Print

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

[tychoruniko]

So I never have been much good at the military aspects of DF. I usually build a huge fortress that lasts until the first siege and we all die in an explosion of bearded gore. My dwarves will commit seppaku at the very mention of goblin invasions, regardless of traps.

But this time around I decided to actually defend myself. When I embarked, I by chance had six females and one male dwarf. So I decided to make them all wrestlers and have the one male do all the work. I made a weapon rack first thing and just set everyone sparring near the entrance all day while my one little peon was digging and hauling.

The problem I am having is that while they are training, the wrestlers rip their clothes and armor off and refuse to put it back on again. It isn't damaged, just marked as "(pig-tail right shoe)" or "(goat leather cloak)". Can I have them put their armor back on later?

Also, I love the idea that this fortress was just six legendary, naked female mud wrestlers and one very (un?)lucky guy that sits and watches them all day when he isn't hauling soap from one end of the earth to the other. 

[Ieb]

Military unit's don't do any work at the moment. This includes taking care of their clothes.

Kobolds had a field day on one of my forts, when they raided my first barrack setup, and stole every piece of clothing over the course of three seasons.

[Heliman]

Honestly, just build a trap field roughly 3 tiles thick(for caravans) and 10 tiles wide and fill it with stone traps weapon traps, and cage traps.(Preferably all weapon traps for the long run, but you have to start somewhere.)

[Grendus]

Heliman... one good siege will get through that. Each squad is roughly 15 members, two squads will be enough to work their way through a 10x3 path of traps, even with them giving up after enough are killed.

As for military clothing, I've found that soldiers will deal with their clothing, but only if they have some place to put it. The most common mistake made by players over military clothing is to have their soldiers sleep in the barracks. Since they don't have a room, not only are they more prone to tantrum spirals when their friends die (unless you let them spar post legendary) but they have no possessions like cabinets to store worn out or unneeded clothing.

Also, military dwarves consider armor to be clothing. If you have a dwarf wearing platemail and you assign him to wear nothing suddenly he'll run off and collect enough of "his" clothing to be decent, presuming he has any. If a wrestler removes a piece of clothing but the dwarf remains "covered" by anything, be it armor or another piece of overlapping clothing, they usually won't bother to put it back on.

[Qwernt]

Anybody try dumping all the usual suspect clothing BEFORE starting wrestling training? 

[Beanchubbs]

Anybody try dumping all the usual suspect clothing BEFORE starting wrestling training? 

Don't you dare bring logic into this! Blasphemy!

[Krelos]

Yeah but Dwarves don't dump owned clothing.

[Skorpion]

The only solution is magma, really. Burn the clothes off.

Sadly, you also burn off any engravings, or not-magma-safe furniture.
And any dwarves.

[monkeyfetus]

How did kobolds raid your barracks?

[Skorpion]

Maybe they were above-ground?

[Jamini]

Heliman... one good siege will get through that. Each squad is roughly 15 members, two squads will be enough to work their way through a 10x3 path of traps, even with them giving up after enough are killed.

As for military clothing, I've found that soldiers will deal with their clothing, but only if they have some place to put it. The most common mistake made by players over military clothing is to have their soldiers sleep in the barracks. Since they don't have a room, not only are they more prone to tantrum spirals when their friends die (unless you let them spar post legendary) but they have no possessions like cabinets to store worn out or unneeded clothing.

Also, military dwarves consider armor to be clothing. If you have a dwarf wearing platemail and you assign him to wear nothing suddenly he'll run off and collect enough of "his" clothing to be decent, presuming he has any. If a wrestler removes a piece of clothing but the dwarf remains "covered" by anything, be it armor or another piece of overlapping clothing, they usually won't bother to put it back on.

(Vanilla) Invaders will flee once you kill approximately half of their number.

Code: [Select]

|MMMMMMMM |
oFFFFFFFFFFFo
^^^^^^^^^+++oBBB
^^^^^^^^^+++FBBB
^^^^^^^^^+++oBBB
oFFF=====o+++o=
  MMM    |DDDDD|
         |DDDDD|
         |DDDDD|
         |DDDDD|
         ODDDDD|


^ - Trap. For ambushes stonefall and cage traps will work, for full-blown seiges you will want the last four rows to be maxed-out weapon traps (or more. More is aways better if you are really worried about goblins getting through)
B - Parts of a Wooden Ballista, with bolts behind. Excellent for killing tighltly-knit goblins or pesky elves. (Warning, Seige Operators are Civilians and will run from goblins)
F - Fortification.
M - Marksdarf locations and ammo stockpiles. Make sure there are walls behind them!
D - Trade Depot.

This compact entrance design is more than enough to repel any group of vanilla seigers, if you see the need. While it's nothing compared to some that I've done in the past. (If you think Goblins and regular undead are bad, imagine Skeletal WHALES. Size 16, nobreathe, nopain, noexert that can walk through four tiles of maxed-out weapon traps and keep going like it's nothing.) If you want to get a little more exotic/large, try incorporating cages of war dogs, raising bridges, melee dwarves, magma, and running water.

Also, well-equipped multi-legendary champions make Seigers cry. One or two years of training and a dwarf can punt goblins across the map with his bare hands, much more when he carries a hammer.

[Ieb]

How did kobolds raid your barracks?

Since it was my first setup, I had removed it as such location and moved the barracks deeper underground.


