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[Saiko Kila]

What platinum artefact weapon would you have chosen?

An appearance of hydra coincided with departure of dwarven caravan. I saved to make sure the hydra survives and is caught by me (*), but it also happened to be the day the artefact is created, but before the particular weapon type is selected by game engine. So now I have a perfect opportunity for some save scumming. This is the 10th artefact in this fort, but only the first weapon. I already have a master weaponsmith, so wasn't bothered to create an artefact of this kind, especially since I have unusually high proportion of "possessed" artefact makers (first four were possessed, including two of Starting Seven). But since the opportunity arrived, I'm considering three options:

1. platinum mace
I don't have a military, except ten hunters who are enlisted as marksdwarves, not training. But most of my weapon-skilled peasants have experience in mace. I imagine mace to be good against undead. But undead don't attack me (**) and it may take some time before the mace sees use. On the other hand, platinum being 2x as dense as silver, it may be of some use even against gobbos. And if nothing else, I can always drop it on their heads from high above.

2. platinum warhammer
I've got two dwarves with some experience in warhammery. I've got goblins as enemies. Sooner or later I will enlist the dwarves as hammerdwarves, and they will be send to welcome visiting goblins. But warhammer is very light, and it pains me to see so much platinum scrapped.

3. platinum crossbow
My ten marksdwarves are this kind of marksdwarves which will make a goblin x-bower prone, then try to beat the sense out of his copper-clad head with their wooden shields. Then they will pass from over-exertion. Then the goblin will regain consciousness and, having spent the bolts, use his crossbow to beat the sense out of heads of my marksdwarves. With much higher degree of lethality. I know, I saw it happen. Now, if dwarves were using the crossbow as they used to, then a platinum one should be very useful indeed. But it seems that currently (v0.40.23 here) the much more useful artefact for marksdwarves would be a platinum tower shield.

So, which one to choose? If not for dwarves, then for the inevitable coming of a scavenger an adventurer?


By the way, it seems the hydra wipes the floor with caravan guards most of the times, with lucky postmortem kill from a speardwarf from time to time. Fortunately, the wagon handlers and my offering (to invite the king to come) seem to flee away safely, and death of two or three unarmed but highly courageous merchants doesn't change the outcome.

Spoiler: * (click to show/hide)

And I learn from AI how to battle a hydra!

Spoiler: ** (click to show/hide)

The tower is pretty close, and there are areas which are further from it that my fort and have it listed as a neighbour. But my area for some reason didn't have tower as a neighbour so undead never show. I suppose the zombies can't really swim and the small bay is too much an obstacle for them

[That Wolf]

Crossbow.
Reasons: material doesnt effect bolt material, platinum is dense and makes a great bludgeon obviously, and AI xbowers usualy use it as a mace anyway, and having it as an adventurer can allow for 3 skills to level up when you use it. Obviously not in sync, archery helps throwing accuracy also.
For me its hands down the crossbow as a choice.
To bad dwarves dont make mauls.

[Sanctume]

Platinum Warhammer because the material is the densest and very good choice for blunt weapons.

[Galena]

Maces suck(or so I've heard), so that's probably not a great option.

War hammers are very strong weapons, and they work better the denser they are. Platinum war hammers are incredibly good because they are high density and get the artifact bonus. Not sure where get the idea that war hammers are very light, though.

Platinum crossbows would simply make your marksdwarves become very tired, because their crossbow would be very heavy. Having a platinum crossbow probably would actually worsen the over-exertion problem. And, even though you won't get a shield artifact from this, It wouldn't be worth it. While a platinum shield would be a very deadly bashing weapon, it'd also slow your dwarf down a lot, and it wouldn't actually help you block any better.

Basically, I'd go for the platinum war hammer. Just don't let your hammerer noble anywhere near it.

[Sanctume]

I think the notion of "warhammers is very light" come from the notion that "candy warhammers" which can only come from artifact is indeed useless--but very good for justice hamerrers because it's "very light."  But this is not the case for platinum warhammers.

[Saiko Kila]

Here's a comparison of mass, as given by the game:

platinum mace 17
silver maul 13
copper shield 13
copper great axe 11
iron/steel/bronze shield 10
copper/bronze helm 8
platinum crossbow 8
platinum warhammer 8
silver mace 8
copper battleaxe 7
copper mace 7
steel helm 7
silver warhammer 4
copper/bronze/iron warhammer 3

So platinum warhammers are heavy relative to for example silver warhammers, but still they weight even less than an iron shield, not to mention copper one. And they weight as much as that gobbo's copper helm. I say it's light for a weapon made of the densest metal out there, because there are heavier weapons made of common materials.

[Skullsploder]

Yes but note also how it's twice as dense as the nearest weapons-grade metal, silver. Silver warhammers are terrifyingly effective against humanoids. If damage scales directly with mass for blunt weapons, imagine the power of a twice as dense warhammer.

