Dwarf Fortress Megathread! - Necro'd enough to count as a vampire

[Jacob/Lee]

(Double posting for change of topic)

How do you tell your training squads what to train with? Currently I have a large stock of sword and a slightly smaller pile of warhammers and they seem to prefer gently tapping each other with the hammers. I want a squad of swordsdwarves :(

You tell them to equip swords in the equipment menu, or assign them a uniform that has swords for a weapon.

Also, a bronze colossus makes for bad training. They're big and bronze and will likely kill 90% of the dwarves trying to train on them.

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[Captain Crazy]

Human fortress is all sorts of tough. Building purdy houses is tons more time consuming than digging holes in the dirt, I'll tell you that!

Luckily the only scuffle my merry band of misfits have dealt with are rhesus macaques, a.k.a dog food.

[Böltster]

Trapping that bronze colossus was the best thing i've ever done! I've told my 10 crossbowman to use wooden bolts and now 7 of them are at legendary (or whatever the max is).

should i train another 10 crossbowman to legendary or move to a different type of troop?

[Captain Crazy]

noice! pretty sure the bronze colossus would hurt your troops if you tried melee, so you might as well stick with ranged.

[Jacob/Lee]

A bronze colossus' size is 20,000,000 cm³ versus the 60,000³ of the dwarves. You'll end up with some +Dwarf Pancakes+ if you try to train melee fighters on it, so stick with marksdwarves.

EDIT:

The armies of goblin and snakemen actually started lining up to be shot at the day these bolts were forged...

[Böltster]

Does me having the bronze colossus alive stop sieges from happening or something? Because since I let it out of its cage I haven't had a goblin attack in aaaaaggggesss

[Jacob/Lee]

Does me having the bronze colossus alive stop sieges from happening or something? Because since I let it out of its cage I haven't had a goblin attack in aaaaaggggesss

No, it doesn't. I've actually had a colossus show up in the middle of a goblin siege and own a squad before being swarmed and hacked to pieces.

Bonus points if they fight on a bridge in the sky, colossi punch hard.

[Böltster]

A dwarf trade caravan just came and the liaison is asking to establish my colony as a land of their realm? What do I do? Accept or turn down?

[Jacob/Lee]

A dwarf trade caravan just came and the liaison is asking to establish my colony as a land of their realm? What do I do? Accept or turn down?

I think he's asking you to appoint a baron, it doesn't actually do anything other than give you a pissy noble who make mandates all the time.

[Böltster]

Is there any disadvantage if i decline? I won't start a war or anything right?

[Jacob/Lee]

Is there any disadvantage if i decline? I won't start a war or anything right?

Nah, you'll just miss out on the ability to climb the ranks and get the monarch to arrive. I don't know if you get offered the chance to become a barony again if you decline, though.

[brad block]

How do I even start to train marksdwarves? I haven't got a clue how to get them

[Böltster]

How do I even start to train marksdwarves? I haven't got a clue how to get them

I'm a newbie, but this is what I did:
1. Make 1 crossbow and quiver for each dwarf you want to be a marksdwarf, and a bunch of bolts (whatever material you want)
2. Create a new squad, and when the uniform option pops up, select "archer". Assuming you haven't got bows laying around, they'll pickup the crossbows and quivers + bolts
3. Then create an archery target and 'q' over it to make an archery range. While in the archery range 'q' menu select your squad and press T to train.

Another thing you can do is enable the hunting profession and then they can train while hunting too.

[brad block]

Thanks for that.
Im also wondering about these archer towers, the wiki has completely confused me.
Can you put it in words that I might understand better?

[Corbiere]

Thanks for that.
Im also wondering about these archer towers, the wiki has completely confused me.
Can you put it in words that I might understand better?

A tower is just layers of walls build on top of each other with the stairs inside (if you make it hollow with a door) or the outside, and then fortifications around the top so your archers can fire out without too much risk of being hit provided the enemy doesn't get too close.
Once you have a tower, station archers on the top and watch those goblins flee.