I've supplemented my serrated steel disks with numerous spiked wooden balls. "Spiked wooden ball" just doesn't have the same ring to it as "giant steel axe blade" or "serrated steel disk", but we'll see how they perform.
I have a catapult, too, but I'm doubtful it's going to do much. I have, however, been training my army from day 1, drafting anyone who hits "Legendary". We'll see how they hold up.
A player's first siege happens only once in a lifetime ... here goes. Wish me luck.
Pity giant axe blades aren't more useful... They're easily one of the coolest trap components. Might just have to "tweak" them a little bit...
Don't forget to tell us the gory dertails!
I've spent the first few hours of the siege playing "goalie", grabbing idiot civilians standing at the door, drafting them into the army, and sending them to "Last Ditch Ladder", which they'll all rush up in all their civilian glory should it come to that.
Next time instead of having the goblins show up while I'm still herding the cats I think I'll just draft every last stinking dwarf in the place and assume no civilian will ever just stay in the lower levels and smelt ore instead of walking upstairs to the front door like an idiot.
I'll have the "last ditch squad" already prepped and ready next time, no ad-hoc organizing. I'll have a plan for everyone.
Anyway I'm grabbing civilians and drafting them as they run to the front gate and I see a huge volley of crossbow bolts rise up from my fortifications. I hadn't expected that; the right side fortification wall acted as a rampart giving my marksdwarves a clear field of fire to the z-level above. I didn't mean to build a rampart; I was shooting for "ambush". Live and learn. The rampart seems to be working so far, but my intention was for the gobbos to walk over some traps first as they came around the hump then into a barrage of bolts at close range. I figured, "Hit 'em after the traps, use less ammo."
My entrance is a backward L-shaped alcove with a "hump" at the end of the "L". I cleared away the ramps so the enemy would have to come down on the left side of the "hump" then come around the "hump" into the "kill zone". My archers were set so they would (I thought) get a shot at the gobbos as they came around the hump and through the first series of traps, but they had other ideas. First kill goes to me!
code:
+
+Cat
^^ +
v++^ $ +
v++++^^^^+M
++++++++++
Ent
Anyway that's a really rough sketch, the "$" is my trade depot, the "^" are outdoor traps, "v" are the slopes down from the z-level above, "Ent" is the heavily trapped one-and-only entrance. "+" is the fort. "M" is where all the marksdwarves are standing. "Cat" is the poorly-placed catapult. The operator has already deserted his post.
The "hump" is hollowed out with fortifications. I dug it out to handle attacks from the other side of the "L".
All the gobbos are on the z-level above the hump. They brought a lot of archers, but I think there's only 1 square up there that actually has line-of-sight to the Marksdwarves' firing position. I'd have rather beat the archers back with serrated metal disks, but if they're lining up for my archers one-at-a-time I can work with that, too.
I wanted to avoid an open exchange of bowfire, even from behind fortifications, but better fortifications than open ground, eh?
The siege operator is still alive. He abandoned his post because I didn't turn off hauling. As soon as he got back to the catapult he ran in terror, though. Catapult scores 0 hits for 0 shots fired.
The gobs are coming around the hump now and my archers are drilling them. Apparently the trade center is neither cover nor concealment; both sides are exchanging fire through it like it's not even there. I'm going to have to build some walls if I want my "ambush" concept to ever work.
One of the goblin archers is using my own fortification against me, firing through the fortification at my civilian stragglers inside. No hits yet, I don't think.
Definitely gonna be some "lessons learned" from this siege ... if we survive it.
Lesson learned: entrenched fortifications. Maybe even a moat. But you can't just let the bad guys walk up to your fortifications. Gotta have at least a channel in front of 'em.
Did that spearman get his heart punctured by a spiked wooden ball or crossbow bolt? Heh, he's dead in a few seconds either way. More are coming though.
They bought it, too. Axemen, spearmen, macemen, now they're just stacks of equipment and rotting flesh. The gobbo crossbowman decided to run around the trade depot and charge the east wall. She went down in a hail of bolts.
The score:
Dwarves 5
Gobbos 1 + 1 dog
Traps triggered: 1. How embarassing.
One of my Marksdwarves inexplicably ran outside -- another Darwin Award contender by the looks of it. I'm not blameless either; I'm the one who decided if the entrance is defended well enough it doesn't need a door. On to the next lesson ...
There's one little entrance that leads into an underground corridor, which then leads to home-sweet-home. This way, I control the environment, and I get to build a lovely little corridor with raised drawbridges on the sides that hide walls of fortifications with marksdwarves back behind. That's an ambush.
Plus, it's all just so stylish. One big, imposing door on the outside, fortress on the inside.
The gobbos on the upper level are the only ones with even a chance at escape.
They're retreating east, which means my guys can take the right-hand slope up to their level and get within firing range of at least some of them.
A crossbowman escaped. An axeman just took a bolt to the leg and started trailing blood. He won't be escaping.
Another crossbowman escaped, but there's a steady rain of bolts coming down on the last few stragglers. There's a good chance they won't make it. Bah, both hit in the arm then my boys ran out of ammo, those are 2 lucky goblins.
