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[Thallone]

Anyone know how ambush strength is determined?

I ask, because I decided to try a tropical last night and potentially face the dealy elephants. Instead, just as the traders were departing, there was a snakeman ambush from the river. Keep in mind, I'm still on the original 8 dwarves. 6 snakemen burst out and slaughtered my entire outpost in a matter of moments, with the majority of the dwarves being caught either in farm rooms east of the River, or at the River, and the rest being recruited to the defense as soon as the first attacker was spotted. The casualties were swift and decisive. I only managed to take out 1 or 2. It was up to the reclaiming party to see what the carnage is.

I wasn't dumping in the river, I wasn't even fishing. I had a single bridge across, and 2 locatioons with floodgates as I was going to have massive caverns on either side of the river. Any idea what triggered such a strong attack so early? location? bad luck?

[RPB]

Principally bad luck; 6 isn't a remarkably large attack group. Snakemen are a bit nastier than frogmen or lizardmen due to their paralytic poison, though. Climate may or may not have an effect on which group inhabits the river, as I rarely see snakemen in colder climates. Normally even an unarmed, untrained dwarf is a match for 2 or 3 frog/lizard/snakemen, but in the case of snakemen a successful poison means it's basically all over for the dwarf unless there's backup at hand to bash the snakes quickly.

[Lightning4]

They also have the latch flag so they can tear chunks or heads off dwarves. Definitely the worst of the lot by far. Frogmen and lizardmen just don't compare at all.

[Thallone]

I thought for a while I was going to be ok, but it seemed like they managed to gang-tackle each dwarf as they arrived to fight. A bunch of really short fights is what I ended up with. Reclaim also found a troll and lots of ratmen.

[Kyselina]

When you are reclaiming fortress, random monsters based on some things spawn.

[BurnedToast]

drinking from the river seem to be the main cause of river ambushes in my experience. Normally I can get brewing going pretty quick and I don't see any river ambushes, ever. On a no trees badlands map (no outside river) once, I managed to hit embark on accident before I was ready and thus had almost no barrels (like, 4). Obviously this led to a massive booze shortage, and much river drinking - I had ambushes from the river regularly.

Ambush size seems set at ~ 4 - 6 or so for most river creatures, I've never seen more then that really (unlike ratmen from the chasm who I've seen literally over a hundred in a very short period).

I also don't know that temperature affects the river populations or not, but I will say the only 2 maps I can think of I've seen snakemen were both hot/scorching jungles.

[Lightning4]

I'm also starting to think that, like the chasm, it's possible to not have a River Civ. I've only ever seen two creatures pop out of the river in my fortress's 21 year history, dotted with periods of river drinking.
An injured cave crocodile when the fortress was still beginning, and a giant toad that hungered for dwarf.
I've never seen any frogmen, lizardmen, or snakemen.

Chasm was totally different though, ratmen by the millions. I had to nuke the chasm to keep my fortress completely safe since some poor random would get mobbed by 20 ratmen.

[ September 27, 2007: Message edited by: Lightning4 ]

[Mzbundifund]

Yes, it's usually a good idea to add a couple stone block traps near the river early on, and upgrade to weapon traps if things look fierce.  A chained dog or two finds ambushers before they get too far.

[Kyselina]

Stone block trap???

[Name Lips]

quote:Originally posted by Kyselina:
<STRONG>Stone block trap???</STRONG>

All you need are mechanisms and a mechanic. Select "Traps and Levers" from the Build menu. They're right there.

[Kyselina]

I know only stone fall trap but stone block trap?

[ September 29, 2007: Message edited by: Kyselina ]

[Savok]

He's thinking of stone-fall trap when he said stone block trap.

[Behrooz Wolf]

In my established fortress, I've got a setup with two squads of guards to patrol every chasm/river/lava danger zone.  Trading them on/off duty every season or so seems to work well.  

Traps alone just don't seem to cut it for really high-traffic areas-- occasionally an ambush will leave a dwarf stunned/unconscious, and without backup there fast, they're toast.  Somehow managed to lose my original proficient weaponsmith to a batman with that...