Dwarves With A Passion

so yeah, i realized recently that i have not recieved a human or dwarven caravan in a long time, and checking the (D)epot access, i see that the forest surrounding my fort is FAR too dense to allow caravans through. so i've begun another project, a massive road that is will stretch from my fort to the edge of the map to allow a caravan's passage.

what worries me though is that my dwarves may be ambushed while they are out of the safety of the fort, so i'm having my remaining 3 soldiers (one died of suffocation recently, so now its three) patrol up and down the roads construction site to minimize the chances of my civilian dwarves getting attacked. is this a good idea in anyone's opinion.

all my beginning 25 war dogs are now uncontrollable, in a rather heartbreaking way. the two soldiers that had been assigned half the dogs died in the ambush i described in another topic, and now all the dogs keep walking back and further between my fort and the place their master was struck down. the soldier that suffocated had the other half and now all his dogs just wander around the barracks. their doggy sadness is palpable! they still attack kobold theives though.

You can tie some of your dogs at your entrance to provide stationary but stable defence against thieves.

Just as an fyi (in case you weren't aware) the guard suffocating bit is caused when they get damaged in the throat (I believe).  The biggest culprit is guards sparring with weapons and no armor, or with armor and poor armor wearing ability.  Have your guards train in wrestling with their armor on for a while before giving them weapons to avoid it :)

(I lost more guards that way before I figured it out...)

Underground roads and YOU!

you can build your road underground! it must be 3 spaces wide, and free from obstruction. there must be a row of 3 ramps to help wagons into the tunnel. once underground, you can set as many traps as you like, as well as gaurd animals.

with an underground road, you can wall the outside off in safety, with this narrow trade route the only vunerability. done properly it can be a mega-project.

remember, all you need is a couple kittens to reveal ambushes. the rest is all about the traps.

 Actually, the only things animals can detect that traps cannot are thieves. Ambushes are detected by traps the normal way, I think. Thus put your detectors after the hallway of traps unless you wish to deal with a population problem.

This is only half of the truth ^^
Ambushers will trigger traps (and die ;D), when they walk into them, but they will not be "detected" - you get no notification and the guys who were not killed by the trap remain stealthed.
So some "visual detection" alongside the traps is still good to have.

I think what Duke is saying is that putting your traps closer to the outside world than your dogs, will save on dogs.  Otherwise the dogs get used up fighting goblins who would otherwise succumb to traps.

I have ten rows of 3 traps on my trade road.  Before I rearranged things, I had two dogs tied just inside those traps.  Goblin archers killed them.  Now I have the Trade Depot further down the road, past a small courtyard.  Overlooking the courtyard is a watchtower with fortifications which are manned (dwarfed?) by marksdwarves during caravan visits.  The wall surrounding the courtyard has several sets of double doors into the rest of the settlement.  My sentry dogs are tied up just behind these doors.  Thus they can detect stealthed invaders while staying outside of bowshot range of the traps.  They are in pairs, and they have killed everything that they detected so far.

I feel incredibly inspired by the underground road idea!

Definitely going to have that in my next fortress.  :)