Well, that's 4 that got away, the rest left a respectable pile of 12 bodies. I took 2 casualties, one dead and one spinal injury (minor from the looks of it), plus one dead and 2 injured dogs.
How'd I do? Not well. My defenses were designed to do 4 things: force engagement at close range, soften the enemy up with traps, disperse the enemy's forces, and concentrate fire.
Of these goals only half were met: my defenses did cause the enemy to split up and come at me piecemeal into concentrated fire. Still, it could've been a lot worse. This was a relatively inexpensive learning experience.
Then I can let all the soldiers outside to shoot down the invaders.
my main problem right now is that the goblins lose morale too soon, which means that about 50 % of them flees after having come into range of the marksdwarfes.
So my next big project is to create a large moat around the map with drawbridges sothat I can trap them all before letting out the infantry to slaughter them all.
Eventually after that I may create a fake exit, forcing them to run through an immense number of cage traps for my arena fights.
If you can survive the mood swings after a siege, you're set. Considering this was your first siege, I'd say you did rather well.
Of course, I've never had a siege, so I wouldn't rightly know, now would I?
FWIW there is no real advantage to killing lots of gobbos unless you really want to melt the iron/steel stuff. they bring just as many next time if you kill the min amount or if you kill them all. It's actually quite annoying to haul all the extra cave spider chitin thongs and whatnot back.
Edit: duh, Quift already beat me to that suggestion. Note to self: read ALL the posts before replying.
[ January 29, 2008: Message edited by: BurnedToast ]
This next fortress has moat, drawbridge, cage traps, stonefall traps, marksdwarves and everything.
Question: can animals or gobbos break through (stone) wall grates? I use these as secondary gate, raised and lowered by lever. I also have an emergency drop grate to seal off my chasming corridor, in case angered creatures emerge from the deeps. But are they effective? I read in a fortress story that skeletal elk broke through doors.
[ January 29, 2008: Message edited by: ShunterAlhena ]
Sadly, I won't be able to finish it until the damn trees grow back so I can slay them and use their carcasses for axles. I'm kinda worried, as I haven't had any seiges, snatchers, or thieves invade my fortress yet, so I figure I'm due for one soon. Hell, I haven't even had a random wild animal attack, unless you count the time a Mud Man followed one of my haulers away from the cave river while all my Marksdwarves were asleep. That particular section of the fortress is now locked off, not to be reopened in the near future. Damn those frogmen, there's a pair of platinum nuggets next to the river bank that I can probably never get now. Maybe I'll fill the river with magma or something. [/ramble]
quote:
... melt the iron/steel stuff ...
Lessons Learned, in no particular order
Minutemen: You can't let anyone but your miners work anyway, because they all rush the entrance, and crossbows are cheap, so you might as well turn your peasant problem into a peasant solution and give 'em crossbows. It doesn't take long to train to novice, and a pack of novices behind a fortification could be a real nightmare to an approaching army.
Don't Bring a Knife to a Gunfight: If your fort defense has come down to hand-to-hand combat you've done something wrong. Your best chance of stopping the enemy is when they're outside and you're in. Fortifications, chokepoints, traps, all that stuff works best when the enemy is forced to come after you. The murder-hole ambush is clearly a last resort, as if that doesn't work, where do you go from there?
Attacking fleeing enemies crossbows are still best: they can't outrun a crossbow bolt, and if you hit one in the leg it's Michael Vick Family Hour -- assuming you keep dogs.
Fortifications Are a 2-Step Build: You've got to have something next to your fortifications to keep the enemy from walking up to them and using them against you, hence everyone's reliance on moats, drawbridges, channels, and the like. I can't channel because I've already dug rooms out on the level below, so I'm going to experiment with statues. If they hold the enemy away from my fortifications and give me a clear line-of-fire my "moat" will look like Medusa's lair.
See How They Run: I'm assuming the next wave will flee in the same direction, so I'll have a few surprises waiting for them on their way back to their hovels.
Fortifications Are for Shooting From: It seems obvious, but building fortifications anywhere through which you won't be shooting at the enemy is a waste and possibly even a liability.
Move. Fire. Pick One: Units can't seem to move and fire at the same time. The more fire you concentrate the greater the advantage of initiative.
What a rush. Can't wait for the next one! How often do they come on average?
It's because of this that elaborate and army-size traps are quite useful. One giant spike pit or drowning room can take out quite a hefty number of gobbos, provided it's set up right.
quote:
Originally posted by ShunterAlhena:
<STRONG>Forumsdwarf: watch out, sieges are a tricky thing. I disposed of my first siege with relative ease (and I felt this surge of adrenaline you did :) but the with the help of the Dwarven Merchants Guild guards, they were slaughtered like the animals they are!), my second siege with heavy losses but the main fortress and civilian population remained mostly intact - then the third came and it absolutely vanquished us, eighty dwarves were slain and our halls ran red with blood. They spared a baby who hid under the corpse of its mother. Hope they killed the kid and didn't make him a slave...This next fortress has moat, drawbridge, cage traps, stonefall traps, marksdwarves and everything.
