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[plumbob]

Ruledroofs was a well established fort, and after about 4 years had 115 souls wandering it's halls.  A small militia was established in the fortress' second year and equipped itself with the finest iron armor and axes, for two years these ten warriors trained themselves into a skilled fighting force but in that time remained untested in battle.

Finally in the summer of the fortresses fourth year a small band of goblins was spotted near the mouth of a newly established coal mine. Six members of the squad reported promply and equipped in the best armor and with the finest axes the fortress could offer they were rightly confident of an easy victory... If only they had known.

By the end of the lengthy skirmish three dwarves had lost their lives, one was seriously injured and needed surgery to repair both arms, and the other two would fight infection for some time till their wounds healed.

Seeing the utter incompetence of the military protection afforded at Ruledroofs the fortress would be abandoned before it's fifth year.

tl;dr
I had a squad of decently trained and very well equipped axe dwarves wiped out by a goblin ambush of lashers and one spearman... What gives?

[Boingboingsplat]

Were there weapons better than iron? If the weapon can't overcome the armor then you're pretty much screwed.

My suggestion? Cage traps. Lots of them. Never fail to get rid of them. After caging them all, atom smash them, make drowning chambers for them, or make an arena. Fun!

[plumbob]

Their equipment was mixed iron and copper but they were largely just wearing clothes.

[tastypaste]

Copper weapons are pretty useless since they can only cut through silver or leather. Copper can't cut copper, or any of the other, stronger metals. The best weapons are adamantine or steel. I highly suggest getting steel production going early on so all your dwarfs have steel weapons. Then you can focus on steel armor.

In order of strength, the metals go:

1. Adamantine
2. Steel
3. Bronze
4. Iron
5. Copper
6. Silver

A weapon made of any particular metal can only cut weaker metals. If an enemy has armor of equal or greater strength than your weapons, you can't harm them (at least not from piercing or slashing damage, you might be able to break their bones with a war hammer, but that's a slow way to kill something). In DF2010, the type of metal is very important to battles.

[Rex_Nex]

To be honest, you were asking for it. 4 years and 115 dwarves into the game, and your going to really need more then 6 copper/iron-clad dwarves. In fact, 4 years into the game, you should have about 20-35% of your population as a fighting force, complete with atleast bronze-grade equipment and armor. Hell, I had all that halfway into the second year.

[Randy Gnoman]

Get steel equipment fast.  If you're having trouble getting steel production going, choose en embark site with a chalk layer.

Chalk is a flux material, and chalk layers contain obscene amounts of iron ore (limonite, hematite, magnetite) and lignite and coal.  That should make getting your steelworks running a piece of cake.  With a good weapon/armorsmith, and a few furnace operators, you should be able to start cranking out fine steel equipment in the first year (and don't wait until you get to the magma to begin your production- if it's not handy the moment that you arrive, don't be shy about burning up some trees).

[Pickled Tink]

Three solutions:

1: Malevolent architecture (Drowning chambers, magma chambers, cave in rooms, atom smashers, upright spikes, retractable bridges over pits, etc).

2: Cage Traps

3: [INVASIONS:OFF] (init)

[tastypaste]

What Rex_Nex said about having more military is also true. In 40d I could get away with 10% of the fort being military. Now I need at least 20%.

I also recommend splitting them into smaller squads rather than one large squad. If you have 10 dwarfs in a squad and they charge a poisonous Forgotten Beast, you can count on most of them dying horribly even if they manage to kill the Beast in one hit. The poison spreads on contact and some types can kill a dwarf just by touching their skin.

Having smaller squads limits the damage a single Beast's poison can do. And you still have the option of selecting multiple squads and giving them a kill order if you need to. You can even give kill orders over a wide array by designating a kill rectangle. Everything inside the designation will be marked for death. This is very useful for taking out hordes of goblins or herds of baddies in the underworld.

[BitLooter]

Is obsidian still as good as steel for swords? If so, it could be useful if you don't have easy access to steel.

[plumbob]

I meant that the govlins had mixed copper/iron equipment, my dwarves had all iron...

Good to know about the metal changes though, used to be able to get away with a handful of legendary military and kill anything that came after me.

[Toady Two]

Is obsidian still as good as steel for swords? If so, it could be useful if you don't have easy access to steel.

Currently there is a bug that makes any sword you make from sharp rock a wooden short sword. I doubt they can cut as well as steel really.

[Kidiri]

Copper weapons are pretty useless since they can only cut through silver or leather. Copper can't cut copper, or any of the other, stronger metals. The best weapons are adamantine or steel. I highly suggest getting steel production going early on so all your dwarfs have steel weapons. Then you can focus on steel armor.

In order of strength, the metals go:

1. Adamantine
2. Steel
3. Bronze
4. Iron
5. Copper
6. Silver

A weapon made of any particular metal can only cut weaker metals. If an enemy has armor of equal or greater strength than your weapons, you can't harm them (at least not from piercing or slashing damage, you might be able to break their bones with a war hammer, but that's a slow way to kill something). In DF2010, the type of metal is very important to battles.

It used to be largely like this. But with the materials overhaul in 0.31, there are more things that come into play. I have no idea which values are used for which calculation. A quick look at the material templates file, shows me that it comes down to 7 values: (solid) density, impact yield, fracture and elasticity and shear yield, fracture and elasticity. I suggest having a look at the wiki and this thread. The former for a bit of an explanation (if you wish to mod in your own metals with specific properties) and the latter because it gives a nice table of which material is best used for which weapon.

[Shoku]

What types of weapons did they have? The weight and edge of axes makes for the best limb remover and that's what is really deadly in this version. Bolts rarely go through armor of the same material and puncture weapons can only make something bleed to death anyway aside from the rare vital organ hits (which are much less common than, say, arm/leg hits.)

I foresee some weapon readjustments when Toady has time.

[Peasant]

one was seriously injured and needed surgery to repair both arms,

Well, i guess you could say that..

he needs a hand.

YEAAAAHHHHH

[Psieye]

In 40d, Iron was a good metal for all weapons. In DF2010, the more realistic materials system means Iron is one of the worst metals to make armour or weapons from. The Iron Age was actually the Steel Age - pure raw iron is worse than bronze. So for armour, you want bronze or steel (unless you have access to Adamantine) against cutting/piercing weapons. I believe you'd need leather armour under the metal armour to handle crushing weapons but in general those weapons are underpowered right now so you don't need to worry (because the truly dense metals to make maces/hammers out of aren't weapon craftable).

Also, yes you need a lot more military now - especially since there are limits to how good a dwarf's stats can get in DF2010 no matter how much training they do.