@@BodywiseMustardguessing they mean "it would be cool to have a 10,000 dwarf strong fortress." naturally, this would lag out even the most powerful cpus
Quantum computers are more good at calculating all the possible answers for one thing and only returning the correct one. For things that only have one answer that we are pretty sure if of - like game programming, running graphics, office work, or most kinds of math - normal processors work better then the quantum kind. Think of it as two types of question - one is "guess the number I'm thinking of between one and ten billion" The normal processor says "First I'll guess one. Then I'll guess two. Then I'll guess...." and keeps going until it gets it even though it takes a long time. The quantum computer says "I'm pretty sure you are thinking of 105831. I'm like 60% certain on that. Let me triple check." Then you ask "what's 2+2" and the regular processor will say "4" but the quantum computer will say. "I'm pretty sure it's 4. I'm 90% certain. Let me double check." Fortunately even though they can't make normal processors smaller they have figured out how to make them 3D instead of flat - and that packs in a lot more processing power into a tighter area. Anyways I guess I'm saying I know too much about processors - and we probably will be able to run a fort that big one day even if quantum computing is more of a specialist use kinda thing. lol
DfHack has a tool called suspend manager that makes building walls easier, if a wall "A" build is one that would block another wall "B" from being built, it stops wall "A" from being built until wall "B" is done Its pretty neat
it also sadly does the same between any order be it buildings, engravings or furniture which caused me to get 3 defaced masterwork engravings alerts lately lol
It kinda work for walls except the ones right to the stairs, so id avdice build every wall except those in 1 tile range from stairs and then build those
i once had a fortress entirely focused on building 'micro fortresses' within the caverns, i went about using burrows to give various groups of dwarves places to settle and it went well (excluding some villages here and there getting wiped out by my own mismamagement) for a while until the circus came to town.
@@arthurbarros5189 I use bridges and stairs up then deconstruct everything when its done. I also allow all the dwarves to build wood bridges so you don't have to wait for the right dwarf to be free.
"Procedurally Generated Weirdos" sounds like a band name. I've found that one of the (relatively) easier ways to handle building multi-level walls is by using bridges as scaffolding. It's an extra step but helps keeps dwarfs from trapping themselves or their materials in the walls.
2:45 I've always placed floors next to each level so that the dwarfs can access any part of the wall whenever needed, it costs more resources but it much faster and reliable
My favourite way to block off large swathes of cavern is to use natural stone plugs. You work out how many Z-levels you need, add 2 and mine over there that many Z-levels above the ceiling. You place a support somewhere on top of the plug connecting to the ceiling above it and hook it up to a lever a really good distance away. Then you channel down around the plug all the way until you breach the ceiling of the cavern. The only thing connecting the plug should be the support. Forbid the area below the plug, forbid all the areas near the plug, forbid a 50 block radius from the plug. Pull the lever and watch as a giant, shaped to fit, pillar of natural stone crashes mightily into the cavern below, cutting off access from the outside. Then all you need to do is cover the holes in the ceiling left around the edges from hewing it from the roof and you have yourself a natural stone wall. Extra fun, if you've trapped a flightless FB somewhere, is cutting out a 2-3 Z-level plug above it and dropping it on its head. It doesn't always kill them in my experience but they're certainly easier to finish off when 1/3rd of their body is missing and they're bleeding profusely from half of the remaining 2. Dropping a plug into water is also quite the spectacle. All of it a prime opportunity for dorfs to be dorfy and get into all sorts of mortal trouble.
I have a trapped skinless pteradon that I assume can fly despite having no skin. Any wacky dwarf fortress shenanigans I can do to that? That *thing* turned a reacher into a puddle in 1 attack and I don’t have expendables to throw at it
@@Ekdrink oh, absolutely. Create an airlock type system, lure in sieges, close the airlock (drawbridge bridge) behind them, and "RELEASE THE BEAST". Create a "roofed" fighting pit to throw your prisoners of war into that has an opening you can let the beast in through. Stage coloseum-style fights for enemies your dorfy state. Eventually, depending on its stats, it'll take enough damage that you can (somewhat, haha) use it to train dorfs on, although it'll quickly expire if it's no longer at the point where it can easily kill them, since dorfs learn pretty quick fighting opponents like that.
Guys, do yourself a favor and build directly at the edge. Those empty spaces over time fill with animal people invasions and other FPS destroyers. And once you finaly decide to clear these, your dwarfs stand against an army of 200 bat spearmen that accumulated...
Just build fortifications and have a squad of crossbow men. Or build some lever activated traps in the areas if theres to much a threat to your dwarfs.
@@Lickicker Batmen can fly and often cling to a wall several z levels above the floor if I remember it right. So you would need crossbowmen on every z level aswell, wich comes with building floors for them to stand on (in case the wall was build without scaffolding). Also I found a part of the cavern completly cut off from the rest once, after a decade in game I stumbled across it mining. So even walling of what seemed to be the whole cavern there were dozends of snakemen riding giant rats 🙄😆
as a person who has built many a cavern wall, and only watched the first 2 minutes and 42 seconds, my best method thus far is to build/carve a wall of up/down stairs first, a scaffold for construction. Then the entire wall can be built without denying access to other segments. You can throw down the blueprints for both at the same time. Dismantling the scaffolding can be tedious as you do 1 layer at a time, but it isn't necessary.
my preferred way to build multistory walls is to build a floor scaffolding type deal along one edge of it with one row of floor tiles. that way you can build them all at once, and then later deconstruct the scaffolding the slow way if you want. downside is of course the increased materials needed.
