Print

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

[birdy51]

Alright... I've been doing my best to figure out Dwarf Fortress through, but I constantly run into one massive green brick wall. Goblins. No matter how hard I try to defend my fortress, these buggers always end up either killing everyone off or starting a Tantrum spiral that renders the fort completely disabled by absolute chaos.

So I need some tips. Assuming that I don't want to completely shut my fort away from civilization, how can I deal with them effectively? I've had squads of up 30 soldiers before, but I normally fail to get them proper armour and weapons do to the size of the squad. Traps are only vaguely effective at times although, I did catch a few child snatchers and made them pay the ultimate price! But, that still doesn't stop them enough. Any creative ways to dispel this issue for good?

[Gamerboy4life]

Dig a big entry hall, and build a bridge over a channel.

Close bridge when gobbos arrive, so they can't go further.

Remove channels if you want to atomsmash the fuckers.



Or dig two channels on either side of a hall, like that scene in star wars where Luke is fighting Vader, you know, with the pathways and big drops? Put weapon traps on the narrow walkway. Gobbos get chopped or dodge into oblivion.

[Ki11aGhost]

What I do (usually because I get shitloads of Marksdwarves/Hunters) is, if I have a river or water source, which I usually do, I make a moat around my entrance, and I train up a bunch of Marksdwarves. They stand on one side of the moat and pick off the gobbos, the gobbos sit on the other side and wonder why the drawbridge is up. I also station wardogs on my bridges to watch for ambushes.

So far, it's been rather effective.

[ThreeKelvin]

I usually layer the security of my fortress in the following way:

1: Entryhall with plenty of traps.
2: Guard rooms, where I can station close combat dwarves (approx ten dwarves is usually enough) and the trade depot
3: Inner fortress, with workshops, barracks and stockpiles
4: Sanctuary, with dining hall and sleeping quarters

I have bridges between the individual layers of the fortress, so I can control how deeply an invasion penetrates it.

When I have the basic setup of my fortress done, I'll strengthen my defenses by constructing/digging out shooting galleries for marksdwarves, so that they can shoot at invaders from behind fortifications, either before they reach the entryhall or while they're in it. I'll also build a shooting gallery that overlooks the guard rooms, for support for the close combat dwarves.

I used to build my entryhall as a narrow bridge (Not a bridge as in b-g, just a one tile wide walkway.) with a big drop at both sides and plenty of traps for getting the goblins and trolls to dodge to oblivion, but fall damage has been nerfed in the lates release, so it isn't as effective any more. This style of entryhall also has side effect that your close combat dwarves will fall to their deaths when they close in on their foes (And, at some point they will. Stupid dwarves are just too eager to get in a fight to stand their ground.)

Now I just build it as a two tiles wide hallway of weapon traps, with a longer, trap free, three tiles wide wagon path for the merchants.

The design works fairly well, even in the early fort, as I start out by using the guard rooms as temporary shelter, until I've dug out more layers. Also, I can make the fortress fairly efficient by use a central stairwell design for the individual layers of the fortress without compromising the security too much.

[DNK]

Very first thing you do each time:
Dig a large cavern underground with enough space for stockpiles, workshops, and a separate (small) dorm with space for 4 beds (2x4 room) and a small dining hall. Let 5 dwarves get to work on hauling, building up shops, beds, etc.

Send 2 dwarves (miner skills enabled) out and about. Carve a rectangle (or any polygonal shape, if you happen to like octagons, go for it) around whatever you need topside (though cutting through rivers is a bit difficult). Use the "h" key for that. Then, go 1 z-level lower and designate everything you just carved with the "z" key, which destroys ramps, etc. Carve out an up staircase on the EXTERNAL side somewhere (and a down stair 1 Z-level above, ofc) for the miners to get out. Viola! You have an impregnable moat that no goblin can overcome.

Have other dwarves create a retractable drawbridge (see wiki for explanation - you need to designate which way it retracts with "asdw") that closes on the interior side. Link it with a lever (lever is b-T-l, link with 2 additional mechanisms by "q" selecting it and choosing "link with bridge"). Get the miners inside and start digging for gold (or iron, if you like that sort of thing).

Place a chain a distance away from the entrance and put a dog on it for advanced warning (makes it way more effective), or just keep the bridge closed all the time and screw the wagons!

