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[Pvt. Pirate]

one of my latest favourites is the circular slope from the hohenzollern castle.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[img=https://abload.de/thumb/bcab5c552f4a7305pije0.jpg]

I built a whole fort mimicking the whole castle a few times in DF and it is quite useful.

pros:
- making the path 4 tiles wide allows for trade wagons to pass and having the inner path trapped
- the enemy is attackable by archers from different angles at all their way into the fort
- rooms under the ramps can be used for stockpiling the corpses and refuse from invaders out of view of trespassers
- long way in for invaders
- mutiple locations for drawbridges/gates
- if carved into hilltop, the overworld buildings can be carved into the stone, instead of building walls/floors
- can prevent cave-adaption
- court as outside area for aboveground crops and for grazing animals

cons:
- long setup time
- only works on hilltops or carved into a mountainside.

What are your favourite defense designs from a real world castle, town, monastery, bunker?

[Urist9876]

One of my favorites was something similar, but underground.

I had a 5 wide road spiraling around an underground tower with fortifications. Inner line also traps.
Between the tower and the road was a chasm all the way down, covered with retractable bridges.

While in theory this should give defenders a lot of opportunities to kill their enemies, reality was dwarves often engaged before I wanted them to. In peace time dwarves had to walk too much. It was also a pain to set up.

One entry hall covered by an overhanging 3 wide fortification shooting gallery will do just as good in many cases.

[Pvt. Pirate]

i know that such a setup will suffice for many occasions and i use such most of the time, but this is specifically about real world designs and how well they work in DF.

[Dunamisdeos]

My favorite fortress defense is a cultural genocide helmed by a well-planned military offensive  defensive pre-emptive alpha strike WaR CrImEs FoR EverYoNe wipe them out. All of them.
 
The Bane of Ticks gobbos can't siege me if they don't exist. Generally their burned out filth-hovels become infested with large numbers of goblin remnants that classify as bandits, but those don't disrupt my megaprojects.

But if I'm playing defensively, aka pre-raid versions, I would use a single-wide bridge over a death-pit. Use blind firing angles to force goblins to either get pin-cushioned by crossbows or dodge into the deep. Traps are at either end and at various points along the way.  Simple and efficient.

[pamelrabo]

Mote and bailey, I'm afraid, for none of my fortresses can keep focus on long term defense once the tantrums and noble demands and werebeasts attacks and sieges get traction.

I've tried to make a panopticum 8 point star shaped fortress but that was a bite much larger than I could chew

[Pvt. Pirate]

My favorite fortress defense is a cultural genocide helmed by a well-planned military offensive  defensive pre-emptive alpha strike WaR CrImEs FoR EverYoNe wipe them out. All of them.
 
The Bane of Ticks gobbos can't siege me if they don't exist. Generally their burned out filth-hovels become infested with large numbers of goblin remnants that classify as bandits, but those don't disrupt my megaprojects.

But if I'm playing defensively, aka pre-raid versions, I would use a single-wide bridge over a death-pit. Use blind firing angles to force goblins to either get pin-cushioned by crossbows or dodge into the deep. Traps are at either end and at various points along the way.  Simple and efficient.

i sure would like getting on a raid, but currently 44.09 runs better for me.
attack sure is one of the best defenses.

departementation is the next design strategy - if the nemy is too fast and gets into the fort before the gates close, they can only run havok on a small department of the fort, because all other gates close them in.

[andrian]

Several versions back, I made a series of pill boxes where I could send marksdwarves to attack enemies on the surface. Sometimes I'd even put catapults in them for long-range barrages. Back then, I also would build walls lined with fortifications around my fortress entrance - back before climbing became a problem. I'm sure I could make it work now if I really wanted to, but it's a lot of work for a sub-optimal fortress defense.

[Dunamisdeos]

My favorite fortress defense is a cultural genocide helmed by a well-planned military offensive  defensive pre-emptive alpha strike WaR CrImEs FoR EverYoNe wipe them out. All of them.
 
The Bane of Ticks gobbos can't siege me if they don't exist. Generally their burned out filth-hovels become infested with large numbers of goblin remnants that classify as bandits, but those don't disrupt my megaprojects.

