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[Forumsdwarf]

Goblins seem to know where the traps are if they see one of their kind slain by one.  I'm not sure, but it sure seems that way.

quote:... melt the iron/steel stuff ...

The goblins have brought me more iron than all caravan traders put together.  I've been buying anvils and melting them for metal.  Now maybe I'll finally get all the frontline troops armored.

Lessons Learned, in no particular order

Minutemen:  You can't let anyone but your miners work anyway, because they all rush the entrance, and crossbows are cheap, so you might as well turn your peasant problem into a peasant solution and give 'em crossbows.  It doesn't take long to train to novice, and a pack of novices behind a fortification could be a real nightmare to an approaching army.

Don't Bring a Knife to a Gunfight: If your fort defense has come down to hand-to-hand combat you've done something wrong.  Your best chance of stopping the enemy is when they're outside and you're in.  Fortifications, chokepoints, traps, all that stuff works best when the enemy is forced to come after you.  The murder-hole ambush is clearly a last resort, as if that doesn't work, where do you go from there?
Attacking fleeing enemies crossbows are still best: they can't outrun a crossbow bolt, and if you hit one in the leg it's Michael Vick Family Hour -- assuming you keep dogs.

Fortifications Are a 2-Step Build: You've got to have something next to your fortifications to keep the enemy from walking up to them and using them against you, hence everyone's reliance on moats, drawbridges, channels, and the like.  I can't channel because I've already dug rooms out on the level below, so I'm going to experiment with statues.  If they hold the enemy away from my fortifications and give me a clear line-of-fire my "moat" will look like Medusa's lair.

See How They Run: I'm assuming the next wave will flee in the same direction, so I'll have a few surprises waiting for them on their way back to their hovels.

Fortifications Are for Shooting From: It seems obvious, but building fortifications anywhere through which you won't be shooting at the enemy is a waste and possibly even a liability.

Move.  Fire.  Pick One:  Units can't seem to move and fire at the same time.  The more fire you concentrate the greater the advantage of initiative.

What a rush.  Can't wait for the next one!  How often do they come on average?

[Kagus]

Once a year, at roughly the same time.  Next time around you'll have twice as many goblins as you did this time, and the time after that will be three times as many, addind roughly twelve more goblins each time until you've got hundreds of the buggers sitting on your doorstep.  Also, after a while, you'll start getting them more than once a year.

It's because of this that elaborate and army-size traps are quite useful.  One giant spike pit or drowning room can take out quite a hefty number of gobbos, provided it's set up right.

[Quift]

quote:Originally posted by ShunterAlhena:
<STRONG>Forumsdwarf: watch out, sieges are a tricky thing. I disposed of my first siege with relative ease (and I felt this surge of adrenaline you did     but the with the help of the Dwarven Merchants Guild guards, they were slaughtered like the animals they are!), my second siege with heavy losses but the main fortress and civilian population remained mostly intact - then the third came and it absolutely vanquished us, eighty dwarves were slain and our halls ran red with blood. They spared a baby who hid under the corpse of its mother. Hope they killed the kid and didn't make him a slave...

This next fortress has moat, drawbridge, cage traps, stonefall traps, marksdwarves and everything.
Question: can animals or gobbos break through (stone) wall grates? I use these as secondary gate, raised and lowered by lever. I also have an emergency drop grate to seal off my chasming corridor, in case angered creatures emerge from the deeps. But are they effective? I read in a fortress story that skeletal elk broke through doors.

[ January 29, 2008: Message edited by: ShunterAlhena ]</STRONG>

your yhe guy with the swastika in the throne room then?

[TheNoseKnows]

quote:Originally posted by Kagus:
<STRONG>Once a year, at roughly the same time.  Next time around you'll have twice as many goblins as you did this time, and the time after that will be three times as many, addind roughly twelve more goblins each time until you've got hundreds of the buggers sitting on your doorstep.  Also, after a while, you'll start getting them more than once a year.</STRONG>

Holy moly...
Is there no limit?  :eek:

[Kagus]

I think there's a cap as to how many goblins show up, but there's no end to the number of sieges.  They just keep on comin'...

[Palkki]

My first goblin siege completely surprised me.
It came right after a Bronze Colossus stepped on my cage trap.
I had only 1 cage trap and 1 weapon trap set and only 2 elite marksdwarves and 2 hammerdwarves. I thought that first siege couldn't possibly be more than 10 goblins. But i was wrong.
 

code:

###########
.........M#
.#========#
H#.........
.D.........
H#.........
.#========#
.........M#
########### 

M: Marksdwarf
H: Hammerdwarf
. : floor
=: fortifications
#: Wall
D: Door
I positioned my troops like shown and waited for the goblins to arrive.
But then just before first goblins entered the hallway my other marksdwarf decided to have a snack and other went back to barracks for a nap leaving my two other soldiers and few wardogs the only defenders of my fortress. I really thought that waiting behind a door for the goblins would spare my dwarves from their arrows and bolts but when the goblins came near, my soldiers charged out of the door right into the hail of arrows. Somehow they still managed to repel the invasion although both of the Hammerdwarves got killed and only 1 wardog survived.

