Bay 12 Games Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  
Pages: 1 [2] 3

Author Topic: Anybody else suffer from "fortress block"?  (Read 3701 times)

pubby

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Anybody else suffer from "fortress block"?
« Reply #15 on: April 15, 2010, 05:07:05 pm »

All I look for is a nice spot in the middle to dig/build.

Often times there's a horrible spot in the middle and everything nice is crammed around the edge.
Logged

Shiv

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Anybody else suffer from "fortress block"?
« Reply #16 on: April 15, 2010, 05:11:55 pm »

I plan things out but I also enjoy the challenge of the unknown.  For instance, when I was planning my smithing industry, I found that there was a water filled cavern directly over the magma, which prevented me from building my shops the way I wanted.  Ended up building a walk way over the magma, then poking a hole in the bottom of the water area (needless to say, I lost a dwarf), which caused a whole lot of the water to flood out as steam/Obsidian and then I had a workable, Obsidian cast in which to build my magma-fueled metal industry.

Not optimal, but a lot more fun (and Fun for the dwarf).
Logged
I still don't think I'm crazy enough to play this game properly.

Retro

  • Bay Watcher
  • o7
    • View Profile
Re: Anybody else suffer from "fortress block"?
« Reply #17 on: April 15, 2010, 05:15:49 pm »

This is absolutely a problem for me. I design all my forts along a major theme that envelops lots of little thematic miniprojects, so to really invest myself I need to spend a lot of time (ie. usually a week or so) brainstorming. If I don't do that, I just kind of sit there and then I get bored and recruit everyone to attack beasties and collapse shit to intentionally kill everyone.

pubby

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Anybody else suffer from "fortress block"?
« Reply #18 on: April 15, 2010, 05:29:16 pm »

Heres a question:

What do you do if you see gems/rare ore in a wall of your fort? Do you dig it out, or leave it?
Logged

Retro

  • Bay Watcher
  • o7
    • View Profile
Re: Anybody else suffer from "fortress block"?
« Reply #19 on: April 15, 2010, 05:46:59 pm »

Heres a question:

What do you do if you see gems/rare ore in a wall of your fort? Do you dig it out, or leave it?

Leave it, but it hurts every time (no matter how many others I have).

nenjin

  • Bay Watcher
  • Inscrubtable Exhortations of the Soul
    • View Profile
Re: Anybody else suffer from "fortress block"?
« Reply #20 on: April 15, 2010, 05:53:21 pm »

I always build in a modular fashion, so for me the challenge is finding areas big enough to support my modules without problems. The crafting module is the big one, because it's usually two to three levels of big square rooms, ringed by workshops, with stockpiles in the middle.

While it is fun to build as the inspiration takes you, I've yet to hit that "200 pop cap fort begging to be destroyed point." So I still plan everything around a max pop fortress...and awkward/inefficient constructions, pretty and interesting though they may be, don't serve that purpose right now.

That's not to say it doesn't serve someone else's purposes just fine.
Logged
Cautivo del Milagro seamos, Penitente.
Quote from: Viktor Frankl
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
Quote from: Sindain
Its kinda silly to complain that a friendly NPC isn't a well designed boss fight.
Quote from: Eric Blank
How will I cheese now assholes?
Quote from: MrRoboto75
Always spaghetti, never forghetti

supa

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Anybody else suffer from "fortress block"?
« Reply #21 on: April 15, 2010, 05:56:08 pm »

Not really, I advise you use the caverns to set your forts up in.
You can do wonderful things if you simply follow the terrain instead of reshaping everything to your wishes.

This.

I also have FortressBlock, and reading through this thread just makes me feel uncomfortable. At one point I decided not to overly plan my constructions and even used the mouse to designate digging. The result was a more cavern like design with winding halls. Nothing symmetric. It was very liberating, and among other things, I didn't feel the need to mine out every single vein I encountered ::twitch::.
Logged

BloodBeard

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Anybody else suffer from "fortress block"?
« Reply #22 on: April 15, 2010, 06:37:53 pm »

Not necessarily "fortress block" as you've decribed as I usually already have a design in mind and choose my embark to fit the design. But I do pre-plan to what most would call the extreme and then feel a great deal of hesitation before unpausing for the first time.

It's pretty easy to work around the new underground if you're willing to spoil yourself as to what z-level it starts, but with how integrate my plans get I don't leave much room for changes should I forget to plan something and need to put it in. I pride myself on my perfectly precise fortress designs and if i'm forced to change or add something that unbalances that precision it can really be motivation-sapping.

I've got much of my mining plans set in my current fortress for what will be my most elaborate underground fort ever, including an 18 z-level tall open cavern with multiple semi-circular levels, embossed designs on the ceiling and a 13 z-level tall quarter-sphere cut into the side of what will be a massive rock face. And that's the easy part. Thinking about how i'm going to plan the entrance gives me a headache.

I've unpaused only for 30 seconds or so. To craft a pick.

