Bay 12 Games Forum
Dwarf Fortress => DF Gameplay Questions => Topic started by: K41N on January 24, 2013, 05:17:10 am
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So, I have three questions. The first two are about military training. My fortress is now a couple of ingame years old and I've hit a population of >100 Dorfs and I'm currently a Barony. I've got three Squads: One Squad of Marksdwarves, One Squad that is supposed to be Axedwarves and also functions as my Guard and a random melee Squad. They all seem to train really slow. My Marksdwarves are my oldest Squad, but none of the initial Squadmembers is still alive afaik. The first Siege nearly killed my whole military. Anyway, none of my Squads seems to get better at any military related skill. My Guard has been training for years now (with wooden training Axes) and they are still all "Dabbling". Only my Marksdwarves have improved, because I captured some Goblins and Trolls and used them for targetpractice. So my Marksdwarves are actually quite good now (not Elite Marksdwarfes, but they can kill some Goblins). So, do I have to train my melees with livetargets, too? How would I do that? Is there another way? Except for Sparring in the Barracks, this doesn't seem to work (at least not fast enough). By the way, I've properly configured the Alarms and Schedule. So they actually train in their Barracks. I don't think this is a mistake on my side.
My next Question is about the Champion I got when my Fortress turned into a Barony. How do I make him work? He's supposed to train my military, isn't he? Do I have to select a military Dwarf for that post? I kinda used a random Dwarf, and he does nothing training related. He's just sitting around with "no job". I allready looked at the wiki and they say I can use whatever Dwarf I want. But maybe I missunderstood something. So some general advice about the Championwould be cool.
Last but not least: After I hit a population of >30 Dorfs I gut a lot of attention from Goblins and the like. I got Ambushes and one Siege (and a Titan I managed to kill and some Minotaur that is now in my Zoo). But nothing like this happened for the last 2 ingame years. What happened? I mean, I didn't even kill all Goblins, some got away, others landed in my Cages and were used differently (see above), but there should be enough Goblins left on the world to properly raid me, right? I DEMAND more action. I've got 30 Soldiers that need more training. I NEED a Siege :-/ What can I do?
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If you quit wanting the siege, it will show up immediately.
Military I don't really know but my military basically didn't even 'start' until someone with a high teacher skill migrated and jumpstarted everyone with the appropriate skills over the years. I'm on year 12 or so and my best dwarf has only been a legendary warrior for about two of them - That's just from demonstrations and sparring but I could barely get them to the point they start to spar without a teacher.
I think eventually they'll build the skill from holding and watching demonstrations anyway, but look for someone that's a good teacher and draft them and see if they'll teach everyone the teacher skill.
Edit; My champion was my best fighter who was also my best teacher. Besides changing his tile, I didn't notice any difference but the ability to mark your favorite/strongest dwarf as your champion is a nice touch nonetheless, I think.
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Okay, so it's normal that Goblins give a break every now and then?
Okay, I'll look for Dorfs with relevant skills and try to play around a bit. I hope, it's going to help because I need some skilled melee dwarfs that protect my Marksdwarfes.
So, the Champion is basically useless? The test on the wikipage sounded differently. I thought he would be some kind of teacher that runs around and teaches all my military Dwarfes how to singlehandedly kill a Dragon. :-/ Is this a bug?
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Okay, so it's normal that Goblins give a break every now and then?
Okay, I'll look for Dorfs with relevant skills and try to play around a bit. I hope, it's going to help because I need some skilled melee dwarfs that protect my Marksdwarfes.
So, the Champion is basically useless? The test on the wikipage sounded differently. I thought he would be some kind of teacher that runs around and teaches all my military Dwarfes how to singlehandedly kill a Dragon. :-/ Is this a bug?
Well mine doesn't do that any more than he used to - he spars with his squad (though not so much since he hit legendary+ because nobody else is near him), offers demonstrations to them, sleeps in their barracks; He could perhaps do this if you assigned multiple squads to the same barracks to train, or maybe he really is some sort of super-teacher and I've just not noticed. But with that unique tile I always notice him just hanging out in the training courtyard doing apparently normal training routines.
For the goblins, I guess there are periods of activity and inactivity - One time they siege'd me 3 seasons in a row so it can go the other way too. That was a hell of a clean up effort... It's dependent on so many things though. Are you producing vast wealth? Trading away lots of excess to the caravans? Excavated a large number of tiles? Embarked near or far to/from goblins? Do they ride mounts when they arrive?
