v0.31 Talk:Siege

Isolation

> If you want to make sure that a certain civilization will be capable of laying siege to you, then look at the "neighbors" view of the Embark site finder when selecting your fortress site.

I embarked once in a valley surrounded by mountains on three sides and ocean on one. Embark screen showed dwarves only. To my surprise, goblins eventually turned up, although it took far longer than usual. I'm not sure the embark screen is 100% honest (it would be no surprise, it isn't with metals/flux).

Siege Issues

My local human civ sent a diplomat. I was ecstatic, as this was the first time I'd had a fort live this long. He died immediately. Probably due to old age, just like what happened the first time I tried Adventurer mode...

A year or two later, the humans sent a squad or two to "besiege" me; they have a campfire on the map border and are just sitting there. They aren't taking any bait I throw at them, and they aren't entering via my industrial strength siege entrance. I guess this means their siege behavior from 40d is still there.

By the way, the announcement I received when they arrived was different from the "vile force of darkness" text. I don't remember what it was, exactly, as I immediately went to work scrambling my defenses and populating my burrows. I'm sure they'll send another siege later, in which case I can transcribe it.

I will happily tick off the Elves to get them to send a siege if that'd be helpful, since I have a food economy and they don't want my plant barrels... While they don't seem to mind when their caravans die in a freak flooding accident that only affects my trade depot, I'm sure I can be a bit more offensive if I put my mind to it.

--Solra Bizna 07:49, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

The message you got was probably "The enemy have come and are laying siege to the fortress", the same as in 40d. --Quietust 12:40, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that was it, more or less exactly. --Solra Bizna 18:17, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

I just had a human siege, they idled at the corner of the map for quite some time (not exactly sure, roughly a full season), then they started moving. EDIT: They just patrolled around a bit, now they have returned to the edge and are idling, again.--92.231.165.116 01:16, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

I have a goblin siege exhibiting the same behavior. Little bastards are just sitting there, watching me...

Probably not very important - I had a siege, and an enemy on a retracting bridge landed on a tree. Couldn't build to it (interrupted by goblin spearman), and gave up on figuring out how to use rangers, so I left it. Because the goblin didn't leave, the siege tag didn't either. Then another siege started, and ended, finally deleting the siege tag. Kind of normal method of tracking sieges - turn on when starts, turn off when ends. Turn on when on does nothing. There are never two sieges. Sieges can start while others are still going (although I don't know if there is any other mechanism, like a minimum time delay between sieges).--Peglegpenguin 04:43, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

"There are never two sieges." About two weeks ago I had a human and goblin siege going on at once. At first I just figured it was the humans starting while the goblins ended, but I waited it out for a full season and they both were still there, and even intermingled without fighting.Psychobones 00:13, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Are you sure that the humans weren't part of the goblin civilization? Often goblins kidnap human children, raise them, and then put them in their military. Also, when I said there were never two sieges, I meant that the game acts like there's one siege, regardless of how many are occurring at once. When any one siege ends, the siege tag goes away, even if ten other sieges are still going on. Also, sieges are probably always separated out in the legends, just with overlapping dates if sieges occur simultaneously.--Peglegpenguin 17:05, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm positive that this happened to me. In a perfect storm, I had a goblin siege, a giant, multiple kobold ambushes, and humans siege all at the same time. The humans arrived first and gave a different message than "A vile force of darkness has arrived!" Instead it was "The enemy have come and are laying siege to the fortress." Ten real-minutes later I got the usual "A vile force of darkness has arrived!" when the goblins showed. As Psychobones reports, they coexisted peacefully. The siege tag was not lifted until the humans had been dealt with, though the goblin siege had been broken long before that. This was in a vanilla .12 game. --Jwest23 19:44, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I've also had multiple sieges (human and goblin) at the same time, coexisting peacefully. They also seem to ignore ambushers and thieves. However, when I had a Hydra show up in the middle of a human siege, the humans attacked the Hydra. 71.192.119.21 17:42, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Confirmation on having active human and goblin sieges. Except in my case, they're killing each other.

The limit is per entity, FYI. So you can can have an Elven, Goblin and Human siege all at once. --Naros 15:54, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Not sure if it's an bug or just new siege behavior, but I'm not getting goblin sieges since 31.21, only multiple ambushes - 3-4 goblin squads appear from different entry points at the same time. Somebody getting this as well? --Dunenkoff 14:52, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

After experimenting (savescumming :P) a bit (in 31.25), I found that on a certain dwarven day, I had a chance to get either an ambush with several squads or a full-fledged siege with trolls. Maybe you just got (un)lucky and got an ambush instead. I only got the siege twice, while i got the ambush about 6-7 times, so I deduced that the chance of getting an ambush is much higher than getting a siege. I'm not too sure though, my fort is pretty young, so maybe the chance of getting a siege gets higher when you piss them off more.... --202.156.13.10 10:22, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Killing Their Young

Just now I observed something pretty peculiar. One of the humans' mounts in a long term siege, a war grizzly bear, gave birth to a cub... Then the entire group proceeded to tear it apart! As soon as it was born, the siege jumped the poor newborn cub. Presumably, even the mother joined in the melee. I'd assume that because the cub was born on my map, it registered as one of my animals? Or perhaps they didn't want to bring a newborn grizzly back with them? Either way, very interesting behavior. UPDATE: They've killed 4 camel calves and 2 bears now. It seems like all of their mounts are pregnant. --Aussiemon 01:06, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Ramping Up Numbers?

