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[Zsword]

Topic:

Plus, it's already in your fort to the point that the option 'wall it off', isn't an option? (Problems can be anything from !!FUN!! to a pair of Kobold Thieves that have decided to be bad-ass.)

[Mushroo]

You can purchase metal bars from the caravans if you don't have any on your map. Also metal stuff (cages and anvils are the best) to melt down into bars.

[Zsword]

I'm not asking 'how do I get metals when Id on't have any on the map', there's a topic about that, and I read it, and was like 'damn, that'd be nice to know BEFORE I got in this mess.' =P

As is, the !!FUN!! is in, No Magma to flood it with, your military is undergeared, and your masons are too scared to do the job, WHAT DO YOU DO!?

[Psieye]

With no information on what that !!FUN!! is, there's a limit to what we can advise you with. Answers range from "zerg rush with naked militia", "drop something on their heads", "edit raws to make the hostiles air-drown on the spot" and "use DFHack to insta-obsidianise the targets". I don't see many sane options if you haven't designed your fort to be compartmentally quarantined off at the pull of a lever.

[mscantrell]

Flee!
If it's that bad, set a new burrow at some safe corner of the map and put everyone in it. (Easierfrom the military screen than the burrow screen. )

Wall yourself in over there.

Treat it like a reclaim with extra dwarves

Build strength, attack when ready..

[Zsword]

I'm kinda trying to keep it generic because I don't want the topic to die off as soon as -my- problem is solved, when, Dwarf Fortress is the king of WHO KNOWS what's going to happen, maybe others need help, or maybe your imagination of FUN can blow things horribly out of proportion, or maybe, iunno, you have fun with it.

My specific problem was a GCS that has already cleaned out my Fort and forced an abandon. (First time dieing to a GCS! Woo! Now to gen a new world because finding Iron on that old one was a paaaiiin, not newb friendly at aaalll) Though I think Everyone With a crossbow would of solved that, and I had resources for it, I just, didn't have it pre set up at the time cause I"m a scrub. XP Oh well. I think next time I embark I'm gonna have a dedicated militant in the start party.

[Psieye]

Most !!FUN!! is prevented not cured. With extremely conservative doctrine it's possible to avoid most FUN to the point of boredom. Generally the learning curve goes from "loses forts all the time" to "figures out how to prevent all sources of FUN" to "deliberately takes on risks to really savour the FUN that seeps through". Note that megaprojects counts as "deliberately taking a risk" as it's a wholly unnecessary extravagance for the purpose of keeping your fort alive.

[RickiusMaximus]

Well, I find that the quickest thing is always mining.

It will always be faster than constructing walls, or building doors or bridges.

Burrow your dwarfs into one section of your fort and use channels, or remove stairways and ramps to seal the enemy out.

If your fortress is really small and this wont be possible find a remote pocket or hill in the landscape and remove all of the ramps except one, burrow the dwarfs in the middle and when the beast approaches remove the last ramp.


Once sealed in you have the option of building crossbows and fortifications to defeat the foe without risking your men or building a trap corridor or if your completely screwed try to kill it with a cave-in

[Gahagan]

Wood. Wood bolts, wood traps.

Is it weaker than metal? Yes. Will wooden traps and wooden bolts still kill things? Also yes.

On the non-military side, comically oversized rooms with smoothed floors are more than enough to keep nobles happy, and anything else you need can be made out of stone, clay, or glass, instead of metal.

Problems arise when you have no wood, though.

[MasterShizzle]

Wood. Wood bolts, wood traps.

Is it weaker than metal? Yes. Will wooden traps and wooden bolts still kill things? Also yes.

On the non-military side, comically oversized rooms with smoothed floors are more than enough to keep nobles happy, and anything else you need can be made out of stone, clay, or glass, instead of metal.

Problems arise when you have no wood, though.