But the worst came only after that the next season arrived my second gobling siege. It was twice the size of the first with TROLLS. I really thought i was done for but still tried to do my best to defend my fortress. I had no time to train any new dogs or soldiers i only had 5 novice wrestlers and the 2 marksdwarves I positioned the troops the same way as before and waited. This time marksdwarves stayed on their positions and killed 10 first goblins and after that...
All other goblins started to retreat! I was completely baffled. I had succesfully thwarted my second siege and the only casualty on my side was my hunter sleeping in the bushes when the siege came.
Goblins are cowards!

[pushy]

quote:Originally posted by ColonelTEE3:
<STRONG>The one major flaw to my base, which is now unfixable, is that a large portion of it is outside. Or atleast, a large portion of our traffic is outside. My city is seperated into two districts, with outlying buildings around it. To the west, above ground and built into the mountain side is my housing quarter and dining room, and to the east, below ground, is my workshops, Well, farms, and barracks, and to the north in the canyon side that overlooks us are various noble homes and a large magma facility, so everyone scurries from one place to another above ground. So when the goblins attack, i can't order anyone to go in doors, because that pretty much cuts off everyone, from everyone else   </STRONG>

You might well be screwed regarding the stuff that you say is above ground, but for other things have you considered building shafts down (right down to the bottom level if necessary) and building connecting tunnels between them? One of my old designs had this sort of thing, where everything bar the trading depot was unreachable without going down a trap-filled staircase to the very bottom of the fortress and going back up another set of stairs. Was a slight pain in the arse, but it worked  

quote:Originally posted by Untelligent:
<STRONG>I'm kinda worried, as I haven't had any seiges, snatchers, or thieves invade my fortress yet, so I figure I'm due for one soon. Hell, I haven't even had a random wild animal attack, unless you count the time a Mud Man followed one of my haulers away from the cave river while all my Marksdwarves were asleep.</STRONG>

If you've got some form of defence in place, I wouldn't worry too much about that   I'm now in summer of my fourth year and rhesus macaques have never even tried to enter my fortress - a load of them got slaughtered by humans coming to trade, but the thieving bastards have never actually bothered my dwarves. Dogs have chased away a couple of kobold thieves and every time I've been notified of a snatcher it was already caught in a cage trap  

[Artheon]

quote: Don't Bring a Knife to a Gunfight: If your fort defense has come down to hand-to-hand combat you've done something wrong. Your best chance of stopping the enemy is when they're outside and you're in. Fortifications, chokepoints, traps, all that stuff works best when the enemy is forced to come after you. The murder-hole ambush is clearly a last resort, as if that doesn't work, where do you go from there?
Attacking fleeing enemies crossbows are still best: they can't outrun a crossbow bolt, and if you hit one in the leg it's Michael Vick Family Hour -- assuming you keep dogs.

You have a point, obviously, in that enemies are best disposed without ever getting hurt, but I still respectfully disagree on some level.

In my current fortress, on its ninth year, I have maxed pop and I spend all my time and manpower on expanding economy and production and some personal projects.  This leaves precious little time to build an elaborate automated defense or somesuch; I could of course make drawbridges, ofc.  But given my fortress' location, smack dab in the middle of the map, and with errant hills everywhere, this takes time.

I also have (No.. had) ample iron supplies.  What'd I do?  I have 70 dwarves currently enlisted in platoons with different melee weapons.  Plate, shields and melee weapons for all but the guard and the marks platoon.  When the enemy cometh, I fall back into the barracks, and wait for the enemy to come inside my primary walls to the small area near the trade depot, stairs down, and bunkers, and simply charge their asses.  I used to lose a few dwarves (as many as nine once, but that was my fault), but nowwadays I rarely do.  Perhaps it's because my map is usually so peaceful (it's haunted ffs!) that I expect all of my noninjured dwarves to reach champion soonish (15 champs atm), but the melee approach serves me well because my ammo supply is limited; not a lot of bones, I can't spare too much wood, and I'm out of iron.

[pushy]

Heh, I've just had my first ever goblin siege now. They all got caught in cages, so I stuck them in a makeshift arena with a titan I caught a few months earlier and let them loose together to fight to the death. So far 14 of the 16 have died, many of them being thrown against the walls of the arena, and the titan isn't injured at all  

[Forumsdwarf]

quote:wait for the enemy to come inside

So the murder hole ambush really does work.  Nice to know.

Do you station your men under a stairway and wait for the gobbos to come down?

[ January 30, 2008: Message edited by: Forumsdwarf ]

[Patarak]

I remember my first sieges. My dwarves wouldn't stay inside, so I had enormous casualties. Idiots.

[Quift]

I want more siges, feel like I havn't had one in ages, and probably I havn't. my armies are ready, my castle that has held up so nicely the tlast sieges really needs a challenge. a 100 gobbos would be perfect (and fun, and still get slaughtered).

is there any way to get more sieges? modding?

[Lightning4]

Pumping up the fortress wealth may help a little, as well as increasing the size of the siege itself. It doesn't seem to be a big factor though, as this fortess has a wealth of over 5 million, and gets a siege every three or four years.

[Kagus]

What's your dwarf pop?  Siege frequency may be affected by beard count in your fort.

[Quift]

I have 145 pop, and 21 million weatlh. So I dont think they have that much impact.