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[Damien White]

Seriously, how the hell do you defend yourself without trapps?

I tried everything, from some sort of zerg style (36 Dwarfes total Population, 25 Dwarfes in military) to some sort of spezialized Dwarfes with full steel Equipment.

Now I got at least two Problems:

1. My stupid Dwarfes wont stay inside my fortress.

Seriously, I tried everything. I have no Fishing/Hunting/Plantgathering Dwarf, I forbid everything, I created an underground forrest, underground water zones, wells and got full food stockpiles but my dwarfes still go outside. What do they do there? Watch the Sun... For god sake, they are dwarfes, why do they watch the sun? Anyway, I created a Tower, build a sculpture garden and some extra meeting zones on top of it so my dwarfes can watch the sun while being save. Well, now they watch the lake... My underground lake with Magma Pond right next to it, full of engraved diamond, silver and gold walls seems to be not enough for these pussies O.o
(it was a pain in the ass to create this thing and they still prefer the 3/7 mudhole outside...)

2. My Military gets owned:

Thats some big Problem. It doesnt matter what I try, the first Siege or Beast kills me. I have no chance of survival. (I once defeatet a Dragon, but only because he got caught in a wooden cage trap...)

First of all, how the hell does training work nowadays? I create a Squad of 3, set training to 2 and create a barrack wich I set to "TZIQ" to the squad (just like the wiki says). I go to the squad menu and set the squad to active/training. So everything should be allright, right? Wrong... I have no freeking idea, where the Problem is. In the older versions with the old military System I create a squad, order it to train and I get some Elitewrestlers after 1-1,5 years. Nowadays nothing happens.

I think I saw two dwarfes sparing one time, but most the time only two of three dwarfes stay within the barracks, the other guys wanders around. Yeah, the Squad Leader organizes some training, but this training never happens. He just oranizes some, then the next month comes, he switches to his civilian job for a sec and everything starts again...

Also, in the old Versions, these Elitewrestlers where able to defend my fortress. In the new Version even full steel equiped Elitehammerdwarfes (I recently got 2 Elite Hammerdwarf+ Elite Armor User + Elite Dodger with some migrants. Even Chuck Norris would be afraid of these guys.) get owned by a leather wearing Goblin ambush... Seriously, 2 steel equiped Elite Hammerdwarfes, around 10 metal equiped (mostly iron) Meledwarfes with random weapons and 5 Marksdwarfes (wich trained for nearly 2 years) got owned by an Ambush with 8 Goblins.

The Result: 3 surviving Goblins, 0 Dwarfes…. Oh and 2 Dwarfes within my fortress went straight berserk, killed my fortress and got slaughtered by the goblins.


I know, loosing is "Fun" and I lost in some realy funny ways (Once I got killed by a jumping Minotaur Head. Well it must have been a jumping head, after all his arms, legs, his lower and upper body got cut of) but this sort of loosing sucks. Once the message "A vile force of Darkness…." comes up I can abadon my fortress. Even if I close my fortress, migrants get killed, my Dwarfes are throwing tantrums (Jep, everyone has a 5x5 masterpiece engraved bedroom full with Chests, Armor stands etc, Goldstatues all over the place and the Stockpile full of Food but they throw tantrums...) and my fortress dies.


I once created some sort of dwarfen machine gun (20 Marksdwarfes on one tower) wich worked pretty well, but the wood you need for training and fighting is to expensive and you cant use this sort of tactic in special embark zones like mountains or a glacier. Actually, I think the only military unit wich is usefull are the marksdwarfes. They train, they hurt the enemy and they are safe behind fortifications. Well, as long as my stupid dwarfes stay inside the fortress.


So how the hell do you defend against the first ambushes without traps and how does training realy work nowadays?

[Jimlad11]

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[Damien White]

I tried Dangerrooms.

5x5 room, a presure plate in the center and speartraps (wooden spears) around. The most difficult part is the setup for the presure plate. I have no idea wich weight is the best option or in other words, even if I set it to minimal weight it doesnt react to a dwarf walking over it.

[Dave1004]

I don't really do anything. I just make a ragtag militia, make sure they have gear, and kill whatever comes. Mainly Goblins, Ice Wolves, Buzzards and (I think?) a rampaging elephant.

