Bay 12 Games Forum

Do it dwarven man! Dam up the river and divert it around whence the migrants come. Or built a sky bridge across to the other side so they've got a better choice.

Nearly 30 minutes since our last 'Argh!!'. Nearly 3 seconds since our last casualty.

Sortest? 30 seconds after embark and a miner froze in the ice behind the wall we were going to dig into.

That's probably because that's all the deeper the original water went. You'd have to use pumps to push it higher. See Wiki on Pressure.

Me, I use a 5 cell system. Five 5x5x2 cells, each with a single piece of floor left on the upper level, with a pressure plate on it. That controls a flood gate on the opposite side on the bottom level. Each plate controls the one prior to it, and can automatically shut off the flow into the cell.

This is particularly useful on maps without large sources of water. Then what water does exist can be safely hoarded underground. Especially helpful if you're trying to farm Obsidian, or have a fort a significant distance from water.

Best success? Got them to train in the barracks. It was the best feeling ever.

Until that kitten had a tantrum and mowed them all down.

True, with the exception that doing it this way, eliminates the difficulties of flying enemies.

I did have another idea, which can be adapted to dwarven diving expeditions. Basically five immense towers. The center 30z high, and square. The other four 20z high and rectangular. The only access is through the four Lord towers into the King towers. Each of those has a circular ramped passage with short, level, trap filled areas on each z level. So invaders dodge and die, or don't dodge and get minced.

What's important about the design, are the skyway's. Each skyway is a walkway, suspended by two supports, running down one level to a roofed tunnel, hanging in the sky. Two tiles wide and 6-10 tiles long. Neither end actually connects to the King or Lord Towers anywhere but the Supports. The ends are connected by raising bridges. When something that shouldn't be there steps onto the skyway, pulling a single lever closes the bridges, walling both towers off, and also deconstructs the supports, sending the entire skyway and anything in it crashing to the ground.

Anything still at the top of the tower? It's got to go all the way back down the tower, through all the traps, then up another tower, with more traps.

I've never had the time or patience (Or frankly, a fort that's lived long enough) to put it into action. But I'll bet you could alter the plan to drop an area between the bridges into a pit. Or magma... Just thought I'd throw that one out.

Draft the remnants and attack. If you win, great, more migrants will arrive to replace the losses. If you lose, do a reclaim and come back with more and different stuff. What you had now will still be lying about for the taking.

Oh, right, plus I need something to fill the Moat until I get to MAGMA.