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[Mimodo]

So here's how it happened. I'm still fairly new in my fort, with enough wealth to buy out each caravan, and a military large enough to kill a kobold if I'm lucky.

I'd just finished trading, and was going about fortress business, pretty much having already forgotten about the merchants in my trade depot. Then I get the message that a Titan had come. Looking at my meager military, I quickly decided to call all dwarves back into the safety of the fortress, hoping that they could beat the Titan there.

I sat there and watched step by step as the Titan advanced towards my entrance, about to cut off the escape of one of my poor dwarves, when out of nowhere a human merchant comes charging in to the rescue, axe swinging. He's quickly joined by his fellows, and in no time, the ice giant Titan has been shattered into a billion pieces and is now lying on the ground forming little puddles. Turns out humans aren't so bad after all!

This got me thinking, what if I can keep a reserve of merchants at all time to fight off the baddies for me. Why risk the safety of even one dwarf, when I can send out a couple of highly trained merchant guards, and watch the chaos that follows? I've already got a drawbridge at the entrance to my depot anyway, so I don't even need to change anything.

I've heard that merchants go insane after hanging around the fort too long. I can't have psycho elves hanging around, they're bad enough as they are.

What I'm thinking is hold them as long as I can, then release them just before they go insane, hopefully leaving as little time between their release, and the arrival of the next caravan as possible, to give me as much additional human shield (literally) time as possible. Does anyone have any idea how long it takes to send them insane? I'm sure you sick bastards have experience in mentally breaking other races

[LarsGerhard]

The guards are better than the merchants. They are better fighters, won't go insane and don't require food or drink. I think they are actually robots especially given occasional difficuly memorializing them while wagons can be memorialized just fine.

I don't recall exactly how long the merchants last before they go insane and I suspect it isn't a fixed period. Presumably there is a safe point to release them though. It's also worth noting that they can still defend you even if they are insane.

[Mimodo]

It may have been the guards that did the fighting for me, I just bunched them all into the same group.

If I were to find a way to separate the guards from the rest of the merchants, would the merchants leave without them?

Also, trouble with memorialising? Does that mean that I could potentially have ghosts haunting my fortress that I cannot put to rest?

[Aristion]

Yes.   

[LarsGerhard]

This may be relevant to your interests

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=141457

Also this

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=127485

It is entirely possible to capture the guards while letting the merchants leave. While you might have trouble making slabs for your guards they can be buried in coffins normally.

[Mimodo]

This may be relevant to your interests

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=141457

Also this

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=127485

It is entirely possible to capture the guards while letting the merchants leave. While you might have trouble making slabs for your guards they can be buried in coffins normally.

That second link was perfect! Thank you kind sir

[LarsGerhard]

Anything I can do for a fellow merchant guard cultist : ). Plus you bumped my thread so I should be thanking you.

[Mimodo]

I'm certainly open to more discussion on the topic. See what other ways we can utilise disposable soldiers that need no breaks or food.

There was a question raised on that second link: can they pick up ammo dumped to them? If not, the usefulness of archers expires pretty quickly.

Another question, if they're injured, will fortress dwarves take care of them? No point in letting a broken leg stop them. They're merchant guards, not horses (you can butcher horses > )

[LarsGerhard]

I suspect you won't be able to give them additional ammunition or heal them but maybe I'm wrong.

Ideally you would infect them with a werebeast syndrome to have them full heal every month. That will probably rid them of their armour though.

The strongest point of the merchant guard if you are willing to actively deploy them rather than keep them as emergency reserves is their robot nature. They can be as trained as a fellow dwarf but also put in place to wait indefinitely rather than having them go back for food and drink or needing you to use bothersome dumping strategems.

[Mimodo]

I think that with proper layout of the fortress, and an adequate number of caged creatures to practice on, you could replace the entire dwarven military with merchant guards. Maybe one squad of highly trained dwarves so you have some control over the military actions. That'd leave other dwarves free to have their parties and to occasionally contribute around the fortress

[LarsGerhard]

It certainly seems possible. Fortresses often get by with fairly small militaries and these guys can train as much as you can support. Having a squad of homegrown dwarves in properly complete armour is also useful in case you are fighting something with strong resistances to a kind of weapon. You don't have much control over what your guards are using as weapons so if you are fighting something that dies best to, say, blunt damage and all the guards have axes it might not work out great. If you have something like a coinstar it's not difficult to have it also work on the native dwarves as well which makes that easier.

[Staalo]

I'm not sure, but I think any leftover caravan units on the map will block the next year's caravan from that civilization. In one 34.11 fort I had some stuck caravan horses preventing caravans for four years before I got them killed; after that the merchants started visiting again.

This might be changed in 40.xx, of course.

[LarsGerhard]

I'm not sure, but I think any leftover caravan units on the map will block the next year's caravan from that civilization. In one 34.11 fort I had some stuck caravan horses preventing caravans for four years before I got them killed; after that the merchants started visiting again.

This might be changed in 40.xx, of course.

There's no reason to think it's changed in 40.xx. I'm curious, how did you end up getting stuck caravan horses for four years? Didn't they go insane?

[Staalo]

There's no reason to think it's changed in 40.xx. I'm curious, how did you end up getting stuck caravan horses for four years? Didn't they go insane?

They somehow got embedded inside the walls of a spiral ramp leading down to the depots. It happened when Dwarven and Human wagons got stuck to each other and had to be, erm, "dismantled" by my militia. At first I thought to leave them there since they didn't seem to mind (one of them even gave birth while inside the wall) but way too much later I realized they were keeping both Human and Dwarven caravans from arriving.

So, after four game years I built floors over the ramps that were blocking their way out of the walls and immediately after walking over all  horses except the foal born within the walls went insane. The foal was still listed as merchant and quietly exited the map. Next autumn the caravans resumed as nothing had happened.

I noticed also that my dwarves wouldn't touch any of the loot from the broken wagons until all the horses were ether dead or gone.

[LarsGerhard]

There's no reason to think it's changed in 40.xx. I'm curious, how did you end up getting stuck caravan horses for four years? Didn't they go insane?

They somehow got embedded inside the walls of a spiral ramp leading down to the depots. It happened when Dwarven and Human wagons got stuck to each other and had to be, erm, "dismantled" by my militia. At first I thought to leave them there since they didn't seem to mind (one of them even gave birth while inside the wall) but way too much later I realized they were keeping both Human and Dwarven caravans from arriving.

So, after four game years I built floors over the ramps that were blocking their way out of the walls and immediately after walking over all  horses except the foal born within the walls went insane. The foal was still listed as merchant and quietly exited the map. Next autumn the caravans resumed as nothing had happened.

I noticed also that my dwarves wouldn't touch any of the loot from the broken wagons until all the horses were ether dead or gone.

Well that's quite bizarre. Are you sure they didn't break depot access? I don't understand why you didn't have access to their goods either, I have definitely used caravan goods while the animals were still there. Maybe militia-killing it  has weird consequences.