Print

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

[wildbug]

What the hell just happened?!

Seemingly out of nowhere, my dwarves just started fighting with each other.  Two brawls broke out around the same time, nine z-levels apart, and within a few minutes my population went from 176 to 58!

Leading up to the massacre, I had noticed that the food stockpile had filled up, so I built a new one a few z-levels deeper, and a large number of dwarves were busy moving food from one to the other.  When I started seeing the "<dwarf> cancels <task>:  Interrupted by a <occupation>.", I thought they were running into each other in the hallway or stairwell or something, but it was apparently fighting.  I couldn't really tell who or what started it.  No one went berserk or was throwing a tantrum.  Someone was firing metal bolts, which is a little weird, since the archers are only supposed to be using those for combat (and they weren't active).  (Maybe it was a hunter?)

Activating the civilian alert seemed to quell the fighting, but as soon as I lifted it, they went straight back to massacring each other.

[Thisfox]

Sounds to me like a loyalty cascade.

[eerr]

Someone was firing metal bolts, which is a little weird, since the archers are only supposed to be using those for combat (and they weren't active).  (Maybe it was a hunter?)

Migrant hunters can arrive with bolts automatically designated for hunting.

[A_Curious_Cat]

Someone was firing metal bolts, which is a little weird, since the archers are only supposed to be using those for combat (and they weren't active).  (Maybe it was a hunter?)

Migrant hunters can arrive with bolts automatically designated for hunting.

Well, they do need metal bolts.  Those migrants can be tough to kill!

[wildbug]

Sounds to me like a loyalty cascade.

Thanks.  I had seen references to tantrum spirals and loyalty cascades, but I hadn't seen that page in the wiki.  I don't think I did any of the causes listed, but the job cancellation spam symptom sounds right.

I actually wrote up my post about two weeks ago when this originally happened, but it took a few days to get my account verified, so I'm just now posting it.  What happened next was interesting.

The precipitous drop in population trickled down to a few skirmishes until I had just 49 dwarves left, maybe 20 of whom were in the hospital, and most of the rest were children, when a vile force of darkness arrived....  Early in the history of the fortress, as I was channeling from the surface to irrigate a subterranean farm plot, there was a cave-in.  I never thought to patch it up, but two goblins managed to enter the fort through it.  They went into the hospital and methodically murdered all of the recovering dwarves in their beds.  Pretty soon every one in the fortress was dead, except for two dwarven children.  One was hiding in a bedroom as I watched one goblin go from door to door, checking each room, but for some reason skipped right over the one with the child (I didn't think to lock the door).  Shortly after the siege broke, some migrants arrived.  There was no other way into the fortress, since the drawbridge was up (and I didn't leave a lever under the doormat!), so I assigned "build a floor" over the caved-in area, then channeled it out in such a way that at least one dwarf would fall in and be able to "Pull the Lever."

Long story short, I'm still playing my first fortress because two children managed to survive.  (Well, one of them went insane and died of dehydration or something.)  And I'm back up to a population of 140!

[Thisfox]

That's glorious! What an amazing fortress! I bet the slabs made for that time say some sad tales.

I always try to have a bed or two in the food/drink storage areas, the wellrooms, and similar, so that I can lock doors and bunker dwarfs if I have to. It is interesting that the child survived by chance, I can imagine her blithely playing make-believe with her toy forge, while a goblin goes from bedroom to bedroom, and somehow misses her bedroom, and she never knows. Very cool.

[Uthimienure]

That is certainly an excellent fort story, wildbug!  It's a testament to your Dwarfiness 

[anewaname]

...
When I started seeing the "<dwarf> cancels <task>:  Interrupted by a <occupation>.",
...

This always means that the citizen's Job was interrupted by sight of a creature considered to be hostile to that citizen, and the citizen will flee or attack using whatever they are holding in hand. When it is citizens fighting with citizens (a loyalty cascade), you might be able to find out how it started using text searches of the gamelog.txt (one loyalty cascade started when a treecutter felled a tree which logs were stuck in, the logs fell on a tame alpaca, and a civil war started).

Someone was firing metal bolts, which is a little weird, since the archers are only supposed to be using those for combat (and they weren't active).  (Maybe it was a hunter?)

It always gets down to what weapons/items are in the citizen's hands when the fighting starts, hunters/miners/woodcutters, figurine haulers, and dwarfs with crutches have all been noted as saviors of forts when dangers arrived, or as murderers of kinsfolk when civil wars began.

[dwarfish]

What the hell just happened?!

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=178464.0

it's a bug that's been around since the vengeance conflict system was introduced. sadly i dont think it will be fixed any time soon

df is practically unplayable now because this eventually happens to all forts

[PatrikLundell]

See http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=179837.msg8380525#msg8380525 for a possible work around.