I intended to use it for some other stuff, like food processing, but this time, the kobolds were faster than me clearing up the mess. Actually it's not that bad. Except when the murder squads start showing up. Then it gets a bit interesting.

[Grendus]

Heliman... one good siege will get through that. Each squad is roughly 15 members, two squads will be enough to work their way through a 10x3 path of traps, even with them giving up after enough are killed.

As for military clothing, I've found that soldiers will deal with their clothing, but only if they have some place to put it. The most common mistake made by players over military clothing is to have their soldiers sleep in the barracks. Since they don't have a room, not only are they more prone to tantrum spirals when their friends die (unless you let them spar post legendary) but they have no possessions like cabinets to store worn out or unneeded clothing.

Also, military dwarves consider armor to be clothing. If you have a dwarf wearing platemail and you assign him to wear nothing suddenly he'll run off and collect enough of "his" clothing to be decent, presuming he has any. If a wrestler removes a piece of clothing but the dwarf remains "covered" by anything, be it armor or another piece of overlapping clothing, they usually won't bother to put it back on.

(Vanilla) Invaders will flee once you kill approximately half of their number.

Code: [Select]

|MMMMMMMM |
oFFFFFFFFFFFo
^^^^^^^^^+++oBBB
^^^^^^^^^+++FBBB
^^^^^^^^^+++oBBB
oFFF=====o+++o=
  MMM    |DDDDD|
         |DDDDD|
         |DDDDD|
         |DDDDD|
         ODDDDD|


^ - Trap. For ambushes stonefall and cage traps will work, for full-blown seiges you will want the last four rows to be maxed-out weapon traps (or more. More is aways better if you are really worried about goblins getting through)
B - Parts of a Wooden Ballista, with bolts behind. Excellent for killing tighltly-knit goblins or pesky elves. (Warning, Seige Operators are Civilians and will run from goblins)
F - Fortification.
M - Marksdarf locations and ammo stockpiles. Make sure there are walls behind them!
D - Trade Depot.

This compact entrance design is more than enough to repel any group of vanilla seigers, if you see the need. While it's nothing compared to some that I've done in the past. (If you think Goblins and regular undead are bad, imagine Skeletal WHALES. Size 16, nobreathe, nopain, noexert that can walk through four tiles of maxed-out weapon traps and keep going like it's nothing.) If you want to get a little more exotic/large, try incorporating cages of war dogs, raising bridges, melee dwarves, magma, and running water.

Also, well-equipped multi-legendary champions make Seigers cry. One or two years of training and a dwarf can punt goblins across the map with his bare hands, much more when he carries a hammer.

In my experience, however, sieges tend to follow singular paths - that is, they all path in almost a straight line, especially when their formation strings out like if they had to turn 90 degrees. In addition, when they retreat more will path through the traps on their way back. Maybe three squads, it's still very vulnerable.

Also, he mentioned only stonefall and cage traps. Weapon traps are much more useful, if imbalanced. They have about a 20% chance to stick, so a 10x3 path of weapon traps will usually stop a siege. If you hit that 20% every time and the goblins path across single file, which will only happen once every roughly ten million times, two squads could pierce weapon traps and be into the fortress proper. Weapon traps are absurdly powerful right now, but don't rely on them. You'll regret it when one of your legendary crafters dies doing the entrance dance because you had no military to hold the enemy back. Traps are meant to be a supplement, not a major defense.

A few legendary champions will be enough to protect a fort from goblins. Draft four or six (go for even numbers so there will always be sparring partners) dwarves, assign them shields and armor, and let them wrestle til legendary. Between wrestlers and traps, anything short of ranged weapons will probably not be a threat (I would say no threat, but I lost two multi-legendary champs to a non-legendary orc before, random combat is random). If you intend to use no traps, train them in weapons. Marksdwarves are very powerful, but expensive. I'd recommend axes, swords, or spears. Hammerdwarves have a nasty tendency to chase flying enemies rather than switching targets, which slows them down against ranged enemies.

[chaos985]

Hammerdwarves have a nasty tendency to chase flying enemies rather than switching targets, which slows them down against ranged enemies.

I once saw an elite wrestler turned dabbling hammer dwarf with an adamantine hammer of mid quality knock a gobiln accross an entire 2x2 area and chase him down into another squad of goblins.

I almost had the same thing happen again later, only i got luck and the goblin hit something and exploded into about 5 peices.  I got to watch that in freeze frame, because the thing it hit was a previously unseen knobald thief that it paused the game to tell me about.

You do lose some efficency with hammerdwarfs, but as long as they arnt fighing ranged units, you get plenty of HOLY @#$% moments as they punt things around the map.

Typically for dwarf military defense, i will train ~12+ as champion wrestlers, then rotate them through weapons to get their toughness/agility/strength to ridiculous levels.

you want at least 10, which means you need to start with a minimum of 12 if your feeling luck, or as many as 20 if your not.

Early on you want a small number of stonefall traps as they are quick and easy.

My understanding is high quality mechanisms stick less and hit harder in weapons traps, so once you have an engineer able to produce decent quality ones, you start building weapons traps.  Mostly though they are for dealing with ranged units

[Loyal]

I use cage traps only, so that any crippled dwarves can still have live training in the event that there isn't any wildlife to harass. The main military can handle the rest if you build your fortress to mitigate the effectiveness of ranged units.