Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[schlake]

I came back to play after many months.  Since there was a new version, I deleted my install and got the new version, which toasted my self-hammer vampire, sorry for anyone I let down there.

For this attempt at fun, I picked an embark next to a purple city of some sort.  The first thing I did was build a wall.  I dug a trench around the wall.  Up on top of the wall I built out 1 square to make an over hang.  I filled in the inner wall to avoid diagonal pathing through the wall!  I laid down floor all around my trench, and in the bottom of my trench, to prevent trees from making a path into my fortress.
Soon a vile force of darkness arrived.  Ten goblins.  Disappointed, and not yet having a military, I simply closed the drawbridges.  The ten goblins hung out near my fortress murdering humans who came to visit the tavern.

But then, a bronze collosus came!  It fought with the goblins.  They all ended up dead.  The description of collosus only told me that it was a bronze statue intent on mayhem.  Having nothing better to do, I put the collosus on follow and watched it run around.  Several times it climbed up into the trees and wandered around.  But a couple of times, a had a weird bug on my screen that made no sense.  It was almost like the collosus had jumped over my entire fortress, a distance of about 75 units.   Then I took some time off from watching the collosus to work some more on a hospital.  While I was down in the fortress, setting up traction benches, I suddenly got a message that a farmer had been found dead!

Jumping up to the surface, that bronze collosus was inside my walls!  Thankfully, when the goblins had shown up I'd recruited ten dwarfs into a military, and told them to train out in the sun so that they would at least get over the vomit.  Amazingly, the military defeated the collosus while I wasn't looking!

I was a bit stumped as to how it got inside though.  Maybe it climbed?  I had no idea.  I did a d-b-c to recover all the free goblinite the Colossus had left me, and to hopefully allow the collosus corpse to be taken to the refuse pile.

But it didn't leave a corpse.  It left a statue, which I now owned.  A statue of....a giant monarch butterfly.  It weighs 495 of whatever units dwarves weigh things in.   It hadn't been climbing around in the trees, it was flying.  And those weird visual glitches where it looked like it jumped over my fortress were mostly exactly that...

I thought my wall was perfect.  I knew if a dragon came that I was doomed.  But, I've only ever seen one dragon, and I can retire a fortress pretty quickly if a second one ever comes. 

Obviously I need to make a roof of floor grates, right? 

[They Got Leader]

Bronze colossi leave statues behind when they die. It is a really weird/cool part of them. The Wiki talks about it.

Also, things can climb around trees and that can allow you to get over walls.

Well done on killing your first bronze colossus!

[schlake]

I think the goblins did most of the work.   My dwarves had no armor, and apparently picked up a variety of axes.

The wiki claims the statue is random.  But if it was flying that would certain explain the weird graphics glitches I thought I saw, when it appeared to jump over my fortress.

[Fleeting Frames]

This is hardly the first time I hear of bronze colossi jumping long ways. New distance record, though!

A statue of....a giant monarch butterfly.

It is terrifying.

Obviously I need to make a roof of floor grates, right? 

Well, it'd slow them down, but they'd destroy that eventually.

Minecarts can ride over floor grates, though.

[Xnidus]

Well done. The bronze collosus are very dangerous if you do not have the adequate weapons. I recently suffered the visit of this creature and shit! Blunt weapons are useless. Silver spears slide in their surface... The only thing that damage this monster were steel cutting and stabbing weapons. I don't try iron, I don't understand why, but my dorfs know the technology to make steel but no show me any iron source (I can buy steel bars, armors and weapons, but not their iron counterparts). When dead, left a hedgehob statue... I starting to believe that my dorfs fought against a giant silver sandlash or something.

[schlake]

Annnnnnnnd a dragon came.  I had gotten as far as smelting metal to eventually make armor.  I had ten dwarves with axes, and ten dwarves I was making crossbows for.  As well as four taverns, and four libraries, and an original medial text on probing!  Judging on the number of artifact coffins my dwarves made, I think they knew this was coming.

I retired the fort without unpausing.  If I keep using the same the save, I can check back on them in a few years to find out how it went.

[Daris]

Dragons are vulnerable to cage traps.  Just saying.

[Wirevix]

Vanilla DF dragons do not have wings and cannot fly, also.  So it is no more or less able to get around than any other land-bound megabeast.

[Fleeting Frames]

If I keep using the same the save, I can check back on them in a few years to find out how it went.

They'll face the dragon in single combat.

