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[Burnzy503]

So I've been having some great fortresses lately, they're pretty well built, the population is skyrocketing, and we're producing everything under the sun! Everything is always going great until there's an ambush, or a siege, or anything of the matter. After that, my entire fortress goes to hell, I might as well abandon right when the message pops up for an ambush. My military (which is usually only 6-7 dwarves) is demolished by 2-3 goblins (My last game my military was fully competent and decked out in adamantine armor and weapons) them being destroyed is usually what starts the chaos. I've tried to throw all my dwarves into burrows or get them inside but the little idiots feel the need to run outside the gates and after the drawbridge is up every attempt I make to get them back inside fails (i'll drop the bridge for a bit and attempt to put them in a burrow but they DO NOT listen!) this always turns into a tantrum spiral which of course brings fun. Now I'm all for fun, but I'm just getting tired of every single one of my fortresses going down because of the first offensive by goblins, or anything else of  the like. Is there any tips or ideas any of you veterans out there have for me? Thank you!

[toomanysecrets]

You need a civilian alert in order to get civilians inside promptly.  It works like a charm and you never have to add anyone into a burrow manually.

6-7 dwarves is a pretty small military.  Make a squad of 10 marksdwarves and a squad of 10 melee dwarves.  Make sure they have a full set of gear and decent combat skills before you send them to fight.  Train up 20-30 war dogs.  Or, you could just let weapon traps or cage traps do all the work for you.

If the goblins won't move near your traps and you don't feel like fighting them, then just close up your fort and wait it out.  It can take a while, but waiting is better than losing.

[BoredVirulence]

If you really don't want to die,

• Train marksdwarves. 10 should be fine early, and even wooden bolts will kill most goblins, just make plenty. I had 3 marksdwaves kill / mortally wound 8 goblins.
• A trap hallway, even a small one, will do plenty against a few goblins, if they make it through, place a few cage traps at the end if you aren't sure.
• Seal your fort immediately, I never really have a problem with this, so I have no advice. Although a precaution I tend to do is to have a door I can lock, then a draw bridge at the front. If anyone gets through the drawbridge before it goes up, hopefully I can lock the door faster. There usually are traps in between.
• Never send melee troops into the open. You're on the defense, forget about glorious battle outside your walls, lure them into trap corridors, and let your melee troops deal with the feeble goblins who crawl through into an ambush room.
• 2 entrances are a decent way to deal with the caravan traps issue. A long winding hallway for the caravan, maybe a few cage traps at pivots (that are mined 4 tiles so there is a place for the trap) just in case. A short hallway with traps for the invaders. Drawbridges should be present at both. And of course, both paths lead next to my barracks.
• I also often have a fork in my short hallway, with a locked door and a chained dog behind it. Only theives should go through it, and they get spotted.

And for the tantrum spirals. Always make your workers happy, a legendary dining room and personal quarters (typically with decent furniture) tends to be sufficient for me.
I actually failed to induce a tantrum spiral in one of my forts, a loyalty cascade, and flooding the fortress failed to trigger one. The few survivors(because my trained military was on the other side of the loyalty cascade) kept the jobs going quite well.

[zwei]

And for the tantrum spirals. Always make your workers happy, a legendary dining room and personal quarters (typically with decent furniture) tends to be sufficient for me.

It is hardly sufficient for me thou. Statue garden, mist generator, etc... help but not save.

What OP needs is larger military (230-30 soldiers) and cage traps randomly around fortress - train military on prisoners, detects and solves snatchers, reveals ambushes early.

[Astrid]

The easiest possible way to repel the first couple ambushers even with a tiny military are wooden cage traps in the entrance along
with stonefall traps and mayhaps even weapontraps for anything that gets past the cages. The losses endured by those cheap systems
are usually enough to scare the remainder of the ambushers away without even facing your military. Even if the traps do not get all of them.

After all. it's quite discomfortable when your squads ambush leader gets squished and slattered all over you by a heavy piece of stone.

