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[Hyndis]

If you have embarked in an area with undead you can have your dwarves defend burrow, and make the caverns a burrow.

AFAIK the supply of undead creatures is infinite.

The survivors of the undead hordes will be very formidable warriors.

[Urist Imiknorris]

Undead are finite.

[IT 000]

I use no traps, crossbows, fortifications, and magma that can be poured over the walls on invaders elves. I do have a brigade of melee men, but after four or five years half of them are lords just by standing around training constantly. Most of the time I see no reason to have danger rooms.

Personally I would prefer a trap rewrite up as opposed to a danger room fix.

[Newbunkle]

I'm getting a ton of goblin ambushes now and I've only just got enough useful metal for armour and stuff. I might try one of these out now instead of waiting for my next embark.

[expwnent]

Haven't read the whole thread, but my opinion is that they make the game too easy, but I use them anyway because I'm lazy.

Dwarven soldiers NEED a room, where each tile hides 10 training spears. They NEED to be stabbed repeatedly. They NEED to see their foolish pets DIE in front of their own eyes.

This needs to happen to them over and over again, till they realize that this will never stop.
Till they realize that they have to beat that room. Till they realize that pets are useless worldly attachments. Till they realize that they are the will of the fortress made flesh, Its mailed fist which can never waver, nor break.

Danger rooms, because dwarves need to be reminded, This Is Dwarf Fortress.

OPINION REVERSED

[xordae]

Some of the pro-arguments are pretty funny, but still I think those rooms are a cheesy answer to the military question. If it's fun for you, great. I'd rather watch my dwarves get better from sparring and pounding goblins into a bloody paste.

[strongrudder]

You stab your dwarves until they get good at not being stabbed. I love them.

This.

It may be because I'm not a grizzled DF veteran yet (only been around since the closing weeks of 40d), but for me the game doesn't get boring when my squads wipe the walls with foolish goblin interlopers. I love watching my soldiers take apart enemies. And if one day it does get stale, there are ways I can self-handicap to make things interesting. Or I can start a new fort and let those dwarves derp around inefficiently in the barracks.

The mechanics of the danger room make sense. The only thing that's "unfair" about it is how fast the dwarves learn. If there was a way to distinguish an enemy's spear from a weapon trap's spear, that could be nice. You could scale down the skill gains a little so it's still viable, but it wouldn't cause actual combat and goblin arenas to become useless.

[Newbunkle]

Well, I don't see the fun in watching them standing around in their bedrooms for years and then get taken out by a lucky shot. I'm just putting a danger room to the test for the first time and it is truly a beautiful feature. It's hilarious and get's you ready for combat much quicker.

[TheJackal]

I fail to see how Danger Rooms are more or less exploity than atom smashers, water reactors, or selling lots and lots of serrated discs.

[Vercingetorix]

Depends.  If I have good supplies of iron/flux for equipment and a fairly defensible location, I tend not to use them; doubly so if I choose to be fairly conservative with early trading to keep my wealth levels low.

However, if I feel I need defense and fast (due to a lack of metals for weaponry) or if there are certain special items on the map inflating my wealth I use them because it sucks to lose a fort because of something I couldn't really control.  Of course, making all of those mechanisms levels up my mechanics quickly and increases fortress wealth even faster, but by and large the products of that training regimen will make it more than worthwhile.

[ZCM]

It was the first goblin siege of a new fort. I only had four military dwarves, trained in a danger room and equipped with steel weapons and armor. They ran headlong into four times their number of goblins. Seconds later, the remaining goblins were running away, and only one dwarf had a minor injury.

Yeah, I can see the argument that danger rooms make things too easy.

[Sutremaine]

I don't plan on using them, just because I want to explore the military system. Also, assuming that I'm not going to be using a training mill makes my brain throw up all sorts of ideas for stuff.

[Askot Bokbondeler]

I fail to see how Danger Rooms are more or less exploity than atom smashers, water reactors, or selling lots and lots of serrated discs.

they're not, nobody argued they were

[rojiru]

Atom smashers for the purpose of crushing debris in order to eliminate lag is acceptable because it's not exploiting anything intentionally detrimental to gameplay, i.e. goblin ambushes (well, except the lag from the goblinite, which you crush, but the lag from that isn't intentional).

Using the atom smasher idea to line the outside of your fortress with drawbridges during sieges is another matter.

[BurnedToast]

Against danger rooms - it's a flat out exploit/cheat, you might as well mod dwarves to be made out of adamantine.

The military system works fine, people just do it wrong. Throwing raw recruits with absolutely no military skills in together is not going to get you soldiers very quickly and that's as expected. Things go a LOT faster if you throw a couple of military immigrants (TheRapist is brilliant for finding them easier) preferably with some teacher skill in to show everyone what to do.

Remember, dwarves are largely disposable (especially military dwarves who don't require any rare materials to train unlike smiths). If half your military dies in the first ambush it's not a big deal - the ones who survive will have learned, and will teach the new recruits that much quicker. Legendaries are basically unstoppable killing machines, so it should be difficult to get them.

But it's a single player game, danger room is completely optional and not something you can really accidentally do, so I don't see fixing it as a very high priority. If you want to ruin all the challenge then that's ok, it's your fort.