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[dakenho]

so my question is, when do you find is the right time to start making military equipment.

typically I start around the time my fortress is fully stabilized, (typically around 50-70  dwarfs) I typically have a massive smelting industry rolling.   my trouble is lately early threats seem to be doing a lot of damage and my economy is so good usually ambushes are a major threat.  I have been starting to make a military set early to have one dwarf that can handle the night wing, or other annoying little thing that may come around but 1 dwarf seems flimsy,  more than one dwarf seems to take away form the econ and then there is the matter of training so that the one dwarf can handle him self.  Suggestions are welcome.

[MonkeyHead]

i usually put a few of my free immigrants into leather and give them a crossbow for no other reason than that they are often useless and i dont have much to haul when they rock up. any other useless arrivals go in that squad. any with weapon skills strrt my melee corps. i am 3 yrs into crestpaddles, and have 160 dorfs. 50 are tooled up killers with at least 2 yrs under thier belts.

[dakenho]

well thatch fine for ambushes but I am talking you maybe have 10 dwarfs a night wing, or large scorpion, or night wing shows up.  should i just bite the bullet and make 1 dwarf train all the time and be the town guard?

[celem]

nightwings are awful.  seriously they shred armoured troops...

anyway, I start military a bit before 50-70.  usually around 20-25 infact, this is usually right as my production is gearing up so its timely.  While below 50 dwarves around 50% of my population is in squads.

Copper clad em if you gotta, it trains the smith and you can roll out upgrades as you go.  metal weapons kinda laugh at leather armour so i always get my guys tanked up fast.

Initially you can leave the squads that you form on the inactive alert, they dont train, dont need a barracks or anything, theyre just all armed/armoured all the time and will stop running from a creature to whack it if you ask.  Also, hunters become marksdwarves right about the time you get your first few ambushes.
By the time you are ready to properly outfit and train them up there will be a few stars in the bunch, you keep them to train incoming peasants and release the rest back to civvie street


on the nightwing point.  only way i ever get these down without a skilled dwarf is to bury them in numbers.  throwing 10-15 guys in with gear but no skill leaves him little chance to swing, though when he does people take hurt

[twilightdusk]

Some cage traps and guard animals go a long way to an early fort defense.

[Fellhuhn]

The first thing I always do is dig down as fast as possible and get some cotton candy so that I can equip one dwarf in full candy. Then follows a lot of armor and weapons out of cheap metal to get the skills up. And only then I start to create further candy sets. I don't bother with other equipment.

In the meantime the entrance to the fort is secured with some bridges. If something evil comes a wall will be built behind the bridge to prevent any nasty stuff.

[slothen]

The first thing I always do is dig down as fast as possible and get some cotton candy so that I can equip one dwarf in full candy. Then follows a lot of armor and weapons out of cheap metal to get the skills up. And only then I start to create further candy sets. I don't bother with other equipment.

In the meantime the entrance to the fort is secured with some bridges. If something evil comes a wall will be built behind the bridge to prevent any nasty stuff.

no-quality/low-quality adamantine equipment is an affront to dwarfdom.

[Fellhuhn]

That is the reason why the first soldier is the one equipped with that stuff. It attracts a lot of enemies and makes him the first to die.

[Fredd]

For starting with the military equipment, it never hurts to start up assigning a armorsmith, weaponsmith skill to any dwarf without a moodable skill(cook/ fisherdwarf,milker, etc.), then allow the rookies to make a piece of armor,or weapon to give them a dabbling skill. Later, if a mood hits, least they will not become a legendary woodcrafter.
 Shields are a nice choice, since shield training helps with defense. Crossbows are good, except for the resources needed to train a archer.

[ext0l]

I always wait for my first armorer/weapon smith to have their moods.
Unless an immigrant with high-master weaponsmithing comes along... 

[mrbobbyg]

[/quote]

no-quality/low-quality adamantine equipment is an affront to dwarfdom.
[/quote]

Agreed fully.

Don't worry about churning out a bunch of middling armor in the beginning (you ARE embarking with 5 points in weapon and armorsmith, right?)  You can always sell it later, and dwarves will auto upgrade their gear.

I say begin your military early.  Even in the 1st migrant wave you can spare 2 cheese makers so they can start whacking each other with hammers. 

[Fellhuhn]

But dwarves won't auto-update their weapons and shields if they grow attached to it.

[celem]

no they wont automatically upgrade stuff they attach to (weapons/shields but not armour)

you can manually switch the piece out though, theres some trick to it i always forget.  I think you dump-mark it and someone will come snatch it from them

[madmaxxam]

I usually start by fall.  I try to get a smelter up and a couple sets of gear and have 2 soldiers train up ASAP.  It seems that this squad of 2 usually gets good skills cause they spar a lot.  I expand with small squads every migrant wave and eventually add to those squads once they have skilled soldiers.

[Hyndis]

You want either a few soldiers, or some aggressive tame animals, like dogs.

If you can get something like tame cave crocodiles then thats even better than dogs. These are your last line of defense.

Your first line of defense should probably be from your engineers. Build death traps involving things like bridges and levers, along with an airlock design for the trade depot. That should deal with 99% of all invaders.

If you then have your meeting zone after the airlock deathtrap entrance any kobolds or things that sneak through will be torn apart by a pack of 50 dogs. Also, any berserk dorfs will get a similar treatment.