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[smjjames]

No, I don't mean confused as they are attacking my dwarves. I mean confused as they backtrack down my entrance corridor, leaving the packanimals unguarded. The guards for the wagons don't really do this. Also, both humans and dwarves do this. While I don't mind them doing that since I have invasions off atm. However, since I'm going to be turning invasions back on very soon, how do I keep them from doing that (besides locking the doors) because they are leaving the caravan dangerously unguarded.

http://mkv25.net/dfma/movie-1770-confusedguardsarrival
I skipped recording the wagons as the guards were fine there.

http://mkv25.net/dfma/movie-1771-confusedguardsleaving

Its my first DFMA movie stuff and I realized after I uploaded and watched that there is way too much flicking about.


Heres the map of the entrance area (this just has the ground level uploaded) if you want to view it without all the fast movement in the videos.
http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-7272-towerwebbed

[Quietust]

They seem to like standing a number of tiles away from what they're guarding, and if said unit is right next to a wall, it can make them want to stand on the other side of the wall. In my current fortress, I had to place several locked doors and even a dry screw pump to keep the caravan guards out of the rear access corridors for my bridge magma-flooder.

Unfortunately, your only real options are to either lock the doors or make thicker walls around the caravan's path.

[Grendus]

I wouldn't worry too much about sieges and caravans. Sieges are nice enough to announce their presence, assuming you have a well trained military (think multi-legendary in weapon, shield, armor, and wrestling) your dwarves will reach the caravan long before the goblins do.

Of course, if you're defending yourself with traps consider creating a caravan path to the edge. Put a wall, pit, or other barrier every two squares (I put statues there, personally, I like the effect) so the wagons can't path through them. The caravans will have to go specifically through your prepared path, which you can then surround and line with traps to catch goblins. Aside from which, those guards have zero chance against a goblin squad. They might fend off an ambush, but mostly they defend against wild animals.

[smjjames]

I'm more concerned about ambushes really, and the fact that the liason tends to appear on the OPPOSITE side of where the entrance is.

Heck, I've had to go send a squad of my miners to 'rescue' him from some gorrillas. He actually ended up in a brief spar with one of them, but seemingly threw it off and moved away. He only had a bruised arm though.

I'm also concerned about the liasons taking a dive in the magma moat, so I may extend that wall further around.

The caravans already pop up close to the entrance most of the time and usually head straight west when they leave, but the packanimals generally head off in other directions and exit to the north or whatever.

I've gotten a bunch of kobolds (one of which got shot and killed by one of the caravan rear-guards) and a few snatchers,but no ambushes just yet. Even though I have like 3 1/2 million wealth. However, I'm currently proccessing the ash and potash (and pearlash once the ash jobs are done) since I'm going to replace my stone tables and chairs with clear glass ones for the dining room.

Oh yea, I'm mainly defending myself with traps as I want to do a megaproject (maybe not quite mega, but its my first) of which I've laid down the foundation for. I am planning on making a few marksdwarves to help pick off siegers or shoot them when they are en route as well as to help defend against ambushes. Or maybe make some melee soldiers, not sure as I haven't really done any melee soldiers yet.

[Count Dorku]

I have a similar problem. Earlier today a human caravan arrived with a goblin siege on its tail. While most of the humans reached my depot fine, a couple were still outside when the goblins arrived and ended up running away or dead. Now I've got trading materials in my depot but nobody wants to trade, and several of them are apparently trying to find my fortress's back door, not knowing it doesn't have a back door. Am I ever going to get anything useful out of them again, or do I have to try and install some kind of Humie Killer Engine to deal with the blighters?

[Reese]

I wouldn't worry too much about sieges and caravans. Sieges are nice enough to announce their presence, assuming you have a well trained military (think multi-legendary in weapon, shield, armor, and wrestling) your dwarves will reach the caravan long before the goblins do.

Of course, if you're defending yourself with traps consider creating a caravan path to the edge. Put a wall, pit, or other barrier every two squares (I put statues there, personally, I like the effect) so the wagons can't path through them. The caravans will have to go specifically through your prepared path, which you can then surround and line with traps to catch goblins. Aside from which, those guards have zero chance against a goblin squad. They might fend off an ambush, but mostly they defend against wild animals.

heh, and here I thought I was the first to line his road with satues to force the caravan route... (oddly enough, the elves have taken to showing up at the same point... them of all I would have expected not to!)

As to the original topic, I've had a human guard run back in to my fort as the merchants left and climb into the wind power farm I have Several Z-levels above my main dining hall (for powering a large mist generator... as yet unfinished, though)

Of course, I had some real fun when the elven traders spawned at the same time as -two- goblin ambush parties (they all had to have come in from the same small part of the edge of my map), they started directly on top of one ambush party, revealing it, then fled along the edge of the map directly into the other ambush party, about 5 squares away, revealing that one too... I decided that since they only bring junk anyway (all I ever trade from them is cheap booze) I'd let them handle it on their own... and I've been processing their garbage with my trash compactor whenever I have a free dwarf or two to haul it every since.

