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[Randos]

It's been a while since I have had the time (and mostly energy) to get into a full fledged DF SESSION, if you know what I mean. I always seem to download the latest version about once every few months, carve out a quick comfy home, and then get busy or frustrated when the real business starts to build up. I then realized that I was dealing with a mental block, it is in fact scary to face all of the responsibility that DF throws in your face all at once sometimes

ARG! Let's get to it! So it has been a while and my first attempt was taken out by an early Wererhinosaurus.. but I survived! ... only to be annihilated by the first goblin wave. I had a small military, they didn't work.

OK, next fortress. I not only pass the first goblin wave but I have a virtually perfect fortress with a Well and everything! (that used to be a challenge) Now at least I can seal off my fortress and feel safe with tons of well prepared booze and food when the Siege comes. the farm is indoors too, Should be good right?  Hahaha, DF is just toying with me. I had NO IDEA how big the second wave of goblins could possibly be!!! And in such short time!

The second wave was like triple the size of the first, including trolls, and I think each goblin has a trained attack dog with it???

I had the fortress door lined with traps, a melee team of 10, a crossbow team of 10, both who were training regularly... but nothing prepared me for this.

I have so many questions:

1 - Is this normal and/or am I mistaken to say that things have gotten much harder over the past couple years? If I recall correctly, the goblin waves did get harder as they came, but not like this! and with the difficulty increasing so fast!

2 - Can you "wait out" a siege? Meaning will they eventually go away?

3 - The trade caravan kept saying "your liason from Goblin something, something..." what are the traders Goblins?

4 - Why won't my military put on their assigned Helms?

5 - Do you have advice for such a wave of goblins? I have set up siege before and found it effective, but training is slow, and how could I have had that set up in time for this???

Hahahaha!   This game is maddening, when I think of all the stuff you have to manage at once and with the barrage of insanity, but I love it!

[Shonai_Dweller]

Siege size depends on the outside world circumstances nowadays. Hard to predict. Chances are you don't have training set up properly though. If you have a full time squad training for, say, 2 years, which you should have before a really big goblin attack comes in (they shouldn't arrive before you hit population 80 - probably...), they should be able to handle whatever gets through your traps. With decent equipment of course.

Having said that, sparring is a bit screwy right now, which may be stunting training somewhat. Just have to wait for the bugfix if that's the case.

Those are beak dogs by the way. Like dogs but with beaks. Obviously...

--edit also dwarf soldiers are possibly getting overly stressed from training too hard and forgetting to pray and socialise. That doesn't help. Again, wait for bugfix.

-- edit again. If you're playing 42.01 or .02 dwarves won't equip properly. Upgrade or face goblin hammers with no helmets...

[Robsoie]

4 - Why won't my military put on their assigned Helms?

that bug was fixed in 0.42.03 , make sure you're using the latest version of DF
Additionally, dwarves can't wear helmet if they have already a hat or something, so in the military screen you need to have "Replace clothing" for their equips , the default is to wear over clothing, and in the case of helmet, most dwarves are wearing hats/caps and so will not be able to wear helmet over them.

5 - Do you have advice for such a wave of goblins? I have set up siege before and found it effective, but training is slow, and how could I have had that set up in time for this???

I found that since df2014 (and it is the same in 42.x), dwarves train actually fast in comparison to past versions, in 2/3 years of training your soldiers will be warriors competent enough to defeat goblins.
Just make sure you have at least 2 squads training, as goblins come in number and if you don't have enough dwarves, they can overwhelm them.

Of course assuming you have setup barracks and assigned those barracks for your dwarves training, and set your squad to active training.

Additionally, something to keep in mind is that goblins don't seem to train (bug or intended ?) , so unlike your dwarves, they will only field weak soldiers years after years.
While you will get your first legendary soldier +/- in the 3rd year of training, and after that you'll accumulate them.
So whatever the goblin numbers coming to siege, after some years when you'll have a few skilled squads , and by the time well equipped, they will utterly annihilate those goblins

[Shonai_Dweller]

Helmets and caps are fixed now I think. Dwarves should replace their caps even if they're on over-clothing (haven't tested myself).

