Why don't my marksdwarves do any damage?

Question

I'm trying to augment my melee troops with some ranged troops. However the ranged troops don't seem to be effective at all, even though they're all Skilled or better.

For example:

• 30 wood and bone bolts against a naked goblin resulted in bruises only.
• 30 wood and bone bolts against an armored goblin resulted in nothing.
  • Bolts were even stopped by silk clothes.
• 30 iron bolts against an armored goblin resulted in absolutely nothing.
  • Noted bolts being stopped by copper and leather.

Am I doing something wrong or is this just the state of ranged combat in 0.31.12?

Answer 1

I looked around the forums and the general consensus is that military is still unbalanced. For the "armored" creatures, the protection given by clothing and armor is way overpowered. Here's a useful video: http://mkv25.net/dfma/movie-2048-crossbowsgotnerfedtoomuch

Another problem with archery is that it has a low percentage hit chance when your enemies are moving. It could be that most of your shots are missing, and those that hit do low damage. I usually use cage traps to get some invaders and then set up the cages in an "execution pit". When the enemies are not moving, it can take anywhere from 20-50 direct hits to actually kill an invader.

Try out arena mode and see what happens.

Hope this helps.