Dwarf Fortress Wiki - User contributions [en]

DF2014 Talk:Fortress

2021-01-14T18:44:26Z

NecromancerDwarf: /* What do the job counts for fortress titles exactly mean? */ new section

== What about new colonies? ==
If I retire a fortress that has become a mountainhome, would it not follow that new fortresses I then found will come from my former fortress?--[[User:Guardian of Silverybearded|Guardian of Silverybearded]] ([[User talk:Guardian of Silverybearded|talk]]) 08:23, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

== What do the job counts for fortress titles exactly mean? ==

What do the Craft/Metal/Wood/Gem/Stone/Food include? Do the stone/wood jobs only include the jobs at the mason's/carpenter's shop or anything that uses stone/wood logs as a reagent as well as construction jobs that use stone/wood logs? Do the food jobs include planting seeds and harvesting plants or only cooking? Are the jobs sorted by skills (Stone = All Jobs with Masonry, Craft = Any crafting skills, Metal = Metalsmithing skills, Food = any farming skills)?

Road

2021-01-07T07:45:16Z

NecromancerDwarf: World-gen roads can be unpaved.

{{Quality|Superior|11:50, 18 May 2015 (UTC)}}
{{av}}

A '''road''' is a construction that paves over a large section of flat terrain. Roads are most commonly used to give [[caravan|caravans]] a reliable path to your fortress from the map's edge. They are not strictly necessary, as a wagon is entirely capable of making its way over dirt or grass provided a 3-wide path exists the entire way; but without a road, you run the risk of trees growing in positions that prevent a wagon from squeezing through. A dwarf with the [[Architect]] labor must haul any materials to the site and design the structure before it can be finished by any available dwarf with Road Building labor enabled.

'''Dirt roads''' ({{k|b}} - {{k|O}}) can be constructed for free on any soil, removing mud and other contaminants, and removing [[shrub]]s and [[tree]]s and preventing new ones from growing. However, they wear away over time, and have to be reconstructed periodically. Depending on the size of the road, this can be a hassle.

'''Paved roads''' ({{k|b}} - {{k|o}}) can be constructed with any building material, including [[stone]], [[block]]s, [[wood]] and metal [[bars]]. These roads are permanent, and use less material than paving the same space with constructed [[floor]]s - yet paved road is a building, not a construction. To avoid the hassle of long-distance hauling, it is advisable to place a [[stockpile]] near the desired site for your architect to get materials from. Broken bolts do not show up on tiles with paved roads, so paving your archery ranges can keep them looking neat. The number of units of material needed to construct a road is given by one fourth the number of tiles the road would cover plus one ( Tiles/4 + 1 ). The material of the road is the material of the oldest item used in building it.

Paved roads cannot be built over water (except 'Brooks'). They can, however, be built on top of 'Ice Walls' (i.e. frozen water), but will fully deconstruct themselves if the Ice Walls they're built on thaw out. A simple work-around is to build constructed floors ( {{k|b}} - {{k|C}} - {{k|f}}) ) over the water, which you can (but don't have to) then pave over. Alternatively, a [[bridge]] can be used instead of a road, providing the body of water is no more than 20 tiles across.

Building with stone blocks instead of natural stone results in Smooth paved roads instead of Rough paved roads. If there's a mix, it defaults to rough.

== World gen roads ==
During [[world generation]], roads are created connecting [[Human]] towns and [[Dwarf]] Mountainhomes. Dwarven and Goblin civilizations also create underground roads connecting their sites, which can be discovered in caverns after embark or entered from above ground in Adventure mode. World gen roads can consist of unpaved dirt or be made of [[construction|constructed]] [[floor]]s (made from [[stone]] [[block]]s), and are not the same as player-constructed roads.

{{Translation
| dwarven = tulon
| elvish = fatha
| goblin = lunzor
| human = udal
}}

{{buildings}}
{{World}}

Lair

2020-12-18T08:12:25Z

NecromancerDwarf:

{{Quality|Exceptional|16:02, 18 March 2016 (UTC)}}
{{av}}

A '''Lair''' is the hideout of a monster. There are three types of lairs: burrow, mound and wilderness location. Burrows and mounds are marked as {{Raw Tile|•|0:0:1}} on world map, while wilderness locations are marked as {{Raw Tile|•|2:0:1}}

== Burrow ==
[[File:Lair.png|right|150px|A typical burrow-type lair.]]

''(not to be confused with fortress mode [[burrow]]s.)''

A burrow is a default type of lair. Most beasts will settle in them, including predatory [[animal]]s, [[werebeast]]s, certain [[megabeast]]s, and some [[night troll]]s. A burrow typically consists of two small underground chambers connected through narrow tunnels. Lairs of [[megabeast]]s contain all the [[item]]s stolen by them. Burrows of [[night troll]]s have the entrance covered by a [[hatch cover]] and contain some [[furniture]] and [[vermin]] remains.

The entrance of a burrow may be difficult to spot in [[adventurer mode]]; the directions in the upper left corner of the screen will navigate you to it.

<br clear=all>

== Mound ==
[[File:Mound.png|right|150px|A typical mound-type lair.]]

A mound is home to a [[night troll]], or a whole family of them. The inside of a mound consists of a few rooms which may contain [[furniture]], cutlery, [[food]], [[cage]]s, and [[vermin]] remains.

<br clear=all>

== Wilderness location ==
[[File:Roc nest.png|right|150px|A roc's nest at a wilderness location with a lot of stolen stuff.]]

A wilderness location is a place inhabited by a [[roc]]. Its appearance doesn't differ from the surrounding terrain, except that it may contain [[item]]s stolen by the beast. Beasts which inhabit wilderness locations often settle in [[cave]]s instead. Roc lairs have a nest for them to use and it often contains roc eggs.

== See also: ==

*[[Creature token#LAIR|Lair token]]

{{World}}

{{Category|Adventurer mode}}

File:Roc nest.png

2020-12-18T08:06:58Z

NecromancerDwarf: An adventurer visiting a roc's nest and having lots of fun.

== Summary ==
An adventurer visiting a roc's nest and having lots of fun.

Main Page/gallery

2020-05-21T16:46:54Z

NecromancerDwarf:

