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[Burnzy503]

So I'd followed guides and watched some Let's Plays and learned most of the basics from all of that and I had a pretty awesome self sustaining fortress. It was awesome, but I hadn't experienced the bloody side of Fortress Mode yet. I had farms, workshops, a metal industry starting, and even a standing military (of 5). Out of nowhere at my front gates an army of zombie emus appear. I figured "Eh...it's emus what could they do?" I marched my 5 well trained soldiers out into the fray and well...they were devoured. What was worse was my captain and the 2 macedwarves came back from the dead! I guess you all can tell the rest Losing is fun!

[misko27]

Might I ask where this took place? Sounds like a reanimating biome. Also, never underestimate the ability of anything to kill you. Especially things with hooves.

The reanimation problem is one of the resons I have a standing army of 60 dwarves, with 15 reservists. Frankly, way too many things can happen to a small number of dwarves, and then you have no military, and then you're more screwed then usual, and then your dead, and then your undead.

Have you considered traps? they work great in place of a military.

[Wrex]

Enough traps can utterly replace a military, provided you can simply wall out trapavoid monsters.

[misko27]

But, if you use a military in addition to them, you can be completely safe. Probably. For a while.

[Burnzy503]

Might I ask where this took place? Sounds like a reanimating biome. Also, never underestimate the ability of anything to kill you. Especially things with hooves.

The reanimation problem is one of the resons I have a standing army of 60 dwarves, with 15 reservists. Frankly, way too many things can happen to a small number of dwarves, and then you have no military, and then you're more screwed then usual, and then your dead, and then your undead.

Have you considered traps? they work great in place of a military.

It wasn't a dangerous biome at all! I picked one of the more safe ones (Well at least what the quickstart guide told me) But near the end of the battle there was a human necromancer that appeared up in the corner. It was completely at random in front of my gate. I was going to start increasing my military but I figured that since I hadn't had anything come along yet I wouldn't need to rush it.

Usually I do use traps but I hadn't been thinking about it (which was a mistake!) but now I know to get my front door fortified up! All that was protecting me was a drawbridge and a little bit of wall with 2 dogs keeping watch outside! I need to work a lot more on fortress fortifications. Also, if I had been able to find metal quicker I would've had armor and weapons made. I only had what I was able to barter from the traders. It was a shallow/deep metal area but I couldn't find any for the life of me!

[misko27]

Well, in the future, check out nearby civs before you embark, if theres a tower, don't embark there.

[Burnzy503]

Will do!

If you have any advice on how to make a good defense in a fortress feel free to share I'm still pretty much a noob at this game but I was proud of how far I got before zombies overran me!

[Corai]

Will do!

If you have any advice on how to make a good defense in a fortress feel free to share I'm still pretty much a noob at this game but I was proud of how far I got before zombies overran me!

Give everyone crossbows. EVERYONE. They will gun down absolutely everything on sight.

[Burnzy503]

Give everyone crossbows. EVERYONE. They will gun down absolutely everything on sight.
[/quote]

The sad thing is that was the one weapon I could make! I should've just mass produced them! The great part was most dwarves that had them kept developing awkward close relationships with them

[wuphonsreach]

Give everyone crossbows. EVERYONE. They will gun down absolutely everything on sight.

Militia Defense, giving everyone crossbows thread:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=113308.0

Also, a string of 3-5 spiked wood ball weapon traps is generally enough to defeat regular zombies.  So a simple 10-15 tile long, 1-2 tiles wide, dodge-this walkway which enemies have to traverse in order to enter the fort can be enough.

I usually do:

(ramp) - (raised walkway filled with traps) - (retracting bridge) - (fortress wall)

Which deals with both stuff that can be killed by the traps (or forced to dodge back down to the ground) and things which are trap-avoid (titans / forgotten beasts) where you can just close the drawbridge.

[Burnzy503]

Give everyone crossbows. EVERYONE. They will gun down absolutely everything on sight.

Militia Defense, giving everyone crossbows thread:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=113308.0

Also, a string of 3-5 spiked wood ball weapon traps is generally enough to defeat regular zombies.  So a simple 10-15 tile long, 1-2 tiles wide, dodge-this walkway which enemies have to traverse in order to enter the fort can be enough.

I usually do:

(ramp) - (raised walkway filled with traps) - (retracting bridge) - (fortress wall)

Which deals with both stuff that can be killed by the traps (or forced to dodge back down to the ground) and things which are trap-avoid (titans / forgotten beasts) where you can just close the drawbridge.

Is there any way you would be able to post a screenshot of how you set your defenses up? I could definitely use as much help as possible keeping my fort decently defended Everything else I'm okay at getting moving it's just the defenses lacking because a bunch of half rotted emus decimated me

[jellsprout]

Next time you generate a new world, make the history as short as possible. That way no necromancers, vampires or werebeasts will exist yet. This should make life a whole lot easier for you. Then once things start to get too easy again, increase the history length for your next world.

[misko27]

Next time you generate a new world, make the history as short as possible. That way no necromancers, vampires or werebeasts will exist yet. This should make life a whole lot easier for you. Then once things start to get too easy again, increase the history length for your next world.

The problem here being a increased number of mega-beasts, but I suppose that can be fixed in world-gen parameters.

[wuphonsreach]

Basic trap "walkway" entrance.  It gets horribly congested when you have more then 20 dwarves or so, but it suffices early on to keep the roving ground animals and ambush squads out of the main keep.  Goblin squads will dodge off the path, fall back down, and stay outside the wall.  Animals generally get chewed up by the wooden spiked ball weapon traps.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

This particular design is a ramp on the north end, with an L-bend, then a bridge at the east end where it enters the keep.  The 11x11 building to the south is one of my corner anchors for the main keep wall.  it sticks out very wide from the corner and gives a commanding view for crossbow squads stationed on the 2nd floor, looking out through (future) fortifications.

For larger keeps, with a higher population where you expect massive movement of dwarves, make the path 2-tiles wide instead of only 1-tile and make it about 30-40% longer (at least 15-20 tiles long).  For even bigger forts, two parallel walkways which are both 2-tiles wide and cross-connected every 10-15 tiles are fine.

Then there's the mushroom shaped entrance for the caravan wagons.  Since it's longer then the pedestrian path (which is lined with traps), very few enemies will take it.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[brainfreez]

how long is dwarven pregnancy?