Do hunters still do the excellent back-and-forth skirmishing when encountering an enemy, or do they just run away these days?
Hunters used to be the go-to for having an armed, if completely disorganized, militia.
I used to mess around with a semi-realistic feudal nobility system for humans exactly (it seems to be functioning for now, although, I've yet to test out this
seemingly final version), and one time I've ended up in a situation where, due to a noble getting promoted, I've lost all my valuable positions, including any sort of organized military. However, I've managed to fight off a 40-something goblin invasion with a 80-something population of civilians (including children). Due to a shortage of ammunition, there were only 4 hunters, 3 miners (chosen for their skill) and the rest were "woodcutters". Here are some vague observations:
1) Hunters were very willing to engage the enemy and only ran away when the melee gobs got too close. The hunters would soon return to the skirmish again.
2) Invaders were always going for the closest target, which were usually not the hunters, as those were always keeping their distance. As a result, all four of the hunters survived the siege.
3) Miners and woodcutters were reluctant to engage the enemy regardless of their skill and sometimes they didn't even fight back when attacked, prefering to try and run away. However, they were very eager to pile up on the first goblin who got overexhausted - and they got suddenly willing to fight his conscious comrades too, but only for a short period of time.
4) Children were absolutely ferocious even without the weapons, removing armor from the enemies and/or strangling them to death.
5) Once the siege officially broke, invaders continued to fight until left alone. Some civilians who drifted outside the walls got killed by the "retreating" enemy. It seems like the invaders are being pulled off the map by an order rather than personal fear - they were very willing to continue fighting, if engaged.
6) Population fell from 80-something to 38, not including the wounded who didn't survive until next season due to me having no possible diagnostician.
7) Two children got most of the kills, probably due to the poor quality of the axes in stock (mostly copper). Hunters, however, were the most reliable, as they were the only ones willing to attack non-disabled gobs.