Bay 12 Games Forum

I was setting up a very elaborate (by my standards) pre-planned fort. Now, this was easily the best map I have ever gotten (chasm, magma, Chalk and Marble layers, coal and lignite, a dense forest, sand, an underground river, and near constant rainfall.  I struggled with this map (as in 2 separate embarks and about 3-4 reclaim efforts each time)  due to the presence of 4-6 GCS living in various places where the chasm (which ran  N <--> S across nearly the whole massive cliff face ) reached the surface.  Finally, the spiders were vanquished.

I dug out from the top down, cramming dwarves into the crowded and narrow upper levels while the lower areas were being dug ( I don't like making temporary forts).  I get silk and steel industries running smoothly, set up well and irrigation systems (I made my permanent farms about -6z below ground ) got the Countess and her tag-along nobles happy, and set up the power station to power all this and the 8 z lvl, 4 pump strong pumping system to bring magma up to my main project, a huge lake filled with lava surrounding the bunker guarding the 4 ramps down into my fort (my depot was -4z down).  I carve out 1/4 of the lake, build the fairly sizable bridge from the bunker to the shore, get a glass greenhouse built and irrigated for above ground crops under the magma, and even drill a tunnel / road through the western mountain and across the chasm for caravans. 

This is when I get my first siege.  I notice that two of the groups are being fueled through the western tunnel, and eagerly send out my 8 steel chain and plate armored champions, with my marksmen to kill stranglers. 

It's only just after this battle starts that I realize another group has entered my fortress from the east, and is fighting my Fortress and Royal Guards and chasing civilians through the fort, with another coming from the north.  Thinking myself clever, I order the bridges drawn to shut out this fourth group and give my guard time to catch up.

At this point I also notice the some of my dwarfs are doing the entrance dance... right over the bridges.  My failure to plan ahead for that (and I spent quite a while designing the fort) squashed my founding miners and the Mayor.

I think you all know how this ends.

Instead of building a line of floors after you build the floodgates, why don't you build a bridge first, retract it, then build the floors under the floodgates, build the floodgates, then, finally, put the bridge back.