Print

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

[melvis]

I'm still pretty new to this game, and very bad at it. I just got my fortress wiped by a  10 Goblin invasion. I'd 20 dwarfs at my military and I they all were equipped with copper items. They got killed in a matter of seconds and  just managed to kill one goblin. I'd 10 of them training  outside for year. I know about the "danger room" but I would hate to do  that because it takes away  from the "fun".  How can i have a decent military without using exploits ? 

[Megabeasthorder]

Really i dont think their is any way to get a REALLY good military without using a danger room, but a few possible ways are
1. get easy enimies like wilderness creatures and have your men kill them for training
2. capture goblins and disarm them and use them for training

[GiglameshDespair]

A bunch of low-skill dwarves tend to have very slow skill increases, so they were unlikely to have gone up much skill at all in the space of a year. Did they have breaks? Did they have a squad set up of all swords, etc, with a swordsman (or whatever) as commander to teach them?

Two dwarf squads are highly effective at training dwarves if you can get them to spar. I embark with two dwarves with combat skills and the teachng skill - by year 1's end I have two legendary swordsdwarves and a close to legendary in armour, shield and dodging. Sparring is much better than demonstrations. With large squads, they tend to end up waiting around all day for demonstrations to begin.

A tactic you acn use in emergencies is conscripting your miners as soldiers. Picks are quite nasty weapons (as you would expect) and use the Mining skill for combat - in addition to the high strength your miners will have - so your highly trained miners can make a decent levy in a pinch, though they suffer from lack of other combat skills.

[Togre]

1) Small sqauds (3 or so) train faster than 10 dwarf squads.
2) Copper is a middling metal.  Better metal = better results.
3) Military is sometimes seen as a final line of defense.  Use chokepoints, corridors, traps, marksdwarfs on platforms, traps, etc. to wound, thin and direct the enemy to your military in smaller groups.

Someone said it better than I could.

Never think traps, bridges or military... think traps, bridges and military.  Maybe you don't have the wherewithal to make traps that don't suck.  That's fine, make traps that suck, and make plenty of them.  A severed weapon hand from a one-shot weapon trap which got lucky will make an enemy soldier safer and easier to kill.  Maybe you don't have spotters or fine-tuned automation, and the bridges don't close in time to keep out everybody.  That's fine too, if they keep out somebody.  10 moderately skilled militia dwarves will probably get slaughtered going up against 60 moderately skilled goblin soldiers, but they stand a decent chance against 8 moderately skilled goblin soldiers 4 times, with rest breaks in between (and by the time you've killed half their number the siege is most likely broken or about to break).

What I'm trying to say is your soldiers shouldn't be your only line of defence, but they should be one of the last lines of defence, hanging back and taking out enemies who have already been softened up and scattered by your other defences.  Maybe it's dishonourable, some might even say cowardly, but it's the pragmatic way to fight.  Straight head-on collisions are for suckers.  When in doubt, cheat.

[malimbar04]

Really i dont think their is any way to get a REALLY good military without using a danger room, but a few possible ways are
1. get easy enimies like wilderness creatures and have your men kill them for training
2. capture goblins and disarm them and use them for training

nonsense! squads of 2-3 with full leather and the same weapon train to legendary fairly fast, and they're more than useful during that time. Split it off to make one person teach the new guys, and repeat.

Extra points if you use crossbows, because a 2nd story fortification can kill a LOT with very little danger.

[Frontestro]

I've faced this problem a couple of times and its true when in doubt cheat it out. Make twisty hallways, plenty of weapon and cage traps, and a good last line of defence militia. Sending out your guys to fight, even if they are wearing all steel is still suicide if you are sending them against goblin crossbowmen with silver bolts. Defence comes in three tiers the first line, all the others, and the last.

[Sutremaine]

Which copper items were your dwarves equipped with, and do you know what their skill levels were? What are the combat logs like? Were the dwarves having trouble getting through the goblins' armour, or were they getting cut down before they had a chance to do anything?

2) Copper is a middling metal.  Better metal = better results.

Copper is worse than useless in some situations given its weight and poor defensive capability. Since the hauling update, dwarves can be slowed considerably by armour if they don't have enough Armour User skill to reduce the effective weight of the armour. Copper boots, gauntlets, and helms are pretty light, but stay away from the stuff otherwise. Leggings, greaves, mail, and plate are all extremely heavy items. The heaviness of a copper shield is a good thing for bashing, but if you're trying to reduce weight then it's better to stick with wood or leather shields. They block just as well as copper for a fraction of the weight.

Cloaks and hoods also provide another layer of defence, though they're a little harder to work with now since you have to make enough for everybody in the fortress.

[Splint]

Three man squads all with the same weapon set to train forever can yeild fairly satisfying results. It does help to have at least one weapon-skilled dwarf to teach the other two, and if you have the time, this squad can be split to train more dwarves.

Assigning uniforms also helps, I've been able to compeltly kit an army out in proper uniforms and armor thanks to the manager (It helps when the fortress is largly stable for clothing already when this is done.)

I personally like to set up the military around the entrance in barracks kitted to make thier lives a little easier (Such as beds if they have no rooms yet.) The main obstacle to a professional military is that constant drilling means no breaks and they get pissy.

And as other said, layers of traps to soften them up can help considerabley, though I tend to just back up infantry with hoards of attack dogs (They spend more time trying to break the dogs' grip on them than fighting.)

