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[loser]

Sure, it's long.  But it's formatted for easy readability.

Fortress at start of siege:
 wealth ~1.5m
 Population 88 dwarves
 less 7 children
 less 5 injured
 less 5 inconscriptable Nobles
 61 able dwarves of which there were
   3 Champion Swordsdwarves
   9 Marksdwarves
   7 Wrestlers
   (military still recovering from the last siege of 2 squads)
   (and my own mismanagement)

Siege:
 4 squads goblins
 bowmen, axemen including goblin axelord, macemen, & spearmen

Fortress population after seige:
 58 dwarves
 less 5 Nobles
 less 7 children
 less 12 injured
 34 able dwarves of which there were
   2 Champion Swordsdwarves
   1 Marksdwarf

Actions taken:

When the siege showed up I set the rules to "Dwarves are not allowed outside" and marked all the junk in front of the fortress forbiden, as well as all the junk I could find elsewhere on the map.

My intention was the engage the enemy within the Trade Depot antechamber, just off my main shaft.  I closed the floodgates to narrow the entrance to a single tile.  The front of the antechamber was packed with cage traps and the tunnel to the shaft was guarded by a single weapon trap packed with 9 *Obsidian Shortsword* and 1 Artifact Serrated Disc.

The Marksdwarf squad was equipped with ≡(various wooden) Crossbows≡ and had no Wrestling skill as I wanted them to be able shooters as quickly as possible.  I set them 'on duty' and stationed them at the back of the antechamber.  This time they were set 'squad stays close to station', based on coaching opportunities that arose in the previous siege.

The Swordsdwarves were wielding Silver Shortswords instead of ☼Obsidian Shortswords☼ because I was attempting to get some of the Wrestlers working on the swordplay and failed to force some dwarves to use silver while the Champions carried obsidian.  I stationed the Champions off to the side of the entrance.  Only two of them showed up, while the third elected to sleep out the engagement in his spacious and glorious Mayoral suite.

I switched all the Wrestlers to sword use, hoping they'd pick one or two up on their way.  I stationed them off to the other side of the entrance.

I turned off 'forbidden on all *Obsidian Shortsword* and better and 'forbid' all Silver Shordsword.  Again, I hoped the dwarves would pick up the superior weapons before the siege arrived.

As the goblins arrived, dwarves contined to step just outside the doorway only to duck back in as they realized they were in forbidden territory.  As a result, several were in the process of peaking out when they spotted the goblins and immediately took off for the hills rather than ducking back inside.  Throughout the engagement I drafted every damn dwarf that came close to the entrance.  I figured that they would all bite it anyway so they might as well take it from the front.

It was, of course, bloody as all hell.  The carnage might have been worse if the goblin bowmen hadn't shown up late and run off as a nearly whole squad.

After the siege ended I set half the remaining population to strictly Bruial, Refuse Hauling, and Cleaning by turning off their other Hauling options, suspending all work in all workshops, and removing all work orders from management.  In this way I hope to avoid a miasma-drive cascade of madness and death.  The game is currently paused just as a wave of migrants show up after the siege, including Hammerer number three.

Analysis:

I need to landscape the area in front of my entrance to ensure my dwarves make contact with the enemy without a roof over their heads.  This will, I think, prevent the wanton and unnecessary involvement of civilian dwarves in the midst of poor decisions and bad days getting worse.

I need to build proper fortifications so that my Marksdwarves can fire on the enemy without melee engagement.  My previous attempt to design such a thing met with no interest from the Marksdwarf squad.

I need to use more traps, more effectively.  Or not.  I favor the idea of seeing my dwarves killing their attackers themselves, or die trying.  I only made that weapon trap because some fey-minded wackjob thought the greatest thing she could do with her life was create a 72,000☼ serrated disc.

I need to discover the means to equip a squad of Swordsdwarves with non-sparring weapons while allowing sparing dwarves to continue to use silver.  I also need to have an 'on duty' sworddwarf squad at all times, since reequipping is time-consuming and problematic.

I need to spend more time on developing a military if I want to have a military worth engaging enemies.

Notes:

This is my second game.  I started my first on the same map and ended up with four starving dwarves.  I scummed once to restart because I thought the combination of magma, water, and woodlands were important.  Having played the game to greater depth, I don't think I'll ever scum again.

