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[bobusdoleus]

So I had a siege - nice, nice, more meat puppets for my arena, and a good test for my spear-trap hall. However, there's a problem.

The first part of my trap gauntlet is cages, followed by stonefalls that I haven't got around to replacing yet, then the spear traps and weapon traps and more cages later on. After a few groups of trolls'n'gobs charged in and set off all the initial cage and stone traps (only to die horribly further in, of course), the last squad stopped in their tracks and is chilling among their caged brethren in the initial cage trap segment. I assume this has something to do with the fact that I have their leader in a cage further in, or that their leader died and now they are helpless to advance or retreat. (Also when their leader died, the bridges were closed behind them so they couldn't path out, and they haven't tried to path again since then maybe, even though the way is clear now?)

I am trying to get them to path again via killing one of them, but I am reluctant to spawn magma on them, as there's an entire trap hall that would get flooded, full of meat puppets in cages and various expensive speartraps and the like I'd rather hold on to. (Also goblinite.) They are all bowgoblins so I'm afraid to send my 4-man team of elite killer dwarves. I don't want to 'slay all goblins' as that sounds like it would kill the caged ones as well, and I'd really rather keep those if I can - I need my army trained up to lords ASAP so as to deal with the stacking 'long patrol duty' thoughts.

To clarify, there is a clear path both further into the main of the fortress and back out to the edge of the map, now that I've lowered the bridges, but they are going in neither direction.

Is there some solution to this, using DFHack or otherwise? I'd cheat those guys to death if I could, and if it would not damage the part of the fort they are in. Also: Will they go away eventually if I leave them there?

[i2amroy]

If you are going to cheat to kill them then you don't even need to use DFHack (which is good, because using DFHack to end sieges has been known to cause bugs where the sieges never end because the game still thinks some of the goblin invaders are alive when they really aren't). All you need to do is:

0)Save/quit DF.
1)Open up data/save/regionX/raw/objects/creature_standard.txt
2)Scroll down to [CREATURE:GOBLIN]
3)Add [AQUATIC] right below the [CREATURE:GOBLIN] line.
4)Save/quit the .txt file.
5)Load up your fortress.
6)Wait for a bit as all of the goblins air drown.
7)Open up creature_standard.txt and remove [AQUATIC] so future sieges don't just all die.

[bobusdoleus]

Ooh, cute solution. Does this affect my goblin captives? I'm guessing 'no' because of how reasonably invulnerable cage-occupiers are; Would I be right?

Also: is this something I'll have to keep doing whenever goblins bug out on me? (It /is/ a bug yes? The game isn't intending to force me to deal with mobs of goblins standing awkwardly in my trap hallway for centures?) And if so, how common of a problem is this?

[i2amroy]

Ooh, cute solution. Does this affect my goblin captives? I'm guessing 'no' because of how reasonably invulnerable cage-occupiers are; Would I be right?

Also: is this something I'll have to keep doing whenever goblins bug out on me? (It /is/ a bug yes? The game isn't intending to force me to deal with mobs of goblins standing awkwardly in my trap hallway for centures?) And if so, how common of a problem is this?

I believe the goblins in cages will be immune to the suffocation similar to captured aquatic creatures (just make sure you remove [AQUATIC] before you let them out).

As for why this happens it is due ot the fact that goblin attack groups pathfind by following their leaders initially. As such when there leader gets caught in a cage trap they cluster around the cage instead of continuing on into any further traps. There are a couple of ways around this though:
1)Don't use cage traps. Goblins will happily walk their way through a minefield of weapon traps.
2)Pasture some animals on the other side of the traps. When the goblins see the animals they will charge after them regardless of traps in the road, and since the animals are pastured instead of chained they will usually get away even from crossbow-wielding goblins (it's still best to use a common animal such as dogs or chickens though, and make sure to not use any grazing animals).
3)Build a trap room with bridges and capture the goblins in there. Wait for the siege to end and then open a pathway that requires them to walk over the traps to get out.

If you wait long enough eventually the siege should end (though this may take a couple of seasons) regardless of whether or not you have captured or killed any of the goblins.

[bobusdoleus]

Ah, this is making me regret making the trap hallway a winding spiral. (The initial thought was to make it so that I could station ballistae at the turns for additional megadeaths. I've since reconsidered as it seems like there's no way to protect the ballista or the operator of said ballista, as sufficiently cool marksdwarves will snipe through fortifications which, come to think of it, I am not even sure work with ballistae.) Looks like I'll have to extend the cage-segment, put deadly traps in the extension, and pasture a dog behind a bridge at the end of it.

Thanks for the explanations and advice! Much obliged.

[Reelya]

Ooh, cute solution. Does this affect my goblin captives? I'm guessing 'no' because of how reasonably invulnerable cage-occupiers are; Would I be right?

Also: is this something I'll have to keep doing whenever goblins bug out on me? (It /is/ a bug yes? The game isn't intending to force me to deal with mobs of goblins standing awkwardly in my trap hallway for centures?) And if so, how common of a problem is this?

Sending in the troops also won't kill the caged ones. Here's a future idea for you, double your cage hall as a drowning chamber. Future problem solved with 1 lever pull.

[MasterShizzle]

Using DFHack's liquids plugin you can spawn a square of magma surrounded by a donut of water. When you unpause the game the gobbos will be encased in a block of damp obsidian, no messy lava cleanup involved. All you would lose would be the traps the goblins are standing on.

[Rumrusher]

Using DFHack's liquids plugin you can spawn a square of magma surrounded by a donut of water. When you unpause the game the gobbos will be encased in a block of damp obsidian, no messy lava cleanup involved. All you would lose would be the traps the goblins are standing on.

you could also make that goblin into a honorary member of the fort and avoid hostilities... or slap sparring flag on it and have it run around attacking but not harming your dwarves, you also could slap tame on it so the dwarves won't react to it at all.

[Truec]

Using DFHack's liquids plugin you can spawn a square of magma surrounded by a donut of water. When you unpause the game the gobbos will be encased in a block of damp obsidian, no messy lava cleanup involved. All you would lose would be the traps the goblins are standing on.

you could also make that goblin into a honorary member of the fort and avoid hostilities... or slap sparring flag on it and have it run around attacking but not harming your dwarves, you also could slap tame on it so the dwarves won't react to it at all.

DFHack can do things like that?  I might have to start using it again just to see.

[Rumrusher]

Using DFHack's liquids plugin you can spawn a square of magma surrounded by a donut of water. When you unpause the game the gobbos will be encased in a block of damp obsidian, no messy lava cleanup involved. All you would lose would be the traps the goblins are standing on.

you could also make that goblin into a honorary member of the fort and avoid hostilities... or slap sparring flag on it and have it run around attacking but not harming your dwarves, you also could slap tame on it so the dwarves won't react to it at all.

DFHack can do things like that?  I might have to start using it again just to see.

I kinda want to someone to start a community fort with a tame goblin that walks around lightly smacking folks and the goal is to keep it alive while dealing with the shenanigans it brings.
"oh no the local Goblin gave birth to twins Now those twins are lightly smacking folks randomly!"