But if I'm playing defensively, aka pre-raid versions, I would use a single-wide bridge over a death-pit. Use blind firing angles to force goblins to either get pin-cushioned by crossbows or dodge into the deep. Traps are at either end and at various points along the way.  Simple and efficient.

i sure would like getting on a raid, but currently 44.09 runs better for me.
attack sure is one of the best defenses.

departementation is the next design strategy - if the nemy is too fast and gets into the fort before the gates close, they can only run havok on a small department of the fort, because all other gates close them in.

I often have extra seals in my fortress for things like the treasury or residential areas, so as to seal off essential/sacred/valuables in case of disaster. It feels dwarven to me.

[Pvt. Pirate]

My favorite fortress defense is a cultural genocide helmed by a well-planned military offensive  defensive pre-emptive alpha strike WaR CrImEs FoR EverYoNe wipe them out. All of them.
 
The Bane of Ticks gobbos can't siege me if they don't exist. Generally their burned out filth-hovels become infested with large numbers of goblin remnants that classify as bandits, but those don't disrupt my megaprojects.

But if I'm playing defensively, aka pre-raid versions, I would use a single-wide bridge over a death-pit. Use blind firing angles to force goblins to either get pin-cushioned by crossbows or dodge into the deep. Traps are at either end and at various points along the way.  Simple and efficient.

i sure would like getting on a raid, but currently 44.09 runs better for me.
attack sure is one of the best defenses.

departementation is the next design strategy - if the nemy is too fast and gets into the fort before the gates close, they can only run havok on a small department of the fort, because all other gates close them in.

I often have extra seals in my fortress for things like the treasury or residential areas, so as to seal off essential/sacred/valuables in case of disaster. It feels dwarven to me.

i like to do this aswell. it just feels right.

[TheEqualsE]

Real castles would often have a front entry gate where you could let invaders in on purpose, slam the door on them, and drop boiling oil or lead down on them.  In my fort I made a big open area inside the surface fort with fortifications so crossbows could shoot in as well as out.  One option for receiving invaders would be to have the army stand protected in the fort with the front door wide open.  If anyone survived the initial crossbow shot the teams could shoot into the fort as well as out of it just as easily.

Come to think of it you could really replicate the boiling liquids thing in this game if you wanted.

[Pvt. Pirate]

yes, a gatehouse often had murderholes for dropping stuff on the invaders or shoot down at them.
so with a gatehouse with two gates one could trap the enemy in while raining hell on them.

[Player111444]

I always found the good old guard tower to be the most effective for ranged support from shooting in a safe distance and garrison for shooting those damned pesky birds stealing your artifacts flying creatures.

Though did anyone try out the Bastion or Bulwark structure thing for their forts?

[Lupe]

I've tried the bastion one...it can look cool, but angled walls are pretty sub optimal shooting platforms. I tried a square one with overlapping minecart shotgun fields of fire, which is pretty sweet, as you get a lot of detonating goblins if they're hit by blocks coming in two directions


Cleanup, however, is an enormous pain. I had the idea for a series of raising bridges that would sort of push everything from the battlefield into a single square  in a pit, but it never worked. Perhaps magma shotguns would be better? Refine the goblinite somewhat

[Pvt. Pirate]

I always found the good old guard tower to be the most effective for ranged support from shooting in a safe distance and garrison for shooting those damned pesky birds stealing your artifacts flying creatures.

Though did anyone try out the Bastion or Bulwark structure thing for their forts?

i tried various bastion designs and they never played out well.
most times it resulted in too much digging for moats and no effective shooting angles.
although if done right, it can lead to many "watchtower spots" overlooking a series of tedious to walk narrow paths between moats towards the entrance drawbridge.
however it's alot of digging and mostly only works on flat land.
also you have to build it so your dorfs can't exit the save perimeter - otherwise they'll love to jump over the Fortifications and try to smash the invaders' heads with the crossbows in CQB.

[Pvt. Pirate]

today i thought of the dump zones and the fact that dorfs prefer dumpzones with deeper falling distance, so i thought: would it be nice to build a castle-like fort and have typical medieval abort shafts as dumpzones?