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[Omnipresence]

Hello,

Near the end of autumn in a colab fort a friend and I were working on, a group of gobbos appeared: an ambush. I sent my relatively small military to get rid of them. Only when they were 10 tiles away from the gobbo-squad did I realize they were all wrestlers. The marks-goblins took care of them easily. While I was deciding what to do, something very strange caught my eye: all of the citizens, bins and barrels in hands, marching over to the gobbos. Long story short, everybody EXCEPT the mayor (who I didn't even know existed) was killed. I was able to save the mayor by telling him to dump a stone 50 z-levels down. The attackers have left the map. But what now?

Now, the questions: why did the townspeople run to their doom? Has anything like this (one dorf left) happened to you before? Can I possibly continue? Is it wise to enable all labors for the mayor and have him run the whole fort?

Thanks,

Omni
                           

[Urist McKoga]

They prob wanted to bury the dead militia (or at least claim itens). Did this mayor not get to many bad throughts? I think if he is the mayor, he have a lot of friends, and because you said all fortress get struck down, he is a miserable poor soul...or really don't care anymore. If you have food and booze inside your fortress, just seal in inside and wait for the next migrant wave. Don't turn on all labors, just the necessary. I think you can make him mason and engraver and let him build slabs and memorize their poor friends.

Great story, a dwarf who has lost everything, seeking revenge against those who cursed him. Put him in military and let him do justice.
Dwarven Justice.

[Di]

My bet would be dead caravan animal with a lot of stuff that idiots wanted to put in bins. It never gets forbidden on death even if options are set to do so.
You should learn how to use burrows and alerts. And be more careful when there are both traders and enemies on map at the same time.

[Girlinhat]

To give a more relevant answer:
When people die they drop clothes and armor.  Dwarves will try to stockpile them, by carrying a bin out, filling the bin, and replacing the bin in the stockpile.

To prevent this:
1: Use the 'o'rders menu to forbid items on death.
2: Don't provide relevant stockpiles.
3: Use burrows.
4: Lock the gate.

[Omnipresence]

Thanks guys, I will try all of those things. I may write a short story about this mayor with the world collapsing on him.

[ORCACommander]

in my experience ambush goblins never leave the map. they just hide for next time.

[Larix]

They do leave the map - you can see them move to the map edge and walk off it. If they haven't been beaten back, they'll loiter around for the rest of the season, so it can take pretty long for them to shove off.

You can get ambushed by the same goblin multiple times, but afaik they properly _return_ for another go - if they're historical persons (dunno if being member of an ambush group is enough or if they need to make a notable kill or something), they remain part of the personnel pool the ambusher civ can draw from. They'll get re-equipped upon returning, which can lead to ambushers with hacked-off limbs dropping unusable equipment on the map edge and archers showing up with two quivers.

[Button]

You can use burrows and alerts to keep civilians in a safe area even in the face of of unforbidden ☼«☼giant cave spider silk sock☼»☼s. You'll get cancellation spam, but your civvies will stay in the burrow.

• Create a 'safezone' burrow.
• Go to the military screen -> alerts menu and create an alert named 'threat' or something
• The third column lists burrows; with the 'threat' alert highlighted, select your 'safezone' burrow in the third column.
• When a threat appears, return to the alerts menu and select the 'threat' alert in the first column.
• Watch everyone, even your animals (if un-pastured) and children turn and run for the burrow.
• Watch one or two children ignore the alert until it's too late and get butchered. Idiots.

[Mr S]

7.  Watch 19 of those children's closest relatives, BFF's and pet geese go SRM from losing their precious loved one
8.  Tantrum spiral

[Wumpi]

Can I possibly continue?


                           

In my current fort, a poorly planned defense against a small mounted siege caused the deaths of about 70 of my 90 dwarfs. In the ensuing tantrum spiral of the remaining 20, a group of migrants showed up and camped outside the gates until those on the inside had killed each other, then dug their way in. It's possible to rebuild in the same fortress, but it's a lot harder than reclaiming, I think. I spent the next solid year held up with further, much larger sieges, unable to get new migrants. 90 coffins and a nice catacomb network kept them busy, until a winged roach webbed them all.

After reclaim, my catacombs have about 200+ corpses. I'm quite fond of them.

[slothen]

Can I possibly continue? Is it wise to enable all labors for the mayor and have him run the whole fort?
 

Yes, quite easily, provided he isn't already insane with grief.  If he's pretty sad arleady, you may want to get him burying bodies asap.  Otherwise, keep him safe inside and leave the body-burying for later when migrants arrive.  Give him the biggest damn bedroom, dining room, and office if he doesn't have them already.  Once that's done, you want to dispose of or stockpile anything inside the fortress that might rot, fortify the defenses with more traps (as migrants won't do you any good if an ambush is sitting outside your locked gates).  Seal off any breached caverns as you can't deal with a forgotten beast, and ensure you've got plenty of booze or a water source for when migrants arrive.  Not necessarily in that order, either.

[Ringsea]

They all wanted the free socks and loot, probably. You can do that burrow thing after you see invaders, and you can forbid all the dropped loot until after the battle. Both get the job done, but if you do the latter and the former it helps cut down on job interupt spam.