10 TIPS FOR MILITARY - Dwarf Fortress Tutorial Guide Tricks

[@seanstewart1863]

Another useful thing in the monthly orders: if you have sleeping quarters as part of your barracks, you need to assign your soldiers to sleep in them. You can do so by changing the "Sleep/room at will" to "Sleep/Barracks at will." Also, you can assign your dwarves to always wear equipment even when off duty by editing the "Off duty" settings to Equip/always.

[@CptKennedy1]

Where is this setting in the steam version?

[@seanstewart1863]

@@CptKennedy1 You can see the 2 options in the video at 8:25

[@vincentsalcido9605]

To anyone wondering how much quality matters, or if he's exaggerating, he is most certainly not. I had a squad of speardwarves in iron armor, and one in particular was just getting piled on by the circus. She survived so much longer than I would've thought possible, thanks to her masterwork armor

[@vonsch9793]

I always start my squads on unarmed training and haven't seen a single wrestling (or any) injury since Steam release. I think that is no longer an issue. Or maybe I just make large enough barracks that they never get thrown into anything. (For the record, that's in 800 hours of play since Steam release.) I don't like having my military dwarves become attached to crappy weapons. Once I can give them masterworks (which usually doesn't take all that long) I put them to training with weapons.

[@CptKennedy1]

I think it's important to give archers a helm and breastplate to prevent lethal criticals from return fire. In the past importing face masks from the (humans/elves?) was important to provide coverage for the face. Nothing sucks more than your legendary marks dwarves getting one-shot through the fortifications by enemy goblins in late game sieges. Cloth and leather armor can turn a 1 hit into a 2 hit kill and that's enough to retreat or be rescued.

[@Zorro9129]

Building archery towers is a good way to protect your archeries. A tower four z-levels high makes it impossible for enemy archers to shoot through the fortifications, at the cost of being unable to engage enemies within four tiles.

[@alefor72]

7:18 Alternatively, create a one tile wide burrow alongside the fortifications line, and order the squad to guard that burrow.

[@edwardgrin8556]

You also can make a gym for your squads. Put some screw pumps and assign your off duty dwarfs to pump the air. Soon enough they become a muscle machines with highly increased endurance. Just don't forget to stop manual pumping sometimes to prevent your dwarves exhausted too much.

[@grinningtaverngaming395]

Clever. Nice one!

[@ulisesmuro7884]

Interesting, how long do you reommend they do this?

[@charlylimph]

All of the civilians in my fort get trained. (2 months out of the year 5 at a time.) I am seriously considering giving all civilians steal shields.

[@nathanielfrance5829]

Popping all civilians in squads and training them for only one month sorted out their military/help others need. Had it staggered so always some were training in unarmed/no uniform. The young’uns would watch the demos and learn. A 7 year old one punched a Magma crab protecting the forges, whilst a snot nosed one (sorrowful about rain) took out half a sounder of pigs. Still pop toys in barracks but now wood hauling is off the chores list.

[@rzu1474]

Speaking of quality. Really was nice when a legendary armorsmith just shows up in a migrant wave. Especially on a map with tons of iron and coal.

[@Ic0nGaming]

A legendary armorsmith is always a blessing. Even copper can resist some severe blows if it's masterwork. I personally find Armorsmiths also way more powerful than Weaponsmiths.

[@TheJangodarkblade]

Only heavy armour (helm, breastplate, grieves, gauntlet, highboots) trains and uses the armour skill. With light armour (mail shirt, cap, leggings, lowboot) your dwarves will not have any armour penalty to their movement speed. So you can use metal instead of leather for your lightly armoured dwarfs. (no light hand armour other than leather though)

[@Zorro9129]

For a less micro-intensive training routine: you can just set a year-round schedule where you assign a number of troops to train and another number to patrol or whatever. They will take turns without you telling them to do so, but it might cause some of them to become more proficient than others. As for an extreme budget uniform, if steel is being produced too slowly: steel chain shirt, steel cap, steel spear and wood buckler. This will provide good protection for your dwarves' organs that goblins can't pierce, while spears are great in general. Keep in mind that bucklers break with use but it's easy to just make more. Use the lightest wood possible, if you are in a good biome then use exclusively featherwood.

[@rangergreen1935]

Boots are a pain in the butt because it'll always be yellow if they don't have a matching quality pair. Make extra boots to be certain you have matching sets of quality

[@benjohnson785]

any tips for getting the archery dorfs to actually carry ammo when they get assigned to move to a spot or defend a burrow?

[@Ic0nGaming]

Yes, have Ammo Stockpiles in the area where you want them to shoot stuff. When they need to reload, they'll grab from the closest pile.