As in, a random dwarf is picked in the fortress to fight with the dragon.

The dragon still has access to it's fire.

[schlake]

Vanilla DF dragons do not have wings and cannot fly, also.  So it is no more or less able to get around than any other land-bound megabeast.

This is my second dragon.  The first burned everything outside my walls.  Then it flew over the walls and burned everything inside.

Then it wandered into a dead room to destroy a loom, so I walled it up.  Problem solved.  I still had about 150 of my 200 dwarves left!

Two years later, I had about six dwarves left, because the fires and smoke finally killed the rest of them  It was a long and agonzing death spiral.  About 100 of them were trapped in a room suffocating to death and I had no way to dig them out.  But the dragon was still sitting in the private room I made it.  It was the pot fire that killed them.  I had a pile of about a thousand wooden pots.  After that I stopped making pots out of wood.  I make them out nice fire-safe stone now!  Wood is for beds, that dwarves can burn to death in, wheelbarrows, that can burn them to death while they are hauling burning corpses away, and stepladders, that no one burned to death on because all the trees and the grass were on fire.

Although, thinking about it, I sort of feel like I never closed the gates, because obviously dragons can fly.  Maybe it just walked in...

(I don't think anyone  actually died of a wheelbarrow fire, but it would have been hilarious)

[Fleeting Frames]

Much like Bronze Colossi, dragons can't fly.

This thread really gives this statement a new context.

Also, even for true fliers, closing the gate is helpful - the flying is more skipping to walkable target, without which they're reduced to "randomly wander in air until seeing target".

[schlake]

It has been said that "Much like Bronze Colossi, dragons can't fly."

But did Toady say it?  Or is it just a mythology passed around that neither can fly when in fact one or the other might be able to fly based on what it is a statue of?

The way I see it, DF is a game of unseen side effects.  In most software, you'd call that a bug, but not here.  If the colossus inherits somehow from another beast, which is what the wiki implies it does, then there are all kinds of things it could inherit.   Surprising things.  Has anyone ever fought a colossus of a dragon?  If so, did it breath fire?

[Fleeting Frames]

Spoiler: "Bronze Colossus raws in creature_standard.txt in 42.06" (click to show/hide)

[CREATURE:COLOSSUS_BRONZE]
   [DESCRIPTION:A gigantic magic statue made of bronze and bent on mayhem.]
   [NAME:bronze colossus:bronze colossuses:bronze colossus]
   [CASTE_NAME:bronze colossus:bronze colossuses:bronze colossus]
   [CREATURE_TILE:'C'][COLOR:6:0:0]
   [MEGABEAST][DIFFICULTY:15] 11 or higher does not get assigned as adv mode quests
      [ATTACK_TRIGGER:80:10000:100000]
   [FANCIFUL]
   [NOPAIN][EXTRAVISION][NOBREATHE][NOSTUN][NONAUSEA][NOEMOTION]
      [NOTHOUGHT][NOEXERT]
   [NO_DIZZINESS]
   [NO_FEVERS]
   [BUILDINGDESTROYER:2]
   [LARGE_PREDATOR]
   [NO_DRINK][NO_EAT][NO_SLEEP]
   [SPHERE:METALS]
   [SPHERE:STRENGTH]
   [SPHERE:WAR]
   [NOT_LIVING]
   [CANOPENDOORS]
   [NOT_BUTCHERABLE]
   [BIOME:ANY_LAND]
   [EQUIPS]
   [NOFEAR]
   [PREFSTRING:height]
   [NOBONES]
   [ODOR_LEVEL:0] no smell
   [SMELL_TRIGGER:10000] cannot smell
   [BODY:HUMANOID_NECK:2EYES:2EARS:NOSE:HUMANOID_JOINTS:5FINGERS:5TOES]
   [NO_THOUGHT_CENTER_FOR_MOVEMENT]
   [TISSUE:BRONZE]
      [TISSUE_NAME:bronze:bronze]
      [TISSUE_MATERIAL:INORGANIC:BRONZE]
      [MUSCULAR]
      [FUNCTIONAL]
      [STRUCTURAL]
      [RELATIVE_THICKNESS:1]
      [CONNECTS]
      [TISSUE_SHAPE:LAYER]
   [TISSUE_LAYER:BY_CATEGORY:ALL:BRONZE]
   [BODY_SIZE:0:0:20000000]
   [BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:HEIGHT:90:95:98:100:102:105:110]
   [BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:BROADNESS:90:95:98:100:102:105:110]
   [ATTACK:PUNCH:BODYPART:BY_TYPE:GRASP]
      [ATTACK_SKILL:GRASP_STRIKE]
      [ATTACK_VERB:punch:punches]
      [ATTACK_CONTACT_PERC:100]
      [ATTACK_PREPARE_AND_RECOVER:3:3]
      [ATTACK_FLAG_WITH]
      [ATTACK_PRIORITY:MAIN]
   [ATTACK:KICK:BODYPART:BY_TYPE:STANCE]
      [ATTACK_SKILL:STANCE_STRIKE]
      [ATTACK_VERB:kick:kicks]
      [ATTACK_CONTACT_PERC:100]
      [ATTACK_PREPARE_AND_RECOVER:4:4]
      [ATTACK_FLAG_WITH]
      [ATTACK_PRIORITY:SECOND]
      [ATTACK_FLAG_BAD_MULTIATTACK]
   [ITEMCORPSE:STATUE:NO_SUBTYPE:INORGANIC:BRONZE]
   [ITEMCORPSE_QUALITY:5]
   [DIURNAL]
   [LAIR:SHRINE:100]
   [APPLY_CREATURE_VARIATION:STANDARD_BIPED_GAITS:900:657:438:219:1900:2900] 40 kph
   [APPLY_CREATURE_VARIATION:STANDARD_CLIMBING_GAITS:2990:2257:1525:731:4300:6100] 12 kph
   [APPLY_CREATURE_VARIATION:STANDARD_SWIMMING_GAITS:2990:2257:1525:731:4300:6100] 12 kph
   [APPLY_CREATURE_VARIATION:STANDARD_CRAWLING_GAITS:2990:2257:1525:731:4300:6100] 12 kph
   [SWIMS_LEARNED]

