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[smeeprocket]

Yea that happened like one time in Silva's career, and he has thrown a lot of kicks, most of them very effective.

[Urist Tilaturist]

...but that one time would make other warriors think twice about doing the same, especially if the enemy is armoured or a mega beast, when they can just hit with their weapons at much lower risk. Armed combat is very different from unarmed combat (to clarify, I was mainly referring to armed combat, the Silva comment was just an aside on the dangers of kicks generally) in that strikes using bits of the body are still used, especially knees and elbows, but mainly as a second choice after just using the weapon. This has the advantage of not risking damage to the striking body part while also dealing more damage, an overall gain. I'm not saying that dwarves should never kick, far from it, or that they should be injured all the time, but kicking should only assist an armed attack and not be the main part of it.

Even without unlucky injuries, the chance of being caught and thrown is not negligible, and in an armed battle this could easily lead to death as the downed victim is mobbed, kept down and finished. Generally, no one wants to go to the ground in a massed fight because of the dangers of being mobbed, a very different situation from an unarmed 1-on-1 fight where wrestling can offer a win and being thrown is not usually disastrous. How much damage would a kick do to some bigger DF enemies anyway? Yes, it could easily knock over a goblin if a dwarf kicked his knee, but the same does not apply to titans.

[Ancalagon_TB]

A significant minority of swordfights would devolve into wrestling matches.

When two good swordsmen are fighting, they are jousting for position - the "fight for the centre".  You want to outmaneuver your opponent to be in a position where you can easily strike him and he has a hard time striking back.  This is done both with footwork and swordplay. 

Sometimes that means closing in, too close to be using swords, and well now you have a wrestling match.  Sometimes the grappling will be very short - pin the other guy's arm and bash him on the head! - but sometimes the person initiating the grapple doesn't quite manage to finish the job and it's not a swordfight anymore...

All that being said, perhaps it should be a separate thread - and the point that there is no point to a combat system if the foes don't show up is rather pertinent.

[Sergarr]

A modded sword with realistic contact area appears to be unable to cut off arms because it pulps them before cutting off, and pulped bodyparts refuse to come off.

Think I understand now why swords had these huge contact areas now.

Goddammit.

[Urist Tilaturist]

A significant minority of swordfights would devolve into wrestling matches.

When two good swordsmen are fighting, they are jousting for position - the "fight for the centre".  You want to outmaneuver your opponent to be in a position where you can easily strike him and he has a hard time striking back.  This is done both with footwork and swordplay. 

Sometimes that means closing in, too close to be using swords, and well now you have a wrestling match.  Sometimes the grappling will be very short - pin the other guy's arm and bash him on the head! - but sometimes the person initiating the grapple doesn't quite manage to finish the job and it's not a swordfight anymore...

All that being said, perhaps it should be a separate thread - and the point that there is no point to a combat system if the foes don't show up is rather pertinent.

Sword fights did turn to wrestling sometimes, and often if both parties were armoured. Many duels ended in grappling. But if the combatants were in battle and both were wary of other foes around them who might intervene and strike them while they were on the ground, they would be much less likely to engage in such combat. Very often the 2 fighters would make a few strikes at each other, realise the other was equally skilled, and move on to attack someone easier. Becoming embroiled in single combat in the middle of a battle is not very wise, since both fighters are focused solely on each other and not on the foe coming up from behind.

The importance of formations is also true here. Wrestling obviously breaks formation and exposes the fighters to the enemy, as well as opening a gap in the lines for the enemy to penetrate.

Battles and duels (fights against multiple opponents and fights against 1 opponent) are fundamentally different in that the former saw much more tentative fighting and less grappling, with most people staying in formation, while the latter often involved wrestling and body strikes like kicks. Combat in DF would also have to be divided in this way - is the opposition 1 goblin, or 10? Tactics would be very different depending on this. In the former case, a dwarf could wrestle down the goblin, but that would be very unwise if there are 9 other goblins waiting to jump in.

[Aslandus]

Battles and duels (fights against multiple opponents and fights against 1 opponent) are fundamentally different in that the former saw much more tentative fighting and less grappling, with most people staying in formation, while the latter often involved wrestling and body strikes like kicks. Combat in DF would also have to be divided in this way - is the opposition 1 goblin, or 10? Tactics would be very different depending on this. In the former case, a dwarf could wrestle down the goblin, but that would be very unwise if there are 9 other goblins waiting to jump in.

