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[psychologicalshock]

Well, I suppose that would be a good reason to armor them up, hmm? Armor your marksdorfs up, and even if they do get hit through the fortifications, goblin metal cannot penetrate good armor. And the elite goblin only has this many bolts.

Copper bolts fired by an elite crossbowgoblin will chip bone, and once your dwarf is face-down and bleeding on the battlements, he'll quickly turn into a pincushion. Armor does ensure that the goblin uses up most of his bolts on one unlucky marksdwarf, rather than machine-gunning your entire squad with instantly fatal headshots.

Yeah I focus on steel helmets and steel breast plates, limb damage from crossbow bolts can always be fixed at the hospital.

[xordae]

I would make the walkway more than 1 tile wide. You can assign high priority traffic that is a single tile and have the added benefit that there is no congestion. Dwarves will do really dumb things when there's no walking space. Like walk the other way around, no matter how long it is. And then afterwards walking the wrong way again before they "get it".

[Phant]

Eh, crossbows in 1250-1500 BC ?

(wikipedia)
Bronze crossbow bolts dating as early as mid 5th century BC were found at a State of Chu burial site in Yutaishan, Hubei.
The earliest reasonably reliable date for the crossbow in the Greek world is from the 5th century BC.

I was talking about the part of the Illiad where Homer describes um, Big Ajax I think it is sheltering someone(I forget who) behind his shield, then lifting it so he could shoot at someone, then lowering it again while the archer renocked and found another target. Not _exactly_ the same as the kind of setup middle ages pavaise crossbowmen used, but pretty damn similar.

[monk12]

The big reason most games frown on crossbows/shields is because firing a crossbow takes two hands, and most games don't account for the specialized shields archers use in formation fighting. In part probably due to lack of research, in part probably due to a dearth of formation fighting.

Hopefully once that makes the game (sometime in the Army Arc, I believe) it will be in a tactic in DF.

I'm lucky enough to be sitting on a limestone layer filled with limonite, so I've got all kinds of armor available. Right now my crossbow's are rocking shields with no problem- I'm working on making them walking tanks, since they'll be more or less permanently stationed near the walls and they don't need great speed to rain death on underequiped foes- protection is most important. What kind of damage do bolts do, anyway? I'm considering stuffing as much leather clothing as I can fit under a steel shell since I suspect bolts do a combination of piercing and blunt damage.

I like the idea of using traffic designations to make my walls more accessible- I'll have to test that out. What I'd really love would be a way to make my military take the outer path to shoot from while civilians take the inner path to recover wounded. I don't see how that's possible, though, so I'll make do.

In a prior fort I defeated a few goblin ambushes when the archer squads decloaked and spent their bolts on my chicken yard (I was woefully underprepared that game.) I'm contemplating a defense based on chained chickens at the base of the wall to draw enemy fire. Ideally, instead of a chicken it would be some other large animal that can take a bunch of shots before dying. I think I'll try pitting the wild giraffe/rhino herds that clutter my cage traps there- they don't eat while wild, they're difficult to kill with bolts, and after the siege I can recover the corpses and butcher them!

Thanks again for all the tips!

[NewsMuffin]

If I remember correctly, bolts do slashing damage if they hit unprotected skin, or pierce armor. If they don't pierce the armor, they do blunt damage.
Or maybe if it hits metal armor at all, it does blunt damage.

[monk12]

Just realized that if I pit wild animals the goblins won't shoot at them anyway    Fortunately I'm in good with the elves, so if the bring me some more hippos I can just leave them outside instead.

[ral]

I'm not sure if it's necessary but I give archers bucklers. This makes sense because they're strapped on the lower arm, leaving the hands free.

[Hyndis]

You can pit/pond tame animals in a pit all invaders must walk by. Don't allow them to path into the pit. Ensure there are not entrances or exits from the pit. You'll need non-grazer animals for this of course.

The idea is that goblins will empty their ammunition into the pit of tame animals, and then they will have no ammunition available to shoot at your dwarves. Also if you have a large population of animals they should be able to reproduce faster than they take losses.

[EmperorNuthulu]

The big reason most games frown on crossbows/shields is because firing a crossbow takes two hands, and most games don't account for the specialized shields archers use in formation fighting. In part probably due to lack of research, in part probably due to a deartI'm lucky enough to be sitting on a limestone layer filled with limonite, so I've got all kinds of armor availableh of formation fighting.

Hopefully once that makes the game (sometime in the Army Arc, I believe) it will be in a tactic in DF.

. Right now my crossbow's are rocking shields with no problem- I'm working on making them walking tanks, since they'll be more or less permanently stationed near the walls and they don't need great speed to rain death on underequiped foes- protection is most important. What kind of damage do bolts do, anyway? I'm considering stuffing as much leather clothing as I can fit under a steel shell since I suspect bolts do a combination of piercing and blunt damage.

