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[Brotato]

I'll be using the Fortress Defense mod for the first time tonight. I'm wondering about tips for how I should design my fortress, tips for my military, what I need to set up first, etc, etc? I've found vanilla a tad too easy, and am looking for a bit more challenge. Any others you think I should know from personal experience would really help, thanks.

[NecroRebel]

I've found that the easiest way to deal with FD is to simply start with the materials to make bronze armor and weapons for a pair of dwarves, a proficient weapon/armorsmith, and then make bronze armor and weapons for a pair of dwarves who train 2/3 of the time from as soon as you can start them off. Even if that pair start as untrained peasants, they'll be quite capable enough to handle the first winter's and second year's sieges without injury, and by the end of the second year you can have steelworks set up and probably some more soldiers starting to train, too, if you want. Heck, oftentimes once those 2 are equipped with full steel, they'll be capable of defeating any FD enemy, even the challenge mode stuff, since the large number of sieges makes for very, very fast training of anyone who survives them.

Anyway, since most of the higher-tier FD enemies are trap avoiders, so eventually you should build some architecture traps or spike traps. Also, a drawbridge is a necessity; if your soldiers are defeated, you really do need some way of stopping the remaining foes so that you don't lose the whole fort. It might take years to replace those super-legends, but it's better than replacing the whole fort!

[Nan]

Unfortunately, 2 legendary soldiers, however awesome, wont be enough to deal with multiple simultaneous sieges, particularly when war elephants are involved. The main problem is when they get swamped and spend all their time dodging and no time fighting, and eventually an attack will make it through (perhaps due to enemy skill increasing). When that attack is getting kneed in the back by a war elephant, the results tend to be unpleasant. Soldiers, however awesome, can also eventually become tired or even exhausted, which impairs their combat effectiveness.

What does work well is embarking with 6 Proficient Weapon Users and a civilian (your choice). Bring steel making supplies for steel weapons (axes and spears are solid choices), and perhaps steel helms. Put them in squads of 2 and have them train non-stop.  Initially they are okay with just a weapon and shield, they don't need armor, even unarmored unskilled wrestlers will make a mess of dark stranglers so elite soldiers will be fine. However do give them armor before too long, preferably steel or candy, but bronze or iron is better than nothing - you don't want your legendary dwarf to start limping because a strangler bit it in the foot and severed a nerve.
Put nearly all immigrants into crossbow squads - just full squads of 10 marksdwarves. Make sure to train up their skill on wild life, but otherwise let them perform civilian duties. When enemies come, station all the squads to activate them.

This combination works well, the general population hails bolts down on the enemies, once an enemy passes out from pain a melee dwarf will quickly execute it and the marksdwarves will start hailing on new targets. Don't wait for the enemy squads to come to you - charge them with a giant "Dwarfball" and wipe them out while they are still milling around disorganized. Divide and conquer, don't get flanked.

Whether you want to have traps is up to you. A few is a good idea to catch anything which slips past the militia. But since the whole fortress is armed, a military defeat will tend to result in the loss of the entire population, making backup defenses unnecessary. Hopefully though, the entire population should win, making backup defenses unnecessary.

[slowpokez]

The first time that I played FD i made 2 mistakes, first 1 forgot about the fliers wich simply flew past my military and started slaughtering innocent peasants.
And never underetimate War-Elephants, sent out 6 legendary fighters in full steel only 1 returned.

[Triaxx2]

Never forget to add moats. The more the better. Then you can channel anything that's not amphibious into kill zones.

[Brotato]

What should I do for doctors?

[Loud Whispers]

What should I do for doctors?

Immediately search for a team of specialist doctors. Set up a pig tail/rope reed industry producing thread and cloth. Also, containers and cabinets to reserve threads and cloth are amazing.

[outofpractice]

Biggest thing is that you will lose dwarves. Lots of dwarves. Have a thriving casket industry going and try to isolate your military dwarves as soon as possible. Tantrum spirals are more than likely.

[Nan]

What should I do for doctors?

If you get an immigrants with high doctoring skill, make them full time doctors (all doctor skills enabled, no other skills enabled, and not in a combat squad). Also turn many haulers into doctors (all doctor skills enabled). Swift attention from a dwarf with dabbling medical skill is better than slow/no attention from a dwarf with higher medical skill. If you have multiple wounded, you simply need multiple doctors.
Make sure to have a very well equipped hosptial. I'm lazy so I usually just get all my hospital supplies from the caravans, they sell a lot of yarn/thread, splints, crutches and buckets. You can also import bags of plaster and lye (for soap making) from the outpost liason.