Things this map has going for it:
 Magma for smelting
 Brook for any number of reasons
 Thick woodland for beds, charcoal, and practice bolts
 Obsidian for value and steel-like -- or so I've read -- swords
 Copper for armorsmith-training
 Cassiterite for bronze
 Clear approach for wagons
 Soil underground for farming

Things this map is missing:
 Iron, though invaders are dead-pleased to supply me
 Flux, which I have not been able to buy in useful quantity
 Sand, which I seem able to do without

I spent/wasted my time on a number of things instead of honing my military.

I build a massive obsidian tower from the hilltop over my main shaft.  It's roughly circular with four stories of floorspace diameter nine, spreading out over the next four stories to a top floorspace diameter of 17.  It has barracks, archery ranges, arrow-slits (fortifications), food supply, dining, and several floors I haven't used yet.

I don't think the dwarves like it.

I built residential halls for 120 dwarves with separate and unreasonably grand three-room suites for Nobles and Appointees.  Then I found that many dwarves couldn't use these rooms anyway and slept in the barracks after the tax collector showed up.

I built massive catacomb halls of tombs for the dead.  This has proved useful as there are more than 110 entombed bodies.  This includes some visiting dignitaries and guards.  It seems that as long as it's a dead dwarf it goes in a tomb.

I put a score or two shafts into the rock searching, as dwarves do, for anything I could find.  I chased vein into gem cluster into vein using the four-between, diagonal line method of prospecting.  If I had ever found flux, now that I have all the iron I can scrap, it all would have been worth it.

I hollowed out 5x20x11 of rock with the intention of filling it with water.  That didn't work but was educational.

Closing:

Any tips, pointers, or similar stories?

[ May 26, 2008: Message edited by: loser ]

[RPB]

quote:I spent/wasted my time on a number of things instead of honing my military.

Your military itself probably didn't need much in the way of honing. More important would be honing your armorsmith; one good armorer will contribute more to the success of your military than half a dozen champions. If he's not legendary yet, get him there ASAP. There's no reason for him to be doing any hauling or other jobs other than pumping out all the copper junk he can for skill practice. Bucklers are good practice pieces, since you can guarantee that once you start making serious armor your soldiers will never waste time grabbing bucklers.

Whenever traders come in to negotiate, ask for every scrap of steel they can bring you. When the dwarven liason comes in the autumn request all the armor you can, too... then buy it and melt it all down so your trained armorer can reforge the steel from it into even better armor. It's hugely expensive and still won't earn you very much steel, but you need every scrap of it you can get your grubby dwarven hands on. Steel supplies should be prioritized for shield production; it takes about twenty bars for full head-to-toe plate armor, but only one bar for a shield. (And if for some reason your soldiers aren't training with shields, then for the love of carp get them some right now!)

[ShadeJS]

My thoughts are this:

-As the first poster said: Iron or steel armor. Build it, buy it, or steal it.

-Have you considered a perimeter wall with a retractable bridge? At least 3 tiles wide on the bottom, with 2 Z levels of height and fortifications carved in the top. Building the wall is tedious, but it is less tedious than forbidding huge piles of junk every time... and it will keep the door boogie people safe.

-I have a 10% draft rule. From the very start of every fortress I keep 10% of the dwarves in the military and keep active and off duty to let them train. I always train them to 'wrestler' then specialize them.

-War dogs. They're a renewable resource. Assign one to every soldier and let them eat the arrows and bolts.

-Be ware of archers and crossbow goblins. Even if it's a lone squad leader with a bow... If you're lame like me you'll should focus on every squad without ranged attacks first. If you can break the siege without fighting them good... If not try to lure them into traps or for up your archers and hope the enemy squad trickles into range slowly.

[martinuzz]

quote:Originally posted by ShadeJS:
<STRONG>My thoughts are this:

-War dogs. They're a renewable resource. Assign one to every soldier and let them eat the arrows and bolts.

</STRONG>

If only they could fetch an restack all those forbidden loose bolts..

[Derakon]

I wouldn't bother with trying to get my dwarves to use silver weapons; the micromanagement isn't worth the risk of them having the wrong weapon equipped when they need to be effective fighters, and even with dangerous weapons, sparring accidents are very rare when you have decent armor. You can make up for the occasional accident (whether fatal or no) by simply drafting a couple of extra dwarves to pick up the slack.

