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[Shadowlord]

My strategy so far has been to -- wait, goblins? What are goblins? *whispers to the dwarven historian*

Oh! Those! They got wiped out about 500 years ago. Elves too, about 278 years ago, although a few elves survive as members of some human civilizations - administrators of some sites even.

We've really only had to fight a couple winged firebreathing handless titans, which were basically buffets with wings. Their fire was apparently so low in temperature that it was unable to harm any of our dwarves. Just the same, the things wouldn't die until the military equipped with steel axes got around to attacking them (Apparently neither "defend fortress" nor "kill [titan]" required actually attacking the titan(s) inside the fortress, but the military was quite happy to kill it if they saw it while deploying to a destination point).

Our biggest actual threat right now is a former mayor who has lost his grip on reality, and believes that he did not lose the election. In addition to demanding that he retain his bedroom and office (yeah, right), he went completely mad and mandated the construction of slade items! We threatened him with drowning (by putting him in a drowning chamber and slowly filling it with buckets), but he relented on the mandate (when the water reached 3/7), only to pronounce a sentence of jail time for an armorsmith upon being released from the chamber! I do believe we're going to have to exile him to a mental hospital, which is under construction as we speak! (It's really quite hilarious, except for being annoying that I can't simply have him executed without screwing the game all up.)

We have yet to dig very far underground, however, but have prepared a trick for when we do. We'll be collapsing an entire hall and all the levels below it, which have been dug out as well, directly into the caverns below (once we find them), bringing a lot of rock raining down on the monsters' heads and turning our tunnel leading to the underground into a massive pit at the same time. Then we'll build supports one level down from the hall, and on the hall level, scattered floors to support covering the entire hall with hatches. Then we'll link the hatches in a checkerboard pattern to each output of a two-output repeater, and Urist's your uncle: Anyone trying to walk down the hall while the repeater is turned on will fall all the way to the cavern floor and go splat. I've built this before, and it consumed entire goblin sieges as they charged across it. (It just remains to be seen if everything is susceptable to shattering into their component parts in this version, and just how expansive the underground caverns really are; I'm only guessing at this point. Plus the military will have to hold off any invasions while things get linked up, which could take a while, especially if anyone down there can fly.)

Summary of the last paragraph: Who says traps are useless? The problem with your traps is that they aren't megatraps.

[Puller of the lever]

I tried to reclaim but an unkillable salt-based Forgotten Beast had taken up residence in my dormitories.

When a giant unkillable snowball took up residence in my dormitories after crushing to death 40 dwarves and three reclaim party, the 4th walled it in the fortress, then built a 20 level tower with a huge stone floor connected only with a tile to the main building, aiming directly to the dormitories.
The cave-in pierced the first soil level of the fortress and destroyed half of the second stone level. Nobody found the corpse of the snowball.

Just a tip. 

[Thsyrus]

Today I learnt that one Elk Bird can be a problem for a still greenish army...


...and 10 makes life very Fun. Stupid surprise cavern.

[Ryden]

I'm fairly new to DF, I loved getting attacked by goblins. Although in the latest version (Not sure if I'm doing anything wrong) I've never been attacked by goblins. Nothing seems to attack me in the places I pick. Where ... in the old version no matter where I'd get attacked by something sometime.

[avari]

Don't really know why people can't seem to handle the combat now. Get an axedwarf and a hammerdwarf They can kill anything that doesn't need spoiler tags.

This is more or less true. Although there is one thing to note, at least in my experience: With the new material/combat system, if your enemy has metal armor, you pretty much _must_ have weapons made from a stronger metal.

If the goblins have iron armor, for example, trying to take them on with iron gear will likely lead to a stalemate that ends either in the combatants starving to death or the very occasional lucky third-toe-left-foot-severing 'killing blow'. On the other hand, with steel or even bronze weapons (axes seem to generally be the most effective), the poor ironclad goblins will get hacked to pieces pretty much instantly.

Undead creatures seem to be unkillable though, at least by my axedwarves..

[Karnewarrior]

My militia commander is spamming "Cap'n" cancels rest: Interrupted by Troglodyte, but there are no trog's nearby. What was the bug fix for that again? I remeber some threads on it, but I'm to lazy to search and It's always good to educate the newbies.

-{edit}- fixed it, but my point still stands...

[Thundrim]

Traders as meat shields, combined with traps, combined with wardogs, various stray bulls because I haven't made a chamber for them yet, combined with chained Warthogs at the entrance, has so far worked, the day the Goblins siege when there are no traders will be a dark day of course. So I am working on more nasty weapon traps, and hopefully will manage to create a military that don't get slaughtered instantly somehow.

One of the wounded traders was trying to reach my water source deep within the Fortress, but bled to death in the corridor, and dropped tons of stuff on the floor right by my storage rooms. A most unfortunate episode, but he sure made the cleaning operation pay off properly.       