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I would say that I'm producing Wealth fast enough. :D
Anyway, I don't have any digging projects right now, because I actually wanted to start exploring a cavern beneath my fort with one of my squads. Just for teh Fun of it. I usually trade away lots and lots of Crafts in exchange for some more food, some well crafted armor and the likes. Whatever I find useful. I haven't checked how far away the next goblin citiy is, but since I've allready been sieged, that shouldn't be a problem, right? They were listed as a civilization on the embarkscreen.
The last time I saw them, they had mounts. And Trolls. Is this important?
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I gave two dwarves training swords and wooden shields and set them to permatrain. Somehow, within a year, they sparred enough to get to elite status. Within a year. One was quick to anger... as far as I know, QtAs are the only ones you should put in your melee squads. Keep the squads two member only.
I stopped using danger rooms because it felt like cheating. Now I know that this is possible, though... it kind of makes me want to go back using them. Having dwarves that are quick to anger be the only ones that are of any use, and then not even being guaranteed that they'll spar... feels kind of broken.
I've just put the elites in other two man squads, to instruct noob dwarves. It's not going so quick, but they should get a good, solid education.
Marksdwarves will train quick enough if you give them targets. Producing sufficient bolts and finding enough wild animals is all you need to worry about.
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Yeah, training is slow as a snail in molasses right now. I miss the 40d sparring where two military dwarves would spar all over the fort when activated.
I use 1-spear-per-tile danger rooms but even with only one spear it still feels like cheating. You may want to try http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2012:Live_training
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Live training only gets you so far - after a while, your soldiers will make quick work of goblins and animals, netting them very little experience. On the other hand, they'll become hardened individuals and gain titles, so it's still worth the effort.
I find that in the absence of teachers and/or carefully organising your military into sparring couples, you can get slow but steady progress by never activating your squad but simply giving them a barracks and disabling all their jobs. They'll advance really slowly - barely more than a level per year - but if you set a squad of rank newbies with no teachers to train, they'll spend all their time organising inefficient demonstrations, never getting anywhere.
Archers are much easier to train - all they need is a sufficient number of targets and some free time. It's also important to remember that they should not have a barracks and should not be activated for training - currently, all this achieves is force them to waste their time building melee and defensive skills.
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Thanks for the hints so far. I don't think I'm going to split my soldiers into 2 dwarf squads. I'll go with the live training. I wanted to explore the caversn anyway, so I'm going to try to catch some meat blobs and use them for training for now.
However, I would still like to read a bit more about the Champion (http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Champion)? Has anybody a Champion close to the discription ine the wiki? Should I train an Axedwarf until he is really good at his stuff and then assign him the Champion role in hope of him training my whole military? There has to be someone who tried something like this :D
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Thanks for the hints so far. I don't think I'm going to split my soldiers into 2 dwarf squads. I'll go with the live training. I wanted to explore the caversn anyway, so I'm going to try to catch some meat blobs and use them for training for now.
However, I would still like to read a bit more about the Champion (http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Champion)? Has anybody a Champion close to the discription ine the wiki? Should I train an Axedwarf until he is really good at his stuff and then assign him the Champion role in hope of him training my whole military? There has to be someone who tried something like this :D
"The Champion will lead combat demonstrations in barracks, much like a militia captain would."
Oh. My champion IS my militia captain and I guess that makes him somewhat redundant in that position.
If you go find the Drunken Masters thread that was fairly recent they go over having an institutional military (well, that's all I can think of to call forts that rely on formal training.)
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Don't complain too much about lack of sieges. When you get enough time into it they will be constant. As in, it's late in Autumn eagerly awaiting this caravan, so I can have some items I'm desperately in need of. But oh wait... Caravan and siege show up at same exact time. Not trading. a "wagon" dies, but it didn't have what I needed... This went on for about 5 years in my last fort. Every caravan was accompanied by siege or ambush, and they either got scared and fled, or wiped, but mostly fled!
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Archers are much easier to train - all they need is a sufficient number of targets and some free time. It's also important to remember that they should not have a barracks and should not be activated for training - currently, all this achieves is force them to waste their time building melee and defensive skills.
Is this true? Perhaps it would be better to give them an archery range (but no barracks) and set them to train. Will that work?
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Is this true? Perhaps it would be better to give them an archery range (but no barracks) and set them to train. Will that work?
They're only supposed to go to the range when not training.
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I find that improving dwarven skills (mostly Fighter and their weapon skill) increases the probability of sparring by a lot.
anyways i've got a new idea for live training, mostly for training defensive skills.
and archery targets are honestly useless. Too slow, too much of a hassle to make work. You just can kill something in the caverns.
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I find that improving dwarven skills (mostly Fighter and their weapon skill) increases the probability of sparring by a lot.
anyways i've got a new idea for live training, mostly for training defensive skills.
and archery targets are honestly useless. Too slow, too much of a hassle to make work. You just can kill something in the caverns.
