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[High_priest_of_Ru]

"Bravery", as in the personality token, does not seem to affect much, although, very high values are rumored to increase the chance of a civilian joining a fight, so, yeah, you can try that. The effect of the Discipline skill should be more noticeable though, I think.

If you're looking for a challenge specifically, I would recommend adding some more natural skills to your potential opponents, because the skill difference between combatants in DF is times more important than the numbers advantage. Here's what I use personally:

Spoiler: for humans and goblins (click to show/hide)

Code: [Select]

[NATURAL_SKILL:DISCIPLINE:5]
[NATURAL_SKILL:SHIELD:5]
[NATURAL_SKILL:ARMOR:5]
[NATURAL_SKILL:MELEE_COMBAT:5]
[NATURAL_SKILL:RANGED_COMBAT:5]
[NATURAL_SKILL:SITUATIONAL_AWARENESS:5]
[NATURAL_SKILL:AXE:5]
[NATURAL_SKILL:SWORD:5]
[NATURAL_SKILL:MACE:5]
[NATURAL_SKILL:HAMMER:5]
[NATURAL_SKILL:SPEAR:5]
[NATURAL_SKILL:CROSSBOW:5]
[NATURAL_SKILL:PIKE:5]
[NATURAL_SKILL:WHIP:5]
[NATURAL_SKILL:BOW:5]
[NATURAL_SKILL:BLOWGUN:5]
[NATURAL_SKILL:DAGGER:5]
[NATURAL_SKILL:WRESTLING:5]

Spoiler: for elves (click to show/hide)

Code: [Select]

[NATURAL_SKILL:DISCIPLINE:9]
[NATURAL_SKILL:SHIELD:9]
[NATURAL_SKILL:DODGING:9]
[NATURAL_SKILL:MELEE_COMBAT:9]
[NATURAL_SKILL:RANGED_COMBAT:9]
[NATURAL_SKILL:SITUATIONAL_AWARENESS:9]
[NATURAL_SKILL:AXE:9]
[NATURAL_SKILL:SWORD:9]
[NATURAL_SKILL:MACE:9]
[NATURAL_SKILL:HAMMER:9]
[NATURAL_SKILL:SPEAR:9]
[NATURAL_SKILL:CROSSBOW:9]
[NATURAL_SKILL:PIKE:9]
[NATURAL_SKILL:WHIP:9]
[NATURAL_SKILL:BOW:9]
[NATURAL_SKILL:BLOWGUN:9]
[NATURAL_SKILL:DAGGER:9]
[NATURAL_SKILL:WRESTLING:9]
[NATURAL_SKILL:BITE:9]
[NATURAL_SKILL:GRASP_STRIKE:9]
[NATURAL_SKILL:STANCE_STRIKE:9]

Spoiler: for kobolds (click to show/hide)

Code: [Select]

no discipline, because kobolds are cowardly lore-wise
[NATURAL_SKILL:DODGING:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:MELEE_COMBAT:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:RANGED_COMBAT:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:SITUATIONAL_AWARENESS:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:AXE:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:SWORD:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:MACE:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:HAMMER:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:SPEAR:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:CROSSBOW:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:PIKE:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:WHIP:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:BOW:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:BLOWGUN:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:DAGGER:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:WRESTLING:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:BITE:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:GRASP_STRIKE:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:STANCE_STRIKE:10]

You can play with the numbers here to your liking - just take note that the value of 15 is max (Legendary). Natural skills do not affect adventurers, so you'll still have to train as usual.

You can also get some combat mod to top it off - mine (in the sig) or Grimlocke's, for instance. The game itself has a lot of loose ends in terms of combat, and it is yet uncertain when the development returns to it again. For now, such mods offer fixes and improvements to combat wherever possible.

Thank you! I will try this. You light a spark of hope in my soul)

[Sver]

You're welcome

Just keep in mind that natural skills, if added, will be given to absolutely everyone of said race, including the lowly peasants; the adventurer is the sole exception. I suppose this is something you'd want, though, because neither villages nor towns in DF have any sort of large standing military - usually there's a small garrison of guards and that's about it.