[PatrikLundell]

The issue with helmets/caps isn't a bug, as far as I understand, but a result of caps being "shaped" and thus not compatible with other shaped items, so unless you replace clothing, the civilian default will prevent your helmet to be put on top of it. There is a similar issue with either hands or feet (don't remember which). Thus, to wear full armor you need to "replace clothing".

1. It's harder than the 0.40.X version, as the siegers now seem to come in full force rather than sending a puny probing force first. In addition to that, the beak dogs are on top of the full force. Note that 0.42.X has introduced parameters to allow you to set the maximum size of sieges.

2. Yes. Unless things have changed from 0.40.24 without me seeing any notes, siegers give up after either one season or one year. They also seem to give up now if a substantial part of their force has been taken care of (resulting in only a small amount of goblinite, since most of the ones I capture are trolls).

3. Don't know. Goblins don't trade in vanilla, but it's not impossible for the trade liaison from your "dwarven" civ to be a goblin. 0.42.X introduced multi racial civs, so the mountainhome can have other races (I think the mountainhome could have other races even before this).

4. You need to make sure you use 0.42.03, since 0.42.01-02 is bugged, as well as ensuring you set "replace clothing" ("over clothing" is the default).

5. Drawbridges to cut them off at a minimum. I use massive cage trap arrays in airlocking tunnels (a drawbridge in each end), and have at least two entrances so I can send the invaders between them. Dorfs can haul off cages and reload traps in one tunnel while the enemy files in to fill the cages in the other. Some people consider that to be whimpy, and in that case I'd use drawbridges to cut the invading force into bite size lots for your soon to be legendary fighters to deal with, rather than facing the whole force at once.

[Shonai_Dweller]

Dwarves will now replace their caps with helms even if they're set to 'over clothing' now (just tested it). That's what Toady meant by 'shaped is now fixed'.

Boots work too, but only if you add the [SHAPED] tag to them (works straight away, no new world needed). Dwarves replace their shoes but keep their socks on.

Curiously I've no idea where the dwarf I tested has actually put his cap and his shoes. Suppose they'll turn up somewhere...

[MobRules]

1. Prior to .40, DF would generate invading armies out of thin air based on your fortress characteristics. Now, invasions happen when a nearby dark fortress or tower decides that you are the most likely target.

in .40, there was an error with army pathing that caused this to mean you almost never got attacked. in .42, this was fixed. Getting a big invasion so soon means you likely picked an embark very near to a goblin dark fortress.

2. Yes, you can wait out a siege.

3. You can look at the civilization info screen (sorry, don't remember the key combo off the top of my head) to see who the major players in your civilization are, including the trade liaison. If the location that your liaison is coming from is "The Goblin Mountain Home of..." (which it sounds like from your description), that would indicate your capital has been conquered and is under goblin occupation.

4. As others have said, this is a known bug in 42.01 and 42.02, fixed in 42.03. (Of you're already in .03, might want to file a bug report).

[FantasticDorf]

Unless the goblins have been crushed or engaged by multiple wars, due to their infinite lifespan, their population will continuously rise as compared to races like humans who while better armed have limited lifespans therefore rely on a widespread network of towns to muster up a substantial siege out of the civ world population, whereas goblins will just pile up and throw what they have at you (also worth noting toady's efforts to raise the amount of usable mounts, so that there are some available when needed rather than being expended quickly)

[Shonai_Dweller]

Hmm. Scratch what I said about boots in my last post. Having some issues after testing that for a bit.
Caps & helmets seem to work as Toady promised though.

[Urist McVoyager]

If you ever decide it's too much and you really just want a comfortable home for your dwarves, you can drop the soft population cap low in the d_init file and just farm your dwarves. I sometimes do natural growth forts where the popcap is seven and I fill in extra space with in-fortress births. It's a nice, slow progression and after setting up basic utilities you're perfectly fine locking the fort down and just digging from time to time for new materials and space for more kids.

[Randos]

If you ever decide it's too much and you really just want a comfortable home for your dwarves, you can drop the soft population cap low in the d_init file and just farm your dwarves. I sometimes do natural growth forts where the popcap is seven and I fill in extra space with in-fortress births. It's a nice, slow progression and after setting up basic utilities you're perfectly fine locking the fort down and just digging from time to time for new materials and space for more kids.

