Bay 12 Games Forum

...Went around killing villagers collecting bronze and iron knives, and found a goblin vampire out in the street. Proceeded to shove fifty knives in it's chest, decided to let it live, then, guess what? As I walk away, it shoved it's hand straight through my multiple hoods and iron helmet, and my head exploded in gore.

Ah, Wlecome to adventure mode.

Migrants bring a lot of useless donestic animals which can be used as meat shields, especially the larger ones like yaks. It helps to condense them into a cage, wait for the foe to step on then, and ambush with a sufficiently  trained militia. This is especially useful against a single enemy or small group that can't attack everyone.

If you manage to catch, fame, and shove them all into a constructed cage just outside your fortress, you can release them to tear the invaders apart by pulling a connected lever, but if it's wild, I doubt it will help much. The last goblin siege I had just walked around killing wildlife and never got hurt.

In my military experience, axes are good for chopping off limbs, but you don't need to chop an enemy in half to kill them, so this leads to diminishing returns. Really, besides being able to dismember trolls, they don't have much going for them. Swords are very good because they can sever limbs, impale enemies, and break bones occasionally. In other words, swords do a bit of everything. Spears are best against large beasts like trolls, giant Olms, Ogres, and most Mega and Semi-Megabeasts as well as armored humanoids because they punch through all armor, scales, or hide and will destroy vital organs often, unless hitting extremities, in which case they often shatter bone, or just sever the part. Their tendency to get stuck is a slight flaw, but they often incapacitate enemies anyway, making it harder for them to retaliate. As far as blunt weapons go, hammers are the best, but I don't have too much experience with them, other than having used them in adventure mode to easily knock out enemies in one shot. Note: all of this research done with steel. Other metals may vary.

Nice science by the way. I would definitely like to see some stuff on foriegn weapons as well.

Also, just wondering, you said that some Dwarves may not be able to wield a weapon with one hand. Does wieght affect this, allowing an adamantine squad to circumvent this limitation, or will they still require two hands for effective use?

Number requirements determine how many dwarfs are actually drafted to active service as proper military. If the "minimum" is equal to or even higher than the number of squad members, everyone gets activated and that's it. If there was a "too many desired" bug, it's been fixed. My five-dwarf squad trained just fine with a setting of minimum ten. If you want your squad to train at maximum efficiency in .40.x, just leave the training setting as is ("minimum ten").

If dwarfs don't actually train, it may be that they haven't been activated - "s"quad commands - "t" (activate to follow schedule). If you don't do this, they'll remain in reserve and won't follow the schedule you have laid out; they'll never do more than individual drills in this mode; it's easily recognised because they all keep their civilian professions. An active squad is listed under their military professions (Speardwarf, Axedwarf etc.) and only active squads will engage in the full range of training.

They're active and are working now. They were always activated but just wouldn't really work with the ten minimum. Techinically, they were doing some demonstrations, but very few and would never spar. Now, they always have a demonstration or are sparring on good occasions.

Yeah, titans aren't as strong as they were before they were basically elementals. This one looks to be made out of something fragile as a dwarf punch can sever parts. I prefer marsh titans, they tend to be made of a weaker material than others. Or maybe I just think they're weaker usually.

Now god help you if you get a rock-type titan.

The only Marsh Titan I ever met was made of granite. It had wings, a trunk, and 3 tails. I was slightly puzzled, but it died after enough swings of an axe.

Oh, I see. I set it to ten, but there are only 5 Dwarves in the squad, so it's impossible to complete. Thanks for the help! I suck with the military, but I've realized how useful it is and am trying to better.