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[TyrianRed]

First of all, Hi!  New Dwarf Fortress player here. 

Now onto my rant.  Goblin Invasion:  I don't feel like dealing with it.  My fortress is guarded with a drawbridge, so I decide to use that to ignore the invasion with.  I only have a few dwarves outside gathering wood, so I undesignate the trees, and wait until the last of them returns.  The invaders are still milling around the edge of the map.  I designate the lever to be pulled.  And I wait.  And I wait.  And I wait.  The goblins are starting to get close, so I station some speardwarves well within my entrance in case any goblins get through the traps before the bridge goes up. 

Goblins mill around the entrance.  Then what to my speardwarves decide to do?  They decide to abandon their post, cross the bridge, and attack the goblins.  There is still no dwarf even thinking about pulling that lever, even though I have multiple dwarves standing around doing nothing.  My speardwarves push back the initial goblin force, but they don't move back inside.  No, they are wounded.  And now my other dwarves are moving to recover them.  Now the goblin bowmen are shooting at the civilians gone to collect their wounded.  My dwarfs are dying, and now more of them are going out to collect the possessions of the fallen.  I've already lost the master engraver who should have been no where near the action. 

I say **** it.  I'll send my whole military out to deal with the goblins.  Now that my fighters are crossing that drawbridge to fight what happens?  A helpful administrator retracts the bridge. 

[Bludulukus]

Do you have a burrow and a civilian alert?

This http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Civilian_alert is very useful for preventing stupid dwarves from wandering outside picking up fiber socks during a siege

[weenog]

Did your military get smashed, launched into orbit, or just blocked?

[TyrianRed]

Did your military get smashed, launched into orbit, or just blocked?

Some of them fell 7 stories, some of them were blocked, and some got through.  I got the bridge reopened quickly, and I routed the goblins without further losses.  Altogether, I lost 12 dwarves;  5 military, and 7 civilians. 

[TyrianRed]

Do you have a burrow and a civilian alert?

This http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Civilian_alert is very useful for preventing stupid dwarves from wandering outside picking up fiber socks during a siege

Well, that would have been handy.  I had no idea that existed.  Do you have any tips on preventing dwarves from running outside a designated area in order to fight?

[weenog]

Avoid line of sight.  A soldier who catches sight of an enemy will engage.  Blind soldiers are more controllable, but if you can't arrange that, just use walls and corners around your staging area to prevent dwarfs from seeing the enemy force until you're ready for the fight to begin.

Cutting up line of sight with blind corners and walls also makes enemy archers less effective.

[TyrianRed]

Avoid line of sight. 

Hm...  I will have to try that.  This game can be frusterating as h*ll sometimes. 

[slothen]

manipulating line of sight is key, especially if you don't want melee dwarves to engage.  Regarding levers, its always a good idea to put them near where idle dwarves hang out.  You can monitor who has the lever job with (J).  You can even kick some dwarves off whatever job they have to see if they'll take the lever job.  I turn off hauling on specialists so they're often available for lever-duty.

[Reelya]

Do you have a burrow and a civilian alert?

This http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Civilian_alert is very useful for preventing stupid dwarves from wandering outside picking up fiber socks during a siege

Well, that would have been handy.  I had no idea that existed.  Do you have any tips on preventing dwarves from running outside a designated area in order to fight?

Well, i do have a suggestion on fail-safe gateways that do not require a lever pull:

Code: [Select]

####
.PH.
####
Where # is a wall, H is a hatch over a trench, and P is a pressure plate set to trigger by enemies and open the hatch, make sure to set the plate to trigger for all hostile weights.. Your dwarfs and pets will pass this, but it will block all hostiles from the Pressure-Plate side. It even stops non-flying building destroyers - they hit the plate, opening the hatch, then they attack the open hatch, stranding themselves outside.

[laularukyrumo]

Note that this won't stop kobolds. So you'll need an anti-kobold defense.... generally a cat on a leash works, since they uncloak the kobold. There's also a tricky setup that will allow you to, using pressure plates, filter dwarves down one path, and route all kobolds down another.... one that is a giant hallway filled with constantly repeating upright spikes. Voila, kobold soup.

[Girlinhat]

Checkerboard walls work wonders, actually.

Code: [Select]

#.#.#
##.##
#.#.#
##.##
#.#.#
#...#Where . is the floor.  Position your military to the bottom, and they can't see the goblins until they pass through the checkerboard.  They'll then go to them, but can only see in diagonals, which is generally far more restrictive in sight, and 90% of the time combat only happens on the inside of the setup - they don't even get into the checkers.

[slothen]

So you'll need an anti-kobold defense....

no one really needs a kobold defense...  Its kinda fun to let kobolds just... happen.

[UberFuber]

Note that this won't stop kobolds. So you'll need an anti-kobold defense.... generally a cat on a leash works, since they uncloak the kobold. There's also a tricky setup that will allow you to, using pressure plates, filter dwarves down one path, and route all kobolds down another.... one that is a giant hallway filled with constantly repeating upright spikes. Voila, kobold soup.

I found out a way that's, while not very dwarfy, nearly 100% effective at decloaking and 100% safe for the spotter.

Code: [Select]

Z
#####
.....
#####

Z+1
#####
##G##
#####

Z+2
#####
.._##
#####


Code: [Select]

# - Wall
. - Floor
G - Floor grates
_ - Hole in floor (Pitting hole)
Z-Level is whichever path the kobold/gobling snatcher/ambusher can path into your fortress.
Once setup, you pit a hunting dog (I know it works with hunting dog, not sure about other type of animals) into the hole.
The hunting dog will reveal any hidden unit pathing below the grate, and the grate protects the hunting dog from any unit that wants to hurt it.
In a 1 wide walkway, I've yet seen ANY thief/snatcher make it pass the hunting dog without being revealed. I've tried it in a 3 wide walkway (caravan entrance) with great success too (the grate ceiling should be as wide as the path itself), although I can't guarantee 100% effectiveness.

[Eric Blank]

So you'll need an anti-kobold defense....

no one really needs a kobold defense...  Its kinda fun to let kobolds just... happen.

"What happened in 1048?" "Jreengus occurred."

Using grated rooms above a corridor is a fine way to catch hidden units for sure. I've used that before with some sort of legendary+5 observation skill pig. I have no idea how she was so good at spotting things, especially with pigs being non-sentient, but more often than not there wasn't another unit around with LOS to whatever she caught. Few ever got near my entrance.

I don't usually employ much trick to keep my militia at a post besides blind corners, though. Sometimes I station them above a hatch.

[Werdna]

For the lever problem, I highly recommend turning off all hauling on a handful of useless dwarves (ie nobles).  What often happens is that instead of pulling levers all your dwarves are too busy hauling crap (for instance, goods to the depot for the traders that typically arrive before a siege).  Its good to have a few dwarves free from these hauling duties.