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[sonerohi]

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I had set up a fort in what turned out to be absolutely perfect steel country - a magma pipe, marble flux, plenty of trees, and about a dozen magnetite deposits. On top of that, I got a legendary weaponsmith and a legendary armorer quite early on - before I'd even got my steelworks up and running to full capacity. I was very proud of the industrial monster I built; I channeled magma directly to each of the magnetite deposits so the magnetite could be smelted into iron bars on-site, hauled back to the fort already in bins, and then run through a second set of smelters next to the wood furnaces and marble quarry to make steel.

The only downside of all this activity was the insatiable demand for wood. The forest was productive enough, but cutting it down and hauling it inside required a constant stream of dwarves braving the outside and resulted in a steady stream of goblin ambush casualties trickling back. A spiffy military wouldn't help much because the ambushed dwarves would be dead by the time they got there, and walling in the forest was unfeasable.

So anyway, I decided my best bet was to equip every adult dwarf in the fortress with a masterwork steel battleaxe by setting them all as woodcutters. The annual spring wood harvest would become a settlement-wide festival of lumberjacking, a vacation from their toil at the smelter banks, furnaces, and hauling paths. But masterwork axes weren't enough, in my opinion; I wanted them well trained in their use as well.

I had about a hundred dwarves, almost all completely unskilled in military matters. Setting them to spar with masterwork axes would have resulted in carnage. So first I had my legendary armorer produce a hundred complete sets of steel plate mail and shields. I would set my entire population training in wrestling, armor use, and shield use for the winter season (aside from a skeleton staff of support dwarves to keep the booze flowing and care for the inevitable injured). It took a full year of preparation to ready the fort; supplies had to be produced and laid in, perishables cleaned up and stockpiled, the brand new gigantic barracks cleared of rock and furnished. It took more than a month just for everyone to get dressed in their armor.

Finally the winter of sparring was ready to commence. I set my heavily armored dwarves off duty and they began the festivities. Mere moments later: a force of darkness has arrived!

Heh heh heh heh...

"Change of plan, boys," the lead champion of my small standing army announced to the legion of new recruits. "We're going to do axe training straight away after all. Armok has provided us with the perfect sparring partners."

With the enormous value of all the arms and armor my fort had produced I knew a siege was inevitable, so I'd built some good defenses into the fort's structure. There were two widely-separated entrances, one leading to the forest and the other coming out in the rocky ravine the brook had cut through the mountains, connected by a long underground road so that the caravans could use either of them to reach the trade depot deep in the mountain's heart.  I let the siege in through the forest entrance uncontested, and then once the last goblin had passed the threshold I threw the levers to slam the gates behind them and open the other entrance's gates instead. The only way out now led straight through the heart of my fortress, where a hundred gleaming steel-clad dwarves waited for them in the trade chamber with axes at the ready.

I have never seen a trade depot that was so awash with blood and pieces of bodies before or since. Partway through the massacre a titan showed up and came in through the back entrance, but I barely even noticed when it was dispatched along with the rest of the invaders. I had to convert the brand new barracks into a goblin morgue to keep the fort from being flooded with miasma.

No dwarves died. No dwarves got much training either, though - the goblins were shared between too many and died too quickly for that. Oh well. I delayed the training plan for a year while the cleanup operation went on and the next year I got my wish of ambush-proofing every dwarf in my fort. Thereafter any time there was a goblin ambush the lone dwarf who was ambushed had a good chance of simply wiping out the ambush party on his own initiative. I just wish they'd wear their armor when going lumberjacking or wood-hauling, too.

Give everyone the hunting labor. For a year or two there will be a small trickle of aminal corpses, but eventually you'll kill off all local wildlife. They'll still wear their hunting gear, just have nothing to hunt is all.

[Kroack]

It wasn't much of a war, more of a skirmish. I had established a large fortress built around a chasm. I had a confident military that was able to eradicate all the antmen and ratmen in the actual caves situated around the chasm. They had also fended off 8 ambushes and 1 large goblin siege. The only creatures that alluded their weapons were the giant bats and cave swallows. Over the course of a year I lost over 10 dwarves to the accursed flying beasts. I managed to trap a few of them in my large farming caves but before my military got there they had already killed a couple farmers. Also, killing the giant bats didn't do any good because their mother, a blood-thirsty murder, always gave birth to more.

After several more dead dwarves I finally had my chance. The mother of the giant bats was lingering around my blacksmith's corpse when one of my Champions caught up to it. There was actually a lengthy fight and my Champion was winning! However, I had forgotten to take into account the fact that they were fighting next to a large pond.

My dwarf tumbled with the giant bat into the water and in the murky depth he killed it. Then he began to drown. Thankfully, one of my caves ran directly underneath the pond and I was willing to flood a part of my fortress to save my Champion.

I ordered my dwarves to dig an escape from the pond but as I waited for a few agonizing seconds I realized they were all partying at my well! So when they finally did turn up to dig, my Champion was already dead.                             

[Peasant]

I haven't had a war yet, except for a raccoon stealing a useless wooden ball. I already have two champion wrestlers, there's socks and robes and trousers all over the place. Yeah they're on the table and they're wrestling naked, so what? Sure they might rub their balls on your face while you sleep but they'll save your lives one day!

I just checked, one has socks and the other one has one glove left. They're too lazy to lift their clothes anywhere, i made cabinets but they just leave the sweaty clothes on the floor.

[Onlyhestands]

On a former map I breached the cave river, and it was chock full of cave creatures. At this time I had about 14 Dwarves. It was a long way from my fort so my miner escaped and all the creatures were just hanging out in a tunnel. Later a few of my dwarves were injured and the cave river was the only water source. I had only a little metal industry set up, and I didn't want to waste time while my injured dwarves were without water, so I pumped out a few iron weapons, a few rock swords and a couple of crossbows. The only armor was a couple of bone pieces. I recruited my 12 unijured Dwarves and I had an epic battle. Only 1 dwarve died and a couple were injured, but recovered. My expidition leader got 6 kills.