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[andrei901]

So, in my fortress, I've now had two consecutive goblin sieges that didn't come downstairs. They would hang out on the surface and kill bards and stuff, but they never actually walked down the open, unblocked, and un-trapped entryway. The first siege my dwarves just sat inside and glowered, because I didn't wanna have them fight outdoors (and be exposed to sunlight) after over a decade of indoors only training. The second siege, I had fully trained up my Foreign Legion, consisting of three elven axe lords, two human axe lords, and a gorlak axe lord led by a goblin axe lord, which...blenderized the siege, after trying to get it to go downstairs for a month.

I did try luring it with animals. They chased the animal until it went down the ramps, then they stopped.

I did not try luring with military dwarves, civvies ran.

Traders have no problem navigating the pathway, and elven sieges have no trouble getting downstairs. It's only goblins.

[PatrikLundell]

My later fortresses have had a somewhat similar issue with gobbos camping in entrance tunnels, and it seems to be the same tunnel they camp in (different ones for different fortresses), unrelated to the direction they arrived from (I've had them arriving from different directions).
We know there are issues with path finding (e.g. visitors pathing down into murky pools and stay there).

[Saiko Kila]

I have observed something like this too, but in my case it seems to be related to the leader following. Why the leader isn't more courageous I don't know (he's not trapped, like it used to be in older versions), but the gobbos led by it are unwilling to go fat without approval. Trolls or beak dogs from the same invasion follow other rules (or leaders).

Also there can be more than one such leader per invasion, so in bigger invasion only some teams can be affected, at least in my experience. I suppose it may be a quirk or side effect of AI trying to outsmart the player and potential traps/ambushes.

Do these goblins aggregate near places where traps used to be? May be coincidence, but my gobbos like to get stuck in places where traps used to be.

[PatrikLundell]

Hm, it could be a new variant of the trapped leader issue. I see a lot of terrified enemies running inwards in the tunnel as a result of seeing the scary guard cat in the dogbox above (with a grate as the floor), and ogres seem to be particularly vulnerable. There are traps in the area, filled with invaders in some of those cases. However, the latest one was a human invader army, and their normal visitor spies have mapped out almost all of my traps (a total of 5 units were caged).

Is there some way to identify who the leader is?

[Saiko Kila]

Hm, it could be a new variant of the trapped leader issue. I see a lot of terrified enemies running inwards in the tunnel as a result of seeing the scary guard cat in the dogbox above (with a grate as the floor), and ogres seem to be particularly vulnerable. There are traps in the area, filled with invaders in some of those cases. However, the latest one was a human invader army, and their normal visitor spies have mapped out almost all of my traps (a total of 5 units were caged).

My invaders do move over traps when mapped, but some still are stuck in a corridor before them, no matter if the traps are mapped or no. It looks as if they were trying to wait my defenders out. Sometimes they send "scouts" who move through the corridor, while the rest of the group remains behind. It actually makes defending easier, because these scouts are just a part of the whole invasion, and line up nicely for being killed by defenders.

I'm not sure they do care about the caged gobbos - sometimes it seems they don't, sometimes they become more wary.

As for ogres, I don't know (they tend to appear in caverns), but big animals like beak dogs or trolls are often such scaredy cats, that it's almost comical.

Is there some way to identify who the leader is?

Yes, you can get it from relationship_ids.GroupLeader.

I use my Lua script for looking up units:
https://pastebin.com/ZZ1nQDe8
It is used on unit (in any menu) with this syntax:

Code: [Select]

list-invaders -list -extraIt gives more info that needed, but the relevant line would be something like
Unit is led by Human Pikeman Ibon (X=98 Y=24 Z=169), just under the best 5 military skills.

[andrei901]

I have observed something like this too, but in my case it seems to be related to the leader following. Why the leader isn't more courageous I don't know (he's not trapped, like it used to be in older versions), but the gobbos led by it are unwilling to go fat without approval. Trolls or beak dogs from the same invasion follow other rules (or leaders).

Also there can be more than one such leader per invasion, so in bigger invasion only some teams can be affected, at least in my experience. I suppose it may be a quirk or side effect of AI trying to outsmart the player and potential traps/ambushes.

Do these goblins aggregate near places where traps used to be? May be coincidence, but my gobbos like to get stuck in places where traps used to be.

No traps have ever been built in this fortress.

The invasions definitely arrive in multiple squads, but both full announced sieges and ambushes of goblins do not venture into the fortress. Non-goblins do.

[Dunamisdeos]

Maybe they are just there to camp out in the tunnel.

[Kars]

ive been having this problem too, very strange behavior from enemies as well as from my own dwarves, who will often take off half their armor for no reason before rushing into battle and getting murdered, while half the squad is just sitting back watching refusing to violate their pacifist creed. the enemies themselves will walk into a trap, split the army in half, with one half advancing forward while the other half just... walks around the edge of the map, really. military stuff in general really needs some attention

[Saiko Kila]

Huh, the problem with military refusing to fight is also known to me. Maybe they are somehow related - only it's for our own forces, instead of foes. But either it toned down, or was reduced in version 0.44.12 for me, it was more pronounced in 0.44.10-11.

How it looks (or looked, because now I fight differently):
 Like the goblins refusing to go past my tunnel entrance, my squads were also refusing to go to this same entrance (which leads to the trading depot). My squad members were stationing not in the X mark, but in the storage rooms adjoining the trade depot, out of sight of the gobbos. I tried stationing in the depot itself, but it also didn't work. The dwarves, supposedly in sight of gobbos, weren't trying to fight. Finally, after two weeks of tries, some of my dwarves noticed the bad guy (who was left alone, after his companions deserted), and charged him.

I had situations like this a couple of times, but this stopped happening when I fight more actively, positioning my squads outside before the enemies come, and after I've built walls, which prevent them from coming so close at all.

[PatrikLundell]

Stationing isn't exact. The order is to gather around that location, which can cause some to go to the wrong side of a wall if that location is within whatever the distance is from the station location.

[Saiko Kila]

Stationing isn't exact. The order is to gather around that location, which can cause some to go to the wrong side of a wall if that location is within whatever the distance is from the station location.

Stationing right, but:
- they were not moving to the enemy with the kill order
- stationing more than 30 tiles away is kind of excessive to be just not exact. It's like cops trying to bust a home located on different street mistake.

[anewaname]

...
- they were not moving to the enemy with the kill order

I have seen at least one recent instance where dwarfs were not taking an available path on a kill order. I decided to try something but was worried it might get my fort killed, so I saved (vanilla save, not the dfhack version), and when I reloaded, the dwarfs immediately began pathing to the target.

From this, I have gained the belief that the in-memory information used for pathing, can become messed up, and that forcing it to be rebuilt by saving/loading, can correct the situation.

[Saiko Kila]

...
- they were not moving to the enemy with the kill order

I have seen at least one recent instance where dwarfs were not taking an available path on a kill order. I decided to try something but was worried it might get my fort killed, so I saved (vanilla save, not the dfhack version), and when I reloaded, the dwarfs immediately began pathing to the target.

From this, I have gained the belief that the in-memory information used for pathing, can become messed up, and that forcing it to be rebuilt by saving/loading, can correct the situation.

I'll try it next time. Possible it's an issue with pathing cache or something related. I normally don't do save-reload cycle, and so haven't tried it, because on my system DF takes a 50% hit to performance if I do it.