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[highmax28]

I'm constantly having issues with making an army or even traps to deal with. Usually when I get to the point I get iron, I get an ambush or something else "fun". I honestly had at one point, a magma forge WITH adamantine, and just as im starting to build traps, WHAM! Ambush! Half of my population is murdered, and the rest is left with assorted broken limbs (poor, poor dwarves ). Any way to possibly rush a military or make traps faster, would be very helpful. Also it would be nice for any other general tips for a somewhat new player 

[FuzzyZergling]

Try buying some initial weapons and armor from the first few caravans?
Making your fort easily locked down is also a good idea, just pasture/restrain a few non-pet animals outside and you should be able to spot ambushes and lockdown before any dwarves die.

Militia generally traines best with 2-3 dwarves in a squad, so keep that in mind.

[highmax28]

Thanks! And just wondering, what would be the best way to getting iron fast? Dig deep as hell for magma or just burn trees?

[FuzzyZergling]

Trees, definately.

[Garath]

also, dont be afraid of putting some early copper or silver traps down. In fact, silver is great for spiked balls, and copper or glass does decent for serrated discs in the beginning. Dont be shy to make a cage trap at the end to capture the captain, who is usually the strongest and may be able to dodge past any traps

Dont put too many weapons in one trap. It can block and then you dont have anything anymore. As soon as you find tetrahedrite or galena, you can make copper/silver things. In the beginning just burn some wood to charcoal, done.

For traps, consider this: discs have a hard time penetrating anything of better quality or material, but are devastating against unarmored opponents. The goblins may not be struck in the head or torso, but it'll be raining arms and legs, even when its just glass diss. Trolls already have a tougher skin, so, plan B

Spiked balls are not exactly killing weapons. Only a lucky strike to the head or the chest at the heart has a good chance. They are however excellent at disableing. Copper is decent, silver and bronze good, bismuth bronze ideal for this weapon. The blunt force impact ignores most armors and breaks bone half the time. When its the second toe of the right foot, thats not too important, but in the end they will break almost every bone in a body

menacing spikes do mostly internal damage, tearing guts and arteries, as such they can quickly kill, or be useless, it really depends. They do have a chance to sever limbs, but less than other weapons

Giant axe blade is basically a pumped up version of the serrated disc. However, the disc has 3 attacks and the axe just one, making the disc more powerful generally speaking

screws can be used in traps too, but i never have, so no opinion there

weapons:
putting normal weapons in traps is a good way to use loot from goblins that you dont want to smelt down to bars and dont want your militia to use. A weapon trap with whips and scourges is pretty high on my list to avoid running into. Similarly, large knives can be deadly even in quite unskilled hands, but you might want to stick to more traditional weapons. Putting them in traps is not a bad solution

Note that half of my traps will damage but not kill, if i want it that way, so you'll still need some militairy, possibly. Mixing different weapons in one trap will make it more deadly in my opinion. Make it whatever way you feel comfortable and note that many people say using too many traps make the game boring


so yeah, i'm quite good at traps, less so at training a militia, someone else may help there

[Neowulf]

If you have access to sand don't overlook glass trap parts. Sand is really cheap to embark with, comes with a free bag, and it takes half the fuel to make a trappart compared to metal.
Glass corkscrews are very effective at severing stuff, and discs can pretty much ensure an exposed skin hit from the attack spam a 10 disc trap can do.

Plus they're great trade fodder once you can upgrade to iron/steel traps.

[yamgrenade]

To deter little stuff, you can make wooden cages and put them in cage traps, which will hold off anything with out trap-avoid. For those, get some war dogs and put them on the edges of a hallway so nothing can sneak down the middle.

[Poindexterity]

silver and wood are your friends.
silver is one of the best materials for blunt weapons and its easy as hell to get right from early game.
wooden shields are even easier.
a good weapon and a good shield are all one needs to start a military.

[i2amroy]

Personally I find that the best way of setting up a military to deal with those who get through your traps is to just go through and pick out 6-8 peasants (preferably with some starting military skills) and set them up with the metal uniform. Then you can just have them train year round (or on 1 off 1 if you prefer to dodge bad thoughts) until they are needed. As long as you depend on traps to do your main bit of damage, you don't need much of a military, and then once the first wave of goblins are wiped out your dwarves will equip the goblinite since they are set to metal uniforms.

