40d Talk:Fortress defense

i ve seen discussions bout "moats/pits" here and there - why not simply use an empty channel? --Koltom 11:07, 6 March 2008 (EST)

Style, mostly. Well, that and an empty channel isn't deadly to anyone falling into it (Which can happen on occasion in a big bunch of enemies.) For most things, though, an empty channel backed by a wall to prevent projectile fire is sufficient. --Erom 13:44, 6 March 2008 (EST)

Non-lethality can be a good thing, in case your own dwarves fall in. Just trap the exit(s), and it's still lethal to attackers. Or, if you're really determined to make it lethal to everyone, just channel a huge pit too deep for anything to survive. --Smartmo 00:11, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Planning for building destroyers

So, apart from doors (and things like workshops) what can a building destroyer monster break through? Do I have to worry about a magma man breaking through the wall grate filter in my magma supply, or a troll busting through my arrow slits (= fortifications)? Anydwarf 12:59, 15 April 2008 (EDT)

I've seen them destroy ballistas, statues and hatch covers. They probably can destroy anything that can be built. --Bouchart 13:10, 15 April 2008 (EDT)

I got a bronze colossus to play with and did some testing. (They really do regenerate quickly!)

Things destroyed:

• iron/steel/stone doors (gone)
• stone wall grate (gone)
• trade depot (deconstructed into rough stones)
• glass statues (deconstructed only, they were sitting next to where they were installed; game says "toppled")
• vertical steel bars (deconstructed only; "toppled")

Things not destroyed:

• constructed or carved walls and fortifications (ignored)
• rope (for holding guard dogs; it walked right over)
• drawbridge (walked across; ignored while up)

Science! Anydwarf 12:04, 21 April 2008 (EDT)

I was under the impression that a bronze colossus would destroy constructed walls/fortifications if they are the only way to get to dwarves. This is also claimed in the unpolished fortifications page. Is that true? --Aykavil 10:40, 4 July 2008 (EDT)

I am quite determined that this is not correct. I had a dragon siege my fortress, which made heavy use of constructed walls outside. It, like all megabeasts, has the [BUILDING_DESTROYER:2] tag. When I rose my drawbridge, it just sat around outside. While it couldn't reach the bridge which was protected by a small channel, my dwarves were farming in exterior fields just a wall (again, this is constructed, not natural) away. It sat there, totally still for two seasons until I sent out my marksdwarves to kill it. I think that back in the flat fortress days, megabeats could destroy constructions, or that seems to be the consensus of the wiki. They just don't anymore, any information that tells you they break walls is out of date. Sensei: Last seen somewhere in the Basic Jungle of Terror 01:54, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

(Sensei - Could that info be as "out of date" as the question you are responding to, perhaps? btw, yes - "buildings" are buildings, not Constructions.)--Albedo 02:42, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Armed Civilians

I tried the armed civilian stuff, but an unfortunate side effect is that hunters seem to sleep anywhere except in their beds. Also the forums suggest giving 'fake' woodcutting or mining jobs so that civilians carry pick-axes or battle-axes. This does not address the armor issue, though. --Aykavil 10:35, 4 July 2008 (EDT)

I'd add that it's possible to be mistaken about having no wildlife to hunt! Not all wildlife is present when you embark, there's some random appearances of things like macaques from the edge of the map. It doesn't have to be MUCH wildlife to be disruptive to this plan, either. Ever see 13 dwarves hunting one alligator, with maces? Gah. --Corona688 00:57, 21 December 2008 (EST)!

It is true that wildlife constantly changes, but it is possible to have no huntable wildlife. On a beach map, I had several roving schools of cod. Nothing else. Just lots and lots of cod. I have tried to kill some of them, but so far I have gotten nothing but cod on that map. It should be noted that these cod were way out in the middle of the ocean.--Zipdog 06:11, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Use of User Names in Defense Designs

May I suggest we not use them. Sure, someone may have been the first one to propose it on the wiki, but that doesn't mean others haven't thought about it before (in the case of the trapped chained animal somewhere away from your fort, I know I've seen that on the forums before, and its identical to the 'Roach Motel' from Defense guide), and it doesn't mean that you're some kind of genius to have thought of it.

Its not like I haven't provided novel suggestions (including on this page), but it seems wrong to lay claim to them. A lot of it has to do with understanding how the game works and the solutions proceed logically from that.

