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[Lord Katerchen]

Hey Everyone!

I has two things happening to me lately in my most current fortress mode run, that I cannot quite explain and was hoping for some more experienced players insight.

The first is the matter of disappearing caravans. They get announced, I can zoom to their location, but no one is there. I do not get a message that they skip my fortress and my Trade depot is accessable. They never arrived at the depot, I never saw them, but it announced that they would leave soon and that they left after the normal amount of time ... so that was odd. Any idea why that is happening?

I also missed out on one dwarven caravan, because a drawbridge was raised and they skipped my location ... and I haven't seen a dwarven caravan in 5 years ... according to the civilizations info screen my base civiilization still exists though.

The other major point and one that frustrates me utterly...
My dwarves just suddenly started murdering reach other. I didn't get any information as to why, it just started as a fight between two of my dwarves that escalated into a slaughterfest with 40 dwarves dead and I don't know why. I loaded an autosave shortly before the event just to understand what happened, but that didn't help really. All stresslevels in my fortress are in the negative or far in the negative. I let the same passage rerun and it still happened a little bit later with a different death toll (18).

I don't mind the consequences, I'll take it as it is. But since my fortress was running very well and I was enjoying myself planning for big things ... I want to know what happened and how to avoid it. Any idea why something like this might happen? No ghosts were involved.

Thank you in advance,
Lord Katerchen

[YetAnotherLurker]

Disappearing caravans: This is a known bug, that seems to occur most commonly with "secured" Trade Depot access paths. Personally, I find that attempts to limit where caravans enter the map by the use of walls and raised bridges tends to be the worst culprit, with smaller areas being more prone to bugging out. Have a look at http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=159297.0 for more info and maybe potential fixes.

Civil war: Were you, perchance, doing any woodcutting? My most common cause of sudden brawls is when a woodcutter chops down a tree as some other hapless dwarf walks by, who then gets struck by a falling log. The victim then proceeds to attack the woodcutter, and as other dwarves spot the fight they'll join in until things spiral out of control. Another possibility is an argument that got way, way out of hand, as those can trigger fistfights as well.

[PatrikLundell]

YetAnotherLurker summarized it.

There are several bugs concerning missing caravans. It seems that if one caravan suffers a bug, all caravans are blocked until the bugged caravan is "unstuck".
Some of the bugs (like the one in the thread referenced) leaves the caravan trade goods on the embark (i.e. visible from the inventory screen), but not visible at the location zoomed to when you go to such items, while others do not.

The fighting sounds like a tantrum spiral. Two dorfs start to fight, one gets killed, and others join in to avenge the "murdered" one, while others helps the "murderer" who's now under "unjust" attack. Tantrum spirals are a lot less common than they were some time ago. Sometimes they're due to a buggy sequence (such as the killing blow against a were creature landing just as it has turned back), and sometimes it's sort of reasonable.
At the same time there are drunken lethal "non lethal" brawls in booze serving taverns without anyone (including the injustice system) caring about it...

[Werdna]

I'm not sure I agree with YAL's assessment of what likely causes the missing caravans; it happened to me on a 5x5 map with almost unlimited caravan map-edge access points (wooded, but I regularly check access and send a woodcutter in to clear up overgrown areas).  And while I have a moat, I play with a house rule that at least one bridge (of 4) must be down at all times, so the surface trade depot has been 100% accessible since the day it was built.  Maybe limited depot access exacerbates the issue, but it can certainly happen with normal access.

[YetAnotherLurker]

I'm not sure I agree with YAL's assessment of what likely causes the missing caravans; it happened to me on a 5x5 map with almost unlimited caravan map-edge access points (wooded, but I regularly check access and send a woodcutter in to clear up overgrown areas).  And while I have a moat, I play with a house rule that at least one bridge (of 4) must be down at all times, so the surface trade depot has been 100% accessible since the day it was built.  Maybe limited depot access exacerbates the issue, but it can certainly happen with normal access.

Oh I agree that it can happen with normal access, but it's much, much rarer. I think I've only had one or two caravans go missing when I gave them a 20x5 or larger clear area along a map edge to arrive at, over the course of at least scores if not hundreds of caravans. On the other hand, whenever I've attempted to restrict their arrival area to 10x5 or less I'm almost certain to have one vanish within a year or two.

[clockwork]

If you can, give 'em nice rooms, maybe some furniture they prefer and make it out of materials they like. You are not as likely to run into a tantrum spiral.

[Bumber]

If you can, give 'em nice rooms, maybe some furniture they prefer and make it out of materials they like. You are not as likely to run into a tantrum spiral.

Tantrum spirals don't happen anymore. Dwarves are too happy.

Loyalty cascades remain.

[Grand Sage]

If you can, give 'em nice rooms, maybe some furniture they prefer and make it out of materials they like. You are not as likely to run into a tantrum spiral.

Tantrum spirals don't happen anymore. Dwarves are too happy.

Loyalty cascades remain.

Are you sure Bumber? cause the wiki still has a page on them, but if we all can agree on them not being a thing anymore, Ill gladly update that.

[Shonai_Dweller]

If you can, give 'em nice rooms, maybe some furniture they prefer and make it out of materials they like. You are not as likely to run into a tantrum spiral.

Tantrum spirals don't happen anymore. Dwarves are too happy.

Loyalty cascades remain.

Are you sure Bumber? cause the wiki still has a page on them, but if we all can agree on them not being a thing anymore, Ill gladly update that.

Happy dwarves leading to no tantrums doesn't mean tantrums have been removed from the game. Mod your dwarves to be at max stress and they'll tantrum just fine.

[clockwork]

If you can, give 'em nice rooms, maybe some furniture they prefer and make it out of materials they like. You are not as likely to run into a tantrum spiral.

Tantrum spirals don't happen anymore. Dwarves are too happy.

Loyalty cascades remain.

While what you say is true, it is possible. Lack of beds is a real stress to them. Nowadays it'll only really happen if you don't give your dwarves anything.

[Bumber]

While what you say is true, it is possible. Lack of beds is a real stress to them. Nowadays it'll only really happen if you don't give your dwarves anything.

That's more of a slow decay into madness.

Spiral implies a feedback loop. E.g., Urist's cat dies, which causes Urist to tantrum and punch Cog. This makes Cog mad and she kicks Datan to death. Datan's family doesn't take kindly to this, and the whole dining room is in the line of fire...

[clockwork]

While what you say is true, it is possible. Lack of beds is a real stress to them. Nowadays it'll only really happen if you don't give your dwarves anything.

That's more of a slow decay into madness.

This made me laugh in a good way.