This is a gallery of images that will be randomly displayed on the [[Main Page]].
<gallery><onlyinclude>
File:meditate_n.png|The mental talent some dwarves have...
File:13 Gobby4.jpg|Preparing a ballista.
File:Belal Example.png|Belal's 16×16 tileset
File:Cathedral.jpg|Use utilities like 3Dwarf to render your fortresses
File:Communal.gif|Communal living: who needs walls?
File:Goblin_slaying_Mayor.png|This is how we handle diplomatic relations with goblins.
File:RingfissuresYear4-26.jpg|A baby crawling through the aftermath of a human siege at Ringfissures
File:Oceanside-202-05.jpg|The dwarves have found a way to paint their walls. It's a shame they ran out of paint when they were half-way done.
File:Focusgroup 16.PNG|With friends like these...
File:Zombiecod.png|Some fish are better left alone.
File:Attend party.png|No matter what your orders may be, your dwarves know the real matters of importance.
File:GiantSpiderAttack.png|Maybe Little Miss Muffet was a dwarf?
File:Shootcommon 1063 main.png|All the comforts of home.
File:Girdertan7.gif|Remember, only you can prevent forest fires!
File:Doom.png|GODS DANGIT MELBUL AND YOUR WATERFALLS!
File:Outdoor_Scuplture_Garden-Vomitorium.png|Ah... the great outdoors.
File:Colossus in Arena.png|A colossus makes short work of captured goblins in an arena.
File:Palace of Seducing.PNG|Is that a euphemism?
File:Damaged baby.jpg|Pain and hardship start at a young age in dwarven culture.
File:DF Cheese.jpg|The vanity of dwarven engravers is not to be underestimated.
File:Champions.png|Goblins have a very fickle relationship with their body parts. A skilled Axedwarf can quickly have them calling for a divorce.
File:Regicide.PNG|The King is dead. Long live the King!
File:Addition.PNG|A mechanical binary addition engine.
File:One-legged-Wolf.png|I can make it on my own!
File:Heads.png|Hydras probably have severe psychological issues regarding decapitation.
File:Vomit_Trail.png|Dwarves are a lot like ants, except that, instead of using pheromones to mark their trails, they use vomit and useless crap.
File:Artifact_Storage.png|This bin is worshiped by three different kobold civilisations. Kobold children everywhere dream of stealing it.
File:Thirsty_Dwarves.gif|A booze stockpile is a meeting zone in its own right.
File:Doors!.png|Ianuamania; madness relating to the obsessive placement of doors.
File:Harbor.png|Wharf Fortress.
File:Heads-on-statues.PNG|Who needs pikes to put heads on when you have statues?
File:Aspirations.png|What every child one day wishes to be!
File:olonbekorn_003.jpg|Fifteen seconds after the player founds a "Cold" fortress, the File:World Gen algorithm discovers climate change.
File:Df2010isfabulous.PNG|Oh, the names humans give themselves...
File:Cacamefight.gif|Cacame gives a human sieger and his horse the power of flight. The human politely lets his horse go first.
File:7x191.PNG|The Almighty Dwarven Calculator solves only the most prestigious equations.
File:Historical Finger.png|It was the most crucial point of that battle. Really. Every educated dwarf should know that.
File:Snowball_fight.png|Tragic snowball fight is... oh wait, it was an elf
File:Herbs.png|Most dwarven soldiers are kept awake by the things they had done in battle, others make sure their deeds rob the goblins of sleep.
File:MagmaTomb.png|Dwarves live so that they may die a gruesome and pointless death. But once their bodies are interred in their magma-tomb it was all worth it.
File:Crundles.png|Crundles, the wolves of the underground.
File:Catacombs.png|Accommodating dwarves in the afterlife is central to what managing a fortress is about.
File:Dwarven_Housing.png|A true dwarf does not care for pretty designs or "privacy". For a dwarf, a bedroom is a hole where he dumps his body for rest and his useless crap for storage, to never touch again.
File:CityState.gif|I am sure the constitutionalists haven't finished the debate on the desirability of the king running for democratic office.
File:Dwarves Sparring.PNG|Wooden training axes are for elves! Real dwarves use masterwork steel when sparring!
File:Evil microcline.png|Oh no! The microcline's possessing my dwarves! Or maybe the ghost, I guess.
File:Nutsdangeled.png|The world of ''Dwarf Fortress'' is full of interesting places; some are dangerous, some are peaceful, and some are... well...
File:Struck_cancels_smelt.png|Urist McLazyFurnaceOperator cancels Smelt Available Ore: needs ore
File:High_sucker.jpg|Cheese making and divine service will make you feel successful.
File:Leg-shot.png|An excellent weapon choice
File:FlareChannel.png|The legendary dwarven fortress [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=43679.0 FlareChannel]
File:Useless bridges.png|It's a good thing that those bridges are there, otherwise it would be really hard to cross those rivers.
File:Construct5.png|The [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=38264.msg904145#msg904145 Constructtargets Gem], a 39 Z-level [[megaproject]] made of 4460 clear glass blocks.
File:Deadly sock.png|That's one impressive sock.
File:Praise disease.png|Praise disease.
File:Cat singularity.png|Approaching cat singularity
File:Unfillable Dam.jpeg|[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=39541.msg677616#msg677616 Unfillable Dam] [[megaproject]] created by Baboonanza
File:Roadtruss.jpg|[http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=154510 Roadtruss], a [[tower]] [[megaproject]] by Crossroads Inc.
File:Lurebolt-1.jpg|[https://www.reddit.com/r/dwarffortress/comments/3dogvh/five_oclock_and_all_is_well/ Lurebolt], a [[tower]] created by Keupo
File:Armoc_Invaders_intro.png|[[User:BaronW#Armok_Invaders|Armok Invaders]], a playable "[[wikipedia:Space Invaders|Space Invaders]]" style game built with [[computing|dwarven computing]] by [[User:BaronW|BaronW]]
File:Burned_beast.png|The [[fire]] does not discriminate.
File:MechanicVolcanoBirdsEyeComposite.jpg|[[User:Vattic/Mechanical_Volcano_Explained|Mechanical Volcano]] [[megaproject]] by Vattic.
File:Carp escape.jpg|Never forget the [[40d:Carp|carp of old]].
File:Crutch Self Defense.png|Crippled does not mean defenseless as far as dwarves are concerned.
File:Figurine Combat.png|Dwarven action figures: also usable in action sequences!
File:Drowning_chamber.png|[[Drowning chamber|Taste the water, you filthy goblins!]]
File:horse law.png|Never underestimate [[horse]]s.
File:14177z5.jpg|Fisherdwarves have it [[Sea lamprey|rough]].
File:23a_warthog_hunting.png|Why do you need hunters, when you have swords?
File:Gamer Kobold.png|Don't forget to subscribe to his ''Slaves to Armok: God of Blood'' streams.
File:Flickering ground.gif|[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=173393.msg7938207#msg7938207 "All is nasty," said Atir. "World is nasty. Earth is tainted. Grass is dying. Anthills are ''glowing''."]
File:finger.png|I know where ''I'm'' embarking!
File:rakust_badname.png|School must've been terrible for her.
File:tantrum_.png|Even during a tantrum, you gotta be professional.
File:Llama Statue.png|Some dwarves have a morbid taste for art.
File:FB at work.png|Even the monsters are busy nowadays.
File:underwhelming-demon.png|An unrecognized hero.
</onlyinclude></gallery>

File:Underwhelming-demon.png

2020-05-21T16:43:26Z

NecromancerDwarf:

Tower

2020-05-21T16:42:35Z

NecromancerDwarf:

{{av}}

'''Tower''' can refer to:
* [[Tower (project)|A fortress mode (mega)project]]
* [[Tower (necromancy)|Towers built by necromancers]]
* [[Tower (structure)]] - Housing structures found in human towns
* [[Archery tower]] - a defense design

{{Translation| dwarven = urdim | elvish = atheli | goblin = spöstro | human = ono}}

{{disambig}}
[[ru:Tower]]

Forgotten beast

2020-05-08T09:34:52Z

NecromancerDwarf: /* Generation */

{{Quality|Exceptional|21:18, 30 September 2016 (UTC)}}
{{av}}
{{minorspoiler}}
{{random image|location=right|size=300px}}

:''In the deep, there are beasts so fell and terrible, that only they know what they are, for none who have met them have lived to tell of it... they are the Forgotten Beasts, born of the chaos from before the world's birth... they have waited, brooding in the dark places of the world... and now... by digging too deep... we have awakened them.''

'''Forgotten beasts''' are large, monstrous, procedurally generated [[megabeast]]s that spawn in the [[caverns]] beneath your fortress, [[path]]ing through to your fort and seeding destruction amongst your [[dwarves]]. They are the subterranean equivalent of [[titan]]s.

Forgotten beasts are attracted by [[wealth]] and population size. Additionally, one may randomly appear when you reclaim a fortress. When a forgotten beast becomes visible onscreen, the game automatically pauses and displays a message.

== Generation ==
Forgotten beasts are procedurally randomized, and may be of any form, and be made of any sort of material. Multiple forgotten beasts may come to attack your fortress, each coming at different times. Most take the form of an animal, some not found in vanilla DF, with extra features (e.g. extra eyes, feathers) or removed body parts (e.g. skinless cobras) and unusual colours. However, a forgotten beast can also take more generic forms, such as shelled blobs, quadrupeds, and humanoid golems. Materials range from flesh and blood, to flimsy things like [[ash]] and [[steam]], to truly scary monsters of pure [[rock]], [[gem]], or [[metal]]. They may get a special attack, ranging from anything between venomous stings, poisoned blood, explosive dust clouds, to flame breath. Some forgotten beasts have "hunger for warm blood", which lets them notice all warm-blooded creatures.

