Print

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

[drayath]

If you are having issues with some of the reactions, and are running on windows vista/7/8 make sure you launched dwarf fortress with Run As Administrator or several of the reactions may silently fail(skill learning/prisioner stuff etc).

I believe version 4j also has a bugfix for autosyndrome so check that out if having issues.

Finally ensure that you are using workshop profiles so that the correct caste is uses the building (only overlord can use throne room, i think only warlock/vamp can do prisioner interegation). One thing to watch is that if a unit is killed and then resurected, any workshop that had just that unit allowed to use it will now be usable by everyone.

[Jiamil]

Well, is it normal, that after year 5 in a warlock fortress I'm attacked non stop by sieges? (Didn't even make one prisoner till now)

[Szarrukin]

Yeah, I'm attacked by dwarfs during year 1. ;/

[Kiefatar]

Invasions happen early, and strong, regardless of what you've actually done.

I think it's a bit premature how powerful the invasions are so early on, even when you haven't actually started raiding yet. It can doom early fortresses getting a very early siege/invasion, especially with the problematic military that Warlocks field. Scourge/Flail limited Ghouls, and the bugs surrounding Skeletons and Crypt Lords. I've still yet to see a warlock cast their inherent slade boulder spell... but I try to avoid sending them out.

Building new skeletons, or ghouls can be problematic without a good supply of wildlife to hunt, Birds being the hardest to stop.

[Hotawotwot]

I am pretty sure the slade boulder spell comes from one the Grand Convocation's banners

[Rubicon]

It can doom early fortresses getting a very early siege/invasion, especially with the problematic military that Warlocks field.

I have been playing Warlock pretty intensively the past few weeks, and this has been my experience. I have had to 'wall-off' the sieges just to survive 30-odd mounted steel-clad invaders in year 2-4. Current fortress relies on harvesting the caverns for souls\bones\meat\leather while gearing up to face the sieges. While this is working fine, it is clearly not what was intended for warlocks, (pylons etc, early design posts refer to 'open' surface fortresses as a goal rather than cramped underground ones).

Two main problems:

With DF combat a few injuries\casualties are inevitable, and that is fine\fun. Military is composed of ghouls, and because corrupting caged invaders doesn't work, the raiding system is the only way to replace them.  This takes a significant time to get running, and the overlord requires some high quality rooms. An earlier\easier way to get ghouls or the ability to raise them from the dead would help with this. (Currently the graveyard seems to be a way to get some more early ghouls, but the chance is just too low, I have spent hundreds of meat on it and not seen it happen yet.)

More importantly; skeletons are totally useless in the military. With the options for upgrading and their general toughness they seem to be intended to be the main fighting unit. However, the way they kick themselves out of the squad positions and crypt lord every few months makes them such a pain that it is hardly worth it. Also the issue with not being able to reassign crypt lords once they have occupied the position and been kicked out. People in the thread talk about the skeleton banner being necessary, but this is such a late game item (need completed library + other awesome junk) as to be unachievable without walling-off to survive sieges.
 The current situation is a 'catch 22'; you need useful military skeletons get scalps, to work towards the banner, to get useful military skeletons.
Without a fix to the 'skeletons quitting military' bug, some kind of lesser banner (earlier access but doesn't give the speed boost?), or perhaps a noble skeleton position that transforms the skele (like the overlord transformation) into a unit that has a control power like a warlock...something like this is needed.

Unless I'm doing it wrong? Anyone have any other experiences with military skeletons? 

[Arcvasti]

It can doom early fortresses getting a very early siege/invasion, especially with the problematic military that Warlocks field.

Unless I'm doing it wrong? Anyone have any other experiences with military skeletons?

You can get more ghouls at the graveyard workshop. And I just put military skeletons in my Overlords squad and re-add them every 3 months. You only have to do it 4 times a year, its not that bad. But they have to be under a non-skeleton squad leader because you can't re-add skeletons noble positions. And as far as early sieges go, my 5 legendary ghouls [literally], butchered the dwarven siege in year 2.

[Rubicon]

You can get more ghouls at the graveyard workshop.

I have dumped literally hundreds of meat and not seen it happen. I would be fine with a much more expensive but reliable method. I don't think you can reasonably call a 5% chance (and additional chance of hostile ghoul) reliable.   

re-add them every 3 months

Maybe you don't find it too tedious; I do. Rather than quibbling about it, is there any workaround?

[drayath]

I have been playing with a completly open fort and this is how i have managed.

1st grab the 2 strongest/agilist start ghouls as your start military (or even better vampires if you get any in the migration waves)
Start with a pair or copper (or better) scourges and shields
At the start of the embark make a Uniform with no item, replacing clothing and assign it to all everyone.
Now equip your two ghouls using specific item, you should be able to equip them with a complete set of metal grade (chitin/scale) covereing (shoes/trousers/shirt/gloves/robes/cloak), and a metal mask (a start dreadnaught mask is ideal)
Remove everyone else from the military to pick up the remaining clothing.
If you dont have complete coverage repeat after a migration wave, note that arriving skeletons drop clothing in a {forbidden} pile on the map square they arrive on so will need to go and re-claim it.
Your ghouls should now be safe to slaughter the wildlife (watch out for giant animals/saquatches that may still rip off their heads with wrestling moves)
Next aim if to collect a bunch of souls (with constant attacks on wildlife) to boost agility and strength, and enough chitin/scale to make sets of leather armour to add on top of the leather clothing. Note if you boost agility to 3000+ first will massive speed up soul collection as can easily catch wildlife, rather than chase->chase->chase->hit once->chase->chase->chase etc)

Boosted to 5000 strength/agility even bronze scouges will penetrate steel armor.