In this case, perhaps there should be some option for squads to either fight using a dueling mentality (for light infantry, swordsdwarf types) or in formation (more for speardwarfs and heavily-armored squads)

[Sergarr]

Battles and duels (fights against multiple opponents and fights against 1 opponent) are fundamentally different in that the former saw much more tentative fighting and less grappling, with most people staying in formation, while the latter often involved wrestling and body strikes like kicks. Combat in DF would also have to be divided in this way - is the opposition 1 goblin, or 10? Tactics would be very different depending on this. In the former case, a dwarf could wrestle down the goblin, but that would be very unwise if there are 9 other goblins waiting to jump in.

In this case, perhaps there should be some option for squads to either fight using a dueling mentality (for light infantry, swordsdwarf types) or in formation (more for speardwarfs and heavily-armored squads)

You'd better wait until there are actual formations in the game. That and shit like specifying actual dimensions for weapons (so you can have long-but-thin swords and not confuse them with square-faced mauls), specifying which part of the weapon deal actual damage (not just whole of it), having weapon be made of multiple parts (mono-metal spears are stupid), and many, many more improvements to actual low-level combat.

We would have to wait for at least 3 years for all that to occur, most likely.

[Aslandus]

Battles and duels (fights against multiple opponents and fights against 1 opponent) are fundamentally different in that the former saw much more tentative fighting and less grappling, with most people staying in formation, while the latter often involved wrestling and body strikes like kicks. Combat in DF would also have to be divided in this way - is the opposition 1 goblin, or 10? Tactics would be very different depending on this. In the former case, a dwarf could wrestle down the goblin, but that would be very unwise if there are 9 other goblins waiting to jump in.

In this case, perhaps there should be some option for squads to either fight using a dueling mentality (for light infantry, swordsdwarf types) or in formation (more for speardwarfs and heavily-armored squads)

You'd better wait until there are actual formations in the game. That and shit like specifying actual dimensions for weapons (so you can have long-but-thin swords and not confuse them with square-faced mauls), specifying which part of the weapon deal actual damage (not just whole of it), having weapon be made of multiple parts (mono-metal spears are stupid), and many, many more improvements to actual low-level combat.

We would have to wait for at least 3 years for all that to occur, most likely.

I thought we were just talking hypotheticals here, not actual suggestions...

[Urist Tilaturist]

Regarding formations, their use has little to do with what armour or weapons are being used, though shields certainly help. Well trained military dwarves with any kind of armour and weaponry should be able to form lines and defend each other from attacks. The Romans used formations with swords, and combat is easily possible out of formation with a spear. Even mixed weapon formations were common in the late mediaeval period, where pikes, bills, crossbows, early muskets and 2-hand swords coexisted within infantry units.

Attacking large numbers of enemies solo is just plain stupid, regardless of what the dwarf is using. Similarly, lining up in formation to fight a single kobold is completely unnecessary, regardless of the dwarves' equipment. How the dwarves fight should instead be decided by the number and nature of their opposition. Special tactics would be needed to defeat beasts, using siege engines, traps (the whole trapavoid thing is somewhat silly, unless it is changed to actually avoid the traps - megabeasts should not just walk through masterwork traps unscathed) and climbing onto the beast to attack its weak points, usually on its head (eyes, brain and so on). As for light infantry, they were very unlikely to fight duels, preferring to skirmish with the enemy using hit and run tactics.

Untrained dwarves would have none of these concerns and charge in uncoordinated like they do now.

A general weapons update would be excellent and go far to fix these problems. These are not only hypotheticals, since DF's combat is currently broken and needs sorting out.

[Aslandus]

You may be right about the weapons and armor, I was just writing that as a suggestion of what militia squad build you might want to use for those options.

Most people would have different gauges for what warrants what response, and taking decisions like that out of the hands of players is the basic problem this thread is responding to and why we had a three page long discussion about making goblins appear out of the ether. I'm fine with it being an option to turn on, but it shouldn't be automatic (and that's not even taking into account the data processing required to determine what response to use automatically).

