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[firelord84]

    Hello all,
      I'm afraid I'm at the dreadful stage in my DF life that I can spout a lot of information, but I'm still a bit confused about advanced aspects and I'm not sure what's helpful.  So I'm terribly sorry, this is going to be long.  So, here's the background of my problem:

      I've been browsing the forums and I've seen tales of epic battles against multiple Forgotten Beasts simultaneously with minimal (like 1) losses.  Well, hearing stories like that and from my experience with caravan guards (nearly super heroes), I feel like my own army is very weak and I have no idea why.

       I am using DF 34.07.  My army is entirely equipped with the best materials.  I have silver warhammers, steel everything else (weapons and armor).  My entire army is fully decked out in steel, with my archers in leather of course, but with steel crossbows.  When ambushes happen to me, they tend to come with other consequences, like another ambush happening immediately, or even a simultaneous invasion.  I seem to lose dwarves like flies in these attacks.  Of course the ambushes take out one or two innocent bystanders who happen to be wandering around hunting or fishing, but I expect that.

      The outer layout of my fortress:  I am in temperate climate, so the creek on my map freezes in winter, and my map is completely, 100% flat.  A little over half of the map area (in the center) is surrounded by a three-tile moat filled with 7/7 water.  Since this also freezes, inside the moat I am completely surrounded by a gabbro wall.  There are two entrances to the wall, a bridge across the moat on the left, and a bridge across the creek on the right.  I have many animals grazing inside the walls, and also have several outdoor farms out there.  My main fortress is accessed by a ramp in the center of the compound.  I am currently building another circuit of wall (making the outer one 2 tiles wide) so I can build fortifications on the first tile, offering a safe vantage point for my archers to shoot from anywhere around the walls.

      This isn't done yet, so if I just raised the bridges, the goblin armies would wander around outside the walls with no way to attack, and me with no way to kill them either.  So right now I have to allow them to come in and meet my army after the other dwarves are downstairs safe.  The last attack was 2 groups of 6 goblins (1 scourges and 1 spears), with a crossbowman thrown in.  The first group managed to kill the elven caravan coming down before I could get there, but since I was in a rush my dwarves really, really like to form a single-file line to attack.  This almost always gets the first one in killed.  Is there a way to prevent this?  My total losses for the ambushes were 3 injured, 1 badly, and 2 military dwarves killed.  I had 8 crossbowmen and 6 melee.  Does this seem high with great equipment?

      I use wooden crossbow bolts because they're cheap and easy.  My dwarves make fine and exceptional ones right now.  But they seem to do little.  I looked at the battle reports and most of them were bouncing off the goblins armor.  Also, my weapon traps were useless.  They either dodged or batted away every single one of them.  They are made of wood and copper (from previously melted goblinite).

       Example 2: 

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

A marsh titan theropod with brass feathers and deadly spittle attacks!  He came with the human caravan (caravans, so much trouble).  The human crossbowman held him off single-handedly for a full 30 seconds!  My dwarves would die in 5.  He also somehow managed to fracture nearly every bone in the titan's body.  So I figured, eh, why not, he's already badly injured.  I sent my entire force of 12 dwarves out to meet him together, since my fortifications still weren't finished.  My crossbow bolts were entirely useless, probably because of the brass.  One of my melee dwarves got there way before my others, and died quickly.  Two others were badly injured before the titan was brought down.  How does a titan with fractured hands, fractured legs, several fractured ribs, and fractured mandibles wreck so much havoc?

        My question:  What the heck was that human crossbowman doing that I wasn't?  He fought hand to hand with that titan for about 25 of those 30 seconds and the titan couldn't bring him down!  My steel-armored, steel-axe-wielding dwarf goes in and gets crushed after he was softened up by the crossbowman.

     I have barracks with beds and weapon racks/armor racks/archery targets set up and assigned to the different squads.  My schedule is training every month with a minimum of 2 dwarves for training.  They spar and watch demonstrations all the time, but never seem to get better at anything.  Some of them have been in the military for more than a year and have only improved 1 or 2 steps in a couple things.  I'm a long, long way away from champions here.  They tend to switch back and forth between being whatever they were before they were drafted and military.  I've personally looked at their individual inventories and they are, in fact, wearing the armor and carrying the weapons I've assigned.

      TLDR:  My military is squishy despite having steel everything.  I lose several dwarves even to ambushes.  My dwarves have a chance to win a one-on-one goblin fight, but it's not guaranteed and they will be injured.  My crossbowdwarves and only rarely effective at stunning people, but nothing else.  My dwarves tend to walk single-file at the enemy and sometimes won't follow my orders, meaning the first ones to get there are always dead by the time the others arrive because the goblins surround them.

       Thanks for any suggestions, I'm somewhat lost.  Let me know if you need more info about any one thing.