You can build multi-Z level walls with little micromanagement by designating floors alongside the intended walls. The floors will allow them access to any of the to be constructed walls without difficulties. Takes a few more resources and a bit more time, but is much less frustrating to do.
I usually build a one-tile-wide bridge along the second (and higher) story of the wall, then deconstruct it once the wall is finished. Way less hassle and resources than floors.
One way to help build in height is to use bridge as scaffolding. With a single stair case and two bridge on each level you can easily build up to 41 length of wall (each bridge as a max length of 20 if I remember right), with little micro needed on the wall itself.
@@ben5056 It cost more material then when just microing the wall construction, but it is way faster construction on large project and way less micro. But you can just deconstruction the scaffolds, once you done, to get back the materials.
I've done this with fortifications built into the second and third Z levels of the walls. My marksdwarf squads would spend days ruthlessly slaughtering waves of molepeople and becoming legendary marksdwarves in the process (along with accumulating massive psychological trauma from the bloodbaths they created)
Its all about scaffolding. You need to put up a wood floor all the way along each layer of wall. Deconstructing that scaffolding? now thats the tricky part. So if you want to be extra canny you can make the scaffolding one space away and then make connecting tissue to wall your building. Then you have the scaffolding under a support thats connected to a leaver. You build the wall all the way once the scaffolding is done. Then when the walls done you deconstruct all those connecting parts that are in-between the wall the walkway. Then you pull the leave and the whole thing collapses into matchsticks. That is if you made the scaffolding with wood. If you made it with stone the impact of the falling stone will come crashing through your basses ceiling. This has happened to me and it was FUN. God i love DF
I remember building a great cavern wall system back in ascii. I accidentally built them too close to the border and the forgotten beasts spawned at the top of the wall! Oops
forgotten beasts spawn at the very edge of the settlement border; You should build the wall set a little bit back from the border proper. About 1 - 3 tiles away from the border, like in Hoodie's video. Make sure to build the wall up to the top of the cave to protect against flying beasts!@@ben5056
You don't need to build pastures or tree farms in the caverns. You can just crack into the cavern to release the spores, then immediately wall it off. The indoor soil at the upper layers of your fort will then start growing grass and mushroom trees.
Have you tried building scaffolds? Instead of just one stairs going up accessing all the floors, use a cheap material and treat the stairs like scaffold, building one adjacent to every wall. They're easy to disassemble at the end.
it's very easy to make a scaffolding behind the walls that you take down one you're done. Outside layer is wall or fortification, inside layer is walking surface and stairs. That way you can just que them up and you're only waiting for the foot paths to be laid.
As someone who has used the wall building strategy for caves, a piece of advice: if you build floors, you can designate them to run adjacent to the walls, which will help with issues where the distant walls aren't being built. Just remember, you can only designate LINES of floors attached to a foundation (like a staircase). If you need to extend it or change it, you'll have to re-designate the building spots. Also, as a result, you can build multiple floors at once this way by first making staircases up to whatever Z level you want, then building the floors on each level, and finally putting the walls when they're available to be built. Very cool tip about the trick of flooring over cavern water spots. Never thought about that. Always thought that draining the water was the only way.
Method I sometimes use is to engineer cave-ins above the borders, particurally for water borders. And it it is in true dwarf fashion either a total death sentence or a perfectly safe procedure depending on whether you're paying attention to what you're doing.
Best way to build multi level walls is to first build scaffolding structures, such as floors or stair to allow dwarves to reach every tile of new wall. This requires more material in upstart and a bit more work from dwarves, but it actually shortens build time since all parts of walls can be built in parallel.
you know you can just build floors alongside walls everytime you span on another z level so that dwarves can safely mess up the order but still manage to build the wall, it is still tedious but it is much better than just manually building it one tile at a time.
Also if you put drawbridge on each wall and separate levers you can control what gets in, so you can trap a herd of tasty elk birds in the caverns for example
One thing I could recommend you do when walling off taverns like this is use something other then wood to block off the entrances. Never know when a forgotten beast that spits fireballs will show up on one end, get into a fight with a different FB, and burn the walls down without meaning to!
There's a more surefire, but a little more resource-intense way to build multi-story walls. Build a stairway as high up as you want, then build floors that span the length of the wall on each floor. It'll cost twice as much to build the walls, but it eliminates 100% of the micromanagement aspect. You can always deconstruct the floors afterward too.
for multy story walls, i build a second row of floors behind the wall, for the dwarves to walk onto while building can remove it later if desired, and its a lot easier to remove one tile at a time han building one tile at a time can also just build a "stair wall" behind the wall, and demolish it floor by floor afterwards
So far in my fortress I have now I managed to catch a dragon that came through. So I put him in a walled off pit and make him fight any goblin invaders I get by throwing them in.