[@whozz]

My dwarves will refuse to wear high boots and gauntlets :(

[@akd8525]

To gain the benefits of layering civilian clothes under (most items) or over (cloaks) armor without the micromanagement of assigning every single item to the “replace” uniform, if you wait for you dwarves to fully equip themselves with a “uniform replaces” uniform then change the uniform to “worn over” (just that, no other change), they will run around and grab whatever civilians clothing items they want to wear that are compatible with their previous “replaces” uniform.

[@Ic0nGaming]

Thanks for introducing a method that's not totally mind numbing :D

[@seanstewart1863]

Unfortunately, some armor will not be worn when "worn over" is activated. For me, most often its boots that they just never wear if they are already wearing shoes, but I've also seen gloves not worn if they are already wearing mittens.

[@TheDarkkilla12]

Also, I wish to add a secondary note on the armor quality and its effectiveness. In areas where you might suffer getting actual metals to build your gear, is training your soldiers with dodging and their athleticism a good addition along with their shield training to allow maximum chances for your dwarf even without a high quality armor gear to keep them alive? I know this might not be included as it doesn’t fully contextually make sense in that section, but it’s something to add to other people should they have some questions about that chapter in the video.

[@Ascaron1337]

High dodging and high shield user skill definitely helps keeping them alive, yes! The steel whip can't hurt you, if it doesn't hit you in the first place 😆

[@andrewgribinenko9305]

A pardone, how did you get such walls? I mean, I've smoothed a raw one, but it has another texture. Even engraved it looks like small spiked. But yours - like a metal plate.

[@SolaAesir]

He built the walls out of metal bars most likely. Construct->Wall->Choose Material->Iron Bars (or other metal), tends to get expensive to use metal but constructed walls make dwarves happier than smoothed mined walls do because they're made from higher value items.

[@Stickweasel91]

If you had dwarves doing their wrestling training in a room made with Feather Wood walls and floor, I think it'd be *relatively* safe? Cuz Feather Wood is really, really soft. It'd be like wrestling on a sparring mat

[@MrJamesbondo07]

anyone know if encrusting ammo with cut glass affects damage?

[@tiborbalogh9104]

Hey Icon! Questions, yes. 1., does pump operating required to make "legendary" fighters? As far as i can tell, it take years to get any significant phisical improvement if you only train them in the barracks, what is your opinion on that? 2., is it worth to keep slightly hobbled dwarfs in the army? Let's say some nerve is separated in a limb, or teef get broke out, is that a major hinderance? 3., what about those secoundery fighting skills like... what was it... biter and kicker? Maybe I forget sonething else there. Anyway, is there a way to train them? Is there any VALID reason to do so? Like, why bite whem you have a flaming war axe? 4., do war pets worth anything at all? Do assinging pet to a skilled trainer in the army help in any way in fights? 2 days ago my war-back-bear got oneshot by some silly water buffalo. It hardly worth to make his owner sad for half a year.

[@dumbleking5172]

1) Definitely not mandatory and I do not think that strength or any other stat like agility and stamina affects skill improvement in any major way. They will however, affect them if they're fighting, higher stamina and endurance, they'll be able to fight a little while longer before being over-exerted. Now that I think about it maybe they'll train longer each session for they take more to be exhausted. I'm not saying pump operating and swimming training doesn't help. They do, though mainly in actual fighting. 2) Depends on the injury and how necessary it is and for what purpose. A severed leg and a necessity to walk with a crutch doesn't help a man swing his spear now does it? Severed toes, ears, broken tooth can be ignored. Fingers however, may be a little more valuable. I dunno if this is true, but it might affect the grip strength and has a higher chance losing thier weapons in combat or after suffering a blow. If they're novices with disabilities, you can put them in the "captain of the guard" squad as they _hopefully_ are more incapable of killing the lawbreakers in your fort. Actually, scratch that, just appoint your most incapable dwarves of the captain and don't make a squad for them. They are known for Thier notorious beating punishments. 3) No real reason to train them at all unless you want them to destroy your tavern with a "legendary misc weapon user" (refers to miscellaneous objects like chairs and table). There isn't a real way to train them at all. You might get more results if they go fighting barehanded if you want them to train biter, kicker and other stuff, but mainly "wrestler" is trained. There's no real concern about them learning more techniques and ways to fight but it might come off as unfavorable for your hammerlord to bite them, latch on and break thier lower right back tooth. Out of these "secondary" fighting skill, kicking sounds the best to me. These skills are trained quite naturally along side thier main combat skills. 4) The skill of trainer only affects the speed of which they're trained i believe. I confess that I haven't touched upon animal training. I haven't checked, but if there's a skill level for combat that they can learn, train and you can actually see in thier skills tab, the trainer will definitely affect the training speed. Offensively they'll do rather little other than being distracting for thier web slingers or bowmen. Armoured foes are basically impervious to dog bites though war elephants might do real damage. Dogs are perfect if you want to catch those goblin thieves or any other retracting enemies though. Overall, animals and pets for combat are perfect for sacrifices and distractions. The wiki even claims if you got enough cats, a lone swordmaster can take an entire sieging force of 100 (if i remember right). Fun fact, cats were once used as thermonuclear warheads in the older versions. Some of these may be incorrect since I have only started a month ago and read a lot off from the wiki which does admit itself to having outdated informations. If you want to train your military fast, live Training is the best option, you can start small and cut down the local wildlife, or now-not-very-adviced danger rooms. Upright weapon traps, loaded with the worse wooden spear you'd have and stab them with it. It WAS a good way to train them from what I heard but recently, they're dangerous unless you want to try to give your doctors some training.

