Print

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

[Deus_Vult]

The question is - Is there any possibility to make your military dwarves to kill anything? It seems that they are goddamn hippies! I've got a squad of 10 dwarves, all equipped with metal armour (iron-bronze-copper) and weapons - battle axes and hammers.
One goblin intruder (swordsman, not swordmaster), so I sent a squad after him.
Results - half of my squad is now in hospital with serious wounds. Other half is dead.
At last a group of quickly raised militia managed to pursue that bastard into a trap. With great casualties.
Plus, while fighting with my military he managed to kill 30 civilians.
Why?
Why my soilders are good for nothing?!
--------
P.S. They had a year of training but all they were doing is standing in barracks and scratching balls.

[Golcondio]

- don't set them to "train" on the alerts menu: just schedule the squad to training all year (make sure the minimum number is set to 2 less than the squad members): they will do individual drills which will improve weapon skills
- copper armor pieces? Might as well equip butter... Iron is no good either: make sure the uniform is set to accept exclusively the metal you want (steel or bronze)
- weapons: unless you expect to deal with skeletons, ONLY equip axes (maybe a couple spears), and ONLY made of steel/bronze
- send your military to kill all wildlife (beware unicorns and elephants), it's easy exp

remember: once you have 20> dwarves you NEED an arsenal dwarf to take care of them: it's best if you appoint the same dwarf as manager too since you can easily train Organizer by spamming job orders...

[TheDarkEnigma]

- don't set them to "train" on the alerts menu: just schedule the squad to training all year (make sure the minimum number is set to 2 less than the squad members): they will do individual drills which will improve weapon skills
- copper armor pieces? Might as well equip butter... Iron is no good either: make sure the uniform is set to accept exclusively the metal you want (steel or bronze)
- weapons: unless you expect to deal with skeletons, ONLY equip axes (maybe a couple spears), and ONLY made of steel/bronze
- send your military to kill all wildlife (beware unicorns and elephants), it's easy exp

remember: once you have 20> dwarves you NEED an arsenal dwarf to take care of them: it's best if you appoint the same dwarf as manager too since you can easily train Organizer by spamming job orders...

Mostly great info here, though slightly wrong. For one thing, according to this thread, copper is actually a pretty good material for armor, expecially early on in the game. That said, you definitely want steel armor as soon as you can afford to make/buy it, because there's just no substitute for quality. Another thing is that short swords work well too, though axes are supposedly slightly better. That said, I have noticed that my swordsdwarves attack faster than my axedwarves, so you may want to consider that. Definitely need bronze/steel weapons though, other materials (aside from adamantite) are useless.

Killing wildlife is barely useful at all, but does help stop your civilians from getting spooked constantly. And yes, training is broken, so stick to "inactive".

[Golcondio]

Hey, thx for thr info, I guess I'm instantly mistrustful of anything which is nota steel or adamantine battleaxe!

About wildlife, it's more of a policy that I have, but I see no drawbacks and I'm sure there might be soke free exp lying there...

To the OP: in 2010 even fully steel-clad dwarves sometimes get their appendages chopped off or their skull caved-in, there's no shame in that! Make sure you have a well-planned and stocked hospital with good personnel!

[Deus_Vult]

- don't set them to "train" on the alerts menu: just schedule the squad to training all year (make sure the minimum number is set to 2 less than the squad members): they will do individual drills which will improve weapon skills
-

I don't get it. Should I place "inactive" in shedule or what? or delete "training" alert?
sorry for dumbness. I'm not new in DF, nut this new system drives me mad.

[Greep]

bronze is actually pretty awesome early game.  On embark, bring along about 12 copper nuggets, 12 cassiterite, 7 coal, 1 charcoal, and you got 3 full sets of armor and weapons that trumps goblin iron.

Also: ShieldUser is the most imortant survival skill and it is NOT trained concurrently with a weapon.  If you want your dwarves to survive more than 5 seconds in less than steel armor, you gotta de-equip their weapon and train up shield a lot, then re-equip their weapon and train that.

[Golcondio]

- don't set them to "train" on the alerts menu: just schedule the squad to training all year (make sure the minimum number is set to 2 less than the squad members): they will do individual drills which will improve weapon skills
-

I don't get it. Should I place "inactive" in shedule or what? or delete "training" alert?
sorry for dumbness. I'm not new in DF, nut this new system drives me mad.

what I do is:
- never assign any squad to Active/Training alert
- go to schedules, and set it to train for 5 months, and 1 with "no orders" (NOT in winter), twice

basically scheduling like this makes them do individual drills; if you activate the active/training alert the dwarves will "organize" training, i.e. waiting forever and generally gaining no exp

BTW, consider your military dwarves to be labor-dead: they may or may not do any labor anymore even off-duty, even after removing them from military... In my current fort I drafter the legendary leatherworker and woodcrafter to get them to wear armor (a safety measure I was planning for all important dorfs), but it backfired and they won't do ANY job EVER...

