Bay 12 Games Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

Author Topic: Military help...  (Read 1021 times)

deknegt

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Military help...
« on: November 23, 2013, 11:27:48 am »

So I got an undead siege, and in my eternal dwarness I decide to make a stand and try to have my silver war hammer armed dwarfs slug through the undead hordes.

But I got an issue, and that is that the moment they see someone they run into the group like a total idiot and get themselves mauled to death.
Is there a way to make them hold their ground, preferably in a tight formation that allows them to !!FUN!!nel the baddies into a disadvantageous position?

I am not really awesome at the military thing, but if I could get them to just hold their ground and have the zommies come at them... I would probably stand a much better chance.
Logged

smjjames

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Military help...
« Reply #1 on: November 23, 2013, 11:34:31 am »

Burrows might help with the stand your ground part along with a narrow corridor, but military tactics (like formation or standing your ground) are nonexistent right now.

I too wish we could do better tactics, but that will come someday.
Logged

Witty

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Military help...
« Reply #2 on: November 23, 2013, 11:46:59 am »

As far as I know, no, there is really nothing you can do

All troops, even your archers, will blindly charge in for a melee attack, regardless of the surrounding baddies or anything else. There are plenty of other ways to deal with this siege though (atom smashing, targeting the necromancer(s), traps etc.)

Also (and I could be wrong), I'm pretty sure blunt attacks are nigh useless against the undead. You want something that can deal hacking and slashing damage.
Logged
Quote from: Toady One
I understand that it is disappointing when a dwarf makes a spiked loincloth instead of an axe.

deknegt

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Military help...
« Reply #3 on: November 23, 2013, 11:49:20 am »

As far as I know, no, there is really nothing you can do

All troops, even your archers, will blindly charge in for a melee attack, regardless of the surrounding baddies or anything else. There are plenty of other ways to deal with this siege though (atom smashing, targeting the necromancer(s), traps etc.)

Also (and I could be wrong), I'm pretty sure blunt attacks are nigh useless against the undead. You want something that can deal hacking and slashing damage.

Pretty sure I read that the opposite is true. Hacking undead will sever them in pieces and cause those pieces to become undead too...
Logged

smjjames

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Military help...
« Reply #4 on: November 23, 2013, 11:55:34 am »

As far as I know, no, there is really nothing you can do

All troops, even your archers, will blindly charge in for a melee attack, regardless of the surrounding baddies or anything else. There are plenty of other ways to deal with this siege though (atom smashing, targeting the necromancer(s), traps etc.)

Also (and I could be wrong), I'm pretty sure blunt attacks are nigh useless against the undead. You want something that can deal hacking and slashing damage.

Pretty sure I read that the opposite is true. Hacking undead will sever them in pieces and cause those pieces to become undead too...

When fighting undead, the last thing you want is MORE undead. Though for husks and thralls, the only way to kill those is via beheading or bisection.
Logged

UnlawfullyDeranged

  • Bay Watcher
  • For every one, there will be one hundred more.
    • View Profile
    • 'Best War Animals'  'Clocks'
Re: Military help...
« Reply #5 on: November 26, 2013, 08:33:16 pm »

So have fun fighting a load of thralls in an auto-raising evil biome.
Logged
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
Just no cheesemakers.

EvilBob22

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Military help...
« Reply #6 on: November 26, 2013, 08:40:47 pm »

Yeah, hammers/blunt is best for ordinary undead.  Slashing does work fine on them too, but it chops them into re-raiseable pieces in the process.  So if there is a necromancer around, or you are in a re-animating biome, watch out.

Dwarves will charge into combat, that is just a fact of (DF) life.  The common "fix" is to have the squad gather somewhere out of sight of any hostiles to make sure they are in a group first.  Then, when they run out to fight, their comrades won't be far behind.
Logged
I will run the experiment to completion anyway, however. Even if the only reason why there is a punctured equilibrium in the fortress is because I have been brutally butchering babies
EDIT: I just remembered that dwarves can't equip halberds. That might explain why the squads that use them always die.

Togre

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Military help...
« Reply #7 on: November 27, 2013, 08:50:52 am »

You need choke points to lure the hordes to the dwarfs.  A narrow hallway with a bend that empties into a room where the army is waiting.  The numbers should favor your guys at first.  If you are too successful you will push them back into the hallway at which time you'll be 1 on 1, which is still better than swarmed. 

If you really want to get complex you can have a series of doors, or gates or bridges, that allow some groups on undead to come and be put down.  Then you can allow more.  Or a maze of interconnected passages that you can open and close to let several dwarfs be fighting in narrow passageway.  A series of 1 on 1 battles to the death.
Logged
"Hey guys, you know how I've been repeatedly injuring you over and over again for the purpose of training up a team of high skilled doctors? Yeah well we didn't actually need to do that."