quote:
Originally posted by ups syndrome:
<STRONG>This is one thing I'd hope weapon balance would fix; the ineffectiveness of having a standing army. Bring the weapons in line to each other so a totally skilled-up army of dwarves would be able to totally massacre wave after wave of goblins before succumbing.
Currently, battles are usually won by whoever has the most archers.</STRONG>
Aye, a trained warrior and a trained soldier are NOT the same thing.
Warriors know how to fight.
Soldiers know how to fight TOGETHER.
As it is now, we have warriors, mobs of warriors are effective combat forces. But they lack the discipline needed to give them complex orders.
Imo, all dwarves in the fortress should be some type of warrior. A frontier fortress is a hostile place, only an idiot would live there without learning to defend himself or herself.
When i was working out my idea for soldier classes and all that, one thing i wanted to do was make soldiers a special thing, not just another dwarf with a weapon.
Its not quite done yet but i will post what i got so far, some of it is a bit incoherent and other parts reference stuff not posted here:
1. Dwarf starts as civilian. Civilians carry nothing but a belt knife (used for eating and other tasks). If they have jobs that require them to use tools (masons hammer, pickaxe ect) they will carry those as well, though they are not meant for combat.
2. Levies: In a battle civilians are untrained, in an emergency you can temporarily draft them into "levies". You can arm levies with any weapons or armour. BUT, the front line is a very poor spot for a noob fighter and only trained warriors know how to deal with the burden of armour.
So what are levies useful for? For one, levies will help support your other troops by delivering food and ammo to them. Civilians will do this as well, but levies effectively have all civilian jobs turned off, so they are much more focused on the task.
Since any armour over leather would be too much, and melee is a bad idea. You can form levies into squads and give them crossbows. Crossbows are good because they are accurate at short ranges even in the hands of a novice. Unlike melee weapons the power of the bow itself has nothing to do with the personal strength of the user. Park the levies behind some strong fortifications and get them to let fly.
3. Militia: Militia covers all dwarves in your fortress who have combat training but are not commissioned soldiers. A weaver could be ordered to practice with an ax. Hunters use crossbows a lot. Miners and wood cutters can use picks and axes to deadly effect.
Milita will not carry weapons unless activated as soldiers. They will not wear armour with a few exceptiosn noted below.
Some civilians have dangerous work. Wood cutters, hunters, herbalists, miners and other dwarves with jobs that take them into isolated territory can be assigned leather or chain armour. In general this is not needed, armour will slow down dwarves at work. But this allows hunters, wood cutters and miners to be effective fast reaction troops.
The militia detailed above is pretty much what we have now. Trained warriors that can also have civilian jobs organized into rough mobs.
Now the fun starts
Soldiers: A soldier is a commissioned warrior who spends ALL of his time keeping his skills up to shape. They have the discipline to be given standing orders and can learn to fight in complex formations.
In short, the difference between milita and soldiers:
1. COmbat skills: Militia will spar and train with the weapons and armour assigned to them, however they can only train these skills up to a point.
Soldiers on the other have have the detication to truly perfect the art of war, they can take all skills up to legendary.
2. Equipment: Unless his job requires him to carry a weapon or tool (hunter, miner ect) a millitiadwarf will only grab a weapon and put on his armour when activated as a warrior.
A soldier on the other hand will only put away his equipment when he is sleeping or off duty. In addition, soldiers can be assigned a customized set of gear used only by him.
3. Orders: Militia or levies can be organized into squads and told to stay in one location or patrol a short route.
Soldiers on the other hand, can be organized into squads and sub-squads with each having a defined task. The orders that can be given to them are MUCH more complex.
4. Discipline: Militia tend to follow the squad leader, and are rather flakey when it comes to staying on duty, they will often run off to eat. In combat a squad of militia is little better then a mob.
Soldiers will only eat and drink while off duty, if you expect them to stand long watches you have to provide them with backpacks and flasks to carry food. Instead of rushing headlong into combat, soldiers will do what you tell them, which may still be a headlong rush. Other variations include advancing in a solid line, or staying put under a shield wall to block off critical passages.
Soldiers in more detail:
When a militiadwarf reaches a high enough skill he can be turned into a soldier. A soldier has no civilian job, draws wages and takes combat much more seriously.
Squads of soldiers can be combined into platoons and gived much more complex orders than militia. These include such things as:
1. Holding specific formations, shields at the front, crossbows at the back ect.
2. Patrol routes can be set for individual soldiers or a whole platoon, they will patrol the route in regular passes or as one group.
3. A squad can be stationed in one area with each dwarf sticking to one spot, this is useful to spread 1 squad between 6 arrow slits and have them stay there.
4. Standing orders, these are orders given beforehand and carried out when certain requirements are met. For example, the squad above is manning some arrow slits above the main gate, you could order them to abandon that position and assault the gate IF the enemy has managed to break though.
Classes:
Classes define what role one soldier carries out during combat, this affects what skills they develop and what equipment they can use. FOr example, all soldiers learn to wrestle up to a point. A soldier assigned as a grappler will use wrestling moves in an offensive capacity and develop the skill to high levels not acessable by other soldiers.
A skirmisher is a missile trooper that relies on speed to harass and evade enemies. They do not carry large melee weapons but can use a large variety of thrown weapons that can also be used effectively in melee, examples include slings, throwing axes and hammers, javelins and throwing knives.
Other types of soldiers have less of a "scout" or "disabler" role.
