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[dirty foot]

How long do these things last? It's been 5 years now since the goblins came, and just as long since my last visit from traders. I killed all of them. I even opened Runesmith to check and make sure there weren't any I missed.

Should I just abandon and start anew? Kind of irritating.

[Urist Imiknorris]

Are any of their mounts still around? That might be causing it if you're in .22, due to the mounts getting names and this being DF.

Basically, check that there isn't a horse or something stuck in a murky pool with a dead rider. Just a hunch.

[darkflagrance]

In the old version, a bug would happen where an invader would be killed but it wouldn't have the right tag set to "dead" inside the program, which would lead to the same effect. The old fix was checking the list of dead invaders to see if any of them had broken tags. I don't know if memory hacking tools for the current version can solve this though.

[dirty foot]

Well, I was just swamped by another 60 goblins. My hero (maceman--had an artifact made) was my last hope, and he was shot down in a corner of my fortress. He went down valiantly, but with him gone, I really didn't have a chance. The rest of my military was fighting two FBs down in the caverns below.

I need to make more traps next time.

[ChairmanPoo]

Or just a moat.


In particular, I favor building a tower as fortress entrance, with the door in the second or third level, and in front of that build a big ramp (AKA: make a "stairway" with walls and then connect each level with ramps). Then make a drawbridge from the tower's door to the ramp. Whenever a siege or raid happens, just close it.

In fact, you might want several different bridges acting as blast doors in key points, and link them to a very accessible "panic button".

[Nameless Archon]

In particular, I favor building a tower as fortress entrance, with the door in the second or third level, and in front of that build a big ramp (AKA: make a "stairway" with walls and then connect each level with ramps). Then make a drawbridge from the tower's door to the ramp. Whenever a siege or raid happens, just close it.

I reverse this. I build a walkway/bridge combination at ground level that leads into a walled compound, then have a spiral ramp down into the earth that enters my fortress several levels below its highest point. When there's time, I excavate the ground surrounding the walkway/bridge to create a 10+ z-level drop. Invaders often fall from the bridge and are killed by the fall.

The tower only leads downa  few levels, then across one Z-level into my fortress proper. Losing the tower (for whatever reason) doesn't kill the fort, because there's a series of inner bridges that can be closed off to seal the fortress in case of emergency.

In effect, it's a "sunken gatehouse" with the top at ground level (later, I cap it with another story surrounded by fortifications for marksdwarves). However, it's occurred to me to expand your design somewhat, and have 2-4 entrances above ground, each leading into a separate trap corridor, for purposes of "slowpoke retrieval". When an ambush comes and Urist McWoodcutter can't make it to the main door (because the goblins are too close) it should be possible to have a second (or third, or fourth) entrance that he can scamper into one of those and have me seal them up after he's in. With enough cage traps or weapon traps, I could even be a little slow to open/close the backup entrances and still come out okay.

If .22 is stable (and we don't get .23 in a day or two) then I'll download it and migrate off .18 to enjoy the new features. I'm already planning the layout of my new fort!

[wuphonsreach]

At a minimum, you should have two "blast" doors between you and the outside that can be closed in an emergency to seal off a portion of the fortress.  If you don't like the odds outside, close the doors, hunker down, build slabs for Urist McSlowPoke who didn't make it inside in time and work on your underground constructions / farms / etc.

I tend to design my fortress in layers.  In order to get in to the main fort you have to:

- get past at least 5-10 tiles filled with "dodge-this" weapon traps using cruddy weapons, training spears, or spiked wooden balls.  These tiles are 1Z above the surrounding terrain and if you fall off, you have to go back some.  Later on, I turn this into a deadly maze that sucks sieges in, forces them to fall off into a maze that is filled with really nasty slice-n-dice traps.  Plus I add fortifications up on the wall overlooking this area so my marksdwarves can shoot at the enemy who are trying to get past the dodge-this trap section.

- get past a few cage traps

- get past a retracting drawbridge (the outer wall of the keep)

- get past chained war dogs and another line of cage traps

- pass by my barrack training rooms, and archery ranges

- get past another retracting drawbridge (the inner door), also guarded with a few more cage traps and chained war dogs

At which point, they're at the Trade Depot.  And I do have one more set of retracting drawbridge doors after that to seal off the trade depot.  But if anything makes it in this far, without some doors being slammed shut I'd be in a world of hurt.  (My main fortress is *extremely* inter-connected with lots of main stairwells and a warren of quarters, workshops and storage.)

[bertieb]

I have the same problem - never-ending siege (or at least the SIEGE tag at the top), and no traders showing up.

In the old version, a bug would happen where an invader would be killed but it wouldn't have the right tag set to "dead" inside the program, which would lead to the same effect. The old fix was checking the list of dead invaders to see if any of them had broken tags. I don't know if memory hacking tools for the current version can solve this though.

What flag(s) in particular do I need to check? 'Dead' ?