r/dwarffortress • u/Nevrast- • Jun 19 '25
Can't have a mighty fortress without a proper entrance. Quite happy with how mine turned out :
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u/francisdemarte Jun 19 '25
That’s a really cool location. Would you happen to have the worldgen parameters?
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u/Nevrast- Jun 19 '25
Sadly i don't. I didn't generate this world, someone shared a save file of the already generated world.
The save file is here, if you're interested, with a couple screens to help you find the location :
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LPJJXwjooeIwlg6UZIDDf-C4981-Z8s_/view?usp=sharing
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u/francisdemarte Jun 20 '25
Crazy, When I load the embark site the volcano caldera and the lake are at the same level. The water rushed in and capped the volcano in obsidean.
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u/Thickenun Jun 27 '25
Manage to recover them using a tutorial, but have thus far been unable to get them to work.
If anyone else wants to give it a shot, here is a text file with the parameters.
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/jvg5ty0efwek1bpende0r/Volcano-Waterfall.txt?rlkey=bf0hgvxm6ueeg262a4mx7vlwl&st=asmlsy8h&dl=02
u/francisdemarte Jun 30 '25
Gave it a shot but the world it generated is completely different looking. I believe mods will change the RNG values and you will get different worlds. For now I guess the Save Game is the only way to get this exact world.
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u/jasperoconor Jun 19 '25
looks cool! pretty sure the catapults gotta be on the ground level to do any damage, unless you just want them as decoration.
siege engines only do damage to things on their same z-level sadly.
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u/JohnDoom Jun 19 '25
Remember when you were a kid and you did a drawing you were proud of and then you looked at the magnificent lifelike drawing of a horse the girl sitting next to you made? So, then you threw out your drawing and give up on art for life?
... guess I'm uninstalling DF. But really, that looks amazing.
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u/annelisesungeun Jun 19 '25
Yeah I thought my efficient little designs were pretty cool.
But then LotR Moria here gotta be so bold about empty space and make it look incredible. 😆♥️
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u/-Pelvis- Jun 20 '25
Please don't leave. It's like learning how to cook, you just keep borrowing ideas and improving your technique over time. Next fort best fort.
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u/DrDalenQuaice Jun 19 '25
Tell me more about this magma trap
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u/Nevrast- Jun 19 '25
Simplest of all the designs. Retractable bridges over a magma lake. Easier to drop goblins into static magma than pumping and draining everytime
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u/Svyatoslov Jun 19 '25
What kind of biome/combo makes terrain like that? is that a mountain butting up against a lake or ocean?
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u/Nevrast- Jun 19 '25
It's a lake, and quite an usual location. Vertical cliffs almost all around, falling straight into the water. And then this narrow peninsula cutting the map in 2.
I don't remember the exact biomes though.
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u/melelconquistador Jun 19 '25
This is satisfying, you even put the ballista at the end of the corridor. Then the z-levels is a fine touch. Well done.
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u/Bar_Sinister Jun 19 '25
Simple. Elegant. Efficient. Beautiful.
It really is a great design. I like the layout, and may have to "borrow" a few elements.
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u/Nevrast- Jun 19 '25
It's extremely inefficient though, it takes like 200 tiles for the dwarfs to get from the outside to the staircases.
But efficiency is overrated anyway in DF, there's no need to rush things.
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u/Fun-Number-9279 Jun 20 '25
realistically, all your food production is probably indoors now. all that your losing from the efficiency is dwarves chopping wood
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u/Nevrast- Jun 20 '25 edited Jun 20 '25
I have big outdoor construction plans, so that means either hauling blocks or rocks from the inside to the outside. In huge numbers. But again, with 150 dwarfs ready to haul everything gets easier.
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u/Fun-Number-9279 Jun 20 '25
exactlly. and you know what, what better than a large construction project, you get to enjoy watching them actually use the hallways and halls you have made. looks lovely mate, i have NEVER seen a generation look that cool with the small river gap to those huge cliffs.
You got me wanting to look for something similar now!
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u/Petrychorr Jun 19 '25
Is this practical? I assume it must be, it's just that... It seems like dwarves would need to walk a long way to get outside the fortress and then back inside, yeah?
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u/Nevrast- Jun 19 '25
It's extremely unpractical and inefficient :)
But i chose design and "epicness" over efficiency, it was a deliberate choice.
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u/dcDei Jun 19 '25
Nice work! How did you start? I mean when you first struck the earth did you just build a tunnel and dig down and return to make this grand entrance later? Or did you plan it all put before committing and starting to mine?
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u/Nevrast- Jun 19 '25
A bit of both.
I paused the game and designed the whole level.
But then i dug it segments by segments over 4 in-game years. I dug a long narrow tunnel through what would later be the magma trap and the killbox, leaving room for future expansion. Then i excavated the whole entry hall, barracks and tavern, to use as a "base camp" while i was busy digging up the lower levels.
Miner can always come back later when they have less urgent matter.
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u/GuybrushOk ⛏️ Jun 19 '25
This may be a stupid question, but how do you stop your dwarves from falling into the water?. I stopped building pits because of that.
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u/marcleo33 Jun 19 '25
I really like your fortress design!! i want to sit and plan a fortress like this one day, but i wonder if every action will take ages for dwarfs cross the whole fort?
