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[Mohawk_Bravo]

Hey guys, just working on my latest fortress and I'm getting a little turned around on the wiki. I recently ran out of Adamantine due to a combo of creating adamantine equipment and a terrible flooding 'accident', I ran out of supplies to create new equipment for a full squad. Well, I found some veins of malachite and was thinking I might make some copper equipped squads. So I was wondering what the best weapons are to be made out of copper for all purpose defense? Thanks in advance guys.

[Telgin]

Copper warhammers will be pretty effective, but some have bad luck with blunt weapons not being effective enough.  If you don't kill someone with a headshot they tend to not be so great.

Against goblins with bronze or iron armor copper cutting weapons will be of limited usefulness.  You can still get lucky and have dwarves hit them in places that are unarmored though.

I'd probably make a squad or two of each axedwarves and hammerdwarves.

As for armor, copper armor will again not be very good against goblins, but I'd make helmets first, then gauntlets and highboots.  The greaves, mail shirts and breastplates can wait until after those, since losing a limb is more crippling than torso hits in the long run.

[Mohawk_Bravo]

Would it be a viable option, in this case, to make their uniform include individual choice, melee? I already have 5 Adamantine equipped Axelords and several trapped routes into the lair set up (mostly menacing wooden spiked balls and rock falls). I also have survived two sieges and several ambushes, so their is a huge pile of unused silver, copper, and other goblinite weapons lying around.

Also, quick unrelated question. I noticed that my fotress did not recieve a dwarven caravan for about two years. Finally one arrived and I was sure to grease their palms a lot to try and encourage trade, but I'm unsure of the reason for the long gap in the trade. The Elves still showed up periodically, but no dwarves (and given that I took down nearly an entire fortress, wooden trade goods just weren't cutting it). Any clues as to what this may be?

[knutor]

Spiked balls
Bolts
Bucklers

[Bigheaded]

any mentions at all in the announcements?
are you 100% sure they didn't turn up, perhaps without a wagon?

Not sure how you would miss it pausing the game though, unless you've taken that pause out.

If you can, nab the silver out of the goblinite and go for war hammers, they're nearly as good as steel warhammers. I actually prefer blunt damage a lot of the time, once trained and muscled, they kill stuff just as fast as any other weapon in my opinion.

If you decide to use copper, it would be "ok" for most weapons, but it really doesn't work against steel/iron armor, so some goblins can cause a problem. Still, your adamantine axemen will probably tear the goblins to shreds anyway.

[Drazinononda]

For equipping dwarves, copper bolts (fired from a copper crossbow in case bashing is called for, if your ores are plentiful) are your best bet for mobile defense. Serrated disks or spiked balls in weapon traps are also rather effective.

So basically what knutor said, except make shields instead of bucklers, unless you're going to be using mauls or greataxes for some reason.

[ikachan]

Goblins tend to bring a lot of iron when they invade.
You could make cooper weapons then kill goblins for their iron.
So you could use the copper as a stepping stone to get some iron.

[FlavorCat]

Add another vote for serrated discs, or bashing weapons. In terms of hammers, copper isn't too far behind silver, but in the armor department, I wouldn't use copper even if it's the only thing I have. I'd much sooner use traps or co-opt or melt down goblinite and just use that.

[Triaxx2]

You said you have goblinite lying around. Melt and reforge. If you're needing weapons, silver warhammers meet the need to brutally murder things quite well.

Do you have any sand? You can make glass trap weapons. Nothing says hello like a serrated glass disc.

And check your stocks to see if you have any tin bars. Bronze is better than copper armor I believe.

[knutor]

So basically what knutor said, except make shields instead of bucklers, unless you're going to be using mauls or greataxes for some reason.

I don't know that the weapon makes much of a difference, Drazinonoda.  Why do you say that?

I prefer bucklers to shields, even so.  Armor raises faster in the danger room with bucklers.  Shields cover more than bucklers, true.  That means more blocks and less armor hits during training, doesn't it?