You can further amplify the challenge presented by adventure mode civilians through giving their civs a couple more sharp tools to play with; in vanilla, their options are limited to kitchen knives and forks, which are as threatening as they sound really. For that, there is a vanilla-friendly "optional tools" file in my mod (point 8 under "Installation" on how to add them), as well as this standalone mod by Liber celi. These plus natural skills should suffice to create the feel of some ragtag militia being raised against you at the sign of attack.

[Robsoie]

I've reported this some years ago as unfortunately i ran into the same problem when i moved out of 34.11 adventure mode to higher versions.

In 40.x to 42.x adventure mode was all about how your opponents or enemies were always running away from you, or never attacking you or simply being overly passive despite being your enemy and even after you killed their best friends or even stabbed them repeatedly they were doing nothing.

basically it was nowhere near close to the epic battles and challenge of 34.11 , many people (i also did too) reported those kind of problems on the mantis bug tracker since years.

Now in current version i must say there have been some improvement regarding this heavy problem, as "sometime" (there's still a lot of running away) your enemies actually fight back but overly passive -enemies- (or even neutral or allies that do not fight their own obvious enemies or stay passive in front of their friend getting assaulted) can still be found.
And it's a big problem to several situations in adventure mode.

By example remember in  34.11 the time of exposing a vampire , leading into some epic battle because the vampire being exposed is trying to silence you (and they were damned strong) while the people and guards around you join you in the fight against the terrible creature of the night as soon as they realise who he truly is ?

In recent version, most of the time the vampire does not care or is still oddly passive and none of the people around will even care despite the vampire murder them everytime he's needing blood. And if you fight him most of the time the vampire will be an easy kill , and everyone in the town will hate you and spit at you for killing the guy that was murdering them, basically it's a mess.

Along with the suggestion from Sver, there's fortunately 2 more alternatives :
- never play as a demigod or hero adventurer, only play as a peasant.
The reason is that a lot less enemies will run away from you at first sight.
 
- keep 34.11 along with the current version, as you can play both without having to remove the other.
Still it's sad that despite all the new features 44.xx npc are still lacking what made the epic of 34.11 battles

We can only hope Toady will one day wants to play adventure mode and notice the problem.
 

[Shonai_Dweller]

We can only hope Toady will one day wants to play adventure mode and notice the problem.

I assume with all the extras he's put into adventurer for the next release (parties, mounts, assassins, strategic party combat, etc)  he's played at least once...

[High_priest_of_Ru]

Along with the suggestion from Sver, there's fortunately 2 more alternatives :
- never play as a demigod or hero adventurer, only play as a peasant.
The reason is that a lot less enemies will run away from you at first sight.
 
- keep 34.11 along with the current version, as you can play both without having to remove the other.
Still it's sad that despite all the new features 44.xx npc are still lacking what made the epic of 34.11 battles

We can only hope Toady will one day wants to play adventure mode and notice the problem.

I'm doing both. But for the naked eye it looks like i'm just playing v.34 without any hope to see magic in next DF)

Still advice of Sver works quite good. But morale still can be problem for experienced adventurer.

[Robsoie]

I assume with all the extras he's put into adventurer for the next release (parties, mounts, assassins, strategic party combat, etc)  he's played at least once...

I really hope it will be so, i miss the "epic" i felt when i had even with simple adventures in 34.11 like that :
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=132314.msg4704807#msg4704807
That ingame just made me "feel" my character was truly a part of it

Because in 4x.xx i had an adventurer getting through a lot of the spoilery DF adventure mode "endgame" content as you can see in those adventure reports
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=51245.msg5714855#msg5714855
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=51245.msg5714508#msg5714508
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=51245.msg5715303#msg5715303
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=51245.msg5716027#msg5716027

But despite what happens is in the text rather of epic proportion, the thing is that i never really felt my character was part of that adventure, because mostly no npc really reacted on a believable manner, friends/families not caring about whatever happens to their beloved in their sight, non-undead/spoilery monsters that mostly run away from you constantly , no faction is ever sending people after you for revenge for you massacring their brethen, enemies going with "it's a pleasure to talk to you" while you just stabbed their pals ... etc...

