Dwarf Fortress - Crossbows and Marksdwarves (Complete Guide/Tutorial) 

A whole new woorrrrrrlll

Lucky! You settled on a kobold lair. Very cool.

Things can only shoot through a fortification if they're directly next to it, unless they're legendary archers. So you just have to make sure enemies can't stand next to fortifications, and your crossbow dwarves can't _not_ stand next to them. For bonus points, you make sure nothing can get los on any of your marksdwarves without placing itself in range of all of them. That way if a legendary archer does come along (an elf, for instance) he can't stand at extreme range and pick off your dwarves one by one through the fortifications. He gets mowed down in a hail of bolts before he can do much damage.

​@@jeffjones7108 How does one achieve the last point? I guess a wall just within the range of the dwarves so that anyone who wants to shoot has to go inside it?

@@mironbarabakh5970 Sort of. A cavern, underground. One big murder room. In the middle of the cavern is a tower full of marksdwarves. It might help to give you a visual aid, since it is a little tricky to describe. Go to the video "Gandalf VS The Balrog (4K) EXTENDED : A Demon Of The Ancient World". Go to 1:31. Now imagine that they've just walked down a plain set of stairs direct to the surface. Or a 3-wide trade ramp to the surface. On the other side of the bridge is the fortress entrance. And as they run out onto the bridge, imagine a tower rising out of the abyss, close but not connected. As soon as they emerge from the tunnel, everyone in the tower has clear los on them. There's no cover, and no way into the tower from the cavern. The tower is floor-to-ceiling, and the only way into it is from a room above the cavern. That's the basic idea. There's a bottom to the cavern though -- the drop is 6 z-levels. Which is enough to hurt a bit but not to kill. That's where all the invaders end up, at which point it's just archery training. They have nowhere to hide. And when they're all dead, you open a little gate in the side of the cavern floor and your dwarves hurry out to clean up. That's the basic idea. I've added a bunch of features to make it work better (eg the path winds around the tower instead of just going past it) but that's a never-ending process with Dwarf Fortress. I'm happy with the design though, and since it's made underground you can pretty much blueprint it. It needs solid rock, but other than that it doesn't need any favourable terrain. And the coolest thing is that you can multi-purpose it. Dig your caverns entrances into the killing room floor, so anything that comes up from the caves has to run the gauntlet, just like an above-ground invader would. Though if you do that, I recommend a drawbridge that can seal off the above-ground passage. You probably don't want forgotten beasts roaming around above-ground. Or maybe you do? Also an option.

Younare a gangster thank you for sharing these tips on my favorite niche game that I know jack-squat about. My largest fort was 60 dwarves before it got too chaotic for me. Waiting for my brain to expand 😂

I forgot to mention that the entrance (including the bridge, chasm and tower) is all underground. All of the area around the tower is channeled out, except the bridge. It's basically a huge artificial cavern. So when I say the only way into the tower is via stairs from the room above, I'm talking about the room above the cavern ceiling. Which leads directly to my main dining hall, so my soldiers can get a quick bite to eat mid-siege if necessary.

i look for their strength because weak Dwarfs in Armor are soooo slow that i cant stand them falling behind wherever you send the Squad

There are plenty of factors but the main ones are strength and beliefs. You don't want dwarfs that value peace/tranquility or disdain sacrifice/prowess. A weak dwarf can be trained but their upper limit will be lower than anybody. So, average stat or higher are the best candidates.

@@DiamantDogma When you get them to sparring, which takes a while, strength goes up pretty quickly if i'm not mistaken.

@@ungeimpfterrusslandtroll7155 it's based on their skills. sparring causes their combat skills to increase more quickly than other forms of training which causes their strength/endurance etc to increase.

Depends on your needs. If you are being attacked and have to throw a squad together to hold the fortress, the best dwarves for the job are the ones who are already strong, have high endurance, have some sort of skill, etc. On the long run it will pay more having military dwarves that have the right personality and atributes, even if they are currently weak. These atributes can be improved with training. Overall is very difficult to change a coward dwarf or a stress prone dwarf nature, and they will be the first ones to give you trouble after the first few battles. What I like to do is after training a couple of dwarves, I check who was the one who improved the most, and have that dwarf be the militia's captain, and then if I want to create another squad, I promote one of the veterans of the 1st squad to be the new squad captain.

