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[Pabbicus]

I'm not all too experienced in DF, could someone give me some tips on the best over-all method for getting ready to withstand a siege? I worked on it in my favored method, slowly and steadily building up industry while completely unsure of how and when to build defenses and military. Though the fact that my miners simply refused to path to my channels and tunnels for moats and secondary entrances most definitely destroyed my hope for having any defences, I still only had a military of 8 bronze chain armored marksdwarves and two bronze chain armored axedwarves, all with bronze weapons(at that point I was a little low on iron ores and found bronze much cheaper and quicker to make in numbers.) and I had about 40 bronze spears layed out in traps at my main entrance, though I hadn't yet been able to hook them up to levers, as my mechanics were also incredibly slow and lazy, and nobody felt like pathing to the upper levels of the fortress to do any work except my engravers. Still, part of it was my inability to gauge when and how to build up my military, and what defences to build where. Something a bit clearer than the "guide" on the wiki would be helpful to me.

[MoonLightBird]

Use floodgates to block them from coming in your fort till you train up your army. Complex traps are always good too. Like drowning chambers and massive amounts of spikes and dogs...and magma...always need more magma!

[NecroRebel]

Depending on how skilled they are and the quality of their equipment, you may well just be able to tell your military to stand in a chokepoint between your fort proper and the invaders and win. Goblins are not very strong, and I highly doubt that you're using mods if you don't even know how to set up a military yet

That said, the first thing to take care of for defense is to limit approaches to your fort as much as possible. You referred to a "main" entrance. You have some "secondary" entrances, seal them off, whether it be with constructed walls, doors that can be/are forbidden, floodgates or a drawbridge, or simply a moat dug around whatever important stuff outside they access (like outdoor farms or trees for lumber). It's much easier to defend a single entrance, whether against sieges or, even more dangerous for multi-entrance forts, ambushes.

Second, you probably shouldn't be using upright spear traps just yet. Weapon traps are much, much easier to build and manage, since they don't require any linkages or dwarf attention to use. Weapon traps can use any weapon, including those bronze spears you've got, so if you think you have time, disassemble the upright spear traps and build weapon traps with the mechanisms and spears.

Um. I'm not sure why miners would refuse to path to outdoor channel designations, why people wouldn't go to the upper levels of the fort, or why your mechanics would be that slow to link the traps... My two guesses would be either A) you accidentally opened the (o)rders menu at one point and turned on dwarves stay indoors, or B) you don't have enough/any booze. Without alchohol, dwarves work slower and slower and take breaks more and more often, slowing down work massively, so they might be trying to get to work sites, taking too long due to their sobriety-induced sluggishness, then stopping to take a break and going back to the meeting hall.



Other than that, without a more specific description of your fort layout and what defenses you already have built, more help is going to be fairly useless. However, do bear in mind that goblins and kobolds are not very tough, so huge amounts of military preperation is usually unnecessary.

[Pabbicus]

The thing that bothered me, though, was this; my military dwarves were all in separate squads and none of them were ever in the barracks I designated. I never saw them sparring even once. Is it best to make a small food stockpile in the barracks to take from your main food stockpile so they have some food and drink? Is it wise to make fortifications for the wall between your barracks and your trade depot? Should I make sure i've got some Z levels above your main entrance? If so, how can you do that? As a somewhat inexperienced player, is it smart to choose a region with magma?

As for the booze idea, I have hundreds of barrels full of ale, and I have such a productive food industry that having one kitchen set to making lavish meals on repeat and my 88 dwarves dwarves can't eat it all before it goes bad. I did the upright spears because I was looking up traps and it said upright spear traps never jam and so are the better choice. I'd go back to that fortress but it was a siege, which was by the way the first attack of any kind I was ever dealing with. By main entrance I mean that, I have a secondary entrance that was almost dug out, even though I have 5 legendary miners who just never do anything even with massive stockpiles completely full of barrels of booze and prepared meals, and a bunch of work orders they could fill in seconds that they just don't seem to path to. I was halfway done with a proper moat and a massive, winding secondary entrance that I was preparing to build massive amounts of cage traps, stonefall traps and some other traps, along with a few corridors for a flooding trap, and floodgates hooked up to a lever, along with two sets of double doors so I can let a siege force in, then if they make it past the drowning trap I was setting up, I could simply forbid the doors that enter into the main hallway from the trapped one. I was also working on building a tower for some marksdwarves.

