Print

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

[The Dog Delusion]

So in a danger room, a dwarf will gain skill points based on what part of their equipment blocks the spears: armor, shield, or weapon. I have a fresh group of recruits ready to don masterwork armor, shields, and swords, but I'm wondering if it might be beat to strategically outfit them bit by bit - start without the weapon and shield, for example, to boost their armor skills first. I seem to recall that once a dwarf gets pretty good at using a shield, their leveling in lockig with armor and dodge decreases, right?

So my question is this - should I just equip them with all the stuff (armor/shield/sword) and let the danger room sort out the rest, or should I equip them with only some ofthose things and wait for them to hit legendary before adding the next piece (shield and/or weapon)?

[Girlinhat]

Depends on your danger room design.  I personally go cheaty, and get 10 training spears per upright, and this gets you to legendary in all relevant skills within about a year - no lie.  With the insane rate of skill gain, you don't need to worry about equipment, so long as they're armored to prevent injury.  Within a year, maybe even one season, everything will max out.

Other than that, yes, it's generally advised to stagger their skills.  Do only armor, then add a shield, then a weapon to let them continue in the room or go on to live training.  Of course, if you want to do half-cheat conventional training, you can get one soldier to super-legendary, and then put people in that squad on regular training to learn from them.  A boot camp, of sort, to then put them in a real squad once they're sufficiently skilled.

[noob]

ive seen them block with shields first, then weapons, then armor. take off the shields and lock them in when the shield skill gets legendary +5.

[ext0l]

I wouldn't worry about it unless you want to be super-optimal. Even with 1/tile, the dwarfs should reach legendary in weapon/fighting in < 1 year. Their shield and armor skills will be high enough for all vanilla enemies. I hate the micromanagement 

[Girlinhat]

Although really, steel armor is enough to block most anything, so send them against cave crocs and blind cave ogres.  They'll get wailed on and rank up.

[TheyTarget]

So in a danger room, a dwarf will gain skill points based on what part of their equipment blocks the spears: armor, shield, or weapon. I have a fresh group of recruits ready to don masterwork armor, shields, and swords, but I'm wondering if it might be beat to strategically outfit them bit by bit - start without the weapon and shield, for example, to boost their armor skills first. I seem to recall that once a dwarf gets pretty good at using a shield, their leveling in lockig with armor and dodge decreases, right?

So my question is this - should I just equip them with all the stuff (armor/shield/sword) and let the danger room sort out the rest, or should I equip them with only some ofthose things and wait for them to hit legendary before adding the next piece (shield and/or weapon)?

You should strategically equip them. I do, and its so much better/faster. Though I suggest leaving them with everything at first then removing as you see fit. For dodging, I wouldnt suggest taking off armor(just leave it to battle xp). They almost always block in this order shield, weapon, armor. So thats the order I remove equipment.

[Girlinhat]

Coincidentally, you can train up their recovery skill by leaving their chest armor off.  They're likely to get bruises, heal, and thus become quicker to heal.  Just be sure to have a good hospital and give them 10 or less spear pokes per session (ie, if x10 per trap, just one lever pull).  You can also get some scared and abused soldiers, with a body covered in scars and wounds.

[Lamphare]

scars are the medals for men dwarf!
good idea, trying it out, i must!

[Girlinhat]

Well, if you want them battle-scared, the send them into battle without a breastplate, instead of the danger room.

[Lamphare]

i'll keep sending them to the danger room until they get enough scars
then send them naked to battle, with weapons.
'scarry scary dwarves are charging at us sir!'
                            ----last words of an unnamed pikegoblin.

[The Dog Delusion]

okay, so I fully equipped everyone, and then removed shields as soon as everyone had legendary +5, and then swords too.

And then dwarves started dying

So far, two dwarves have succumbed to infraction - I'm guessing this is related to the broken noses and ears that I've been seeing them all blinking red about. I've got at least two more dwarves who are probably going to die, and I'm just wondering...is this common? if one doesn't equip military dwarves with cloaks or something, is it pretty much expected that they're going to die from infected broken ears? This makes me sad.

[noob]

they dont die on me when i train them, although the reports did have a lot of cloak deflections.

[The Dog Delusion]

they dont die on me when i train them, although the reports did have a lot of cloak deflections.

Yeah, I've never used cloaks before, and this is the first time I've ever had any danger room injuries, let alone (now) 4 deaths due to related infection. There's a lot of very unhappy guards right now, so I'm guessing that once one or two more die, I'll see a pretty nasty tantrum spiral.

*sigh* ...and this fort was going so well. I was hoping that this would be my nice, safe, stable fort with no problems, but now unforseen danger room complications are turning it into a soon-to-be bloodbath. I'll be sure to report afterwards

[The Dog Delusion]

So after the first several guards died, I had about 15 miserable dwarves, most of them legendary military armed in full armor, wielding masterwork adamantine swords. I was a bit worried, but was hoping that the sheer value of the fort would help me out on this one. I've spent the last several years making everything masterwork to improve dwarves' moods. Every single bed, table, chair, cabinet, door, chain, chest, statue, or other furniture is of masterwork quality. about 80% of the roasts and booze is also of masterwork quality, and made from a very wide array of ingredients. Every dwarf has his own room with a bed and cabinet (both masterwork), and everything has been engraved by legendary engravers. It's a nice fort.

But then 3 more guards died, almost back to back, all as a result of infections. At first, I thought it wouldn't be a problem - there was a rockin' party in the dining hall, featured on the artifact table, but an artifact statue and artifact cage full of animals were also there. But alas...a mason who had been married to one of the dead guards went berserk. The partiers scattered, and the remaining guards were ordered in to take out the mason. Then 3 guards started tantruming. Then a blacksmith tantrumed. Then some apprentices/haulers started tantruming.

Then a guard went berserk.

At the Trade Depot.

While the Dwarven traders were there.

he was taken out pretty handily by another nearby guard, but not before he massacred several merchants and pack animals. In the meantime, there were about 10 other tantrums going on. A tantruming administrator killed the blacksmith I named after myself. A crafter was also stuck down, and at this point, every single dwarf in the fortress (78 of them) was miserable.

At this point, a strange coincidence occurred - a pet dog was killed. The owner of the dog, the fortress ranger/trainer, decided that now would be a good time to pull a lever and then start some fights. He pulled the nearest lever - the one that releases all of the wardogs in the entrance cage. The dogs quickly swarmed out of the cage and ran to the ranger who had trained them, who happened to be fist-fighting with a clothier. The clothier must have gotten hit really hard, because he went insane, and was then completely torn apart by the dogs.

So right now, I've still got about 75 dwarves, all unhappy, many tantruming. Do I just sit here and watch it all go down, or is there something I can do to help salvage the situation at this point?

edit: I'm now down to about 50 dwarves. Everyone is still miserable, and the entire fort is littered with dead dogs, dwarves, and random body parts. A guard went berserk in the hospital and went from room to room killing all the incapacitated patients, and the sheriff keeps tantruming and beating people to death while he's trying to punish them.

[EmperorJon]

Mate... give in. XD