Because in the end that's the problem to me, 34.11 had obviously much less things to do, but the npc reactions made it working so well you felt relatively immersed in it, an adventure felt epic.
4x.xx feels more like a game in which nothing matter much because the npc do not react really according to what happens, breaking the believability.

[JesterHell696]

My issue is with the ideal behind this topic because honestly it was something that turned me off adventure mode in older versions was that everyone one seemed to be both psychic and willing to fight to the death, DF is a fantasy world simulator and the old system where attacking one guy could turn an entire town against you in a fight to the death was broken, NPC's should act according to their personality and not just attack and fight to the death because it would be a more challenging game.

Now the current system is also broken but if given the choice between broken suicidal peasants and broken coward peasants I choose the cowards, mostly because I can more readily believe that most people would try to keep themselves alive by running away and an entire town fighting to the death seems nonsensical to me.

[High_priest_of_Ru]

Now the current system is also broken but if given the choice between broken suicidal peasants and broken coward peasants I choose the cowards, mostly because I can more readily believe that most people would try to keep themselves alive by running away and an entire town fighting to the death seems nonsensical to me.

Not in medieval ages, mate. If we will read some historic books, we can understand that male villagers defended their own houses and families even versus outnumbered opponents. Village have no police, no militia, no garrison to let people walk unarmed. I agree that some villages can and should run, but - children, women and rarely seen cowards. Men should unite versus psychopath attacker. If you are attacking friend of villagers, you should predict that his friend will aid him.

And, for more realism, some domestic animals should run away or take part in fight to defend their owners.

But now it's lost adventurer mode, man. I really can not understand where are you finding fun to play it in recent versions. No fight, much useless talking, racing... Hardcore is always an option. Roguelike is a hardcore genre so it must be hardcore. To the truth, quests of killing bandits are quite easy in DF, and only assaulting goblins is interesting alongside encounters in 31 and 34, when your party can be surrounded by large and well-armed squad. And when bandits can not even defend themselves, it leave me (and not me only) completely out of feeling what's going on.

[Cathar]

Now the current system is also broken but if given the choice between broken suicidal peasants and broken coward peasants I choose the cowards, mostly because I can more readily believe that most people would try to keep themselves alive by running away and an entire town fighting to the death seems nonsensical to me.

Not in medieval ages, mate. If we will read some historic books, we can understand that male villagers defended their own houses and families even versus outnumbered opponents. Village have no police, no militia, no garrison to let people walk unarmed. I agree that some villages can and should run, but - children, women and rarely seen cowards. Men should unite versus psychopath attacker. If you are attacking friend of villagers, you should predict that his friend will aid him.

Neither is "realistic". No, peasants will never unite to fight head on a troop of professional mercenaries, because they are not dumb. However in times of ar, were you had bands of marauding bandits made of professionals without a contract, they would often hide their ressources and pretend they have nothing when bandits come and tax them. French and english mercenaries had a specific torture method ("la chauffe") to get to know where the stash is hidden, so basically the rule of the game is to keep it shut, to grind your teeth and to wait until they are gone, not to reenact 300 the movie.

In the side of the bandits, it's the same thing. Most of the time they don't want to raze the village, because they want to eat, most and foremost, and they don't want to annoy the local noble to the point he sends his own mercenaries to deal with the problem. Neither side will push the WMD button, because both understand they live in an ecosystem with de facto rules and in the end they all want to live.

[High_priest_of_Ru]

Now the current system is also broken but if given the choice between broken suicidal peasants and broken coward peasants I choose the cowards, mostly because I can more readily believe that most people would try to keep themselves alive by running away and an entire town fighting to the death seems nonsensical to me.

Not in medieval ages, mate. If we will read some historic books, we can understand that male villagers defended their own houses and families even versus outnumbered opponents. Village have no police, no militia, no garrison to let people walk unarmed. I agree that some villages can and should run, but - children, women and rarely seen cowards. Men should unite versus psychopath attacker. If you are attacking friend of villagers, you should predict that his friend will aid him.

Neither is "realistic". No, peasants will never unite to fight head on a troop of professional mercenaries, because they are not dumb. However in times of ar, were you had bands of marauding bandits made of professionals without a contract, they would often hide their ressources and pretend they have nothing when bandits come and tax them. French and english mercenaries had a specific torture method ("la chauffe") to get to know where the stash is hidden, so basically the rule of the game is to keep it shut, to grind your teeth and to wait until they are gone, not to reenact 300 the movie.

