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[kaijyuu]

Recently I've had a significant problem with goblins: they hang out outside and don't try to enter my fort unless I coax them over with a dwarf or animal. Well, some do come anyway, but they're in the minority. Of 4 ambush parties, only one actually crossed the bridge into my fort without provocation.


This is a problem because I use traps to deal with goblins early. I don't have a military yet. I ran out of cats and don't want to sacrifice any dwarves to get the goblins to actually attack me, so I'm stuck from going outside.


Is this an intended behavior? If the goblins have good enough AI to know about my traps, shouldn't they just retreat rather than standing there picking their noses on my lawn?

EDIT: 31.10, if it matters.

[Urist McCyrilin]

They learn. They are probably readying up to kill any incoming imigrants and any unfortunate Dwarf rushing outside to grab the dead immigrants' pig tail socks. The most effective way to deal with Dwarves.

I salute you, Goblin commander. A classic move out of Sun Tzu's Art of War.

[That guy]

I've had this happen before in 31.08. The goblins were entirely macemen and I guess they just figured their weapons were useless against me.

Goblin thieves loved to stumble into traps, though.

[Josephus]

The goblins were entirely macemen and I guess they just figured their weapons were useless against me.

Clearly, you are the Prince of Space.

[Tanelorn]

I have the same problem. I got around it for now by having the weapon traps on a platform, and having retractable bridges on both sides of the platform (i.e. going from the outside word to the trapped platform, and from the trapped platform to my fortress.).

The goblins hang around on the first bridge, since they dare not step on the platform. I just pull the lever and they fall into a walled area,. I then close the bridge and they don't bother me anymore. Once the bridge is closed, it completely covers the "jail" area with the goblins, so my dwarves can cross the bridge without freaking out.

I haven't got around to killing the gobbos yet, since they are no trouble anymore in their containment chamber. I'll drown them whenever summer comes, since my water is frozen the rest of the time.

[kaijyuu]

Yeah I might have to start a new fort to deal with this in a similar fashion. Hope the goblin's behavior is fixed sometime so they're never standing around doing nothing. Very annoying when they claim a patch of grass in some corner of the map.

[gislegron]

Well, i would agree that it is a feature rather than a bug.

Gobo: "umm, the entrance is omg trapped, and only a fine slurry of goblin soup is left of the earlier group"
Gobo 2: "Let's just sit here and see if we can find some kittens to kill..."

[Vattic]

I had this problem back in 40d, with orcs instead of goblins. I messaged Toady and got this response:

I know a lot of people are running orcs, and I haven't heard of this being a widespread problem (dunno though, it could be), so could it have been a quirk of your map?  In general, they should shoot off squads periodically instead of charging all at once, I think, if that's what goblins do.  The siegers are way more timid about it.  It doesn't calculate paths all at the beginning, so what the fort looks like at the beginning shouldn't be crucial, though it would matter for early charges.  They periodically check for targets though.  It would be the sort of thing I'd check a save with, but my save backlog is so large now that isn't really feasible.

I suggest you wait them out for a few seasons and if you still have problems upload your save and report it on the bug tracker.

[reborninthefortress]

I had been told that if the 'leader' of a goblin ambush is sprung in a cage trap the rest will hang about and not attack, which can be quite frustrating. Not sure how true this is at all.

[kaijyuu]

That... might actually be it, since I have a cage trap at the very front of my fort to warn me of ambushes. One of the goblin ambush groups stood on it.

If that's true, countering this bug (feature, whatever) is much easier.

[Josephus]

I had been told that if the 'leader' of a goblin ambush is sprung in a cage trap the rest will hang about and not attack, which can be quite frustrating. Not sure how true this is at all.

I, too, have heard this unsourced anecdote.

Check your cage traps for goblin weapon masters.

[Quadricwan]

Yeah, goblin squads will definitely stop if their leader gets trapped.  This is particularly annoying given that the leader is usually the first one to charge in, leaving the rest of his squad immobile.

For that reason, I've started using cage-traps as a last line of defense only.  Given that gobos will always get trapped by them, you're still relatively safe if you put them deep in the defensive line.  Weapon traps go first, to shred as many as possible on the way in.

[cephalo]

I use weapon traps with a backup of axedwarves and I find that the goblins are perfectly willing to enter my fort and commit mass suicide every time. It must be the cage trap thing. You have to hand it to the goblins discipline on staying in formation. My dwarves would never ever do such a thing. The fewer the number, the greater the glory.

[ledgekindred]

I had been told that if the 'leader' of a goblin ambush is sprung in a cage trap the rest will hang about and not attack, which can be quite frustrating. Not sure how true this is at all.

I, too, have heard this unsourced anecdote.

Check your cage traps for goblin weapon masters.

Yep, happened to me on an older fort.  Goblin leader got stuck in a cage trap, the rest of the ambush wouldn't leave.  He was just near enough the entrance that the dwarves would get scared to go out, but just far enough that the goblins wouldn't get close enough to the entrance to get hit by any of the other traps.  This was in one of the early .31 where the military was still buggy so I didn't have much of anyone who was good at fighting.  I sent dwarfs out to go try to kill them, but they got slaughtered by the pikemen.  After enough dead dwarfs I gave up and waited for a caravan to show up and hopefully take the pikemen out.  The caravan got slaughtered.  I ended up abandoning the fortress anyway.

In my last siege in my current fortress, the whole siege hung out in the corner of the map for two seasons and then left.  I like to think they were too scared of my deathtrapped fort to come any closer and eventually the leader said "You know, I think I left the stove on." as an excuse to get the hell out of there.

[NightmareBros]

They're just shy.
Welcome them into your fort with a well-aimed rock to the face via the catapult.