[hjd_uk]

I find that attacking goblins will wade through recruits and not-so skilled Dwarfs. I would expect an organised, fully equipped Goblin atttack party to be a bit tasty at combat, at least 'Professional' soldiers.

Maces seem to work fine (I have a legendary mace-dwarf with a silver mace who regularly kicks ass), I haven't done much testing with Hammers but they only seem good for knocking out foes to let others chop/stab/bludgeon them to death.

So be cautious with your recruits until they have a decent skill in whatever.

And don't forget to allocate Ammo.

I am dissapointed with war-dogs atm, seems thay cant do crap without dying instantly - perhaps I should make a pack of 10 instead of 2 ...

[Greiger]

I just never put my military on alert and assign their squad a barracks to train at.  They spend all of their free time in that barracks doing individual combat drills. 

If an invasion happens, I just handle it like the old version.  I go into the squad menu and manually designate stations with the enter key where I want my military to be.  If I want them to attack somebody I tell them to move someplace where I know they'll see the opponent.  Move and attack orders in the squad menu super-cede schedule orders, they'll immediately drop what they are doing (unless it's drinking, then they'll bring their booze with them) to rush to their station. I still can't get crossbow users working, but that works excellently for melee. 

The only military units that I actually use the scheduling system for currently are the fortress guard.  Who are on a cycle of 1 month protecting burrows, 1 month 'no scheduled orders' to keep them from being bummed by long patrols, and to give them some time to train.

As for war dogs being useless.  Yea that seems to be true.  Even after I buffed the materiel for teeth and claws and such, dogs have a hard time biting through even cloth.  Forget about metal armor.  I even have a few war grizzlies that simply can't hurt anything in armor.  It makes sense for metal armor, clothing not so much.  Trained animals are probably only any good for hunting assistance now.

[Hyperturtle]

My war bears and dogs seem to do just fine fighting off normal cavern beasts.  Sure I have lost a number of them over time, but the bears in particular can take a beating and still be around for the next fight.  Plus, they patrol automatically and wander around the outskirts of your fortress--so you frequently find out about an enemy creature before its already in your dining hall. 

I still train a number of them and let them run around, and assign them as pets to legendaries that I want to keep (the bear or dog makes for a target/distraction while the legendary escapes) or to improve the mood of a dwarf. 

I have lost uncounted numbers of pets to forgotten beasts that were attacked since the pets were assigned to various soldiers.  It seems better to assign them to wimps or let a few wander around.

[Hyndis]

I leave pets in the main hall, and they provide a great last line of security.

1-2 dogs will not be a threat to anything. 30-40 dogs will kill anything.

Its great for taking down berserk dwarves or anything that somehow manages to sneak by both the above ground kill zone and the gate guards. Anything hostile that appears will be instantly piled on by huge numbers of dogs. I don't even train them, they're just regular dogs.

What they lack for in individual fighting power they make up for in sheer quantity.

[Golcondio]

1-2 dogs will not be a threat to anything. 30-40 dogs will kill anything.

What they lack for in individual fighting power they make up for in sheer quantity.

Hmmm I thought I'd do the same, but they kill my fps fast, and they BREED! I ended up caging the whole lot of them and getting them out only to test my ropeless bungee jumping tower...

[o_O[WTFace]]

I suppose war creatures make a better defense then empty space, but thats about it.  Even grizzlies are basically only good as ambush catchers, bait, and for fighting off other creatures.  Plus you have to be careful with bears, they can drink your alcohol, although trained ones at least seem to know better. 

[Hyndis]

I suppose war creatures make a better defense then empty space, but thats about it.  Even grizzlies are basically only good as ambush catchers, bait, and for fighting off other creatures.  Plus you have to be careful with bears, they can drink your alcohol, although trained ones at least seem to know better.

Thats the thing though, if you only send a couple war animals of any kind they will be slaughtered.

Don't send only a couple of them. Send them all!

Each species has its own local population cap, so you can have populations of dogs, grizzly bears, black bears, polar bears, crocodiles, alligators, cave crocodiles, tigers, giant tigers, lions, giant lions, wolves, cougars, etc.

If you create your entrance hall in a clever way while also allowing those in your meeting zone to see any enemies, the animals will all attack them and pile onto the attackers. Yes, some will die, but they should quickly reproduce to replace any losses. The idea is that while the goblin is busy killing one dog, there are 10 others biting him. The goblin then bleeds to death nearly instantly from all of those bites.


If you don't want to rely on animals they're still very useful as arrow magnets. Each archer/crossbowman only has a small amount of ammo on him. If you make sure all attackers pass by a pit full of animals, so that the attackers can see into the pit and can get a clear shot off, they will empty their quivers at the pile of animals. Make sure they're firing at max range and you will greatly reduce the losses taken. Any losses are also quickly replaced due to breeding. By the time the invaders get past the animal pit they will be out of ammo, and will then use their crossbow as ineffective clubs.

[Psieye]

I read on the modding forum that currently, dogs' "teeth" are made of the skin material, not the teeth material.