They also take half the material of a shield, so if weight matters for speed calcs, a soldier carrying a buckler will get to his prey a step ahead or first.  Sometimes.  It only takes one hit.  Sincerely, Knutor

[GoombaGeek]

A great man once said the best thing you can make out of copper is gourmet cookware.


Alternatively, you could try magnesium-aluminium cookware, except I'm pretty sure that putting anything acidic in those would result in hydrogen buildup and a possible gas explosion, which is secret code for AWESOME.

[Drazinononda]

So basically what knutor said, except make shields instead of bucklers, unless you're going to be using mauls or greataxes for some reason.

I don't know that the weapon makes much of a difference, Drazinonoda.  Why do you say that?

I prefer bucklers to shields, even so.  Armor raises faster in the danger room with bucklers.  Shields cover more than bucklers, true.  That means more blocks and less armor hits during training, doesn't it?

They also take half the material of a shield, so if weight matters for speed calcs, a soldier carrying a buckler will get to his prey a step ahead or first.  Sometimes.  It only takes one hit.  Sincerely, Knutor

You are basing your choices on training scenarios, I am basing mine on invasion scenarios:

You are correct about the higher armor skill gains with a buckler, as well as the speed consideration. With training, either in a danger room or live practice (with captured goblins, say) these are definitely good things, as shield will raise quickly enough anyway and one wants one's dwarves to learn the other skills as well.

In an invasion, the considerations are slightly different. For example, there are few ways to filter out or neutralize marksmen among the enemy forces. I'll assume that the fort is laid out to force invaders to engage the defenders all at once in close quarters, to account for the speed difference of a single dwarf charging through a hail of bolts across an open field vs. an entire squad engaging the archers at once. At close quarters against a squad of archers (or worse, a squad of melee with an elite archer squad leader) the primary consideration is how many blows land, and while a strike blocked by a shield or buckler never causes injury, a hit against armor often does, with copper armor being the most likely to allow injury by non-blunt attacks. In short, copper armor is only as useful as higher-grade armors when considered against blunt attacks, where all armors are about equally ineffective. If you have invaders coming in, then the fewer dwarves you have passing out due to chipped bones or dying from headshots, the better.

As far as the weapon thing goes, I'd thought that multigrasp weapons played nicer with bucklers than with shields, but reviewing the wiki doesn't give me anything to support that the game differentiates in function between shields and bucklers, so I'll have to retract that.

[Callista]

I would make crossbows and bolts. Of course you'll want to give them proper armor as well.

The fact is, you'll not match iron- or bronze-armored enemies if you only have copper; but crossbows can keep you out of range of their weapons while at the same time allowing you to shoot them with the more effective crossbow bolts. Put them behind fortifications and have them shoot. By the time the enemy closes with your dwarves, they'll be weakened enough that your squad of hammer- or axedwarves can finish them off.

[Pirate Bob]

Science shows that copper crossbow bolts are actually slightly better than steel in DF34.11.  All bolts have insane amounts of momentum in this version, and all metal bolts easily penetrate all armor (including candy).  Since copper is more dense than steel/iron, the copper bolts have even more momentum and thus deal more damage.  The differences are quite small, so all metals make very good bolts, but the denser the better.  Also, bolt quality doesn't seem to do anything at all (testing still in progress, but it's pretty clear it doesn't impact damage, and the wiki says it doesn't impact accuracy), so making bolts might be a good way to train up your new weaponsmith...

[knutor]

So basically what knutor said, except make shields instead of bucklers, unless you're going to be using mauls or greataxes for some reason.

I don't know that the weapon makes much of a difference, Drazinonoda.  Why do you say that?

I prefer bucklers to shields, even so.  Armor raises faster in the danger room with bucklers.  Shields cover more than bucklers, true.  That means more blocks and less armor hits during training, doesn't it?

You are basing your choices on training scenarios, I am basing mine on invasion scenarios:

Thanks.  Yup. 

Also basing buckler choice on melting items.  But I never timed the speed to melt a buckler to a shield.  Less material, maybe its quicker, dunno for sure.  Eventually, I guess we'll want that copper for bismuth bronze.