Print

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

[k33n]

And I feel the need to tell the world!

Using a combined force of melee dwarfs in master-craft bronze and mass war dogs I finally passed the threshold.

How do YOU deal with sieges, and when was the first time that you succeed? How about times when you failed utterly?

[Telgin]

I've never lost to a siege actually, but in general my strategy consists of a drawbridge and fortifications with marksdwarves.  You could argue that this is pretty cheap, but elite archers can retaliate and I've had dwarves maimed and permanently crippled by this so I don't mind so much.  Two ten man squads are enough to repel even huge sieges in this manner if they have enough ammo.

I don't use melee too much for sieges and mostly reserve them for ambushes.  Last time I tried to use melee in a siege the corpses of riders fell off of their dying mounts to maim my legendary soldiers. 

[Oaktree]

I tend to use a mix of drawbridges, traps, marksdwarves behind fortifications, and well trained melee dwarves.

General defense is a set of tunnels from the different quarters of the embark that meet to enter an open area with a fortress entrance on the far side.  The exits of each tunnel have drawbridges controlled by levers - and often the inner exit as well.  The open area is ditched to force the advancing goblins to zig-zag back and forth and sprinkled with weapon traps and a few cage traps.  Fortifications for the marksdwarves overlook the fortress entrance, or are on either side.

The goal is to allow the goblins into the tunnels and then seal them in to prevent retreat and their wounded from escaping.  The traps and marksdwarves are primarily tasked with weakening the goblin forces, especially taking out mounts and possibly wounding their elite leaders.  At which point the melee squads are let loose to finish things up. 

Laggard goblin squads that fail to enter the tunnels are engaged by marksdwarves from fortified bunkers on the surface, or hit by coordinated groups of dwarves; usually the more experienced squads of legendary melee dwarves supported by a small squad or two of marksdwarves.  The goal being to get close without initiating the combat and then rush the goblins from cover and initiate combat, especially if the goblins have missile weapons.

The main goal is not to allow the goblins to heavily outnumber the dwarves at any point.  Mounts can be dangerous due to their size and tendancy to charge often and knock dwarves over.  (If outnumbered the dwarf might get few opportunities to strike due to constantly being charged - and then a goblin or mount will get that lucky hit in that incapacitates, disarms, or otherwise makes it easier for them to overwhelm the dwarf.)

[Replica]

The DF AI is mentally deficient so full on counter assaults will mostly end in failure with half your defense force being busy partying down in the hollows.
Camping behind fortifications and bridges is the safe and undwarven way to go.

[Meph]

use dfhacks siren command to alert sleeping and partying slackers... its not cheating, even gives them a bad thought.

[Necrisha]

Anything that wants to get into my fortress has to go through penned wardogs and either through a weapon trap gauntlet (cage or two at the end) or melee dwarves trying to keep the drawbridge open for the idiot merchants because I haven't finished their paths and instead of going around the safe way; they manage to drive right in front of the main enemy force. once in the main courtyard they get picked off by marksdwarves and the main melee force, provided they survive long enough. By then they've usually been relieved of their mounts, one way or another. If they still want to fight after the blender and manage to take care of the melee and or marksdwarves, the upper barracks and lower halls have already been sealed off with drawbridges and they can sit there till the miasma drives them off...

Or at least that should be the way it looks by the end of year 3. by the middle of year 2 I try to have my main trap-ways/merchant bridge laid out and don't bother rescuing idiot merchants. anything dumb enough to sit on the merchant bridge get's dropped into the extra wide trap-way below. I also have the civies report to their burrows at first sign, provided they didn't spook the ambush or cut trees right where the siege started. nobody's unclogging/resetting the traps till the enemies are mopped up. All wounded dogs become dinner, as I have yet to bother assigning them to people. (that's reserved for more ferocious war-creatures.) Unless on a vanilla challenge I take full advantage of siren, and have no problem with breaking up parties in meeting halls.

By the end of year 4 the merchants should be able to follow the closest anti-invader route to the depot. and I should have a few legendary masons. Invaders/elves are not permitted the comfort of indoors. Chainmail is your friend when it comes to ranged/whip carrying invaders.

[Eric Blank]

I first defeated a siege in one of my most memorable fortresses; Nazushotin or "Bloodwines"

It was bloody indeed; there were friendly casualties during that siege, because my "soldiers" were unarmed, untrained wrestlers. I had figured out how to get them to rally for battle, but not how to get them to wield weapons (or supply sufficient weapons and armor in the first place.) That was way back in 40D, though, and the odds were tipped heavily in your favor, so a half-baked squad of naked, unarmed wrestlers actaully stood a chance of killing a couple goblins.

