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[TheFearlessOne]

Boltedmaroon got another goblin siege today. The goblins came shortly after a human caravan arrived and were a major surprise, as the fortress now has a population of just 63, due to another web-spitting forgotten beast and a couple magma and water accidents.

The goblins also brought two squads of trolls with them, and while they all had the usual task of running head first into certain death, one of them apparently doubled as a field medic. While the thought of being operated on by a troll does seem a frightening one, the idea might not have been so bad, as the goblins were mercilessly slaughtered by the marksdwarves.



The siege is now broken and the first batch of giant eagle chicks just hatched. The minecart to bring magma to the surface is also nearly operational, and the dwarves are working on a trap to use the captured cave blobs as a bioweapon against the goblin sieges. Interesting times lie ahead in Boltedmaroon.

EDIT: Oops, totally posted this in the wrong thread (wanted to post in what's going on in your fort, but guess I messed my tabs up). It's nearly on topic and already got a reply, so am just going to keep it in here though. Sorry, everyone .

[0cu]

How I imagine the Troll Surgeon: "Ha! That leg of yours is broken?" - *rips leg off* - "Not anymore, ugh!" 

[Art]

I currently have 12 legendary dwarves, but 2-4 would easily take out an 80 goblin siege.
*edit* but this relies on having some decent armour. In order of importance I go: shields > helmets > breastplate > greaves > gloves > boots > chainmail > cloaks > hoods (and so on).

Can legendary dwarves defeat goblin lords as well without risking death/injury? This one had an axe lord, a spear master, a lasher lord and possibly mace lord if I recall. I had steel shields and helmets for all 10 of my troops and was in the process of melting down traded items for breastplates when the siege hit.

Oh btw, though most were only proficient, I had a legendary marksdwarf that came in on the last wave whom I placed in the squad, but I guess there was only so much he could do.

[itg]

The master lasher is the only one you might have to worry about because armor (except shields) doesn't really do anything vs. whips. However, dwarves with legendary defensive skills almost never get hit, so even the master lasher wouldn't stand a chance.

On the other hand, a legendary axedwarf with mediocre defensive skills could easily fall to a master lasher. So be careful.

[enolate]

I was hoping someone could help me with the escalating difficulty of Goblin sieges.

So, I had a squad of 10 dwarves for the first siege of ~ 10 goblins plus a few pets. I lost one or two soldiers due to crossbow dwarves going into melee. No big deal. Got the Squad back up to ten.

Later I had an ambush of about 8 goblins that killed a couple of my soldiers due to some staying in the barracks and others feeding into them one at a time. No big deal, just filled out the squad again.

Then came siege #2 and my troubles began. This was a 40 goblin siege of varying weapon types, including 3 lords and 40 pets with cave dragons among them. And I still had a squad of ten dwarves and like 5 war dogs... so... yeah...




What did I do wrong here? I knew sieges get harder, but are they supposed to jump from 10 to 80 enemies like that? Could this have been because I had too much wealth/dwarves? I had 224 Dwarves, 85 of which were children/babies. So roughly 140 fighting age. Created wealth was about 650K. I feel like I was producing military as fast as could, but I couldn't produce gear as fast as I was getting immigrants. I also did not utilize traps, siege nor any type of wall/moat, but I'm not sure if that would have saved me.

Any specific or general advice is appreciated. I am fairly new to this game and it is only my 3rd fort. The first 2 died to unhappiness spirals. xD

The easy way is weapon traps. Make the only way into your fort past the depot be a twisty corridor filled with serrated disks and spiked balls. It doesn't even matter the material. Enough of them, and every goblin, jabberer, cave croc, troll will die. Give it a ceiling, and you can take care of the flying ones, too.

The more fun way is well-trained ironclad hammerdwarves and chokepoints. Goblins are never organized, even less so than your dwarves. There may be 100 units out there, but I have found that 10 will rush in headlong, 2 will face the bumrush of hammerers and die, and then the others will flee instead of aiding their comrades. This will repeat until the whole siege is depleted. If they come with bowgoblins, make sure there is some target besides melée dwarves. Cats or wardogs work great.

[enolate]

How I imagine the Troll Surgeon: "Ha! That leg of yours is broken?" - *rips leg off* - "Not anymore, ugh!" 

"You mean goblin legs no grow back?"
Actually, I have no idea if trolls in this gave regenerate. But it would be amusing if they do.

[Tevish Szat]

I generally rely on traps as my primary defense.  Cage traps are good against snatchers and early single-squad ambushes (Ambush-sieges of 50+ goblins are another story), but generally I try to construct the "Meat Grinder", a switchback path that enemies can be forced into, which passes over a stupid number of high-mechanism-quality (masterwork preferred but not essential) 10x Serrated Green Glass Disc Weapon Traps.  It may take over 650 sand and a lot of time to make my usual full design, but even an incomplete trail will often break sieges by reducing their leading members to paste.  This may be because I'm pretty lousy at military training and maintenance, and keep them around mostly for mega and semimegabeasts that avoid traps.

[Art]

So if I reclaim the fortress now, will there be 80 enemies waiting for the new party?

[enolate]

So if I reclaim the fortress now, will there be 80 enemies waiting for the new party?

I think so.

[Art]

Well, so much for that plan. xD

I was thinking of going in and spending the first year building traps.

[Urist McVoyager]

Embark with 7 warriors to take the fight to them. Arm them in Iron and bring nothing else. Send them to war. At worst, they become ghosts which will haunt and kill the surviving enemies during the next reclaim after that.

Repeat til there's an army of ghosts and nothing left alive.

Muahahahahaha!

[enolate]

Embark with 7 warriors to take the fight to them. Arm them in Iron and bring nothing else. Send them to war. At worst, they become ghosts which will haunt and kill the surviving enemies during the next reclaim after that.

Repeat til there's an army of ghosts and nothing left alive.

Muahahahahaha!

You may need to give yourself extra embark points. Then you could watch the power of proficient dodge/prof weapon use. For 3 hammers/3 axes and a speardwarf.

[Art]

Embark with 7 warriors to take the fight to them. Arm them in Iron and bring nothing else. Send them to war. At worst, they become ghosts which will haunt and kill the surviving enemies during the next reclaim after that.

Repeat til there's an army of ghosts and nothing left alive.

Muahahahahaha!

Interesting idea. I guess I have nothing to lose now. How do the ghosts kill the goblins? Does it need to happen in real time, or does it happen between reclamations? Does time pass between reclamations?

[Urist McVoyager]

A year passes, I think, but nothing actually happens until reclaim. They'll still be there, and the ghosts will appear. If they're angry ghosts, they'll kill things.

[Art]

OK, will they attack my dwarves too? I ask because my mason's shop and stone stock pile is down there so I can't go in to make slabs if they attack me.