Oh and yeah, maces are crap. I have half my military equipped with them because of a major undead threat, but honestly aside from an occasional 1-hit head pulp they are terrible, bruising more often than breaking bones. And these are masterwork silver maces.

[Button]

Definitely war hammer or mace. If your marksdwarves are in melee range of an enemy, you're doing it wrong.

Maces aren't bad, but war hammers are almost always better. I'd go for a war hammer unless you have a particular wielder in mind who is either a macedwarf, or has a preference for maces.

[Saiko Kila]

Thanks for opinions. I will go for a hammer. I hoped the mace was improved recently (I migrated from v0.40.13 to v0.40.23)

Mace seems impressive because of sheer weight, but I suppose it would take too long to immobilize something with it. Plus, dwarves may have  problems with wielding such a bulky weapon.

Crossbow is the one I like most, given I do have some formally enlisted crossbow users, but I seriously don't know how to force crossbowers to use it for bashing.

Oh, and the case with marksdwarves in a melee range was a gobbo climbing down through a hole made in the roof of my farm-room by a randomly falling tree branch. When the marksdwarves arrived they had no choice but to be in close range (the room was 7x7), as it's usual for combat inside fortress. Now, bashing it in the head with shields instead of puncturing its lungs with bolts WAS their choice, but I had no say in this. I believe than dwarves below legendary dodger must have shields so they had shields equipped.

[RocheLimit]

I'd go with that mace, as that's usually all I give my dwarfs to use. 

They have no trouble tearing through anything that gets in their way with them, often breaking every limb until their victim(s) goes unconscious, then BOOM headshot.  Of course, I also usually let them train 100% of the time until they are lvl 20 macelords before letting them at anything. 

I hear they are good against undead.  I'll have to take others' word for it.  I haven't had an undead attack yet I could hope to defeat militarily.  In my experience, 10 lvl-20-across-the-board macelords, in steel armor with morningstars, do not stand a chance against 20+ undead in full kit.

[Max™]

Which is weird because 1 macelord in steel armor can take out 20 undead in adventurer mode if you're careful about it and don't let them surround you.

Played with both I prefer warhammers to almost everything, though on a superbuff adventurer I was playing with a slade maul (weight was like 260 urists, sheesh) and it's unbelievably hilarious watching stuff fly 10 or 12 tiles with each hit. The problem there not being that dorfs won't make them, you can get ones that like them, it's just that they won't be large enough to use them with multigrasp even, and only a very small portion can use them one handed (tall and broad for 1hed, tall or broad for 2hed) so warhammer will be your best bet.

[Saiko Kila]

I'd go with that mace, as that's usually all I give my dwarfs to use. 

They have no trouble tearing through anything that gets in their way with them, often breaking every limb until their victim(s) goes unconscious, then BOOM headshot.  Of course, I also usually let them train 100% of the time until they are lvl 20 macelords before letting them at anything. 

You use silver maces, I bet? How do they fare against "meaty" Forgotten Beasts - or titans, minotaurs, giant animals etc.?

Also, potential macedwarves - dwarves with mace experience - are the most prevalent group of melee wannabe fighters I encounter in every fort to date. It seems the dwarves have a thing for maces. Maybe because of their size.

[RocheLimit]

You use silver maces, I bet? How do they fare against "meaty" Forgotten Beasts - or titans, minotaurs, giant animals etc.?

Against forgotten beasts, it depends entirely on the beast.  Web FB, Secretion FB, or a Dust FB?  No luck.  They do just fine against any other one tho, so long as there are 2 or 3 of them.  IN DF2012, they did just fine against titans too, same deal; have yet to be hit by a titan in DF2014... that is odd... I hadn't even thought of it.  Against mega/semi-mega beasts, they pretty much annihilate them just like goblins (tried verse Minotaurs, Were-creatures, Giants, Ogres, Blind-Cave-Ogre, Ettins in df2014; worked well verse the rest in DF2012).

And I use silver or steel maces generally.  Unless I can get my hands on some morning stars from humans/zombies.  It's why I like the fortress defense mod so much (least in DF2012): war elephants and nightwings would commonly bring steel morningstars of fairly good quality.

[krenshala]

I don't have direct experience with maces against the big stuff, but against unarmored foes the mace is better than the warhammer, while the warhammer works better against armored opponents.

This is because while they do the damage in general, the mace has four times the contact area at a quarter the velocity (assuming the raws for maces and warhammers have not changed since I dug into it back on 0.31).

[Loci]

This is because while they do the damage in general, the mace has four times the contact area at a quarter the velocity (assuming the raws for maces and warhammers have not changed since I dug into it back on 0.31).

Well, according to the wiki those numbers weren't correct even in v0.31.

Maces have twice the size and twice the contact area of warhammers.