Thanks every, for all of this awesome advice!

And regarding this, YES. In addition to learning more military strategy along the way, I have also been highly contemplating this "Paradise Fortress". Perhaps it will be a resort and I should charge dwarfs for their stay!

But is this the only way to set up such a scenario? Even though it is only a game, the fact that they are practically populating in incest kinda ... freaks me out !

Someone mentioned a cap on goblin invasions above, I wonder if that would work equally as well.

I think I just want to tone it down a bit until I get the military basics down better, because losing all that - literally days of work - in just one rapid mishap of an invasion can be devastating at times. I understand the whole "fun" aspect, but I've lost dozens of beautiful fortresses with so much work put into them... It would be nice to at least have one that doesn't disappear on me.

[PatrikLundell]

If you want to build in peace and quiet it's fairly easy: just embark out of range of goblins and black towers (and make sure you're not at war with the others, which can happen, but is the normal case). A small island would guarantee no neighbors (you could get a kobold cave). In addition to that you might want to get rid of titans, megabeasts, and semi megabeasts as well, or increase their pop attack threshold.

Dorfs don't practice "proper" incest, i.e. siblings do not marry, but cousins are fair game. Parents are not eligible since dorfs marry for life, and, unlike humans, do not procreate outside of wedlock, nor do they have "affairs" on the side (but there is a "lover" stage which they might never leave, or might progress to marriage).

You can set the pop cap where you want it, so you may stop at 20, 30, 40, or wherever you want. Personally I take the first two migrant waves as they come, and then I set the pop cap to the current pop + 10 after each new wave for a nice smooth pop growth up to my target, which will probably be 90 with all the tavern and library stuff (I guess an isolated fortress might not need that much of a tavern service, though).

[Randos]

If you want to build in peace and quiet it's fairly easy: just embark out of range of goblins and black towers (and make sure you're not at war with the others, which can happen, but is the normal case). A small island would guarantee no neighbors (you could get a kobold cave). In addition to that you might want to get rid of titans, megabeasts, and semi megabeasts as well, or increase their pop attack threshold.
...

Thanks for the input! and that brings up another one of my questions!

When in "choose location" mode, or whatever be that mode where you choose your embark location via map... Is there a guide to read the symbols here? Because I keep wondering what I am looking at on the map!? I can find and choose a location well enough but what are all of these neighboring establishments? There are all of these established buildings, are they elf castle or existing dwarf fortresses or goblin whatevers? I know there is a ton of readable info there, I think my main problem was figuring out what the existing structures are, and I want to be able to read the terrain symbols, I am sure they have some added meaning.

But I can not find a blog or wiki on the details of this interface.

[therahedwig]

P = elves.
○/roll of cloth = goblins.
PI/cupboard symbol = tower(goblins or necromancers)

+,#,* and masterworks symbol= human settlements of various sizes.

Press TAB to switch view and check neighbours in the rightmost screen.

[arbarbonif]

Thanks for the input! and that brings up another one of my questions!

When in "choose location" mode, or whatever be that mode where you choose your embark location via map... Is there a guide to read the symbols here? Because I keep wondering what I am looking at on the map!? I can find and choose a location well enough but what are all of these neighboring establishments? There are all of these established buildings, are they elf castle or existing dwarf fortresses or goblin whatevers? I know there is a ton of readable info there, I think my main problem was figuring out what the existing structures are, and I want to be able to read the terrain symbols, I am sure they have some added meaning.

But I can not find a blog or wiki on the details of this interface.

First you can hit tab and cycle through several views, including the neighbors tab which shows what civs you have contact with.  As far as the symbols, they are color coded.  IIRC, purple is goblins, Yellow is elves, dwarves are white, and I think humans are green.  Your civ will change color to blue, so you can distinguish them from other dwarves.

It can be hard to distinguish the town icons from the terrain icons tho.  You can also move the cursor over to get a "Forest retreat garbledegook", but that doesn't tell you what race owns it unless you know the in game languages.  On the create map screen you can see "dwarven hillock of UristPain"

Oh, it will also look different if you have a graphics pack and when TWBT is released (if you use the Starter Pack)