I get sieges every year of a lot of goblins and trolls(30/30 most of the time). The thing is, not only you must be kind of wealthy and(I think) close to the goblins, but your civilization must be at war with them. Fortunately LNP comes with legends viewer, so you can create a world and check who is at war with you easily. With some luck you'll be at war with both goblins and elves, or even humans. I play in pocket worlds with a lot of civilizations and short history, so there are more chances for wars and everyone is close to one another.

In my current fort I've had constant sieges from year 2 or 3 I think, my civ is at war with elves too, but it seems they are too far away and I have never seen them. ALSO my civilization is almost dead, so maybe the goblins attack me because there are not too many options(there are human cities around too, but maybe they just are not at war).

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[–]MoreMorphine[S] 2 points 3 months ago*
I have only used the danger room idea once, its actually very dangerous! I'd say that about half of the soldiers training there died as they ended up getting crushed ears or fingers or something. These superficial wounds for some reason were not treated by the doctor and so they got infected and caused, in some cases, acute deadness.

Its actually very easy to train melee soldiers (a bit more difficult for archers) up to a high standard quickly (easily better than the average gobo). Firstly start out with 2 squads of 3 or 4 soldiers each, ideally these squads should have soldiers with experience of a common weapon type. I often bring a couple of guys in my starting bunch with axe and teacher skills to speed the process. Small squads or 3-4 train up faster than larger squads, they train even faster if all soldiers are using the same weapon (otherwise they cross-train their comrades in other weapon skills).
Make sure the squads train all year round every day of the year, no time off for slackers. This may make them unhappy, so make sure to build them some golden statues and weapon racks etc. To increase efficacy I have them sleep next to the barracks and assign them a spot in a small dinning room which is also next to barracks. Make sure they are assigned backpacks and flasks for maximum food and drink, ideally booze.

Once these guys hit legendary status (or close to it), dissolve the squads they were in and make each soldier a militia captain and give them 2-3 rookies each. From my experience having higher trained soldiers in squads of new recruits helps them level up. Once again make sure these squads train the same weapon type (axes or hammers seem to smash everything), and train all year round. Having previous experience helps, but I find that in these squads Ill just take anyone who isnt useful at the time.

The largest military I ever had was about 65 dwarves, 90% of whom were legendary by year 6 or so. I amassed this force before I was even sieged by gobos. I used df-hack to force multiple gobo sieges at once because I was getting bored. My army killed about 700 gobos (and their pets) and had about 10 casualties, of which 4 or 5 died. With steel weapons and armour, and high dodge, they are very difficult to kill. Coupled with the fact that the average goblin invader has low skill, incomplete armour, crappy weapons (silver pikes, really? :P), poor item quality and copper/bronze/silver/iron as a material, they are very easy to beat with a competent defence. I would like to see it take longer to train up legendary fighters, and see goblin invaders be better trained and equipped (particularly after multiple sieging failures).

The key to getting a good military quick is basically down to: 1. constant training 2. small squads 3. trained militia commanders 4. plenty of recruits. The only 'exploit' I use is a hard cap on children and babies, in fort I previously described I never had a child or baby migrant and no-one ever gave birth. This meant I got loads of migrants to conscript. I cannot over-emphasise point 2, idk the science behind it but I find that 3-4 man squads will level several times faster than 10-man squads (2-3 times faster possibly).

Edit: NCommander did a guide that enables you to get elite marksdwarves in a year completely legit as well as a guide for melee units that will get you legendary in 1.5-2 years. I suggest you look at those if you are struggling to get a decent military up quick

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To add to this on in case you didn't know...

When you do not have desired metals native, trade as the previous poster said. Once you have your salvaged bars, don't waste them with an inferior smith. Hopefully you will have some armored metal, like copper, local. Train up your smiths on that stuff before using your scarce iron/steel. If you use DFHack, you can set up auto-melt stockpiles in conjunction with workflow production targets to great effect. Example, designate 4-5 copper breastplates. Set an armor stockpile to take all metal armor from your forge. Set another armor pile to take all armor from the first pile which is not Masterful or Artifact. Set that cheaper pile to auto melt. Set a melt metal job to repeat, with a high workflow target like 995-1000 bars. This system will loop itself until you have a pile with 5 Masterful breastplates, at which time your smith will be pretty solid and ready to work your steel. Sounds complex but very easy and quick to do after the first time.

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[–]Aulia_ 2 points 3 months ago
Copper morningstars are deadly hand-machines of death. Period.
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[–]SmilgeI must have silk cloth! 3 points 3 months ago
I'm personally a fan of silver battle axes. They don't cut worth a damn, but they are heavy and huge and can send smaller creatures like goblins and elves flying.
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[–]Tommy2255 1 point 3 months ago
How do they actually compare to silver warhammers? You'd think a dedicated bludgeoning weapon should be better for any blow that doesn't actually cut, but on the other hand it's not like sharpening it a bit makes it much lighter.
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[–]SmilgeI must have silk cloth! 4 points 3 months ago
They are terrible compared to warhammers at killing or wounding enemies, but much better at launching them across the battlefield.
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[–][deleted] 5 points 3 months ago
Motion to rename silver axes to hand-catapults.
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