Does anybody know about the increases in the besieging army size over time? With goblins, there have been more each time. Is it a linear increase or exponential? I just barely held off 85 goblins and trolls (my army had been decimated by suffocation for unknown reasons and all I had was 10 military and weak front door defenses) and I'm wondering if the next time will be 100 or 150. (Currently the dwarves are working on a drawbridge next to the archers tower, which should work, unless the goblins learn to fly on mounts or bring building destroyers. Fun for all!) --Dwarvenjames 20:16, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Eh, ok it didn't ramp up too much at all (thank Toady for drawbridges!). But I did get a second goblin siege in the middle of the first. I have no functioning military anymore, and over 20% of the dwarves are in the hospital... Oh, Urist McInjured, grow some new legs like cave lobsters do already!--Dwarvenjames 01:31, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

The intensity seems to have gone up. I got three snatching attempts, two ambushes, and a siege in the same month. All Goblins.17:22, 26 February 2011 (UTC)~

Waiting for the sieges

I've been playing for about 5-6 years, and, although several caravans, and kobold thieves have come and go, I've never seen a single goblin snatcher or any siege at all. Elves also apparently do not exist. Is this because goblins were not in my world in worldgen or something? I'm sure I created it with "INVADERS:ON" – unsigned comment by 201.29.167.214

It's possible you embarked in an area that just doesn't have Elves/Goblins. This frequently happens if you embark on a smaller island with no connection to the mainland. --MisterB777 00:10, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

I've even seen it on large continents where some areas are cut off by 'impassible' mountains.17:21, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Isn't that how actual seiges are? Starve them out? Either it's a bug of the AI from your map, or Toady is going full out on us

Goblin mutinee

I just had a goblin siege with about 4 squads, 40 goblins or so and I noticed that their leader showed up to the siege commanding a squad of archers. Strangely enough though, they turned around straight away and killed him. Anyone else get similar behaviour? --121.218.43.234 09:11, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

That apparently happened sometimes in .22, but has been fixed in .23. 99.251.236.39 10:28, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

I've seen it in .24. IIRC the release notes mentioned that the behavior had been reduced, not removed. Still, it was nice to Goblin law giver whipped to pieces by his own gobbos.--Mirthmanor 03:07, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

List of mounts

Should there be an absolute list of mounts to expect in the main article for each army?

Civilization leaders disappear after a siege

This has happened as lately as 31.24. Whenever a leader comes to lead the fight, he could live and leave the site, but he doesn't appear in the civilization list anymore. Is this a bug, or does his civilization oust him for failing?

Legends (31.25) show, what a civilization will get a new king/queen and a new general after any siege.

er, i've not got as far as ^ that, but it's similar - the goblin leader ("an enormous pangolin twisted into humanoid form blah blah. beware it's deadly blood!") has come in a siege (i didnt know this was possible - i've never noticed before (possibly 'cause this guy isnt goblin, but w/e)), and after beating a few dwarves with 'dwarf bone crown's and such, has run inside my fort and is basically just interrupting everyone from doing their work. i have 3 squads of somewhat trained dwarves chasing him, and everytime they stab/spike/shoot/hammer/whatever him for a few seconds, he manages to escape, and then starts healing his wounds! he's also managing to dodge absolutely countless attacks, and thus isnt going to be dying anytime soon. is this a bug? or is my military just not up to the job of killing him (despite killing almost everyone who came with him)? i dont even think, if i left him, he'd disappear out the door.. has anyone managed to kill him before? what happens? i'm curious ;(--DJ Devil 15:35, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

dm.. i left it running whilst i went afk, they killed him eventually (after no-less than 97 pages of report.. lol), and it simply says 'this land has no important leaders' under 'goblin' on the 'civilisation' screen. not sure when he'll be replaced, but it isnt immediately.--DJ Devil 16:15, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

soo.. i save-scummed after ^ that, and got another siege. this time though, the leader was on a cave croc who walked him into a pond where he sat for a while (he wasnt drowning. not sure why), and let everyone else (apart from his own troupe) get killed. after the third group (out of 3, not including the 'law-givers' group), he decided to run off screen with the rest of his men, and the siege ended. the same 'this land has no important leaders' is now in the 'goblin' sub-menu in the 'civilisation' screen. i'll try to check regularly, and see when it changes.--DJ Devil 16:00, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Demon Lord (?) in Goblin Siege

I have a fortress right next to a 'sinister' area (and a goblin civ) that's been going pretty strong: Only Barony yet, but 129 Pop. and over 4 million in created wealth. A goblin siege just showed up with two packs of trolls, and four packs of goblins, two of which are riding giant rats or rutherers. The first three goblin packs are lead by Elite Spearsmen and a swordsman, but on group is being led by a Demon Lord (I can only presume - he's a legendary demon who has the title of "The Ultimate Master.") I need to check the legends page for this, but is he the demon lord leader of that civ? And does this happen very often?

Yes, if you trawl through Legends, you'll find that the demon has indeed worked its way up to dominate that Goblin civilization --Kalon 21:36, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Cool! I get to drop a part of my fortress onto a Demon Lord. XD

Population Size for Goblin Seige

The article has this to say about goblin seiges - "Goblins will start laying siege to your fortress when you reach a population of around 80 dwarves." I can tell you from my own experience that recently my fortress was ambushed by goblins and my population was only around 47 dwarves at the time. This happened in unmodified 31.25.