Bay 12 Games Forum

I don't think I would do the cave-in method if only because it would leave an ugly scar on my landscape.  Instead I'm leaning toward a vertical stairway going down two z-levels, then a horizontal hallway 2 urists long, then a big room, and just carry everything in by hand.  Dwarves unload stuff quickly enough almost every time.  For the 10-20% of the times they get killed by something before unloading is finished, just back up the savefile and do it again.

I like clean architecture.  Later on almost that whole dirt layer will be mined out for a tree farm, so the shape of the inital room doesn't matter.  The staircase will be re-purposed as the central stair of an archer tower and/or emergency fortress exit.

As an alternative I have thought of maybe constructing a simple 5x5 box around the wagon, with a roof, deconstruct the wagon and then dig straight down.  That might be even faster than your cave-in method.  If my calculations are correct it should take 29 logs: 20 for the 5x5 wall and 9 for the 3x3 roof.

Also make sure that your spears are not elf-made wooden spears.  Those are NOT for training.

I'm trying to figure a plan for the traders/migrants.  I need to understand the migrant pathing, they want a meeting hall isn't that right?  The problem is trying to figure out how to get them underground fast!

It depends how evil  your embark is.  If you have a re-animating biome, you may get to the point where there's a permanent zombie mob all over the surface and you can never safely open your doors.  That's a tough situation.  On the other hand you may only have intermittent visits from undead creatures who simply wander at random around the map.  In those cases it's often likely that migrants (pathing directly to your fort) will get to the door without encountering the wild"life" or get there ahead of them.  So there are maps where you'll get most migrants most of the time, and maps where you'll lose every migrant for the first few years.

I would suggest reserving the first soil layer for underground tunnels all over the map which attach to emergency entrances (i.e. hatch covers) all over the place.  This gives you a way to get migrants in, and also to get lumberjacks or haulers out, to the places you want them when the zombies are occupied elsewhere.  If you do this, have all of the tunnels feed into a more secure (airlocked and trapped) entrance on perhaps the second soil level.  That way you don't have to set up traps, etc, for every single entrance.

Another thing I like to do is build archer towers near my entrances.  If it's a close race between migrants and zombies, the archers might take out the first couple zombies so that some of the migrants can get in before you have to close the door.

Tell us more about the site!  I'm looking for a nice evil embark myself.  Any colorful weather?

Personally I find that it's easier to dig in quickly, stockpile your goods inside, and then wall off the doorway, than to build a palisade wall on the surface which won't even protect you from flying creatures.  Then you can construct your "true" entryway and get the drawbridges hooked up at your leisure before exposing yourselves to the surface again.

It's amazing how fast you get legendary in a succession fort.  When you play the game single-player, you have to live through all the years of the fort.  On here, though, it's like three or four updates from being a useless weakling to being a spearmaster with adamantine kit.  Heh.

Only two months left... maybe dig a moat or build a tower or something to leave your mark on the place.

There should be some goblinite we can melt, no?  If not, buy some toys and junk from a caravan.  If you really get desperate, the doors on my apartments are made of copper.

Who was the reptileman vampire a diplomat of?  The humans?