The next year's siege, I tried to counter with the goblins' pikes, not realizing that dwarves couldn't actually USE pikes, so they were still unarmed. This time it was a three-squad siege; two up front, one cavalry sneaking up on the rear that I didn't see coming. So I let the troops chase off those two squads that attacked from the front, thinking I'd defeated the siege, when the cavalry arrived, trying to get through the gates. They weren't there to help US, oh no... They spotted a couple soldiers near the gate as they were about to charge in to slaughter my civilians, and form taht point on they were engaging my dwarves. They kicked my troops' asses; the goblin platoon was grouped up tightly, while my troops were spread fairly thin as they had been chasing the retreating infantry. Eventually, though, the remaining goblins broke and ran, leaving only a couple dwarven soldiers alive, one of which was badly wounded.
Which was a death sentence in those days: The hospital and doctorin' didn't work for crap, and was riddled with bugs. Nearly everybody that lay down in a bed with the job "rest" would either die there of neglect, or be permanently comatose; a huge drain on the fortress' resources. You kids don't know how lucky you are that it's even POSSIBLE to get the injured back on their feet nowadays. Sure, some of them still die if you don't know how to keep your doctors in line and make soap, but other than that the mortality/useless comatose twat rate couldn't even be 10% of what it was before Toady One fixed up that system.

Anyway, my fortress died two years later when another goblin siege showed up; some jackass broke a floodgate holding back the river, flooding every square inch of the fort and killing all but two dwarves lucky enough to be hanging out on the surface. The goblins of course mopped them right up, and then my "fortress" consisted of one freaking baby floating around in the water some 3 stories down. Of course the baby died of thirst eventually, but he certainly knew how to swim by that point!

[Replica]

use dfhacks siren command to alert sleeping and partying slackers... its not cheating, even gives them a bad thought.

Wont stop them from going "You know what? Fuck this shit, I am not waiting around for Urist McLazyAss to pick up his =Cow Bone Bolts [5]= I am going to go get a drink, maybe I'll get some Hen Egg Roast while I am at it".

[Sutremaine]

The hospital and doctorin' didn't work for crap, and was riddled with bugs.

Doctors? What doctors?

Not much of a hospital either. Seriously, look at the wiki page for 40d's healthcare.

[Psieye]

Sieges are industrial procedures for me, at least when I have enough time to make the infrastructure happen. Until then, anything goes to keep them away from me, be it infinite cage trap spam, walling off, keeping production and population low or even INVADERS:OFF. After I'm ready, invaders go through a contraption which is essentially a dodge-me trap with magma cleansing at the bottom for after I've looted the splatters. If I'm especially rich in resources, all my haulers get crossbows and I exercise "accuracy by sheer quantity".

[Loud Whispers]

And I feel the need to tell the world!

Using a combined force of melee dwarfs in master-craft bronze and mass war dogs I finally passed the threshold.

How do YOU deal with sieges, and when was the first time that you succeed? How about times when you failed utterly?

