Print

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

[Soppe]

So, i was finally sieged by some goblins after about 10 hours of play today without anything happening. The joy was of course great as i wanted to try out my little army of 3 squads (1 marksmen, 2 melee) together with some traps here and there. I believe the attack consisted of 2-3 squads of trolls, 1 marksman squad and 2 lasher squads.

When the siege started, i told my civs to go to a "safe zone" burrow about 7 lvls below the entrance level, i did however still lose a couple as they were too close to where enemies spawned (mixed in with some random pathfinding once enemies are close). I also gave my army a move order to wait inside on the same lvl as the entrance to my fortress, about 40 squares from the front entrance. This seems to have been too much for the poor guys, as half of them instead started running outside my entrance even though the goblins were several levels above it and about a quarter of a map away. Good thing one of my smart soldiers also found out he wanted to take a drink on the OTHER side of the river splitting my map in 2 , far away from the water zone i marked (and zone-ordererd everyone to go to). As i pretty quickly realized what he was doing, i rather ordered my units to attack a troll that was now alone nearby after his squad was being taken by cages after crossing the bridge over the river. This is where the so called "fun" begins.

My army split into 2, attacking whatever random enemy squad they wanted to attack except the troll, even though some of the enemies they attacked were relatively far away still. Some even just stood there doing nothing. I tried switching alert and giving them new attack orders and what not, but nothing worked. I had absolutely no control over my units what so ever. The only thing that surprisingly finally worked was giving them a move order to go back inside again, the few who was left. Most managed to follow it, but the ones closest to enemies didn't, which is normal.

My army was set to inactive so they can actually get some training done instead of waiting for eternity for someone to show them how to do god knows what. During battle i put it to active/training to see if that would change anything, but i do not remember if i changed it back again when i ordered the last move order (being the first order working as intended).

So, in the end, what in heavens name made this all go so incredibly wrong? I haven't had problems earlier giving orders to my squads while they were "inactive", but this time their only response was simply "cannot follow order". I'm afraid i do not have a save available as i rather crashed the program instead of having to save a losing game to something like that. By all means, i know it's not a game one can win in the end, but I've used a week on it, and no way I'm gonna lose to bugs or whatever bs that was.

[Putnam]

Sounds like happenstance and other such things.

The next version will have much better "cannot follow order" jobs so that you may be able to tell what the hell these dorfs are complaining about.

[Sphalerite]

I only ever use move commands to manage my military.  In my experience ordering them to kill specific targets is laughably unreliable, and I haven't tried ordering them to defend a burrow at all yet.

[Aramara Meibi]

this is what I do during sieges, and it works nicely. One, when sieges begin, drawbridges up, fortress sealed nice and tight. During downtime my squads are on active/training, with 3-5 dwarves training at a time. During a siege they go into defend burrow mode, the burrow being underground. What happens is, when they go into this mode, they spend a good amount of time wandering around gathering supplies, filling waterskins, taking naps, whatever, until they finally show up for duty. This is why I seal the fortress up and let the goblins linger about outside for a while. Once everyone's good to go, marksdwarf squads to the towers, melee squads parked near the entrance using the squad move command, and drawbridges down. Goblins filter into the long hallway of spikey death as dwarves in the towers rain bolts down upon them, once they start scrambling away I unleash the melee dwarves to mop up, once again, using the move command rather than kill.

The lock down period is crucial or else you face the problems you had, dwarves wandering about the place not following orders. Just thank the gods there aren't smoke breaks and bathroom breaks programmed in.

[Soppe]

I guess one of my problems is how I'm using half the map, either for garbage disposal or for pasture. The pasture i can just fix by building wall around and make an underground tunnel (i have everything but mentioned tunnels, really), the waste disposal i can just take inside. Problem is how i can't in any way decide where my people are drinking. In the beginning they drank from the marked zone, but now they drink from the other side of the river no matter where i put the drinking zone :S

Oh well, guess I'll have to get all my ppl inside by putting the "safe zone" burrow on my squads too so they don't run off getting water from across the map, and then bridge everything up like suggested. Then I'll just fill my entrance with weapon traps with 5+5 giant steel axe blades + serrated steel discs and watch the goblins get molested while my squad now waits in some other burrow closer to my entrance. Think I'll even start a new game for this one.

[geoduck]

I guess one of my problems is how I'm using half the map, either for garbage disposal or for pasture. The pasture i can just fix by building wall around and make an underground tunnel (i have everything but mentioned tunnels, really)

It's a lot safer to dig out a soil layer, pierce the underground caverns, and after the moss and such starts to grow, pasture your animals underground. You can even seal up the tunnel/shaft into the caverns with a wall, and the moss will still start to grow.

[Aramara Meibi]

also, your dwarves should be drinking booze, not water. Only injured dwarves need water. They'll be much happier once you start cranking out booze pots for them, and much safer too. The walled off pastures with linking underground tunnels is what i've done. Breaching the caverns seems to be the answer to any above ground problems, water source, tree source, pastures, etc. but it also comes with it's own dangers.