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Author Topic: Any Tips On Surviving A Seige?  (Read 2991 times)

Dwarf_AintGotNoD

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Any Tips On Surviving A Seige?
« on: February 19, 2013, 03:29:15 pm »

Usually I end up dying the second goblin seige,When I'm put under constant siege one after another,Or Send my military out foolishly (After only Minor danger room Experiences) Then get slaughtered...
Any tips for Surviving A siege?
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joeclark77

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Re: Any Tips On Surviving A Seige?
« Reply #1 on: February 19, 2013, 03:30:54 pm »

Lock the door and wait it out?
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Remuthra

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Re: Any Tips On Surviving A Seige?
« Reply #2 on: February 19, 2013, 03:32:52 pm »

Set up a better mechanical defense. Catapaults and minecart shotguns are your friends.

Lich180

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Re: Any Tips On Surviving A Seige?
« Reply #3 on: February 19, 2013, 03:55:25 pm »

I don't like catapults, they are too inaccurate and don't produce the kind of injuries I like to see.

Now, a mine cart shotgun, or just a simple mine cart grinder would work wonders. I've had entire sieges ground to dust without a single dwarf death (not counting the idiots that tried to retrieve the items inside the grinder before it was shut off)

You make a checkerboard of 2x2 squares, then put impulse ramps (NE/NW ramps) in each corner of the squares, build a retracting bridge on a single square, (d)ump a mine cart on the square, link the bridge to a lever, then pull the lever. The mine cart will then whiz around the square, bashing anything to death inside it.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The first image is before anything really entered the grinder, the second the aftermath of several squads of goblins, trolls, and their mounts pummeled to death.

Just don't open your fort until its ready, and leave a way to close off the entrance to it from your fort.
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Remuthra

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Re: Any Tips On Surviving A Seige?
« Reply #4 on: February 19, 2013, 03:58:31 pm »

The catapaults don't do the kind of damage wanted, but if you can get ballistas, those work considerably better. Catapaults are still fair though.

thegoatgod_pan

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Re: Any Tips On Surviving A Seige?
« Reply #5 on: February 19, 2013, 04:14:13 pm »

Send my military out foolishly (After only Minor danger room Experiences) Then get slaughtered...

There's your problem: engaging in an open field, outside the walls is bad news, because numbers count for a lot in dwarf fortress and there are usually more goblins than dwarves. Your real badasses might get lucky and have a combat trance, but most will get isolated from the group and then overwhelmed, danger room or not.

Instead meet the enemy in a tight hallway, right around a bend. Your militia should fall on the goblins one by one, crowding them as they turn into their line-of-sight

Try to have archers elevates above the hallway shooting down (this can go super bad though, especially if the goblins bring archers)
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Remuthra

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Re: Any Tips On Surviving A Seige?
« Reply #6 on: February 19, 2013, 04:17:31 pm »

Send my military out foolishly (After only Minor danger room Experiences) Then get slaughtered...

There's your problem: engaging in an open field, outside the walls is bad news, because numbers count for a lot in dwarf fortress and there are usually more goblins than dwarves. Your real badasses might get lucky and have a combat trance, but most will get isolated from the group and then overwhelmed, danger room or not.

Instead meet the enemy in a tight hallway, right around a bend. Your militia should fall on the goblins one by one, crowding them as they turn into their line-of-sight

Try to have archers elevates above the hallway shooting down (this can go super bad though, especially if the goblins bring archers)
Can't go bad if you do it right. Just put the archers on a raised level with a fortification protecting them. Opposing archers can only void the fortifications if they can stand in a position to also utilize them.

EvilBob22

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Re: Any Tips On Surviving A Seige?
« Reply #7 on: February 19, 2013, 04:29:13 pm »

Can't go bad if you do it right. Just put the archers on a raised level with a fortification protecting them. Opposing archers can only void the fortifications if they can stand in a position to also utilize them.
The master bow/crossbow enemies can reliably shoot through fortifications from a distance.  Even the regular ones can sometimes get lucky (although not often enough to worry about).  Still, a fortification with at least one space of padding is 1000 times better than no fortification.
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I will run the experiment to completion anyway, however. Even if the only reason why there is a punctured equilibrium in the fortress is because I have been brutally butchering babies
EDIT: I just remembered that dwarves can't equip halberds. That might explain why the squads that use them always die.

Laserhead

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Re: Any Tips On Surviving A Seige?
« Reply #8 on: February 19, 2013, 04:39:04 pm »

If you just need to deal with it in a hurry, cage traps. Enable mechanic and carpenter on every dwarf, build 2 or 3 carpenter and mechanic shops, set them on repeat, and start putting them in your entrance. A cage will instantly neutralize one goblin, 50 cages will break your siege. Kind of cheap, but you can always tell yourself you are collecting them to be practice dummies.
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Dwarf_AintGotNoD

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Re: Any Tips On Surviving A Seige?
« Reply #9 on: February 19, 2013, 04:50:48 pm »

I use The Genesis Mod Witch,I think makes alot more Enemy civilizations,witch is why I really can't wait out sieges,It'd be like closing off the fort to outside and Caravans Forever.
But There is a number of war animals.
What If I Put them on a MilitiaCaptain And the Men in the squad.
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MattStriker

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Re: Any Tips On Surviving A Seige?
« Reply #10 on: February 19, 2013, 04:56:50 pm »

War animals die pretty quickly against any serious opponent since they can't wear armor.

One time-honored dwarven siege breaking trick is to use magma pumps to flood the surface. Just make sure all the parts of the pump stack are magma proof. If you do it right, you'll see what's left of the siege rapidly running off towards the horizon. If you get it wrong, you'll achieve !!Fun!!.
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joeclark77

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Re: Any Tips On Surviving A Seige?
« Reply #11 on: February 19, 2013, 04:59:12 pm »

Well then, fight if you must, but at least follow the advice here of not fighting on open ground -- especially not one dwarf at a time!  Create a mustering area so you can get your dwarfs all into position and then attack as a group.  Engage the enemies on your terms, i.e. in a narrow hallway so they can't gang up on you.  Use archers or traps to soften them up before you engage.  Use drawbridges to separate them into manageable groups, or only allow a few of them in at a time.  Use bait kittens to lure them into areas where you can kill or capture them with traps.  Trap them on bridges or other natural chokepoints.
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Lich180

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Re: Any Tips On Surviving A Seige?
« Reply #12 on: February 19, 2013, 05:02:32 pm »

War animal effectiveness depends on the animal type. The bigger/more dangerous the animal, the better it will be at killing stuff.

I've had tamed giant black mamba (had to edit the raws a little to get them to breed properly, and train them) that were pretty vicious. Their venom caused paralysis and suffocation quite quickly, but thats about as effective as they got.

My current fort is working on taming elephants (also with edited raws, so they can graze and not starve to death before they can feed themselves) and will eventually be putting war elephants on guard duty.
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Remuthra

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Re: Any Tips On Surviving A Seige?
« Reply #13 on: February 19, 2013, 05:04:41 pm »

I saw some war polar bears once, those things are pretty amazing.

Dwarf_AintGotNoD

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Re: Any Tips On Surviving A Seige?
« Reply #14 on: February 19, 2013, 05:17:30 pm »

Wait Could you tame a Creature like one of the lost creatures that randomly stumble across your fort and tame them?
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