I... don't know what just happened. I have a good fort, it's been operation for years. It's self sufficient to the fact that I can close my doors outside and it not bother me.
Ever.
Anyways, I'm ready to begin anew, and lo and behold, I get seiged. 5 groups of goblins, about 10-15 in each, lead by elites.. two groups of trolls. I have 26 military dwarves. 10 crossbow dwarves in leather, and 16 melee. 10 of which are in [mostly] steel suits... chain shirt, breast plate, helm, shield, and weapon.. I have no metal on my map other than gold so equipping as been slow going. My other 6 had weapons and shields, but thats mostly it. I think their commander had a breastplate and mail shirt.
Anyways, I stationed them at my front door, and waited for the opposing army to gather. Finally, all the goblins and trolls were waiting... no time like the present.
The slaughter was glorious. Hacked pieces everywhere, blood of many colors decorating the walls and floor. My troops had been training for years, but they were still scrubs. For the first year they had no weapons save for two copper battle axes. No danger room padding, only normal ''demonstration'' type training. I stopped using my archery targets for my marksdwarves. I have a prison stocked full of enemies that I never got around to training on. Surely this would be a grand fall!
But the seige broke. Confused, I examined what was going on... my dwarves were WINNING. Slaughtering by the goblins in droves. Crossbow bolts peppering anything with a pulse, axes and hammers and maces smashing whether it had a pulse or not. Martial trance on three of them, and they waded into the enemy, hacking them apart like they were untrained recruits.
When the battle ended, and the retreating enemy force finally got away from my dwarves, I'd lost a grand total of 2 dwarves. Both shot and killed by enemy crossbows. I have 5 dwarves in the hospital for various wounds [all 3 martial trance dwarves are not included among them], but the only might-die-from wounds are on a civilian who happened to walk by when the first arrow volley came in.
Surely, I thought I was going to lose. They outnumbered me, at a minimum, of like 3 to 1. But I beat them. I killed more than half their number and only lost two.
Why did this happen? Did toady buff regular training? Was this a fluke? Am I... incapable of losing to goblins?