Now, you're 99% safe. Really, the only chance of getting destroyed is if none of your dwarves bothers to pull the lever to close the bridge when the goblins come, but that's not terribly likely...

[Bigheaded]

I only lost my first 1-2 fortresses to goblins, generally i find the "simplest" defense for a new player is cage traps.

I will warn you now, you are going to catch a LOT of wildlife (i find this a good thing, just go to z menu -> animals, train each of the ones you don't want and select butcher, it's like hunting without the hunters ) and you'll have a few animals you may want to keep (peregrine falcons being the main one, as they're generally more efficient than cats).

The other downside is how many of these are needed, i generally place them as close as possible to the map edge, with ~10 spaces inbetween to start with, then go down to 3 spaces in between, then sometimes adding a second layer.

I also found getting 2x sword/hammerlords within the first year handy, this is fairly easy to do, just set 2x of your starting 7 (that's a lot to give up mind, i do it on 90% of embarks now though) to a weapons skill, i usually use hammers, swords are funny too, set it to proficient for both (i often give one high dodging skill also). At embark, build a wood or stone armor stand, dump it outside (seeing you're unlikely to be embarking at evil locations) and get em training off the bat. I've had them both hitting lords within 2 seasons.
So you may find it useful to train squads in pairs, as it is faster as they "spar" more often and that gives much faster training than anything else i've seen.

So with traps catching literally half of the ambush and 90% of the thieves/snatchers which come in and 2x hammer lords running around (get them in full metal armor if possible too), you'll find ambushes a lot more amusing, watching 2 dwarves literally kill 5-6 alone. crossbow goblins are a pain and may need your own crossbow dwarves to counter them.

You also get the achievement value of beating a goblin attack "head on", rather than just shutting them out and ignoring them as has been suggested.

[burn_heal]

I agree with Bigheaded that cage traps are the easiest and most effective defense, as they are very overpowered.

Its worth knowing that currently wagons cannot travel over cage traps (It wasn't always this way, so I think its a bug. But I think it makes sense - how would visiting traders magically know about the traps you set up?). If you want wagons you will need to do a bit more work: have a separate entrance at least 3 tiles wide which has a row of bridges (draw-bridges or retractable ones) that can be pulled-up/retracted by pulling a lever (there are description of how to use levers above by the other posters). Pull up the bridges when the goblins come.

You will still get trade even if wagons can't get through, but you will only be brought the items hauled by single animals. So its not completely necessary to get wagons.

If you rely on cage traps forever you will be missing out on the challenge of setting up a proper fort-defense. But I recommend it to start with because it will give you a chance to learn the ropes without being ripped to shreds by every goblin squad that comes.

[birdy51]

Alright, this helps quite a bit. I'm probably going to try a combination of these ideas, and see how they work for me. I may plan to use the segmentation idea in combination with skilled soldiers right off the bat. I'll probably need a few death pits as well to round things off, but I'm currently a noob at that side of things. Still, I'll take the time to find out since a lot of these strategies need them to succeed. Also, I actually did try cage traps extensively, however it seems like I might have just placed them badly, as I found them innefective. Then again, my Dwarves were borderline suicidal and decided to break the siege, which in turn forced me to deploy my soldiers before they reached the traps. They were just asking for it.

When it comes down to it, I've been generally too lazy to build a secure fortress, and these tips made me realize that. Hopefully, I can use some these ideas when I start up fortress next time. I'm going to try to find an embark that has a cliff and a river, and use that as the basis for segmenting the fort into different layers. Besides, it'll look rather badass too!

[Exitstrategy]

These are some good ideas. I may borrow a few of them myself. I currently do alternating rows of stone-fall and cage traps to stop essentially anything that tries to get inside my fort. That's what stopped the Necromancer and Goblin sieges that attacked me at the same time. (Im trying to figure out how to get my dwarves to just toss 2 of the necros down my nigh bottomless pit, but they wont do it. Suggestions?)

Stone traps are pretty fun, aside from the mess. Cage traps aren't my favorite though... I don't have fun with the attackers when they wander into my cages. I like sending my military out to chop up the enemy gobos.

[birdy51]

Good to see that other's are benefitting from my question!

You know... I think this might be an occasion for me to create a super-fortress and simply go overboard on protective measures. However, I still want have the capabilities of allowing wagons, invaders, and migrants to approach "safely". Hehe, next time I get the chance to start a new fortress, my green friends will be in for a suprise!