If a forgotten beast has a venomous attack of some sort, it is randomly generated as are the resulting [[symptoms]]. The beast's [[Syndrome#Breath_attacks|breath attack]] is also randomly generated, if it has one. Venom attacks come in a variety of forms, from boiling ichor to trailing dust, and the effects can range from mild pain to complete and instantaneous necrosis or paralysis. Some forms of venom can spread from spatters and contact with your dwarves, eventually infecting your entire fort. Decontaminating your soldiers in shallow running water is one way to deal with this problem. Some beasts breathe fire or shoot [[web]] in lieu of any syndrome-bearing attacks. Web-shooters are immune to the effects of webs they, or any other creature, create and will shoot web even at targets they lack a proper path to. Forgotten beasts based on spiders may be capable of shooting webs in addition to any other special abilities.

The number of forgotten beasts cannot be controlled directly, but is influenced by the size of the world and is directly proportional to the number of cavern layers, as exactly one beast is spawned per each underground region. All are [[building destroyer]]s, and are almost entirely immune to [[trap]]s (they are trapavoid and nostun but non-webspinners will trigger a trap that has been webbed). [[Bridge]]s are also less useful, as they cannot be raised or lowered as long as the beast is standing on (or under) them, preventing the traditional [[magma]] pit / [[dwarven atom smasher]] designs from working. This is probably one of [[Main:Toady One|Toady One]]'s ways of making the encounters even more [[fun]].

[[Image:DF2010ForgottenBeast1.png|thumb|center|500px]]

== Death and application ==
{{random image|location=right|size=300px}}
If you need to kill a forgotten beast, order your military to attack. Some beasts, however, are content not to path to your fortress and will stay dormant underground. Most "fleshy" forgotten beasts can be butchered; some are quite massive and may leave you with hundreds of meat and bone units and dozens of prepared organ units. Forgotten beast [[shell]]s may prove valuable during a [[strange mood]], particularly on a map without other sources of shells. Unfortunately, all forgotten beasts have a value multiplier of 1.

Some forgotten beasts whose bodies are made of liquid, gas, fire, or powder will die or lose limbs on the first hit. Other forgotten beasts are extremely difficult to kill due to being made of very hard materials or having an amorphous shape. When confronted with such near-invulnerable creatures the only option is usually to use your brain and try to lock it away (the beast; dwarven brains are locked away by default) somehow. Walls and raised [[bridge|draw bridges]] stop them. Since they are [[building destroyer]]s, you can use installed [[furniture]] to lure them to a particular location. If you can put it in a pit, a clever trapmaker can feed it invaders. If a near-indestructible beast isn't in a position to threaten your dwarves, it can be used to train marksdwarves.

One method of defeating nearly combat-invulnerable forgotten beasts (those whose bodies are made of rock, for instance) is to cause a [[Cave-in]] on top of them. They'll be killed by dropping either natural or constructed walls or floors on them. It is also possible to capture some forgotten beasts in cage traps by using [[giant cave spider]] webs (or similar).

You can prevent forgotten beasts from appearing by editing [[d_init.txt]] to change [INVADERS:YES] to [INVADERS:NO], though that will also prevent [[ambush]]es and [[siege]]s.

== Forgotten Beast Threat Analysis==
'''If you do not want your [[fun]] spoiled, do not look below!'''

{{clear|both}}

Forgotten beasts pose different levels of threat to your fortress, based on their composition, body shape, movements or special attacks. This list also works with [[titan]]s and [[demon]]s.

Of course, general threat must be appraised after all categories. A giant blob made of smoke with webs is still pretty harmless and very fragile, despite it having webs, and a no-frills humanoid made of steel with no special attack will cause dangerously large amounts of [[fun]], being essentially a far more resilient bronze colossus.

'''Material Composition'''
*''Water, Grime, Filth, Salt, Steam, Smoke, Snow'': Liquids, gasses, and powders are incredibly fragile, and most of them don't do any damage either. In fact, they usually die to kittens playfully scratching them or babies punching them. Unless paired with a dangerous attack method, these should not be a threat at all.
*''Fire'': While very fragile, [[fire]] is incredibly !![[fun]]!!. This type of forgotten beast will usually stay at the edge of the map and may burn large parts of the cavern when it first enters. Engagement should be avoided if it does not path to your fortress (and into a trap) as it could cause casualties with fire spread, contact, and fireballs (passive ability). Dropping an unarmed goblin or two (or a ceiling) on top of it should kill it as it will die as easily as any other gas beast. Upon death, beasts made of fire tend to explode in a large fireball which will kill all units within range, so keep your melee fighters away!
*''Flesh'': Most forgotten beasts are fleshy. It's about the standard level of threat for a forgotten beast. Invertebrates are generally more fragile than vertebrates, due to lack of bones.
*''Rock or Mineral'': Quite difficult, but not unbeatable. Can be damaged with metallic weapons. Beasts may be made of native copper or silver ore; see below for those.
*''Glass or Gem'': They are generally pretty tough, though not quite as much as being made of diamond might imply. If you have poorly equipped dwarves, military action is not advised.
*''Non-weapon grade metal'': Similar to rock forgotten beasts. Most weapons-grade metal can damage it.
*''Copper/Silver'': If you've got a good military and weapons as good as bronze, it should at least be beatable. Don't expect an easy fight by any means, however.
*''Bronze'': If you have encountered a [[bronze colossus]] before, this beast should be comparable in how dangerous it is. Whether it is more or less dangerous will depend on various features such as size, body type, whether it can fly, material emissions and whatever syndromes it may possess.
*''Iron'': Are you having [[fun]] yet? Do not send anything against it that has less than steel weapons; it will be pointless. Magma also does nothing against these.
*''Steel'': While exceedingly rare, these are fortress-ending threats on the level of [[HFS]]. These can be beaten only with cave-in traps, falling traps, obsidian/ice traps or adamantine weapons. Be sure to post <s>how your fortress ended horribly</s> the epic story of your struggle with it on the Bay12 forums !

'''Body Shape'''
[[File:Forgotten_Beast_Size.png|frame|Estimated size comparison between a forgotten beast and a dwarf.]]
*''Blob'': Depends on material - fleshy blobs having only a single body part. All attacks will target it, causing it to accumulate damage rapidly until it explodes into gore.{{verify}} Has only a blunt push attack, which at an FB's size is deadly. However, ''inorganic'' blobs are a whole other story, and ''metal'' blobs are a sign that the game hates your guts.
*''Worm, Slug, Nematode'': Quite slow, and have one huge body part with internal organs (including brain) easily reachable. Unless paired with some dangerous special attack, these should be easy.
*''Quadruped, Humanoid'': about the average for FBs. Try and use cutting weapons to cripple them. Or spears.
*''Insect, Spider'': Obnoxious because of the large number of redundant limbs. The large majority of spiders (not "tarantulas", apparently) will be guaranteed to have a webbing attack and should thus be treated with extreme care.

'''Movement'''
*''Walking'': Normal movement. All FBs are also amphibious.
*''Flying'': More dangerous than walking, for obvious mobility reasons. Be sure you only have one entry for your caverns.

'''Special attack'''
*''None'': Consider yourself lucky—most forgotten beasts have some kind of [[syndrome]]-based effect. However, certain kinds of beasts have inherent abilities, like fire balls for a beast composed of fire, or webs for a spider-based beast.
*''Noxious Secretions'': Every single part of the creature's body is covered in extract. If it's in liquid or solid form and any of your dwarves touch this extract, they will receive the syndrome effects. Curiously enough, [[biter|biting]] does not qualify as touching. Usually not a threat since dwarves are often well clothed, your military even more so. If the secretions are in gas form, treat the FB as if it has a toxic breath attack. Note that, unlike other attacks, gaseous noxious secretions are effective even if the beast is [[cage]]d.
*''Hunger for warm blood'': When the creature stabs the opponent, some blood will be drawn. Additionally, its ability to detect any creature with blood will let it "see" dwarves through walls and other solid objects.
*''Poisonous bite or sting'': Not dangerous by FB standards.
*''Spitting glob'': Generally not dangerous, unless you forgot shields and shield use on your military for some reason.
*''Fire breath'': By itself not threatening if you have shields and decent shield skill. However, [[Fun]] is always where fire is—a burst of flame is quite likely to start a cavern wildfire. Amusingly, fire-breathing organic FBs are not immune to fire and may even burn themselves to death, though this usually takes some time.
*''Toxic blood, vapor, or gas'': Threat depends of the syndrome's effects. Can be harmless or kill your entire military. You may want to sacrifice something for seeing what the FB's extract does.
*''Webs'': Webs are incredibly deadly in melee, but do not help much at range. It will slaughter your whole melee squad with incredible ease, but not your ranged squad as long as the ranged squad is out of reach. Engage it with marksdwarves or kill it with a cunning trap.
*''Deadly dust'': Possibly the most [[fun]] attack a FB can come with. Deadly dust acts like [[cave-in]] dust with syndromes. Dust coming from all directions (as opposed to a breath attack) is even more [[fun]]. If the material of the FB is weak (like flesh), or if it has articulations or organs to be damaged, it will harm itself with its own deadly dust. However if it is made of stronger material, it will be immune to this effect. Deadly dust is generally a very effective defense against melee and marksdwarves, but is a liability if the FB is fleshy and not a blob.