---

[Paul]

It's not that difficult to make a military that doesn't get slaughtered. Even a squad of no-skill idiots equipped in full steel armor and a steel battle axe can stand up to some goblins. The goblin weapons can hardly penetrate steel, so as long as your squad isn't horribly outnumbered you should mop them up pretty quick.

[AncientEnemy]

I'm fairly new to DF, I loved getting attacked by goblins. Although in the latest version (Not sure if I'm doing anything wrong) I've never been attacked by goblins. Nothing seems to attack me in the places I pick. Where ... in the old version no matter where I'd get attacked by something sometime.

press tab a few times when selecting your embark site, there will be a list of civilizations there. if goblins aren't on the list, they may not be able to access your location, or they may have all died out in world generation (this is much more common in the new version)

This is more or less true. Although there is one thing to note, at least in my experience: With the new material/combat system, if your enemy has metal armor, you pretty much _must_ have weapons made from a stronger metal.

If the goblins have iron armor, for example, trying to take them on with iron gear will likely lead to a stalemate that ends either in the combatants starving to death or the very occasional lucky third-toe-left-foot-severing 'killing blow'. On the other hand, with steel or even bronze weapons (axes seem to generally be the most effective), the poor ironclad goblins will get hacked to pieces pretty much instantly.

now you tell me. I had an army of like 10 out of a 40 man fort, the first goblin ambush wiped us out, despite most of them being axe lords. unfortunately they had all copper gear because all I could find was tons and tons of malachite.

[Thundrim]

Haha, oh well. Steel was still a dream in my Fortress, but it's nice to have a goal. The army leader was called "The Butcher" simply because I drafted a butcher, and he initially killed an Ettin in a rather incomplete leather armor with his bare hands. Fun stuff. Had barely started to make metal (Cobber) armors, and traders had a tendency to be attacked before any transaction could take place. Could afford to import steel, but not make it myself. The Fortress had Silver and Gold and Malachite at that stage, and a zillion items for trade, so the Gobbos had a brilliant opportunity to intervene, hehe.

Now the DF hangs up after the first Gobbo Siege sadly, started the game under the previous version, so not surprised at that. Will miss "the Butcher" though, he survived an Ettin, a Cyclops, and a Gobbo Siege. That Dwarf was a Dwarf's Dwarf!

---

[Nikov]

My woodcutter is going around in a steel war-mask, wrought iron chain over an elk leather gambeson, his halberd in multigrasp, wading through the wretched bodies of my enemies. I love fiddling with raws.

[tastypaste]

My strategy was to dig as deep as possible as quickly as possible and send in my only armored dwarf. It went badly after that. Didn't even make it to the HFS. He took out a dozen troglodytes but was knocked unconscious by a GCS, which then decapitated his 5 war dogs. Immediately after this, a forgotten Stegasaurid showed up with a few dozen more troglodytes. My hastily drafted recruit army of 30 men finally managed to punch his lungs in and kill him but only after half the fortress was either dead or in bed healing. The doctor died when he tried to recover bodies near the GCS and the troglodytes and elk birds swarmed the fort and I was forced to abandon it.

It was a complete disaster, my most successful fort thus far.

[Wolfius]

Steel armoured axe dwarves with steel battleaxes. They're like squat little buzzsaws with booze-soaked beards.

My Militia Commander has more than 60 kills. He's charged several combined ambush squads at times and tore them apart single-handedly.

...mind you, equipping bugs have put most of the rest of the army in the hospital after they go into battle with wrong/incomplete armour and no battleaxe, because someone else if hogging them all, and insure my lumberjack can't do his job for lack of an axe, but when they're properly equipped, they tear gobbos apart.

I'm issuing helm, bracers, breastplate, mail shirt, chain leggings, high boots, shield, and battleaxe, by the way.

[Shiv]

How on earth do you get your military to attack?  They're armed (as far as I can tell), I've given them the Attack (k) order through the Squad screen, and they started to move, but in the COMPLETELY OPPOSITE DIRECTION! Argh!

Now they run up a bit, then run away, then run up, run away, over and over again.  And to make it worse the Goblins refuse to move closer, so they won't:
A)  Move over my bridge that I could pull to end this thing
B)  Move close enough that my dwarves might accidentally fight them.


So how do you engage?

[Wolfius]

How on earth do you get your military to attack?  They're armed (as far as I can tell), I've given them the Attack (k) order through the Squad screen, and they started to move, but in the COMPLETELY OPPOSITE DIRECTION! Argh!

Now they run up a bit, then run away, then run up, run away, over and over again.  And to make it worse the Goblins refuse to move closer, so they won't:
A)  Move over my bridge that I could pull to end this thing
B)  Move close enough that my dwarves might accidentally fight them.


So how do you engage?

Check to make sure they're not trying to Pick Up Equipment, or some other such nonsense. If so, lock the door to the armoury.

Otherwise, try issuing move orders instead. I once had a hiccup with a kill order(tho they usually work like a charm, it did result in the Gobbo war leader escaping ), and I read someone else claiming he can't get kill orders to work, but can use move orders to get them to where they'll auto-engage. I usually use move orders anyway, myself.