User:Karpatius

"No Plan is Perfect"

Plan 371: Entrychamber of Final Disappointment
Dig a tall, narrow chamber into the fortress. Fill the chamber with a vertical stair maze, going up and down randomly and taking a path towards the entrance when space allows, as the only means of entering your actual fortress gate.
An assigned Gatekeeper or a pressure plate near the end of the maze will ensure safety of the fort and keep the masons busy.

Difficulty: slight; with security moderate
Usefulness: usable, so a bad dwarf trick

Flaw: flying enemies
Correction: fortification corridors along the chamber walls, train only archers in the fort

Bonus: lava moat
Bonus: have a giant gate at the end of the chamber

Bonus: lock the doors just before invaders reach your fort and flood the chamber
Mega Bonus: make it magma instead
Mega Mega Bonus: mix water and magma, mine out he valuable obsidian, rebuild, rinse and repeat

Plan 27: The Vault
Dig a complex big enough for several rooms and create a farm, some workshops and haul in a few animals. Make sure you have as many crops available inside the vault. Next, dig a chamber around the complex and create a watertight, collapsible ( either destruction or otherwise ) corridor from one of the walls into the complex with a gate at the complex end. Flood the chamber with water and in case of trouble run into the complex and seal yourself in.

Difficulty: moderate. The entry corridor and safe flooding might take some thingking.
Usefulness: possibly save a few dwarfs or the entire fortress by locking them in a pressure chamber. Since this is pretty much long-term suicidal, a decent dwarf trick

Flaw: tantrum spiral if relatives didn't make it in
Solution: fancy and artifact furniture

Bonus: water tank below the complex to ensure lastability
Bonus: instead of water, create lava
Bonus: if you used lava, make underground aqueducts for plumbing

Slorga Rustbeard, Part-time Evil Genius

Competent Fortress Designer
Accomplished Paranoid
Dabbling Comedian
Consoler
Novice Conversationalist
Novice Flatterer
Accomplished Game Tester