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[Khift]

This fort is 11 years old. In that time, I've done nothing but work on improving my military. I've geared my entire economy around them. I've followed every guide to the letter. I've outfitted them with full suits of high quality steel armor and weapons. I've let them train uninterrupted for almost the entire 11 years. Half of them were Legendary in Fighter and [Weapon]Dwarf and all of them were at least Talented in all five combat skills ([Weapon]Dwarf, Fighter, Dodge, Shield User, Armor User) . I decide, after all this time, to finally use them in a small skirmish. A siege just ended, but five goblins were sticking around at the edge of the map and not routing for some inexplicable reason. So I let loose the dogs of war -- 8 highly trained, heavily equipped dwarves against five regular goblin macemen.

Three dwarves die. Not just any three, the best three. Three of my four legendaries.

I'm tired of it. Every single game I play is like this. It doesn't matter how long I let them train. It doesn't matter what I equip them with. It doesn't matter what I fight, even the most hardcore terminator dwarf gets slaughtered by goblins in combat. Every single time I use them in any game and any situation I lose between a half and a third of my military.

It is my honest opinion that a fortress is safer if it never diverts a single ounce of industry or labor to the military and instead focuses on producing weapon traps and eventually an obsidian trap. The insane lethality of combat combined with the glacial pace of military training just turns the entire system into one giant red herring for new players to fall victim to.

Does anyone else feel this way? Has anyone else simply stopped training military and focused entirely on trap based defenses? Or am I simply insanely unlucky?

[thijser]

I often don't have a military (or a very small one) either. It does sound like you were unlucky. What weapons did you give htem and what kind of goblins were these? Some can be much stronger then others.

[Khift]

Most of my military have axes, but occasionally I get a migrant with a high skill in another weapon and I let them keep training with that weapon. In this case the lost dwarves were one Macelord and two Axelords. In the rest of the squad there is a  Swordmaster, a Speardwarf, and three more Axedwarves. The goblins were regular (not elite) goblin macemen.

[kaijyuu]

11 years and only 8 military dwarves?

Unless you limited your fort size to 50 or so, you should have way more than that. Dwarves die. Replace them.

[Khift]

I have another 8 "marksdwarves" who are absolutely useless; half of them won't even pick up their equipment, the other half won't fire their bow in any situation. Yes, I have done every single thing there is to get them to function. They have ample equipment to pick up, over two thousand bone bolts not stored in bins (some people say dwarves won't pick up bolts stored in bins, so I tried that), they have an armory with Individual and Squad Equip enabled and their future equipment is stored in it, yes they have quivers, yes they're set to train yes they have uniforms with crossbows and armor designated (not individual choice ranged) , none of it matters. Most don't have anything except clothes on,  and even the ones that have equipped their gear refuse to fire it in all situations.

I also have a squad of 6 full legendary siege operators working four full masterwork ballistas aimed down my main hallway. While not technically military, they're only allowed to train siege operating and pump operating (for strength stats) and are more effective than the rest of my military combined.

All in all I have 22 dwarves assigned to full time defensive training. In a fort of 120, that feels fair. It isn't like it would have mattered if I had a thousand terminator dwarves or 8 in this fight, though; the goblins all hit the first dwarf to reach them, and since there is no option to hold ranks your dwarves charge in single file with your most agile dwarves taking all of the heat and the rest being ignored. Thus why my three best died -- they were the three fastest.

[Tale]

I've never actually forged armor.  Which is why my military is completely useless.  The only metal I've made is BRASS.

But I have no tales of success.  I think I killed a goblin thief once.  With goblins killing everyone every other time they've attacked.

[Dhargk]

That's really weird, because two of my novice swordsdwarf/dodger/fighter/strikers took down

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

A forgotten beast and all sorts of cavern nasties as they were standing sentry to my underground operations. I thought it was a fluke at first, but everything that's come out of the caverns so far have fallen in one or two swipes without my military of five getting so much as a bruise.