         ~Ryan

[Hokan]

I admit that I scanned across this page rather quickly, but i'm pretty bad at military anyway.
Wooden bolts really are bad. Against unarmored, they're fine, but when going against any resistance, you want something with punch to them. Any metal works about equally well, but I like silver because once i've finished my silver warhammers, i've got all the extra metal lying around.

[firelord84]

    I do have a lot of copper from previous run-ins with goblins.  Are you saying copper bolts = steel bolts?  That would be interesting.  I'll queue up some more copper bolts.  Any comments on how to make my dwarves stop being the weaklings/idiots of the world?

[WealthyRadish]

Any metal bolt is fine, really, though steel is better. Make sure your steel armor isn't junky stuff. I would only have it made by a legendary armorsmith, melting anything below exceptional (actually, I usually only use masterwork, but that's a bit extreme). Also, marksdwaves should have armor as well... leather's going to be useless for when they run out of ammo and try to clobber enemies. Steel crossbows aren't really worth it, as the only thing crossbow material affects is blunt damage, which they're going to suck at anyway.

Training is infinitely more important than armor, in terms of survivablility against most surface foes. Even in masterwork steel breastplates, mail shirts, greaves, gauntlets, high boots, helms, and shields, they'll still die if they get hit by a random silver mace or a copper bolt to the head. The best solution is to have them never get hit, which means maxing weapon and fighter skills through sparring. A nude axelord using a copper axe and a wooden shield is better than a recruit in full steel.

[caddybear]

When it comes to military matters, equipment helps but skill is much more important. You would do well to read the threads about how to train your military better in this case.

And metal bolts weapons in traps because if the wooden ones won't do much to anything in armor.

[DTF]

Yeah copper bolts should be sufficient against gobs. As are often bone bolts, but if you have surplus copper on your map, make copper bolts.


Dwarves are stupid. They will not follow orders exactly and as soon as they see an enemy they'll never respond to your orders until the enemy is dead. When you design your defenses, you have to take that into account.

A very simple solution to shift the odds in your favour would be to construct a couple of bridges so that you can split the enemy into smaller groups. This way you can focus all your killing power on a few enemies and if some of your dwarves get injured you can recover them and depending on the status of your military lower the next bridge and keep fighting or let them rest up.
Also: make a staging area for your soldiers out of line of sight to the enemy, so you can group up before you head into battle.

If your equipment is top notch (and it is, apart from the wooden bolts) then the fault must lie with your soldiers.
Traits like agility, willpower, toughness and strength are very important for a soldier:
- if half your army is 'flimsy', they will suffer injuries a lot
- no agility means very slow dwarves means often times death; note that agility influences the general speed of a dwarf, not only his movement!
- no willpower: they give in to pain quicker which is basically one step away from being killed
Marksdwarves are somewhat easier to handle in that regard, but your melees should have at least a few of these traits. Also of high importance is "quick to heal", obviously. Having your frontliners 'cross train' can increase stats.

Other than that, look throught the wiki and search the forums about improving the dwarves' training, since, as the others have said, skill is more important than anything else.
As ultima ratio (heh, always wanted to use that... I'm smard now) there is also the danger room - its effectiveness can range from outright exploity and cheesy to mild and passive skill improvements. Everyone has a different opinion whether it should be regarded a legit way of training or not, you'll have to see for yourself if it floats your boat.

[Garath]

most of this has been said before, but my 2 cents

first of all, armor. For some reason, some people think if you just equip dwarfs with steel armor they are unbeatable. Armor use doesn't just affect the speed in which they move, fight and dodge, it also helps with actual effectiveness (I think). Similarly, even with best material and quality weapons, novices are not going to hit much. Especialy if they are weighted down and slowed down by armor they don't know how to use.

so, first suggestion of all: guard animals
putting some animals behind fortifications in a way only you can reach them makes them decent scouts. Any squad including a cross or bow goblin will shoot at it, it will probably die, but who cares, you got 30 more. Otherwise, it has a decent chance to spot enemies passing by. Your entrance should be guarded by animals that actually attack that are pastured. They'll trigger ambushes and give you time to organize your defences, time bought with their life. If you got nice things like GCS or elephants etc, you'll actually do a lot of damage.

second suggestion: stage defences
I may have as many as up to 6 areas in my entrance that can be seperately opened, closed and accessed. In fact, I usually make several entrances, most that will be closed most of the time. Also think about what kind of defences you want. Traps, soldiers, marksdwarfs only, or a combination. Marksdwarfs fire over z levels and from behind fortifications, so you can make the entrance 2 z-levels high, have one for melee battle and a walkway the level above. Don't make your dwarfs fight on a trapped area

on marksdwarfs. Copper crossbows are fine, but you want them at great quality for accuracy. If you brough dogs for breeding and had hunting on, you'll have bones. Stop making crafts and start making bone bolts, they are more effective than wood. You also want to hold them back. There is no friendly fire, so get them back. Don't even let them have a path to the fighting if possible at all. Beginner marksdwarfs may seem a bit useless, but when they get good, they really are good.


and basically, don't rush out to protect anyone, anyone caught outside who doesn't run into the fort is on its own. Too bad, but the fort is more important. Erect a monument to them if you feel guilty.

