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[GoldenShadow]

sounds like a door is forbidden somewhere.

My strategy has constantly evolved as I play more and more games

I started with a recruit military and get crushes. This evolves to abandoning military in favor of traps. I build stonefall and weapon traps at the entrances. I get crushed when sieges are too big and overwhelm the traps and they can get through.
Then I evolved into using cage traps. I capture lots of holbin and work my carpenter full time making new cages until I run out of wood while a siege happen and I fail from having all my cages full.
Then I learn how to mass pit cages and recycle them. This leads to my first fort that can run on its own. I figure out that I can just wall up the main entry above ground and not bother with cages at all.
This leads to the game getting boring. I keep getting moods that want objects I don't have, like silk and wool cloth(which I didn't know at the time)
I went through the cage trap and walled in phases back and forth until recently.
My current strategy is to bring two skilled warriors from embark. +5 fighter and +5 sword skill. Bring raw ingredients for steel and forge them each full steel armor and shortswords and let them train 100% non stop. they are both legendary 15+5 Swordmasters before the first Dwarven caravan. My Latest Blunder was to bolster their numbers with new recruits. I equipped them with bone armor and wodden training swords. I had some in very high skill levels. I flat out forgot what they were equipped with when that siege came. I sent out everyone to the front gate. Those unlucky bastards in bone armor were slaughtered. the 2 Sword masters killed the entire invasion force on their own. The only time my swordmaster took a hit has when he dodged into a hill and stunned himself. A crossbow bolt shot him in the hand. He survived while the other one singlehandled killed 30 goblins trying to dogpile him. It was glorious.
Military builds are by far the most fun to play with so far.

[CodexDraco]

I'm glad I'm not the only one! I also get stressed when these little buggers start showing up uninvited.

[dennislp3]

I play with a pop limit of like...20 for a reason...cuts down on the undo stress of mass waves of immigrants I cant actually facilitate. I am also the slow going simulationist type...but you can always change pop cap later and have migrants return if you dont like doing things by way of natural birth!

[CodexDraco]

I don't think I would have the patience to play that way :-o

I wouldn't mind if the migrants came in small increments of three or four individuals but the game likes to send dozens of useless goblin fodder every few months. This is actually the reason why I have abandoned many of my fortresses even when I have enough food, beer and housing for them. Having to manage 40 guys stops being fun and start being a chore to me.

Of course, I'm very new to the game and maybe when I'm more experienced I'll know what to do with them, but until then get out of my lawn!

[nenjin]

Just turn invasions off for the first 5 years. Yes it's not 100% "!!FUN!!", but it's so much easier to get a handle on everything when you know you're not a season away from getting wiped out.

[CodexDraco]

Good idea, I haven't had considered that. One of my fortresses was wiped out in the second spring by a necromancer. It wasn't very fun.

[Malarauko]

My very first forts just descended into me screaming "Why won't you look after yourselves!!!!" at the screen.

[Exlo]

 ^^^ I still do this.

[AfroScotsDwarf]

recently survived my first seige, its one massive learning experiance. if you dont have the right ingrediants, your cakes going to taste horrid, or fall apart, or burn.

[nenjin]

Mmhmm. Combat against the goblins at an "equal" level is very dicey. If you're the kind of player who gets attached to their dwarves, you dread pretty much every ambush and encounter. Without a highly trained military, you have to resort to some kind of cheese to stand a chance against most sieges, be it a moat and crossbows, masses of traps or an endless supply of war dogs. Toe-to-toe, it gets ugly.

Back before 31.25, I had a squad of 7 or so highly-trained dwarves mow down an entire siege of goblins...and then the leader rolled in, and proceeded to kill them one by one. I think I ended with 3 dwarves alive and only one of the uninjured, just from that one leader.

If you don't over cheese it any one area (fortifications and archers, traps, cannon fodder), but do a good mix of all strategies, sieges can be pretty satisfying. It can take a lot of work to get there though, and there's no guarantee they won't punch a hole through your strategy and start murdering anything that steps outside your fortress.