I don't know how different my setup was, but I had them in full iron armor of medium quality with short swords. Perhaps armed+armored fighter vs unarmed+unarmored fighter is just hugely weighed towards the armed one, regardless of the ferocity or size of the other.

[Truean]

Well.... here is how I see it:

in 40d the superweapon was the crossbow. You could machine gun the hell out of anything. Thus encounters were made more difficult. Problem, combat is bugged all to hell, and the superweapon barely functions if it functions at all.

In simple terms, beds, combat, and basics needs fixed. I assume Toady knows this and will get to it when he has time.

[Biowraith]

I use my infantry for Cavern exploration, and as my final line of defense - they mop up anything that gets past my crossbows and traps.  I'm wary about sending them into groups of enemies numbering more than 4 or 5 if those enemies have bashing or ranged weapons since those can largely bypass armour and it just takes a couple decent hits to put a dwarf out of action, leaving them at the mercy of the enemy now surrounding them.  But for ambushes, or the trickle of siegers making it past my traps - or the fleshy denizens of the caverns - they annihilate them before there's any threat to my civilians.

My only issue with my crossbow dwarves is they take so long between telling them to defend the fortification burrow and actually getting their gear and moving there.  As of 31.12 I've not had any other issues getting them equipped, training, and shooting in combat.

[Zou]

The goblin armor is seriously glitched, as far as I know. It seems that whatever armor they wear, acts like steel armor. If this has been fixed, sorry for the completely irrelevant post.

[Hyndis]

Haven't had many issues myself. The key is that you need many dwarves hitting the goblins at the same time. You want a large pack of them together. You don't want one dwarf reaching the invaders at a time, where they can all beat up on that dwarf until the next one arrives.

Don't be afraid of making a large military. 50 armed and trained dwarves is about right.

[Foehamster]

I've been having the opposite problem of my squads being very effective, marksdwarves too. Though the marksdwarves are much less effective against armored opponents.

I think the macegoblins themselves were the problem. In adventure mode even with the initial df2010 release I depopulated entire towns (until I ran into a goblin-adopted human with +«☼Steel Bolt☼»+). The trick was I swung my bronze flail at the nearest opponent whom I would at least stun, and likely break a limb. Then walk in a big circle fighting only 1-2 opponents at a time as the crowd of gimps grew. Kills were only from smushing brain or broken-rib induced suffocation. I later picked up a +silver axe+ which was excellent for mopping up.

Now a stunned dwarf is very easy to hit especially if he's prone, even legendaries. Mace-Gobbo get lucky with a hit, dorf gets stunned or gives into the pain, pokey and slashy gobbos make the fatal wound.

[kilakan]

I gotta say, anything but maces and hammers versus armor is USELESS! and seriously, I have about half my fort military, no traps and each seige I lose one, maybe two dwarves, my military is trained and armored, but not hugely so, I find swarm tatics save lives in this game....

[Still Standing]

I have found the new military so difficult to use (the fact that they just will not train correctly) that on my current fort I have turned off Invasions entirely.

[Foehamster]

I have found the new military so difficult to use (the fact that they just will not train correctly) that on my current fort I have turned off Invasions entirely.

1) Create a melee and marksdorf squad with default equipment of metal armor, melee weapon and leather armor, ranged respectively (later on change it to metal armor, ranged weapon.) Add dorfs to each squad. (m)ilitary screen.
2) Build a barracks, give squads permission to train there.
3) Change squads status from inactive to active/training. (s)quads screen is easiest way to set this.
4) Have lots of weapons and armor.

If you want to get fancy get the settings right so the dorfs walk around fully armed and armored while they perform their essential skills of Make rock crafts. My mayor (woodcutter) finds time to keep the map clean of everything but mountain goats(hunters for that), while queuing work orders, managing stockpile records and meeting with the local hippies after demonstrating his tree cutting prowess. Its all time management.