Set up a bone industry through birdsplosions (buy poultry from your liason): make 7-8 cages in the middle of a 30x30 room. Put all your birds in and 50-60 nest boxes. Lock the door behind you and wait until the birds hatch. When they do, cull all the males from each species except one, cull the females until you're left with less than 50 and wait for the second batch of hatchlings. When this second wave comes, stuff all your birds in the cages and link them to a mechanism. Two years later, butcher all of the birds except for 48 females and a male of each species (or drop them down a few dozen Z-levels) and repeat the process. Congratulations, you now have enough bones to outfit a few full squads of marksdwarves till the next birdsplosion happens.
Sure marksdwarves with Bone Bolts and Bone Crossbows aren't very scary, but it's extremely easy, simple and low on labor to maintain and won't hurt your FPS because your animals are stuck in a room where they can't path or in cages for 2 years at a time. And you'll be able to support a *LOT* of Marksdwarves if you use all the available birds. Also works ridiculously well with any non-grazing animal you can train - and Hunters can pay for themselves in bones if you're in a non-evil biome.
And hell, if you get a Bronze Colossus you can train your entire population to be Legendary Archers and Marksdwarves, upping your productivity for the rest of your fort's life because of the Agility gain!
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Topic: Life without metals (Read 4586 times)