[Bigheaded]

These are some good ideas. I may borrow a few of them myself. I currently do alternating rows of stone-fall and cage traps to stop essentially anything that tries to get inside my fort. That's what stopped the Necromancer and Goblin sieges that attacked me at the same time. (Im trying to figure out how to get my dwarves to just toss 2 of the necros down my nigh bottomless pit, but they wont do it. Suggestions?)

Stone traps are pretty fun, aside from the mess. Cage traps aren't my favorite though... I don't have fun with the attackers when they wander into my cages. I like sending my military out to chop up the enemy gobos.

my suggestion is using a minecart to launch them, whilst still in their cage down there. If you "fire" the cage out (so aim a minecart which has speed at a wall with a space above where the minecart hits, minecart slams into it and contents (i.e cage) fly out, contents fly out of cage because that is what happens, cage + necromancer fly down bottomless pit.
XXXXXXXXXXX
|   <---cage
| PIT W C_____________
|       |xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
x = floor, X = ceiling | = wall, W = wall which minecart hits, C = minecart, _ = track where minecart has come from. Obviously for the cage to go through, there is empty space.
Not great with drawings, hope that's enough though.


My guess to why cage traps were unsuccessful is simply not having enough, i had literally 5 mechanics out of 60 dwarves, and another 5 of them were generally replacing traps for 90% of their lives.
In a save which has repelled 4 simultaeneous ambushes (~4 goblins in each) i had 20 cage traps on each side as close to the edge as possible, with 4 gaps inbetween (on a smaller map than a standard embark) 8 of the goblins were caught in said traps, an additional 4 thieves/snatchers of 5 were caught. 4 goblins fled after crossbowmen took out 1, legendary hammerdwarves finished up.
On a different save, i had closer to 300 cage traps, i actually managed to capture 100% of some ambushes, which is pretty impressive i think

Bear in mind i am still fairly new, i have yet to work out a lot of stuff, for example today I used my first screw pump, and was definitely impressed, was expecting like 1/7 of water each second, heck that guess was wrong (more like 3 full 7/7 tiles) and surprisingly easy to use.


Remember, do what's fun for you, ambushes are really funny, so bring em on, let em come and mash em up, invent some defenses, going to try flooding them out soon, using my new knowledge of screw presses (make a water tank, filled with ~200 7/7 waters, open 4 floodgates as goblins approach entrance, amusement ensues).

[birdy51]

Dear heavens!

You do love your traps!

I only had about twenty cage traps on my map, but I imagine things would went far better if I did have over 200.

[burn_heal]

(Im trying to figure out how to get my dwarves to just toss 2 of the necros down my nigh bottomless pit, but they wont do it. Suggestions?)

The way I do it is have at least one floor space adjacent to the hole at the top of the pit. Set a stockpile on this space which will accept necromancers, and disable necromancers in their current stockpiles (stockpile settings can be changed by pressing (q) then moving the cursor over the stockpile and pressing (s)). (It's a pain to search for a single creature through the list of animals, but the only way to do it). Create a zone covering both the hole and the stockpile using (i) and make it a Pit. One the necromancer cages have been hauled to the stockpile, press (i) and move the cursor over the Pitting zone. Press (P) set pit/pond information and choose the necromancers to be assigned to the pit. Some eager dwarves should soon come up and throw the necromancers down to their spiky deaths! (I often find that this is one the easiest jobs to get dwarves to do)

It could look something like this:

===
=..=
===

= stockpile
.. empty space

The pitting zone will be set over all 9 squares above, including the hole. A creature can be thrown down the hole from any point in the stockpile. If the creature you assign to be pitted is not in one of the eight spaces around the hole, (e.g. in another stockpile) they will bring them out of their cage and attempt to drag them to the pit, which won't go very well at all...

To be safe, line the entrance of the pitting zone with a cage trap or two to deal with failed pits. Kobold/goblin thieves will escape when attempted to be pitted like this, but I think necromancers will work. Normal goblins are fine too.

Launching them out of minecarts sounds fun too

[birdy51]

I'm not sure if it's crueler or not, but I generally feed goblins that invade my fortress to two recruits with training swords. His death will be painful.

[burn_heal]

In terms of pain dealt out, definitely crueler..