Print

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

[Oaktree]

Goblin sieges are obviously somewhat random in size, but what is the experience of overseers with how big they get and their composition?

I think the first siege might be hardcoded - a single squad of fifteen infantry goblins, led by a leader on a mount who is often not elite.

Afterwards I have with the current version usually seen 2-5 squads of goblin cavalry (all mounted) with an elite or historical figure goblin leader.  Often accompanied by 1-3 half-squads of war creatures (trolls, elk birds).   All goblin squads have fifteen "grunts" with a single weapon class (axe, sword, crossbow) and the leader may be armed differently.  The support creatures come in groups of eight.

The maximum siege I have seen in sheer numbers was five mounted squads and two support half-squads (80 goblins, 80 mounts, 16 support) for 176 invaders at one time.  This was in a 3x3 embark.

I was curious whether larger embarks or older forts see larger sieges since I have seen comments referring to 100 goblins arriving as part of a siege.

[Girlinhat]

It's based on wealth.

One trend you'll see (at least previously, I don't think recent versions have changed) is the relation to digging and sieges.

The more tiles you mine, the more likely a Strange Mood is to occur.
Artifacts generate a lot of wealth.
Wealth attracts goblins.

Many older forts would see a drop in goblin activity, until they did a new mining project, clearing new land, generating new moods, boosting wealth through artifacts, and attracting goblins years after sieges had seemed to stop.

[Oaktree]

I understand fortress wealth and/or export-import ratio triggering them.  But that also also affect how many goblins actually turn up in terms of absolute numbers per siege?

So, for instance, if I go on a masterpiece steel weapon production spree will I possibly start seeing 5-6 squads of cavalry at that point?  Or simply get a stretch where the goblins simply appear every season for the year?

[Girlinhat]

I understand fortress wealth and/or export-import ratio triggering them.  But that also also affect how many goblins actually turn up in terms of absolute numbers per siege?

So, for instance, if I go on a masterpiece steel weapon production spree will I possibly start seeing 5-6 squads of cavalry at that point?  Or simply get a stretch where the goblins simply appear every season for the year?

Both are possible.  You'll see more frequent large numbers.

For value, what you really want are large serrated disks, and cloth.  Disks are incredibly high value, and cloth can be infinitely produced.  A single bolt of cloth can value in near 168 (masterwork cloth) + 2,400 (masterwork dye) + 2,400 (masterwork rope) or something like that, I forget exactly how the formula works, but it multiplies on itself pretty quickly and builds enormous value.  If you then decorate it with wood and cloth, or obsidian, you can have fully renewable immensely valuable items.

[Urist Mc Dwarf]

Or metal if your willing to use exploits

[SharkForce]

I understand fortress wealth and/or export-import ratio triggering them.  But that also also affect how many goblins actually turn up in terms of absolute numbers per siege?

So, for instance, if I go on a masterpiece steel weapon production spree will I possibly start seeing 5-6 squads of cavalry at that point?  Or simply get a stretch where the goblins simply appear every season for the year?

Both are possible.  You'll see more frequent large numbers.

For value, what you really want are large serrated disks, and cloth.  Disks are incredibly high value, and cloth can be infinitely produced.  A single bolt of cloth can value in near 168 (masterwork cloth) + 2,400 (masterwork dye) + 2,400 (masterwork rope) or something like that, I forget exactly how the formula works, but it multiplies on itself pretty quickly and builds enormous value.  If you then decorate it with wood and cloth, or obsidian, you can have fully renewable immensely valuable items.

you could also use cut glass and encrust things

(also, according to the wiki, you can cut cabochons out of clay... might be interesting if you have fire clay).

and, of course, you can also decorate with bone, if you have a valuable animal that you've domesticated.

[vjek]

... The maximum siege I have seen in sheer numbers was five mounted squads and two support half-squads (80 goblins, 80 mounts, 16 support) for 176 invaders at one time.  This was in a 3x3 embark.

I was curious whether larger embarks or older forts see larger sieges since I have seen comments referring to 100 goblins arriving as part of a siege.

I've never seen larger than what you've described.
I've also never seen a save of anyone showing anything larger that what you've described, in a single siege of goblins, in vanilla 34.11.

[Brilliand]

I understand fortress wealth and/or export-import ratio triggering them.  But that also also affect how many goblins actually turn up in terms of absolute numbers per siege?

So, for instance, if I go on a masterpiece steel weapon production spree will I possibly start seeing 5-6 squads of cavalry at that point?  Or simply get a stretch where the goblins simply appear every season for the year?

Both are possible.  You'll see more frequent large numbers.