I'd just...let them do their thing. I don't even give my dorfs rooms anymore, just big spaces with a lot of beds. I was on my third year, had killed two ettins and dozens of other baddies, and lost three dwarves. One to suffocation (?), one to an Ettin, and another...Hell, I don't know. He just died.

Maybe your militia has elves in it. Staring at the sun/pond, being stupid, can't fight worth a duck with no legs...I'd start purging. Burn a few dorfs alive, they'll learn.

Also: How do you find magma? :O

[agatharchides]

Also: How do you find magma? :O

Dig down to the bottom of the map.

[Damien White]

How do I find magma?

Diging down until there is warm stone and diging further.


Actually Magma is no big deal, military usefull Metal on the other hand is. On my last embarks I got most the time only gold, Silver and some Platinum. Well, on the other hand I get a legendary metalcrafter realy fast and sell Crafts for 100.000* to the first caravan. (Well, actually I could do so, but most the time they dont carry enough stuff ^^)

[Jimlad11]

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[Damien White]

Just link it up to a lever in your meeting hall (So there is always few random slackers hanging around) and just put the "Pull Lever" order on repeat. A Dwarf will come along and happily yank the lever back and forth, powering your danger room. Just cancel the order when your dwarves have had enough 

Hmm, a dwarf happily dumb smiling, insane waggeling a lever while torturing other dwarfes?

I like this idea ^^

[Tanelorn]

There are plenty of defensive measures that do no rely on traps as in weapon traps.

Bridges linked to lever to crush enemies or just drop them in a pit is one.
Drowning rooms is another (can be combined with bridges, so that the bridges drop the gobbos into the drowning room.
Freezing traps, if in cold biomes.
Supports to cause cave ins...

Be imaginative with your mechanisms! After all, dwarves are renowed for making complicated contraptions.

And if all fails, build a hatch in the up stairs leading to your fortress. Hatches are undestructible from underneath.

[Damien White]

The Problem with all these methods, they need time for preparation, sometimes I get the first ambush during summer year 1. If I focus all my dwarfes on building these sort of fancy traps they starve to death etc. Most the time I start with 2 Axedwarfes and some leather armor but unless I train some of the first imigrants I get killed.

I´ll try the lever Danger room and hope I can get some metal Equipment realy early.



That should do it, unless my metal squad dont get slaughtered by leather goblins...

[obeliab]

If you don't use traps, your first ambush is almost guaranteed to end a few dwarven lives.  I'm surprised that your fellas got destroyed while equipped in steel and iron.  Were they fully decked out in at least a helm, mail shirt, breastplate, greaves, gauntlets, and high boots?  Did you closely look at the combat reports to see what was happening?  Were your guys getting in hits?  Were a lot of the goblin attacks "glancing away" or being deflected by the dwarves' armor?  Were your dwarves able to match up against the gobbos basically 1-on-1, or is it possible that a choke point was actually working against you?  Did you give them a {k}ill order or did you {m}ove them near the targets?

Also, the easiest way to keep your beards inside is to make a burrow that covers your entire fortress interior (which can be designated in 3D, by the way), set an alert to restrict civilians to it, and then activate the alert.

[Jimlad11]

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[Damien White]

Never looked into the combat log, but yeah, they where fully metal equiped. 2 or 3 maybe without shoes or so, but the two main dwarfes got steel equip especialy made for them, along with a leather hood.

I found this somewhere in the forums and equip all dwarfes like this:

mail shirt (metal)
breastplates (metal)
cloak (plant fiber)
cloak (silk)
cloak (leather)
trousers
greaves (metal)
helm (metal)
hood
mittens
gauntlets (metal)
high boots (metal)
high boots (metal)
shields (metal)
Weapon

@ Jimlad: Yeah, I know the danger room problems. Especialy the one with missing Helms resulting in dead dwarfes.

[obeliab]

It might seem boring at first, but pausing every few seconds and checking the combat logs can give you a good picture of what's happening in combat, and may or may not give you an indication of what's going wrong.  Goblins in copper and leather beating a larger number of dwarves in iron and steel means something's up... assuming that your first ambush didn't consist of 8 Axe Lords.  And even then, maybe!

[Damien White]

Axelords in the first ambush?

WTF?

These whip dudes rip me apart, how should i even think about defending against plate equiped Axelords riding some sort of Battletoad? O.O