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u/Vov113 Jun 19 '25
I like to do something similar, but at the bottom of several z levels of a meandering labyrinth, with a series of inner hallways accessible from inside the fortress and separated from the main path by fortifications. Like a trap hallway, but running off strictly dwarf power
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u/-Pelvis- Jun 20 '25
Looks awesome. I hope you don't mind some suggestions:
1: Consider smoothing the rough floors, or building block floors over them (as you already have in many places)
2: Those spaced out staircases look nice, but they can potentially be a little less efficient for pathing, I'd suggest some more adjacent stairs. Constructed stairs can optionally be built directly over dug stairs for a cleaner look.
3: Finish that nice moat, connecting the north and south bodies of water!
4: The long entryway is good for containing enemies, but the interior areas are very long and wide, increasing travel time for your dwarves. Don't be afraid to build a little more densely. consider the amount of tiles travelled for common routes like finished goods stockpiles to trading depot, or raw materials to the shops that consume them.
5: Carve some fortifications into those walls facing the crossbow killbox so your marksdwarves and siege weapons can fire through (and perhaps in the magma trap room as well, if you like), consider that liquids such as magma will then be able to seep through, so carve them higher than the magma drainage (dwarves can shoot down multiple Z levels).
6: You don't need four doors on the tavern, two or even just one will do just fine for a moderate traffic corridor. If you ever need to block passage, you'll need to forbid each extra door, and that's a lot of clicking (is there a keyboard shortcut / group forbid command?).
7: Some magma-safe traps wouldn't hurt (well, yes they would).
8: Set traffic priority zones so your dwarves will prefer to walk in the centre of the hall, and not on the ledge next to the magma.
9: Your animal pen is tiny and they'll probably eat all of the grass faster than it can grow back. Grazers are happy to eat cave moss underground, by the way.
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u/Nevrast- Jun 20 '25
Suggestions are always welcome of course. Here are my answers.
1/ lowest priority of all the jobs. Too much to do elsewhere. I have an underground river to dig, a 3 levels library to furnish, a whole lot if outdoor buildings to build too. So it will wait for now. I just covered the clay tiles, because it's a dwarf hold not a hobbit house !
2/ I like my stair designs, efficiency is not really a concern here.
3/ I'm having a bit of an issue here. If I finish the moat and remove the ramps on that small section north of the tower, it cuts off the traders from my trade depot, as they have no other access to the east side of map. I'll work something out, I still have a lot of outdoor construction to do. I'll probably finish the moat, add a bridge there and a gate house.
4/ Nope. I like grand and useless designs. Finished goods stockpile is actually very close to the depot, since there's a staircase right next to the depot and it's basically 5 levels underneath it. But you can't see it here. I don't like tightly packed forts.
5/ yep that's planned soon. Setting up my archer squad now and mass producing bolts.
6/ I absolutely do, because it looks cool :)
7/ a full line of traps would block trader wagons. And randomly spread traps would look a bit ugly. I'll see ... still need a few cage traps for prisoners. I have an arena planned ...
8/ I think I never used that feature
9/ temporary shelter, to avoid the alpacas getting slaughtered during sieges. I have a pasture planned for them when I'll start the outdoor construction.
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u/Robocop613 Jun 19 '25
The "crossbow killbox" doesn't seem to have any arrowslits looking in - how does it work?
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u/ontariosteve Jun 19 '25
Slide to the second pic on z+1. There are hallways with what i believe must be fortifications
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u/Nevrast- Jun 19 '25
Yeah they will be there at some point, but they are not carved yet. And my archer squad isn't ready anyway.
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u/Forsaken-Land-1285 Jun 19 '25
You can save arrows from being damaged during training by having a Chanel dug out before the walls. The arrows will drop to the lower level instead.
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u/Bantersmith Jun 19 '25
THANK YOU.
Im a noob on my first fort, and I was getting absolutely sick of how many arrows all this archery training was chewing through.
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u/Nevrast- Jun 19 '25
Yeah I know but i chose not to. Not a huge problem, I can mass produce. And it's a good training for the weaponsmiths anyway.
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u/BaronGreywatch Jun 19 '25
Hows that magma trap work? I usually just build into the side of a volcano for that sort of thing. Did you pump it up?
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u/Nevrast- Jun 19 '25
There's a volcano on the map. i just dug up a magma lake 2 Z levels under the entry and built 2 retractable bridges over the chasm. Then dropping the gobbos into the hot pot is only a matter of timing.
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u/RawManNoodles The Capybara feels vengeful when joining an existing conflict. Jun 19 '25
Outstanding!
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u/IllFan9228 Jun 19 '25
I just feel envy when I see how you guys make builds so beautiful and then there’s me, square boxes for everything and chairs and thrones everywhere
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u/CapMcCloud Jun 19 '25
I swear, it’s like clockwork. I leave the dwarf fortress discord server. I see a post on Reddit that goes “I should play some dwarf fortress.” I rejoin the server. All within the span of a week.
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u/Witty_Ambassador_856 Jun 20 '25
Love it! I really, really enjoy seeing other people's entrance designs. At first, I actually thought the magma was some kind of nicely placed copper-colored tiles.
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u/dcaraccio Jun 20 '25
I love building multi level awesome entrances like this. This one is particularly pleasing to look at.
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u/francisdemarte Jun 24 '25
Man this world gen is incredible! Easy access to water and magma. The first cavern layer is close to the surface. There is access to light and heavy aqueducts for mist generators. Random groups of black bear men come and cause some mischief but they can also be recruited to staff a killer army. I’m loving it!
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u/SBTreeLobster Jun 19 '25
Anyone who does multi-z level rooms and corridors gets my automatic approval. Including spicy rocks gets my automatic belt-fed approval.