[loser]

quote:Originally posted by RPB:
<STRONG>Your military itself probably didn't need much in the way of honing. More important would be honing your armorsmith; one good armorer will contribute more to the success of your military than half a dozen champions. If he's not legendary yet, get him there ASAP. There's no reason for him to be doing any hauling or other jobs other than pumping out all the copper junk he can for skill practice.</STRONG>

This has totally been the idea.  I've had a few working on it and they're turning out some ≡stuff≡ now so I've moved them up to iron.  I probably should just leave them on copper, but it's so nice to get some pieces that are actual keepers.  Plus I have more iron than copper, now.  

I've had a few dwarves working on armorsmithing.  Well, basically I've had every dwarf that wanted to work on armorsmithing working on armor smithing.  Now that I have so fewer able dwarves, I should find the one that's furthest along and focus on him or her.  It sounds like I should have from the start.

I was aiming for stange moods, but so far all I've gotten out of the armorsmiths were a couple of possessed jack-wacks.  I guess a single piece of legendary copper armor would have been better than no legendary armor of any sort, but I smacked the bars out of their hands after they started working and locked them in the shop until they died.  

In retrospect, I should have let them finish first, then killed them with the room of fun, the hydra, and the stand-here-for-a-few-minutes lever.

quote:Originally posted by RPB:
<STRONG> Bucklers are good practice pieces, since you can guarantee that once you start making serious armor your soldiers will never waste time grabbing bucklers. </STRONG>

Well, bucklers are weight 15 so you get something like 0.15 bars back on the melt.  I thought I had understood that you get two high boots for each bar, and they each weigh 20, so that's 0.4 bars back on the melt for each bar spent.

Though, since I'm working with iron now and seem to have a nearly limitless supply, I should strongly consider no longer worrying about the return.  

quote:Originally posted by RPB:
<STRONG> Whenever traders come in to negotiate, ask for every scrap of steel they can bring you. When the dwarven liason comes in the autumn request all the armor you can, too... then buy it and melt it all down so your trained armorer can reforge the steel from it into even better armor. It's hugely expensive and still won't earn you very much steel, but you need every scrap of it you can get your grubby dwarven hands on. Steel supplies should be prioritized for shield production; it takes about twenty bars for full head-to-toe plate armor, but only one bar for a shield. (And if for some reason your soldiers aren't training with shields, then for the love of carp get them some right now!)</STRONG>

Everyone in the military is a shield-user.  They all have ≡(various wooden) Shield≡ or better as a result of a legendary woodcarver I got early on.

I've been buying every bit of steel I could get.  The plentiful gold, aluminum and gems on the map plus a couple of legendary metalsmiths gave me plenty of buying power even before Bloody Goblin Christmas started coming once a year.  I even melted the Hammerer's Hammer.  I've gotten two of those so far and will be confiscating a third any tick now.

quote:Originally posted by ShadeJS:
<STRONG>My thoughts are this:

-As the first poster said: Iron or steel armor. Build it, buy it, or steal it.</STRONG>

Thanks for seconding the motion.  I'll prioritize the armorer.

quote:Originally posted by ShadeJS:
<STRONG>-Have you considered a perimeter wall with a retractable bridge? At least 3 tiles wide on the bottom, with 2 Z levels of height and fortifications carved in the top. Building the wall is tedious, but it is less tedious than forbidding huge piles of junk every time... and it will keep the door boogie people safe.</STRONG>

I intended to do this, but my entrance is in a hillside with no easy cliff faces to run the moat into.  I'd also have to go way-way-around in order to avoid digging into the massive farm complex I have one z underground, in the nice, farm-friendly soil.  I'll plan my next fortress differently, but for now I see no way to dig a moat without a massive detour that will take me several screens across the map.

Plus it seemed like it would limit the growth of my farms which, for most of the game, I thought were important.  Now I have a mighty one-cage ranch going and could probably live high on the hog without ever killing a single ♀.  

quote:Originally posted by ShadeJS:
<STRONG>-I have a 10% draft rule. From the very start of every fortress I keep 10% of the dwarves in the military and keep active and off duty to let them train. I always train them to 'wrestler' then specialize them.</STRONG>

Next time I'll start the military earlier.  I was putting my dwarves through, at least, basic training in wrestling before getting them into swordsdwarfery.  Things were pretty rushed after the previous seige, and my next class was still working on their wrestling when the black line broke into the HVA/C.  

At this point I have plenty of the essentials -- food, alcohol, & things dwarves like to look at -- so everyone not making armor is going to be conscripted.  Well, just as soon as the bodies are cleaned up and maybe after the new wing on the catacombs is slapped in.  

