Print

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

[Solace]

I think the problem is that hammers got buffed, then set to completely ignore armor. Eventually leather armor will work against hammers (supposedly), but that's not in yet. So, even with artifact adamantium armor and tons of training, a few lucky hits by a goblin and your guy's dead.

[ledgekindred]

The biggest problem I've had is that Flail/Whip/Scourge is insanely overpowered at the moment.  I've seen another thread where it mentions that the attack power is concentrated into the weapon's area of impact.  Since these weapons are defined as having a very small area of impact, they hit like bullets.  Getting hit with an iron scourge is pretty close to guaranteed to remove whatever body part it hits.  A very small siege with maybe 8 goblin lashers virtually eliminated a 30-dwarf strong militia in one of my forts before.  I had like 3 dwarves left at the end, and they were permanently maimed.

On the flip side, if you can defeat a wave or two of lashers, give all of your dwarves these weapons.  If they also have better armor and a shield, they will puree their opponents in no time.

Right now, until you get a large, well-trained and equipped military, your first line of defense should be traps.  And after the traps fail, your second line of defense should be more traps.  Then if they get past those traps, and the additional traps and magma you've set up behind that, send your military in. 

I surprised the hell out of myself when I quite literally shredded an entire siege consisting of a dozen trolls, at least a dozen marksgoblins and another dozen or more macegoblins as well as a couple of elite leaders, all riding beasts, with a half dozen weapon traps with maybe 16-20 serrated metal discs among them.  The first wave missed them, the second wave pathed right through them and got vaporized.  Seriously.  They were there, then suddenly there were no icons left.  Then when the first group panicked, they ran right back through them.  In the end, the only invaders left from the whole siege was a maimed Jabberer, a Rutherer, a marksgoblin riding a Giant Cave Swallow (who got shot down by my Legendary Archer) and a Troll herbalist (who finally got chased down and pulverized by a hammerdwarf).

[Khift]

So it's an issue with blunt weapons -- at least, this particular situation was an issue with blunt weapons. It's still frustrating as hell. Makes Dodging more important I suppose; the Swordmaster had a ton of ranks in Dodging and didn't take a hit despite keeping all the five macemen occupied for entirely too long while the rest of the slower non legendary dwarves caught up.

As for keeping your dwarves together, it's just not an option outside. I've tried, trust me. I gave them a move order to about 50 squares away from the goblins, let them group up, then gave the attack order, and they still charge in single file. I would have put the move order closer, but in my experience any closer and the dwarves will charge in before you give the attack order -- and that is far, far worse. The game could really use a march in formation option.

[kilakan]

I find that can be solved by many 2-3 man squads as opposed to 10 man squads, that way you end up with two walls of 10 as opposed to 10 walls of 2

[sinister agent]

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.

This seems to be a pretty major part of the problem to me. I've had similar things happen, and there seems to be nothing you can do - especially as once a dwarf sees something they don't like, they will charge at it until they die, no matter how many orders you cancel or try to override.  I was very lucky to have four skilled dwarves pop up in front of five goblin archers and a human pikeman all at once recently.  In other encounters, they'd invariably filed out one by one and been slaughtered, maybe getting a shot or two in first if they were lucky.

[nickbii]

I haven't had that much trouble with the military. They're actually quite effective, and I've done very little micro-management. They get put in squads, each of which has a training barracks, with metal uniforms. They train on their own. Copper armor and whatever crap the humies brought to trade worked fine. Now they've been upgraded (armor is mostly high-quality iron, with some steel helms and copper armor; weapons are now high-quality steel axes), and they work even better.

Of course I haven't had much trouble with gobboes in 31.12, so I can't say whether flails are over-powered.

Traps are always necessary. I have two lines of cage traps.

Nick

[kilakan]

what I find is that you should get you're amry to run small course if you have time, and group the fastest together, and the slowest together, that way they break rank less when charging. I always play catch the buzzard, first 5 guys to hit it get a squad of their own, the rest get another squad.  And don't forget the leader, well leads, he usually in the front, thus giving him the best armor/shield could allow him to hold the line long enough for the others to catch up (like the op's swordmaster)

[mrbobbyg]

I hate the new military.  So very useless, counter intuitive, and just a pain in the magma forge.


I went back to 40d, because, ya know, I like to enjoy the game. 

[foshka]

I keep trying to make a useful military and failing.  I always end up with some monster who refuses to die but has no limbs, a single dwarf who lost her axe somewhere hitting it with fists, all my other military dwarves dead, and all my civilians unable to do anything but go after some outside item then run away from the monster repeatedly.

And then the dwarves that are left get depressed and get in a cycle of murdering each other that NEVER, EVER, ENDS.   I sat there for 3 years of the game once, and I never had a single day without some dwarf freaking out and going berzerk.   Fed by immigrants who keep the cycle going, its amazingly frustrating.

Honestly, I get sick of being unable to just to tell the dwarves to settle down, go inside, and get back to business.   Not even burrows work if they can't go around the monster to get to a burrow.

Last enjoyable games I've had I've sealed myself underground, never opened an underground cavern, and squaded all immigrants and killed them immediately with a bridge.

[Misterstone]

Khift, I was wondering- do your dwarves have steel plate or steel chain armor?  If it is plate, do they have breastplates, greaves (which cover all of the lower body short of feet) and helmets?  The issue with blunt weapons going through armor is a bit more nuanced I think- attacks go through CHAIN very easily as blunt damage.  I had dwarves wearing adamantine chain in the arena and they would still die with a couple of crossbow shots to the body because their ribs would get shattered and tear through their heart every time.  Plate armor seems to be the only good armor right now.

I don't know what is wrong with your military setup, but I have not had any problem with my marksdwarves being useless.  They equip themselves with the bolts they need for combat as well as the ones they use for training, and do alright in combat (although the crossbow is no longer the "superweapon" it once was due to much lower accuracy now).  I assume that you have got the military all figured out and know how to assign ammo through the military screen, so I don't know what the issues you have with this are caused by.

[Misterstone]

I should also note that in a recent battle I had with a forgotten beast, abuot 10 war animals and tamed animals died due to poisoning from its poison tail (I think), but not a single one of my steel armored and armed fighting dwarves was even injured.  And I only have 5 or 6 right now.  So it does seem worth having them if only for this kind of thing.

[Khift]

They wear both chain and plate. Any given dwarf can wear:

One breastplate
Three mail shirts
One helmet
Two caps
One greaves
Two gauntlets
Two high boots
One shield
One weapon

And yes they do equip all of it; I check.

[kaijyuu]

A good idea is to have lots of war pets to take hits.

[Macalano]

I usually just trap invaders/monsters and keep them as souvenirs. No military required...

Though it is useful to have at least one military dwarf when everyone decides to be stupid.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[andrei901]

my fortress of 79 has 47 military dwarves, of which the ten best get training axes, the next ten get training swords, and everyone else gets nothing. My kill/death ratio is somewhere around .23ish, looking at my (u)nits screen, but I have never lost a (useful) civilian.

And even though I lose about 20 dwarves to each goblin ambush squad, 40 more show up with the next immigration wave to take their place.