Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Rodge]

This was only my second fortress (well, first, the one before this was just me figuring out the controls and such), so yeah, first siege I have ever experienced. Also, the FUN is starting.

Around five sword wielding goblins and two crossbowmen showed up, so around seven gobbos. During the siege one kidnapper popped in too,about five feet from an already active soldier who then chased him off the map, or he may have already been leaving.

Anyway, the battle got bloody fast. Too be honest, I have no idea how to use the military. No idea about scheduling or any of that, I just enlist them and suite them up, then send them out to kill one thing at a time. So, using what little I know I was juggling two squads of dwarves with little to no training (and only two were armored) sending them after one goblin at a time each. Besides the weird announcement that one of my soldiers kept getting it's rest canceled while on the battlefield and the weird scene with one dwarf chasing two goblins with another goblin chasing him/her it went about as badly as you can expect.

Out of a military of twenty dwarves there were 12 deaths. I have since disbanded the squads and put the six survivors in a new one, after promoting one to noble to fill the void left from the deaths. On the bright side, none of the dwarves I like died and one of the children may or may not have disapeared. Yes, I do consider that a good thing.

Coincidently, I have been dealing with a foodsplosion that is finally catching up with me causing a massive miasma cloud undulating near the main entrance, one of my dwarves is in a mood and won't go to any existing shops so will most likely loose it soon (and also seems to be the only Dwarf in the entire fortress to have either friends or a lover that I've seen so far) and is standing in the dining room so my money is on berserk, and none of my medical dwarves are going to the infirmary to check on the injured. My head of medicine, or whatever that noble title is, was mining so I disabled mining. Now he's eating. The other dwarves with medical skills and labors enabled are nowhere to be found, I'm going to use the units list to find them later, but there is a very real chance they are dead too, or on break. A lot seem to be on break right now.

Interestingly, at the moment every dwarf I have is in a good mood, at least a few are ecstatic. This won't last, I'm going to run out of booze soon and I don't have the crops too make more. I'm hoping that this will eventually lead to a tantrum spiral even if everyone is too darn happy for that to work.

So, how does this compare to anyone's memories of their first sieges?

[Girlinhat]

My first siege was a bloodbath.  30 dead dwarves and one goblin, armok knows how many livestock, before the door was locked and the goblins sat themselves outside, patiently listening to orphans and mayors scream and breaking things, before, finally, there was silence...

[Adrian]

Around five sword wielding goblins and two crossbowmen showed up.

7 gobloons sounds more like an ambush than a full blown siege. Maybe those were advance scouts?

If so: CONGRATULATIONS! There is more Fun to be had!

[exolyx]

I feel bad now, because my first ambush was a raging success. I had an immense trap hallway. They didn't even make it past the first set. I later ended up with a successful fort, which was growing in power every day. then the new version came out and I opened up the clown car to celebrate.

[Psieye]

Question: did it say "An ambush! Curse them!" or "A vile force of darkness has arrived!"? Only the latter qualify as a real siege and you get "SIEGE" written up at the top.

Oh btw, while scheduling and all that is nice, you already know almost enough to competently use the military. Two further tips:
1) The move (station) command is actually an 'attack-move' as RTS-lingo goes. They will break march to kill whatever they see. Note also that it's interpreted as a "move to around here" not a strict "move to exactly here".
2) When you have lots of squads, hold down shift to select many squads at once to give one order.

[Girlinhat]

You can also give a kill order from a list, pay attention to the screen and the info on the little control side.

[Spinal_Taper]

Pretty dwarfy. My first siege was elven, my civ was at war with them, I just abandoned right there. It's not my real first siege, I haven't had a real siege yet, but I'm waiting with my Dwarfy trap hallway (Steel serrated discs everywhere).

[Antalia]

When my very first siege came (40d), I was terrified. I sealed the underground section of the fort.

I had, of course, placed workshops I thought might get smoky, stinky, or noisy outside in the open air. This was almost all of them. I had also placed my eating area outside, because I liked the idea of drunken summer picnics in the warm jungle. And there was a sleeping area out there, because I liked giving the dwarves the option to camp under the stars.

The ground had gotten muddy under the outdoor beds pretty quickly. I thought this was a serious problem for some reason. So, for the first couple years, much of the fortress' production was focused on finding a way to solve this problem. When the siege finally came, I had recently placed a constructed floor to keep things cleaner under the outdoor beds. This was Angelworks' most outstanding project.

Underground, I only placed things that I did not want to get wet in the rain. So it was the treasure, and some of the food, and some offices. I placed only one bed down there, assuming only an occasional sick dwarf would want to sleep in the stinky, dark cave. (The survivors of the siege wound up fighting over that bed for many years to come.) There wasn't much down there.

In other words, *Angelworks* was built without a proper thought toward security.

