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[Girlinhat]

So I've decided on a goal.  I want to open up the circus and fight the clowns on a fair fight.  No cheese, no cave-ins, no obsidian casting... just steel and muscle against the forces of hell.  I'm planning to make a proper arena to handle them, and have a strong army to take them on in a fight, but beyond that it's all kinda up for questions.

Avoiding exploits, so no danger rooms or melting-duplication or whatnot... any good suggestions on how to train and arm troops, and how to construct a fortress and associated industries to power the war machine?  Bonus points for suggestions that include religion or monk-like themes.  I'm fighting hell, might as well get god on my side right?  Even if it's the god of suicide and jewels...

[Sirus]

So I've decided on a goal.  I want to open up the circus and fight the clowns on a fair fight.  No cheese, no cave-ins, no obsidian casting... just steel and muscle against the forces of hell.  I'm planning to make a proper arena to handle them, and have a strong army to take them on in a fight, but beyond that it's all kinda up for questions.

Avoiding exploits, so no danger rooms or melting-duplication or whatnot... any good suggestions on how to train and arm troops, and how to construct a fortress and associated industries to power the war machine?  Bonus points for suggestions that include religion or monk-like themes.  I'm fighting hell, might as well get god on my side right?  Even if it's the god of suicide and jewels...

Conscript all jewelers, send them in the first anti-demon wave unarmed and untrained. If they die, their god has chosen them. If they live, they are false disciples and must be purged.

[Girlinhat]

Pretty much all misc. labor dwarves will be converted to military.  I'll either end up with like 20 civilians supporting 80 soldiers, or more likely 60 full time soldiers and 40 half-time civilians that alternate training and working.  The entire population will end up fighting in the final stages.

[Sirus]

Fair enough, but anyone who works with jewels must be A) raw recruits (maybe given basic weapons, but probably not) and B) sent in first. Put them all in the same squad, use them to tie up demons while the crossbows get to work, stuff like that. The jewelers must die to please the gods.

[NJW2000]

A tavern might make a good meatshield collector, as might a library or even temple...

[Dunamisdeos]

I was able to do this with three squads of trained melee units (competent+) and two units of marksdwarves parked at a safe distance firing through foritifications while the melee was ongoing. Also like 50 war dogs.

The demons were made to walk across a 1x bridge while being fired at. If they fell, they were out of LOS for the crossbows and had to walk back and across again.

I survived with like 3 melee dwarves remaining and low-none deaths on crossbows.

[GhostDwemer]

The one time I tried it, i had 60 military dwarves, one squad of 10 legendary melee, one of legendary marksmen, and the rest of raw to average quality, all steelclad. I made a good twisty area so my melee could get in close, with rooms for marksdwarves scattered around. Also had several wardog cage bombs set up to take some of the brunt of it. It was a dwarf-slaughterhouse, just fire and poison everywhere, it went so quick I couldn't even get the fortress sealed away and it fell. It really depends on the type and amout of clowns you get.

I'd set up some ponds with 3/7 water in them to help with the potential burnination if I were you. You might not get flame type clowns, but murphy says you will if you don't prepare...

[Girlinhat]

Type of hellion seems to be a big deal.  Steam demons?  Ha!  Granite balrogs?  Well now...

[Fleeting Frames]

I'd set up some ponds with 3/7 water in them to help with the potential burnination if I were you. You might not get flame type clowns, but murphy says you will if you don't prepare...

I think the dust/gas types shouldn't spread diagonally, so checkerboard pattern of walls may help as well.

Also, anecdotally from looking at caverns deadly dust doesn't seem to spread much (only 1 tile below/currently standing on) in 7/7 water.

Of course, buffing the surroundings is kind of a trap as well.

[Rexfelum]

Type of hellion seems to be a big deal.

Judging from past threads, it all comes down to the enemies.  Every time I've ever faced 'em myself, there were fiery ones.

The first breach was particularly bad: every time my army of legendary dwarven warriors killed one enemy, it exploded and melted two or three legendaries nearby.  That's with efforts to kill in controlled circumstances: crossbowdwarves couldn't kill the speedy flying things before they got close enough to melt them, too.  Walling my army outside and three or four survivors inside with the miasma (and two poisonous enemies . . . ) was the only way out.

And then you see threads that say "Yeah, I don't get why you people are so scared of this stuff, I just got one-shots on everything and cleared the place."

--Rexfelum

[Girlinhat]

A question on that, then.  Are the demons the same for the world every time?  I might do some test-drills to see if there's a decent enemy, and if they're all made of salt and steam then I'll just make a new world and try again.

[Rexfelum]

Is steam one of the bad ones?  I can't remember anymore.  And for salt, I'm fairly certain that salt enemies just crumbled one hit when I faced them.  Anyway, this was several version ago and a tangent.

You can see the available enemies in the world-sites-and-pops.txt file/export/thingy, e.g., "Unnumbered winged brutes."  I don't know how they're distributed across map tiles.

--Rexfelum

[Dunamisdeos]

Yeah it's a trade off. If you get ones that explode, that's bad for melee, but it also depends on what they are made of. Ones that are immaterial/crumbly usually get oneshot (steam, salt, fire, etc).

Marksdwarves can kill those at range easily enough as well.

[gchristopher]

In the past, stacking a LOT of marksdwarves in one place was reported successful to invade and colonize HFS.

[vjek]

A question on that, then.  Are the demons the same for the world every time?  I might do some test-drills to see if there's a decent enemy, and if they're all made of salt and steam then I'll just make a new world and try again.

Nope, they're procedurally generated and if there are more than say.. 3 types?  They vary by embark location, as well.

You can see what types there are in the sites_and_pops report, near the bottom.  However, the names are only partially descriptive.  The most.. reasonable? of them are the ones that are dinosaur-ish.  At least those you can kill with normal weapons.

Often, however, they are made of salt, steam, or similar materials if there just a few types.  Here's an example from setting the number to 8 (yes, I know there are only six, that's the way it goes)
Unnumbered one-eyed monsters
Unnumbered mole fiends
Unnumbered one-eyed demons
Unnumbered demons of steam
Unnumbered monsters of steam
Unnumbered ceratopsid fiends

Now, the one-eyed monsters could be just about anything, but the ceratopsid fiends are reasonable, and if you do manage to kill them, you can also turn them into roasts/meals.  Probably true of the mole fiend as well.  The steam ones, well, they'll die easy, but they're not much use after the fact, typically.
It's also worth noting that even though they are Unnumbered, I have run into situations where, after the initial rush of several dozen, very few or none show up for years, after that.