Bay 12 Games Forum

In my curent fort I use miners for combat. I embarked with one lvl 5 miner, and in my 6th year I have 7 legendary + 5 miners. I routinely assign migrants with no skill in mining to mine, and they learn quite quickly, especially in soil layer. I had more, but they died to accidents and goblins before I had good armor.

This way I loose some ore and gems, but I don't mind that much. I got some miner migrants, but their mining skill was low.

As for soldier aspect of things: miners are deadly, but need good protection, especially untill they learn dodge and shield use. My squad of 7 in funobtanium / steel armour, copper shields and steel picks plows through goblin sieges in no time. I don't even have to use traps, and normally I had to. When they hit legendary + 5 miners, I disable mining labor on them, and assign them to squad.

I once had a civilization with no plump helmets (or maybe no underground plants altogether, I can't remember). I got some after breaching the first cavern and gathering plants (as well as some Dartha and GSC-related deaths, but such is life in DF).

Or a corridor of lever-operated spikes.

If you want good weapons early bring along a Proficient weaponsmith (If you want armorsmith too, make him another Dwarf, they'll both be eventually very busy), and bring supplies to make bronze. With some savings in embark points I can usually bring enough cassiterite (tin), malachite (copper), and bituminous coal for ~30 metal items. With Proficient weaponsmith and armorsmith all of those are going to ba at least -Well-crafted-, most will be +Finely-crafted+, some *Superior quality*, and if you're lucky you might get something ≡Exceptional≡. Setting up workshops and making those weapons takes a bit of time, so maybe this is not the best tip for terryfing biomes, but works great for calm surroundings. If you want leather armor embark with proficient leatherworker and lots of leather for 5 each. Oh, and don't forget, that ambusher skill can give you free crossbow, 100 metal bolts and leather armor.

I tried danger rooms with 10 spears, and they were so good, my military spent most of their training time unconscious from over-exertion. I had some issues with dead children and animals too. Massive crossbow army didn't work for me, because I just couldn't make bolts and other equipment fast enough, and bludgeoning things with wooden crossbows is deadly to Dwarves. I'm currently experimenting with training and militarising legendary + 5 miners. They take some time to train, and are vulnerable, but kill things fast. I probably should have embarked with deep soil to make a tree farm for that, tough.

I don't use 3 mail shirts in my uniforms, I use 2 mail shirts and 1 dress or robe.

You can use magma and water to kill HFS. Probably.

Goblinfall defence system: embark surrounded by walls (not bridges, walls 5 tiles from edge), the only entrances are pairs of 15 z-level tall stairs connected by 1-wide floors full of weapon traps. Menrchants and migrants come safely, goblins dodge traps, and fall. (I had some military fight on top of that, and "dodge", which resulted in Dwarf deaths, which makes this Dwarfy). This design can be improved by putting refuse pile under it, so goblins just rot there, butcher and tanner for random animals, some cage traps, wall protecting from goblin archers, and kitty lookout towers for ambushes, but not magma. Putting magma under it would make goblinite unharvestable. Harvesting just metal would require periodic draining of said magma, and that's inefficient. The only way I can think of, this would be better with magma is by adding a small pool or shaft to magma for dumping stuff, but that's easier done with atom smasher anyway. 

It seems to work for You fine, and this kind of setup is probably common during first year, but I see a problem with this. To have social activities, like "talked to a friend recently", you need some idlers, and even if you have them, some Dwarfs will still be too preocupied with work or military training to take part in it. In my forts I notice happiness decline with time, even tough I improve food, booze, rooms, mist generators, dinig room, etc. They don't tantrum, they are mostly in 100-300 range.

Wait, 1x1 social zone, as the only meeting area? Would this mean, all idlers interact with each other, and get good thoughts form it? It might just work.

I had a militia in my longest running fort, and it was a pain. I used crossbowdorfs too. I never seemed to have enough equipment for all my squads. I also set up some archery targets, and they would use up too much bolts for training, and then try to hit goblins with crossbows and die. Equipping a 100 Dwarfs requires thousands pieces of equipment, and I never managed to get enough. 

I have one tip from that fort, tough: memetic squad names. We can't name our squads, but we can create/disband a squad untill it has a good name. I used anything precious (silver, gold, platinum, diamond) for squads composed entirely of specialists (nobles, metalworkers, farmers, brewers, mechanics, and such). I used weapon-grade metal or other militaristic names (armors, steel, ...) for soldier squads (true soldiers set to train all year round). I used other names (squids, peebles, ...) for militia squads of expendable non-specialists (haulers, cheese makers, furnance operators). This made it easy to decide, which squads should stand at entrance during siege, who to send as reinforcements, when things go bad, and who should only be used as a last resort.

If I burrow a Dwarf without bed, food and alcohol, will it get out of burrow to get those things, or die / go unhappy? If I could safely make burrows without acess to basic provisions, that would make some things easier, apart from "unable to access item" spam.