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[Merlin4711]

Hello over there,

After getting into the Masterwork-Changes at a lonely island, where a Six-Dwarf-Squad punched Stranglers and Dire Lions till all of them reached Legendary Fighting Skills, I thrown myself at a continental embark location to look forward surviving some real enemies.

Well... I choose a desert location for embarking (just because I like to embark in deserts), spend two years finding out how to use farmed steel oak saplings for wood production and thought all went fine (expect the fact that the only ore seems to be the one that contains zinc), when I got really annoyed by the usual snatchers and thiefs. The bolds were able to bypass the only entrance to my fortress, which is plasterd with green saw discs (and stuff). Well, thats okay.
Then these guys appeared just right in the middle of my finished-good-stockpile, detected by the dumb hivekeeper, which tend to cry a dozen times that his job item was destroyed or lost (I assume he is talking about the two-block stone-crafter gabbro-jug). Just than I went seriously pissed off by these sneaky bastards.
Another bit of construction were done, leading to a walled in stairway (the only usual way into the fortress) guarded by a war mastrif and a single pile wide bridge, that is guarded by two war-drakes.

I hoped to be fine with this. Remembering vanilla DF, where a bunch of dogs pastured just right above the main-stairway were able to detect anything that even walked by a dozend tiles away (not really, but these guys did a good job and had many... fun otherwise, as I noticed when finding out that there was a stable population of fifty puppys crowding that area).

Okay. guess what happen? The dumb hive-keeper (while whining again because he lost his job item for the thousendandfirst time) stumbled over another thief.
Now I was really upset. How the hell did they managed to bypass all the guard-animals?

My fortresses usually do have a common design-fault, which tend to be useful in a sand desert. I channel out two 11x11 tile fileds, and start surface-farming in that holes and subsurface-farming in two digged out fields right beside them. . Of course the ramps were removed.
But this will lead to my first question: Do thiefs and snatchers jump down over one z-level if they can get inside the fortress by doing so?
And  just another one: Can they climb up straight walls? at some points, the hill i embarked at still has just only one de-ramped z-level to the environment.
This would explain a couple of things.

But... anyway, most of them were detected while trying to get off with the loot they grabbed during their heist. Than... they just run away, passing my guard animals, which didn't even try to engage them in combat.
I wonder why. Seriously. But that isn't the tip of the iceberg.
The Kobolds just bypass my traps and doors as there isn't anything, while the goblins are fair enought the trigger the weapon-trap they step upon. But even when seriously damaged, they "[...] bat the spinning green sawblade aside". Wow. So... where are there traps when they can't even hit a wounded and slow enemy?
Ah, never mind when it comes to defeating animals. Some of these white apes just walked trough my front door and got serrated to a dozen pieces. And I had turned on the "weaker traps" but seriously...
So next question: Are the sneaky guys this better in avoiding traps compared to vanilla DF?

But... No, that isn't the tip of the iceberg too.
Here it comes: Some of the Goblins got caged (at least that seems to work). Right now my military isn't existent, because no migrands will come by and all the dwarfs available are busy keeping alive themselfes.
So I dig out a pit (streight into my fortress, dumbass I am). Anyway, thats a pit with about five z-levels and some spikes at its bottom. The goblins survived this. Everyone I dropped down there. Huh...
So... at least most of them were damaged to be unable to do any damage any more. So they got trapped by a cage down there again. Time for a second try. And a third one... Argh.. Still alive?
Last resort: I pastured my war-drakes down there. Thinking: they will eat anything that will be dropped in their feeding dish.
Hah. Nothing happen. Absolutly nothing. The Goblin with serval bone fractures slams into the spikes, get his buttock pierced, while two war drakes watching him crawl out of this pit, bypassing two green discs (by batting 'em) and got caged by the cage-trap again.
I watched out for the combat-log. The drakes didn't even become enraged. Even if one of the gobbos landed just at top of one.

But wary... if there is any wild bunny comming close, you will see a bloodbath I won't speak about because thats too cruel.

So: Are the guard-animals blind or stuff like that?
If all of them won't trigger passing Goblins or Kobolds any more, that would explain how the hell they managed to crawl into my fortress.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

A fortress I plan to abandom, because right now a dwarfen baby starts to spy out my facilities

. Seriously: dafuq?

If someone want to see that by himself, I did some screenshots and would share the fortress... well... no, that save-file is way to big I'm afraid of Oo


Wounderous greetings

Drakes right beside the fallen Goblin


No drake-attack at all?

[Meph]

Creatures wont jump down zlevels.
Creature cant climb up cliff walls.
Trapavoid creatures avoid 100% of all traps.
Lockpickers will run through 100% of all doors.
Guard animals need line of sight, and must not be chained to aggro to a target.
Drops to kill invaders should be at least 20 levels.
The quality of the weapon trap depends on the quality of the weapon (damage) and the quality of the mechanism (chance to hit).
I dont know what you mean with sneaky guys, but if a creature is a invader, snatcher or thief has no influence on their ability to dodge.

[hanspeter]

edit: wrong topic

[Merlin4711]

Wait, what? Ghouls? 


Good to know that a cliff is still something no creature (that can't fly) will bypass.
The quality of the mechanisms is a bit bad, thats true :/
Thats something I never did thing about. Thanks for that piece of information. And the 20 z-level fall too. Unfortunally, if my dwarfes fall from the archers tower they tend to die quickly. But thats not the topic.

The guard-animals actually have line of sight. Its hard to see, but in the first picture the fallen goblin is situated just one tile away from two stray war drakes. And they don't do something. They have been pastured in a pasture, thats as big as the pit is wide. I mean - seriously - one of the gobbos just fall at one of the war drakes. And it didn't notice that.
Anyway. The animals on duty do have line of sight; it's just plain terrain.
And they do not attack too, if a detected thief just run away passing them at a total distance of one tile.

[mahrgell]

Wait, what? Ghouls? 

Hanspeter has completely ignored your post and wrote something about warlocks... ignore it, it does not apply to your dwarves

Good to know that a cliff is still something no creature (that can't fly) will bypass.

vs wiki:

It is important to note that a titan can step down across Z-Levels. If you have an outdoor area of your fort that has level ground above it, the titan will simply step down into your fortress.

Not sure if the wiki is right or wrong on it... But I prefer to use moats+wall (making it 2 zlevel) or similar designs to prevent this from happening in case it is true

[kamikazi1231]

One good way to detect is to use scarecrows.  They are very cheap so I'll usually bring ten or so with me at embark.  You can also make them with cheap materials.  Like their name implies they are made of straw and don't move, but are a pet.  So in my three wide entrance I'll put one right in the middle so nothing can sneak by.  They are very weak so a suprised thief might stab it and kill it quickly.  But then collect up the materials from the dead scarecrow and rebuild it, or put one of your other ones out there.

There are also the useful stone decoys I put up on my walls.  Goblin archers like to shoot at them and they are pretty resilient to arrow attack.

[Meph]

I know that creatures can dodge up and down zlevels, but I never heard about the AI pathfinding doing that on purpose.

[kamikazi1231]

Do titans step down z levels?  I heard that a while back so I'm always cautious to leave any 1 z level way to come into my fort from above. Off topic of course when concerning thieves.

[AWdeV]

Only if they fly.