[Urist Tilaturist]

It all depends on how much you think dwarves obey their masters. Quite a lot is not in control of the player, but military features generally are. Dwarves seem fairly obedient most of the time, so ordering them to use certain tactics may be fair for the player, but I feel that trained military dwarves should form formations by default unless the opposition is very weak or the player orders them to charge. Ordering new recruits to form formations should result in their not doing it properly.

[Ancalagon_TB]

Combat in DF would also have to be divided in this way - is the opposition 1 goblin, or 10? Tactics would be very different depending on this. In the former case, a dwarf could wrestle down the goblin, but that would be very unwise if there are 9 other goblins waiting to jump in.

Ah, but the goblins also have similar considerations - it may be silly for a dwarf to get in a wrestling match with a goblin when 9 other goblins are rushing in... but it may be an *excellent* idea for the goblin!  All the goblin has to do is hold on while his buddies poke holes in the dwarf.

Anyway, all this to say that I'm not too bothered by dwarves bitting, kicking etc, because I know how random and chaotic sword combat can be, and that at some instant, *not* using your sword (axe etc) is the right thing to do. 

[Urist Tilaturist]

Ah, but the goblins also have similar considerations - it may be silly for a dwarf to get in a wrestling match with a goblin when 9 other goblins are rushing in... but it may be an *excellent* idea for the goblin!  All the goblin has to do is hold on while his buddies poke holes in the dwarf.

Anyway, all this to say that I'm not too bothered by dwarves bitting, kicking etc, because I know how random and chaotic sword combat can be, and that at some instant, *not* using your sword (axe etc) is the right thing to do.

The goblin would only want to if there were not 9 other dwarves ready to jump in as well. 10 goblins against 1 dwarf is MASSIVELY different from 10 goblins against 10 dwarves. In the former case, yes, the goblin would wrestle. The latter case? No, or at least not as a first choice - he might if he was disarmed or his weapon broke.

Real close combats in battle were NOT usually every man for himself, if the army was remotely disciplined, since soldiers usually want to survive far more than they want to kill the enemy. Instead, soldiers stayed together for mutual protection and picked the easiest fights. They would not get too focused on one foe in case his comrade intervened. This applied to both sides of the combat. Look at the Romans - their sword combat was very bloody, somewhat chaotic, but not random, and they usually beat foes who did not understand this. The same could be said of hoplite battles or the spear formations of the early Muslims. In fact, in all these cases, most deaths usually occurred after one side ran away - the tight formations led to few deaths during the main phase of combat. This is true for most battles at the time, where most soldiers who died died while routing, not while opposing the enemy.

Battles, except between completely wild barbarians, usually involved a lot of teamwork and soldiers protecting each other. They were not like DF's individualistic encounters. Wrestling did happen, but it was usually a second resort after a weapon broke, the enemy closed to very short range or something similar, and prolonged wrestling matches were rare indeed, with one party dumped on the ground and finished fairly quickly.

Biting someone in armour will usually only result in broken teeth. Kicking, punching and wrestling can do damage and be very useful for single combat, but in battle it is generally better to just stay in formation and try to break the opponent's.

Before you think I am trying to dismiss wrestling, I am not - in a 1-on-1 armoured duel, or a dogpiling situation as you described, it is a massive part of combat and very useful indeed. In fact, in an armoured sword duel, wrestling and half-swording are the main tactics. It would just not be the first tactic for battle.

[CaptainArchmage]

To be honest it should take the goblins a while to find your fortress and organise a large-scale attack. We're getting along to army-related features in the development cycle and some of that was dealt with DF2014.

One other thing that may be stopping invasions: civilisations have a 30-tile reach, rather than a continent-wide reach barring mountain ranges and the like. On large maps this may mean you will not have any goblins or kobolds nearby.

[Sergarr]

We should probably resolve the main issue why long-timed forts aren't viable - FPS - first, before we start to speak of realistic fort populations (definitely more than merely 200) and realistic siege sizes and realistic wait-times.

It would require something akin to the way Adventure mode handles armies (abstracting them if you're far away). Abstracting fort's population is gotta be more difficult without losing resolution, though, but entirely possible.