Aside from not being usable for prisons, wooden cages are functionally identical to metal ones. You can make endless fields of wooden cage traps in a hurry if you need to. The elves always have plenty of usable cages on the cheap. Request wood from the caravan (I do this even on heavily forested maps) and you'll get enough wood to burn for fuel and make armor/weapons out of goblinite, usually for less cost than just one or two prepared meals. Buy cages from the dwarves as well, and you might happen upon something worthwhile, or just butcher the inhabitants and make bone bolts. A half-dozen turkey hens right now will produce enough turkeys and raw eggs to feed your fort forever.

If nothing else, leather-armored marksdwarves with bone bolts/bows are a vast improvement over sending your miners out there armored in just their beards. Make a pitting station, and dump all the captives from your cage traps into a target-practice arena. Once you get a squad of Legendary marksdwarves, most things won't even get close enough to worry about needing armor anyway.

[Zsword]

Wood. Wood bolts, wood traps.

Is it weaker than metal? Yes. Will wooden traps and wooden bolts still kill things? Also yes.

On the non-military side, comically oversized rooms with smoothed floors are more than enough to keep nobles happy, and anything else you need can be made out of stone, clay, or glass, instead of metal.

Problems arise when you have no wood, though.

This actually arrizes a personal problem of mine, I've played enough to know that, if you have a dangersou creature caged, you move the cage, not the creature, but how do you get said creature in a pit?

(and, this sounds like it would take a lot of space, am I being too conservative with my designs if I try to avoid getting my hallways alrger than 3 wide, and any non stockpile room larger than 2 shift jumps in either direction?)
Aside from not being usable for prisons, wooden cages are functionally identical to metal ones. You can make endless fields of wooden cage traps in a hurry if you need to. The elves always have plenty of usable cages on the cheap. Request wood from the caravan (I do this even on heavily forested maps) and you'll get enough wood to burn for fuel and make armor/weapons out of goblinite, usually for less cost than just one or two prepared meals. Buy cages from the dwarves as well, and you might happen upon something worthwhile, or just butcher the inhabitants and make bone bolts. A half-dozen turkey hens right now will produce enough turkeys and raw eggs to feed your fort forever.

If nothing else, leather-armored marksdwarves with bone bolts/bows are a vast improvement over sending your miners out there armored in just their beards. Make a pitting station, and dump all the captives from your cage traps into a target-practice arena. Once you get a squad of Legendary marksdwarves, most things won't even get close enough to worry about needing armor anyway.

[MasterShizzle]

This actually arrizes a personal problem of mine, I've played enough to know that, if you have a dangersou creature caged, you move the cage, not the creature, but how do you get said creature in a pit?

(and, this sounds like it would take a lot of space, am I being too conservative with my designs if I try to avoid getting my hallways alrger than 3 wide, and any non stockpile room larger than 2 shift jumps in either direction?)

I usually build cage traps up on the surface, outside of any other defenses I have. It doesn't take as much space as you might think.

As for pitting: http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Mass_pitting

[Mushroo]

Your problem was breaching the cavern before you were ready. If you hadn't invited the GCS into your fort it wouldn't have killed your dwarfs, it's that simple. A single carefully-placed hatch cover could have saved your fort.

[Ivir_Baggins]

No metal? Use candy!

[Bigheaded]

i embark with some copper or some copper weapons, so my military is training from day 1, the skill they reach far outweighs whatever the goblins throw at you early on till the end of year 2. (so yes, 2 dorfs in military is all you need)
By then you should have had plenty of traders in and out, purchased full iron armor x2, if not much was available, to buy any form of iron/steel and melt it (slightly annoying without magma, but i've managed it)
Should also have begun training a few more dwarves into melee. Make sure the entrance is underground and with plenty of twists to ensure that when ranged gobbos come, it's as hard as possible for them to do anything.
If worst comes to worst and you're forced to fight on the surface, make a "sacrificial squad" of 10 dwarves, chuck them at the gobbos with the 2x trained dwarves to follow, whilst the gobbos are busy killing the sacrifices, your competent military (probably legendary fighters by the time you're forced to fight) will just destroy the rest.
Years 3 and onwards gets tricky. More ingenuitive defense required. Sacrificing dwarves still works to some effect, but preferably you want some other way of dealing with them.