For value, what you really want are large serrated disks, and cloth.  Disks are incredibly high value, and cloth can be infinitely produced.  A single bolt of cloth can value in near 168 (masterwork cloth) + 2,400 (masterwork dye) + 2,400 (masterwork rope) or something like that, I forget exactly how the formula works, but it multiplies on itself pretty quickly and builds enormous value.  If you then decorate it with wood and cloth, or obsidian, you can have fully renewable immensely valuable items.

Lavish meals can get truly ridiculous.  Once my cook gets good, I'll have 20,000 dwarfbuck meals laying around all over the place.  Sometimes they get up to 100,000 or more, although I think that requires an unusually large stack of meat from some large creature.

[Button]

Depending what they're riding, the goblins will often stop bringing cavalry after the siege when their law-giver comes along. Even if he leaves the map alive, he's destroyed in the eyes of the game. After that, the sieges keep showing up, but usually on foot. I've seen them on beak dogs after that point, but never on anything else. I suspect this is because they are the only [EVIL]=available to goblins creature with [MOUNT] instead of [MOUNT_EXOTIC].

[Oaktree]

Depending what they're riding, the goblins will often stop bringing cavalry after the siege when their law-giver comes along. Even if he leaves the map alive, he's destroyed in the eyes of the game. After that, the sieges keep showing up, but usually on foot. I've seen them on beak dogs after that point, but never on anything else. I suspect this is because they are the only [EVIL]=available to goblins creature with [MOUNT] instead of [MOUNT_EXOTIC].

I haven't seen the goblins shift back to infantry in the current version after losing their leaders.  And this in in multiple forts where the goblin master or general has shown up and been explicitly killed - leaving the goblin civ with no listed leaders.  Sieges 2-3 years later are still fully mounted.

[SharkForce]

Lavish meals can get truly ridiculous.  Once my cook gets good, I'll have 20,000 dwarfbuck meals laying around all over the place.  Sometimes they get up to 100,000 or more, although I think that requires an unusually large stack of meat from some large creature.

it's quite possible the secret ingedients to your super-expensive stacks are eggs and syrup. especially if you have something that lays a lot of eggs at once... like cave crocodiles.

[Girlinhat]

Lavish meals can get truly ridiculous.  Once my cook gets good, I'll have 20,000 dwarfbuck meals laying around all over the place.  Sometimes they get up to 100,000 or more, although I think that requires an unusually large stack of meat from some large creature.

it's quite possible the secret ingedients to your super-expensive stacks are eggs and syrup. especially if you have something that lays a lot of eggs at once... like cave crocodiles.

Syrup, booze, and leaves are all very decent, syrup is costly, so is booze, and both booze and leaves can be produced in large stacks.

[Bludulukus]

Depending what they're riding, the goblins will often stop bringing cavalry after the siege when their law-giver comes along. Even if he leaves the map alive, he's destroyed in the eyes of the game. After that, the sieges keep showing up, but usually on foot. I've seen them on beak dogs after that point, but never on anything else. I suspect this is because they are the only [EVIL]=available to goblins creature with [MOUNT] instead of [MOUNT_EXOTIC].

I haven't seen the goblins shift back to infantry in the current version after losing their leaders.  And this in in multiple forts where the goblin master or general has shown up and been explicitly killed - leaving the goblin civ with no listed leaders.  Sieges 2-3 years later are still fully mounted.

On my current fortress all my early sieges were mounted on jabberers( some sort of bird), later, mounted siege comes with goblin leader, goblin leader dies. All subsequent sieges come on foot, maybe that goblin weaver was the only one with the secret knowledge of taming jabberers?

[Brilliand]

Hmm... I may have misremembered.  I just loaded a few of the savegames I have laying around (including my current fort), and most of my roasts are in the 1000-5000 range, with some of them getting up around 15,000.  No 100,000 roasts currently in my possession in any of my forts, so I couldn't tell you what the ingredients were.  It couldn't have been syrup or eggs, as I've never had many of those lying around, but some 200+ stack of forgotten beast meat is possible, if indeed it wasn't just me remembering a 10,000 dwarfbuck roast wrong.

[Button]

Depending what they're riding, the goblins will often stop bringing cavalry after the siege when their law-giver comes along. Even if he leaves the map alive, he's destroyed in the eyes of the game. After that, the sieges keep showing up, but usually on foot. I've seen them on beak dogs after that point, but never on anything else. I suspect this is because they are the only [EVIL]=available to goblins creature with [MOUNT] instead of [MOUNT_EXOTIC].

I haven't seen the goblins shift back to infantry in the current version after losing their leaders.  And this in in multiple forts where the goblin master or general has shown up and been explicitly killed - leaving the goblin civ with no listed leaders.  Sieges 2-3 years later are still fully mounted.

What are they mounted on? Is it possible you're using raw mods that have slipped your mind, changing them from [MOUNT_EXOTIC] to [MOUNT]?