[firelord84]

  I really like the idea of having multiple "killing fields".  I checked my remaining meleers and none of them have the bad traits, but several have "agile" and "slow to tire".  Just luck on that part I guess.  Either that or that's the simple reason why they survived at all.  I believe I will build another wall past my farming fields, but before my animal grazing, and make the area inbetween my battleground.  I already have a hallway before you reach the interior of my fortress filled with traps and having fortification walls "just in case".

   I have cage traps at the edge of the bridges, and they will sometimes catch goblins coming across.  This means I have several prisoners.  I'm working on a way to use them to "train" my dwarves.  I was thinking about telling them to pick up wooden weapons, building a room beside the barracks for the "proving grounds", putting the cage in there, then locking the door when I order my squad in and flipping a lever that I will have attached to the cage to open it.  I'll have taken everything from the goblins so they'll just have their fists.  Is this a good idea?

    Thanks for all the suggestions and info!

  Oh!  P.S.  I don't actually have any copper at all on my map that I've found.  I'm just melting down old goblin armor and weapons and I needed something to do with all the copper.  I've got a massive amount of magnetite on my map for steel production.

[dexxy]

You only have one entrance to your fort, right? So build a barracks just outside the entrance. Make it several stories high with fortifications on levels above ground level. Build a barracks and archery targets for your marksdwarfs up there.

On the ground level barracks, make sure you leave a 3 tile wide path through the middle for caravans to go through. Base your melee soldiers in the ground level barracks.

When invaders arrive, they will run into the barracks where your soldiers are training to try to get into the fortress. You don't even have to issue orders, they just get killed automatically.

[Panando]

Arm everyone in the fortress (except the melee dwarves) with crossbows (put them in full squads, don't bother assigning them a barracks or archery range, just train them by shooting at animals or enemies, and activate them by stationing them when it's fight time). You can give these squads shields and armor if you like.

Strength through superior firepower is always true. Always. If you have 3 times as many combatants on the field as your enemy, then you will win resoundingly. So arm everyone. Everyone fights.

Two little caveats, don't recruit the miners (or woodcutters, hunters), there are still uniform conflict for miners in the military. And you need to go to military->ammunition screen, and increase the number of bolts per squad. 250 bolts per squad is not enough for 10 dwarves. 350 bolts per squad is generally enough (ideally each dwarf takes 25 ammo, so 250 bolts should be enough for 10 dwarves. But a dwarf might have 10 bolts left, and get another stack of 25 bolts. Then he has 35 bolts, and if several dwarves do that, then dwarf #10 doesn't get any bolts at all and will run into battle and try to hit stuff with his crossbow).

[knutor]

You'll get more military xps, out fighting animals than training.  One giant thrip, or a flock of ravens can really advance your dwarfs in archery.  Be sure to keep them fighting the animals in the area, right alongside your hunter, if your using hunters. 

Skills are essential, like which was said already.  The reason that depot guard did so well was because they usually have lv6 atleast in their military skills.  Not sure what your militia had, but to reach lv6, by dueling/training dummies alone takes awhile.

Don't send anyone in harms way, without atleast a helm, chest armor, and shield.  Oh, and I noticed in 07 onward, Toady switched the uniforms to EXACT, change that back to Partial matches.  So they will downsize the according to what you have in stock, and not just wait for say.. metal shields, when wooden ones are available.  Dunno why he changed the uniform default, its annoying. 

I use custom uniforms all the time, and would love to save them inbetween my games, but cannot.  Maybe Therapist will add that feature someday.  Heres hoping... *crossfingers*  I hate that leather shield in the Toady's default Archer and Leather uniforms, its so much better to have wood, IMO.  Take care, Knutor

[dennislp3]

I use custom uniforms all the time, and would love to save them inbetween my games, but cannot.  Maybe Therapist will add that feature someday.  Heres hoping... *crossfingers*

I have wanted this feature...since forever.

[Garath]

you can make a macro that makes the uniform for you. You can usually even use it in new releases. And I usually have exact matches for my military for a simple reason: I want them to use steel (or iron armor) and not that copper breastplate because it has aluminium decorations on it. They select by value, not by how well something protects.

[dennislp3]

Yeah I personally prefer specific as well...especially after a siege or something if I am not in full gear yet or whatever...I get people swapping crap out at random and I end up with a rainbow army clad in all manner of metals.

[Finn]

I'd up the minimum on the training to cover the full squad.  Unless you are desperate for laborers why have only 2 required to be on duty at any given time?