Np

My preferred method is to designate their firing stations as barracks where they have training enabled(without archery targets), that way they occupy their station with relatively high occupancy and do drills and demonstrations. Keeping dwarves on station, training to fill the time is an efficent use of dwarven time. When they arent on station with training they are helping out elsewhere in the fort or taking care of their needs.

Np

Yeah that would be a really nice feature. Sadly it's not possible at the moment.

Night 😴

It does not matter, dwarves pick up ammo when its there and they need it. Make sure they are set to ready or they put down their ammo. Make sure ammo is close and assessable.

They do if bolts are available

I read the names when they come in via waves and add (army) in brackets to the name as future applications. Hopefully we'll get proper sorting soon. DF hack has some but it's not perfect.

thanks ya i hope Qol is the first thing the guys work on after adventure mode. event basic searching isnt there in vanilla @@BlindiRL

Thanks

I know I'm very late to respond here and by now you may have already found or invented a solution of your own, but if not have you considered using a similar trick to how some people force their doctors to prioritize the most severely wounded deserves? In case you haven't heard of that trick, the way it works is instead of having one large room that contains the entirety of the hospital with all the beds, you have that main room as the area where doctors hang out, store supplies, the traction tables, etc, but the actual patient beds are each individually placed in their own separate small room with a door. When multiple patients are brought in you look at each one to determine which ones need treatment most immediately to avoid dying and which ones can afford to wait a bit. For every patient that can afford to wait for treatment without dying, you go to their little room and you forbid use of the door, and in doing so you force your doctors to only focus on the dwarves in the most dire condition, and only after those have been attended to you un-forbid the other doors so that the less critically wounded can receive treatment. My thinking is that you could apply this concept to bolts, or any other kind of resource or item you want to ensure is saved for use only when it's actually needed. You could build a sort of armory vault that is only accessible by passing through a door (or maybe multiple doors so that in an emergency your military dwarves aren't tripping over one another to get into the armory and arm themselves) and place all of your expensive bolts and gear and whatever else you want to preserve for a later date in that vault, then you forbid the door so that no one can go in and take those items until you allow them to. All of your cheap copper bolts, or whatever other low-end material you make them out of, can be placed in a stockpile that is in or near your barracks and archery range so that while training or dealing with insignificant threats your marksdwarves have quick and easy access to them while your expensive bolts are safely locked away for only the situations you deem them necessary in.

@@ladams391 Thanks, I might need to give that a try. I pretty much gave up on marksdwarves but my current fort would be pretty ideal for them. I was hoping for something with less micromanagement, but it is Dwarf Fortress.

I've had this same bug sometimes! Some of the bolts end up in the Tavern 2 z levels below even without any hole.

Its a tiny button when you edit the work schedule. Equip always.

If you click on their inventory do you see bolts at all or is there no bolts in their inventory

@@BlindiRL no bolts at all. I thought it might be a bug so on several times I checked the integrity of my local files on steam and that says it's all good. My thoughts were some pathing issue or the dwarfs had not yet picked them up as sometimes they would go to the station area then run back for more of their gear, so I put them to ready at all times and made only one stock pile for bolts in a close area similar to your video. Thanks for replying love your content.

Just checking, but you know they need quivers, not backpacks, right? Quivers carry bolts/arrows, backpacks carry other gear/food/drink.

@@SolaAesir yeah they were the first thing I had ready for them. I ended up download df hack and it fixed itself after that

What's below the floor at the bottom? I wonder if they are clipping to lower floors.

Shit. That would be my stone stockpile with tons of bolts just chilling in it. I didn't even think to look down 2 floors.

They will train, but they take turns. Let them take their breaks and then continue training. Heck I even like to link the range to the tavern and the tavern goers hang out and watch while the dwarves take turns training.

When on earth was that true? No point in time that I remember at least.

@@BlindiRL Pre-steam. Back when you picked the archery target and then expanded out the room for each target. I'd channel behind the targets to collect arrows and only put a target every other block so they shoot past, hit the wall and fall.

Huh. They used to work with this exact setup for me. Odd I wonder what was wrong 🤔

@@BlindiRL not saying it wasn't fixed by v50 Might also be if you dig the channel after establishing the zone made it work. I'll have to load up an old game and play a bit Either way I'm glad to see I'm not restricted (real or imagined)

They shoot at the wall. The targets are considered a wall. The trench catches them.

@@BlindiRL ah no, I don't mean the practicing target, I meant the actual fighting corridor but I got the info that it's because xbowers less than elite can't shoot trough fortifications