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[Triaxx2]

Sure it's a siege and not just an ambush?

[Brotato]

Yes. It said, "A vile force of darkness has arrived!" and then it said siege in the upper-left hand corner.

[Nan]

Sieges come really early in DF. Usually the second spring you'll get a siege.
Stranglers are easy, you can actually just draft everyone and wrestle (punch, bite, kick) them to death, you'll only suffer a few injuries.

Beak wolves are a bit more dangerous, but wrestler squads will drive them off, probably without fatalities, but perhaps some serious injuries.

Frogmen are actually armed, which makes them a bit more dangerous.

[Mitchewawa]

Turn your miners (you better have two on embark) into a ramshackle militia and unload a whirlwind of picks. Try to do this outside; on the inside the body parts will take forever to pick up and your civilians will get distracted and possibly killed.

[Chaos Armor]

Yes, you start getting sieges at 10 population.

[EddyP]

Whenever you get a migrant wave, check their strength, agility and toughness. If they've got good stats in some or all, put them into the military unless they have a really important civvie skill.

[Brotato]

At population 74 I got my second white tigermen siege. Because my militia was out of place, separated, hunting badgers. I lost 3 or 4 while having them retreat to the Fortress. At the end of the siege I had lost 15 dwarves as I continued to throw one in whenever someone died;bringing me to a population of 59. I migrant wave increased my population back up to 70. Three seasons later I was building a secondary wall and drawbridge when a goblin ambush made me send my militia of 20 dwarves out to drive them back. When they were halfway across the map a huge siege of White Tigermen came with the general, consisting of 80 White Tigermen, 8 war jaguars, and 23 war polar bears.

My militia was absolutely crushed. The rest of my fortress retreated inside, at which point I armed them with what little I had and opened up the drawbridge. I let down the bridge and held them back for what little time I could until even the children were slain. So ended Crushedgold, bastion of the Black Helms, part of The Work of Bulbs.

Any suggestions for my next fortress?

[Nan]

It's essentially impossible to fight off DF sieges with melee dwarves alone, eventually something will fuck you up. Ideally you want to arm all the haulers with crossbows and train them up on wildlife, the point isn't to kill things, but rather to "thin the herd". Things like white tigermen, war elephants and those war polar bears, will curl up on the ground and cry like little girls if stuck with a simple bolt. Your melee dwarfs can then go around executing the crippled enemies (it takes marksdwarves forever to actually kill), and also acting as a meatshield for the poorly armored marksdwarves.

[Mickey Blue]

I've done pretty well with Fortress Defense II (which I have on all the time) using pure military (no traps and no walling in), my setup is as follows (when I say 'squad' I mean a group that works together, I keep my actual squad numbers low so they train better due to training bugs):

Speaking generally, once I have a fort up an running I can usually run it well with around twenty dwarves doing production (food, furniture/good production, weapon/armor production, resource gathering, etc).  The rest are all drafted into the military and get sorted according to their skills.

One squad of bladed dwarves (axe, sword, etc),
One squad of blunt dwarves (hammers, mace, etc),
One squad of piercing dwarves (spears, etc),
Three squads of crossbow dwarves,
Breed lots and lots of war dogs,
The rest of my non-production essential dwarves get drafted as cannon fodder infantry, they get set to use any melee weapon they want.

I set up walls so there is one opening 3x3 wide at one side, I build platforms on either side of the opening and keep my war dogs pastured in the opening itself to catch people sneaking in (I keep a few inside for breeding). 

When a siege comes I get all my production dwarves to take cover inside and send the military out.  I put one squad of crossbowmen on one platform, the other on the other platform.  I place my fodder out with the war dogs to kelp soak up some early kills, then I have my primary melee dwarves behind them.  Behind my melee is my last set of crossbowmen. 

The enemy comes in and starts getting peppered by bolts as they get close and come through the gate, then they run into dogs/fodder and hopefully turn their attention to them, then my main force attacks full on (hopefully to distracted enemies), and my archers behind help finish them off.

This has been pretty effective for me and adds the extra challenge of not using walling-in or traps.


For general equipment obviously 'full steel/adamant' is best but failing that you should make shields and helmets your primary armor to make, once everybody (or at least your main melee guys, I sometimes outfit my archers but seldom truly 'outfit' my infantry.  If they happen to find a loose helmet from an enemy or unfortunate primary melee dwarf they can use it but I don't go out of my way, their job is to soak up damage and distract arrows) has those start on everything else as shields do really well to block/attack and head-shots are quick-kills. 

For industry I make sure I bank a lot of wood so I can get my armor/weapon industry up and running quickly and if I get sieged in I have some to work with, I also get a good butchering industry going so I have plenty of food stored up and bolts as well.  I make sure I have an interior source of water and a hospital with plenty of supplies to treat my wounded (its worth it to save a really skilled dwarf).  I try to start my military ASAP even if its just two dwarves training and often try to start a few dwarves with some skill in various weapons to help train others (I don't know if that actually helps but it couldn't hurt).  Lastly you can gather up useless equipment from enemies and/or make goods to sell and get some extra metal and/or weapons/armor from the caravans.  Also sometimes I'll 'modify' my no walling in rule and allow floodgates or doors to block my entrances.  These are still prone to building destroyers so its not 'true' walling in, but can help block weaker enemies giving me more time to set up my military for defense.