Print

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

[BetaOrion]

I know steel is (with the exeption of some underground blue stuff) the best option for armor and weapons. The downside is that you have to find an embark site with both iron ore and flux. My question is: is steel realy that good, or can you get an effective military with just iron or even copper?

[Witty]

Copper is pushing it, by more than doable. Iron/bronze is completely fine, more so if the equipment is of a higher than average quality. The difference between steel and iron is pretty huge, but only dwarves can actually produce/utilize it. So it isn't really a concern.

Skill is more of a determining factor for an effective military anyhow.

[VerdantSF]

The downside is that you have to find an embark site with both iron ore and flux.

Not necessarily.  As long as you have flux, you can trade and/or mine plenty of goblinite to make steel.

[Immortal-D]

With a few rare exceptions, I usually bypass copper altogether and go straight for iron.  Whether by mining or trade, equipping your squads with a basic set of iron gear is relatively easy, if time-consuming.  My current Fortress has zero shallow metals and an abundance of gemstones, so I told my liaison to bring as much magnetite and flux stone as they can carry.  If you find yourself lacking metals, then excessive Boulder & Cage Traps are often sufficient to withstand the first few years.  Also as was mentioned, don't discount experience.  Setup your squads with training weapons, even when they lack any armor.

[Garath]

In the beginning, throwing everyone a copper xbow and a handful of (copper, but even bone will do) bolts will obliterate most goblin ambushes as long as you spot them far enough ahead and can get organized. You should have 30 to 60 dorfs able to shoot vs 10 to 15 goblins. Quivers may be harder to get than bolts. By the time the bigger challenges show up you should have traded enough to get iron, bronze and some steel equipment.

[Sutremaine]

Give them some wooden shields too -- even a complete amateur has a pretty good chance of blocking a shot. It won't be enough in melee combat, but for being shot at, it's very useful.

As for ambush spotting, you can use chained animals. The goblins will announce their presence by killing the animal.

[Starweaver396]

If your main problem with steel is finding it, you could set mineral scarcity lower in the advanced world gen. Failing that, high quality iron will kill any unmodded race.

[Garath]

Give them some wooden shields too -- even a complete amateur has a pretty good chance of blocking a shot. It won't be enough in melee combat, but for being shot at, it's very useful.

As for ambush spotting, you can use chained animals. The goblins will announce their presence by killing the animal.

leave them unchained to buy extra time and for lolz as the goblins chase a decoy duck all over the map. Doesn't always work as desired as the animals occasionally leave their post

[guitarxe]

I used to always do what I could to make sure I always had easy access to steel in my forts, because I thought that's the only way to defeat large sieges (without walling/bridging yourself in).
Then I realized iron is good enough, so always did my best to make sure I had iron on my embarks, and it was still a pita to find it.
But now the last fort I played, I struck copper pretty early on and just went and equipped my dwarves in that, and it worked just as well as iron or steel. Now, I did have 4 legendary military dwarves by the time the siege came, but it was just 4 of them in copper vs 20-30 invaders. But when those invaders went through my fort entrance door where I had my military stationed, they RAN. They simply ran off the map. The ones who didn't they were slaughtered.

So yeh, like someone in this thread already mentioned, the skill of the dwarf is more important than what armour they are wearing.

But for other creatures that aren't goblins, I think you really do need some better metal. For example I sent that same legendary dwarf to fight a cave crocodile in the caverns, and for a minute there I thought he's going to get eaten, because it was taking a far longer time to kill the croc than a goblin. Turns out all his attacks were just bruising the croc until he got a lucky hit. The only thing I think that kept him alive was that he kept dodging all of the croc's attacks.

[Sutremaine]

What weapon was he wielding? Cave crocs are much more resistant to blunt attacks than a goblin, though their toes are fairly easy to break if you can get a solid shot in.

[Garath]

how to kill a cave crocodile:
break its toes untill it passes out from pain

somehow I don't see this becoming popular

[guitarxe]

It was a spear

[fractalman]

Tetrahedrite may annoy those hunting for a perfect embark, but if you're trying to set up in a hurry, few ores are as good: use the resultant copper for the armor, and make silver warhammers/maces/bolts.  Make steel swords or battleaxes out of melted anvils from the dwarven caravan.
Silver is one of the two or three best blunt-weapon materials in the game.  Blunt damage won't kill as fast as edge damage, but armor doesn't do as good a job cushioning against it.  The bolts are pretty good as well.

[Garath]

Tetrahedrite may annoy those hunting for a perfect embark, but if you're trying to set up in a hurry, few ores are as good: use the resultant copper for the armor, and make silver warhammers/maces/bolts.  Make steel swords or battleaxes out of melted anvils from the dwarven caravan.
Silver is one of the two or three best blunt-weapon materials in the game.  Blunt damage won't kill as fast as edge damage, but armor doesn't do as good a job cushioning against it.  The bolts are pretty good as well.

that is pretty much what I'm doing right now. I got some steel, bronze and iron together for the piercing and slashing weapons and the melee squad important armor, the rest is some copper and a lot of marksdwarfs. I'm quite tempted to remove most of the traps and see how it goes against an invader. I guess it's time to move the defences above ground, make some towers and such.

edit:
ooookay, I'm a bit speechless. My 8 militia members, 2 axelords, 1 hammerlord, 1 swordlord, 2 spearlords and 2 .. Picklords? Anyway, they were sent out to kill what remained of an ambush that had run into some cages I had over the only river crossing. Right when they exited the entrance they were ambushed though, and the results were ugly. I've never seen goblin bodyparts fly that far and in so many directions, and this was with only 4 out of 8 in the melee. This was with steel weapons, iron helm, bronze mail shirt and a copper shield. Then one ran off to fight the 6 waiting at the traps and killed all of them, plus 2giant wrens who were just passing by. 4 vs 12 was easy, 1 vs 6 too, now I want to see what else they can do. Most surprising was how much damage was done with punching and kicking, occasionally looking a bit like a bad martial arts movie (punch his hand, he drops the pike, kick the leg, it breaks, he is down, finish him off by stabbing a sword through his head)

[Urist McOriginalname]

But watch out! It may seem your dwarves are gods of war against those medium-at-best skilled goblin macedwarfs , but any other goblin squad ever that contains even a dabbling archer has 90% chance to force most of your legendary fighters to learn the crutch-walking skill.

Seriously , am i the only one who can get 2 legendary swordlords shot in the lower spine in the same battle.
No matter how masterfully your steel breastplate is made , bolts just don't care.