I just had a picture in my mind of sparring/training.
"Comon lets spar!"
"First, let me show you how to hold that sword and show you some basic moves. Now this is the handle, it's blunt, you hold it in your hand. Don't try to grab the pointy end, it's sharp and will hurt you. Don't let go of the handle, that's the blunt bit over there, are you paying attention? Don't wave to your mom with the hand holding the sword, PAY ATTENTION DAMN IT! Now, if you hold the sword level and sort of push it forward like this, you've basically got what we call a stab."
etc etc
so, that is why they first go through demonstrations untill they can be trusted not to stab their own foot during sparring.
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and archery targets are honestly useless. Too slow, too much of a hassle to make work. You just can kill something in the caverns.
Legendary marksquad of murderfuck says no, archery targets are not useless, and unless you have difficulty designating a room, they're not a hassle either.
But, hey, I don't use danger rooms or expect my dwarves to train to legendary within 5 years, either.
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So, I seem to have created 859000 of wealth and I have reached the Status of "City". I still only have a Baron and I'm missing more Sieges. Whats wrong?
I also seem to have 4 Traders on the map, just standing on the edge. They don't seem to affect caravans or belong to one. For now I'm just ignoring them, is this a bug? Or do they have a purpose? They're just listed as "Friendly" in my Units list.
And my caverns seem to be rather empty. I had a SB kill some (or most) of the population, but they're supposed to repopulate, aren't they?
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So, I seem to have created 859000 of wealth and I have reached the Status of "City". I still only have a Baron and I'm missing more Sieges. Whats wrong?
I also seem to have 4 Traders on the map, just standing on the edge. They don't seem to affect caravans or belong to one. For now I'm just ignoring them, is this a bug? Or do they have a purpose? They're just listed as "Friendly" in my Units list.
And my caverns seem to be rather empty. I had a SB kill some (or most) of the population, but they're supposed to repopulate, aren't they?
that's known as the trader bug. They're migrants who were traders to your fort before and now bug out. DFHack has a fix for this, allowing them to become productive members of your fort once more
and repopulate the caverns... you mean with dwarfs or animals/monsters? in both cases yes, you'll get more dwarfs/ yes there will be more critters
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So, I seem to have created 859000 of wealth and I have reached the Status of "City". I still only have a Baron and I'm missing more Sieges. Whats wrong?
I also seem to have 4 Traders on the map, just standing on the edge. They don't seem to affect caravans or belong to one. For now I'm just ignoring them, is this a bug? Or do they have a purpose? They're just listed as "Friendly" in my Units list.
And my caverns seem to be rather empty. I had a SB kill some (or most) of the population, but they're supposed to repopulate, aren't they?
that's known as the trader bug. They're migrants who were traders to your fort before and now bug out. DFHack has a fix for this, allowing them to become productive members of your fort once more
and repopulate the caverns... you mean with dwarfs or animals/monsters? in both cases yes, you'll get more dwarfs/ yes there will be more critters
DFHack also has a tweak/fix for this.
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So, I seem to have created 859000 of wealth and I have reached the Status of "City". I still only have a Baron and I'm missing more Sieges. Whats wrong?
I also seem to have 4 Traders on the map, just standing on the edge. They don't seem to affect caravans or belong to one. For now I'm just ignoring them, is this a bug? Or do they have a purpose? They're just listed as "Friendly" in my Units list.
And my caverns seem to be rather empty. I had a SB kill some (or most) of the population, but they're supposed to repopulate, aren't they?
that's known as the trader bug. They're migrants who were traders to your fort before and now bug out. DFHack has a fix for this, allowing them to become productive members of your fort once more
and repopulate the caverns... you mean with dwarfs or animals/monsters? in both cases yes, you'll get more dwarfs/ yes there will be more critters
DFHack also has a tweak/fix for this.
dfhack has a fix to repopulate the caverns? interesting. I'm sure you can't mean the trader bug fix, since I already mention that one.
So how does the repopulate cavern work? iirc it usually got stuck on one monster still chilling out somewhere. I never had a problem with it and got lots and lots of troglodite spams, but other people may have the problem
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So, I seem to have created 859000 of wealth and I have reached the Status of "City". I still only have a Baron and I'm missing more Sieges. Whats wrong?
I also seem to have 4 Traders on the map, just standing on the edge. They don't seem to affect caravans or belong to one. For now I'm just ignoring them, is this a bug? Or do they have a purpose? They're just listed as "Friendly" in my Units list.
And my caverns seem to be rather empty. I had a SB kill some (or most) of the population, but they're supposed to repopulate, aren't they?