One other thing which is crucial; to reduce civilian casualties, learn how to use "Civilian Alert" to make your civilians stay where it's safe. It's easy to do actually, create a burrow which covers your dining room, bedrooms, and anywhere else dwarves have a legitimate business being during a siege. Then when a siege comes, go to military(m)->alterts(a), use the arrow keys to select the burrow and hit enter. It will be set to "Civilian Alert" and all civilians will stay in that burrow. It helps massively, because otherwise your civilians will pop outside to get some sun in the middle of a siege. Even if you forbid everything on the surface they still come up to hang out. They are idiots. But they obey civilian alert, so use it.

[Garath]

Biggest thing is that you will lose dwarves. Lots of dwarves. Have a thriving casket industry going and try to isolate your military dwarves as soon as possible. Tantrum spirals are more than likely.

I just had this mental picture of an undertaker dwarf smiling. "Good, Good, another flying siege"

[Brotato]

What about Fortress design? What needs to be placed where and how far from the entrance? What industries need to be set up first? I've gotten two migrants waves totaling six Dorfs, and have two soldiers equipped in full copper armor with silver war hammers. I embarked with one doctor, two points in all doctor skills, is he enough for now? What's the next priority before I start getting sieged?

[Blah]

What about Fortress design? What needs to be placed where and how far from the entrance? What industries need to be set up first? I've gotten two migrants waves totaling six Dorfs, and have two soldiers equipped in full copper armor with silver war hammers. I embarked with one doctor, two points in all doctor skills, is he enough for now? What's the next priority before I start getting sieged?

I design my fort entrance as follows:

A 5x20 pit with a 1x20 catwalk in the middle. At least 10 z levels deep, preferably 20. On the sides are Marksdwarf fortifications. On the catwalk are weapon traps. Enemies will try to dodge them and end up jumping into the open space. Beneath the catwalk are two 5x10 bridges. Their purpose is to make dodging off the catwalk nonlethal in case your melee dwarves fight things on the catwalk. The barracks where your melee fighters wait for enemies should be far from the catwalk or you'll lose dwarves. This construction can be expanded with falling magma traps over the catwalk, spike traps instead of weapon traps, or even just a water trap to push enemies off the catwalk. Building all this takes a good while, so just start a narrow tunnel lined with weapon traps in the beginning, then gradually expand it.

Industries to be set up first? Plump helmet farm and then the steel industry with magma forges and several magma smelters. Everything else is secondary. Build a few silver serrated discs as trade goods to buy leather and plaster powder. I like to play with abundant minerals and just use spare metals to build barrels, bins and even tables and chairs. Going outside to harvest wood will become pretty dangerous after a few years and should be avoided. Instead, seal off part or all of the caverns and just use them as wood farms. Once you have a legendary armor and weaponsmith, make some adamantine equipment for your melee fighters.

Speed and efficiency is of the utmost importance. Only dig out what you need at the moment and always keep your smelters, miners and armor and weaponsmith and metalcrafter busy. You should aim for 4 full squads of military dwarves at least.

[mattyb3]

Be prepared to be hit, and hit HARD.

My current 5 year old FD fort has an uncountable amount of dead siegers on the list.(35 pages) It also has  710 body parts, 592 corpses, and countless bones. More Grimly, it also has 124 filled coffins. My population is 109, with 50 full time soldiers. Pratically all of them have had some form of injury, with the legendaries having many scars. I'd say at least 25 military dwarves have died in service.

There is a dedicated hospital with 10+ doctors,god knows how much of the military they have treated.

My fortress is not astheically pleasing; It is almost entirely geared up for military needs, and there are so many dropped weapons, corpses and body parts they cannot all be collected in time before they rot.

Here are some pics of my layout: (click to enlarge)



East entrance, with 3 drawbridges for crowd control. On the bottom right you will see some weapon traps. You will need good soldiers and good traps to defeat the huge sieges you will face



refuse stockpile, barrack and hospital, the barracks is 4 floors high. I hate doing it, but i have just started using a qauntum stockpile for refuse, far too many body parts..

and finally..



The ossuary. No much respect for dwarves here, no invidual tombs, and certainly not enought room/time for them

You will be sieged heavily, and often. in eyars 3/4 i had 100+ enemies in one siege, a whole mixtures of blendacs, tigermen, strangalers etc.

The tiger men will be the most persistent, Armed with copper/silver and sometimes bronze, they will siege you in huge numbers from year 2+

Blendacs are one of the more dangerous, they are undead, and feel no pain/fear/nausea. They come with bronze by default, the siege this year all came riding GIANT badgers, that sure was intense.

Goes without saying you'll need some way of getting steel.

oh and have fun, this mod brings fact the fun and !!fun!! when normal vanilla enemies bore you.

[Chaos Armor]

I have nothing to say except... tigermen can swim, beware that.

[Brotato]

I just got sieged at 13 Dwarves. I thought I wasn't going to get sieged until 20?