[smjjames]

I have a similar problem. Earlier today a human caravan arrived with a goblin siege on its tail. While most of the humans reached my depot fine, a couple were still outside when the goblins arrived and ended up running away or dead. Now I've got trading materials in my depot but nobody wants to trade, and several of them are apparently trying to find my fortress's back door, not knowing it doesn't have a back door. Am I ever going to get anything useful out of them again, or do I have to try and install some kind of Humie Killer Engine to deal with the blighters?

Not unless you've been regularily siezing their stuff, so you should be fine.

As for my origional problem, thickening the walls did the trick.

[Quietust]

heh, and here I thought I was the first to line his road with satues to force the caravan route... (oddly enough, the elves have taken to showing up at the same point... them of all I would have expected not to!)

For some reason, all caravans will attempt to spawn at a wagon-accessible location, whether they use wagons or not - if no locations are wagon-accessible, then they'll just spawn at an appropriately random location on the map edge, pack animals only.

Of course, that only applies to when they enter the map - once it comes time to leave, the pack animals will all go their separate ways, often not following the wagons.

[Count Dorku]

I have a similar problem. Earlier today a human caravan arrived with a goblin siege on its tail. While most of the humans reached my depot fine, a couple were still outside when the goblins arrived and ended up running away or dead. Now I've got trading materials in my depot but nobody wants to trade, and several of them are apparently trying to find my fortress's back door, not knowing it doesn't have a back door. Am I ever going to get anything useful out of them again, or do I have to try and install some kind of Humie Killer Engine to deal with the blighters?

Not unless you've been regularily siezing their stuff, so you should be fine.

Well, after about ten minutes, they got bored of hanging around and decided to head for home. Leaving me with nothing to trade. *sniff* I was so looking forward to selling them 100 million A Present From Sobirdodok mugs...

For some reason, all caravans will attempt to spawn at a wagon-accessible location, whether they use wagons or not - if no locations are wagon-accessible, then they'll just spawn at an appropriately random location on the map edge, pack animals only.

Of course, that only applies to when they enter the map - once it comes time to leave, the pack animals will all go their separate ways, often not following the wagons.

I'm curious, does this mean that if one was to flood the map to an absurd depth save a tiny surface outpost, then build a 3-tile-thick chain of (retractable) bridges to the edge of the map, you could conceivably have traders come even though your entire fortress is underwater? Plus, whenever goblins show up to say hi, you can just retract all the bridges at once and dump them into the river? I'd try it myself (FOR SCIENCE!), but exams are coming in a few weeks and I can't really spare the time for such a massive engineering project.

[Quietust]

I'm curious, does this mean that if one was to flood the map to an absurd depth save a tiny surface outpost, then build a 3-tile-thick chain of (retractable) bridges to the edge of the map, you could conceivably have traders come even though your entire fortress is underwater? Plus, whenever goblins show up to say hi, you can just retract all the bridges at once and dump them into the river?

Yes - in fact, one fort was made in a flat 2x2 area and had the entire map edge (save a small entrance gap) submerged in magma. I believe it was named Snaketributes - do a search on DFMA.

[smjjames]

Yep, the FAMOUS Snaketributes.

[Grendus]

I wouldn't worry too much about sieges and caravans. Sieges are nice enough to announce their presence, assuming you have a well trained military (think multi-legendary in weapon, shield, armor, and wrestling) your dwarves will reach the caravan long before the goblins do.

Of course, if you're defending yourself with traps consider creating a caravan path to the edge. Put a wall, pit, or other barrier every two squares (I put statues there, personally, I like the effect) so the wagons can't path through them. The caravans will have to go specifically through your prepared path, which you can then surround and line with traps to catch goblins. Aside from which, those guards have zero chance against a goblin squad. They might fend off an ambush, but mostly they defend against wild animals.

heh, and here I thought I was the first to line his road with satues to force the caravan route... (oddly enough, the elves have taken to showing up at the same point... them of all I would have expected not to!)

As to the original topic, I've had a human guard run back in to my fort as the merchants left and climb into the wind power farm I have Several Z-levels above my main dining hall (for powering a large mist generator... as yet unfinished, though)

Of course, I had some real fun when the elven traders spawned at the same time as -two- goblin ambush parties (they all had to have come in from the same small part of the edge of my map), they started directly on top of one ambush party, revealing it, then fled along the edge of the map directly into the other ambush party, about 5 squares away, revealing that one too... I decided that since they only bring junk anyway (all I ever trade from them is cheap booze) I'd let them handle it on their own... and I've been processing their garbage with my trash compactor whenever I have a free dwarf or two to haul it every since.

Brass statues along a brass road. The fortress was swimming in sphalerite and malachite, so pretty much all the furniture was brass until the elves objected to my massive stockpile of wood I never used (hell, 3/4 of it was elvish wood, fucking hypocrites). I didn't want to piss them off as slaughtering them wholesale would have been a nasty FPS drain. After 12 years of dealing with so many orc sieges I had killed off their king and all their champions, the only thing that scared me in that fort were the two dragons who had survived worldgen.

I like the mental image of a human caravan following a brass road lined with masterwork brass statues and cage traps with gold cages (total accident, I was trying to build a gold zoo and my dwarves grabbed the cages right out of the forge to replace cages used against a goblin siege, though it worked out well since I caught the goblin local ruler in a golden cage - fitting). I think it emphasized the obscene amount of wealth in the fortress rather nicely.

[/derail]