You can use controlled cave ins. You can wall off water like this and ensure dwarfs are never get liine of sight to any scary monsters (the cave in wall will fall through a floor if there is no wall under it). It is a nightmare with aquifers though but fun
You could just build 2 walls on the bottom, 1 on the top. You build the first layer, then the second layer, then stairs up to the second story, then build another wall on top of the first layer. Then if you want to save resources you can deconstruct the second layer and use it for the future walls.
Ez multistory walls: put staircases next to every wall tile. Then you can convert the upper wall tiles to fortifications and use the stairs to set up firing positions
Ive dealt with multi level walls before numerous times, and i just build stairwalls along every single wall tile to make the process smooth, then deconstruct the stairs one level at a time
Maybe make paths to the center and make an arena for those monsters to put on a fight show for dwarves who are looking at them while partying in the pub from the higher floors 😂
I did essentially this in a long lengthy game in a fort called Carnagegalley except I feel like turning off the invaders fully is cheaty (although the default 20 or so is too many every season in cavern 1 and 90ish in cavern2 with mounts is definitely way over board.) So when I walled them in, there was over 300 serpentmen+mounts putting the game in a crawl eventually I dug a series of one way tunnels leading from all cavern layers to a single trap hallway with an option to flood it with magma if they clog all of the traps too much, they also blocked spawns by occupying to capacity every side pocket so when they finally moved away when set loose to make their way to the traps even more showed up and like 9 forgotten beasts that couldn't spawn due to unit density being too full in those tiles now I have endless weapons grade metals as I harvest the shields and spears from the trap pit. Also I hate flooded caverns ever since the day I made a fort that was full of blind fishmen had to glass(obsidian) that whole cavern just to be rid of the amphibious ambushes, that was the first time I turned down cavern invaders and will never allow that setting to be that high again, I had to get to and cut down mushrooms near the edge of the map because they would spawn on top of them then spam pathfinding.
Done this a few times. The most ridiculous obstacle I ran into was a tree growing out of the cavern water on the edge of the map. I needed to construct a ballista and shoot the trunk to get rid of it 😂
If you use DFHack and turn on the SuspendManager, dwarves will usually pick the correct wall segment build order so that they're not boxed in. It's not perfect, but it works fairly well.
The only thing missing is to have a migration corridor going end to end in each cavern that may or may not be filled with deadly traps in order to harvest naturally occurring resources.
In my latest fort, I had an issue with rodent people. I had closed off just enough of the cavern for a farm and then ignored the rest cause they just would not stop coming whenever I opened. But this just meant that they were stacking up out in the cavern. Eventually my ~125 dwarves strong fortress was running at a tiny 8fps, dragged down by the masses of rodent people outside the walls in the caverns just waiting to get in, so whats a dwarf to do? My solution was simple: Flood the cavern with magma to burn the rodent menace. I was already pumping magma up to my main floors between cavern 1 and 2, so extending my pump stack another 10 levels was no big deal. But the magma kept flowing out of the cavern at the lower points, leaving rodents on high places free. So I dug tunnels over every single open cavern side, and dropped water in, casting walls ever higher until there were no more access points and all but the highest parts of the cavern was flooded with magma. The few surviving rodent people were driven insane by being trapped in this area of cave and forced into watching everyone they know and love burn to death. More than doubled my fps despite the fps hits incurred by moving that much liquid, 10/10 would create a magma tomb for annoying cavern neighbours again.
The only true Dwarf way to conquer caverns is to channel to the lava sea, break out 50+ levels of pumping and flood it all with magma. It's the only way to be sure.
would it be a good idea to have a tunnel built that extends a bit beyond the wall, with cage traps lining the floor to gather any magnificent and trainable beasts (and of course something to still keep them behind the border of the fortress)?
I wall my cavern entrances off, then stairwell them down into 3-way-intersection with bridge-barriers filled with cage traps. One way to outside. One way for normies to enter when safe and reload cages. One way to a massive ring road per cave level, and then interconnect the ring road caves, and viola, massive labyrinth that you can trap forgotten beasts and invading armies inside of. To top it off, I will link all bridges from cave to outside to a single lever, and all bridges for trap-reload to a single lever, so I just need to pull two levers to reload all my traps safely.
you can just make the second level walls one tile offset, like the ones at 2:00 would've been easier if you placed the second layer of wall one block left so they can walk on the previous wall and place the next layer as they please
You don't need to micromanage wallbuilding if yoi construvt updown stairs along the wall. This way every dwarf has a path in and out. Just build tjem out of excess lightweight material such as wood
I typically just build stairs up to the top of the walls along the WHOLE wall, but only if it’s small. I think DFHack has a feature for making it be done smartly but that might be considered cheating by some!
Just set up a system of mine carts to regularly dump magma from the magma sea over the edge of the wall and into the edge pockets. Dwarven Hot Pockets.
smart but maybe too foolproof? I'm surprised there aren't monsters that occasionally challenge your walls, necessitating at least a quick reaction force
Doing a lot of wall construction in this game has made DFhack a permanent staple because of the suspend manager making multi level walls and corner walls take no micromanagement
What about the cavern dwellers that invade? Like the ant people? It's been a bit since i've played, but I do recall them just spawning in the caverns and not coming in from the edges.