Master-Dwarf bronze? That's some mighty army there. You won't forget that

My first siege... Ah. A desert river Fort back in .31, I wanted to build everything above ground and mirror it with a massive prison/labyrinth complex underground, completely fit with its own underground Fortress within another Fortress with a single bridge over a 31z lvl drop... The plans were big.
I was always on the look out for Giant Badgers, something that was very common on my map. This was also where I made my first discovery - that War Dogs could scare away the most fierce wild animals. Soon there were force fields of dogs protecting my settlements, and I was even getting more confident - fighting the lesser badgers by splitting them up and chasing them down with military Dwarf and dog.
One Dwarf... I forget the name, even the name of the Fort! But I do remember this; she was one of 5 of the Fort's only good warriors... In that she killed a Giant Badger - unarmed. Two of her comrades were killed in the effort.
And so it came to be this fearful hatred of the Giant Badger grew, until one fateful moment when I wondered why I was letting the Giant Badgers attack me - I should attack them! They're only wild animals, what can they honestly do?
They turned around and slaughtered nearly all of the dogs and the Dwarves. I desperately tried pulling all of my Dwarves back.
I had learned why DF was Fun. The soapmaker incident happened. All of my captured Giant Badgers were released. On hindsight it must have been a gremlin or something, but at first all I saw was the soapmaker by the lever getting torn to pieces and I assumed... Maybe he was trying to stop the gremlin?
For a moment after; peace. The only Giant Badgers were from across the river, silently gauging a mode of safe crossing to begin the fight anew.
Then a goblin ambush. Then another. Then a siege. Then the river froze. Then Giant Badgers.
Every Dwarf perished. Every animal slaughtered. One Dwarf - the only Dwarf with a weapon, a copper shortsword managed to maim a single goblin before being killed. The miners were busy trying to Fortify the last underground holds of the Dwarves, I was prepared to live until the last Dwarf died. One Dwarf, wearing a Giant Badger bone helm stood short against the Badgers new assault, but she too was killed.
The last Dwarf had secured himself within the store rooms, was a miner and had a pick. Good start.
He tried to dig a tunnel into the last Fortress... All he had to do was find a way to seal the last gap and they would stand a chance.
The moment his feet touched the surface, every single goblin on the map turned towards him.
A bolt to his upper body, tearing the lungs, a spear to his skull - a spear by the warlord who led the first attack.

Since then none of my Forts have fallen to goblin siege. Pretty much every Fort I make now is heavily militarized so that no Dwarf should ever take more than one injury - if they are injured, they fall and are replaced by the innumerable residents of the Fortress.
I take this to heart when I plan my Forts - losing to goblin sieges is never allowed to happen; which is why in almost every case when an opportunity to destroy the Fort via a non goblin means presents itself, it is linked to a lever and saved for a very red goblin Christmas.
I can just imagine the look on the Goblin's faces when after years of siege, constant losses on their part and the final brutal room to room fighting with insane Dwarves who have everything to lose; the enter a cavernous hall and find their prize:
Wave after wave of screeching undead, black rotted ravens and mutilated elf corpses shambling towards them through the darkness - and behind it all, horrible, horrible screams from the depths, while a mad Necromancer driven insane from centuries of isolation exacts his revenge on the Fort's inhabitants - the hapless Goblins.

use dfhacks siren command to alert sleeping and partying slackers... its not cheating, even gives them a bad thought.

I feel like after what your military tends to go through... They deserve some off time. It's particularly demoralizing for the enemy to realize his arch nemesis is having a party when they siege.

[Pon_Katt]

My first siege?  3 competent melee squads and 1 competent marksdwarf squad in full iron against 3 gob squads on jabbers and a troll squad.  I just zerg rushed them head on.  All the gobs died, and two dwarves made it out.  A sworddwarf, who later died of injureries and a marksdwarf. 

[Loam]

My first siege was an undead siege of over a hundred zombies. After getting everyone inside the walls, a small goblin siege appeared. They slew all the zombies, sustaining only one casualty, and then just kind of sat around twiddling their thumbs because they couldn't get through the walls. Eventually they left, after their general was convientently drowned by his own giant toad.

[Cheedows]

I'm a noob as well, and recently surviving my first siege was...so awesome.  I couldn't believe the same thing wiped out an 80 dwarf fortress before, with almost no casualties on their part.  What I used (also known as the cheap way) is bridges and an open wall with an inner closed wall, 2 squads of melee dwarves in iron armour with iron weapons and 2 marksdwarves squads.  I pretty much kept my guys on the inner wall while shooting the goblins popping in and out of my moat like pop the weasle.  Some actually got to my dwarves but minimal casualities.  I tend to actually feel for my military because my other dwarves get to live it up farming and drink great booze and some meat to boot while the military has to go through utter nightmare battles while the other dwarves are throwing parties inside.  Fort/town is Cobaltraven, first time was recently.  Times failed? About once or twice before, though I'm not confident about flying bats.

How I died before, a 70 gobbo siege with trolls, bats, lashers and a mounter general.  I pretty much zerg rushed them with dude is elven wood armour with wooden weapons and they somehow got through my walls and crashed the partiers.  No survivors, and goblins only had troll casualties.

[Oaktree]

Goblins o n flying mounts (giant bats or giant cave swallows) is one reason I prefer using tunnels and then having an underground kill zone.  Once the flyers are underground they have no "death from above" capability and will fly into traps just like the the other mounts walk into them.  They can fly across the ditches and avoid zig-zagging of course, but a few flyers making it the gate are handled by having a few extra traps there and a ready melee squad just beyond the gate.