I been..... savescumming the new undead and goblin siege to run a series of "natural" tests.
1. A series of 4 tests show that silver appears to be quite effective against unarmoured foes. They are sharp enough to cut through tendons, ligaments, inflict sensory and nerve damage, while being heavy enough to cause bruising and fracturing damage. It would be interesting to test whether "weak" dwarves would be unable to effectively cause fracture damage wielding a heavy sword, similarly, this was a two handed weapon as opposed to a short sword.
Against the undead, this offers some benefits because silver is not sharp enough to cause loss of limbs. Everytime the sword was wielded against a limb larger than a finger, it fails to cut off the limb, something that might be interesting to an evil territory.
2. Fighting against the undead requires quite a lot of luck. In 5 total runs, I had two goblin victory and 3 undead victories. Part of this is due to my dodge bridge, which scattered and delayed reinforcements. Once you're unable to maintain a strong shield wall, you become too vulnerable to lucky hits which will eventually take you down due to numbers. Similarly, lucky hits can be fatal..... fracturing limbs and the like or it could deal nothing more than bruising damage.
Another mechanic is how sieges are conducted. If an entire group become combat ineffective , it seems to causes goblins to abandon their invasion. I'm not sure how to parse this with previous experience, where goblins show a bit more mettle but the key appears to be taking out their leaders. If a leader still remains alive even after his force was wiped out, the goblin did not retreat unless more significant losses were inflicted. Needless to says, goblins in retreat are more vulnerable to defeat, although their speed means corpses are unlikely to kill them.
Necromancers are more....... problematic. From previous experience against necromancers, they don't flee easily. However, against a goblin enemy, they actually fled without getting into combat. I tried this multiple times, and there was only one single occasion when the necromancers hanged around to revive multiple corpses, and even then, they still fled.
However, this result is biased and more likely due to my dwarves wailing away on their meatshields prior to contact being made with the goblins. So, too near the threshold.
Will conduct a new natural observation if possible, to see how goblin sieges match up against necromancers.
3. I failed to save the pic, but one time, the goblin swordsmaster died due to an iron pike being stuck inside him.... I'm not sure whether this was due to undead animation or due to some other weird scenario, perhaps him falling into the river and getting stuck on the pike.......
4.The undead corpses that are brought are imba strong. They tossed my plated dwarves around one tile or so and the funny thing is watching multiple goblins charge dwarf corpses and seeing them bounce off. No idea if this is due to variables such as size, since I didn't generate enough combat to observe goblin charging at goblin corpses. Similarly, undead goblins/dwarves charging at gobbos are highly effective.... Without a fellow goblin to provide a backstop, a charge invariably causes a goblin to be hurt and get dragged down by the mob.
Outside of that first epic goblin battle, the goblins failed to fare better..... It will be interesting to observe how undead will fare against a ranged heavy enemy, as the existence of just one elite bowgoblin was sufficient to prevent the undead from mobbing them(albeit, without necromancers resurrecting them. Bitter experience with a necromancer ambush shows that ambushes are extremely deadly in this regard as they mass resurrect a dead goblin party all around you.) Other considerations should be the existence of mounts.... increasing the mobility of goblins and their endurance, not to mention a more effective protection due to multiple creatures in the same spot..... Unfortunately, that will require genning a new world since the current general has fled into oblivion in my current world.Trolls however are actually MORE ineffective against corpses than armed goblins.
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Topic: What's going on in your fort? (Read 6216250 times)