I might leave out a couple other legendary craftsdwarves, if they survived.

It is my understanding that sieges and building-destroyers are initiated based on wealth.  So I expect more of the same despite my lower population.

quote:Originally posted by ShadeJS:
<STRONG>-War dogs. They're a renewable resource. Assign one to every soldier and let them eat the arrows and bolts.</STRONG>

I have tones of these.  My puppy-farm brings all the boys to the yard.

I tend to butcher the injured, but I still seem to have enough, so I'm not worried about it now.

At the start of that siege there were two war dogs assigned to every wrestler.  I couldn't assign them to the Champions, and their previous dogs had already done their arrow-catching duty.  

quote:Originally posted by ShadeJS:
<STRONG>-Be ware of archers and crossbow goblins. Even if it's a lone squad leader with a bow... If you're lame like me you'll should focus on every squad without ranged attacks first. If you can break the siege without fighting them good... If not try to lure them into traps or for up your archers and hope the enemy squad trickles into range slowly.</STRONG>

I don't know how to target specific enemies.  I pretty much just post the warfighters in the vicinity of impending conflict and stand back.  My only involvement in combat so far has been to draft the dumb civilians who try to step out for the damn mail.

Is there something more I can do?

[loser]

quote:Originally posted by Derakon:
<STRONG>I wouldn't bother with trying to get my dwarves to use silver weapons; the micromanagement isn't worth the risk of them having the wrong weapon equipped when they need to be effective fighters, and even with dangerous weapons, sparring accidents are very rare when you have decent armor. You can make up for the occasional accident (whether fatal or no) by simply drafting a couple of extra dwarves to pick up the slack.</STRONG>

Heh.  Looks like this is yet another way I'm paying for slacking on the armorer.

I have enough iron now to make some partial suits of passable iron armor.  Is that going to be good enough for sparing with ☼Obsidian Shortsword☼?

[Derakon]

Well, nothing's perfect, but the main thing is to cover the torso, head, and shield. Other armor parts will help, but you want to be certain a) that you're training shield use, and b) that you're protecting the nervous system, as damaging that means an end to sparring.

As for armorsmiths, only have one. It's damned hard to train them up; you'll make hundreds of junk armor pieces just getting one to legendary (I had a fort with over 800 gauntlets and boots - that was a map with plentiful iron), but even a middling smith works pretty quickly, so quantity will basically never be a problem.

[Torak]

quote:Originally posted by loser:
<STRONG>Well, bucklers are weight 15 so you get something like 0.15 bars back on the melt. I thought I had understood that you get two high boots for each bar, and they each weigh 20, so that's 0.4 bars back on the melt for each bar spent.</STRONG>

Not how recycling works, you get 1/3 of the metal you used on the object back, it's not tied to weight or anything.

So a single iron boot would be worth .165 (or something around that, just rough) bars of metal in the recycle.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

The Tip: It's easy to make an invulnerable fortress. It involves an exterior built corridor with ceiling that twists around, 3-wide, filled with 30 or so weapon traps with 10 steel serrated discs in each. At that point your only problem in general is getting wood for beds, and seeing if the traders can make it in through the inevitable goblin ambush of the traders.

Behind the last row of exterior traps and at the very entrance, put a 2x3 (two across, that is) single tile deep trench. Cover it with a bridge that raises to your side, and place the lever near your meeting site so it can be pulled quickly. Each should be on a separate lever. Generally, keep the bridges down for traders and to let the goblins in.

More traps on the inside tunnel leading to your depot.

And finally, liberally scatter chained dogs or whatever throughout to catch sneakers. You'll find that nobody will walk in the corners of your twisting tunnel of doom, so you can safely put chains there instead of traps.

The question is, will you have fun? Maybe not as much.

[loser]

quote:Originally posted by Derakon:
<STRONG>Well, nothing's perfect, but the main thing is to cover the torso, head, and shield. Other armor parts will help, but you want to be certain a) that you're training shield use, and b) that you're protecting the nervous system, as damaging that means an end to sparring.</STRONG>

Alright.  