It's possible your fortress is on an island or a continent where hostile enemies are not present. In that case, you won't get any sieges and only FB's will attack you.
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So, I seem to have created 859000 of wealth and I have reached the Status of "City". I still only have a Baron and I'm missing more Sieges. Whats wrong?
I also seem to have 4 Traders on the map, just standing on the edge. They don't seem to affect caravans or belong to one. For now I'm just ignoring them, is this a bug? Or do they have a purpose? They're just listed as "Friendly" in my Units list.
And my caverns seem to be rather empty. I had a SB kill some (or most) of the population, but they're supposed to repopulate, aren't they?
It's possible your fortress is on an island or a continent where hostile enemies are not present. In that case, you won't get any sieges and only FB's will attack you.
But he's already gotten sieges.
Are you still not getting any? That's disappointing! Still not getting any, Ka --- i mean K41N?
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If you want some action you could just let the Kobolds take your stuff, because then they'll ambush you. Are you still getting caravans?
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Most effective way of doing this is designating a crafts stockpile outside your fortress.
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If you really want sieges:
Smooth all the walls (if you haven't already)
Engrave all those walls
Let thieves and snathers be succesful
Make expensive useless crap
Build a megaproject to do something fun and crack up wealth in any other way
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Sorry, that I didn't response for a while, but I didn't have so much time to play DF and therefore another post wouldn't have made any sense.
Anyway, I'm in year 8 now with my Fort. I've reached a created Wealth of over 1 000 000. I've even been visited by a Dragon (I wasn't able to catch him, though. He kinda burned the cage he was in :-( ). Which is kinda good, because it adds some Fun, but Goblins are still rare. I have had two Ambushs since my last post and no Siege. So I think, the next Siege isn't so far away anymore.
I've spent a lot of time increasing the wealth further by carving walls and just crafting useless stuff. I hope thats enough.
Btw, I'm not on an Island or something. I've settled on the main continent and every Race (Human, Elf, Dwarf and Goblin) was listed on my embarkscreen as neighbours. I'm getting a lot of caravans, so my Fort really is reachable. (Well maybe not RIGHT NOW because of the dragonincident that kinda burned some bridges, but after I rebuilt them, everything should be fine again.)
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reminds me of my first dragon. It was walking innocently towards all the cages and raps and stuff untill it spotted a kitten, flamed and destroyed all the traps + set the map on fire
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Hey, I would like to say that 2-dwarf training squads are excellent for sparring. They spar far, far more often than standard 8-dwarf squads.
also, if you go and practice on wild animals/sentient enemies, you can honestly expect a legendary fighter/weapon user in 2 or 3 years, as well as very honorable defensive skills.
Dark stranglers make for excellent training, though, if you are sufficiently well armored.
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Sooo, I had my second goblinsiege. Guess I just had to be a bit more patient.
I also had a human Siege, without ever attacking human traders. That damn Crossbowmen nearly annihilated my whole Military though :-/ I'm down to 66 Dwarves again.
So, I kinda have a new Problem with that Traderbug. It seems that my migrantwaves almost always include at least 2 Traders of some sort. As soon as a Tradermigrant enters the map, the Migrantwave stops. So basically, I am getting Migrantwaves of 2 Dwarves right now, which basically is nothing. I need to get up to 100 dwarves again to replenish my Military and get my Fort working again. (Of my 66 Dwarves, 20 are in the military and another 10 are Children. So I only have around 36 Dwarves left. 34 If I don't count the 2 Vampires that are permachained in prison)
So my new question is: Is there a way to fix this? I really need more dwarves :-/
Oh and: My Duke died. I can't assign a new one, the post doesn't exist on my Nobles Screen anymore. Also a bug? I hoped the Liason would just create a new Duke, but he didn't.
Sorry for asking so many questions, but I have checked the wiki first and my problems aren't listed under "known bugs" or the topics page.
P.S.: Megabeasts have been no problem for my military, I killed a giant glob and a giant toad which breathes fire and flies and the like and most of the time I just needed one Axedwarf for them. But a bunch of Human Crossbowmen killed something around 30 of my Soldiers and a couple of Civilians. Kinda crazy :D
Edit: I still have a Champion, though. He's still lazy, but he's there.
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dfhack has a fix for the bugged migrants. The bug is mentioned in the section about migrants.
http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Migrant
also, a simple search (right sort of top of the forum bar) of +bug +migrant
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=101379.msg3784901#msg3784901
plus some more
on the duke:
http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Baron
If your baron dies or goes insane, you will not be able to appoint another baron and consequently get other nobles which are upgraded from baron, including count and duke.(verify)
goes for duke too and is pretty much accepted as verified
the wiki is your friend
the search function is your friend