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[McCautious]

Question:

So I started a new fort. Things are going smoothly and its the first year, end of autumn.
The liason arrives and ... appears to be dragging an undead dwarf with him. The undead is actually following him, being like 30 tiles behind.
I have no squads yet or no weaponry for that matter. Just the two copper-picks, the miners are using (and should be using to keep mining right now) and a willow-training axe. The biome is "wilderness".
What should I do?
And related here: Are stoneswords made at a craftsdwarf workshop a viable weapon that I could quickly churn out to bash that undead back to his grave? Will severed bodyparts rise again even though I am not in an evil biome?
 

[BlackFlyme]

Question:

So I started a new fort. Things are going smoothly and its the first year, end of autumn.
The liason arrives and ... appears to be dragging an undead dwarf with him. The undead is actually following him, being like 30 tiles behind.
I have no squads yet or no weaponry for that matter. Just the two copper-picks, the miners are using (and should be using to keep mining right now) and a willow-training axe. The biome is "wilderness".
What should I do?

Marksdwarves. Shouldn't take long to set up if you already have crossbows and quivers laying around.

And related here: Are stoneswords made at a craftsdwarf workshop a viable weapon that I could quickly churn out to bash that undead back to his grave? Will severed bodyparts rise again even though I am not in an evil biome?

The answers are no and probably no.

Without mods, stone swords can only be made out of obsidian. Although obsidian isn't uncommon as a stone layer, and a proper obsidian farm can produce as much obsidian as you could desire, obsidian lacks the proper material values to make a viable weapon. It's a bit too blunt for combat.

The body parts shouldn't rise unless there is a necromancer or if the zombie dies in an evil spot that is capable of reanimation.

[McCautious]

Like I said: NO weaponry but the two picks and the willow axe.
Crossbows are next on the list but it would just take too long ... that undead is only like 60 tiles away from my fort.

I am looking for a makeshift solution here, wondering how dangerous a single dwarven undead could possibly be.
Would a couple wooden axes do the job? Could I just have him wrestled?

[BlackFlyme]

Zombies can be a lot more powerful then a living counterpart, although somewhat slower. I can't really recommend wrestling unless you mob the zombie with countless dwarves, and you will still likely see casualties.

Training weapons are bad no matter what you use them on. They are set up specifically so that they will not hurt creatures.

If you have absolutely no options, you could use DFHack's 'slayrace undead' command to kill all undead on the map. Or target the zombie with the (v)iew and type in 'slayrace him'

[smjjames]

It doesn't matter what cave layer or surface biome you release creatures in, right? I'm pretty sure it doesn't matter, but hey just wondering.

[McCautious]

If you have absolutely no options, you could use DFHack's 'slayrace undead' command [...]

Damnit. Getting the feeling that my initial estimation of being screwed was right. 
Ok then, before I resort to cheating I might as well play the joker card: SEND IN THE MINERS!

Now concerning the miner-civilian-uniform / miner on military duty problem, I only see one real solution:

* Take out the mining labour on both miners -> wait until they dropped the picks -> assign them to squad -> equip them with picks -> wait until they pick up the picks again -> slay zombie!
Would that work? Or is that "can't use the same picks for military"-problem actually referring to specific picks, so as if those picks get tagged as "civilian picks" forever?

if that solution shouldn't work for technical reasons:
Is there any way to trick those miners into "accidently bumping into" the zombie while they are carrying their picks?
I mean as regular civilians they would normally run away from the zombie right? But often enough a civilian still doesn't make it in time or whatever happens there when they get involved in wild brawl with something ... how I love those fights some wild animals pick with my woodcutters getting busted as a consequence. There must be some way to arrange such an event with my miners and the zombie?

[BlackFlyme]

Now concerning the miner-civilian-uniform / miner on military duty problem, I only see one real solution:

* Take out the mining labour on both miners -> wait until they dropped the picks -> assign them to squad -> equip them with picks -> wait until they pick up the picks again -> slay zombie!
Would that work? Or is that "can't use the same picks for military"-problem actually referring to specific picks, so as if those picks get tagged as "civilian picks" forever?

There are no civilian picks or military picks, only picks that are currently carried by civilians or soldiers. Taking them off of mining duty and waiting for them to drop the picks would work, though it may take a while for them to drop the picks. It seems to be a bit random.

if that solution shouldn't work for technical reasons:
Is there any way to trick those miners into "accidently bumping into" the zombie while they are carrying their picks?
I mean as regular civilians they would normally run away from the zombie right? But often enough a civilian still doesn't make it in time or whatever happens there when they get involved in wild brawl with something ... how I love those fights some wild animals pick with my woodcutters getting busted as a consequence. There must be some way to arrange such an event with my miners and the zombie?

If the miners are attacked by the zombie and have no real place to run, they may fight back, but they will take any chance they can to run away. A pick axe's weapon skill is the mining skill, so a decent miner will be terrifying in combat. Shame that isn't true for woodcutters though.

[Drecon]

Today I finally had a chance to play again and I realized I'm a moron.

The two dwarfs that refused to share an apartment were apparently not married, but just regular lovers.

I'm making all the simple things too hard

[smjjames]

I just want to get absolute clarification, which weapons cannot be made to use by dwarves in a squad? I think 2H swords are one. I'm still not 100% sure which weapons can currently be used because I want to train up some dwarves in foriegn weapons.

[BlackFlyme]

I just want to get absolute clarification, which weapons cannot be made to use by dwarves in a squad? I think 2H swords are one. I'm still not 100% sure which weapons can currently be used because I want to train up some dwarves in foriegn weapons.

http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2012:Weapon#Size

Any weapon with a required size over 60,000 will not be usable.

I believe that all of them are: Two handed sword, Great Axe, Halberd, Maul, and Pike.

[Garath]

re: Zombie

one of the first things I always do is to make a bridge to be able to close myself in so I have as much time as I like in situations like this (screw the liaison, serves him right for letting a zed follow him here). Atom smashers also do well vs zombies

[smjjames]

Whats a good way to quickly train up marksdwarf skill? Then again though, I'll still have to wait for the new speardwarf and swordsdwarf squads to become awesome.

I do have a live firing range, so maybe I should just capture lots of POWs and possibly wild animals.

[McCautious]

If the miners are attacked by the zombie and have no real place to run, they may fight back, but they will take any chance they can to run away. A pick axe's weapon skill is the mining skill, so a decent miner will be terrifying in combat.

Well, thanks for the advice. I won't take any chances of those miners behaving like herbalists ... as you say, mining skill = combat skill so those legendary +2 miners should truly go at it like soldiers.

Your word in Armoks ears! Unleash the terrifying miners!

re: Zombie

one of the first things I always do is to make a bridge to be able to close myself in so I have as much time as I like in situations like this (screw the liaison, serves him right for letting a zed follow him here). Atom smashers also do well vs zombies

Hehehe. Yes that would be nice. Since I started on 100% flat ground and am trying to build a "meadow-castle" of some sort, the topographical options to implement such a safeguard-device were a bit limited. As it stands there is a wide-open, unprotected 3x3 Stairwell in the meadows leading all the way down to each and every level of my fort. 
I mean, this time I did start up the wall-building hell of fast but of course didn't start with the central tower around the stairwell but instead the first ring of wall around that stairwell. Guess it serves me right to have such a dumbass liaison stop by. 

 

[Garath]

You most likely have a 'tower', 'town' or other such location nearby. Necromancer fun.

[McCautious]

How fun! There goes my shiny happy "meadow-castle". 

Is there a chance that this zombie is just a random coincidence? I mean, could (under any circumstances) a zombie spawn or follow a liaison without a tower closeby?