Neither it nor dragon have [FLIER] tag that the Roc has, nor does the Bronze colossi statue inherit anything from it - it's random.

You could also check one with DFHack's gui/gm-editor for creature tags, provided you have a bronze colossus and understanding of that tool.

Though speaking of unintended consequences, Toady also intended for only intelligent creatures wrestle and for creatures without hands to not wield two-handed swords, yet we have Giant Desert Markscorpions and Zombie SwordsBuffalos.

...Well, we had Giant Desert Markscorpions. In any case, an overhang doesn't necessarily protect you from colossi.

[Daris]

Vanilla DF dragons do not have wings and cannot fly, also.  So it is no more or less able to get around than any other land-bound megabeast.

This is my second dragon.  The first burned everything outside my walls.  Then it flew over the walls and burned everything inside.

Then it wandered into a dead room to destroy a loom, so I walled it up.  Problem solved.  I still had about 150 of my 200 dwarves left!

Two years later, I had about six dwarves left, because the fires and smoke finally killed the rest of them  It was a long and agonzing death spiral.  About 100 of them were trapped in a room suffocating to death and I had no way to dig them out.  But the dragon was still sitting in the private room I made it.  It was the pot fire that killed them.  I had a pile of about a thousand wooden pots.  After that I stopped making pots out of wood.  I make them out nice fire-safe stone now!  Wood is for beds, that dwarves can burn to death in, wheelbarrows, that can burn them to death while they are hauling burning corpses away, and stepladders, that no one burned to death on because all the trees and the grass were on fire.

Although, thinking about it, I sort of feel like I never closed the gates, because obviously dragons can fly.  Maybe it just walked in...

(I don't think anyone  actually died of a wheelbarrow fire, but it would have been hilarious)

Cage traps work for even flying things, if you make your entryway 1-z high.  They are still flying, but flying on the same z as the traps, and will be captured by them.

Cage traps are the best against anything that isn't trapavoid, and the list of trapavoid critters is a smaller list than you might expect.  You might expect a dragon, being quite dangerous, to be trapavoid, but it totally isn't.

[Fleeting Frames]

Of course, some of those are friendly. List of things that will not fall into cage traps, unless disabled somehow:

1. Visitors
2. Your own dwarves
3. Procedurally generated megabeasts
4. Kobold thieves
5. Werebeasts in beast form
6. Invading armies who have been told of the traps beforehand by liason
7. Gremlins

Thankfully, you can redirect 2,3,4,5 and 7 with no risk on just about any embark. Distinguishing between 1 and 6 requires a live critter on pressure plate, something that can require a sacrifice if your selected critter, like a war dog, tends to go utterly unresponsive due praying needs or something.