Hilltop Stone Fortress with Layered Kill-Zone Defenses

📐 Build steps

1. 1

   Pick a hilltop or plateau with one natural approach and place the Palbox at the highest point. Walk the perimeter first and mark corners with temporary foundations so your outer wall ends up roughly symmetrical instead of drifting with the terrain.

   📏 Plan an outer wall rectangle of roughly 20x16 tiles

2. 2

   Terraform with stone foundations: lay a complete platform over the summit, stair-stepping down slopes with stacked foundations until the whole build sits on one dead-flat level. This is the longest phase, but every later wall snap depends on it.

   📏 20x16 foundation platform, stepped to a single level

3. 3

   Raise the outer curtain wall around the platform edge using stone walls, leaving a single gap on the easiest approach for your gatehouse. Stone survives fire attacks from raiders that would burn wooden defenses down.

   📏 Outer walls 3 high, one 2-tile-wide gate gap

4. 4

   Build square towers on all four corners, one wall-length higher than the curtain wall, each topped with battlement-style half walls. Put stairs inside one tower so you can man the walls quickly during a raid.

   📏 3x3 tower footprint, 4-5 walls high

5. 5

   Construct the gatehouse: a stone gate flanked by two short towers, with a walled switchback ramp below it so attackers must climb exposed to fire. This ramp is your kill zone; everything hostile paths through it.

   📏 Ramp 2 tiles wide, at least 2 turns, walls 2 high on both sides

6. 6

   Mount defenses covering the ramp and gate: assign ranged combat Pals to the wall tops and, once unlocked, place mounted crossbows or turrets on the gatehouse towers. Angle each emplacement so at least two cover the gate simultaneously.

   📏 2-4 emplacements with overlapping arcs on the gate

7. 7

   Build the inner keep at the platform center: a two-story stone tower holding your bed, key chests, and high-value stations like the sphere assembly line. Even if the gate falls, raiders rarely path deep enough to touch the keep.

   📏 6x6 keep footprint, 2 stories, walls 2 high per story

8. 8

   Fill the bailey between keep and walls with your production floor along one side and Pal quarters along the other: beds, feed box, hot spring, and a small farm plot so the fortress feeds its garrison during long sieges of crafting.

   📏 Keep a 2-tile ring clear inside the walls for Pal pathing

9. 9

   Dress the castle for readability and style: torches at each tower, banners on the gatehouse, and walls upgraded to metal at the gate once you have refined ingots. Test-pull a raid and watch where enemies path, then patch any wall segment they bypass.

   📏 Upgrade gate section to metal tier at endgame

10. 10

    Assign a garrison of strong combat Pals with ranged attacks and keep the base Pal count topped up, since defenders double as your night shift. Store spare ammunition and healing items in a gatehouse chest so you can restock mid-raid without running to the keep.

    📏 4-5 dedicated combat Pals in the base roster