[KtosoX]

Earlier posts cover the most urgent matters. I would also suggest utilizing animals as cannon fodder to distract/occupy your guests.

[zwei]

with stonefall traps and mayhaps even weapontraps for anything that gets past the cages. ...

I would avoid stonefall/weapon traps and let those to military.

Any trap that kills invader is one less live-action practice dummy for military and tons of unecessary hauling (compared to carrying single cage inside fortress) which puts dwarves to field and unnecessary danger.

[Psieye]

Broadly there are 2 ways to go about producing wealth: start immediately vs start late. If the former, then you could do with some architecture that essentially forces all traffic in/out of the fort to go through a long, 3-tile-wide corridor. Said corridor would have traps (cage if you don't mind them being OP) and some guard animal (I prefer kittens) pastured upfront so ambushes get spotted and the buffer of cages takes care of smaller ambushes.

Personally, I create a 'dodge-me' trap to industrially kill ambushes/sieges within the first 2 years (which is when I'm generally guaranteed to be free of sieges). If I can afford it, I also have all my haulers carry crossbows around so they have something to do when I can't let civilians outside.


If you start your production late, then you won't get sieges or large ambushes for quite some time. Invasions are triggered by your wealth and population, your production affects them directly and indirectly respectively.

[Astrid]

Any trap that kills invader is one less live-action practice dummy for military and tons of unecessary hauling (compared to carrying single cage inside fortress) which puts dwarves to field and unnecessary danger.

Use Burrows and no Dwarf is running blindly into danger, no matter how much unforbidden stuff is laying around outside. Problem sovled.

[zwei]

Any trap that kills invader is one less live-action practice dummy for military and tons of unecessary hauling (compared to carrying single cage inside fortress) which puts dwarves to field and unnecessary danger.

Use Burrows and no Dwarf is running blindly into danger, no matter how much unforbidden stuff is laying around outside. Problem sovled.

Not solution if you actually want to collect that stuff.

[Yee]

Don't allow fishery/hunting jobs and almost all of your dwarves will stay inside your fortress except for wood cutting and plant gathering which can also be done in caverns. If you use cage traps you can throw your prisoners into gladiator pits (taking away their weapons before is highly recommended) for militia training.

You can also build a fake entrance (with bait animal and traps) to lure the enemy away.

[Psieye]

Don't allow fishery/hunting jobs and almost all of your dwarves will stay inside your fortress except for wood cutting and plant gathering which can also be done in caverns. If you use cage traps you can throw your prisoners into gladiator pits (taking away their weapons before is highly recommended) for militia training.

You can also build a fake entrance (with bait animal and traps) to lure the enemy away.

It would have to be a real entrance, just one that nobody uses normally. I prefer bridges that open the 'for invaders' entrance while simultaneously closing the 'for everyone else' entrance with the flip of one lever.

But yes, there is no reason any civilian needs to be on exposed surface (except the OCCASIONAL haul job and when they are migrants) once you've got appropriate infrastructure. Hunting can be done with the military. Fishing can be done in walled off sections of a brook or whatnot. Wood cutting can use tree farms (don't even need to brave the caverns). Plant gathering becomes unnecessary once you have enough farms up (again, surface farms in domed off sectors). Invaders can be lured into 'safe for hauler' zones and killed there (by military or industrialised machinery).

[Gentlefish]

Hey, what's a good weapon trap for severely harming but not killing goblins? I'm thinking silver spears or even copper warhammers, but they still sounds pretty deadly. Do the elves sell wooden warhammers?

[vjek]

Hey, what's a good weapon trap for severely harming but not killing goblins? I'm thinking silver spears or even copper warhammers, but they still sounds pretty deadly. Do the elves sell wooden warhammers?

Anything blunt will break bones rather than slicing off bits.  Sadly, all trap components use EDGE attacks, so putting blunt weapons into a weapon trap is your only option for blunt attacks from a trap.  A few (like 1-3) warhammers in a weapon trap rarely kills the target outright.  Silver, I believe, is the best vanilla metal for maces/hammers due to it's high density.