As such, I am removing usernames from the subsection titles. I don't feel they're appropriate. If people disagree, lets discuss it here, but the wiki is not about self-aggrandizement, its about providing information about what works and what doesn't. Who first wrote about it on the wiki shouldn't be relevant. --Squirrelloid 17:54, 22 December 2008 (EST)

I wouldn't have put my name if others weren't already there for ages. Nor did I ever think any of the names were really laying claim to inventing these things. I don't give a damn if my name's there or not, and accusing me of self-aggrandizement is a little rude. --Corona688 19:43, 22 December 2008 (EST)

Sidestepping the issue of accusations, I agree with Squirrelloid that names are best left off article pages. It interferes with collaborative writing that is the core of the wiki model -- you can't freely rewrite what someone else has written if it says "I wrote and/or designed this".--Maximus 22:00, 22 December 2008 (EST)

I did not specifically call you out Corona nor did I speculate on any particular poster's motives. I can see how you may have necessarily read my comment as implying such, however, and I apologize for that. Peace? --Squirrelloid 05:37, 29 December 2008 (EST)

Further vote of agreement on Squirrelloid's action. --Edward 00:36, 24 December 2008 (EST)

Merging in other articles and defining what this page should be

Currently, there's this page, the defense guide, and fortifications all doing approximately the same thing. What we need to do is better define what goes where, and what articles are actually necessary. I'd suggest merging most of the current articles into this one, and then taking all the specific defensive design strategies and putting them in a seperate page, similar to how bedroom designs is separate from bedroom. Thoughts? --Mikaka 00:11, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

I noticed that too when I was working on "siege engines" - repeated redundant duplication over and over again. I suggest (in line with your thoughts?) that this topic, "fortress defense", should be more abstract and theoretical, and more specific topics and examples have their own page(s). "Defense Designs" could be the equivalent of "bedroom design", with specifics. (Maybe a new category, "designs"?) The article starts well, with "fortification based" - but then never follows up with any other "X-, Y-, and Z-based" alternative approaches to that. The last few topics on this page are what I think it should be - general approaches, theory, points to consider. The examples of "reverse battlements" and the winding entryway are too specific, and with few alternative examples (or at least for an intro page like this). The graphics for the flooded entryway are not clear at all imo.

I think, on this page, something like these sections could be included, each short with a general discussion, perhaps with (at most) one simple example:

1) Plan ahead: Topography, natural barriers & dangers, growth, pro-con of walls vs trenches, ranges for weapons, etc.

2) Weapons at your disposal - active vs passive, barriers, bridges, traps, melee troops, archers, siege weapons, guard dogs, water, magma, pits, & etc.

3) Different threats - wild animals, thieves & snatchers, sieges, mega-beasts. Also flying critters, magma critters, GCS.

4) Defending... your entryway, your outdoor buildings/areas, your forest (or outdoor workers), your inner fortress (2nd line of defense), your troops.

5) Philosophies - "hall of traps", "crossbow death", "go turtle until it passes", "wall/channel your own private Idaho", "Mano a mano!", "kill zones", "complex entry traps", etc etc. (Names subject to change, natch)

Then, tied to each of those, links relevant to those ideas, with (hopefully) multiple and varying examples for each.

(Also, can we all agree to delete that chatty crap toward the very end? The trite Mayor and Trader exchange?) ;( I'd be happy to rewrite it so it's actually informative on the topic. --Albedo 22:25, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

In general, I like this direction. It's very similar to the current defense guide, though. If we are going to keep two separate pages, we need to better define what goes on what page. Personally, I think we could just merge the two together, and I don't really care which page is kept and which page becomes a redirect.

We definitely need a page like Defense designs, but it should also have stuff like the armed civilian section and other tips, so I'm not sure the name Defensive designs is accurate.

And yes, I'll get rid of that mayor/trader exchange. --Mikaka 01:16, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Hadn't stumbled upon that Defense Guide before - what a morass. That could use some paring down as well. And I'd bet nothing links to it. Yes, these could be combined - one page for general advice and theory, one (or more) for examples practical, impractical, specific and obscure. --Albedo 01:33, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Seeing as how there's so very many ideas concerning defense, I think we need a disambiguation page, like there is for modding, with sections on megabeasts, sieges, siege as defense, etc. --Smartmo 03:35, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

That's not technically a disambiguation page, that's a category. There is a Category:Fortress defense category. If I understand you correctly, you're saying there should be a Megabeast defense page, a siege defense page, an ambush defense page, etc.? That doesn't really make sense... most aspects of defense overlap considerably, and you can't really build a separate defense system for each threat. Certainly the megabeast, siege, etc. pages should have a blurb about defending against said threat, but that doesn't mean there shouldn't be a centralized page that deals with all aspects of defense. --Mikaka 05:44, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Well you get what I mean. There should be a basic defense page, of course, but I'm just saying there's too many ideas and strategies to fit entirely on one page. --Smartmo 14:43, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Okay, there are 3 of us here, plus probably some more lurkers. We have 3 4 pages (are there any more?) with information to combine and re-sort:

