Bay 12 Games Forum

A Ram, an Ewe and a Water Buffalo.

Water Buffalo and Musk Oxen eat a huge amount of grass (from my games, a pair of either will strip bare a 10x10 pasture in no time) which is why I usually slaughter these on arrival. Rabbits or swine are better for limited pasture space I think.

Later on when we have hay/slop/other methods to feed animals, the bigger livestock should be easier to keep alive.

I usually set something like this:

---------------
       O           |
       #         %|
       O           |
---------------

Where:
O is fortifications
# is vertical bars linked to lever
'-' and '|' are walls
% is goblin cage linked to lever
Depending on which squad I want to train I station that squad inside the room (if i want my melee dwarves to deal with gobo) or outside (if I want my marksdwarves to shoot gobo through fortifications), and then just pull lever linked to the cage. you can link few cages to one lever too, much more interesting.

Closed bars prevent prisoners from escape attempts and keeps gobos away from shooters. Also lets your dwarves to get in afterwards to clean the mess. Oh my god I LOVE THIS GAME !

I used to do this, but I got tired of linking and re-linking levers every time I build a new cage. These days I just channel a hole in the arena roof, designate the eight squares around that as an animal stockpile, and pit goblins into the arena. Maybe surround the stockpile with a few weapons traps to handle the (very few) escapees.

If you're training up newbie melee dwarves, it helps to drop them a couple of z-levels (just to stun or cripple them long enough to prevent injury to your trainees).

I'm sorry if it's been said before, but tactical deployment.  A full-legendary, fully-adamantine-clad artifact wearing badass shouldn't be engaging 8 goblins at once (although apparently, it can work). 

True. Even a maxed-out dwarf will tire and collapse from exhaustion with ten or more gobbies pounding away at him. The best a surrounded dwarf can hope for is to hold out until the rest of the squad arrives - and if the rest of the squad is still eating, drinking or gearing up, too bad.

I like to place little cul-de-sacs and ambush alcoves in my entrance hallways, and have dwarves wait around the corners for enemy squads, keeping them out of the line-of-fire of any ranged-weapon goblins. I try not to rely on locking doors to control entrance though - goblin thieves can "take control" of doors and unlock them if they get to them before you do.

Having a drawbridge you can open and close quickly can also be used to divide-and-conquer an incoming siege - open to let half a squad in, close so the rest is locked out of your fortress, and kill the ones inside at your leisure (or trap them in cage traps and give your mechanics enough time to reset and reload the traps).

Combined arms is always a good idea - while obeliab doesn't like fighting in the open air, I usually have a killing courtyard covered with archer firing platforms - crossbow bolts will often cripple or at least stun goblins long enough for your melee squads to easily mop up. Fighting under friendly covering fire will greatly increase your squaddies' survival chances, especially if you have an enemy swordmaster or mace lord in the battle. Marksdwarves are also useful when shooting down those pesky elf bowmen riding giant eagles.

Train and raise military from the very beginning, even if it is a squad of two. (Split this initial sparring party to better train the lower ones)

I believe someone said a squad of three with minimum train set to 2 is optimal (you need at least two dwarves in a squad to spar, and having one off-duty prevents bad thoughts from "long patrol duty" if you keep the squad on Active/Train all the time). They say breaking up your militia into 3-man squads maximizes sparring time.

I usually stuff as many as I can in a squad to get maximum benefit from teaching, though that's because I have a soldier/teacher as one of my starting seven.

Marksdwarves can be trained with archery targets-but will waste valuable ammunition. Also was just using cheap bone crossbow bolts for them. (lol)

The bug that makes dwarves use combat-only bolts for training is getting fixed next version, so archery targets should be very useful in the future. Right now I just forbid metal bolts before setting up the targets, then unforbid them when the goblins come.

Is Same Material vs Same Material really THAT ineffective? With a full iron armor suite, I expected my dwarves to be able to take a shot or two from an iron spear... I don't have access to flux stone at the moment (asked for it on my last import agreement) so I had to make do with that armor being the best I had.

I regularly see iron swords/maces bounce off of iron armor in both adventure and fortress mode. Do note that piercing weapons (warhammers, spears) have bonuses against armor, and whips/scourges and daggers have an impact area bug that severely reduce armor protection (my adventurer carries a large copper dagger, and can usually stab through an iron helm with ease).

So - against sword/macegobs you should be fine, but take care against lashers and thieves. I believe hammergobs carry mauls, but some of them do have silver warhammers from time to time, which means even my steel-clad squaddies come home with broken ankles/wrists. 

*Edit* Oh one more-If I capture a goblin in a cage trap-how do I move the cages properly? (Only ever had caged animals-but if you try to move them without taming them they run around and cause a big mess)

To move cages safely, set up a second Animal stockpile, then disable goblins from the first one, so your dwarves move the cages, not the contents. To successfully throw animals/goblins into a pit (into an arena or drowning chamber, for example) designate the animal stockpile right next to the pit/hole. If the cage is right next to the pit zone, the goblin won't have time to attempt to escape before he's pushed over (some master thieves will still escape though, so either use weapon traps around the pit zone or have a squad stationed nearby). I believe high skill in Animal Handling helps in preventing escapes, but I haven't verified this - you may have luck only enabling Animal Hauling on dwarves with the skill.

Did I do something wrong, or are my dwarves complete morons for getting pawned by a lone snatcher ?  Version is .21

Snatchers carry large daggers - as I mentioned above, daggers are armor-piercing.

Equipment is invisible on caged gobbies. To dump their weapons before uncaging, look in the stocks screen - for snatchers you'll see forbidden large daggers. Use the stocks screen to unforbid and dump the dagger (set up a garbage zone first) and soon a hauler dwarf will come along and disarm the goblin. You can also dump the rest of the goblin's armor the same way.

In addition, training weapons have a hidden benefit.  If you capture a foe, strip them of all their armor and weapons, and unleash a squad with training weapons on him, they will bash him slowly, slowly, slowly to death, gaining skill-ups with every hit.  It's also cruel.

I find I get somewhat similar results if I only dump weapons, but leave the goblin's armor on. Then I can train my armed dwarves on it without the hassle of switching to training weapons first. Still, training weapons are good if you have dedicated cadet squads, but my forts usually have to forgo that luxury as I keep getting raids too frequently to allow time for a squad to reequip from training to combat mode.

If that doesn't work then you can just make your own tree farms in soil or muddied rock, which ever is easier for you.

I think there is a .19 bug that prevents plant/fungus growth on muddied rock. all muddy rock=no mushrooms. no water=no fungus/grass growth.

In a normal cavern (with water) I cleared a large space, then pumped water on it in an attempt to build a tree farm. No mushrooms or fungus grew on the cleared muddy rock (although they were growing elsewhere in the same cavern).

This mod is great - I use it to put the weapons of fallen warriors in their tombs. Preserve that kill-list for posterity.

Anybody know how to mod an adventurer reaction to allow an adventurer to take the item from the case? This can be an easy way to store equipment for easy adventurer retrieval (otherwise you're limited to fiddling with lead bins or have to hunt for stuff scattered all over the map).

In my case I'd like to use it so my tomb-raider adventurer can retrieve named weapons, or if you're playing with adventurer traps on, you can have a reward in the middle of that maze-of-death.

I designated a burrow for that dwarf around an area with a TON of vermain REMAINS.

Check under (o)ptions->(r)efuse and see if Ignore vermin remains is turned off. (31.19 only I believe).