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[DoubleG]

I have built a nice fortress with a wonderful, safe looking entrance to walk into, but no one wants to visit. I've had several sieges of humans who just ride around outside for a bit then leave.  I was wondering if there's any way to help the humans find the right way in? Perhaps a trail of chained up animals, like in Hansel and GRetal? The goblins are a bit more aggressive, running straight in. But haven't had too many sieges of them.

My fortress does have an above ground section that I close up when sieges arrive. Do you think this might mess up their pathfinding? Do humans check routes less or something? The entrance hallway also opens up into the caverns. It would be nice to get some armies down there to play with all the forgotten beasts I have trapped.

[DwarfStar]

Sounds like the humans are just deciding to circle around instead of attack directly. Maybe they’re just doing a “raid” mission instead of “raze”. A bread crumb trail of restrained animals might draw them in indeed. Or you might try pissing their civilization off a bit more by raiding them yourself, so they might become more aggressive.

[Dunamisdeos]

IIRC armies that know traps are there can path around them or otherwise refuse to step on them. So if human civs regularly visit during times of peace they might know where the traps are. They could also have SPIES. I don't recall if this is how that mechanic functions, but it was discussed at one point.

To alleviate this, interrogate all humans in the fort with renowned dwarven politesse, or dig a new path into the fort that they haven't seen before. Or both. Probably both would be needed.

[PatrikLundell]

IIRC armies that know traps are there can path around them or otherwise refuse to step on them. So if human civs regularly visit during times of peace they might know where the traps are. They could also have SPIES. I don't recall if this is how that mechanic functions, but it was discussed at one point.

To alleviate this, interrogate all humans in the fort with renowned dwarven politesse, or dig a new path into the fort that they haven't seen before. Or both. Probably both would be needed.

When invaders know where traps are they can just move over them without triggering them (like your own citizens do), so known traps don't block access.

"Spies" definitely report back as soon as they exit the embark, and every sapient who's a member of a civ acts as a spy for that civ. This means that all caravan members will report back on every trap they've passed over, which will then be known by their civ if you've goaded them into going to war against you. In addition to that, goblin civ members can ALSO be members of performance troupes, and enter into the fortress as a performance troupe member, but still report back to their civ when exiting the map.

The game is supposed to have regular spies, but I've never managed to identify one (despite running DFHack scripts to try to find them).

[DoubleG]

Thanks for all the replies. Human Caravans haven't visited for a while. We've been at war for years. No idea WHY we're at war, but... I haven't been taking care of visitors, traders or my own dwarfs. They are all meat for the megaproject. So maybe a few might have been slightly killed.

I've tried disassembling and reassembling traps, but I've got so many visitors any one could be a spy, so not sure how much any invading army might know. Just got a human attack just now, laying siege. Lets see how far they venture inside.

EDIT: And a Giantess just wandered in behind them. My dwarfs will close the gate and set up a betting pool. 1 Giantess Vs 21 Humans.

[PatrikLundell]

All wars aren't caused by the player, but can happen through civ level events. The bug that can cause a player fortress to end up at war with its own civ (both set out to attack an enemy site, the first one conquers it, and the second one is too stupid to realize the intended target has already been defeated and instead attacks the current owner) can presumably happen between civs as well. On top of that the factors that are intended to cause wars should be at play as well.

While I use a custom DFHack scripts to find how many traps the enemy civs know of, I've used the house rule of replacing traps only when I've actually had enemies pass over those traps without triggering them.
You can actually see the paths of a "spy" if you've got trap fields that are more than a single tile wide (my entrance tunnels are two tiles wide) after the invaders have triggered the other traps outside of those paths.

[Dunamisdeos]

Lure them in with chained up cats. This is the way.