Question: can animals or gobbos break through (stone) wall grates? I use these as secondary gate, raised and lowered by lever. I also have an emergency drop grate to seal off my chasming corridor, in case angered creatures emerge from the deeps. But are they effective? I read in a fortress story that skeletal elk broke through doors.[ January 29, 2008: Message edited by: ShunterAlhena ]</STRONG>
your yhe guy with the swastika in the throne room then?
quote:
Originally posted by Kagus:
<STRONG>Once a year, at roughly the same time. Next time around you'll have twice as many goblins as you did this time, and the time after that will be three times as many, addind roughly twelve more goblins each time until you've got hundreds of the buggers sitting on your doorstep. Also, after a while, you'll start getting them more than once a year.</STRONG>
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.........M#
.#========#
H#.........
.D.........
H#.........
.#========#
.........M#
###########
But the worst came only after that the next season arrived my second gobling siege. It was twice the size of the first with TROLLS. I really thought i was done for but still tried to do my best to defend my fortress. I had no time to train any new dogs or soldiers i only had 5 novice wrestlers and the 2 marksdwarves I positioned the troops the same way as before and waited. This time marksdwarves stayed on their positions and killed 10 first goblins and after that...
All other goblins started to retreat! I was completely baffled. I had succesfully thwarted my second siege and the only casualty on my side was my hunter sleeping in the bushes when the siege came.
Goblins are cowards!
quote:You might well be screwed regarding the stuff that you say is above ground, but for other things have you considered building shafts down (right down to the bottom level if necessary) and building connecting tunnels between them? One of my old designs had this sort of thing, where everything bar the trading depot was unreachable without going down a trap-filled staircase to the very bottom of the fortress and going back up another set of stairs. Was a slight pain in the arse, but it worked :)
Originally posted by ColonelTEE3:
<STRONG>The one major flaw to my base, which is now unfixable, is that a large portion of it is outside. Or atleast, a large portion of our traffic is outside. My city is seperated into two districts, with outlying buildings around it. To the west, above ground and built into the mountain side is my housing quarter and dining room, and to the east, below ground, is my workshops, Well, farms, and barracks, and to the north in the canyon side that overlooks us are various noble homes and a large magma facility, so everyone scurries from one place to another above ground. So when the goblins attack, i can't order anyone to go in doors, because that pretty much cuts off everyone, from everyone else :)</STRONG>
quote:If you've got some form of defence in place, I wouldn't worry too much about that :) I'm now in summer of my fourth year and rhesus macaques have never even tried to enter my fortress - a load of them got slaughtered by humans coming to trade, but the thieving bastards have never actually bothered my dwarves. Dogs have chased away a couple of kobold thieves and every time I've been notified of a snatcher it was already caught in a cage trap :D
Originally posted by Untelligent:
<STRONG>I'm kinda worried, as I haven't had any seiges, snatchers, or thieves invade my fortress yet, so I figure I'm due for one soon. Hell, I haven't even had a random wild animal attack, unless you count the time a Mud Man followed one of my haulers away from the cave river while all my Marksdwarves were asleep.</STRONG>
quote:
Don't Bring a Knife to a Gunfight: If your fort defense has come down to hand-to-hand combat you've done something wrong. Your best chance of stopping the enemy is when they're outside and you're in. Fortifications, chokepoints, traps, all that stuff works best when the enemy is forced to come after you. The murder-hole ambush is clearly a last resort, as if that doesn't work, where do you go from there?
Attacking fleeing enemies crossbows are still best: they can't outrun a crossbow bolt, and if you hit one in the leg it's Michael Vick Family Hour -- assuming you keep dogs.
You have a point, obviously, in that enemies are best disposed without ever getting hurt, but I still respectfully disagree on some level.
In my current fortress, on its ninth year, I have maxed pop and I spend all my time and manpower on expanding economy and production and some personal projects. This leaves precious little time to build an elaborate automated defense or somesuch; I could of course make drawbridges, ofc. But given my fortress' location, smack dab in the middle of the map, and with errant hills everywhere, this takes time.
I also have (No.. had) ample iron supplies. What'd I do? I have 70 dwarves currently enlisted in platoons with different melee weapons. Plate, shields and melee weapons for all but the guard and the marks platoon. When the enemy cometh, I fall back into the barracks, and wait for the enemy to come inside my primary walls to the small area near the trade depot, stairs down, and bunkers, and simply charge their asses. I used to lose a few dwarves (as many as nine once, but that was my fault), but nowwadays I rarely do. Perhaps it's because my map is usually so peaceful (it's haunted ffs!) that I expect all of my noninjured dwarves to reach champion soonish (15 champs atm), but the melee approach serves me well because my ammo supply is limited; not a lot of bones, I can't spare too much wood, and I'm out of iron.
quote:
wait for the enemy to come inside
So the murder hole ambush really does work. Nice to know.
Do you station your men under a stairway and wait for the gobbos to come down?
[ January 30, 2008: Message edited by: Forumsdwarf ]
is there any way to get more sieges? modding?