[@Ic0nGaming]

Hiya, here go the answers! 1.) I recently saw people claiming that pump operating does not increase attributes anymore since the Steam Release, so you don't need to do anything like that anymore. Haven't taken the time to proof this statement yet though! 2.) Hobbled Dwarfs make excellent Scholars. Put them in your library and let them write books about all the things they experienced - and replace them with a fresh recruit. Military dwarves tend to have many experiences worth writing down =) 3.) Generally you want them to use their weapons as much as possible, cause these are the most effective choice. I know of no specific way to train biters. But if there is any, send me instructions, I want a Biter Squad :D 4.) War Pets are okay, but generally an iron-clad dwarf is more powerful. They are quite cool as ways and means to uncover stealthed units. Just put them on a chain or a pasture zone. But combat wise I think dwarves are always stronger than their animal buddies. But I admit to have not that insanely much experience in that area. Yet. Hope this helped!

[@vonsch9793]

@@dumbleking5172 Danger rooms are now appropriately named. They are good for training doctors in their medical skills. :p

[@tiborbalogh9104]

@@dumbleking5172 Thank you

[@tiborbalogh9104]

@@Ic0nGaming Thank you.

[@MaxwellAnderson-ce2pj]

What was it like working with Quentin Tarantino?

[@xiaomiredmi1410]

I noticed that all armor pieces when heaped into a bin will get worn and eventually mangled. Now I place them into a stockpile without bins.

[@Ic0nGaming]

That usually means that your stockpile also has Refuse enabled. Degradation of items happens when a stockpile also accepts refuse, otherwise stockpiles are magical preservation places. Never noticed any issues like these myself (so far)

[@xiaomiredmi1410]

@@Ic0nGaming You are right, it was not the bins. I tested it again with a legendary armorer and no mangled pieces appeared. I wonder than how is it possible that a masterpiece armor is produced but it is mangled or heavily worn? Is because of the low skill?

[@Bartonfunk]

Very usefull, thanks! that tip about ammo conservation was great, another issue I have with the military is trying to assign to their uniform items like gloves and vests that other citizens can also wear, my dwarves can't resist equiping them as soon as they are crafted and my squads don't have the opportunity to use them, any advice about that?

[@Ic0nGaming]

The only real solution here would be overproduction. At least that's all that crosses my mind. Cause your citizens will stop grabbing stuff once they are all satisfied. If there's any other way, I do not know of it yet.

[@shawnli9775]

A quick question, I noticed that when I send my dwarves out to mission, their bedroom get unassigned. They will just sleep on floor. Should I make a dormitory instead?

[@Ic0nGaming]

If there are enough bedrooms available they should grab a new one as soon as they are back home. If not you don't have enough bedrooms.

[@shawnli9775]

@@Ic0nGaming I see. I think I do have some still on spare but I guess it is time to dig more bedrooms

[@Ic0nGaming]

@@shawnli9775 Everytime I count my apartments I keep being shocked about how much room they need. But I've watched these things a lot - dwarves only grab no bed when they either can't path there before collapsing (too far away) or if there's just none available.

[@shawnli9775]

@@Ic0nGaming I think something must be wrong with sending military out to missions. I made bedrooms right next to the barracks they train, and after the got back from razing, they train and sleep on the floor. They still have no room after 2 years.

[@archaeologistify]

7:45 You can make a burrow thats 1xwide right in front of the fortification and they'll form a perfect line.

[@SuperHellasvr]

I usually put the channel in front of the archer targets so the bolts can go down 1 level, behind the archer target doesn't work for me idk Btw if under the level where the bolts should go, they will go 1 lever down even if there is the floor So usually I have these Lever 3 archery range with channel in front of archer target Level 2 where my dwarfs can collect bolts/arrows Level 1 (directly under where the bolts should be) walls or not mined, so the bolts stays on level 2, where they should be

[@OfficialSpartanGames]

I went on the situation on where the wooden shields breaks in middle combat. That's the only reason why I don't use them anymore.

[@txeitu]

Really useful stuff thank you!

[@DubManor]

Thanks for the tips, but what does "2 assigned items" on the armour list mean/do?

[@matthewblough5088]

Most of the time they are wearing a gauntlet on each arm and boot on each foot, so technically two different items.

[@francisj8239]

Algo