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[ssssomeone]

Hi,

Haven't touched DF since 2012 and was thinking of starting up a new fortress. How should my strategy differ? It used to be:

• get farming and brewing going straight away
  
• build a zillion traps guarded by dogs whilst I send miners in all directions to find limestone/iron/magma
  
• then build up a properly equipped army with steel weapons and trained in danger rooms
  
• ensuring nobles have ridiculously large/lavish bedrooms to keep them happy
  
• engraving everything in sight to keep everyone else happy
  
• whilst building fun projects such as giant trapdoors to drop invaders into magma, or waterfalls through dining rooms to make everyone ecstatic

(Naturally this was the ideal - half the time the magma leaked, nobles threw tantrums that exploded the dining room waterfall, and everyone turned into obsidian)

Can I do basically the same thing now (with wheelbarrows)? Or do I need to do something fundamentally different?

[Putnam]

1. yes okay
2. dogs are kinda lame, but that was true in 2012
3. yes okay
4. yes okay
5. yes okay
6. yes okay

[Sergarr]

Weren't dogs lame because of that one bug that caused 9/10 creatures to not grow up?

[Bearskie]

Two more things:

1. Dont trust walls
2. Dont trust trees

[ssssomeone]

Walls?

[karhell]

Walls?

Since climbing is now a thing, walls are less impenetrable barrier and more mild inconvenience.

[ssssomeone]

Oh dear. So funneling invaders into a killzone outside the fortress isn't going to work anymore....

[Geldrin]

Use bears instead of dogs. They are large and fierceful animals. They cannot be assigned to your dwarves, (that doesn't made any use in the previous versions btw), but pastured large numbers in a tight area can provide a perfect first line defense tar pit against enemies.

Oh, aside from climbing, take jumping in account too. Please note that jumping comes into play in pathfinding if the enemy has a clear line of sight to it's target. Otherways they follow their usual pathing behaviors.

And don't forget that flyers has been improved too.

[ssssomeone]

Thanks. So I guess if I move my killzone into the fortress then same basic strategy should still work?

[karhell]

Outside walls are still viable, but you'll need to make them 2z+ (and out of blocks, not rough stone), or roof over whatever outside structure you build (takes quite a while and a lot of dwarfpower)

previewedit : or indeed move everything inside.

ETA : one last thing : make your your militia train their Discipline skill if you don't want them to run away screaming at the first sign of violence (not sure if danger rooms train Discipline)

[Kuikka]

Use bears instead of dogs. They are large and fierceful animals.

Animals, trained for war or not, are most useless according to my opinion. This is really sad... I haven't seen a single animal that could be even distantly helpful! My experience: war dog = slows down enemy/wild animal for 2 seconds, war grizzly bear = gets beaten by other wild animals and runs away in panic, war giant tiger = cant even land one hit before turning into a fur carpet.

[ssssomeone]

I tended to use dogs more for spotting thieves than doing any actual fighting... does that still work?

[Baffler]

Even better than it did before actually, what with the changes to stealth mechanics.

[MDFification]

2. Dont trust trees

Trees, the undisputed King of Beasts for DF2014

[ssssomeone]

OK, I'll bite. What do trees do? Are they the new elephants?