[AfroScotsDwarf]

Mmhmm. Combat against the goblins at an "equal" level is very dicey. If you're the kind of player who gets attached to their dwarves, you dread pretty much every ambush and encounter. Without a highly trained military, you have to resort to some kind of cheese to stand a chance against most sieges, be it a moat and crossbows, masses of traps or an endless supply of war dogs. Toe-to-toe, it gets ugly.

Back before 31.25, I had a squad of 7 or so highly-trained dwarves mow down an entire siege of goblins...and then the leader rolled in, and proceeded to kill them one by one. I think I ended with 3 dwarves alive and only one of the uninjured, just from that one leader.

If you don't over cheese it any one area (fortifications and archers, traps, cannon fodder), but do a good mix of all strategies, sieges can be pretty satisfying. It can take a lot of work to get there though, and there's no guarantee they won't punch a hole through your strategy and start murdering anything that steps outside your fortress.

would a mix of cheese work? i currently have 3 legendary marksdwarves (with archer and ambush almost maxed) ready to go on my walls, a small squadron of war lions, an army of war dogs and 2 mixes of dwarfy bashy slicer people with various combat experiance. my seige lasted ages though, lost 6 dwarves because my draw bridge didnt shut fast enough. is there an effective way of using ballista? is using wooden seige ammo a good thing or a bad thing?

[nenjin]

Siege operators period are sketchy right now, because they're not military. So they go to their weapons, see the enemy and promptly run away. Placed far enough away, catapults can be used semi effectively. But I don't seem to have good luck with ballista. The further away they are, the less likely anything will get hit in time. You might have some luck if you set up your ballista in a 3-tile wide choke point, like the entrance to the fortress.

[Malarauko]

Mmhmm. Combat against the goblins at an "equal" level is very dicey. If you're the kind of player who gets attached to their dwarves, you dread pretty much every ambush and encounter. Without a highly trained military, you have to resort to some kind of cheese to stand a chance against most sieges, be it a moat and crossbows, masses of traps or an endless supply of war dogs. Toe-to-toe, it gets ugly.

Back before 31.25, I had a squad of 7 or so highly-trained dwarves mow down an entire siege of goblins...and then the leader rolled in, and proceeded to kill them one by one. I think I ended with 3 dwarves alive and only one of the uninjured, just from that one leader.

If you don't over cheese it any one area (fortifications and archers, traps, cannon fodder), but do a good mix of all strategies, sieges can be pretty satisfying. It can take a lot of work to get there though, and there's no guarantee they won't punch a hole through your strategy and start murdering anything that steps outside your fortress.

would a mix of cheese work? i currently have 3 legendary marksdwarves (with archer and ambush almost maxed) ready to go on my walls, a small squadron of war lions, an army of war dogs and 2 mixes of dwarfy bashy slicer people with various combat experiance. my seige lasted ages though, lost 6 dwarves because my draw bridge didnt shut fast enough. is there an effective way of using ballista? is using wooden seige ammo a good thing or a bad thing?

Its annoying and terrible but sieges and such are meant to be dangerous. The world is dangerous and DF does a good job of simulating this. My first fort I tried to take on a goblin invasion with 20 rough and ready militia and although we won eventually it cost 7 lives. War is abrasion at its heart and that means you have to spend lives to take them. If you want to reduce everything to mechanical certainty then it just seems boring to me. I like a little bit of risk even if it does put your heart in your mouth.

[nenjin]

Sieges and invaders are full of mechanical certainty already. The certainty that they'll show up no later than 3 years into your fort. The certainty you're going to get violated when they show up. I see it as just balancing out the scales.

Personally I see throwing hordes of drones at totally predictable goblin sieges to be pretty boring too.

[GoldenShadow]

Just bring 2 soldiers on embark +5 fighter and +5 weapon skill. Drop a armor stand and make a barracks set to train. Have those 2 train 100% of the time and you'll have 2 legendary soldiers that can defeat anything. Put some armor on them and they are invincible. the only threats are forgotten beast syndromes, fire breathe or webs.