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Yes, they are an easy means of getting legendary dwarves.

91 (32.7%)

No, it's in the game and no one says you have to use it.

54 (19.4%)

Who cares play however you want.

133 (47.8%)

Total Members Voted: 274

Voting closed: August 13, 2011, 06:26:01 pm

[simonthedwarf]

You're not meant to win, Elf.

[Rumrusher]

Super strong dwarves mean super strong emotional dwarves which leads to FUN, given if one super strong dwarf snaps and kills another superstrong dwarf they get a xp boost as well just leads to more fun! If danger rooms causes the fort to end by Tantrum Super Dwarves then let them end by Tantrum Super Dwarves!
Besides I love to have more options in a single player game be some are the easier route.

[Darth_Karl]

Rather than try adressing everyone individually i'll deal with things more generally.

1. If you don't have any skilled dwarves and no training ability it takes a LOT more than 6 months to get the majority anywhere near level 5 in a skill. I can tell you that from experiance.

2. Marksdwarves in a tower without a good few levels in their marksdwarf skill are sinmply usless, there's countless posts backing tis up about how they can't hit the broadside of a barn, and my own second seige had ranged mobs. Traps likewise have mobs that are good at avoiding them or are outright imunne.

3. Unless you go into the ini files you will see a seige long before you can get a good military able to handle them trained. No embark is gong to give you 10 yeas before a major seige, even if you limit your wealth aqussition and otherwise keep things down to keep them away. A good military a few years in at the latest is important to future survival.


The only way to get a usable military within the time frame allowed by even the most peacful embarks is to bring a trained military dwarf with you to kick start things. Don't do that and your gong to have to get VERY creative to keep them out, and you can forget breaching HFS before FPS death sets in, (unless you have an insane machine able to run decades old forts).

[Mushroo]

Hi Darth_Karl, I disagree, it IS possible to train up a decent military before the first siege arrives. There are many methods detailed on these forums and the wiki.

For example if you want a marksdwarf-based military, just embark with a few ambushers. Not only will they quickly train up in marksdwarf skill, but they also embark with free crossbow/bolts AND they will protect you from badgers.

The best way of course is to embark with at least 1 trained soldier with the teacher skill. This is just common sense. You are establishing a fortress in an unexplored, dangerous, hostile part of the world; why would you bring plump helmets, alpacas, silk bags, carpenters, miners, etc. but NOT a fighter to protect you?

Just follow the simple how-to's all over these forums and you'll have a fighting force that can massacre the first goblin ambushes and stand a good shot against sieges (assuming you also give them good weapons and armor). Add traps, trained animals, drawbridges, moats, magma, etc. to the mix and you can withstand ANY attack with minimal casualties.

Training rooms are kind of a "whoops, I forgot to train a military and now the goblins are here!" panic button IMHO.

[dwarfhoplite]

I have never built a danger room because there are not many challenges in the game anyways so why spoil it all. I personally like sacrificing cannon fodder dwarven warriors

[BurnedToast]

Voted yes because really, you can generate unstoppable killing machines with minimal effort and almost no risk which kind of defeats the point of the whole rather complex sparring/training system put in the game and trivializes the combat aspect of the game.

But really, who cares? it's single player so do whatever you want. It should probably be fixed eventually, but it's extremely low priority.

[Urist McUristy]

If you don't like danger rooms and consider them an exploit, I would like to know if you use Atom Smashers, Quantum Stockpiling, Water Reactor's or any other common exploit.
I'm sure most of you use at least one of the above, so think about that first...

[DrKillPatient]

I don't begrudge the use of them, but I prefer to train my military on my own, as it adds to the developing narrative. I do use quantum stockpiling and atom smashing, mostly in the use of getting rid of excess rock, as well as water reactors for massive pump operations when there's not a relatively simple opportunity for alternate power around. I might challenge myself to the use of windmill farms or other legitimate, not-physics-breaking power sources in the next fort...

[Vercingetorix]

If you don't like danger rooms and consider them an exploit, I would like to know if you use Atom Smashers, Quantum Stockpiling, Water Reactor's or any other common exploit.

I'm sure most of you use at least one of the above, so think about that first...

Nope, none of the above...but I do use lots and lots of traps early on.  Since there's little ability for invaders to currently circumvent traps effectively (esp. cage traps), they're sort of exploity, too, I guess.  I don't use danger rooms because I like my dwarves to earn their legendary skills and to give goblins a decent change of inflicting casualties...other than that, IDC.

