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Using v31.19

I haven't found any metal ores yet. None. What are my best options for defending my fort while I undertake a large-scale exploratory mining campaign?

I'm currently leaning towards a perimeter wall, to funnel attackers into a 10-level deep Dodge-Em trap paved with weapon traps loaded with wooden training weapons.

[yacheritsi]

Wooden crossbows with bone/wooden bolts? Falling or crushing with Drawbridges.

[Megaman3321]

Glass. Glass us your friend.


That, and trading with hums for oversize gear and melting it down for armor.


And, failing that, trading with (I shudder at the thought) elves. At least they're garunteed to have armor, even if it's crap.

[Girlinhat]

Build high ramparts, and supports+floor to drop on them.  Cave-ins are lethal by their ability to throw alone, bonus points for actually hitting something.  If you're being attacked from the West, you can even build 2 floor tiles outwards, and then remove the closer one to cause the further one to fall.

[Sarda]

Glass is good, yeah. Or you can get your dorfs to shear off their bones/ skin for bone and leather. Not very good, but better than nothing.

[Urist Da Vinci]

Assign crossbows and bolts to your haulers (non-miners/woodcutters) to make them into an untrained, reserve force. At least they won't be helpless.

[Girlinhat]

Lots of archers.  Make a disappearing "soft wall" by making a hatch or two be the only entrance to your fort, with the hatches linked to pressure plates just outside (or bridge may be better) and all set up such that when a goblin steps on the plate, the bridge disappears.  Thus, they walk forward, their path disappears, they walk away, it reappears, the walk forward...  All while getting pelted by archers or shredding themselves on lame wooden/glass spikes.

[Argonnek]

I use leather and bone armor and stolen weapons, personally. What you can do, though, if you want metal armor early on is to have your dwarves start as animal trainers/caretakers/dissectors or hunters and they'll be given some armor, a crossbow, and ammo for free.

[Lagslayer]

If you are using wooden traps, then make sure they have menacing spikes. if you are using glass, i think spiked balls would be the most reliable because glass does not have a max edge. Attacks become blunt if they cannot penetrate armor, and spiked balls are fairly large.

If you are using weapons, then obsidian short swords would be the best, assuming you can't use metal. Failing that, crossbows. Bone bolts are better than wooden if you can get them. Goblinite is your friend.

[Poindexterity]

i dont mind metal being scarce, but for the love of ARMOK, let us make bone tipped spears of wood?

[Girlinhat]

Or at least a wooden spear, instead of wooden training spears.  Even fekkin' elves know how to make pointed sticks.  Dwarves can only make blunt sticks!

[Flare]

Try to get magma onto the surface as fast as you can.

[Angel-of-Dusk]

You can just build a bunch of cage traps, and later on make a bridge over a pit to pit any TRAPAVOID or TRAPIMMUNE creatures.

Cage traps are your freinds.

[white_darkness]

Make your first entrance a lengthy drowning chamber large enough that you can seal off whatever comes in and drown the suckers.

Later once you're more established and the glass is going, make a second entrance along the same style to be your main one, but let it use magma.

Only way I've made it to 120+ dwarves without a military.  If you can't beat 'em, drown 'em.

Once the magma entrance is active, you can just seal off the other one permanently, unless you want to have a postern gate, for emergencies.

[Skivverus]

One of the things I like to do is channel out an outer perimeter, cutting down on the number of directions landbound enemies can visit from and giving herbalists and the like a chance to flee to safety (as opposed to where they usually flee). Next, block fortifications (exploratory mining does get you plenty of stone, after all) just inside said perimeter, as well as liberal supplies of traps in the entrance(s) - probably stonefall or (horror!) cage traps, as you'll have plenty of stone and I haven't heard anything about a shortage of wood (and even if you do have one, every caravan carries logs).