Bay 12 Games Forum

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Originally posted by JustinKace:
<STRONG>I get this issue regularly too. Archery range set up all proper, heaps of targets nicely spaced and pointed in the right direction, crossbows and practice bolts abound, squads stood down, and at most only one marksdwarf wannabe training at a time.</STRONG>

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I have never (ok, that doesn't mean much running my first fortress) seen more than one marksdwarf at the archery range. Because I can't produce bone bolts for parallel practicing I did not built a second target, but I'm shure this way you can have 2 practicing markdwarves. Oops, just read about 'heaps of targets'    :roll:

I order them off duty most of the time, so when one has finished practicing the second is often entering after seconds. Funny then to see a peasant cleaning the floor from broken bolts in front of the target while the next novice marksdwarf tries to hit the target behind; no risk no fun.

[ March 18, 2008: Message edited by: Wawotsch ]

[ March 18, 2008: Message edited by: Wawotsch ]

But please don't ask why he took it. And why his right hand now also holds a shield, and if this all adds for defense. Bucklers are not on his wish list, so he might have taken this precious artwork for use in combat.

[ March 31, 2008: Message edited by: Wawotsch ]

It does not display currently enabled job types by dwarfes but at least jobs by profession ("seems one of my woodcutters had to help milling lately"). This may narrow the search.

The foremanutility  seems to show more information but refuses to run, maybe its the new game version or my Windows Blista...

I have a stockpile restricted to bone bolts next to the archery range and disable bone for all other ammo stockpiles. They usually pick them up just before training and leave without bone bolts, I've seen no more markdwarves running around with bone bolts in their hands.

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Originally posted by Dame de la Licorne:
<STRONG>As long as the cage is not made of wood, I believe you can sell pets to the elves.</STRONG>

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The elven caravan currently visiting my fortress just sold me wooden cages. They seem to ignore their own laws sometimes...

Back to cats: how long do they life? When do I have to keep some 'spare cats' before the old ones pass away?

I dug a channel on a wrong place and built a wall above it later. This area was completely inaccessible, but there was 'light'. Some years later trees started to grow.

A staircase will not be sufficient, all tiles must be channeled from above to inherit light and the 'above ground' property. But on the other hand no glass roofs are needed.

Ranged weapons were always a terrible threat to every army of the middle ages. But there might be some differentation between the weapon types in DF:

crossbows had in fact a good chance to penetrate most types of armor because of the high kinetic energy delivered with heavy bolts, it was the first reliable armor penetrating ranged weapon. Crossbows were also easy to fabricate, and did not need a lot of training to be accurate, that's why it was the poors people weapon of choice.

As a drawback, the rate of fire was very slow, you needed some mechanical help to load the bow, and limited range to achive a penetrating hit.

On the other side, bows as the english longbow or compound bows had lesser penetration potential (but it was not impossible), and it took years to become a well trained marksman; accuratly aiming a bow pulled with 80kg takes time. Bows took a long time to produce and needed to be stored carefully to prevent degradation. But they provided an incredible rate of fire and were effective on longer ranges.

Whenever chivalry did not hinder the effective use of these weapons they played a great role on the battefield. But it was not a noble way of fighting, so it often was not used or used in a wrong way, for the nobles it was more important to fight according the rules of chivalry than to simply win a battle.

Btw. two fingers shown for the victory sign, this comes from the feared english archers taunting their enemies showing the two fingers used to draw the bow string.

[ March 21, 2008: Message edited by: Wawotsch ]

[ March 21, 2008: Message edited by: Wawotsch ]