• Fortress defense The page where we are now was the original, started November 2007.
• Fortifications Started June 2008 - this page started as a simple redirect (Nov 2007) to the article on in-game fortification (the thing archers like and fluid flows thru), and some user decided to ignore the above, adopt it and write up his own ideas, and others added since. Still by far the smallest of the 3
• Defense guide (started July 2008) ignored the two above pages, started yet another.
• Siege engine - redundancies w/ above

Looking back over the guidelines in the Dwarf Fortress Wiki:Community Portal, several jump out. Categories - we should incorporate as possible. Headings - we've started to talk about that above. Redundancy - the main reason we're doing this. And my fav, Be Bold - we're going to tear this down and build it up right. We may use a lot of the same sub-articles untouched, or plagiarize or combine or split and dove-tail different parts, but we should not be slaves to any accidentally cobbled historical presentation, vs one that makes sense given what we know we have and expect to see in the future.

How do we set up the (new) pages? I suggest losing the smaller "Fortifications" article entirely, combining that info elsewhere and returning that page to a simple unambiguous redirect. We also lose this page in favor of the more intuitive and broader article title "Defense Guide", making this redirect there. On that page will be the general theory and smaller sub-topics, etc etc. Then TWO more pages for specific design examples & graphics, in keeping with the Bedroom design example: "Defense Design" for defenses and layouts, (where most of the graphics from this page would go, I'd think), and the other one specifically for Traps, "Trap Design". "Traps" are complex and personalized enough to fill their own page, I'd think, and tend to be a discrete module that can be plugged into any larger defense scheme, thus separate from "defense" in general. (And once we create the page, I'll bet a stack of adamantium bolts we see more added to it.)

For the miscellaneous tactics like "armed civilians"... I think if they are a general approach they go here, or we could merge more specific examples under Defense Design. Not perfect, but otherwise they'd be stub pages, and I can't think of enough examples (or a proper "design" category) to justify their own page. Altho' not architectural design, it is organizational design, tactical design - close enough. If they're too specific, too obscure or too complex, they don't belong on the Defense Guide page, which is reserved for general theory and abstract concepts.

There's also the Design strategies article, which seems to act as a clearing house for all smaller aspects, and/or a linking page to larger ones - "workshop design" is a large section of this, and could even be expanded to become its own article. (I'm thinking "____ Design" becomes a pattern for expansion pages on this wiki - we'll want to check with authorities on that before proceeding on that assumption.)

The primary page, "Defense Guide", would combine any general ideas and theories here under the headings that it already has there, and add any new, missing general headings there if we have specifics here that don't fit. This page gets then retired into a redirect to that one, while we create Trap Design and Defense Design articles for specific user examples. We'll need to think about organizational sub-headings for those, too.

So... before diving into this, there's one more guideline from the Portal page - Discussion. Whatcha think?

Also, Question - since this is a large project, and probably won't be done in one sitting by one person, should we create a temporary non-linked "Under Construction" page, until it's ready? A place to copy/paste from other pages, test out formatting, start a longer section without finishing, esp if it's overly long and cumbersome, or we're going to work on it together. A week or so, then move that to its proper location - or is that anti-wiki in concept?

(As a footnote, there's also this page we should link to and from: Siege.)--Albedo 03:46, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Rough Re-organization stage 1 complete

Here is the "form letter" that I posted in the discussion page behind each of the 3 new "design" articles - it sums up the changes in a nutshell.

New Pages, new organization

There had been about 5-6 pages on "defense", and articles and advice on various topics
were scattered and repeated across all of them.  This is an effort to re-organize them
into 4 tightly defined and user-friendly topics using current DF wiki naming conventions - 
a General guide and overview Defense guide, and 3 articles on specific design - layout
and architecture (Defense design), traps (Trap design), and specific advice on
organizing your military (Military design).

Discussion from any pages removed or renamed will be placed (or linked) under one of those four.

Still haven't addressed the siege engine page, nor checked cross-training for possibilities to the Mil design page. Nor completely closed out this page (which will eventually become a redirect, I'd think), nor moved/linked any of the above discussion.

Tried to follow our above discussion as well as address various individual complaints and critiques behind separate articles. But it was a large project, and I'm sure I've left some weak spots to fill. Defense guide is a bit bloated at 39k, but... what do we cut, and where do we put it? Now that the rough 4-page presentation is there to see, co-editors are more than welcome (I'm a little crispy around the edges atm.)--Albedo 07:56, 4 June 2009 (UTC)