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[fervor]

1.  How do you get the dwarves to pick up more bolts?  They run out of ammo (only 25 per quiver?) and then starting bashing monsters with their crossbows.

I set up a killing maze, which works great until they run out of bolts.  I set up a defend burrow alert where the burrow encircles the maze behind a moat and fortifications.  ALL of my ammo (3000+) is in stockpiles in that burrow.

How about in the field?  Any way to get the dwarves who run out of ammo to stop engaging, run back home and fill their quivers?

2.  Any way to tell the dwarves to retreat?  Seems like the moment they see an enemy, they rush in like morons and completely ignore all commands.  They won't stop until one side is dead or the mobs run away far enough.

I hate when just one dwarf sees the enemy, rushes in without waiting for their squad and promptly dies.

The range of target acquisition seems really variable.  Sometimes, they have to be within 10-20 squares.  Sometimes, my dwarves seem to see the target from far away.

3.  How do you lure mobs into your fort?  Sometimes, they just stall outside somewhere.

[Girlinhat]

1) Don't use bolts.  Axes ftw.

2) You can't, be careful when deploying them.  Stage them somewhere first, make sure they're all there and no one's lagging behind, then move them to the battle.  Having a staging area is important, and can be made simple if you make a burrow behind a drawbridge for them to guard.  They go in the burrow, then you can lower the bridge and they spill out all at once.

2b) Sight range seems to depends on tree coverage and terrain.  Ever played adventure mode and noticed the way you can't see in cones behind trees?

3) Animals on chains (not necessarily pet animals) or keep your people inside.  Goblins path towards your fort, and if no one is outside then they path directly.  You should only be outside for wood anyways, right?  Animals can help lead them along a path, and war bears tied up every 10-20 squares will ensure that they go from one to another, and get mauled along the way.

Also, as for deploying, I've toyed with this idea with good results.  Have your military inside a square of bridges.  That is, drawbridges that, when raised, create a tight room.  Surround this room with no-ramp channels to ensure security.  Have this room accessed via underground tunnel and lockable hatch (via switch, not forbidding).  Make a burrow inside the room, or even make this their training barracks.  When enemies arrive, your soldiers can move to the bridge-room, then you lower the bridges to turn that whole area into one section of flat terrain, allowing your soldiers to rush out easily.  This can be effective if you put the room outside your gate, so that you can lock the gate and still deploy your military outside safely.  If this is their main barracks and there's no roof, then it will also prevent cave adaption.

[fervor]

1.  This is my first game where I decided to change it up and rely heavily on marksdwarves.  So now I'm running into problems.  I'm early in the game (only 7 military) and ALL are crossbow with very, very little training.  I was relying heavily on my killing zone.  No traps.  No melee dwarves.

2.  Sigh.  No retreat.  Which leads to my next problem.

3.  I have eleven mobs stalling far away from my fortress.  They are just sitting there.  Unfortunately, I can't engage them with my newbie marksdwarves since most have no ammo.  So I'm trying to come up with a way to get them to rush my fortress.

My fortress is wide open right now.  No doors or anything in the way.  No traps.  Bridges are all down.

I guess if they are just gonna hang out there and ignore me, I'll just set everyone to inactive (hopefully they will refill quivers?) and just train up a bigger army.  Add some axes.

[Girlinhat]

Crossbows are hard to use, yeah.  I gave up on using them as main line.  I just keep a few on inactive duty, but give them an alert schedule to patrol my walls during ambushes.  My main force is with axes, deployed strategically and somewhat creatively.  However, I do know that any military individual taken off active duty will become a civilian and dutifully flee from small foxes and groundhogs.

[fervor]

It was pretty cool to watch my newbie marksdwarves dismantle the initial siege army.  Bolts flying everywhere.  Blood splatter over a huge area and everything dripping down into the pit below.  Several mobs jumped down into the pit on their own, but marksdwarves have no problems shooting down either.  The miasma cloud afterwards was impressively large too.

Anyways, I'm sure once I figure out the quirks to using crossbows, it'll be solid.  But ya, they can't be the core of your army.  They are support.  You still need melee dwarves.

Thanks for the tip on setting military as inactive to make them flee.  I don't know what's wrong with these mobs.  I sent the few dwarves with remaining bolts in to shoot at them from range, sending each one home as they run out of bolts and try to rush into melee.  The mobs just sat there and did nothing.  Something is weird here.

I guess I'm going to have to train up a melee squad.  Seems like I have plenty of time, so I'm gonna just wait until my squad is fully equip in steel until I engage.

[shmelse]

If you draft a dwarf into the military (and I usually name him "Bait"), you can send him out towards your goblin problem. Then, when he sees the goblins and triggers them attacking him, disband his squad. It'll take him about 1 tile to realize he's not in the military anymore and he'll run like hell.  Not always towards your base, though, so... results may vary, but at least you'll get the goblins moving.