KFD

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Anybody else suffer from "fortress block"?
« Reply #23 on: April 15, 2010, 06:54:31 pm »

Heres a question:

What do you do if you see gems/rare ore in a wall of your fort? Do you dig it out, or leave it?
I usually leave it. Especially in bedrooms, the picky nobles like gem walls.
Logged

monk12

  • Bay Watcher
  • Sorry, I AM a coyote
    • View Profile
Re: Anybody else suffer from "fortress block"?
« Reply #24 on: April 15, 2010, 07:19:15 pm »

Heres a question:

What do you do if you see gems/rare ore in a wall of your fort? Do you dig it out, or leave it?

Leave it, but it hurts every time (no matter how many others I have).

Oh man, 2010 is awful for this. I dread finding pockets of gems and minerals in the early game because my OCD DEMANDS that I utilize every hunk of rock I find. I have to train myself not to dig out the entire side of the meeting hall for a few extra zinc bars or sards. My will was weak last fort when I ended up with a wall of Sapphires and a Star Sapphire in my dormitory. Said dorm suddenly sprouted an odd collection of doors in the middle.

Urist McDepravity

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Anybody else suffer from "fortress block"?
« Reply #25 on: April 15, 2010, 07:31:16 pm »

I embark with year+ worth of food/booze, and use this time for exploration, carefully selecting site for future fortress.
Fortress itself is something about 47x47x20, and each layer is ideal square. There are production chains with stockpile/workshop path optimizations (each workshop has intake resource stockpile above it, and output stockpile below it).
All rooms are either 3x3 or 7x7 or 17x17, so they fit well into design. All rooms including workshops have walls with doors, all smoothed. Altho i dont engrave workshops due to possible insanities.
Usually biggest problems are entrance (i never like my entrances, they tend to grow too big and ugly) and water/magma/power communications (have to sacrifice some z-levels for horizontal channels across fort).
Logged

LordZorintrhox

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Anybody else suffer from "fortress block"?
« Reply #26 on: April 15, 2010, 08:06:45 pm »

I modularize as well; all designs are made of units of multiples of 5x5 squares with 1 tile border.  All complexes fit into the interior of a square hallway that is a 5x5 block of units.  There's the front gate house, mausoleum complex, food workshops/store room, living quarters, magma works, craft room, dining hall (usually a custom design for each fort), and noble accommodations.

The thing I block on is what big thing to build.  At the moment, I am planning to build a dam (rerouting a river from its waterfall to a dammed valley, then draining through a redirect tunnel).  Just waiting for a little more stability.
Logged
...but their muscles would also end up looking like someone wrapped pink steel bridge-cables around a fire hydrant and then shrink-wrapped it in a bearskin.

HEY, you should try my Dwarfletter tileset...it's pretty.
I make games, too

Ilmoran

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Anybody else suffer from "fortress block"?
« Reply #27 on: April 15, 2010, 08:21:11 pm »

Heres a question:

What do you do if you see gems/rare ore in a wall of your fort? Do you dig it out, or leave it?

Depends on what and where it is.  In a hallway?  Dig it out.  Meeting hall?  May or may not leave it (or rearrange my plan so I just happen to need to remove it anyway).  Rooms?  Someone's gonna have a nice wall.
Logged

silantrath

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Anybody else suffer from "fortress block"?
« Reply #28 on: April 15, 2010, 09:10:43 pm »

I use reveal to get a feel for where the caves/magma/adamantine is, but after that I just drill into whatever mountainside looks the most easily defensible. Usually a ditch with a drawbridge is enough to keep pests out, with guards later on to watch for ambushes. After I establish a farm(pop a lake), build up a small supply of wood for beds, I seal myself in and use loose modular design. I put bedrooms in a easily expanded butt end of my fort, with enough hallway to keep noise out (sometimes filled with dining rooms or barracks or offices, etc.), then build production areas in clusters around a central shaft. if you were to view it from the side it would look something like this, almost every time;

_|=+DOB
#|F+==B
#|C+==B
#|M+==B
#|#+##
"    +    "
A/M+##

Where += central shaft, D=dining, O=office, B=Bedrooms, F=Farms+farm related shops/storage, C=Craft shops(mason, etc)+storage, M=metal production+storage, A/M= adamantine/magma. Most those areas kind of wrap around the shaft. I usually just throw in a crypt somewhere whenever my first episode of Fun occurs, and military stuff gets stuffed in near the farms most often. I like to put the well/hospital off to the side, wherever it's easiest to route a brook underneath and I don't use any serious plumbing beyond that. The dorfs have legs, I say they can use 'em. Most of them don't have much to do anyway, I hardly ever have any problems, and it doesn't take much of a military to keep out ambushes/cave critters, especially when you can just shut your doors.
Logged

Hondo

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Anybody else suffer from "fortress block"?
« Reply #29 on: April 15, 2010, 10:11:55 pm »

I always have this notion that I'm going to make a fort that's all zoned and compartmentalized with defendable chokepoints and crap like that. But something about it is just HARD and it's difficult to explain why. As I'm working out the actual layouts, it always feels like it's too inefficient, or there's not enough space, or it's too boring, or it's hard to arrange the workshops and stockpiles in that context, or something else. Then it feels like it's deviated too much from my plan and I drop the idea.

Burrows will ease much of that. Miniature component forts, as spread out as they need to be.


Logged
Pages: 1 [2] 3