[melvis]

Thx for all the replies. 

A bunch of low-skill dwarves tend to have very slow skill increases, so they were unlikely to have gone up much skill at all in the space of a year. Did they have breaks? Did they have a squad set up of all swords, etc, with a swordsman (or whatever) as commander to teach them?

Two dwarf squads are highly effective at training dwarves if you can get them to spar. I embark with two dwarves with combat skills and the teachng skill - by year 1's end I have two legendary swordsdwarves and a close to legendary in armour, shield and dodging. Sparring is much better than demonstrations. With large squads, they tend to end up waiting around all day for demonstrations to begin.

A tactic you acn use in emergencies is conscripting your miners as soldiers. Picks are quite nasty weapons (as you would expect) and use the Mining skill for combat - in addition to the high strength your miners will have - so your highly trained miners can make a decent levy in a pinch, though they suffer from lack of other combat skills.

They had 3 breaks. They all had the same equipment but nobody had any significant skill.  I like the idea of embarking with skilled military personal, I'll try this one right way.  I heard that about the miners before but I never tried, I'll definitively give it a go next time.

Which copper items were your dwarves equipped with, and do you know what their skill levels were? What are the combat logs like? Were the dwarves having trouble getting through the goblins' armour, or were they getting cut down before they had a chance to do anything?

2) Copper is a middling metal.  Better metal = better results.

Copper is worse than useless in some situations given its weight and poor defensive capability. Since the hauling update, dwarves can be slowed considerably by armour if they don't have enough Armour User skill to reduce the effective weight of the armour. Copper boots, gauntlets, and helms are pretty light, but stay away from the stuff otherwise. Leggings, greaves, mail, and plate are all extremely heavy items. The heaviness of a copper shield is a good thing for bashing, but if you're trying to reduce weight then it's better to stick with wood or leather shields. They block just as well as copper for a fraction of the weight.

Cloaks and hoods also provide another layer of defence, though they're a little harder to work with now since you have to make enough for everybody in the fortress.

Yes, they were getting cut down before they actually did anything.  When they got to the goblin, the goblins managed to block or parry the attacks. They were equipped with everything made of copper expect for the shield that was made of wood.

Three man squads all with the same weapon set to train forever can yeild fairly satisfying results. It does help to have at least one weapon-skilled dwarf to teach the other two, and if you have the time, this squad can be split to train more dwarves.

Assigning uniforms also helps, I've been able to compeltly kit an army out in proper uniforms and armor thanks to the manager (It helps when the fortress is largly stable for clothing already when this is done.)

I personally like to set up the military around the entrance in barracks kitted to make thier lives a little easier (Such as beds if they have no rooms yet.) The main obstacle to a professional military is that constant drilling means no breaks and they get pissy.

And as other said, layers of traps to soften them up can help considerabley, though I tend to just back up infantry with hoards of attack dogs (They spend more time trying to break the dogs' grip on them than fighting.)

I'll down size my squad. I only had 2 squads of 10 man each. I was trying to get way without traps, but I won't do that again.

[Splint]

Well I've run fortresses almost trapless, except cages at the entrance to catch snatchers. 24-30 or so dwarves in the military full time in can also give them an advantage of numbers, and if you have a sufficently high population, a similar number os soldier stationed in the caverns can't go wrong either (A chubby 13 year old girl with a maul taught me that.)

[krenshala]

I almost never build traps, and start with a 2 to 4 dwarf militia that trains non-stop until they hit Skilled.  Once Skilled, I split them up and add more fodder farmers, in slightly larger squads since each of the initial militia members have learned both teacher and leader skills while they skilled up.  My only problem is when the militia charges out the gate instead of waiting for the enemy to come to them.  Impatient gits, the lot of them.

[terko]

Outer perimeter: Cage Traps

Inner perimeter: Weapon Traps

Use anything caught by the cage traps, like snatchers, ambushers, early sieges and all the other crap be the unarmed sparring partners for your soon to be deadly military. Important: try to get steel helmets for your military. Punches and kicks to the head can be quite deadly.

Maybe, if you're lucky, you can catch some (cave) crocodiles. They're great targets for archery training with wooden bolts.

[Jimmy T. Malice]

Copper is OK for your military (I used it for ages and my dorfs could take down pretty much anything), but iron is much better. Iron ore is much rarer, but you can always use goblinite (i.e. melting down goblins' equipment).

[Corai]

Copper is OK for your military (I used it for ages and my dorfs could take down pretty much anything), but iron is much better. Iron ore is much rarer, but you can always use goblinite (i.e. melting down goblins' equipment).

I have only seen copper twice. I have seen iron more times then I have seen microline.

[Frontestro]

Copper is OK for your military (I used it for ages and my dorfs could take down pretty much anything), but iron is much better. Iron ore is much rarer, but you can always use goblinite (i.e. melting down goblins' equipment).

I have only seen copper twice. I have seen iron more times then I have seen microline.

I would say lucky but I remember a time I embarked on a mountain made of magnetite for like 15 z-levels and at lest 5 other levels were limestone. On the flip side I see copper almost every embark as it is either a shallow metal or a rare deep metal. What pisses me off is galena its everywhere I go. I know silver makes good bolts and hammers but come on! I usually have enough lead bins to last me the life of my fortress!