Print

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

[DarthCloakedDwarf]

One ambush squad just took out an entire fortress, wiping out its entire military in five seconds. Toady, why? Honestly, there's no reason to make them that powerful.

[Absentia]

If you think they're too powerful there are ways of dealing with them without fighting. A few cage traps can work wonders. But I haven't noticed the ambushers being exceedingly powerful; if anything it's too easy for a miner in street clothes to punch a hole in their skull. How big/well-equipped was your military?

[sonerohi]

And what quality was their training, and their gear?

[silhouette]

dont forget that the armor/weapons is screwed up atm.

[FlamingCow]

If your military was in anything worse than Bronze (including Iron, copper, etc.) then they'd get torn to shreds, currently there's a materials heirachy for materiels, Gobbos are usually in iron but they occasionally rock along in bronze, which would tear iron to pieces. Also, silk clothing seems to be really good at blocking attacks.

[SpacemanSpiff]

I think goblins are UNDER-powered.  Form a squad from the strongest dwarves in your first two migrant waves.  Get them bronze armor and axes ASAP (I make bronze production my highest priority after basic living is taken care of).  Give them a barracks and let them do individual combat training for a year - take out any procrastinators who aren't training.  By the time the first goblin ambush rolls in you'll have axe lords waiting for them.  Then it's just a question of whether the first dwarf into combat hogs all the kills, or whether his squad-mates arrive in time to share in some of the blood-spattered glory*

You can also mix in a few sword-dwarves for style points, since axe-dwarves tend to get boring insta-kills by cleaving goblins in two.  My most stylish kill so far was by a sword-dwarf who took off both of a goblin's arms at the elbow, chopped off one of its legs and mangled the other, and then stuck it in the guts, so the goblin just had time to look sick and vomit before he died.  I'm still waiting for the ultimate goblin moment - loses both arms at the shoulder, both legs at the hips, body + head falls to ground, gets enraged, and dies.

*Actually, I've seen the first guy fail twice.  One ran out without a gauntlet, and took a shattering blow to his left hand.  Another dodged into a tree and stunned himself, and got pounded on the ground for a while.  Both were rescued by their squad-mates.

[Lightning4]

I've been doing fine against sieges in high quality iron armor. A few injuries happen once in a while, and there's been the occasional death, but they've been getting tougher and tougher to kill as their skill improves.
I think skill and armor contribute about 50/50 now. You can make up for fairly poor armor if you've got some amazingly skilled dwarves, but not until then.
Until my dwarves became legends, I was losing at least a few per ambush or siege. As long as they're training as early as possible, you should be fine down the road.

[Eagle_eye]

traps.

[Greep]

Equip steal and win without training Alternatively, equip wood for the heck of it and train to legendary skills in all subsets and make the goblins flee from exhaustion.  Worked for me

[TheDarkEnigma]

Goblins are the same as they always were, grasshopper. It is YOU who has changed...

Specifically your military, who are now totally shit without awesome weapons/armour. Keep that in mind.

[Phmcw]

Goblins were under powered, now they are ok. They are supposed to be a threat you know?
It was kind of dumb when my lumberjack could easily wipe out an ambush without injury.

[I am Leo]

I had a single hammerdwarf hold off a whole goblin siege yesterday. My foretress, clapbronze, is a hollowed out mountain, surrounded by a magma moat spanned by a single, narrow bridge.
One dwarf was outside the moat, fishing, when the siege hit. I activated my military and commanded them to muster at the fortifications around the bridge's guardhouse, a convienient trapped bottleneck on the safe side of the moat. My fisherman becomes a hammerdwarf. His choice of weapon, not mine.

He reaches the bridge as the goblins do, the rest of my military is nowhere to be seen. I tell him to hold his position.
The goblins pepper him with 10 combat pages of arrows, mostly to the head, before their infantry hits him. Carnage esnues. He slams greenskin after greenskin off the bridge, into the lava two z levels below and four z's deep. Throught the combat, almost every one of his bones are shattered, as well as his spine and skull, but he fights on. The goblin infantry dispatched, he charges the archers. They flee. He cripples two, and kills a final one by biting him. In the mouth. From behind.

His job done, he calmly strolls to the hospital. In spite of his wounds, his gushing blood loss, his splintered nervous system, he is not sick once. He is in surgery for two seasons. During this time a vast and elaborate crystal tomb is prepared for him, containing crafts carved from the goblins he slew and barrels of their blood. He lives. His tomb becomes his new bedroom. He is declared a militia captain and given an artifact mitten as his reward.

His skill as a hammerdwarf has been proven. His is no longer "dabbling". He is adequate.

Welcome to Claspbronze, hope you like heroism.

[Ephemeriis]

I've found traps to be insanely helpful.

A cage trap basically instantly removes one creature from the battle, to be disposed of at your convenience.

Weapon traps aren't necessarily an instant kill...  But enough of them will be.  And at the very least they'll soften up the enemy.

The design of your fortress also helps.  I like to put a moat around the entrance to my fortress, usually with two drawbridges - one wide enough to admit caravans, and one narrow enough to admit just a single dwarf.

I only lower the wide drawbridge when a caravan is on the way - otherwise it is drawn up.

The moat and narrow bridge means that I can dictate the terms of engagement better.  I can force the invaders to pass through some traps before reaching the bridge, and they can only cross individually.  It's very easy to defend.

And if things look bad enough, I can just raise both drawbridges and wait them out.

[FluffyToast J]

-snip-

That's incredible. Proof DF is the best game ever.

[I am Leo]

Since the...incident I now have a long corridor leading towards the drawbdidge being built, filled with a row of cage traps, followed by a row of weapon traps, repeated five times. I'm working on rigging up a support to the corridor's celing so that if something gets past the traps a pressure plate raises the drawbridge and drops the celing on everything still in the corridor.

I'll bet I get attacked by fliers now.