In my case i lost my start 2 ghouls reasonably early to giant animals, but luckly replaced them with vampires.
If you can defeat the first ambush should give you both steel armor, larger shields and enough steel items to start armouring up your warrior pair. If needed temporary stick all the skelletons in a squad & attack the ambush as a distraction for the ghouls doing the killing. Just make you have a couple of {stored souls} stashed to resurect them. Upgrading to ironbone does not make them much better in a fight but does seem to make them harder to finish off, so them make a better distraction. (dfhack 'killitwith gravity' may be your friend to dispose of injured skeletons so they can be re-raised)
Work on a fully layered armor set likly of ironbone early and replace with steel/bloodsteel/mithril (full set of chinin/scale clothing, cloak, robe + full steel mail + full steel plate) for your two warrirors as they have the strength to wear it without slowing down. Early on can use ethereal forge to make equipment, but use a skelleton so that if a masterwork item is created and then destroys itself dont send a warlock insane.
 
My two vamps (year 5) are presently taking out entire sieges by themselves, with only the occasional broken bone (which heals in a month or two, and with 5000 willpower not stuck in bed while healing)
If you are using vamps look out for pikes/halaberds as this is the only weapon they can gain exp in (occasioanlly brought by humans, can get for relics/treasue in the arceologist). Im presently using pair of Ledgendary Pike, even if they are made of rusty steel & iron.
Just starting to learn spells and are focusing on defenseive ones (e.g. Armor), vampires already take 50% damage, stacking additional reduced damage modifies makes them almost invunerable.
Everyone except the skelletons are wearing a full set of mithril armor (from melted elven gear) and are restricted to inside the tower/dungeons and the two vampires (who are never off duty as dont need to sleep/eat) train just outside the tower entrance. Minimizes friendly casulties, and if a buch of skelletons are caught outside in an attack they are cheap to re-raise.

[Kiefatar]

So, what do I need to do to activate the Inscriptions for skeletons? I'm trying to raise up an armorer/weaponsmith Bloodsteel Skeleton, but I can't get it to perform any of the inscription reactions. I've got plenty of souls and gems, cut and uncut kicking around, but it's not going.

What labors do I need enabled?

[drayath]

You need stone/rune engraving skill enabled on the skeleton, cut gems and souls (raw or in phlactory). Note that you will need to ensure that there is no smoothing/engraving of stone designated in your fort or they will go of and do that instead of using the workshop.

[Rubicon]

...In my case i lost my start 2 ghouls reasonably early to giant animals, but luckily replaced them with vampires....

That sounds cool. Are you using the vampire crypt building to make sure that they drink blood, or do you find that they do it automatically?  I have avoided using vamps so far because I didn't want the chance of them draining ghouls\warlocks.

...if a bunch of skeletons are caught outside in an attack they are cheap to re-raise....

This is definitely one of the best parts of the mod; resurrection of civ. members is an awesome mechanic and seems to work really well.   

[Meph]

I am glad to see that more people are trying out the Warlocks. Improving Warlock mode will be among the first things I do for the next update. The more reports and suggestions I get till then, the more I can do.

[Szarrukin]

I have to say, Warlocks are my favourite civilization - mostly because I don't have to manage over 100 units, even in late game.


Something strange just happend in my tower - I've got the "The dead walk. Hide while you still can" message. Right after that, a few undeads spawned, but they collapsed after few steps. That was weird.

Also: it is just me, or scourges sucks? My two lashers are masters of crippling and maiming enemies, but it's very hard to actually kill someone, even with bloodsteel scourges.

[Kiefatar]

My list of suggestions/fixes that should be added soon/eventually.

1. Skeletons/Military - Prior to the Skeleton Banner they are just difficult to integrate, more so with the various restrictions on squad formation and leadership. Rather than having a Crypt Lord or Ghoul Master, just remove those two positions and enable some generic military squads that can have ghouls/skeletons captaining them. May help with various training issues too. I like the 4 horsemen named nobles/positions/squads, but I don't think it's viable considering the rarity of actual warlocks. I'm three years in and haven't seen any new warlocks past the first few bringing me up to a total of 5. I've skeletons/ghouls a plenty as needed via necromancy/graveyard.

2. Graveyard reactions, any way to simply generate a skeleton corpse as opposed to an entity that you then have to designate to be butchered?

3. Mephits, give them more of a role and reason to keep them alive. Additionally, would be nice if they were normal animals for pet purposes.

4. Various summoned entities through Daemonic Attorney are not compatible with opposed to life undead. Mephits, Animated weapons and other things have had similar interactions. All warlock friendly models, such as appropriate animated weapons, daemonic beasts and the ilk should be ignored for opposed to life purposes.

5. Initial start/summon/migration and skeletons going crazy before a warlock can establish control.

6. Newly created skeletons/ghouls start with no labors, any way to default them to at least hauling? Not a major issue.... it'd also be nice if we could have them go through a process to be named right away.

7. Hoardmaster is virtually pointless. Graveyard can provide souls, even if at a very low rate for free.

8. Skeleton Inscription, probably should not require a labor, but I guess engraving works. Doesn't seem to provide 3 levels of a skill, but 2 per reaction.