12 half-trained half-outfitted dwarves is not enough to repel an invasion. If they’re 12 metal armoured legendary dwarves then yeah, you’re fine until a few get killed unluckily.
- how do alerts and burrows interact? From what I gather the general idea is I can flag an alert to get a squad to go to a particular burrow, while popping the civilian alert to make them run to another burrow?
Right. Anyone not in a squad is put into the “Civilian” squad. You set the civilian squad alert orders to stick to the ‘safe’ burrow you designate.
- What’s the best way to actually defend? Depend on burrows? Give squads move orders? Or…?
Burrows are a pain in the ass to maintain as they need to grow whenever you give digging orders, which is always. So I just set a safe burrow in the dining room and then use the 's’quad menu to control my squads by hand.
Some other military advice for a large fortress:
[ul]
[li]If you don’t have good armour your dwarves will die. Armour is more important than weapons.
[/li][li]If your dwarves are untrained they will die horribly as soon as goblin marksmen start appearing.
[/li][li] Goblin marksmen squads are the only real challenge you’ll face. There are two alternatives to taking them out:
[/li]** Run a metal-clad legendary squad straight at them. Hope that none will be hit as they close the gap.
** Run some cannon fodder at them and send the legendary squad in afterwards when they’re occupied ripping the fodder apart. Keeps your legendaries safer but can be a drain on fortress happiness.
[li] You are going to get squads wiped out. When this happens you need another squad all trained up and ready to replace them. You have to set up a training pipeline so that new fully trained squads are available to instantly replace losses.
[/li][li] It takes at least years to train a squad.
[/li][li] At 100 dwarves, I like to have 6x4man squads, with two fully trained and the rest training in reserve. After battles you consolidate squads aggressively (so if both active squads lost a man turn them into one 6 man squad) and start a new squad training.
[/li][li] Make sure you keep the military-oriented noble spots filled.
[/li][li] Your military in training mode move between the barracks, dining hall and bed. You want these all close to the entrance.
[/li][li] 30% of the time forgotten beats will fuck you up 100% of the time. Their poison, attack and defense are heavily randomised. Generally they’re a pushover but every now and then they’ll kill your entire military with a single poison breath. Just avoid em.
[/li][li] Legendary beasts are pretty easy now with the new combat system. Pile enough dwarves on and you’ll get a lucky brain tear in seconds.
[/li][/ul]
jeffd
3222
Thanks for the advice! My military is currently outfitted in iron armor. No flux stone on the map, so I’m dependent on getting some from the mountainhome, along with steel.
Shortly after posting I had my first real goblin ambush. I had all the civilians run for the hills, sent the military out. They acquitted themselves well! Six kills, with no military casualties. Sadly there’s a civilian casualty, he’s currently in the hospital awaiting diagnosis. He’s my legendary woodcutter, I hope he’s going to be OK!
Aaaaaand as I was typing that he disappeared from the hospital. He’s back to work. Looks like a minor wound to his lower body. I think he’ll be OK!
No mention of corridor traps of doom? That was always my primary defense. A retracting bridge over a deep pit, triggered by pressure plates just before you cross the bridge, can handle the majority of most invasions. Add a few weapon traps followed by some cage traps (for stuff like bronze colossi) and security is complete.
Well yeah, if you want to do some construction without worrying about invaders that’s the way to go. But it’s less fun.
Thanks for the advice! My military is currently outfitted in iron armor. No flux stone on the map, so I’m dependent on getting some from the mountainhome, along with steel.
The most important part is “better than leather”. But yeah, trade is basically just good for military stuff (and clothing materials) once your fort is up and running. The steel stuff traders bring is ridiculously expensive though, so make sure you have three or four legendary stone crafters for income generation.
BTW, has anyone figured out what profit margin traders will accept? I generally offer 150% of the value of what I want, which is probably inefficient but less work than getting a conteroffer and having to wade through your offerings to avoid trading the important stuff.
It bugs me that the impregnability of fortress has yet to be addressed by Toady. With a draw bridge and not much else you can keep all the enemies at bay as long as you wish. You can even bait them into large cisterns where you entrance lies and then fill it with water or lava, making siege clean up a doddle. Any challenge is one you set yourself, essentially.
