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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

[Nil Eyeglazed]

Early on, the armoring of your dwarves isn't as important as getting them weapons, a shield, and six months or more of training in their use.  By the second dwarven caravan, however, you really should be getting your troops at least a mail shirt, helm, boots and gauntlets/gloves.

I'm very curious to know what set up you used when you "trained" your militia for six years without providing them any skill gain?  Even when I didn't know what I was doing with military setup I was able to get my dwarves trained to at least Competent in their weapon long before they had completed a year of drill (that was back when the entire unit of 10 would take a break because one guy was thirsty).

Are there people still not using 0.31.25?  Thats the only reason I can think of for the different in training behavior experienced by differing players.  With the latest version, three years of training means guaranteed Champions.

I think if your barracks is far away from the rest of your fort it can mean some real problems and delays.

At what point to people move their dudes from small squads into ten-man squads? I'd like to consolidate if possible.

I consolidate when I need to-- when I get sick of seeing that many squads.  By then, I have a legendary to lead them.

One thing that makes a big difference is everybody in the squad using the same weapon.  When your legendary hosts an axe demonstration, you don't want your speardwarf left out.

[Starver]

It's also easy to make sure nobody's bringing an axe to a hammer-fight, and vice-versa, although there are of course times when you want all kinds of weaponry in at the action as well.

(Perhaps it's easier to coordinate this with multiple squads, though, than making sure that within a single squad the token speardwarf isn't on holiday (or the first into the fray, with all his other-weapon mates trailing far behind) when he's the one you really need (or he's the one least suited to engaging with the entire enemy force).  I'm sure everyone has their own preferences...)

[Buttery_Mess]

I resent the use of hammers. I'm not satisfied unless goblins are getting their limbs sliced off left right and centre.

[Starver]

I'm not satisfied unless goblins are getting their limbs sliced off left right and centre.

Your goblins have three arms?  Interesting...


Alternate response: "That's not technically a limb, you know..."

[Jerg]

Used it once in my first successful fortress (probably that fortress survived only because of it), ended up with 2 full squads of legendaries, and got bored of DF because of it.

Now that I've taken up DF again, I swore to myself never to touch this again. It's a huge exploit because it's imbalanced, not because of how it works.

Make it give 50 times less experience, and inflict injuries 50 times more, and it might be more feasible of a military training method (it's called a freakin' Danger room for god's sakes, no risk, no gain).

[peskyninja]

Used it once in my first successful fortress (probably that fortress survived only because of it), ended up with 2 full squads of legendaries, and got bored of DF because of it.

Now that I've taken up DF again, I swore to myself never to touch this again. It's a huge exploit because it's imbalanced, not because of how it works.

Make it give 50 times less experience, and inflict injuries 50 times more, and it might be more feasible of a military training method (it's called a freakin' Danger room for god's sakes, no risk, no gain).

Same here.

[Kc_spot]

Hell I don't know HOW to make a danger room... I haven't even made a spike trap like... ever. And I can make a fort last half a decade if I try.

Simply put, I feel that danger rooms are acceptable. Because they arn't nessesary.

[612DwarfAvenue]

There are Danger Rooms in real life, you know. It's not an exploit.

[Funk]

if is a lot less of an exploit if dwarfs not wear armor in the room and if the spears are sharp.
run shuch a room till a dwarf falls, have a them stitched up.
for add fun never clean the danger room, thr roting body parts help the feel 

[Jerg]

There are Danger Rooms in real life, you know. It's not an exploit.

I know what you mean, I've watched my share of retro Hongkong martial arts films

But really, for real life danger rooms to be effective, the trainee needs to be vulnerable to the blows of the wooden dummies/spikes (hence they are always naked / lightly robed) to actually hone their combat skills.

One way to make danger rooms in DF "conform" with this, would be to scale the experience gained against the amount of armor - the less the dwarves wear as they go into a danger room, the faster they will level, but they are more likely to be bruised / get broken bones (especially novices).

[Starver]

But if (and haven't yet gotten around to making a Danger Room of my own[1], I'm assuming this) part of the training is about armour skills, you should have vulnerable armour that needs to be practised with in order to make best use of it.  So something equivalent to a Cardboard Cuirass, or a Felt Fauld, or a Rice Paper Rondel, or Balsa Bevor.  Learn how to angle each element to the battering of the (still training-level) weapons so that they aren't pierced straight through, and when you get to use the cold steel versions against their equally menacing weapon counterparts (now being wielded by someone with a desire to see the colour of your blood) you have a pretty good automatic reaction.  The likes of which you'd never have if during training you were wearing anti-ballistic kevlar-fabric-and-advanced-laminate-hardshell body armour whilst training against pea-shooters and the softer ends of feather dusters.  (Which I believe is roughly what the complaints are all about. )



[1] Started one, many a time, but in my OCD way I never get it made of exactly the right stuff, and thus activate it.

[yamgrenade]

In my opinion it's an exploit. A legendary anything is pretty prized, and if you can get an awesome super-soldier by stuffing him into a room with a few pointy sticks, getting an elite military is way to easy.

[Jerg]

In the end I guess Toady will leave it in because of popular request.

I mean, if they remove it, lots of new players or players who are used to depending on danger rooms would be left with NOTHING and end up rage-quitting because their military would be slaughtered now.

Although I would prefer it if Toady removes this in a "hardcore DF mode" (along with other things deemed as possible exploits) and have that as a separate thing vs vanilla DF, that would give an incentive to people who rely on danger rooms and other exploits to at one point willingly go on to the next steps.

[Iton Ibrukrithzam]

In the end I guess Toady will leave it in because of popular request.

I mean, if they remove it, lots of new players or players who are used to depending on danger rooms would be left with NOTHING and end up rage-quitting because their military would be slaughtered now.

Although I would prefer it if Toady removes this in a "hardcore DF mode" (along with other things deemed as possible exploits) and have that as a separate thing vs vanilla DF, that would give an incentive to people who rely on danger rooms and other exploits to at one point willingly go on to the next steps.

I'd much rather see the players decide for themselves what does or not constitute playing "Hardcore" or "Legit" mode DF(or whatever people want to do to convince themselves they are superior overlords of short, hairy alcoholics) and how much they value playing that style than see Toady take time away from developing DF to develop a "Hardcore mode" that wouldn't really add anything new.


EDIT: Dammit, I told myself I wasn't gonna post in the necro'd thread!

[Starver]

What Iton said (regarding players' own choice[1]).

If it is to be nerfed, best choice (IMO) for Toady is to let it nerf itself when some involved game features are next changed, a bit at a time.  Re-introduce some training damage, dampen the skill-gaining from own-fortress traps, etc...

But, for all we know, 0.32.x (or whatever the version number will be) is already changed (drastically or subtly) and when we get our sticky little kitten-leather mittens on it, we'll find out how...

(Discussion about it is good, but I'm a little bit tired of "Toady must change this!" or (to a lesser extent, because it's a status-quo option) "Toady must leave it alone!" style comments in threads of this sort.  Also, it has not even been unknown, in the past, for contentious issues to be made somewhat irrelevant by various subsequent game-changes, rather than resolved one way/kept 'unfair'.  Toady does his thing and no doubt takes things on board, but it's pretty much the Pratchettesque version of One Man, One Vote.  (He's "The Man", etc...))


[1] Not so bothered about the necroed thread, given it's active again now, although wouldn't wanted to have done the necroing myself.