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Author Topic: Dwarves not afraid of necromancers?  (Read 1518 times)

Eidako

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Dwarves not afraid of necromancers?
« on: October 26, 2014, 04:45:14 am »

Long story short: forgotten beasts went through the caverns and exterminated all of the giant cave spiders before I could capture any, crushing my hopes of setting up a silk farm. Later, five necromancers showed up with an undead horde and I captured four of them. I began to wonder if undead spiders could still shot web. Cue series of failed experiments trying to get the necromancers to raise anything.

This bug report claims that necromancers won't try to raise anything unless they're actually engaged in battle, which I've confirmed in the object testing arena -- they'll happily sit on a pile of corpses without doing their thing unless they see a hostile creature (and even then will usually try to bruise their opponent to death instead of taking control of the legion of dead legendary axedwarves at their feet). I've been trying to prompt this behavior by building windows and fortifications where they can see my dwarves, but...



Pictured: one human and three dwarf necromancers in a cramped room, with nothing but a single fortification between them and one of my rock haulers. They share the room with a giant cave spider chitin, which goes ignored. Nor did they try to raise the giant bat corpse that was there previously. The thing that's really, really odd is that the rock hauler is happily flipping a switch back and forth, completely oblivious to the hostile necromancers right next to him. No job cancellations, no blue exclamation marks. The necromancers are not chained or in cages -- the only things stopping them from escaping are a locked door and hatch. I doubt the dwarf is a vampire, since a couple of other dwarves haven't reacted to the necromancers either.

So I'm wondering, do dwarves not recognize necromancers as hostile entities? Or are they currently ignoring creatures on the other side of fortifications, or creatures that can't path to them?

Maybe if I release some cavies in there they'll enter combat mode. The only other reason I can think of for their lack of action is that the corpses I've offered are too damaged to revive, though it doesn't explain the lack of fear from my dwarves.
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ZzarkLinux

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Re: Dwarves not afraid of necromancers?
« Reply #1 on: October 26, 2014, 05:38:00 am »

Is the fortification blocking vision ? Due to some animal drop experiments in the past, I'm wondering if the fortification is blocking vision. Maybe try the same test with a glass window?
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Eidako

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Re: Dwarves not afraid of necromancers?
« Reply #2 on: October 26, 2014, 10:08:34 pm »

It seems to be the case that my dwarves aren't concerned about the necromancers in the slightest.



No job cancellation, didn't try to run away, just stood there while the four necros caged themselves. The spider remains a corpse.

I determined that reanimated GCSs don't have their web attack via the object testing arena, but still, this is bugging me.
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Eidako

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Re: Dwarves not afraid of necromancers?
« Reply #3 on: October 27, 2014, 02:40:05 am »

I was finally able to coax them into raising a few corpses by letting some cavies loose in there.

The undead critters promptly turned on their masters, leaving me with a single wounded necromancer and another's animated corpse. Live by the sword, die by the sword I guess.
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WDDworf

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Re: Dwarves not afraid of necromancers?
« Reply #4 on: October 27, 2014, 04:46:22 am »

I've got some curious necromancer behaviour as well.
I embarked on a red san desert near a tower and because of which, I was careful where to place what in case of necromancing.

I've had 1 siege with 3 elven corpses (my quess that it was the previous caravan, but no idea).
They all fled within a tick without the necromancers becoming visible.

Several times I've had a notification "Intruders!" and indeed a necromancer became visible without anyone getting alarmed. The necromancers immediately flee after getting spotted. (9 in total now)
2 sieges in total, which both lasted a second.

No idea wether they could raise the undead, because all the corpses/parts are to the right bottom and they enter left top.
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Eidako

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Re: Dwarves not afraid of necromancers?
« Reply #5 on: October 30, 2014, 04:56:21 am »

Original problem solved. I just penned in a huge, emaciated humanoid made of vomit that sprays webs. Zombie spider silk may not be a thing, but vomit-monster clothing (dyed green of course) will soon adorn my dwarves as they go about their routine of puking on every surface of the green glass fort.
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Deus Asmoth

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Re: Dwarves not afraid of necromancers?
« Reply #6 on: October 30, 2014, 08:27:18 am »

I think the thought rewrite has just done strange things to how people react to things. Kobolds will try to kill people instead of just running away now, and I got a whole dining room of dwarves piling on a tarantula FB.
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Thisfox

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Re: Dwarves not afraid of necromancers?
« Reply #7 on: October 30, 2014, 04:03:58 pm »

I think the thought rewrite has just done strange things to how people react to things. Kobolds will try to kill people instead of just running away now, and I got a whole dining room of dwarves piling on a tarantula FB.

I had a "stacks on" happen at a a giant, for an unknown reason. squads sent to the giant were reluctant, but non fighty dwarfs all ran out of the fort to climb him, and play giant pinata. He responded by punching them so hard their clothing went flying in all directions. I kept finding +cat leather shoe+s and *pig tail fibre shirt*s in trees....
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