[daggaz]

Going to put a second voice in for cage traps.   They are incredibly simple and resource cheap to make, and they are so effective they are essentially overpowered.   I always toss 9 in the front of my 3-wide entry hallway, and put some wardogs in behind those.  This will stop essentially all early attacks dead in their tracks.  By the time ambushes and such !fun! starts arriving with any regularity, you should have a metal and weapons industry well up and running.  Just dont forget to make some extra cages for quick switches between attacks. 

[Nan]

It's well worthwhile embarking with two military dwarves. They should have proficient weapon skill and their second skill isn't that important. Teacher can be a good choice. Or a defensive skill. Also embark with with bronze weapons for them, or weapon-making supplies. If you embark with the supplies required to make steel weapons you'll love the results.

As soon as possible, set them to training in a barracks. Initially their uniform doesn't have to be anything fancy. I prefer helmet, cloak, shield (wood is fine), weapon.

These two dorfs will spar a lot and quickly build up their skills. It is possible for them to be legendary by the time the caravan arrives in autumn. Not all pairs will train that quickly, but they'll definitely be legendary in time for ambushes, and will turn the gobbos into masterwork blood smears. It is best to keep these two dorfs alone together until they are "legendary+5", that is, until they move like bullets and cut like buzzsaws. You can always create other squads for training immigrants.

While there is a bit of learning curve to military, I think it's well worth learning. The return on investment for a couple of dorfs with a weapon and shield is pretty darn good.

[gunnarig]

what i usualy do regarding military is to embark with 2 dwarfs set to crossbowman 2 ambusher 3 and then possibly dodger 1. then i have one dwarf proficient with an axe + teacher just 1 lvl possibly dodger and sheild user. Those two dwarfs with ambusher set as their highest skill embark with a crossbow and leather armor. and the standard embark also gives you an axe for woodcutting. this is what i use for the core of an axedwarf squad and a crossbow squad. i find its quite common to get a few hunters from imigration wich get reqruited to the crossbow squad upon arrival. as soon as the first ambush comes those dwarfs should be capable of chopping the goblins to pieces. when they have finished the goblins off i make a speardwarf squad and deny them any other weapon than the iron spears the goblins were carrying. Also i have one dwarf with 1 point in animal taiming and embark with 2 dog females and 1 male as soon as they have puppies i train them into wardogs and assign them to the military, be careful with the dogs thogh as ive been told that if too many dogs die your dwarfs will get bad thoughts from loosing their pets. to avoid that ive found making the kennel beside your main entrence hallway and assigning a pasture over the kennel plus the hallway makes your hallway be guarded by unassigned dogs 80% of the time. regarding traps ive found the serrated disk ones to be quite effective so i keep one row of that and then a row of cage traps behind them. but i feel traps are a bit overpowered and i like it alot more taking what comes head on with a horde of dogs and dwarfs.

[Garath]

when you assign wardogs to someone, he's likely to make it a pet. How to stop that? assign the person you want to have the dogs as the only animal trainer. From now, after training, they will follow him/her. Just give anyone you want to have a wardog or other war animal a turn and it will be fine. No naming pets, no tantrum

[kardwill]

I start working on my military as soon as I have any weapon grade material. Copper chainmail, silver hammers, wooden crossbows, bone bolts, shell helmet or leather armors... Put the "metal armor" uniform on them, and they'll automatically improve their gear as better weapons and armors become available. Get as much weapon-grade stuff as you can get your grubby fingers on, and don't be too fussy.

Magma forge, steel, adamantine... All of these are the mark of a rich fortress, and a rich fortress will draw many goblins. So your military should be combat-ready before you have them.

No need to aim for the best as a starting point. Just build your military with anything you can find, so you won't get butchered. The steel-and-adamantine clad elite squad will come later, when simple survival will have been accounted for.

[Psieye]

Thanks! And just wondering, what would be the best way to getting iron fast? Dig deep as hell for magma or just burn trees?

For beginners, the trees yes. Digging down to the magma within one week of embark and churning out steel by autumn is for when you're used to the game and have streamlined your embark plans.

Typically you won't get an ambush until the start of the 2nd year. Within that one year you need to come up with some anti-ambush plan, be it "wall yourself off completely, you want more time to build up" or cage trap spam or intricate 'dodge-me' traps or a militia.