Sword, mace, hammer and axedwarves are your archetypal fighters. They can wear either light or heavy armour and use any type of shield depending on what you want them to do.
Hammers and axes have a more offensive slant to them. Because of the large swings you need to perform to impart force into the weapon, these 2 are not easy to use in close ranks, shields must be smaller because more room is needed for the weapon.
Swords and maces are still good at offence but offer a bonus to defence as well. They can be used with a tower shield in tightly packed close ranks making them good at forming shield walls and soaking up missiles.
All 4 types of weapons have a 2 handed version as well. Greataxes and Mauls offer massive slashing/crushing and pure crushing damage. Despite its size a greatsword can be used to stab and parry while still retaining the ability to cut people in half. A flail requires a lot of effort and room to use effectively but can bypass a shield with ease and trip people.
Speardwarves have a special role. The length of thier weapons allows them to keep enemies away and engage tall creatures. Apart from the previously mentioned shortspears, speardwarves also have access to pikes and halberds. A pike is simply a very long spear. A halberd is a combination spear/ax blade, it can be used as a spear in close ranks or a poleax in more open terrain. All pole weapons have high critical ratings, the extra length allows them to reach past other ranks of dwarves to support them. Pikes are of limited use in right tunnels as there is not enough room to manipulate them.
Marksdwarves: Deticated missile troops, not so good in melee combat. They can be armed with crossbows of all types or a shortbow. The crossbows have high power but load slowly.
The shortbow is a bit weaker but still highly lethal. Shortbows fire MUCH faster and the quivers used to carry arrows can fit much more ammo than bolt quivers. In addition, the shortbow is more controllable when firing at long distances and can arc arrows over obstables where a crossbow cannot.
Army barracks:
Soldier barracks are a lot different than normal ones. Apart from your main barracks you can construct smaller barracks meant for specific squads. In a squad barracks each soldier needs a bed and an armour rack.
Special bunkbeds can be used in squad barracks to save room. The first type is simply a double bed that fits 2 dwarves. The second type incorporates 1 bed and one cabinet
One armour stand is required for each dwarf, he will store his armour here when he is not on duty instead of at an armour stockpile. if he is assigned a shield he will store it on the armour stand as well. Each barracks requires at least 2 weapon racks to store all the weapons used by that squad. There are also different types of racks. If the squad barracks is short on something then you will get demands from your squads, much like nobles only squads actually NEED these things.
Equipment:
Each soldier can be assigned a personal set of equipment. This configuration can be saved as a template and applies to other soldiers. This includes up to 3 sets of weapons and 3 sets of armour. Multiple configurations are handy when you want to switch melee troops to missile troops in a hurry because all the equipment is stored in a single place instead of stockpiles.
Generally you will only need 1 of each.
This is a typical marksdwarf, well call him Eddie, Eddie owns the following items:
1 Dagger (all non civilians carry a dagger instead of a belt knife)
1 Arbalest
both the dagger and crossbow are stored in his squads weapon racks.
1 Chain shirt
1 Chain pants
1 Chain coif (hood)
1 Gorget (the piece of plate armour that protects the neck)
1 Breastplate
All of this fits into his personal armour stand.
1 Flask
1 Backpack
3 Bolt Quivers
various personal posessions, coins, crafts bought at a shop, extra clothing ect
All of these items fit into Eddies cabinet or Coffer.
When Eddie is on duty, he wears all his armour and stands at an arrow slit over the main gate all day, the chain armour gives him good all around protection, since the arrow slot blocks most incoming fire the only place he would likely get hit by return fire is his chest and head, thus he wears a bit of platemail to protect the chest and neck.
Hmm getting tired, ill finish up with plate armour.
The best armour civilians (if drafted as levies) and militia can wear is chainmail. When called to fight they will grab suits from the nearest stockpiles, not a personal armour stand.
Plate armour represents the best protection you can craft for your soldiers. Plate armour can only be assigned to soldiers for a few reasons:
1. 1 full set of plate armour can take over a year to make and needs a truckload of materials. You would not want to waste such expensive protection on fighters not skilled enough to use it effectively.
2. Plate armour must be tailored to a specific dwarf, it can be reconfigured to fit someone else but that takes a lot of time.
3. Weight, plate armour weighs a ton, and only hardened soldiers can bear the weight in any case.
Because plate armour is divided into many components, you do not need to give your dwarves an entire suit. The main components are:
Helmet: A solid metal helmet that covers everything but the face, visor can be added later if desired.
Greathelm: A bigger thicket helmet, provides better protection but weighs even more. The visor is static and dwarves will have to remove the helmet in order to eat or drink unless you take the extra effort to craft hinges.
Gorget: This is the component of the armour that sits on top of your shoulders and protects the neck with a raised collar.
Breastplate: The front component of plate chest armour.
Cuirass: Same thing as the breastplate but includes the back plate as well.
Spaulders: These are small shoulderpads with a segmented tail that protects the upper arm. These leave the armpits exposed.
Pauldron: Larger shoulderpads that protect the entire shoulder but restrict movement.
Rerebrace: Upper arm plates.
Couter: Articulated elbow joint.
Vambrace: Forearm Plates.
Gauntlets: Protects the hand, wrist and forearm. Vambraces and gauntlets cannot be worn at the same time.
Cuisse: Upper leg armour
Poleyn: Articulated knee joint
Greaves: Protects the lower leg.
Sabatons: Plate shoes
*Confusing? wiki is your friend 
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Topic: Beefing up ye olde armory- We Discuss Weapon Balance In (Read 2617 times)