==Applications==
Forgotten beasts are hard to catch, being both [[Creature token#T|[TRAPAVOID]]] and [[Creature token#N|[NOSTUN]]]; however trapping them is not impossible. All webbed creatures become vulnerable to [[trap]]s, except for the ones that have a [[web]]bing attack of their own: having a [[giant cave spider]] shoot web on your cage traps will render them into perfect FB-proof nets. Your new prizes can be put to various uses; the most obvious ones consist in dropping them onto various invaders - forgotten beasts are hostile toward each other and will attack any [[Surroundings|wildlife]] or [[Civilization|civilized]] creature they may encounter - but with careful micromanagement, the opportunities are limitless.

===Silk farm===
Web-shooting forgotten beasts are notoriously hard to catch and you'll only get your hands on one of these through ''very'' careful micromanagement, such as building a 'trap room' with retractable bridges and some random animal at the center to attract the beast. The set-up is otherwise the same as that of a [[silk farm]], except that forgotten beast silk is only as valuable as mere [[cave spider]] silk. Note that some beasts have special attacks ''in addition'' to their web-shooting ability (in the case of beasts based on spider-like anatomy resembling that of the [[giant cave spider]]), which may make them more difficult to capture and use (as they may kill their targets rather than simply covering them with webs).

===Weapon coating===

[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=91084 Syndrome-bearing poison can and will affect any creature it can spread to and infect.] While there is no formal job or workshop related to poison coating in vanilla DF (although it does exist in some [http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Masterwork:Main_Page mods]), poisoning your weapons is still possible thanks to the impossibly infinite metabolism of your caged guests. Pit them in a similar set-up to that of a [[silk farm]] (you may want to set up a pit from above the farm so you can regularly replace the bait used for the silk farm, or just use a syndrome-immune creature, e.g. a [[zombie]]) and put your weapons (and ammo) stockpiles in the farm so your beast will shoot syndrome-inducing dust/spittle on them. '''Make sure your military dwarves wear gloves when they equip your newly poisoned weapons,''' unless you actually want them to vomit or rot themselves in the middle of the battlefield. You also want them to wear cloaks so they don't contaminate each other while sparring. Some poisons can be '''extremely fun'''; dwarves equipped with poisoned weapons can one-shot most creatures - well, most creatures with functioning organs, at least - through the infliction of superficial wounds. If you can prevent your dwarves from infecting themselves, that is.

===Getting rid of cavern creatures===

Forgotten beasts will actively seek and attack any other [[creature]]s, including cavern wildlife. Sealing the FB in a cavern will make it continuously kill wild inhabitants of the cavern, as these keep coming until their local populations are extinct. You can later obtain a decent supply of [[bone]]s from the skeletons of the creatures the FB killed, when the beast accidentally dies or after you manage to deal with it.

==[http://www.reddit.com/r/dwarffortress/comments/19083j/what_makes_forgotten_beasts_forgotten/c8jlvg7 On The Origins of Forgotten Beasts] ==

{{D for Dwarf}}

In the time before time, when Armok himself was not part of the great machine beast framework, the idea itself of ALL-dom, dwarf dom, elf dom, tools and valueless, remained in the greater unknowable realm of hard possibility called <HARDDISKSPACE>; all was concept data idiosyncratic.

Thence came the being of the <flesh machine> and the <machine beast framework> and thence Armok was, is, and ever will be.

Armok hands moved, and invoked the commands of the ur-<plane/realm?>, and raised the possibility of all worlds that can be, of the-blessed-who-can-know-Armok.

Thence Armok exhaled his vaporous breath and said "CREATE NEW WORLD" and the <machine beast framework> began his dire task.

Legions of empires, battalions of timelines, and civilizations of worlds were born, lost, and discarded, as the will of Armok angered in wait.

Finally World Acceptance was allowed.

Yet, the <Flesh Machine Beast Framework> has failed Armok. For Armok knows of the world behind the worlds, of the '''Intent''' of his dimension, of the destination of the unmoving stone.

He knows that the beasts of <null result un-parseable>, those ideas from the time before the rules, exist not.

The Pen-Factor of Armok, the Toady One, foresaw this failure. He knew that the Armok transcended the very power of the universe vessel, the <Machine Beast Framework>, and to please our god, to let him revel in the glory that is the knowing of himself, he forced the existence of the beasts...

== Bugs ==
* If a beast has a dust attack, the dust will behave like it was from a [[cave-in]], flinging dwarves away (causing further damage if they hit a wall) and knocking them out. {{Bug|3133}}
* forgotten beasts will hide in trees in an attempt to ambush dwarves and woodcutters without ever coming down.

==Art==
View a [[Forgotten beast/gallery|gallery]] of artwork from the [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=124312.0 forums].

{{random image|location=left|size=600px}}
{{clear}}
{{Creatures}}
{{Category|Megabeasts}}
{{Category|Trapavoid}}
{{Category|Building destroyer}}
{{Category|No Stun}}
{{Category|Flying}}
{{Category|Syndrome}}
{{Category|Webs}}
{{Category|Shell}}
[[ru:DF2012:Forgotten beast]]

Design strategies

2020-05-07T08:32:07Z

NecromancerDwarf: /* Lockdown */

{{Quality|Exceptional|13:23, 18 July 2014 (UTC)}}
{{av}}

There are many factors to consider when designing your fort.
* '''Security:''' Every fort needs some basic security measures. Otherwise you won't survive the first [[elephant]] attack, much less a full-blown [[Siege|goblin siege]].
* '''Efficiency:''' Whether hauling rocks, making a booze run, or just checking the contents of a cabinet, dwarves do a lot of walking. A good fortress layout -- especially the proper placement of workshops and stockpiles -- can significantly reduce the time your dwarves spend walking.
* '''Aesthetics:''' Hey, everybody wants a fortress that looks good.

In addition to the considerations above, it's also important to remember that long-term design strategies can easily be disrupted by the discovery of underground terrain features. Don't plan ''too'' far ahead, as you might need to adapt to unforeseen obstacles.

Also, there are several [[Main:Blueprint Library|design idioms]] of common usage like [[pump stack]]s.

==Security==
Everyone will have their own preferences regarding fortress defense and how to deal with undead, wildlife, hostiles and goblin invaders. Regardless of specifics, it's important to have a plan for dealing with the several different types of inevitable attacks. A few security tips are given below.

The single most important thing to remember is that in an emergency, your dwarves will be too panicked to react to orders. Prepare for every type of threat (both military and engineering, in the form of floods or other Fun) ''before'' it finds you, or it will be too late.

===Walls===
Walls are, by far and away, the single most powerful tool you have to combat enemies. Walls are currently invincible against any known force but the mighty dwarven [[pick]]. Putting a wall between your vulnerable and valuable civilians (and the others, too, why not?) and the things trying to kill them is the highest priority you have.

Building walls can take time and micromanagement, but building a maze (and stuffing it with traps) is a good way to slow invaders down, especially if you get forewarning from scouts. The longer invaders take to reach you, the more time you have to get your militia in place. However, since the advent of [[climb]]ing, keep in mind that just having 1-z-level walls are not enough. Place [[fortifications]] at the tops to stop climbers.