I like the idea of using traffic designations to make my walls more accessible- I'll have to test that out. What I'd really love would be a way to make my military take the outer path to shoot from while civilians take the inner path to recover wounded. I don't see how that's possible, though, so I'll make do.

In a prior fort I defeated a few goblin ambushes when the archer squads decloaked and spent their bolts on my chicken yard (I was woefully underprepared that game.) I'm contemplating a defense based on chained chickens at the base of the wall to draw enemy fire. Ideally, instead of a chicken it would be some other large animal that can take a bunch of shots before dying. I think I'll try pitting the wild giraffe/rhino herds that clutter my cage traps there- they don't eat while wild, they're difficult to kill with bolts, and after the siege I can recover the corpses and butcher them!

Thanks again for all the tips!

I recommend cave blobs or creeping eyes for attracting fire, since they're pretty much unkillable in some ways.

[Miuramir]

The big reason most games frown on crossbows/shields is because firing a crossbow takes two hands, and most games don't account for the specialized shields archers use in formation fighting. In part probably due to lack of research, in part probably due to a dearth of formation fighting.

Hopefully once that makes the game (sometime in the Army Arc, I believe) it will be in a tactic in DF.

Some of the best-documented crossbow units were the Genoese crossbowmen: "Apart from the crossbow, they were equipped with a dagger, a light metal helmet, a gorget, a hauberk and a large shield, called a pavese (pavise), which was used while reloading the crossbow."  The Pavise was a fairly large, reinforced shield with a flat bottom, and frequently with multiple carry handles and/or a spike on the bottom. 

The Battle of Crécy was one of the most important battles in the Hundred Years War(s), and notable in that the English had longbowmen, and the French had hired mercenary Genoese Crossbowmen.  The French had marched everyone hard, and the crossbowmen's shields were ordered to be left behind in the baggage train.  With a rate of fire of 1-2 shots per minute normally, but tired and without any natural cover or their shields, the crossbowmen were seriously outmatched by the longbowmen, comparatively rested and capable of 5-6 shots per minute at longer range.  Additionally, the crossbowmen had been marching at battle ready during a rainstorm, whereas the longbowmen had cased their bows until the last moment, risking that the high ground and improvised earthworks would give them time to string and fire. 

In general, Crécy is an excellent example of how a nominally superior force (French: 35,000 to 100,000 men, including a large force of elite knights in the best equipment of the time; Anglo/Welsh: 9,000 to 10,000 men, far less armored on average) can make a series of bad strategic and tactical decisions and end up humiliated.  In games that don't simulate the field level battle in detail or at all, this sort of thing is why random result tables have some seemingly unlikely results; in games like DF with the potential to simulate conditions in detail, hopefully the Army Arc will allow us to win, or loose, based on our ability as commanders as well as by being backed by our arsenal of dwarfocracy. 

[wuphonsreach]

My general wall layout starts as:

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Which is simply a 2-tile wide channeled out "ditch".  In soil, it's fast to dig out and it helps set a perimeter quickly.  Anything that can fly or has ranged can shoot across it, but that's the least of my worries during the first 2 seasons.  Make sure you leave 4-tiles free on the inside of the ditch for future walls.

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__    W___
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Then I slap a wall around that perimeter.  Now I only have to worry about flyers.  That usually happens in the first winter, after I've gotten everything underground.  I will start putting 2x11 stockpiles of my most abundant stone right behind the wall so that the masons will have easy access to building materials later.

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Then I build my wall, which is 1 tile of fortification, 2 tiles of walkway, and 1 tile of back wall.  I start filling the ditch with a checkerboard pattern of inexpensive weapon traps (wooden spikes, wooden spiked balls, wooden corkscrews).  The goal with weapons in the ditch is to encourage enemies not to loiter down there but to come back up into the field of fire.

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     F__W
__    W_W
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A narrower wall is also preferred by some with the fortification tiles hanging out over the edge.  This makes your walls only 3 tiles thick (at the base) instead of 4 and puts the archers 1 tile closer.

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         ___
         F__W
    __    W_W
      |__|

And either way, you should eventually put that floor over the top of the fortification tiles and the open walkway to close it up.  You'll have to build temporary scaffolding staircases inside the wall that reach up to the top to allow mason access.

[Azated]

I usually just build a drawbridge over a 3 wide ditch as the entrance to my cave, then build 2 wide walls with a 3 wide ditch in front, and fortifications on the front wall outside the cave as the combat zone.

Onto the topic of archers and shield; I always wondered why any combat unit wouldn't have a shield. Even a small shield could mean the difference between life and death, which is why I give all of my xbowdorfs mail armor and bucklers.

[Hyndis]

I give everyone full plate armor and a mail shirt, along with a shield. Preferably masterwork shield, the shield is the most important piece of armor.

The weight of the armor doesn't matter since ammo is only a few steps away from the battlements anyhow, and marksdwarves are usually not as well trained as the melee guys, so they need to rely on thick armor to try to survive incoming fire.