I think that’s inevitable in a game with as many construction options as Dwarf Fortress. There will always be a way to annihilate most attackers with machinery. Which is pretty Dwarfy, of course. Besides, Toady doesn’t seem to care about those sorts of game balance issues.
jeffd
3227
I do have a corridor of traps, as well as a drawbridge beyond that. In theory my fortress is impregnable. But the reality is I want a mighty military!
Oh, does Toady prefer dwarfs or dwarves? Dwarven or Dwarfen? Has he shown a preference?
jeffd
3231
My first military setback! An ambush, two goblin squads. I was too aggressive with my military, and I lost five dwarves, including my best melee combatant. Mostly it was because he went off alone chasing a goblin, ran into three more and got killed. Hilariously, despite being the most talented he died with not a single kill to his name.
I’m going to be more conservative with future ambushes, at least until I can get some steel equipment. I’m lacking in flux on this map (and magma, and running water) so I’m going to have to just see what I can get from the dwarven caravans. I’m really bummed about the lack of magma, I’m kind of already feeling the whole “what’s the point of this fortress” thing.
jeffd
3232
I’m messing around with embarking. Is there any easy way to guarantee sites with magma, rivers, iron, etc? I’ve done quite a few embarks and then used one of the dfhack tools to see if I have iron around, and even if I embark somewhere with shallow metals it seems more often than not I have no iron. DF strikes me as a game that’s probably pretty pointless without access to iron.
Mazuo
3233
I believe iron is a deep metal, but I’m not sure. I always take the long amount of time to find a site with a brook/river, heavily forested, and both shallow and deep metals when finding a site. I haven’t played in a couple months now, but in the current version there should be a magma sea deep enough on all maps.
The river should just be visible within the various grids you can move on the site finder and it’ll be there on the map. Keep in mind though that if the area is cold enough, it can easily be frozen for nine months of the year. Still can be very useful as you can channel out a path to a dug cistern with no danger of dwarves drowning in the those cold months, get floodgates put in, etc. and then when summer arrives enjoy filling up a tank that will easily last all winter.
Wolff
3234
If you are playing the latest version pretty much every site has magma, its just down deep. Typically there tends to be water down deep as well.
Iron can also be found by smelting goblin weapons and armor into Iron bars (also known as goblinite).
jeffd
3236
Yeah I’m just at the point in skill / fortress development where I’d rather get my iron from actual ore in the map, rather than relying on goblin kills.
Just generate your world with the highest setting for minerals. You’ll be tripping over hematite by level -6.
As for steel, it’s not neccessary for goblin attacks. Iron platemail provides very good defense against iron weapons.
Check out the wiki page on Armour. Basically dwarves can wear mutiple layers of armour. They can put on a chain vest, and then a plate vest, and similarly for other body parts. Generate enough iron armor for your entire military, then dump all your leather armour and have them suit up. This is hell to micromanage but provides you with reasonably invulnerable dwarves to handle goblins.
BTW, my recommendation for 20-30% of a fort being military was too low. I just checked my current fort – 39 of 100 dwarves are mlitary. (Another 40% are haulers, 15% are essential specialists like doctors and stonecrafters and 5% are nonessential specialists like nobles and butchers).
How do people like to build their forts at the start? Do you start with your final design in mind or do you build a temporary fort and then start your mega-fort construction?
Me, I like to dig pit-like entrances which can dive down a few levels and are flanked by murder holes to have dwarfs shoot at any descending bad guys. At the bottom it is retractable pit surface and bad stuff.
I’d usually dig a simple entrance that I’d block off later. I’d designate certain Z-levels for each purpose, i.e. general storage, workshops, residential, and build on a grid. That was enough plan for the start. When I’d got the basics up, and felt I could spare the labor, I’d work on a more serious entrance corridor. When that was done and trapped, I’d seal off the original entrance, which was generally just a simple up/down stairway down 10 levels or so.
Cool. Any prefered starting item/skill strategy, and if so, why? There is no perfect answer, of course, but I would be interested to hear what people like, and why?