I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure they just look like they spawn in because they are invisible until spotted by a dwarf. I think they still have to come from the edges.
Quick question: Cant cavern borders be used for a underground road to other dwarven settlements and invite trade and settlers? This is all theoretical... I never managed to find a cavern? Is that because I dig down to stone (generally no more than 5 levels ) and have been focused on community building rather than digging deeper and deeper and deeper. I just make mud basins and make farms there. Sort of additional thought. I ALWAYS use slopes to dig down. I figure I can at the least use minecarts, i can put roads but... are stairs just plain better? Building one deep stairwell down to a cavern?
Do you know if your save will carry over to adventure mode ? Would love to see how everything turned out after the fortress was retired. Similar to an older video you made on the free version
Not played in a while and rarely ever built multi storey walls, but seems to me like the problem is having only a single staircase. If you put staircases next to every space that needs wall, does that not mean they then have the ability to just build any of the wall segments in any order? Or do they still get stuck somehow?
See, now what you should do is build tunnels from each no-man's land on the edges of the caverns that funnel all the creatures into... Something. Depends on what you're after. Wanting to finally start your civilization down the path of fully domesticating and becoming reliant on Draltha and Crundles as livestock? Cage traps and breeding pens. Are wooden targets just not training your marksdwarves and siege operators quick enough because they dont provide a moving target or desensitize your Dwarves to the blood, horror, and cruelty of combat? Cage traps and shooting galleries. Do you need yo practice your skills in designing automated fortress defense systems? Use a system of drawbridges, levers, and doors to control the flow of creatures through practice death mazes until you master the sick, twisted merger of Indiana Jones Tombs and a Saw traps we all know Dwarf Fortress mechanics are truly meant for. Just need to remove FPS-killing nuisaance sprites? Then funnel them into a automatic meat grinding machine with whatever combination of drawbridges, pressure plates, basic minecart logic circuits, magma, and whatever other implements of mechanized suffering seems like it would be the most efficient, elegant, or suitable for your goals. There is much that can be done, here.
You forgot the most important use for conquered caverns: building a massive z-level spanning cavern tavern.
Would be cool if we could run a 10.000 dwarf fortress
@@pooshpoosh9232What does that mean?
@@BodywiseMustardguessing they mean "it would be cool to have a 10,000 dwarf strong fortress." naturally, this would lag out even the most powerful cpus
@@pooshpoosh9232 Maybe when we get quantum computers for the domestic market.
Quantum computers are more good at calculating all the possible answers for one thing and only returning the correct one.
For things that only have one answer that we are pretty sure if of - like game programming, running graphics, office work, or most kinds of math - normal processors work better then the quantum kind.
Think of it as two types of question - one is "guess the number I'm thinking of between one and ten billion"
The normal processor says "First I'll guess one. Then I'll guess two. Then I'll guess...." and keeps going until it gets it even though it takes a long time. The quantum computer says "I'm pretty sure you are thinking of 105831. I'm like 60% certain on that. Let me triple check."
Then you ask "what's 2+2" and the regular processor will say "4" but the quantum computer will say. "I'm pretty sure it's 4. I'm 90% certain. Let me double check."
Fortunately even though they can't make normal processors smaller they have figured out how to make them 3D instead of flat - and that packs in a lot more processing power into a tighter area.
Anyways I guess I'm saying I know too much about processors - and we probably will be able to run a fort that big one day even if quantum computing is more of a specialist use kinda thing. lol
No torture? Needless death? No actual crimes against dorfdom? You're slacking off.
You haven’t posted in 13 years so whose really slacking off?
The lack of death and disaster is so bad they had to break their silence
DfHack has a tool called suspend manager that makes building walls easier, if a wall "A" build is one that would block another wall "B" from being built, it stops wall "A" from being built until wall "B" is done
Its pretty neat
I knew there had to be a DFHack command I was missing! Thank you!
it also sadly does the same between any order be it buildings, engravings or furniture which caused me to get 3 defaced masterwork engravings alerts lately lol
@@hoodiehairyou can also embark directly in the caverns using a dfhack plugin (deep-embark, I think)
It kinda work for walls except the ones right to the stairs, so id avdice build every wall except those in 1 tile range from stairs and then build those
i once had a fortress entirely focused on building 'micro fortresses' within the caverns, i went about using burrows to give various groups of dwarves places to settle and it went well (excluding some villages here and there getting wiped out by my own mismamagement) for a while until the circus came to town.
Classic FUN loving circus
Send in the clooooowns
I tend to just make floors on a side of each level when building multi story walls. It feels faster and seems neat to me, basically scaffolding.
yeah I usually do the same, I was just burning through wood and stone as fast as I could get it with the walls alone
I use bridges. You can build and desconstruct bigger floors faster this way.
@@arthurbarros5189 oh true, will give them a go next time!
@@arthurbarros5189 I use bridges and stairs up then deconstruct everything when its done. I also allow all the dwarves to build wood bridges so you don't have to wait for the right dwarf to be free.
@@hoodiehairMake your logs and boulders into blocks! Absolutely necessary with building projects
"Procedurally Generated Weirdos" sounds like a band name.