Digging ditches/moats, then removing the ramps can also be useful as a faster method of creating impassable terrain for non-fliers, which have the added advantage of allowing marksdwarves to shoot over them. Easier still is just using the "natural walls" of a hill, and removing all the ramps on one side or the other of the hill while building walls between the gaps. Climbing, however, makes this not enough for all circumstances. Either carve or build unclimbable [[fortifications]], or else dig another z-level down, and then dig two tiles under the rim of your platform to create an overhang that is impossible to climb.

Excavating fortresses by digging them out naturally creates walls, and makes for easy defenses, since it is far easier to designate for digging than to build a wall. Enclosed caves are also proof against flying monsters. At first, you might simply dig into a wall and put up a door, but consider making a large, extended underground tunnel, or preferably several tunnels, all of which can be locked down, and then walling over your initial entrance so that you can force enemies to approach your fort on your terms, and at a time and place of your choosing. If defenses in one tunnel don't work, lock it down, and leave a different one open, so that they have to run back through your killzone to try approaching a different one.

===Lockdown===
Have a way to lock down your fortress. In the event of an attack by hostiles you can't handle, you need a way to lock them out. This can buy you some time while your dwarves prepare their defenses.

For small forts, this could be as simple as placing [[door]]s at all the entrances to your fort. Doors can be locked instantly in an emergency. Don't rely on doors alone for security, though, as you'll eventually encounter enemies that can [[Building destroyer|break down doors]] and [[Thief|pick locks]].

Doors are important even within your fortress. [[Tantrum]]ing dwarves are the bane of every established fort. Having a way to segregate your dwarves so that they don't run into a dwarf on a rampage can save whole forts, much less individual lives. Doors can also stop flooding, and act as bulkheads that isolate breaches if you accidentally flood your fort. Having secondary hallways to route around problem areas is also a sound strategy for making doubly sure your fortress can survive a breach of defenses. If everything in your fort must travel through a single hallway or central staircase, anything that reaches that point can almost be guaranteed to kill your fort.

For more security, place [[Bridge|drawbridges]] at all the entrances. You don't need a moat; the bridge itself is sufficient since it functions as a wall when raised. Just be sure to connect it to a [[lever]] that your dwarves can access quickly ''and safely'' in an emergency. Unfortunately, even drawbridges can be rendered inoperable in rare circumstances....

To have a dwarf ready to pull a lever in case of an ambush it's best to place them near the meeting hall. You can also make dedicated leverdwarves by turning off all their labors and assigning the levers to them. [[Vampires]] and [[necromancer]]s are very good for this job, as they do not require sleep, however their [[mood]] may be a problem because they will not drink anything. To avoid this, make sure you have a tavern keeper to give them alcohol.

Finally, don't forget about attackers from above and below!
Flying attackers might use skylights to bypass your doors and drawbridges. [[Farming|Farms]], even "aboveground" farms, can be placed underground with exploits, but some of the best [[tree]]s grow aboveground. Use drawbridges on even the walled-in exits to the surface in case of [[giant kea]]s or [[roc]]s.

Swimming beasts might crawl up through your [[well]]. It is best to use water from sources that are completely walled off from the outside world, like a [[reservoir]] fed by an [[aquifer]]. You can also use a [[screw pump]] pulling through a floor [[grate]] to prevent hostiles (and [[building destroyer]]s) from swimming into your fortress. (The same holds doubly true for magma cisterns.)

Creating multiple entrances that can be locked down can force an invasion to stop in its tracks, reverse course, and march all the way around the map to get access to your fort. Repeatedly yanking the drawbridge up, forcing them to go back to a different entrance, and letting that drawbridge back down while pulling up the one the assault was going for then can keep an invasion in limbo for a very long time, giving sleeping or drinking milita dwarves a chance to get their act together, or to let a repeater spike [[trap]] murder everything on the 12th pass.

===Scouts===
Ambushes and thieves can sneak up on your fortress. A party of goblin archers might sneak past your main gate before being spotted, or a kobold could make off with your masterpiece crafts when nobody is looking. The way to avoid these unfortunate events is to use scouts / lookouts.

For small forts, effective scouting could be as simple as [[Restraint|tying]] a [[Dog|war dog]] (or even a donkey) up near the entrance of your fort. In the event of an ambush the animal will spot the attackers (shortly before dying). If your scouts are far enough from your main gate then you ought to have enough warning to lock down the fort, activate the militia, etc.

For more established forts, placing any sort of non-eating domestic animal in a 1-tile pasture on top of a grate that allows it to look downwards, or behind windows from a single z-level above the hallways protects your stalwart watch-geese so that you don't have to keep sending out more replacement dogs. Save the good war animals for a "Doberman Bomb" (cage linked to a release lever) that unleashes dozens of animals on invaders at once, rather than letting the invaders murder your dogs one at a time.

===Caravan security===
Is your trade depot going to be inside or outside your main line of defenses? This is another factor to consider when designing your fort. Although you don't have to protect the traders, their [[civilization]]s might hold your fortress responsible for any casualties.

Consider that merchants may go [[insane]] if kept in place, or if they get affected with a [[syndrome]], so it is possibly best to have a means of segregating the rest of your fort from the trade depot, like a drawbridge-wall. At the same time, you need to load goods into and out of the depot quickly, so it should be near major stockpiles and where your haulers usually spend their time.

A [[caravan]] needs a 3-tile-wide entrance (preferably a [[road]] where you aren't placing traps to prevent a [[tree]] from growing in the path) so they tend to complicate defenses. Consider using a retractable drawbridge to allow/disallow certain entrance and exit routes from your fort. An "elevated highway" exit from your fortress that is only accessible after throwing a switch leaves an exit that allows merchants to leave in safety if a siege happens while they are trading, but entrance paths need to be kept clear, regardless. [[Siege]]s and [[ambush]]es only start from map edges that can path to your dining hall, while a caravan starts from areas that path to a valid trade depot. If you use drawbridges to cut off access to your fort from the trade depot until after the caravan passes (and you raise) a drawbridge that cuts off outsider access to the trade depot, and you then let down a drawbridge to an elevated walkway that normally grants access to nothing, you can generally ensure no [[ambush]] will follow your trading partners in. (Although the degree of engineering may force you to wait several years...)

===Traps===
[[Trap]]s are a great way to protect your fort from small groups of attackers. When designing your fort, think about where you want to place traps. Choke points at major entrances (including entrances to the [[caverns]]) make good trap locations. However, be warned that some enemies are immune to traps....

Spikes/spear traps set to levers you order dwarves to repeatedly pull or attach to a repeater are capable of hurting creatures that can avoid traps, but require great stretches of killzone to operate effectively.

Deliberately-induced cave-ins, such as by linking a pillar to a lever, and dropping an otherwise unsupported wall, creates deadly [[dust]] that can knock even trap-immune creatures unconscious, which renders them vulnerable to ordinary traps. Cage a titanic beast, and put it in your zoo for the kids to marvel at!

Advanced dwarven techniques include methods of flooding and draining killzones with dangerous fluids like [[water]] or [[magma]], or both to [[obsidian]]-cast the problem, which is guaranteed to kill any physical threat in existence. Other methods include controlled fires (often caused by controlled magma release). These, however, are potentially very [[Fun]] tools, so be sure you understand what you are dealing with before you set yourself to it. (Or just make it a learning experience when you mess up an early fort. Hey, Fun IS fun, after all!)

===Staging area===
Many players like to design their forts with a militia staging area at the main entrance. Usually this includes placing [[fortification]]s (possibly in archer towers), ammunition stockpiles, and cover for your melee dwarves to protect them from approaching archers.

If you want to rely on marksdwarves, consider fortress entrance designs that favor their method of attack. Make the only entrance a snaking series of bridges that force invaders to zig-zag in front of your marksdwarves. If that doesn't provide enough time to kill them all, stack several floors of snaking bridges, and let your marksdwarves simply climb a couple stairs to get to the next killzone between rounds. If you rely heavily on marksdwarves, remember that sieges can also contain elite archers that fire through fortifications. Prepare a 1-tile-wide drawbridge "shutter" that can block sight in front of the fortifications to protect vulnerable marksdwarves or allow for recovery of the wounded if you want to try out-shooting an elite archer.

