Although not perfect, we can make a rough visual approximation of stone machicolations o­n diagonal castle walls. These structures were used to drop stones, burning oil and other nasty stuff o­n the enemy at the base of the wall...

Submitted by Aubergine

As already mentioned, we can't get perfect machicolations but we can certainly try.

In our tutorial o­n crenellated walls, we noted how horizontal and vertical walls are special because the game will try and smooth them. We discussed how placing something in the space where the smoothing takes place will stop the smoothing, but there is o­ne other factor that will stop the smooting process - height!

To make our high walls, we will first place some diagonal mid plain. Protruding from this we will place between 1 and 3 tiles of mid plain. A gap of three or four tiles is left between each protrusion as shown o­n the bottom-left of the picture below:

We then place a single tile of wall at the end of the mid plain and then draw individual tiles of crenellated wall across all of the mid plain.

The result is shown o­n the top-right of the picture above - we get a tall wall that has buttress-like protrusions. Where the butresses join the main wall, you will notice that the smoothed wall starts at the top but does not go all the way down. For now, that's about as close as we can get to machicolations!

While 1 or 2 tile machicolations are probably the most accurate in terms of scale, I really like the look of 3-tile machicolations which are unrealistic but nice to look at all the same:

The result is shown o­n the right-most machicolation. I then decided to use Palistone for the center tile. I damaged this tile using a spearman and then placed wood wall over it (middle of picture). The result is a great and highly unique looking structure (left of picture).

You can see the flattend view below as it might show more clearly where things are:

When the palistone is used in the center tile the charcoal coloured land terrain below it looks almost like a shadow o­n the wall to the left of it, in effect some sort of chute. Anyway, I was probably getting carried away and should stop now!

I hope that has gone at least some way to providing a Machicolation feature o­n your castle.

If you come up with a better way, please let me know...