Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[vanatteveldt]

My first DF2014 fortress quickly (and naively) fell to zombies (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=163600.0). Of course, we can't allow that to happen. So I will reclaim, get better, and get even.

[Aside: The properly dwarven solution would probably be to build a huge magma weapon and burn them all to death. I thought this wouldn't work (mainly from reading furnaceclans), but apparently, zombies actually burn now (http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/mantisbt/print_bug_page.php?bug_id=5511). However, I rather like my surface features, and there is a deep riverbed so I would end up with a quite different geometry. Maybe intersting as well, and who doesn't want a magma moat, but I think I'll reserve that for when I get bored of my nice rivers and trees . ]

So I thought instead I would try to capture all the zombies in cage traps, and use them to train up my military until they can handle the next zombie siege without resorting to traps. Of course, zombies would make very nice archer training material, since they can absorb a nice amount of bolts, and I have previously made nice archery ranges so I think I can handle that, although with the new (for me) climbing feature I might want to add fortifications and/or smoothed walls in the plan somewhere

But since archers are not so good against zombies I really want to train up my melee. I can of course disarm a zombie and set my melee squad to kill it, but I think that would end pretty quickly, although it might be good training for new recruits. So I thought maybe it would give better experience to my squad if I would disarm my squad and let them wrestle the zombie to death, which I presume would give them a lot of opportunity to train their dodging, armor, fighting and shield skills and of course their wrestling. It's a shame you can't make a featherwood training mace .

So...
1) At what skill level should I use zombies as live training material? I don't mind a couple injuries (doc needs training too), but I do want to keep fatalities down
2) Should I disarm my dwarves to get more XP per zombie?

And maybe
3) Does it help to set up a resurrection system with a caught necromancer (assuming I can get one)? I thought that with the new mauling system a zombie killed by a maceman should probably stay dead, but it probably doesn't hurt trying?

[Maul_Junior]

My first DF2014 fortress quickly (and naively) fell to zombies (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=163600.0). Of course, we can't allow that to happen. So I will reclaim, get better, and get even.

[Aside: The properly dwarven solution would probably be to build a huge magma weapon and burn them all to death. I thought this wouldn't work (mainly from reading furnaceclans), but apparently, zombies actually burn now (http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/mantisbt/print_bug_page.php?bug_id=5511). However, I rather like my surface features, and there is a deep riverbed so I would end up with a quite different geometry. Maybe intersting as well, and who doesn't want a magma moat, but I think I'll reserve that for when I get bored of my nice rivers and trees . ]

So I thought instead I would try to capture all the zombies in cage traps, and use them to train up my military until they can handle the next zombie siege without resorting to traps. Of course, zombies would make very nice archer training material, since they can absorb a nice amount of bolts, and I have previously made nice archery ranges so I think I can handle that, although with the new (for me) climbing feature I might want to add fortifications and/or smoothed walls in the plan somewhere

But since archers are not so good against zombies I really want to train up my melee. I can of course disarm a zombie and set my melee squad to kill it, but I think that would end pretty quickly, although it might be good training for new recruits. So I thought maybe it would give better experience to my squad if I would disarm my squad and let them wrestle the zombie to death, which I presume would give them a lot of opportunity to train their dodging, armor, fighting and shield skills and of course their wrestling. It's a shame you can't make a featherwood training mace .

So...
1) At what skill level should I use zombies as live training material? I don't mind a couple injuries (doc needs training too), but I do want to keep fatalities down
2) Should I disarm my dwarves to get more XP per zombie?

And maybe
3) Does it help to set up a resurrection system with a caught necromancer (assuming I can get one)? I thought that with the new mauling system a zombie killed by a maceman should probably stay dead, but it probably doesn't hurt trying?

I have a catbone mace you can't borrow.

>.>

Also the image of dwarves "disarming" zombies is kind of hilarious. "Grrr, arrrgh. It's just a flesh wound. aaaarrgh."

[PatrikLundell]

You can make a feather-wood mace. It's called a "crossbow". Just make sure you don't have any bolts.

[Maul_Junior]

You can make a feather-wood mace. It's called a "crossbow". Just make sure you don't have any bolts.

Feather-wood Warhammer, I thought.

[Insert_Gnome_Here]

If you capture a necro (or bring a slab to your fort as an adventurer), you can reanimate whatever animals you have. Even if sentient zombies are too dangerous, you might be able to fight a zombie pig. (see How To Bacon for more advantages of necropigs)

[vanatteveldt]

You can make a feather-wood mace. It's called a "crossbow". Just make sure you don't have any bolts.

Feather-wood Warhammer, I thought.

So using a crossbow for melee trains the hammerdwarf skill? Excellent!

I read about the bacon experiments and the use of zombies in the Kindergarten project, that is what prompted me to think about this route. I'll first see how far I get with normal training and some zombie training, if I do catch a necromancer I'll see what I can do. 

[Maul_Junior]

You can make a feather-wood mace. It's called a "crossbow". Just make sure you don't have any bolts.

Feather-wood Warhammer, I thought.

So using a crossbow for melee trains the hammerdwarf skill? Excellent!

I read about the bacon experiments and the use of zombies in the Kindergarten project, that is what prompted me to think about this route. I'll first see how far I get with normal training and some zombie training, if I do catch a necromancer I'll see what I can do.

Personally I'd train the dwarves as Hammerdwarves first, then branch them over to Marksdorfing. That way they get all fight skills, not just Discipline, Archery, Crossbow.

[Snafu]

Personally I'd train the dwarves as Hammerdwarves first, then branch them over to Marksdorfing. That way they get all fight skills, not just Discipline, Archery, Crossbow.

Good point; however keep an ex-hunter as leader of the squad so they'll get some peripheral xbow skills while training hammer, too (I usually have so many hunter migrants..)

Additionally try to avoid having females in your military due to baby/child loss tantrum spirals

(oh, & wooden training spear spike traps can now (0.43.05) cause significant dmg to semi-armoured green recruits: no more 'training room' exploit)