Some players also like to place a [[Barracks|training barracks]] near the entrance to the fort so that the militia can quickly respond to attackers. Putting it outside is even better as it also prevents cave adaption on your soldiers which can give you an edge in a siege, as more serious cases of cave adaption severely cut the speed of the affected dwarf. If you don't let your military dwarves outside that often, let them fight in the shade; Make your staging area underground, and just wait for the siege to roll into your staging area, instead.

Staging areas can also come with some extra help - a cage filled with every random potentially dangerous creature you don't need pastured can, when released, provide a massive (and potentially hilarious) distraction. Even a barrage of 40 kittens can bog down invaders enough that a lone swordsdwarf can fight enemies one-by-one.

==Efficiency==

Although many actions in the game take time, and skill levels significantly reduce the time the actual crafting of items or resource gathering takes, by and large, the OVERWHELMING majority of wasted productivity comes from dwarves having to march great distances to reach a raw material for their crafting needs. Even worse, if they get thirsty while hunting down that stray boulder at the bottom floor of the mines, they'll go all the way back up for their drink, and have to take the trek back down again, later. As such, efficiency is all about shortening the trips your craftsdwarves must take as much as possible.

Proper placement of [[stockpile]]s is key. Almost every workshop job needs raw materials. Is your [[still]] near some empty barrels and plants? Does your mason have easy access to stone? A smelter must have quick access to both ore and fuel.

As a general rule of thumb, each workshop should have at least a 3x3 stockpile area associated with it. Some workshops will need more if multiple raw ingredients are needed. [[Workshop design]] is a science in of itself but one efficient arrangement is to place output stockpiles directly above or below your workshops and connect them with stairs. Another common design is to carve out a 5x5 room and place the 3x3 workshop in the center, leaving 16 surrounding tiles for input storage.

When utilizing a large storage stockpile, for food or wood for example, the optimal approach is to place a small stockpile next to the workshop and have the small stockpile [[Stockpile#Take_from_a_stockpile/workshop|take]] from the large stockpile.

There are a few other things to consider for basic fortress efficiency:
* Major hallways should be at least two tiles wide, preferably three tiles. Otherwise your dwarves will be constantly running into each other causing productivity and possible [[Maximizing_framerate#Fortress_Design|framerate]] to be slowed.
* To reduce the amount of time that your dwarves spend walking, common areas should be placed near the center of your fort. Dwarves drink frequently. It's a good idea to store your booze in a centralized location, and to designate a [[meeting hall]] in a similarly centralized place.
* An efficient fortress must make good use of all three dimensions. A dwarf climbs or descends one [[z-level]] in the same time it takes to move one step horizontally. For example, when you need to build more bedrooms it can be a lot more efficient to dig down one level than to place the new rooms 20 tiles farther from the center of your fortress.
* Moving one step diagonally takes about 1.4 times as long as moving one step orthogonally. This matches the real world, where Pythagoras tells us that it should take √2 (about 1.414) times as long. You can optimize floor plans for [[pathfinding]] by adopting more circular shapes into your design.
* Similarly, since vertical Z-movement is cheap, the more spherical your fortress is in shape, the less walking there is, overall. Placing workshops side-by-side on a single floor means each additional workshop requires a dwarf move at least 3 more tiles (and if there is a wall or space, 4 or 5 tiles) to reach their destination, and they will be frequently running back and forth between stockpile and workshop. Vertical stacking means a dwarf only moves 1 tile.
* With [[burrow]]s, it is possible to keep some dwarves working in a specific area, so that they never try to take a task half-way across the map, or haul items a long distance through high-volume corridors. For example, you might keep your furnace operators and your weaponsmiths hard at work in their smelters and forges by designating a burrow for them. Make sure you understand burrows before attempting this - if there is no source of food or drink in the burrows a dwarf is restricted to, you may run into some [[tantrum|problems]]. (This means possibly making additional dining rooms just for these dwarves.) Also make sure the dwarves' quarters (or at least a dormitory) are inside the burrow.
* A more advanced technique is to segregate your fortress by raw material, and have separate "wings" or "nodes" of the fortress for different types of material. All woodworking workshops, for example, are connected to a vertical shaft dug down from a stockpile near the front gate that takes in lumber from outside, where craftsdwarves only need to travel 3 tiles horizontally to the stairs, 1-4 z-levels up the stairs, and a tile to the side to reach their lumber supply. Since most industry takes only one general type of raw material (wood, stone, metal/ore, gem, food, cloth,) you can easily segregate by raw material. Put "finished product" stockpiles on a separate floor, as well.
* Place your residential sectors (housing, food, and drink) as close to the workplace as possible. Dwarves waste most of their non-working time just walking to the drink supply. Make that as short as possible. Don't be afraid to make secondary alcohol stockpiles, and you can actually put residences for craftsdwarves right under the stack of workshops. Legendary dining halls are tougher to make in droves, but not so tough you can't do it with an established fort.
* [[Block]]s can substitute for raw rock for construction purposes, but are much lighter. If you are digging in a depth of 100z and need many rocks for building structures at the surface, you should set up a rock storage and a mason´s workshop at 100z to permanently make blocks, and use the blocks for the construction. This is a full-time job for one mason, but the speed of the construction dwarves is increased a lot.

==Aesthetics==
Aesthetics are completely subjective, of course, but it's still something you may want to consider when designing your fort.
* Symmetry is often the ''easiest'' path to visual appeal, but it may be hard to balance with function. Asymmetry can look great but requires more skill to look graceful.
* Conform to either mostly organic shapes or mostly inorganic shapes. A mixture ''probably'' won't look very good.
* Try digging passages out of [[stone]] rather than [[soil]]. Although digging in stone is slower and messier, stone can eventually be smoothed and engraved, and yields a usable material. Soil, on the other hand, is ugly and much less dwarfy (although being excessive and paving stone over everything is arguably ''more'' dwarfy).
* Use stockpile settings to consistently build your furniture and blocks from a single type of material. Bedrooms tend to look nicer when the furniture is uniform.
* Alternatively, if you like lots of [[color]] and [[Style_project|variety]], you can use the stockpile and workshop settings to make sure your dwarves use lots of different materials.
* [[Ramp]]s are generally more aesthetically pleasing than the extremely narrow switchback [[stairs]], but carry a much larger cost in efficiency and ease of construction.

== Further Reading ==
For an in-depth examination of topics relating to fortress layout, these pages focus on specific aspects, mostly with an eye to improving survivability. Some of these are not directly related to architecture but are useful nonetheless.
* [[Defense guide]]
* [[Security design]]
* [[Trap design]]
* [[Military design]]
* [[Stockpile design]]
* [[Workshop design]]
* [[Bedroom design]]
* [[Megaproject]]
* [[Stupid dwarf trick]]
* [[Style project]]

{{Category|Design}}
{{Category|Guides}}
[[ru:Design strategies]]

Design strategies

2020-05-06T15:02:33Z

NecromancerDwarf: /* Lockdown */

{{Quality|Exceptional|13:23, 18 July 2014 (UTC)}}
{{av}}

There are many factors to consider when designing your fort.
* '''Security:''' Every fort needs some basic security measures. Otherwise you won't survive the first [[elephant]] attack, much less a full-blown [[Siege|goblin siege]].
* '''Efficiency:''' Whether hauling rocks, making a booze run, or just checking the contents of a cabinet, dwarves do a lot of walking. A good fortress layout -- especially the proper placement of workshops and stockpiles -- can significantly reduce the time your dwarves spend walking.
* '''Aesthetics:''' Hey, everybody wants a fortress that looks good.

In addition to the considerations above, it's also important to remember that long-term design strategies can easily be disrupted by the discovery of underground terrain features. Don't plan ''too'' far ahead, as you might need to adapt to unforeseen obstacles.

