My family has a bit of a military history in the Navy. Me great grandpa was at Pearl Harbor, aye. Plus, they fled France (Losing is Fun!) back when there was that persecution of the French Huguenots, among other religions.
You know what you got to do. Grab a bunch of dudes, a wagon full of booze, turtles and some axes and reclaim!
And I also always see my dwarves as being quite "German", if not because of the Norse influence then because of their apparent world-war style obsession with huge
megaprojects and dangerously overpowered yet borderline-useless weapons (building a magma-drowningchamber is about as much overkill as the infamous
land-battleship would have been... also : ballistas). The fact that I literally turn whole mountains into vast bunker networks doesn't help at all.
And I refuse to accept that dwarven crossbows represent the
Chinese repeating crossbow. With their current impact and rate of fire they look
more like this to me.
I have to agree that the dwarven economy (or its nonexistance) makes them look very much like (soviet) Russians, because in dwarven fortress, property is you! ... But as soon as Toady completes the Army Arc with invasions and conquest the game will inevitably turn into world-war-dwarf anyways, so hey, why not. I for one will welcome the opportunity to blitz the elves with wagon-mounted elephant-pulled ballistas, Urist Guderian would be so proud
EDIT: Now look at
this shit
. I've been playing to much HoI3 in the last few days I guess. Statements still stand though, especially the ones about Army Arc. Imagine getting a quest to kill the most dreaded elven general to turn the tide in the great Elven-Dwarven war. Which brings us bag to the assassination of important figures. See? I wasn't talking about terribly OT crap up there! It was just an .. uhhh.. very long introduction to my most cunning thread rerail! Hah. You never saw that coming, eh?