What do different weapons do?

[Skyguard]

As far as I see it, weapons don't have effect on dwarves performance. Hammerers are just as good at clobbering gobbos as axemen are. Except dwarves wish sharp weapons tear them to shreds and it takes dwarves months to clean the area and it inevitably starts stinking.

[Skyguard]

Originally posted by Muted Kobold:

Spears = Anti-Large creatures. Decent against armor. OK-ish agianst people. Spears can get lodged into humanoids. Which causes the dorf to waste time pulling it out. Or drop the weapon entirely and rely on their shield or fists. THis seems to go away over time with skill. As I've noticed it happen less. Agaisnt larger creatures. Spears will punch deep, and will damage internal organs on things like giants, giant spiders, forgotten beasts and dragons. They are very light, and can have multiple attacks.

Axe = Generally very good Anti-personal weapon. Exceptionally good against unarmored foes. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ against armor. It improves with time with skill naturally. But armor is still a major hinderance. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ against large creatures. You mostly do damage to fatty layers.

Pick = Amazing armor piercing, solid anti-personal. Picks are very good with piercing armor. It is both a slashing and piercing weapon. Due to the way the game works, it has a lower contact surface, which actually makes it better against armor overall when slashed, as it can find gaps in the armor easier. Not very good against large creatures.

Sword = The Jack of all trades, master of none. It can do a little of everything. It is neither exceptional, nor bad at anything really. (Other than large creatures). Due to its light weight however, it tends to have more attacks at higher skills, and can deal with being surrounded better.

Warhammer = Extremely good at anti-personal vs armor and no armor. Very good against undead. Small contact area means that it punches armor, and will break bones and damage organs. Ok ish against larger creatures unless the limbs are chitanous. Use the heaviest thing you got. (Silver if you got it. otherwise steel)

Mace = Not worse than warhammer. Just a very different function. Larger contact area means it deals a lot of tissue damage and pulping. The difference between this and the warhammer, is that a mace will absolutely DESTROY a limb. Maces are EXTREMELY GOOD against the undead. A warhammer is more likely to break limbs when taking out an undead. a Necromancer can just ressurect the thing and it will get right back up. Pulping on the other hand, makes sure there is nothing left.

Both Mace and Warhammers have a solid chance of knocking someone unconcious or crippling them severely. A crippled or unconcious enemy will be killed almost instantly, as the dwarves will always make an accurate strike to the head.

Crossbows = Piercing damage. Use steel when you can. They don't do a lot of damage to extremities. But can instantly drop someone with a lucky shot. They can weaken an army before they get close to you. Or are a generally safer means of dealing with extreme ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Like Cave Spiders, or Forgotten beasts.

Miscellaneous weapons (Ie books, doors, statues) Dwarves will use what ever they have in their hands to defend themselves. Or what they can pick up on the fly. Even if it is a corpse. Generally, unless they have a high fighting skill, They know that it is always better to be armed, and will use what ever they can pick up that isn't nailed down.

There is no best weapon (outside of large creatures and undead). Using only one type of weapon for the fortress is not a good idea. Make a squad with a single type of weapon. And use many different weapons.

Using one weapon type for a whole squad prevents unneccessary weapon training, which can slow down the primary weapon's growth. And trust me... you want them to skill up FAST with the primary weapon.

For your soldier's sanity. Stressed dwarves do not perform well. Especially in combat. Don't use constant training as is. Make a new schedule. Have at 5-7 of your dwarves train. The rest will be off duty. The dwarves will cycle out on their own, letting the others attend to their needs.

BONUS ROUND! ARMOR

This one isn't worth explaining too much. Armor covers specific parts of the body. And it can be layered. certain things are "Shaped" meaning you cannot attach another shaped armor to that body part.

Stacking armor doesn't improve the protection to that part. An axe will cleave through 6 chainmails as easily as one. It will use the best armor for that part to protect.

Why stack armor? Optimization. Certain body parts are not protected by plate equivalents. Breast plates do not protect the arms. but chainmail does.

So... for armor... the best starting armor you can do is...
Steel Helm
Steel Mail
Steel High Boots
Steel gauntlets
Leather Cloak (Protects the face and additional ♥♥♥♥)
Wooden/Leather Shield.

Weight does matter. If your dwarf isn't very strong, or does not have a high armor skill, wearing too much armor will slow them down. And that will kill them faster than being naked. You will often win battles you have no right to, simply because the enemy wore too much armor and couldn't move for ♥♥♥♥. This is because their movement speed also effects how many turns they get in combat. So it controls their ability to dodge, parry, attack, etc.

As their skills improve. You can then add to their armor.
Steel Breast Plate, Greaves. And congrats... they are fully equipped.

This is specifically mentioned because the material of your weapons matter. If you try attacking steel armor with wooden or iron weapons? Yeah... you're gonna die. Because that weapon isn't getting through.

Gobbos and cave dwellers seem to do fine even though their weapons are garbage while I got steel. I might not bother with armor at all next time I do a fort. If my dwarves are good at fighting, they mostly dodge anyway, if they are bad armor doesn't help. Also crossbowmen confuse me. When I order them to stand at a spot, they behave like melee troopers instead of archers. I didn't find a switch to flip their behavior and melee troopers are frankly stronger, so I don't bother much.

[Grimmrog_SIG]

thats risky, very risky, a lucky strike and an arm could be gone. never go without armor.