[NecroRebel]

The thing that bothered me, though, was this; my military dwarves were all in separate squads and none of them were ever in the barracks I designated. I never saw them sparring even once.

That's part of the problem, then. Squads of melee dwarves should be pairs, at least; they often don't spar reliably if they're singles. Marksdwarves, on the other hand, should be singles, since they often don't use archery ranges reliably if they're in a group.

Also, make absolutely certain that they're all actually off-duty with the (m)ilitary screen's (v)iew squads option. They won't spar if they're on-duty (though won't go to their station or onto their patrol route if they're off-duty).

Is it best to make a small food stockpile in the barracks to take from your main food stockpile so they have some food and drink?

It usually doesn't matter in my experience, but it is an option. Supposedly, dwarves won't spar on top of buildings, however, so make sure the stockpile doesn't cover the whole barracks.

Is it wise to make fortifications for the wall between your barracks and your trade depot?

Well, doing this can let your sparring dwarves actually see unstealthed invaders coming through the depot, so it can make you need to manage them less. However, if there are unstealthed invaders approaching your depot, you can probably just put your soldiers on duty and station them in the depot, so... Meh.

Should I make sure i've got some Z levels above your main entrance? If so, how can you do that?

Totally unnecessary. Some people like to build a guard tower out of constructed walls and floors and have marksdwarves stand up there where they can shoot at attackers. I usually don't bother.

As a somewhat inexperienced player, is it smart to choose a region with magma?

Magma is very useful, and very dangerous. I greatly prefer regions with magma, myself, but then again I know how to get it to where I can use it safely. On the other hand, trying to get it to where you can use it is the best way to learn to do so safely, so let's just say yes. At the very least, you'll have Fun 

As for the booze idea, I have hundreds of barrels full of ale, and I have such a productive food industry that having one kitchen set to making lavish meals on repeat and my 88 dwarves dwarves can't eat it all before it goes bad.

Well, it was just a guess. I don't know what your problem with workers was/is. Since your engravers could get to the surface, that probably means that everyone else could, too, and I'm assuming you had the mining labor on your legendary miners, so I have no more ideas just from what you've mentioned.

...Though if you have been, avoid using ramps in the future. Staircases are much harder to screw up the placing of.

I did the upright spears because I was looking up traps and it said upright spear traps never jam and so are the better choice.

That... That's true, but also grossly misleading. Upright spear/spike traps don't jam, but they also don't trigger automatically. You need to link them to a lever or pressure plate and then have something actually activate that lever or pressure plate, so they're actually much, much worse than weapon traps, which just trigger when an enemy walks on them. However, due to the whole stuck-ins things, spears aren't exactly the best trap weapons, either.

I'd go back to that fortress but it was a siege, which was by the way the first attack of any kind I was ever dealing with. By main entrance I mean that, I have a secondary entrance that was almost dug out, even though I have 5 legendary miners who just never do anything even with massive stockpiles completely full of barrels of booze and prepared meals, and a bunch of work orders they could fill in seconds that they just don't seem to path to. I was halfway done with a proper moat and a massive, winding secondary entrance that I was preparing to build massive amounts of cage traps, stonefall traps and some other traps, along with a few corridors for a flooding trap, and floodgates hooked up to a lever, along with two sets of double doors so I can let a siege force in, then if they make it past the drowning trap I was setting up, I could simply forbid the doors that enter into the main hallway from the trapped one. I was also working on building a tower for some marksdwarves.

Well, it sounds like your biggest problem was labor deficiencies for whatever reason. You'll actually probably find all that to be massive overkill. Hell, with that many preperations, I could probably take on orcs without my dwarves even needing to actually see one.