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[KoE]

I'm on my fourth fortress ever, the north side of a volcano in a Calm area. It has abundant 2-z level cliffs and a decent sized little forest at the base of the thing. In my initial set-up, my dwarves happily went about their business as the mountain goats and groundhogs frolicked about their respective biomes. I got through most of the winter with no real incidents (the fact that the wagons couldn't get to my depot being the only real setback), but suddenly the guy who's going around smoothing boulders to solve that accessibility problem pops up this message.

'Blahblah Stonechopper has canceled job: interrupted by mountain goat'. Afraid that the goats had suddenly decided they were elephants, unicorns, or any of the other horrible, nasty, king-of-beasts contenders, I immediately zoomed to this dwarf. The dwarf and the goat were running away from each other, completely uninjured. I wrote it off as a fluke, although it happened a couple of more times and was generally annoying. The Wiki's talk page also seems to mention malevolent goats, so I just pray and hope things turn out alright.

Then, I get a message from my woodcutter (or maybe one of the miners who was working on a path on the northeast side, digging ramps);

'Blah Blah has cancelled job: Interrupted by groundhog'. Now that screams to me that something is horribly wrong, so I submit my humble question; Is this normal or have I displeased the little buggers somehow? I've still only got my seven dwarves and plenty of food, so nobody's been out Hunting to cause anything like that. The only really noteable thing is, well, this cougar.



He showed up sometime in late Autumn two Z-levels up, at which point I canceled Operation Wagon-Passage, and when I checked on him sometime later he had jumped down into the pit on the left side of the screen. Thinking it was safe, I went about Operation Wagon-Passage again. I checked on him sometime later, and he was now in the righthand pit, which leads to another question: Do cats and such regularly manage to climb sheer cliff faces like that? Or is it free to wander off the map and back on like that?

And did this cougar's appearance randomly make everydwarf terrified of the wildlife? They spent most of the time between his appearance and the groundhog/goat incidents underground, not bothering the wildlife at all. There's also the fact that after Spring rolled around (and I accidentally pissed off a filthy elven caravan with a leather glove that somehow wound up with my rock crafts) I breached a magma pool and found a few fire imps, which my miner thankfully managed to avoid capturing the attention of. But that happened after the first wildlife incidents, I'm certain.

Either way, any light you guys can shed on this would be very much appreciated. And sorry for the wordiness.

[Joseph Miles]

Well, dwarves running from wildlife seems pretty common. I've had them run from deers, foxes, groundhogs, just about everything ppeaceful I ever had on my map. Hell, if we had bunnies they'd run from them too. I think its just all untamed animals.

Also, no clue on the cats, you sure there aren't any ramps? Or stairs? or ANY other way to get there?

[Skanky]

Provided those are the most dangerous wildlife you have in your region, assigning a dwarf as a hunter may help ease the problems. Short of that, assign the woodcutter to military duty for a short period, set him to kill wildlife then return him to civilian life when the "cute fluffy animals" threat has been dealt with.

Regarding the cougar in the pits, I don't think they can jump down and certainly don't think they jump back up again. Perhaps there are ramps nearby that it went up and down?

[KoE]

I'm positive there aren't any ramps or stairs into them. Both holes are right there at the very northwest corner of the map, and they're representative of a fairly common feature I have. (There's several two-z-level deep holes that weren't/aren't ponds all over the place). I'd have had to make ramps or stairs myself, and I hadn't even noticed they existed until I was scrolling around and saw that C.

Oh wow, I'm not sure if this is just plain strange or hilarious. I went to make sure that there weren't any ramps/stairs I hadn't noticed, and, well, apparently the groundhogs have decided they're lemmings. (Z-level shots of four levels, descending to also demonstrate those holes aren't easily accessible)






There's a few ramps that are a hill near them, but none go into the holes themselves. At least, I think. My guess is that perhaps the cougar wandered off the edge of the map (if that's possible) and another one wandered back in, perhaps. I didn't check to see if they were the same cougar (although I think the only defining trait would be its gender).

As for the animal thing, this is the first time I've had it happen. I had a fortress in an area pretty close to this, and I had several dwarves hauling wood that my legendary woodcutter produced in his tree genocide program, right past hoary marmots and all sorts of other creepy-crawlie beasties. Then again, I did a fair bit of hunting on that map too, so maybe they just weren't as common and I'm not remembering things right. I'm pretty sure I had people hauling right past goats when I started this map, though. I'm almost done with most the tasks that send dwarves wandering around outside, so the fluffy genocide can be put off until I have a few more helping hands.

Anyway, thanks for the quick replies. If anything, it's good to know I have an excuse for slaughtering cute little creatures for a reason other than meat, bones, and tallow.

[1138]

I'm pretty sure I've had a giant eagle wander off and back on the map. I remember breathing a sigh of relief when I saw his red spot go away and didn't find him on the unit list (no deceased either, so I know it wasn't that) only to have him reappear at the edge a little while later.

[Derakon]

Wild animals will leave and re-enter the map at will. Paying attention to what kind of wildlife you have at the moment is important if you have an option of dangerous and non-dangerous animals (e.g. on a split wild/evil biome). Or even if you have a single mare and wild horses pass through from time to time.

[Neoskel]

Wild animals will leave and re-enter the map at will. Paying attention to what kind of wildlife you have at the moment is important if you have an option of dangerous and non-dangerous animals (e.g. on a split wild/evil biome). Or even if you have a single mare and wild horses pass through from time to time.

Dern horse spores...