I've found that one of the (relatively) easier ways to handle building multi-level walls is by using bridges as scaffolding. It's an extra step but helps keeps dwarfs from trapping themselves or their materials in the walls.
2:45 I've always placed floors next to each level so that the dwarfs can access any part of the wall whenever needed, it costs more resources but it much faster and reliable
Same, I'd rather use more resources than place every single wall by hand..
My favourite way to block off large swathes of cavern is to use natural stone plugs.
You work out how many Z-levels you need, add 2 and mine over there that many Z-levels above the ceiling. You place a support somewhere on top of the plug connecting to the ceiling above it and hook it up to a lever a really good distance away. Then you channel down around the plug all the way until you breach the ceiling of the cavern. The only thing connecting the plug should be the support.
Forbid the area below the plug, forbid all the areas near the plug, forbid a 50 block radius from the plug.
Pull the lever and watch as a giant, shaped to fit, pillar of natural stone crashes mightily into the cavern below, cutting off access from the outside. Then all you need to do is cover the holes in the ceiling left around the edges from hewing it from the roof and you have yourself a natural stone wall.
Extra fun, if you've trapped a flightless FB somewhere, is cutting out a 2-3 Z-level plug above it and dropping it on its head. It doesn't always kill them in my experience but they're certainly easier to finish off when 1/3rd of their body is missing and they're bleeding profusely from half of the remaining 2.
Dropping a plug into water is also quite the spectacle.
All of it a prime opportunity for dorfs to be dorfy and get into all sorts of mortal trouble.
I have a trapped skinless pteradon that I assume can fly despite having no skin. Any wacky dwarf fortress shenanigans I can do to that? That *thing* turned a reacher into a puddle in 1 attack and I don’t have expendables to throw at it
@@Ekdrink oh, absolutely. Create an airlock type system, lure in sieges, close the airlock (drawbridge bridge) behind them, and "RELEASE THE BEAST".
Create a "roofed" fighting pit to throw your prisoners of war into that has an opening you can let the beast in through. Stage coloseum-style fights for enemies your dorfy state.
Eventually, depending on its stats, it'll take enough damage that you can (somewhat, haha) use it to train dorfs on, although it'll quickly expire if it's no longer at the point where it can easily kill them, since dorfs learn pretty quick fighting opponents like that.
Guys, do yourself a favor and build directly at the edge. Those empty spaces over time fill with animal people invasions and other FPS destroyers. And once you finaly decide to clear these, your dwarfs stand against an army of 200 bat spearmen that accumulated...
Just build fortifications and have a squad of crossbow men. Or build some lever activated traps in the areas if theres to much a threat to your dwarfs.
@@Lickicker Batmen can fly and often cling to a wall several z levels above the floor if I remember it right. So you would need crossbowmen on every z level aswell, wich comes with building floors for them to stand on (in case the wall was build without scaffolding).
Also I found a part of the cavern completly cut off from the rest once, after a decade in game I stumbled across it mining. So even walling of what seemed to be the whole cavern there were dozends of snakemen riding giant rats 🙄😆
You can't build at the very edge of the map though. There's a dead zone of about 2-3 tiles iirc
@@eoinmacantsaoir811 Underground I can, overground there is a certain distance, yes.
I’ve seen people say that forgotten beasts will spawn over your walls if you do that tho?
as a person who has built many a cavern wall, and only watched the first 2 minutes and 42 seconds, my best method thus far is to build/carve a wall of up/down stairs first, a scaffold for construction. Then the entire wall can be built without denying access to other segments. You can throw down the blueprints for both at the same time. Dismantling the scaffolding can be tedious as you do 1 layer at a time, but it isn't necessary.
You're insane for building a massive floor over the giant lake instead of just building a wall at the water's edge. But I love it.
Excuse me, but wouldn't a wall at water's edge still allow creatures to come from underwater?
my preferred way to build multistory walls is to build a floor scaffolding type deal along one edge of it with one row of floor tiles. that way you can build them all at once, and then later deconstruct the scaffolding the slow way if you want. downside is of course the increased materials needed.
Or just leave the scaffold and build really thick, hollow walls for style points.
2:30 when I build multi-level walls I always make a row of floors next to my walls.
i use bridges the same way, they are more easy to deconstruct later on
@@artserg2169 I was looking for this comment, bridges as scaffolding for the win!
@@artserg2169me too.
Now in steam version you can make longer than 10 tiles bridges.
@@artserg2169 genius!
scaffolding is always the most important part of construction :)
You can build multi-Z level walls with little micromanagement by designating floors alongside the intended walls. The floors will allow them access to any of the to be constructed walls without difficulties.
Takes a few more resources and a bit more time, but is much less frustrating to do.
I usually build a one-tile-wide bridge along the second (and higher) story of the wall, then deconstruct it once the wall is finished. Way less hassle and resources than floors.
By the way, some forgotten beasts are made out of flame. So, use rock blocks and doors for your walls whenever possible.
One way to help build in height is to use bridge as scaffolding.
With a single stair case and two bridge on each level you can easily build up to 41 length of wall (each bridge as a max length of 20 if I remember right), with little micro needed on the wall itself.
