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Author Topic: Help me with crossbows!  (Read 4641 times)

Mimodo

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Re: Help me with crossbows!
« Reply #15 on: June 27, 2012, 12:19:51 am »

A word of caution, this is based on my experience. It works for me; but, for all I know none of it's true. Also I've just barely started into the newest version there may be changes. And the wiki probably says it better.

A few guidelines I've found from my frustrations of dealing with the military.

1) Have the squad size of 3 for new squads. Once they're good at what they do you might want to consolidate them into mondo 10 man squads. Or maybe not.

2) Have each squad set to Train for 8 months & No Scheduled Order for 4 months. Break up that 4 months off time across the year - not all at once.

3) When set to Train make sure they are set to Train, 2 minimum & don't forget to copy that order for the other 7 months.

4) Have a barracks & set each squad to train there.

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5) In addition to all this, for each xbow squad, create 3 archery targets. DEFINE EACH TARGET AS A SEPARATE ARCHERY RANGE. ( This was the biggest "Ah Ha!" moment for me. Just defining one that overlaps the others DOES NOT WORK. Training really took off after I got this. ) Assign each xbow squad to 3 of them.

6) Assign ammunition for each xbow squad. I use "200" bolts per squad - that's 100 wood bolts set as Train, & 100 bolts of anything else that is not wood for Combat. You could go all wood all the time for everything.

7) Set up a massive bolt creation industry. You are going to be strip clearing the forest regularly for wood for bolts for training. You want at least 1000 wood bolts in your stockpiles, per squad, per season. Check every season at a minimum, you'll probably need more than this.

This should give you a functional military in a year, & some very dangerously effective ( but not completely legendary! ) squads in under 5 years. Any extra real combat you can give them, provided it's done in carefully controlled & totally unfair circumstances, will greatly accelerate this process.

Keep in mind this is just a guideline - someone else can probably pick this apart in much greater detail.

( Extra edit - I'm not even going to try to cover uniforms .. ask around. One last suggestion, have each squad set to sleep in their rooms, & don't let them carry any food or drinks. )

Massive help! THANKS :D
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Child of Armok

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Re: Help me with crossbows!
« Reply #16 on: June 27, 2012, 01:44:25 am »

Yeah, Thank you!
But i'm already busted by the dead....
So, ......
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
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daveralph1234

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Re: Help me with crossbows!
« Reply #17 on: June 27, 2012, 04:47:48 am »

1) Have the squad size of 3 for new squads. Once they're good at what they do you might want to consolidate them into mondo 10 man squads. Or maybe not.
This is correct, training this way is much faster.

2) Have each squad set to Train for 8 months & No Scheduled Order for 4 months. Break up that 4 months off time across the year - not all at once.
Not sure what the point in that would be unless you want them to continue their civilain duties. They are fine on duty all year indefinatly


3) When set to Train make sure they are set to Train, 2 minimum & don't forget to copy that order for the other 7 months.
From my reasearch and understanding, this is not nessesary unless you want them to perform civilian jobs. They will still eat and drink while on duty.


5) In addition to all this, for each xbow squad, create 3 archery targets. DEFINE EACH TARGET AS A SEPARATE ARCHERY RANGE. ( This was the biggest "Ah Ha!" moment for me. Just defining one that overlaps the others DOES NOT WORK. Training really took off after I got this. ) Assign each xbow squad to 3 of them.
This was a big "Ah Ha!" moment for me aswell, I think this is still the case, annoyingly.

6) Assign ammunition for each xbow squad. I use "200" bolts per squad - that's 100 wood bolts set as Train, & 100 bolts of anything else that is not wood for Combat. You could go all wood all the time for everything.
Last I checked, combat and trainning ammo is bugged and they will just use what their holding, it only effects which ammo they will pick up when they need more.


One last suggestion, have each squad set to sleep in their rooms, & don't let them carry any food or drinks.
I agree with this, there is little point in sleeping in barracks other than to always have them where you want them. Carrying drinks works fine (requires flask) however carrying food is slightly bugged in thaat if they are eating when you give them an order, they will abandon their meal but it will still be claimed as theirs so no one will clean it up and it will rot. Having them carry food also means they won't use the dinningroom, which is good if you don't want them to make friends but prevents them getting the happy thought from eating in a legendary dinning room.

On a related note, I would recommend having a full time military and always haveing them busy (with trainning) so as to prevent them making friends (to prevent tantrum spirals).
Also, having both hunters and marksdwarves dose really weird thing with ammo designations, I would reccomend just hunting with squads if nessesary and disabling all hunting labours.
Finally, make sure you military is properly clothed in the most reacent version, I think armour counts as clothing, but it is easy to underproduce it, resulting in a tantruming military.

Oh and a lot of people don't realise, but you can use a shield with a crossbow, this is highly adviable.

Panando

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Re: Help me with crossbows!
« Reply #18 on: June 27, 2012, 06:25:13 am »

With bolts per squad, you should make sure they are assigned about 35 bolts per dwarf in the squad. A dwarf tries to carry 25 bolts, but what can happen, is he might have shot 10 bolts from his stack of 25 wood bolts. And he thinks "I want at least 25 bolts" and collects another 25 bolts. Now he has 40 bolts. He's happy. But now dwarf #10 in the squad can only take 10 bolts. If two dwarves do that, then dwarf #10 has no bolts at all. That is, if the default 250 bolts per squad is used. If you want to be completely safe, then 50 bolts per dwarf will guarantee all the dwarves have bolts (assuming you have enough bolts in the fortress). But in practise, about 35 bolts tends to be enough, because not all dwarves will be "greedy" simultaneously.
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JarinArenos

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Re: Help me with crossbows!
« Reply #19 on: June 27, 2012, 01:15:40 pm »

A trick I saw suggested, and tested successfully.

DON'T assign a barracks. Just assign the squad to train at all the archery ranges you create (I use a line of 5 targets). This prevents them from doing random useless training like "wrestling demonstrations" in the barracks, and restricts them to shooting things for training orders.
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