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Military/Civilian ratio and other things

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Chaoticjosh
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« on: October 26, 2008, 06:37:12 pm »

Please take note that i'm still a big newbie at this game.

I have a population of 35 dwarves in my fortress right now. Being paranoid as I am, i have enlisted 5 of the more useless migrants into my army. Because this was before i had any metal weapons to speak of, i just had them all train wrestling.

Right Now, i have 3 legendary wrestlers, and 2 elite wrestlers. I've finally acquired metal to smith and i made some iron short swords to give them and retrain them into swordsdwarves.

aside from that, my military is supplemented by 30+ (and growing) war dogs that i've ordered to follow them around.

with this small band of good soldiers and horde of war dogs, am i prepared for any future attack? any suggestions or personal experiences would be nice.

also, my fort is situated in some small hills. i'm slowly but surely walling off a giant square of land. their are no doors to the wall, but is accessible via stairway from in my fort. the purpose of this is to guarantee i have a very large section of land to obtain wood and shrubs should my defenses fail and i come under a prolonged seige. is this a good idea?
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Marlowe
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« Reply #1 on: October 26, 2008, 06:47:48 pm »

Do you have armour? If you don't, then giving iron swords to people to train might be the best of ideas.

No doors? Seriously, you're just walling yourself in? How are merchants and migrants going to reach you?
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Boksi
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« Reply #2 on: October 26, 2008, 06:49:46 pm »

No, he's making one of those big enclosed gardens that can only be reached from the fortress. You have to go through the fortress to get there, and you can get to the fortress normally.

Anyway, I'd say you're well prepared for any attacks barring multiple marksgoblins.
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penguinofhonor
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« Reply #3 on: October 26, 2008, 07:24:11 pm »

My forts are usually 1/4 to 1/3 military, but that's because I hate useless migrants a bit too much. Some people make theirs over half military, just in case they get attacked by a horde of goblins greater than the entire world's goblin population. In one thread there was a guy who said that every single dwarf in his fortresses was at least part-time military.
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Chaoticjosh
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« Reply #4 on: October 26, 2008, 07:53:56 pm »

Do you have armour? If you don't, then giving iron swords to people to train might be the best of ideas.

yeah, my only source of iron though is a source of hematite that i found through exploratory mining. the god of RNG's though has blessed me with two migrants that specialized in wood burning and furnace operating respectively. i've switched those two into specialized full time producers of charcoal and iron bars, switching off all of their other labor skills just so they have no distractions besides eating, drinking, and sleeping. despite all that, they are still struggling to keep up with demand and while i've tried equiping my soldiers with iron plate armor and other stuff as fast as i can.

perhaps i should turn off my specialized green glass maker so all the charcoal gets funneled into making more bars.

what should i do to prepare for markgoblins?
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Deon
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« Reply #5 on: October 26, 2008, 08:38:45 pm »

Legendary shielddwarves are good. But occasional arrows sometimes may end even their lives.
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penguinofhonor
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« Reply #6 on: October 26, 2008, 09:03:45 pm »

Legendary shielddwarves are good. But occasional arrows sometimes may end even their lives.

Emphasis on occasional. I've had champion dwarves run out and kill goblin armies with nothing but wooden shields and leather/bone armor. They block all the arrows. I want this fixed at the same time that overpowered bows and crossbows are fixed.
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susancreature
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« Reply #7 on: October 26, 2008, 09:12:13 pm »



My main defense that has worked through many many seiges is a narrow entrance into the fortress filled with cage traps and weapon traps. (Cage traps first so you can capture dragons and titans and fun stuff for your menagerie!)  Then make fortifications above the narrow entrance and train plenty of marksdwarves.  You don't need to worry immediately about expensive metal armors  - just metal bolts if you can make them.  (Though according to a thread in the forum, there IS a chance that goblins can shoot up through fortifications, it's supposed to be very rare.)  I also never give my military dwarves melee weapons right away - I try to get them in some armor and become wrestlers to get their armor ability up.  Then they survive better when they start training with weapons... I used to constantly have military dwarves suffocating in bed because of sparring wounds. 

Metal becomes less of a problem later provided you have plenty of fuel to burn - you can strip enemy goblins of their armor and melt it down for iron.
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Demetrious
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« Reply #8 on: October 26, 2008, 10:01:05 pm »

Legendary shielddwarves are good. But occasional arrows sometimes may end even their lives.

Emphasis on occasional. I've had champion dwarves run out and kill goblin armies with nothing but wooden shields and leather/bone armor. They block all the arrows. I want this fixed at the same time that overpowered bows and crossbows are fixed.

Dear god, that's wonderfully effective...

How do you get them to train up shields? Just equip them with shields and set them to sparring? Will sparring with wrestling enabled boost shielddwarf skill?
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penguinofhonor
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« Reply #9 on: October 26, 2008, 10:06:25 pm »

Shield skill increases as long as they're wearing shields. It might in fact be hindered if your dwarves can wrestle because they'll dodge instead of using their shields. But that wrestling is far more useful than a small boost in shield training speed, and they'll still gain shield skill quickly if they're wrestlers.