The advantage of bridges is lower material cost and faster build time, right? Neat
@@ben5056 It cost more material then when just microing the wall construction, but it is way faster construction on large project and way less micro. But you can just deconstruction the scaffolds, once you done, to get back the materials.
@iniudan thank for the extra info. I'll try that out next time I need a tall wall
omg hoodiehair uploaded ! !
I've done this with fortifications built into the second and third Z levels of the walls. My marksdwarf squads would spend days ruthlessly slaughtering waves of molepeople and becoming legendary marksdwarves in the process (along with accumulating massive psychological trauma from the bloodbaths they created)
Its all about scaffolding.
You need to put up a wood floor all the way along each layer of wall. Deconstructing that scaffolding? now thats the tricky part.
So if you want to be extra canny you can make the scaffolding one space away and then make connecting tissue to wall your building. Then you have the scaffolding under a support thats connected to a leaver. You build the wall all the way once the scaffolding is done. Then when the walls done you deconstruct all those connecting parts that are in-between the wall the walkway. Then you pull the leave and the whole thing collapses into matchsticks. That is if you made the scaffolding with wood. If you made it with stone the impact of the falling stone will come crashing through your basses ceiling. This has happened to me and it was FUN.
God i love DF
I remember building a great cavern wall system back in ascii. I accidentally built them too close to the border and the forgotten beasts spawned at the top of the wall! Oops
How many tiles away should they be?
forgotten beasts spawn at the very edge of the settlement border; You should build the wall set a little bit back from the border proper. About 1 - 3 tiles away from the border, like in Hoodie's video. Make sure to build the wall up to the top of the cave to protect against flying beasts!@@ben5056
@@ben5056 Same amount as in the video, 4-7 to be safe
@@MasterChief-ie2xu thank you!
Easiest way to build multi story wall is to build a multi story staircase then the wall next to it.
Build one vertical stair every 3 tiles inside the wall first then you can build each layer fully with minimal management
Or just use dfhack
You don't need to build pastures or tree farms in the caverns. You can just crack into the cavern to release the spores, then immediately wall it off. The indoor soil at the upper layers of your fort will then start growing grass and mushroom trees.
you can use the mod DF hack to have your dwarfs micro managed by itself.
DF hack is a must...as its an oversight by the dev, i dont see it as a hack.
Have you tried building scaffolds? Instead of just one stairs going up accessing all the floors, use a cheap material and treat the stairs like scaffold, building one adjacent to every wall. They're easy to disassemble at the end.
I use floors on my side of the wall, on each level. That way they can walk along the flooring to build the wall in any order.
it's very easy to make a scaffolding behind the walls that you take down one you're done. Outside layer is wall or fortification, inside layer is walking surface and stairs. That way you can just que them up and you're only waiting for the foot paths to be laid.
As someone who has used the wall building strategy for caves, a piece of advice: if you build floors, you can designate them to run adjacent to the walls, which will help with issues where the distant walls aren't being built. Just remember, you can only designate LINES of floors attached to a foundation (like a staircase). If you need to extend it or change it, you'll have to re-designate the building spots.
Also, as a result, you can build multiple floors at once this way by first making staircases up to whatever Z level you want, then building the floors on each level, and finally putting the walls when they're available to be built.
Very cool tip about the trick of flooring over cavern water spots. Never thought about that. Always thought that draining the water was the only way.
Method I sometimes use is to engineer cave-ins above the borders, particurally for water borders. And it it is in true dwarf fashion either a total death sentence or a perfectly safe procedure depending on whether you're paying attention to what you're doing.
Best way to build multi level walls is to first build scaffolding structures, such as floors or stair to allow dwarves to reach every tile of new wall. This requires more material in upstart and a bit more work from dwarves, but it actually shortens build time since all parts of walls can be built in parallel.
I use bridges as scafolding when building walls. Can be built before any of the wall, and is cheap.
you know you can just build floors alongside walls everytime you span on another z level so that dwarves can safely mess up the order but still manage to build the wall, it is still tedious but it is much better than just manually building it one tile at a time.
That's usually how I build walls but I was burning through wood and stone so fast I decided to embrace the tedium lol
@@hoodiehair dear god ...
@@hoodiehair are you an elf? just cut more trees
Also if you put drawbridge on each wall and separate levers you can control what gets in, so you can trap a herd of tasty elk birds in the caverns for example
Yeeahh, wall construction in and by itself is why DF hack now lives forever on my DF playthroughs just to prevent that particular derp.
One thing I could recommend you do when walling off taverns like this is use something other then wood to block off the entrances. Never know when a forgotten beast that spits fireballs will show up on one end, get into a fight with a different FB, and burn the walls down without meaning to!
There's a more surefire, but a little more resource-intense way to build multi-story walls.
Build a stairway as high up as you want, then build floors that span the length of the wall on each floor. It'll cost twice as much to build the walls, but it eliminates 100% of the micromanagement aspect. You can always deconstruct the floors afterward too.
for multy story walls, i build a second row of floors behind the wall, for the dwarves to walk onto while building
can remove it later if desired, and its a lot easier to remove one tile at a time han building one tile at a time
can also just build a "stair wall" behind the wall, and demolish it floor by floor afterwards
So far in my fortress I have now I managed to catch a dragon that came through. So I put him in a walled off pit and make him fight any goblin invaders I get by throwing them in.