Also, there are several [[Main:Blueprint Library|design idioms]] of common usage like [[pump stack]]s.

==Security==
Everyone will have their own preferences regarding fortress defense and how to deal with undead, wildlife, hostiles and goblin invaders. Regardless of specifics, it's important to have a plan for dealing with the several different types of inevitable attacks. A few security tips are given below.

The single most important thing to remember is that in an emergency, your dwarves will be too panicked to react to orders. Prepare for every type of threat (both military and engineering, in the form of floods or other Fun) ''before'' it finds you, or it will be too late.

===Walls===
Walls are, by far and away, the single most powerful tool you have to combat enemies. Walls are currently invincible against any known force but the mighty dwarven [[pick]]. Putting a wall between your vulnerable and valuable civilians (and the others, too, why not?) and the things trying to kill them is the highest priority you have.

Building walls can take time and micromanagement, but building a maze (and stuffing it with traps) is a good way to slow invaders down, especially if you get forewarning from scouts. The longer invaders take to reach you, the more time you have to get your militia in place. However, since the advent of [[climb]]ing, keep in mind that just having 1-z-level walls are not enough. Place [[fortifications]] at the tops to stop climbers.

Digging ditches/moats, then removing the ramps can also be useful as a faster method of creating impassable terrain for non-fliers, which have the added advantage of allowing marksdwarves to shoot over them. Easier still is just using the "natural walls" of a hill, and removing all the ramps on one side or the other of the hill while building walls between the gaps. Climbing, however, makes this not enough for all circumstances. Either carve or build unclimbable [[fortifications]], or else dig another z-level down, and then dig two tiles under the rim of your platform to create an overhang that is impossible to climb.

Excavating fortresses by digging them out naturally creates walls, and makes for easy defenses, since it is far easier to designate for digging than to build a wall. Enclosed caves are also proof against flying monsters. At first, you might simply dig into a wall and put up a door, but consider making a large, extended underground tunnel, or preferably several tunnels, all of which can be locked down, and then walling over your initial entrance so that you can force enemies to approach your fort on your terms, and at a time and place of your choosing. If defenses in one tunnel don't work, lock it down, and leave a different one open, so that they have to run back through your killzone to try approaching a different one.

===Lockdown===
Have a way to lock down your fortress. In the event of an attack by hostiles you can't handle, you need a way to lock them out. This can buy you some time while your dwarves prepare their defenses.

For small forts, this could be as simple as placing [[door]]s at all the entrances to your fort. Doors can be locked instantly in an emergency. Don't rely on doors alone for security, though, as you'll eventually encounter enemies that can [[Building destroyer|break down doors]] and [[Thief|pick locks]].

Doors are important even within your fortress. [[Tantrum]]ing dwarves are the bane of every established fort. Having a way to segregate your dwarves so that they don't run into a dwarf on a rampage can save whole forts, much less individual lives. Doors can also stop flooding, and act as bulkheads that isolate breaches if you accidentally flood your fort. Having secondary hallways to route around problem areas is also a sound strategy for making doubly sure your fortress can survive a breach of defenses. If everything in your fort must travel through a single hallway or central staircase, anything that reaches that point can almost be guaranteed to kill your fort.

For more security, place [[Bridge|drawbridges]] at all the entrances. You don't need a moat; the bridge itself is sufficient since it functions as a wall when raised. Just be sure to connect it to a [[lever]] that your dwarves can access quickly ''and safely'' in an emergency. Unfortunately, even drawbridges can be rendered inoperable in rare circumstances....

To have a dwarf ready to pull a lever in case of an ambush it's best to place them near the meeting hall. You can also make dedicated leverdwarves by turning off all their labors and assigning the levers to them. [[Vampires]] and [[necromancer]]s are very good for this job, as they do not require sleep, however their [[mood]] may be a problem. To avoid this, make sure you have a tavern keeper to give them alcohol.

Finally, don't forget about attackers from above and below!
Flying attackers might use skylights to bypass your doors and drawbridges. [[Farming|Farms]], even "aboveground" farms, can be placed underground with exploits, but some of the best [[tree]]s grow aboveground. Use drawbridges on even the walled-in exits to the surface in case of [[giant kea]]s or [[roc]]s.

Swimming beasts might crawl up through your [[well]]. It is best to use water from sources that are completely walled off from the outside world, like a [[reservoir]] fed by an [[aquifer]]. You can also use a [[screw pump]] pulling through a floor [[grate]] to prevent hostiles (and [[building destroyer]]s) from swimming into your fortress. (The same holds doubly true for magma cisterns.)

Creating multiple entrances that can be locked down can force an invasion to stop in its tracks, reverse course, and march all the way around the map to get access to your fort. Repeatedly yanking the drawbridge up, forcing them to go back to a different entrance, and letting that drawbridge back down while pulling up the one the assault was going for then can keep an invasion in limbo for a very long time, giving sleeping or drinking milita dwarves a chance to get their act together, or to let a repeater spike [[trap]] murder everything on the 12th pass.

===Scouts===
Ambushes and thieves can sneak up on your fortress. A party of goblin archers might sneak past your main gate before being spotted, or a kobold could make off with your masterpiece crafts when nobody is looking. The way to avoid these unfortunate events is to use scouts / lookouts.

For small forts, effective scouting could be as simple as [[Restraint|tying]] a [[Dog|war dog]] (or even a donkey) up near the entrance of your fort. In the event of an ambush the animal will spot the attackers (shortly before dying). If your scouts are far enough from your main gate then you ought to have enough warning to lock down the fort, activate the militia, etc.

For more established forts, placing any sort of non-eating domestic animal in a 1-tile pasture on top of a grate that allows it to look downwards, or behind windows from a single z-level above the hallways protects your stalwart watch-geese so that you don't have to keep sending out more replacement dogs. Save the good war animals for a "Doberman Bomb" (cage linked to a release lever) that unleashes dozens of animals on invaders at once, rather than letting the invaders murder your dogs one at a time.

===Caravan security===
Is your trade depot going to be inside or outside your main line of defenses? This is another factor to consider when designing your fort. Although you don't have to protect the traders, their [[civilization]]s might hold your fortress responsible for any casualties.

Consider that merchants may go [[insane]] if kept in place, or if they get affected with a [[syndrome]], so it is possibly best to have a means of segregating the rest of your fort from the trade depot, like a drawbridge-wall. At the same time, you need to load goods into and out of the depot quickly, so it should be near major stockpiles and where your haulers usually spend their time.

A [[caravan]] needs a 3-tile-wide entrance (preferably a [[road]] where you aren't placing traps to prevent a [[tree]] from growing in the path) so they tend to complicate defenses. Consider using a retractable drawbridge to allow/disallow certain entrance and exit routes from your fort. An "elevated highway" exit from your fortress that is only accessible after throwing a switch leaves an exit that allows merchants to leave in safety if a siege happens while they are trading, but entrance paths need to be kept clear, regardless. [[Siege]]s and [[ambush]]es only start from map edges that can path to your dining hall, while a caravan starts from areas that path to a valid trade depot. If you use drawbridges to cut off access to your fort from the trade depot until after the caravan passes (and you raise) a drawbridge that cuts off outsider access to the trade depot, and you then let down a drawbridge to an elevated walkway that normally grants access to nothing, you can generally ensure no [[ambush]] will follow your trading partners in. (Although the degree of engineering may force you to wait several years...)

===Traps===
[[Trap]]s are a great way to protect your fort from small groups of attackers. When designing your fort, think about where you want to place traps. Choke points at major entrances (including entrances to the [[caverns]]) make good trap locations. However, be warned that some enemies are immune to traps....

Spikes/spear traps set to levers you order dwarves to repeatedly pull or attach to a repeater are capable of hurting creatures that can avoid traps, but require great stretches of killzone to operate effectively.

Deliberately-induced cave-ins, such as by linking a pillar to a lever, and dropping an otherwise unsupported wall, creates deadly [[dust]] that can knock even trap-immune creatures unconscious, which renders them vulnerable to ordinary traps. Cage a titanic beast, and put it in your zoo for the kids to marvel at!