If you like fast-moving dwarves, then don't let them equip shields until they have legendary Armor User. Because that decreases the speed penalty their armor puts on them, but only increases when they take a hit to the armor, which means shields hinder the experience gain for that greatly. But super-strong, super-fast dwarves don't need legendary armor user skill because they're fast enough already.
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Orkel
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« Reply #10 on: October 27, 2008, 04:22:49 am »

I like to keep my militaries small. I think that it is much more convenient and easy to make a small, well-equipped elite champion force, because they are very much enough to kill most goblins. Hell, even two champions can completely eradicate several goblin melee squads.

Marksdwarves.. I have around 3-4 of them, they're very deadly when shooting from towers.
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Another
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« Reply #11 on: October 27, 2008, 04:51:47 am »

Marksdwarves are deadly and you only need to kill about 1/3 of each goblin squad to route them but with 4 marksdwarves you still have them all going to sleep simultaneously sometimes. And either going to drink or to fill waterskin, later being 3 times more rare. And going to eat to the dining hall or to get provisions for their backpacks 2 times less often.
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Chaoticjosh
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« Reply #12 on: October 27, 2008, 08:26:25 am »

despite all my recent achievements and all my trading and whatnot, no migrants came, twice in a row.

i'm slowly learning the value of specialization, to keep my wood stockpile full for my burner, i have 1 specialized deforester. Being a legendary woodcutter, he clears assigned forests so fast that 10 or so haulers have trouble keeping up with him. what are some other things i should consider specializing in?

I've heard that sparring can be dangerous, but never saw any injuries. looking at my barracks one time though, everything was covered in blood! seeing this, i checked and rechecked the wounds of every single one (of my 5) soldiers. none had any wounds. is it possible for them to recieve and recover from superficial wounds without my noticing?

finally, in the event that i do get attack, do the enemy AI have a predetermined route in mind, or will they just cluster around the first entrance they find?
« Last Edit: October 27, 2008, 08:31:23 am by Chaoticjosh » Report Spam   Logged
Gothmog
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« Reply #13 on: October 27, 2008, 09:40:07 am »

despite all my recent achievements and all my trading and whatnot, no migrants came, twice in a row.

i'm slowly learning the value of specialization, to keep my wood stockpile full for my burner, i have 1 specialized deforester. Being a legendary woodcutter, he clears assigned forests so fast that 10 or so haulers have trouble keeping up with him. what are some other things i should consider specializing in?

I've heard that sparring can be dangerous, but never saw any injuries. looking at my barracks one time though, everything was covered in blood! seeing this, i checked and rechecked the wounds of every single one (of my 5) soldiers. none had any wounds. is it possible for them to recieve and recover from superficial wounds without my noticing?

finally, in the event that i do get attack, do the enemy AI have a predetermined route in mind, or will they just cluster around the first entrance they find?



I allways keep specialised legendary Miners arround, legendary engravers so when I finally bulid a REAL dining room instead of just a temporary one, they will fill it with lots of masterwork engravings (of Urist McAxedwarf striking down a goblin, turning him into a bloody pile of bones and guts. Good for the appetite it seems  Grin )
I generally want specialists for every important job in my fortress as soon as I get some useless idiots immigrants, so my production orders for beds/barrels/armor/drinks/whatever are followed at once and not just after they cleared the grant meeting hall of little stones Roll Eyes.
But maybe thats just me and my wierd preferances, and something else is better.

EDIT: And yes, sparring is deadly. Dabbling soldiers + steel waepons = DEATH. Sad Try to train them in the best armor you can get, with the worst weapons you can get (I use full steel plate and silver weapons, it prevents the worst damage)
Or have thm train to be legendary wrestliners before they start using dangerous equipment (so they become Tough, and the worst wrestlers can do to each other are broken bones Tongue)

And yes, my sparring area is covered in blood, too. Check this :
http://www.dwarffortresswiki.net/index.php/Wound
page for info about wounds, the light gray and brown ones might bleed but heal instantly IIRC (unless spine and/or the brain gets hurt)
« Last Edit: October 27, 2008, 09:48:37 am by Gothmog » Report Spam   Logged
Chaoticjosh
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« Reply #14 on: October 27, 2008, 09:57:56 am »

My first goblin ambushes are arriving! i just got two back-to-back. the first one was a group of 5 goblins that killed a novice mason that was helping to build the walled garden, and a nearby hunting dog before my champions got their and totally destroyed them. i honored the death of the peon mason for warning me of the goblin ambush by building him a fine wood casket by my best carpenter. he was a friendless man and thus caused no tantrums, amen.

the second ambush got two dwarves i actually liked though! they attacked my hunter, who instead of running away, tried to be a hero and died trying to fight them with his crossbow. my soldiers got their, but one champion was much faster than all the rest, so he got their first and was ganged up on, dealing mortal injury to him before the other champions and the wardogs arrived. total costs so far, 3 dwarves, 1 hunting dog, 1 war dog. he would have lived had he not run ahead of everyone! is their any way to make them march in formation?

the attacks are random and panic inducing, but i feel somewhat empowered. with my population now down to 32, i'm training a replacement military dwarf, this time in marksdwarfship.
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