The upside to this is it often limits tantrum spirals to only 1/2 the fort's population as opposed to the total massacre possible with hulked-out dwarves.

[i874236951]

1. They are an easy means of getting legendary dwarves.
2. It's in the game and no one says you have to use it.
3. Who cares play however you want.

The poll options say it concisely.

[mrbaggins]

Rather than try adressing everyone individually i'll deal with things more generally.

1. If you don't have any skilled dwarves and no training ability it takes a LOT more than 6 months to get the majority anywhere near level 5 in a skill. I can tell you that from experiance.

2. Marksdwarves in a tower without a good few levels in their marksdwarf skill are sinmply usless, there's countless posts backing tis up about how they can't hit the broadside of a barn, and my own second seige had ranged mobs. Traps likewise have mobs that are good at avoiding them or are outright imunne.

3. Unless you go into the ini files you will see a seige long before you can get a good military able to handle them trained. No embark is gong to give you 10 yeas before a major seige, even if you limit your wealth aqussition and otherwise keep things down to keep them away. A good military a few years in at the latest is important to future survival.


The only way to get a usable military within the time frame allowed by even the most peacful embarks is to bring a trained military dwarf with you to kick start things. Don't do that and your gong to have to get VERY creative to keep them out, and you can forget breaching HFS before FPS death sets in, (unless you have an insane machine able to run decades old forts).

1: I reiterate: You don't complain that it takes heaps of wasted weapons and armor to get a legendary armorsmith from 0... Why would you complain that combat skills take a long time under the same circumstances?

2: Again. If you don't train them, they suck at their job. It's just more obvious with military.

3: I have never once lost my fort to a siege that was fair, and I've never used more than 2-3 cage traps and never a danger-room. (Fair meaning not 4 squads of lashers and a forgotten beast with dangerous blood already letting loose on my caverns). They are completely non-necessary.

I can't help but keep saying over and over "If you don't whine that unskilled building/crafting/cooking/tailoring both sucks and takes ages, why the hell would you whine that unskilled military sucks?"

[Camper2490]

By putting a dwarf in a room where the floor (and ceiling an walls depending on how you picture it) attacks him it only makes sense that he learns how to avoid the painful bludgeoning (or stabbing) pretty quickly.

[jellsprout]

Exploits, bugs, cheats, unintended features, all are meaningless terms in any game, both single player and multi player. There is no International League of Video Game Scrubs which decides exactly what techniques are "fair" and which are "cheap". If it is possible in the game without hacks or 3rd party mods and you have no additional rules set up before the game starts, anything is fair game. If you avoid anything that you deem "cheap" you are only limiting yourself and will never be able to enjoy the game to its fullest.
It is not as if the developers want you to avoid any of these "exploits" either. The best example being combos in Street Fighter. They were an unintended feature in Street Fighter II. But instead of whining that the people who used combos were ruining the game, as several of you appear to think developers do in such a situation, they noticed the potential in such a feature and continued to put combos in their future games. You are not the developer and if you think you know how they want you to play the game, you are being ignorant.

But I don't understand why people keep singling out Danger Rooms. Danger Rooms make the game easier, yes, but they are not the easiest defense by far. An optimal Danger Room requires you to use ten training spears for each tile. That means you have to use 10 units of wood for each tile, as well two units of stone for the mechanisms and another unit of wood, stone or metal to assign the barracks and one unit of stone to make the lever. Because you need wood to make beds, charcoal and lye, wood is one of your most precious recourses early in the game. You also need to use 6 to 8 units of metal per soldier to create the equipment. It is a waste to use about 100 wood and 40 metal this early in the game, not to mention all the time your dwarves have to waste to set up this entire thing.
There are many far more efficient defenses, such as trap corridors, cage corridors, atom smashers, single tile wide bridges with weapon traps/menacing spike traps on them, hunters, drowning traps, freezing traps, cave in traps, retracting bridges over pits or simply even sealing off your entrance. If you look at the input/return, using an army trained in a Danger Room is one of the less efficient ways to protect your fortress. It is only a good idea if you plan to take on the HFS. And even then a corridor filled with menacing spikes on repeat is far more effective.

[Newbunkle]

They're a feature. 

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

I prefer the term "design flaw." I don't use them, and I shamelessly cheat in other ways -- I use Runesmith on my starting seven to give them above-average stats (but not outside dwarf racial maxes), I savescum for hours till I get the exact artifact I want, so forth.

I just feel like the challenge of training a military is "part of the game," and legendary military dwarves are so powerful that getting them without "earning" them is excessively unrealistic. If the skill gain were slower i'd use them.