Print

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

[Melting Sky]

So to make a long story short, my current fortress went through a multiple year period where I was getting 3 or 4 large goblin sieges every year. It was actually pretty crazy for just being goblins. They even showed up mounted on cave dragons, cave crocks and jabberers a couple times early on. Basically I was getting sieged once per season on average and I wasn't getting any thieves, snatchers or ambushes or at least very few. I think I remember getting one ambush and probably a couple of thieves that whole time. I also had a couple of werebeasts and a dragon sprinkled into the mix but it was the goblin sieges that dominated the scene over and over again. Now things have changed up a bit and I seem to be getting thieves showing up in lieu of some of the sieges. It's almost like they are taking the place of the siege when they show up. Is there actually something to this or is it just completely random?

Does the game have criteria for whether it sends and army or a just a handful of theives on any given season?

[FrankMcFuzz]

I savescum a lot, so I've done the science. I've quit as soon as I see elves appear, go back in and let it run and I get ambushers. Sometimes I quit and get a lot of thieves instead. Sometimes I quit and get a siege instead. It is random chance, but sieges % goes up depending on how much wealth you've created and exported. Why their chance would go down, I'm not sure.

[Melting Sky]

That makes sense. Basically the game decides its time to throw a threat at you and then it semi-randomly chooses the degree and type of threat that will come so the thieves really are taking the place of the siege.

As for why I am now getting less sieges than before, I have no idea. My guess is either its because I've slowed down the production of wealth due to FPS concerns or just dumb luck.

[Duuvian]

People have speculated in previous versions that if you inflict large losses of goblin life when they siege that it can cause them to 'regroup' for a while before sending an even larger siege. I'm unsure if this is accurate.

[Melting Sky]

People have speculated in previous versions that if you inflict large losses of goblin life when they siege that it can cause them to 'regroup' for a while before sending an even larger siege. I'm unsure if this is accurate.

It will be interesting to see if that is true given the massive sieges they had been regularly sending in the past. One thing I've always found a bit anticlimactic about goblins is that they don't scale well with your fortress's growth. Basically if Goblins are going to wipe you out its going to be in one of those big early sieges when they come at you with about a 80 units including cave dragons and other epic mounted beasts. Once you kill their general/animal trainer the goblins just bring trolls which are far less threatening and their numbers really don't increase much if any. It would be cool if like 150 iron clad goblins showed up with 50 or so trolls when they finally attack again. It's been almost 4 seasons now without a siege which is an unheard period of peace for this fortress.

All in all, I am quite impressed with this Goblin civilization. They have been a well equipped and vicious enemy. I have hundreds upon hundreds of pieces of goblinite I still need to melt down. The lull will help my furnace operators catch up a bit and let me attend to some less violence orientated public projects for a while and I will finally have the time and focus needed to bore down into the molten deep.

[slothen]

People have speculated in previous versions that if you inflict large losses of goblin life when they siege that it can cause them to 'regroup' for a while before sending an even larger siege. I'm unsure if this is accurate.

Always made sense to me, and seemed to be the case.  Besides, the fun of the game is 50% imagination anyway, so why not?

[Foxite]

Now you will regularly get goblin sieges on any world unless you embarked on an island, or if the goblins are extinct. But if you get 3 to 4 sieges per year then your civ is probably at war with the goblins, which isnt really uncommon as dwarves have always had grudges with goblins.

[Swonnrr]

People have speculated in previous versions that if you inflict large losses of goblin life when they siege that it can cause them to 'regroup' for a while before sending an even larger siege. I'm unsure if this is accurate.

From my experience, it is.
If you anihilate a siege and/or kill their general (the death of a great leader may be a bigger factor than raw losses, or even the only factor.), they will take a while before coming back.

Not sure if the next siege is bigger because the game/goblins decide it's time for vengeance and an all-out attack, or because the fortress usually had the time to prosper and the siege simply scale accordingly. (Especially with the amount of weapons and armor you gained from the previously defeated siege...)

But yeah, I play Masterwork with lots of races, and usually i get a siege every seasons, until i nuke one leaving no survivors, then it calms down for at least a year.

[FrankMcFuzz]

People have speculated in previous versions that if you inflict large losses of goblin life when they siege that it can cause them to 'regroup' for a while before sending an even larger siege. I'm unsure if this is accurate.