You can use controlled cave ins. You can wall off water like this and ensure dwarfs are never get liine of sight to any scary monsters (the cave in wall will fall through a floor if there is no wall under it). It is a nightmare with aquifers though but fun
You are exactly what this community needs. A very popular streamer has become so jaded, DF has lost all enjoyment. LOVE YOUR VIDEOS
You can make scaffolding for building walls out of drawbridges and stairs, pretty easily
You could just build 2 walls on the bottom, 1 on the top. You build the first layer, then the second layer, then stairs up to the second story, then build another wall on top of the first layer. Then if you want to save resources you can deconstruct the second layer and use it for the future walls.
Ez multistory walls: put staircases next to every wall tile.
Then you can convert the upper wall tiles to fortifications and use the stairs to set up firing positions
Build stairs every 4th block on the inside up to the top of wall, and you can then designage all building without much fear of dorfs messing it up.
Ive dealt with multi level walls before numerous times, and i just build stairwalls along every single wall tile to make the process smooth, then deconstruct the stairs one level at a time
*stairwells
Maybe make paths to the center and make an arena for those monsters to put on a fight show for dwarves who are looking at them while partying in the pub from the higher floors 😂
Build a floor adjacent to the walls on upper levels and the dwarfs can access the whole wall and you can designate all at once.
Ive always just built wooden scaffolding along the wall.
My preferred way to set up multy-story walls is to build floors next to them as scaffolding first.
Really, it's the only way to do it where you don't have to micromanage the entire process.
A tip for making multi z level wall, I just build staircases pararel to the walls that makes sure dwarfs dont screw it up building
Note: a quick way to get walls done is using a bridge for scaffolding! Minimal resources & the entire thing just needs 1 dwarf when deconstructed.
Neat, this is also what I did with my first proper fortress
I did essentially this in a long lengthy game in a fort called Carnagegalley except I feel like turning off the invaders fully is cheaty (although the default 20 or so is too many every season in cavern 1 and 90ish in cavern2 with mounts is definitely way over board.) So when I walled them in, there was over 300 serpentmen+mounts putting the game in a crawl eventually I dug a series of one way tunnels leading from all cavern layers to a single trap hallway with an option to flood it with magma if they clog all of the traps too much, they also blocked spawns by occupying to capacity every side pocket so when they finally moved away when set loose to make their way to the traps even more showed up and like 9 forgotten beasts that couldn't spawn due to unit density being too full in those tiles now I have endless weapons grade metals as I harvest the shields and spears from the trap pit.
Also I hate flooded caverns ever since the day I made a fort that was full of blind fishmen had to glass(obsidian) that whole cavern just to be rid of the amphibious ambushes, that was the first time I turned down cavern invaders and will never allow that setting to be that high again, I had to get to and cut down mushrooms near the edge of the map because they would spawn on top of them then spam pathfinding.
Done this a few times. The most ridiculous obstacle I ran into was a tree growing out of the cavern water on the edge of the map. I needed to construct a ballista and shoot the trunk to get rid of it 😂
build floors next to the wall and then don,t worry about it.
If you use DFHack and turn on the SuspendManager, dwarves will usually pick the correct wall segment build order so that they're not boxed in. It's not perfect, but it works fairly well.
The only thing missing is to have a migration corridor going end to end in each cavern that may or may not be filled with deadly traps in order to harvest naturally occurring resources.
In my latest fort, I had an issue with rodent people. I had closed off just enough of the cavern for a farm and then ignored the rest cause they just would not stop coming whenever I opened. But this just meant that they were stacking up out in the cavern. Eventually my ~125 dwarves strong fortress was running at a tiny 8fps, dragged down by the masses of rodent people outside the walls in the caverns just waiting to get in, so whats a dwarf to do?
My solution was simple: Flood the cavern with magma to burn the rodent menace. I was already pumping magma up to my main floors between cavern 1 and 2, so extending my pump stack another 10 levels was no big deal. But the magma kept flowing out of the cavern at the lower points, leaving rodents on high places free. So I dug tunnels over every single open cavern side, and dropped water in, casting walls ever higher until there were no more access points and all but the highest parts of the cavern was flooded with magma.
The few surviving rodent people were driven insane by being trapped in this area of cave and forced into watching everyone they know and love burn to death.
More than doubled my fps despite the fps hits incurred by moving that much liquid, 10/10 would create a magma tomb for annoying cavern neighbours again.
Just build floors next to the walls to be built so they can reach everything
2:44 I just put a layer of flooring down next to every layer of wall, takes more resources but drives me much less insane.
phasing monsters: "hold my beer"
j/k I assume they don't exist.
not yet at least.
Idk, that mushroom wood is pretty fire
King of the caverns = King under the Mountain
The only true Dwarf way to conquer caverns is to channel to the lava sea, break out 50+ levels of pumping and flood it all with magma.
It's the only way to be sure.
oh thank you, this an amazing idea
would it be a good idea to have a tunnel built that extends a bit beyond the wall, with cage traps lining the floor to gather any magnificent and trainable beasts (and of course something to still keep them behind the border of the fortress)?