[Erei]

Simple tutorial that doesn't go in extra details but will work for most situation.
-blunt (hammer, maces) are THE way to go for undead. They "mangle" bodies which prevent reanimation. They are less effective against regular opponent, in general
-sharp (axes, swords) are the worst for undead. They cut people limb, which make them deadly for regular opponent (chop a head and it's a win, chop a hand and they got no more weapon). However, undead are immune to pain so they don't care, and the limb can be reanimated individually, making it dangerous.
-piercing (bolts, spears) are useless against undead, but are OK against regular foe. The big thing is how they pierce armor and flesh to "hurt" internal organs, which make them highly effective if the foe feel pain. Again, undead don't care about pain and internal organ, so it's useless against them. They do use the shaft as blunt once in a while, so not entirely useless though.

TL:DR :
-for undead use blunt
-for regular foe, sharp weapon are the best "jack of all trade"
-add a few speardwarves here and there for support against regular foes


For metal (armor and weapons) :
-steel is best (outside supernatural metal) for everything
-bronze and iron are similar as 2nd best
-silver is trash except for blunt, it's kinda equivalent to steel
-adamantine is best (better than steel) except for blunt (the worst)

[Skyguard]

Originally posted by Grimmrog_SIG:

thats risky, very risky, a lucky strike and an arm could be gone. never go without armor.

Well, yes. But they get hit anyways and get nerve damage, which is almost just as bad as losing an arm.

[zeeb]

Different weapons have different stats such as contact area, penetration etc.
Swords and spears can stab but can get stuck (spears being more effective), battle axes and war hammers can not. War hammers don't usually remove limbs, they break them which inflicts intense pain, but some creatures don't feel pain.

If you want to be a minimalist you choose Battle Axes, because they're also used for wood cutting and works for the majority of enemies you will encounter. But if you're in an evil area with a high risk of encountering undead, you'd do well to focus on war hammers. You don't want to hack off a lot of limbs that'll get reanimated and steal the attention away from the real threats.

If you're planning on fighting a dragon, then I recommend a spear or pike, so you have a higher chance of penetrating the brain, heart or the lungs as fast as possible, the more fire breaths it does, the more risk of your dwarves getting roasted.

For defense, a leather/wooden shield with Legendary Shield User and Legendary Dodging is enough, but it's not easy to get those skills to that level without using armor.
If you ever manage to get a dwarf to those skills, that dwarf can solo any other creature in the game without much issue, even several in most cases. Might take some time if the dwarfs offensive abilities are not up to par.

To really maximize your military, only put dwarves in a squad that has the relevant traits, endurance is the most valuable. The one who passes out first, dies.

For weapon material, bronze is a really good starter, since you can usually embark with both copper nuggets/malachite and cassiterite. Which only costs 6 points each and bronze is almost equal to iron, the difference being so low it doesn't really matter.

The moment you have access to iron you should focus on making steel anyway, since steel is the absolute best material for armor and weapons, until you find the secret metals which you aren't guaranteed to find.

[High Lord Denix]

Originally posted by Skyguard:

Originally posted by Grimmrog_SIG:

thats risky, very risky, a lucky strike and an arm could be gone. never go without armor.

Well, yes. But they get hit anyways and get nerve damage, which is almost just as bad as losing an arm.

I agree, bullet proof vests only work sometimes, people should just stop using them all together, I mean if you get shot in the leg the vest doesn't even protect you, whats the point!

Armor your dwarves dumby, you're never going to realise how useful it is until you don't have it when you need it, then you'll just feel real stupid.

[Skyguard]

Originally posted by High Lord Denix:

Originally posted by Skyguard:

Well, yes. But they get hit anyways and get nerve damage, which is almost just as bad as losing an arm.

I agree, bullet proof vests only work sometimes, people should just stop using them all together, I mean if you get shot in the leg the vest doesn't even protect you, whats the point!

Armor your dwarves dumby, you're never going to realise how useful it is until you don't have it when you need it, then you'll just feel real stupid.

I mean, I am Ukrainian. You really don't have grounds to tell me about armor vests. A lot of people wear stripped ones and don't wear helmets. As for the dwarves, well I really don't care if the dwarf can't fight because they fall down due to a severed nerve in their leg, or because they got not leg. It leads to the exactly the same result. Steel is also time consuming to make in large enough quantitative, so I already only bother with some armor pieces.

[Skyguard]

Modern armor isn't really as effective as medieval one, I thought that this game in particular wouldn't let some random goblin with silver sword cut through my steel breastplate, but it does. Unless I need several layers of it, like both mail and plate at the same time, but I don't see that working from how I've seen my armored dwarves perform.

[High Lord Denix]

Originally posted by Skyguard:

Originally posted by High Lord Denix:

I agree, bullet proof vests only work sometimes, people should just stop using them all together, I mean if you get shot in the leg the vest doesn't even protect you, whats the point!

Armor your dwarves dumby, you're never going to realise how useful it is until you don't have it when you need it, then you'll just feel real stupid.

I mean, I am Ukrainian. You really don't have grounds to tell me about armor vests. A lot of people wear stripped ones and don't wear helmets. As for the dwarves, well I really don't care if the dwarf can't fight because he falls down due to a severed nerve in their leg, or because they got not leg. It leads to the exactly the same result.

Don't care didn't ask.

Sure, lets just completely ignore the scenario where the attack is blocked by the armor because its convenient for the argument, very cool.

People remember negative things more than positive ones, you're acting like armor never does anything because you only notice when it doesn't and overlook it when it does, its useful, use it.

[BoogieMan]

Armor in Dwarf Fortress is very effective. Especially when you get to higher tier metals which is improved further with quality products from highly skilled crafters.