Advanced dwarven techniques include methods of flooding and draining killzones with dangerous fluids like [[water]] or [[magma]], or both to [[obsidian]]-cast the problem, which is guaranteed to kill any physical threat in existence. Other methods include controlled fires (often caused by controlled magma release). These, however, are potentially very [[Fun]] tools, so be sure you understand what you are dealing with before you set yourself to it. (Or just make it a learning experience when you mess up an early fort. Hey, Fun IS fun, after all!)

===Staging area===
Many players like to design their forts with a militia staging area at the main entrance. Usually this includes placing [[fortification]]s (possibly in archer towers), ammunition stockpiles, and cover for your melee dwarves to protect them from approaching archers.

If you want to rely on marksdwarves, consider fortress entrance designs that favor their method of attack. Make the only entrance a snaking series of bridges that force invaders to zig-zag in front of your marksdwarves. If that doesn't provide enough time to kill them all, stack several floors of snaking bridges, and let your marksdwarves simply climb a couple stairs to get to the next killzone between rounds. If you rely heavily on marksdwarves, remember that sieges can also contain elite archers that fire through fortifications. Prepare a 1-tile-wide drawbridge "shutter" that can block sight in front of the fortifications to protect vulnerable marksdwarves or allow for recovery of the wounded if you want to try out-shooting an elite archer.

Some players also like to place a [[Barracks|training barracks]] near the entrance to the fort so that the militia can quickly respond to attackers. Putting it outside is even better as it also prevents cave adaption on your soldiers which can give you an edge in a siege, as more serious cases of cave adaption severely cut the speed of the affected dwarf. If you don't let your military dwarves outside that often, let them fight in the shade; Make your staging area underground, and just wait for the siege to roll into your staging area, instead.

Staging areas can also come with some extra help - a cage filled with every random potentially dangerous creature you don't need pastured can, when released, provide a massive (and potentially hilarious) distraction. Even a barrage of 40 kittens can bog down invaders enough that a lone swordsdwarf can fight enemies one-by-one.

==Efficiency==

Although many actions in the game take time, and skill levels significantly reduce the time the actual crafting of items or resource gathering takes, by and large, the OVERWHELMING majority of wasted productivity comes from dwarves having to march great distances to reach a raw material for their crafting needs. Even worse, if they get thirsty while hunting down that stray boulder at the bottom floor of the mines, they'll go all the way back up for their drink, and have to take the trek back down again, later. As such, efficiency is all about shortening the trips your craftsdwarves must take as much as possible.

Proper placement of [[stockpile]]s is key. Almost every workshop job needs raw materials. Is your [[still]] near some empty barrels and plants? Does your mason have easy access to stone? A smelter must have quick access to both ore and fuel.

As a general rule of thumb, each workshop should have at least a 3x3 stockpile area associated with it. Some workshops will need more if multiple raw ingredients are needed. [[Workshop design]] is a science in of itself but one efficient arrangement is to place output stockpiles directly above or below your workshops and connect them with stairs. Another common design is to carve out a 5x5 room and place the 3x3 workshop in the center, leaving 16 surrounding tiles for input storage.

When utilizing a large storage stockpile, for food or wood for example, the optimal approach is to place a small stockpile next to the workshop and have the small stockpile [[Stockpile#Take_from_a_stockpile/workshop|take]] from the large stockpile.

There are a few other things to consider for basic fortress efficiency:
* Major hallways should be at least two tiles wide, preferably three tiles. Otherwise your dwarves will be constantly running into each other causing productivity and possible [[Maximizing_framerate#Fortress_Design|framerate]] to be slowed.
* To reduce the amount of time that your dwarves spend walking, common areas should be placed near the center of your fort. Dwarves drink frequently. It's a good idea to store your booze in a centralized location, and to designate a [[meeting hall]] in a similarly centralized place.
* An efficient fortress must make good use of all three dimensions. A dwarf climbs or descends one [[z-level]] in the same time it takes to move one step horizontally. For example, when you need to build more bedrooms it can be a lot more efficient to dig down one level than to place the new rooms 20 tiles farther from the center of your fortress.
* Moving one step diagonally takes about 1.4 times as long as moving one step orthogonally. This matches the real world, where Pythagoras tells us that it should take √2 (about 1.414) times as long. You can optimize floor plans for [[pathfinding]] by adopting more circular shapes into your design.
* Similarly, since vertical Z-movement is cheap, the more spherical your fortress is in shape, the less walking there is, overall. Placing workshops side-by-side on a single floor means each additional workshop requires a dwarf move at least 3 more tiles (and if there is a wall or space, 4 or 5 tiles) to reach their destination, and they will be frequently running back and forth between stockpile and workshop. Vertical stacking means a dwarf only moves 1 tile.
* With [[burrow]]s, it is possible to keep some dwarves working in a specific area, so that they never try to take a task half-way across the map, or haul items a long distance through high-volume corridors. For example, you might keep your furnace operators and your weaponsmiths hard at work in their smelters and forges by designating a burrow for them. Make sure you understand burrows before attempting this - if there is no source of food or drink in the burrows a dwarf is restricted to, you may run into some [[tantrum|problems]]. (This means possibly making additional dining rooms just for these dwarves.) Also make sure the dwarves' quarters (or at least a dormitory) are inside the burrow.
* A more advanced technique is to segregate your fortress by raw material, and have separate "wings" or "nodes" of the fortress for different types of material. All woodworking workshops, for example, are connected to a vertical shaft dug down from a stockpile near the front gate that takes in lumber from outside, where craftsdwarves only need to travel 3 tiles horizontally to the stairs, 1-4 z-levels up the stairs, and a tile to the side to reach their lumber supply. Since most industry takes only one general type of raw material (wood, stone, metal/ore, gem, food, cloth,) you can easily segregate by raw material. Put "finished product" stockpiles on a separate floor, as well.
* Place your residential sectors (housing, food, and drink) as close to the workplace as possible. Dwarves waste most of their non-working time just walking to the drink supply. Make that as short as possible. Don't be afraid to make secondary alcohol stockpiles, and you can actually put residences for craftsdwarves right under the stack of workshops. Legendary dining halls are tougher to make in droves, but not so tough you can't do it with an established fort.
* [[Block]]s can substitute for raw rock for construction purposes, but are much lighter. If you are digging in a depth of 100z and need many rocks for building structures at the surface, you should set up a rock storage and a mason´s workshop at 100z to permanently make blocks, and use the blocks for the construction. This is a full-time job for one mason, but the speed of the construction dwarves is increased a lot.

==Aesthetics==
Aesthetics are completely subjective, of course, but it's still something you may want to consider when designing your fort.
* Symmetry is often the ''easiest'' path to visual appeal, but it may be hard to balance with function. Asymmetry can look great but requires more skill to look graceful.
* Conform to either mostly organic shapes or mostly inorganic shapes. A mixture ''probably'' won't look very good.
* Try digging passages out of [[stone]] rather than [[soil]]. Although digging in stone is slower and messier, stone can eventually be smoothed and engraved, and yields a usable material. Soil, on the other hand, is ugly and much less dwarfy (although being excessive and paving stone over everything is arguably ''more'' dwarfy).
* Use stockpile settings to consistently build your furniture and blocks from a single type of material. Bedrooms tend to look nicer when the furniture is uniform.
* Alternatively, if you like lots of [[color]] and [[Style_project|variety]], you can use the stockpile and workshop settings to make sure your dwarves use lots of different materials.
* [[Ramp]]s are generally more aesthetically pleasing than the extremely narrow switchback [[stairs]], but carry a much larger cost in efficiency and ease of construction.

== Further Reading ==
For an in-depth examination of topics relating to fortress layout, these pages focus on specific aspects, mostly with an eye to improving survivability. Some of these are not directly related to architecture but are useful nonetheless.
* [[Defense guide]]
* [[Security design]]
* [[Trap design]]
* [[Military design]]
* [[Stockpile design]]
* [[Workshop design]]
* [[Bedroom design]]
* [[Megaproject]]
* [[Stupid dwarf trick]]
* [[Style project]]

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{{Category|Guides}}
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