In the side of the bandits, it's the same thing. Most of the time they don't want to raze the village, because they want to eat, most and foremost, and they don't want to annoy the local noble to the point he sends his own mercenaries to deal with the problem. Neither side will push the WMD button, because both understand they live in an ecosystem with de facto rules and in the end they all want to live.

Agree, but now we're not speaking about professionals(or i was not clear enough).

Player and band of his followers are always much smaller in numbers than village 'garrison'. I often attacked villagers as single adventurer, so 'realistic' would be to unite vs such psychopath as i was.

And for bandits - they are different. Professional mercenaries is one side, another is hungry villagers from plundered site or from another reason to rise as bandits. I spoke more about attack or single player and bands of badly armed and low skilled bandits than about professionals.

P.S. Professional mercenary infantry with long polearms such as halberd was the strongest enemy of mounted knights before arriving of firearms. It would be dumb to say that voluntary village militia can stand (and will wanna stand) versus them, you're right.

[Cathar]

I mean, what the game needs are professionals garissons as a WMD so to speak. Really that what it lacks. In the medieval ecosystem, it's the "painful problem solver". Villagers don't want the nobles meddling in their affairs, they don't want to see mercenaries trampling their fields, and usually the further the noble and his henchmen are, the better. They have their own justice system, for example, not to have the lord hamfisting things and hang people at random when the peasants can solve the matter themselves (as in "yeah, the blacksmith's son murdered his siblings and his mother in an access of autistic rage, the plaintiffs are dead, no need to call the men-at-arm). It works because everyone knows that if the lord is summoned, he will fuck shit up and nobody wants that.

But shall we have, let's say, a group of armed and trained adventurer murderhobos come into town and kill people for no reason and not leave, the villagers should have an option to go to the local castle and get the garrisson to their village.

But yeah I kind of don't want peasants to go all lemmings on armored troopers. That's not realistic, and certainly not epic

[therahedwig]

Is then not the issue that npcs are not able to construe a notion of 'fight in self-defence'? Like, if you have someone come in and attack you, you'd want to at the least kick them away, ideally disarm the opponent, but keeping them occupied for a few seconds while you run the fuck away.

Though, having a chat in the middle of a fight might indicate that npcs aren't just have morale issues, but also issues with the conflict levels. And reputations. At the very least someone who is attacking you without any precedence should get the reputation of 'utter scum'.

Also, for what it is worth, the bug report about morale is requesting saves with screwy morale?

[High_priest_of_Ru]

But shall we have, let's say, a group of armed and trained adventurer murderhobos come into town and kill people for no reason and not leave, the villagers should have an option to go to the local castle and get the garrisson to their village.

Wonderful idea. May Toady will hear you)

But a single adventurer shouldn't be the one from which they all run before at least dozen of kills. I think so.

[High_priest_of_Ru]

Is then not the issue that npcs are not able to construe a notion of 'fight in self-defence'? Like, if you have someone come in and attack you, you'd want to at the least kick them away, ideally disarm the opponent, but keeping them occupied for a few seconds while you run the fuck away.

Though, having a chat in the middle of a fight might indicate that npcs aren't just have morale issues, but also issues with the conflict levels. And reputations. At the very least someone who is attacking you without any precedence should get the reputation of 'utter scum'.

Also, for what it is worth, the bug report about morale is requesting saves with screwy morale?

Yes, that's really looks like deep problem. Well, we can understand site dwellers and their coward behavior - but castle garrison, which runs from fresh peasant, looks so dumb.

[Khorinis]

That's extremely strange... I have met people who didn't want to fight, but never experienced a situation where people would just run away from me by default. I get regularly attacked by wildlife, and goblins just run at me screaming.

That's really wierd

I have the same problem as the thread creator, I can kill dozens of civilians in a human village for example and the other villagers don't care at all and do absolutely nothing. They are not even mad at me and will still join me if I ask them to join me on my adventures. Is there a way to fix this or a mod that repairs this?