So I watched with horror as the evil siegers dismembered several helpless "camping" dwarves, and the many carpenters and furnace operators and cooks outdoors. I cried for help. The more experienced player who had taught me the controls came over and was all, "Why did you put all those workshops outside?" and, "What the heck, you built all the beds...on a constructed floor...*outside*", and, most importantly, "Where are the traps I told you to build?!"

"I built lots of traps like you said!" I replied. I had set quite a lot of little animal traps with gems and food in them. I was very dubious about their effectiveness, as all I'd seen happen with them in the first few years, was animals coming up and stealing the bait. But I figured they were supposed to catch goblins when the time was right so... Well, wrong kind of trap, it turned out.

I think my total obsession with keeping every dwarf at 100% full-time employment (unwittingly giving them no time to make friends) was what prevented the tantrum spiral after 75% of my population died. I think the siegers suffered only one casualty while annihilating my outdoor population. Naturally, I kept the underground part of the fort sealed while they hung around for the next six years or so.

Then I accidentally flooded the fortress...and then also the world somehow...while trying to build a well (we were out of booze the whole time...the seeds were outside). There was a lot of death (including the siegers, hooray) and I think at that point I abandoned it and ran for my life. My subsequent fortresses had a lot of the right kind of trap.

It sounds like you got a much more informed start than I did

[WaffleEggnog]

My first siege ever, 90% of my dorfs died, and on my second fort, the first siege was baisicaly a *clang* then gobbos running like hell.

[tommy521]

My first siege was obliterated (the rest ran)  when I conveniently discovered cave ins while also discovering that bridges do not support walls.
Left a nice big hole in the roof of the undergroundy bits though... Good times.

[Rodge]

Question: did it say "An ambush! Curse them!" or "A vile force of darkness has arrived!"? Only the latter qualify as a real siege and you get "SIEGE" written up at the top.

Oh btw, while scheduling and all that is nice, you already know almost enough to competently use the military. Two further tips:
1) The move (station) command is actually an 'attack-move' as RTS-lingo goes. They will break march to kill whatever they see. Note also that it's interpreted as a "move to around here" not a strict "move to exactly here".
2) When you have lots of squads, hold down shift to select many squads at once to give one order.

Not sure, but after reading these posts I'm thinking ambush. Oh well, either way I'm enjoying siege stories.

There's a move station command? I've just been saying kill this, or randomly using the list to kill badgers (I had a really bad experience with giant badgers, REVENGE). Do you mean the thing about using the cursor (the arrows, still using 2010)?  Don't know any RTS lingo, I don't play many video games, just Dwarf Fortress and Pokemon.

Either way, thanks for the advice about the shift key and everything else. That's actually really helpful.

[Baby_Slaver]

My first siege is not so bad me think,
120s unit invader (from i see at legend viewer), 30s troll, and around 40s goblin riding giant worm something, and the goblin lord himself as leader(i forget what its name). Mostly killed by traps (almost all troll die, why? cause they are the first one charge into my fort  ) before fight with my 3 squad of 10 dwarves, 2 meele squads and 1 crossbow squads.

The newly created inexperienced poorly equipped crossbow squad massacred right away (2 dwarves left), and my commander militia lost his right hand (he later become shield user and fight by biting or kicking,  ), i remember seeing one of my dwarf (the first one that charge into the horde)dying in the battlefield with all of his body part turn red before turn gray 

after the siege? well i already had legendary dining room, mostly room were already engraved, no madness, only some dwarves complains about losing relatives in tragedy.
i got tons of bones, leather, fur from the troll and worm, and a lot of goblinites to trade.

everything is fine the map is unbearable to play, the fps drop till 30s and CTD, a lot of crash that i had to save every 5 minutes, and the new version is coming, so i archive the map

[Cyco_Chicken]

My first siege was with genesis mod against beastmen. They slaughtered all my cats most of my war animals. They also killed a couple civilian dwarves before deciding to wait at the edge of the map for me to give 10 dwarves steel sword and shields 50% military losses including one testicle. 
It was a long and bloody battle but in the end my 10 dwarves kill all 14 beastmen.

[Psieye]

There's a move station command? I've just been saying kill this, or randomly using the list to kill badgers (I had a really bad experience with giant badgers, REVENGE). Do you mean the thing about using the cursor (the arrows, still using 2010)?  Don't know any RTS lingo, I don't play many video games, just Dwarf Fortress and Pokemon.

Whereas kill commands are 'k', move commands are 'o' and the game may call it 'station' instead of 'move'. I say "attack-move" because the alternative (which is not applicable in DF thankfully) is to move without paying heed to enemies attacking you.

[King DZA]

My first siege did absolutely nothing whatsoever. Just camped out at the edge of the map, lulling me into a sense of false security, so that the second siege could leisurely waltz in and offer free vivisections to my entire fortress population.