I used this method to lure goblin squads into my traps, back before I understood how the military worked, with limited fatalities. 

[TheeBaconman]

I kinda skimmed responses, so this may have been answered (or outdated). But I think ammo is glitched, dwarves can only pick up bolts from the workshop.

[Fredd]

Thee, I was worried about the ammo glitch, in version .06, when the current military arrived. When I upgraded to .16, the drunks would use ammo in bins.
 If you always want them to carry extra ammo in their quivers, designate the ammo stacks C and T. So after they practice at the archery target, will still restock their quivers. I still think C means reload quivers, not just designated for combat.
 Now when the miasma of deep doodoo arrives(Siege)assign them some metal bolts, with C designation. Dwarven military doctrine dictates they use the best possible equipment. So when metal bolts are allocated, they will run off to swap bolts. Once the emergency is over, undesignate the metal bolts, so they will go back to using the training bolts.the dwarves like shiny bolts, so thats why you prohibit them, in times of peace.
 The main point for archers, is to use them as part of a static defense, not as a offensive force. Thats what  purely melee troops are for

[rephikul]

1.  How do you get the dwarves to pick up more bolts?  They run out of ammo (only 25 per quiver?) and then starting bashing monsters with their crossbows.
Use station order at about 10 tiles away from the enemy, then they'd go pick up bolts when done.
I set up a killing maze, which works great until they run out of bolts.  I set up a defend burrow alert where the burrow encircles the maze behind a moat and fortifications.  ALL of my ammo (3000+) is in stockpiles in that burrow.

How about in the field?  Any way to get the dwarves who run out of ammo to stop engaging, run back home and fill their quivers?

2.  Any way to tell the dwarves to retreat?  Seems like the moment they see an enemy, they rush in like morons and completely ignore all commands.  They won't stop until one side is dead or the mobs run away far enough.
individually select with and remove them from active military, they'd turn to their civilian labor and start running.
I hate when just one dwarf sees the enemy, rushes in without waiting for their squad and promptly dies.

The range of target acquisition seems really variable.  Sometimes, they have to be within 10-20 squares.  Sometimes, my dwarves seem to see the target from far away.
Dwarves target base on a hidden hostility meter of the creature. That's also why tamed war beast usually ignore item stealers such as buzzards.
3.  How do you lure mobs into your fort?  Sometimes, they just stall outside somewhere.
live bait

[Girlinhat]

If you draft a dwarf into the military (and I usually name him "Bait")...

Any good fort has fortifications built along the edge.  Instead, leave one of these off.  Replace it with a drawbridge if you really want that wall there.  Assign that as a pit, and chunk a cat off it.  You can then sorta-kinda control the creature by designating a meeting area, since animals naturally gather at meeting areas.  Just be aware that if your door isn't closed, or anyone is outside, they'll be like "zomg meeting area!" and run straight into the enemy.

[ext0l]

I remember someone had a post regarding putting unlimited ammo in a quiver. Instead of sending kill orders, use station around the enemies. Don't bother trying to lure enemies with marksdwarfs. They take to long to train. Instead, have them follow a series of chained animals. Cage a few puppies behind your traps and when invaders loiter around, pull the lever that releases the dogs.

[Girlinhat]

I previously suggested the animal chain.  Sine most ambushes/sieges are melee, you can do a lot of damage with bears on chains, because once the enemy is within range, then the bear is too

Also, a dog behind fortifications behind traps.  Like...

Code: [Select]

FTTT
DFTTT
 FTTT
That way, the enemy archers can't shoot the dog, and will instead waste their ammo against the fortifications (bonus points if you add a channel to collect enemy ammo!) and then rush in to melee it.

[Pagan]

Hunting is a great way to train up marksdwarfs.

As much as I love them though, they such a pain to manage that I rarely use large squads

[Girlinhat]

I heard one idea, to capture a bronze colossus, and drop it on a small free-standing platform for your archers to shoot at.  Bone bolts will never damage it, and they get a very valid target to fire at for as long as they've got ammo!  I attempted to do something similar by putting a goblin behind fortifications, but it didn't work out very well.

[fervor]

I ended up training a half dozen axe dwarves in full steel.  Backed by the marksdwarves, taking down the mobs was no problem.  I noticed that they ran back to base on their own when they ran out of ammo.

The killing maze does a pretty good job.  I close the drawbridges and lock them the mobs in.  Easy, safe kills for the marksdwarves, but against harder mobs, it can take a while.  Unfortunately, I also have to set them to inactive for a while, then active again so they go get more bolts.  Otherwise, they just stand there behind the fortifications doing nothing.  I don't understand why they don't get more bolts on their own in this situation.  Must be something specific with the AI.  Anyways, eventually I'll add some siege to make it go faster.