Dwarf Fortress 40_24 Tutorial: Step 8 - Basic Defense

So you're little outpost has grown, your dwarves have started generating wealth, and its only a matter of time before your neighbours get greedy. Hopefully you aren't under attack right now (if you are then skip right down to militia). The military features in Dwarf Fortress are probably the most complicated things you will ever have to deal with in this game... I have tried to break the material down as best as I can.

Here are some things to add to your fortress to prepare for conflict.

Assign Burrows 

Burrows are designated areas that restrict dwarves to only doing jobs and using items within the designated area. You can assign specific dwarves to specific burrows if you like but for now let's just create one burrow that extends to everywhere inside your fortress. That way when enemies come to visit you can just call a civilian alert and all your dwarves that are above ground will run into the fortress where they will be safe.

To create a burrow you will need to use [w] and then [a]dd a new burrow to begin defining it. When done [n]ame it "inside".

To get your dwarves into the burrow you will need to create an alert and toggle it active.

1. Select [m] for military and then [a] for alerts 
2. [c]reate a new alert and give it a useful [N]ame (ie: Underground) 
3. Now move the cursor to the far right column, which should have the burrow you just created, and hit Enter to associate that burrow with your new alert. You'll see a green A next to the burrow when you have that alert selected. 

Any time that you want your dwarves to run underground open [m]ilitary, choose [a]lerts, and select the alert you just created.

http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Civilian_alert

Walls + Drawbridges 

The quickest way to ensure bad things do not get in to where your dwarves are is to build walls and drawbridges that can be raised to act like walls.

Wall are simple. Nothing goes through them (although some enemies can fly over them). They block creatures, liquids, and projectiles. If you have grazing fields or over-land crops it might be a good idea to put a wall around them.

You can build walls using [b-C-w] and then define their size using umhk. When deciding which material to build the walls out of always try to use stone blocks as this reduces construction time by like six hundred percent. Stone blocks can be crafted at the mason workshop, 4 blocks per 1 rock, and these blocks can be stored in bins.


Drawbridges are very useful both at blocking enemy movement and smashing enemies into bloody bits and dropping their broken bodies 500 feet down onto spikes harming enemies. To create drawbridges use [b-g] and set the size using umhk as well as the direction you want the bridge to raise using asdw.

To raise your drawbridge you will need to build a lever using [b-T-l]. It will require mechanisms which are constructed at a mechanics workshop. If you q over a lever you will be able to [a]dd a function (like connect the lever to a bridge for instance) which will also require mechanisms. Once your lever is connected to your bridge pull the lever to see how it works.

A word of caution though, anything on the bridge when it goes up will be thrown into the air and then fall to the ground. Anything under the bridge when it goes down will be atomized.

Another word of caution. Tantruming dwarves will pull random levers...

Don't under estimate the power of well placed drawbridges. They can drop enemies into pits, crush them to pieces, or activate a drowning chamber.

Traps 

Mechanics can use mechanisms and other items to create a series of automated traps that will trigger when an unfriendly creature steps on the trigger tile. You can find these under [b]uild and then [T]raps. Please note that these traps only trigger once and then need to be reset before they will trigger again.

For the purposes of this tutorial build lots of cage traps around your entrance. Weapon traps requires iron and steel weaponry which we do not yet have. Cages can be constructed out of wood and effectively serve the same purpose as weapon traps in that the enemy is neutralized.

Caged enemies are stored in 'animal' stockpiles and can either be safely sold and carted away or released in a controlled environment for your militia to gain combat experience.

Here is a link explaining how to disarm enemies in a cage: http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Cage#How_to_disarm_hostiles_in_cages

Here is a link for a full explanation of simple and advanced traps.
http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Trap_design

Note: Kobolds are tricksy little sneaks who do not set off traps when they move over them. Thankfully kobolds are also cowards who run away when they are spotted but will still try to steal things your fortress. Keep your valuables away from the entrance and make sure that you claim all your gods back from the trade depot...

The Militia 

The Militia... your best, bravest, and boldest. The militia is your standing army. You can give them orders to move about the map and engage your foes. If you give them a barracks and weapons they will train to increase their martial skill.

To create a squad go into the [m]ilitary screen and select [s]quad. Assign dwarves that either have good combat skills or dwarves you don't mind dying in horrible horrible ways putting in harms way.

Once you have a squad you can give them orders from the same screen [m-s].

To build a barracks you will need to build and place either a weapon stand or armour stand and q over it.

Once you have a barracks you will have to assign it to a squad in order for them to train.

The options and mechanics in the military screen are varied and complicated and this is the absolute most basic introduction. For your first fortress just create a small squad, let the train in a barracks, and use them to kill enemies / random animals to get a feel for how the basics work.

Later you should review the very well written full explainations for military in the Dwarf Fortress Wiki: http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Military




Continue on to Step 9