Print

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

[HawtNudie]

Long time lurker here,

I recently started playing again in 40.19 and I've been experiencing something odd when putting dwarves up on walls behind fortifications. In short, I'll have an invasion come along (or something else nasty), put my crossbowmen on the wall (or in a shooting gallery) one z-level above the ground with a floor under them, a floor (or roof, rather) above them and no way out of the fort. The dwarves will fire a bolt or five and then proceed to "loose grip of the wall" and fall off on the other side of the fortification and into their certain death. I redeemed this by putting the entire entrance two z levels below the surface (and thus they had two layers of solid matter above their heads), as it seemed like they were climbing up two z-levels and jumping off the roof. They don't seem to squeeze through the fortifications or anything of the sort - more like attempting to hang off the wall with one hand, but not being able to as they have to use two hands to operate their crossbow. I was able to circumvent the issue another way as well by placing a "wall behind the wall"

Crude representation of the wall:

fff
dfF
xfF
ufF

Crude representation of "fixed" wall:

ffff
wdfF
wxfF
wufF

w=wall
f=floor
F=fortification
d=down stairs
x=up/down stairs
u=up stairs

Is this normal? Or am I missing something else here? Just wanted to ask around before I submit a bug report after recreating the issue. I also tried to search around a bit, but couldn't find anything resembling my issue.

[Brisen]

In Dwarf Fortress 40.00+ dwarves are able to climb on their own will. My guess is that your dwarves are climbing/jumping down for whatever reason, maybe to engage in melee combat or to get into a better position where they can fire.

[Naryar]

Yes, things now climb.

It makes your walls somewhat less useful, but apparently smoothed natural stone cannot be climbed.

[neblime]

In recent versions marksdwarves will move to the position of enemies they are ordered to kill (effectively getting into melee with them)  while they fire their weapons,  the easiest solution I know of is to enclose your marksdwarves so that they cannot reach the target, so you'll need a roof and an enclosing wall (and a locked hatch/door when they fire)

[mndfreeze]

This exact behavior is why I pretty much stopped using marksdwarves.  Being pretty new and learning the game and trying to figure out/deal with this sort of problem just drove me beyond crazy so no more bolt shooters for me.

Hopefully in future version this behavior will get fine tuned a bit more, or at least made a little bit more realistic.  Your dwarves should not require that level of micromanagement just to shoot enemies correctly.

[HawtNudie]

So it's not a bug, then, just oversight on my part. Thanks guys. I did know dwarves could climb, it just seemed odd to me that they would go out of their way to get a better position on one goblin, when there were plenty others in line of sight where they were already standing. I didn't issue any direct kill orders, but I guess once a dwarf sets his eyes on a prize he's not easily discouraged.

[Floppypig]

Fortifications cannot be climbed try that

[mndfreeze]

But currently can't things go right through them?  I seem to remember reading something about that going on.