Mediocre protection for essential areas
Mediocre protection for all areas
Superior protection

I'll get right on that.

quote:Originally posted by Derakon:
<STRONG>As for armorsmiths, only have one. It's damned hard to train them up; you'll make hundreds of junk armor pieces just getting one to legendary (I had a fort with over 800 gauntlets and boots - that was a map with plentiful iron), but even a middling smith works pretty quickly, so quantity will basically never be a problem.</STRONG>

I have a three unused anvils lying around and four in use in Metalsmith shops.  I was much more concerned about production speed than I was about the cost of building a workforce.  I guess I'll scrap the other metalsmith shops and just keep the anvils around to rebuild one or two for the metalsmith to meet mandates and set one shop for the exclusive use of my most promising armorer.

quote:Originally posted by Torak:
<STRONG>Not how recycling works, you get 1/3 of the metal you used on the object back, it's not tied to weight or anything.

So a single iron boot would be worth .165 (or something around that, just rough) bars of metal in the recycle.</STRONG>

I got my current understanding of recycling from the wiki.  If the wiki is inaccurate so be it, but every bit of confirmation one way or the other would be welcome.

quote:Originally posted by LeoLeonardoIII:
<STRONG>The Tip: It's easy to make an invulnerable fortress.

. . .

The question is, will you have fun? Maybe not as much.</STRONG>

Any maybe I should work on learning the game more before I feed my desire for an effective dwarven military.  But I think for now I'm going to hold off on the trap-tastic fortress of doom.

However, extending my entrance out a bit, ceilinged or not, will allow me to make a smaller moat that does not interfere with the sprawling metroplex one and two z down from the surface.

[loser]

quote:Originally posted by loser:
<STRONG>I got my current understanding of recycling from the wiki. If the wiki is inaccurate so be it, but every bit of confirmation one way or the other would be welcome.</STRONG>

Clearly that's not where I got my misunderstanding of recycling.

I'm not sure where I found someone saying that high boots were the best thing to make, but it's looking like that simply isn't the case.

Thanks, Torak.

[Kidiri]

Make the antechamber a chamber that can be completely sealed. That way, you wait until your stray wood cutters/haulers are inside, to then proceed with calmly organizing your military. You'll have the time to forbid or dump every piece of weaponry that you don't want them to use. If the siege is broken, forbid the weapons you don't want your dwarves to use while sparring. This for right when the siege has begun.

For when engaging the green-skinned 'menace', station your marksdwarves behind fortifications (not necessarily  the first ones), use someone as bait, or station your melee dwarves as defensive measurements for the marksdwarves and open all doors leading to them. The goblins enter, walk in your traps (when they're all inside, or a squad begins routing, close the doors again) and get skewered by your marksdwarves. When they're out of bolts, send in the infantry to slay the rest. Should they somehow get slaughtered, send in the marksdwarves (who were held back with floodgates/locked doors) to finish the job. If they still have survived, open the last doors leading to your main entrance hall that happens to be filled with weapon traps, each filled with ten masterpiece weapons, if you can spare them.

After the siege, clean up. Melt anything iron or steel, dump anything GCS silk and ignore the invaluables.

[ShadeJS]

quote:Originally posted by loser:
<STRONG>I don't know how to target specific enemies.  I pretty much just post the warfighters in the vicinity of impending conflict and stand back.  My only involvement in combat so far has been to draft the dumb civilians who try to step out for the damn mail.

Is there something more I can do?</STRONG>

Hit them quick where they ain't   I keep my meeting, sparring, on-duty barracks (I let the military dwarves sleep in their rooms when they are standing down), and ammo stockpiles near my main entrance. When a siege comes I get my soldiers in the field quick and intercept the squads that have no ranged attacks quickly... If you decimate enough of the low hanging fruit you can often get the foes with ranged attacks to run off by yelling 'boo' loudly.

As far as wall building goes:
-Initially forget about a water / magma / chasm moat, and forget about multiple Z levels with fortifications on top. Try to build the smallest continuous wall that gives cover to your main entrance cover with a depth of 1, and a height of 1. Build that while keeping the idea of incorporating it into a better wall system later.

-Later build that better wall system that has multiple z levels and fortifications that give you a fair bit of above ground space, and a moat and incorporate the fist wall as a fall back position.

A decent setup is a small continuous square of wall around your entrance with this:

........W....
...RWBBBWR...
...RWBBBWR...
...RWBBBWR...
........W....

. = Road or ground
R = Ramp
W = Wall (your el cheapo one z level wall)
B = Bridge

It'll let the wagons in and keep the baddies out.

Link the bridge to a lever that is near your entrance and underground...

[ShadeJS]

Ooops the 'W' in the above don't line up because I didn't use a fixed width font... But you get the drift.