hi all, so its been 18 months since i last posted on the forums with my old kingdom of Valgarde, but im back and ive been working on this “little” dwarven stronghold, still alot of things to go, but i currently have my hearthlings working to the bone constructing an entire mountain to go around the stronghold, what do you think so far?
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This is insane. I struggle with designing my own constructs, so seeing things like this, I’m just in awe. Pretty much the most custom thing i built was a wall. Anything other than that and I struggle. But maybe because I don’t understand the build tool as much as I could. Anyways, That looks great.
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whoa, now I just wish there was first person view, so you could stand below it and look at it towering above you.
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Whoa. That’s really impressive.
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Looks amazing! That level of detail is rare and really gives the sence that those that live inside the mountain have some serious mason skills 
Thank you for sharing and i look forward to see further progress from you.
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Are you actually digging out the insides as well, or making it as connected buildings and adding a mountain around it all? I’d be interested to know how you’re going about it and how your hearthlings feel about it. I experimented briefly with carving from the top down a connected twenty-block diameter circular room that was twenty blocks tall and a 20x20x20 room. The hearthlings did seem to fluctuate between feeling cramped and not, but that might have been because the front room (the 20block cube) had a slice down the center that showed the outside.
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is it a bit based on the lonely mountain from the hobbit? just out of curiosity.
it looks absolutely wonderfull. good luck with the build
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Yeah, i had no idea where to start on this build, so I did take a few looks at the lonely mountain to get me going, as for the interior I still have no idea what I’m doing, I’m still having a nightmare getting the mountain to look “right” I’m starting to think I should have started with the mountain rather than trying to build the mountain around the keep
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Awesome stronghold : ) - thank you for sharing!
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That’s some seriously impressive architectural and detailing work!
I think the thing I love most is the way you’ve used the stone colours, fading ever so slightly as the building gets higher, to blend into the natural stone’s gradient. That makes it so much easier to believe the mountain is really that tall, rather than looking like a tacked-on addition. Disney’s set and theme park designers use a similar trick to make their buildings look taller, I think it’s called “forced perspective” but what I remember for sure is that it uses a slight colour fade + a subtle reduction in scale as the height increases to trick us into perceiving that the top of the building is further away than it actually is. Whether you’ve done that consciously or instinctively here, it works brilliantly and makes the facade look even more impressive!
It is my personal opinion that no Dwarf hold is complete without some ancestor statues out front to guard over it… but that’s just personal opinion. If you’re looking for something to fill that courtyard/plaza though, that would be my recommendation.
Whatever you build on the inside, I hope you have enough space left in your town’s inventory to build a suitably grand treasure room in the deepest vaults. If you want inspiration for the inside design, you may want to check out @micheal_handy76_mh’s [Stoneden] (Stoneden (Dwarven Stronghold)), which has some very cool and luxurious interior decorating.
Clearly this build has been a labour of love, and it’s looking utterly awesome; but in true Dwarven fashion a craftsman is never satisfied until their masterwork is totally perfected… heheh. I’m very excited to see this progress!
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so, just to update, have have started this project again, i just wasn’t happy with the mountain and location i had settled in, but i have made good progress on the new map.
so i had this massive forest to clear out before i could start building.
once the forest was clear, i started building the mountain (yes, i used the command console to build the mountain, it was just too big for my hearthlings)
and finally, used the 13 templates that make up the stronghold to copy it from my last world.
Next i will be making a large courtyard, complete with drawrven statues, then i will finally get round to the interior.
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Wow love this!! Great work!
Holy crap! I’m guessing the console commands were of the “instant build” variety to generate the mountain itself? Cant wait to see what more you do with this.
That new mountain is really cool! How nice would it be to have such a mountain as a building template? I guess it is to big of a structure for a single template… But thank you for sharing, now i might need to go build a mountain of my own
I’m quite inspired! could you be lured to share the mountain templates? since i need a big mountain ridge for something i would like to try
Sorry Psyduck, I no longer have this world save or any templates, when I tried to load it up it appears some sort of corruption had occurred, huge chunks of the mountain and fort were missing, but I could not replace the missing parts as the game didn’t recognise the parts were missing.
Aww man that sucks and you got nothing to be sorry for! If anything im sorry for your loss.
exactly like usual dwarven design, its “compensating” cough cough
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