Build stairswall then wall side by side then draws can build wall easy
what is the beast climbing or flying over if the level above is covered by rock/floor?
now to conquer the surface
I wall my cavern entrances off, then stairwell them down into 3-way-intersection with bridge-barriers filled with cage traps. One way to outside. One way for normies to enter when safe and reload cages. One way to a massive ring road per cave level, and then interconnect the ring road caves, and viola, massive labyrinth that you can trap forgotten beasts and invading armies inside of.
To top it off, I will link all bridges from cave to outside to a single lever, and all bridges for trap-reload to a single lever, so I just need to pull two levers to reload all my traps safely.
I just hope you did the wooden floors out of wooden blocks and not out of whole logs. Blocks are awesome. I like blocks.
WE LOVE YOU HOODIE HAIR
you can just make the second level walls one tile offset, like the ones at 2:00 would've been easier if you placed the second layer of wall one block left so they can walk on the previous wall and place the next layer as they please
4:30 i was thinking about digging a whole massive pool below this Cave ocean to drain the water buuut i guess just put floors worked just fine :P
You don't need to micromanage wallbuilding if yoi construvt updown stairs along the wall. This way every dwarf has a path in and out. Just build tjem out of excess lightweight material such as wood
Problem? Walls.
Spoken like a truu Urist McWallBuilder
DFhack makes them build logically
Weird, I do this on every fortress, I thought that's what everyone did! I feel like I wasted so much time!
Great video hoddiehair!
i.. didnt even know there were caverns.
Great advice! I'm shocked D:
I typically just build stairs up to the top of the walls along the WHOLE wall, but only if it’s small. I think DFHack has a feature for making it be done smartly but that might be considered cheating by some!
its just matter of time 100s of cavern guys stack up and cause fps drop
the issue I had with this cavern approach was that cavern dweller armies would just spawn in the edge pockets and sit there dragging down my FPS.
Just set up a system of mine carts to regularly dump magma from the magma sea over the edge of the wall and into the edge pockets.
Dwarven Hot Pockets.
Its beautiful
Something is wrong here...
Is this an episode where no dwarf met a gruesome end?
perhaps that giant olm hit a dwarf off-screen, exploding his head in gore
smart but maybe too foolproof? I'm surprised there aren't monsters that occasionally challenge your walls, necessitating at least a quick reaction force
It is not possible to successfully build a wall in Dwarf Fortress and that's why it's the best game ever made
Doing a lot of wall construction in this game has made DFhack a permanent staple because of the suspend manager making multi level walls and corner walls take no micromanagement
How about that creeper that explodes wall?
What about the cavern dwellers that invade? Like the ant people? It's been a bit since i've played, but I do recall them just spawning in the caverns and not coming in from the edges.
I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure they just look like they spawn in because they are invisible until spotted by a dwarf. I think they still have to come from the edges.
i hhave no idea what this game is but i enjoy this video, cheers
Quick question: Cant cavern borders be used for a underground road to other dwarven settlements and invite trade and settlers?
This is all theoretical... I never managed to find a cavern? Is that because I dig down to stone (generally no more than 5 levels ) and have been focused on community building rather than digging deeper and deeper and deeper. I just make mud basins and make farms there.
Sort of additional thought. I ALWAYS use slopes to dig down. I figure I can at the least use minecarts, i can put roads but... are stairs just plain better? Building one deep stairwell down to a cavern?
Do you know if your save will carry over to adventure mode ? Would love to see how everything turned out after the fortress was retired. Similar to an older video you made on the free version
03:00 Wouldn't it work that you build stairwell and floor next to the wall on every floor level?
Not played in a while and rarely ever built multi storey walls, but seems to me like the problem is having only a single staircase. If you put staircases next to every space that needs wall, does that not mean they then have the ability to just build any of the wall segments in any order? Or do they still get stuck somehow?
Can you not build stairs and floors to act as scaffold to build walls?
See, now what you should do is build tunnels from each no-man's land on the edges of the caverns that funnel all the creatures into... Something. Depends on what you're after. Wanting to finally start your civilization down the path of fully domesticating and becoming reliant on Draltha and Crundles as livestock? Cage traps and breeding pens. Are wooden targets just not training your marksdwarves and siege operators quick enough because they dont provide a moving target or desensitize your Dwarves to the blood, horror, and cruelty of combat? Cage traps and shooting galleries. Do you need yo practice your skills in designing automated fortress defense systems? Use a system of drawbridges, levers, and doors to control the flow of creatures through practice death mazes until you master the sick, twisted merger of Indiana Jones Tombs and a Saw traps we all know Dwarf Fortress mechanics are truly meant for. Just need to remove FPS-killing nuisaance sprites? Then funnel them into a automatic meat grinding machine with whatever combination of drawbridges, pressure plates, basic minecart logic circuits, magma, and whatever other implements of mechanized suffering seems like it would be the most efficient, elegant, or suitable for your goals.
There is much that can be done, here.
Cant you use bridges to wall of?
Bridges, when raised, count as 1 level high. Should work for single floor sections of the cavern, though.
Drawbridge :)