What's more accurate is if they have a general or a law-giver (OR A SPOILER) heading their siege, killing (or even letting them leave, some have noticed) will not only stop goblins from being able to train mounts, but will cause a rather large gaps between sieges. I went 18 months without goblins interference on one of my recent forts because of the law-giver falling in battle. Which is lucky; coz blind-cave-bears are a pain in the ass.

[Foxite]

Oh and now for the actual question you asked, the difference between sieges and thieves are really that thieves come alone, and sieges are multiple groups of enemies that cooperate to raid your fortress.

Although, usually when I get thieves they come with 2 or maybe 3 thieves at once, but each will count as a single unit and thus when 1 is noticed, the other one will stay hidden. (I once got an elven ambush, 3 goblin thieves, while testing the behaivor of a human siege using dfhack. That was, VERY fun.)

[snjwffl]

What's more accurate is if they have a general or a law-giver (OR A SPOILER) heading their siege, killing (or even letting them leave, some have noticed) will not only stop goblins from being able to train mounts, but will cause a rather large gaps between sieges. I went 18 months without goblins interference on one of my recent forts because of the law-giver falling in battle. Which is lucky; coz blind-cave-bears are a pain in the ass.

It's not just their trainer dying or leaving your map, but simply them having shown up in the first place that stops them from bringing mounts.  I have the goblin general (who, according to legends mode, had tamed cave dragons for his civ) sitting in a cage, and not one siege since his capture has come with cave dragons.

[Cobbler89]

What's more accurate is if they have a general or a law-giver (OR A SPOILER) heading their siege, killing (or even letting them leave, some have noticed) will not only stop goblins from being able to train mounts, but will cause a rather large gaps between sieges. I went 18 months without goblins interference on one of my recent forts because of the law-giver falling in battle. Which is lucky; coz blind-cave-bears are a pain in the ass.

It's not just their trainer dying or leaving your map, but simply them having shown up in the first place that stops them from bringing mounts.  I have the goblin general (who, according to legends mode, had tamed cave dragons for his civ) sitting in a cage, and not one siege since his capture has come with cave dragons.

It sounds like the goblins have to have their trainer/general in the civ and not currently away at the dwarf site to do the training of mounts. Of course, in that case they should continue bringing mounts once the general retreats and returns to the civ -- but there is a bug that fires people such as diplomats when they leave the map, which I suspect in this case means that once one siege is over the goblins simply don't have that general/trainer. Fortunately in the next version that bug is supposed to be fixed (or so I heard somewhere) and civs are supposed to appoint new people to vacant positions in general and not just to the diplomat position because they're sending a diplomat again the next year, so that's two reasons the goblins should now continue sending awful mounts in subsequent sieges -- assuming, of course, that I'm right that it's a simple matter of the civ having the general/trainer available to train the mounts.

(Disclaimer: the above is just speculation trying to put together the pieces I've heard here and there. I've never managed to get a siege, so I have no firsthand experience with this, let alone knowledge of the code.)

[Melting Sky]

What's more accurate is if they have a general or a law-giver (OR A SPOILER) heading their siege, killing (or even letting them leave, some have noticed) will not only stop goblins from being able to train mounts, but will cause a rather large gaps between sieges. I went 18 months without goblins interference on one of my recent forts because of the law-giver falling in battle. Which is lucky; coz blind-cave-bears are a pain in the ass.

It's not just their trainer dying or leaving your map, but simply them having shown up in the first place that stops them from bringing mounts.  I have the goblin general (who, according to legends mode, had tamed cave dragons for his civ) sitting in a cage, and not one siege since his capture has come with cave dragons.

It sounds like the goblins have to have their trainer/general in the civ and not currently away at the dwarf site to do the training of mounts. Of course, in that case they should continue bringing mounts once the general retreats and returns to the civ -- but there is a bug that fires people such as diplomats when they leave the map, which I suspect in this case means that once one siege is over the goblins simply don't have that general/trainer. Fortunately in the next version that bug is supposed to be fixed (or so I heard somewhere) and civs are supposed to appoint new people to vacant positions in general and not just to the diplomat position because they're sending a diplomat again the next year, so that's two reasons the goblins should now continue sending awful mounts in subsequent sieges -- assuming, of course, that I'm right that it's a simple matter of the civ having the general/trainer available to train the mounts.

(Disclaimer: the above is just speculation trying to put together the pieces I've heard here and there. I've never managed to get a siege, so I have no firsthand experience with this, let alone knowledge of the code.)

I'm looking forward to the goblins continuing to show up with mounts late into the game. Trolls are just quite anticlimactic after you've taken out waves of cave dragon and jabberers.