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[Oddible]

My first real bit of fun in my first ever fortress... and I have a lot of questions about how it went down.  My first and biggest question is how do you monitor what is happening in combat?  The r log just says Cilob is Fighting! and not much else.  The a log is just full of spam about job cancellations because I've got everyone stuck in an Inside burrow (any way to minimize the number of these spam messages? Thought I saw some DFHack util for this).  I managed to kill it (I think) but I have no message of this anywhere that I can find and have no idea how it went, who lost fingers, etc.  I want to know how I did - how their gear held up, I've seen some amazing stuff posted in Reddit about combat but I can't seem to find any of that. 

My second question relates to my marksdwarves.  I managed to corral the titan into this s-curve hallway where I have fortifications on the second floor burrowed down to the main hall.  I stationed my marksdwarf squads by the fortifications but I have no idea if they were shooting - they kinda just looked like they were wandering around up there.  Originally I had an alert that sent the marksdwarf squads to patrol along these fortifications but again I didn't see any evidence that they were shooting anywhere. 

EDIT - Ok, I just learned that in the r reports I can hit Enter and see the details.  And most of the details seem to be listed when I select the Titan line, which is nice.  However I can only find ONE instance where the titan was shot with a crossbow from my marksdwarf, ONE marksdwarf got a shot off.  How do I use fortifications effectively!?!?  Ideally I didn't want my melee group to go into close combat with this Titan but I was in the middle of re-arranging levers at the time and my entire group of livestock got trapped at the end of the hall and my marksdwarves weren't doing anything.  Also, if I have melee groups attacking, should I NOT be using marksdwarves at fortifications for fear of them shooting my melee group?

[smjjames]

Press C for the combat logs and for the job cancellation messages, press o and then x to hide all cancellation messages.

I get the same thing with burrows when I send my civvies inside during a siege.

[Oddible]

Press C for the combat logs and for the job cancellation messages, press o and then x to hide all cancellation messages.

I get the same thing with burrows when I send my civvies inside during a siege.

Not sure where to press this C, it doesn't do anything from the main screen (a hotkey you have set up from something?).  Thanks for the o x.  Maybe the C is only active when it shows up on the upper left and it got cleared when I hit a?

[BlackFlyme]

In the combat (r)eport logs you can press enter to get more detailed information, which includes attacks made and damage taken. It won't note if something died though. You could check your dead units list to see if the titan is in there.

As for the fortifications, how far away were the marksdwarves? They can't fire through a fortification if they are any further than 1 tile from them unless they are elite marksdwarves. Another possibility is that they couldn't shoot the titan, marksdwarves can't fire directly below. How wide was the hallway?

[smjjames]

Actually no, yea it's a and r, and you press enter on 'so and so is fighting' that'll give you the combat log.

[BlackFlyme]

The big red C at the right hand side of the screen shows up whenever there are unread combat logs.

I never actually noticed it until a few weeks ago. Then I spent another two wondering what it meant.

There's also S for whenever soldiers are sparring and H for whenever a hunter goes out to hunt.

[Oddible]

As for the fortifications, how far away were the marksdwarves? They can't fire through a fortification if they are any further than 1 tile from them unless they are elite marksdwarves. Another possibility is that they couldn't shoot the titan, marksdwarves can't fire directly below. How wide was the hallway?

Well, I told them to stand as a squad right next to the fortifications but squads just kinda stand near the spot I tell them to.  So I probably need to individually assign marksdwarves spots along the wall eh?  The hall is 3 wide and maybe 15 long and they were fighting in the middle of it so maybe 6-7 from the archers. 

[Krawdad]

One thing I hate about Marksdwarves is that I always have issues making sure they have ammo equipped, even if there is plenty laying around it their squad has access to it. Once I get my fort rolling I usually set the (o)rders to (F)orbid used ammunition so that my marksmen don't charge into battle with only single stacks of bolts.

As for positioning them, that's even more annoying to fine tune. When you tell dwarves to station somewhere, they will stand within a 3-tile radius of the spot you told them to, and usually not exactly on it. One way to get around this behavior is to have your rampart be only a single tile wide so they are at least forced to stand up against the fortifications.

Normally I only keep a few marksdwarves around for special occasions, FBs with webs, poisonous clouds, etc. It feels like every time I have relied on them for defense I have overlooked something about their setup or positioning and they just get trampled or are completely useless.

[Oddible]

My goal was to have murder holes (fortifications) on a 2nd floor overlooking a long winding hallway so in the event of a siege I could let a few in at a time and shoot them dead while caught between two bridges and never have to engage them in melee.

Another question if folks are still reading this thread, the titan is a building destroyer and I saw him just walk through a wall as if it didn't exist.  My question is: Does it take a while for a building destroyer to knock down a wall or does it happen in an instant? (My thought is that maybe my masons had left a gap and maybe the wall wasn't complete there yet).

[BlackFlyme]

Constructions such as walls and floors can't be destroyed, there may have been a hole you overlooked.

It can take quite a while to take down a building, depending on its quality. Most of the time the building will not survive, but I have had doors disassembled by destroyers on occasion, though they were always badly worn afterwards.

[Krawdad]

Also, there is no friendly fire from archers. Nor from catapults either, but a ballista arrow will hit your own troops.

[Button]

Was the wall in question a fortification, underwater? Fortifications only block creatures if they have less than 7/7 liquid in them.

If not, is it possible the wall was merely designated, not yet built?

[Sutremaine]

Well, I told them to stand as a squad right next to the fortifications but squads just kinda stand near the spot I tell them to.

If you station a dwarf somewhere, they'll stand in a 7x7 square centred on the tile you stationed them on. It's generally better than having every dwarf in a squad occupying the same tile, leaving all but one lying down (it was this way pre-.31). In the case of non-elite marksdwarves, you have two main options. The first is to make a burrow one tile wide and order the marksdwarves to protect it. The second is to ensure that the only places they can stand within their 7x7 square are ones that they can fire from.

The third option is to station them in the wide hallway and wait for them to wander over to the fortification. Works... okay, if you have a lot of marksdwarves and your target isn't going anywhere.