Okay, I've had this issue twice now in hamlets, as a necromancer, and I'm curious as to what's causing it.
When I go into a hamlet with my horde of undead followers, they wind up attacking the civilians. So far, so good - I'd prefer if they didn't, but hey, it's reasonable, at least. Naturally, I then start to raise the slain civilians, because hey, who doesn't want more minions? It's a little peculiar that raising the dead in the middle of town isn't considered suspicious, but then again, that doesn't seem too bizarre for DF. However, something odd happens: after a little while, ALL my zombie followers seem to lose their loyalty to me. They suddenly become uncontrolled zombies, displaying as "U" or whatever instead of the "@" for a follower, and I'm left with maybe one or two followers.
This doesn't seem to depend on whether or not you're considered hostile by the town, either. The first time this happened, it was in a friendly hamlet - and when I went to an unfriendly hamlet to test things, it STILL happened.
So, anyone have any idea why my zombies are going feral all of a sudden? It seems to happen shortly after I use the zombification power, so I'm wondering if there's something odd going on when I cast the spell IN town...
It's a shame, though. I kinda want to sack a major city, using its own inhabitants against it, but it would be lame to have all my zombies go feral before I've even made it to the shops. Hmm... although, I suppose I could try stockpiling the corpses, for later use...