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[Art]

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

[Spacespinner]

More appear as your fortress value goes up. Likely you got a few high value artifacts which screwed you over. Traps are so good at protection that they're considered broken, especially a  long corridor of cage traps. I've got a 3x3 group of glass serrated discs in stacks of 10 which deals with everything from sieges to megabeasts easily (any that make it over get cage trapped anyway which happens maybe once every few sieges. Cheap I know, but i just dont feel like much of a military this time around).

[Art]

So value is the deciding factor for the size of the siege? Or is it value and population?

It's true that I made some very high value artifacts. I don't know if 650K is very high. One thing that may have been a problem was that I had no iron on my map and was trading away masterful/finely encrusted crafts for iron and steel objects, which was an expensive way of doing it I guess.

[Art]

double post sorry

[Spacespinner]

From memory sieges occur once population hits something like 70 or so dwarves, but size and frequency should be dictated by wealth.

[Art]

Yeah my first one was at about 80 or so dwarves, but again it was no problem since it was a 10v10. The problem was I could not equip enough dwarves by the time the next one came and it was 10v40 plus lords and 40 pets. And My squad was proficient at best in their weapon classes.

[Art]

LOL they killed my mayor last as he lay wounded in the hospital. xD

[Spacespinner]

http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Danger_room

Danger rooms do sort of make the game easy as well (10 dwarves in it long enough can hold out against any siege size with decent armor and weapons with no injuries), but it does beat starting all over again if you need an army for "just in case". I find 3 spears instead of 10 on each tile works almost as well with the addition of not killing off civilians who wander in since they seem able to deal with 3 spears fine but 10 per square sometimes kills them.

[Russell.s]

I use military only, and don't use danger rooms, and defeat entire sieges with ease. Here's how!

When you start, each dwarf can have up to 10 'points' of training. For 6/7 dwarves, put 5 points in Hammers, 4 points in shields, and 1 point in pump operating. This makes them red (easy to see) and gives them a civilian labour so they don't get upset as easily by long patrol duty (or something like that). To pay for this training, dump wheelbarrows, bags, ropes, crutches etc.

Bring wood and copper on your embark. As soon as you arrive, dig in and make copper warhammers and wooden shields for everyone. Get a masons going and produce 3 armour stands. Separate your dwarves into squads of 2, arm them and set them training. In the meantime your remaining dwarf can get building farm plots etc. until migrants arrive to help with your labour shortage.

When you have the labour, look for metals and start upgrading your squads. When you send your squads in, make sure they go in together, and try to attack goblins in an enclosed space.

That's literally all there is to it. I never take my dwarves off training, none of them have ever tantrummed (make sure they have good bedrooms and a good dining room). They are armed with steel now and all legendary in almost all fighting skills. One of them even bit a minotaurs head off.

When I feel like I have enough dwarves in the fort to upgrade my military forces I pick two dwarves who have skills in a common weapon (e.g. two sword dwarves) and set them to train. Simple!  

[Art]

Can 10 of these dwarves defeat an 80 unit siege, or do you have more by that time? How many would I need?

[Spacespinner]

80? Enough training and one or two could probably take all that by themselves if they had good quality iron or steel armor. I'd go with a full squad anyway just in case of lucky arrows. One of them PUNCHED the head off a "clown" if you know what I mean.

[itg]

With an adult population of 140, you don't need to shoot for a squad of 10 demigods. You could set up a 50-dwarf military, no problem. As many people have suggested, squads of two or three are a good idea, since they force dwarves to spend a lot more time sparring and a lot less time waiting for demonstrations. Another option I like is live training against prisoners or wildlife. Even better, if you catch a necromancer you can level up by beating a dead horse.

[Spacespinner]

With an adult population of 140, you don't need to shoot for a squad of 10 demigods. You could set up a 50-dwarf military, no problem. As many people have suggested, squads of two or three are a good idea, since they force dwarves to spend a lot more time sparring and a lot less time waiting for demonstrations. Another option I like is live training against prisoners or wildlife. Even better, if you catch a necromancer you can level up by beating a dead horse.

I've got a vampire Champion in my basement with his personal danger room and an "arena" where I throw down captives for him to fight. He uses a whip so it's amusing.

[Russell.s]

Can 10 of these dwarves defeat an 80 unit siege, or do you have more by that time? How many would I need?

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).

[0cu]

If you haven't any legendary warriors, try to outnumber your enemies. I know that's not so easy on goblin sieges, but you could try to engange single squads in an area prepared by yourself (Marksdwarves supporting and stuff).

Also, wait with engraving and crafting high value stuff.