Indeed... Shape [Material] is a Manipulation Spell that can be used to move Earth around.

US Army engineering manuals show that it takes about 8 hours for a trained team using a pair of bulldozers to build 500 meters of AT trench, and that doesn't include hauling the spoil where they need it. I suspect you'd be lucky to get it done 1/3rd as fast using the lightweight stuff they have.

Doing large trenches by hand is crazy backbreaking work. Soviet Army source says that a healthy soldier can dig out a cubic meter of dirt per hour (less for difficult soil). You'll need more people to move the dug dirt where you need it and more to pile it up pile into a berm. And the people doing this probably have other things they need to do to keep the farm running and not starve.

Kzt: Hrm. You have some good points. Still, remember that the population of the Jungles is 24% orc and 22% Troll.

I imagine orcs and especially trolls could move significantly more than a cubic meter of dirt in one hour. Plus, they don't need a trench and wall that will repel a tank, just an earth-work that will stop motorcycles and pickup trucks. So I figure with just their excavator and backhoe loader they could probably sustain that 500 meters of trench figure...

Hrm. You can hire a Z-Zone Taxi. I wonder what it would cost to hire a Z-Zone Construction Company? You know, the guys who roll in their equipment on armored tractor-trailors and do your earthworks for you with armored earthmovers? Probably way the hell more than they have, but....


[e]Hemp! Of course. They probably grow a considerable amount of cannibas sativa - and no, not 420 all day erry day. Hemp fibers would give them an inexhaustible source of rope, hemp seen can be eaten, and it can be rendered into biodiesel.

Combine that with a sustained-duration Clean Air spell that a wizkid can throw up over a generator or a vehicle while it's running... Clean energy!

Cheapest defensive tool you will ever lay your hands on is a shovel.

I imagine farmers would have a few lying around.
Dig trenches to keep vehicles from having easy access and you'll take hit and run off the table.

Excluding monster trucks and tracked vehicles, you only need 2-3ft deep trenches to stop most vehicles. Make it about 15ft across and the vast majority of vehicles would drop in and be immobilized. Take that dirt and make a very crude berm maybe 6-8ft tall.

Put that about 30ft out from the wall and you've got a protected "road" you can use to send reinforcements to flank your attackers. Or, use as a path for an outer patrol or wall repair.

It's the 6 miles of trenches that 200 people are supposed to dig that is the issue.

Force-multiplying with earthmoving equipment and mages who know Shape Earth should make that a manageable task, though.

I'm sure the gangs will leave them alone for the weeks and months all these various suggestions require. Hopefully the farmers all had tons of free time to begin with, or the farm'll destroy itself in the meantime.

I know the thread is already loaded with suggestions, but could they just leverage the reputation of the toxic crops? They figure out a likely attack route and coat some of the fruit in the area with toxins. They dress up some of their guys to look sick or diseased. The gang steals the food and some of it makes them sick or even kills a few of them. Suddenly the farm isn't an appealing target because you can't be sure that you're not grabbing food from one of the poison plants. No fighting. No miles of fences. They have time to develop defenses before another gang happens by and tries the same thing.

Judging by the description, the plastic jungles might be something like this: link, solving the electricity problem.

As far as fortifications go. HESCO barriers + earth elementals!

In one of the old matrix books, a decker hacks into an automated factory in the barrens - specifically an Aztechnology weapons facility - and has it manufacture and deliver a large quantity of weapons to the Yucatán rebels... (I had an NPC relate this story to my PCs when they were looking to arm an underfunded gang against their rivals. Instead of going for that, they went to their fixer who happened to know of a nice weapons cache in a competitor's clutches. The place turned out to be a major Yakuza smuggling hub, which was fun.)

A time and group previous to that created a phony investment firm, with all the appearance of being a shell company for a larger corp, which they used to buy a manufacturing facility and start producing their own weapons. It would have gone fine if one of them hadn't tried to go legit with it afterwards... There's really no end to the permits you need.

Only gotta hit the roads. Don't need a moat, just a hole that you can control.

With 6 miles of fence there is always going to be a place that someone can breach the fence without anyone noticing. You have to harden the perimeter. There are multiple ways to do it, but it has to be done.

Think about it, you have at most 200 people to stand guard, most of whom need to spend 8-12 hours every day doing things that are required for the community to survive. Assume each spends 1 hour a day on average on security. IOW, you have 8 people watching 6 miles of fence at 2 am.

If they can run a vehicle through that you are in a lot of trouble, because now they can run in, grab stuff and run out before you can even muster your people.

Well, that's a pretty big if. North Redmond isn't exactly Phoenix. There's lots of hills and trees in that terrain, and not that many roads in or out. Blocking foot traffic isn't going to be too easy, and a ditch won't do that too much better than a wall, but if you can try and make them run on foot with their stolen radishes or whatever then that seriously increases their exposure.

So, you prioritize the roads as the place you dig. Hit them in multiple spots so that bypassing a single trench doesn't put vehicles on your fence line. Make sure there's a good corridor around the fence so that anyone who wants to apporach will have to clear, ideally, 50m of ground. Gives the farmers a goot amount of time to shoot at the fleeing gangers.

Wait. If the attackers are just stealing food...
Why not just spike the food with [poison/chemical/drug] of choice?

Anyone in the compound will know "not to eat the carrots in greenhouse five" but not the attackers.

Someone mentioned that upthread, but it seems like a pretty sacrificial defense method. The ganger response would be to get really mad, kidnap farmers, and force them to give them the safe food they obviously have.

Guess the runners will have to get creative with the poison then. Just like with rat poison the other rats are not supposed to find out that their mate was poisoned by that food item. Or do something different.

On a long-term scale, I'd think the community would want to start investing in defense: if they have Things Worth Taking then they have Things Worth Selling, and they might want to sell a bit more so they could afford a better long-term defense.

Take a lot of the arms ideas that were mentioned over and over (grenades and cheap weapons and maybe some home made weapons) and go on the offense. Kill one to worn a thousand. Even if 100 farmers don't hit the side of gang hangout nine million rounds will seem like a good scare tactic. Seem a lot scarier than you actually are.