has as much respect as it does, consider how independent projects are judged not only for their production of content but also for the motivation behind that production. DF has both worthy motivations and intriguingly unique content. People flock to this game and stomach the interface, the bugs, and the interface bugs for a reason!

Just dig a moat around your wall.  I prefer 3 tiles wide, and make the bottom layer 5 tiles wide.  With the two extra tiles going inwards "under" the wall.  This is simply the easiest way to get the two-tile "lip" that can't be diagonally climbed up.  Bonus points if you dig it into the first few stone layers and smooth it up.  Its much quicker than building tall walls that need lips over them.  And when you dig into stone, you get a usable item to make stuff with. 

You still need at least 1z-level of wall, though, to block ranged units if nothing else.  You can then build a second layer with fortifications.  I think you have to be a legendary ranged user to shoot through fortifications with no penalties without being directly adjacent from it, and this set up will leave your fortifications no closer than 4 tiles from an enemy.

I haven't had anything climb single tile wall (with carved fortification) overhangs.  I did have a goblin dodge through the wall tho.  It looks like they can quantum teleport like sparring dwarves sometimes do.

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_F
W
D

(It is on top of a bluff, D is a dirt wall, W is a block wall, F is a block wall with fortifications carved into it.)