Ambush

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v50.15 · v0.47.05 This article is about the current version of DF. Note that some content may still need to be updated. More Info · V

A goblin ambush (read: prime goblinite) can result in dangerous amounts of fun if not spotted early - as here.

An ambush is a type of attack in fortress mode where a small force of enemy humanoids, typically goblins, attempts a sneak attack on your fortress. While smaller in scope than a full siege, ambushes are not related to the number of dwarves in your fortress, and so can be triggered by relatively small populations.

Ambushes are not announced immediately, and the attacking units are only revealed when your fortress becomes aware of the attackers, either when they set off a cage trap or come sufficiently close to a dwarf, caravan member, or pet (they ignore wildlife). Ambushes can also be discovered manually, but not spotted, if you happen upon on an invader corpse and some goblinite in one of your traps. Once an ambush squad is detected, an ambush will generate a major announcement, the wording of which depends on the invader.

Ambushes, just like sieges, nearly always happen at the end of a season, generally in the last 10-15 days of the season. Ambushes tend to arrive with caravans but can happen any time. Note that goblins will usually ambush with more than one squad (2 to 4), each of which will trigger a separate message and also has to be detected separately. If ambushers are caught in cage traps, they will be marked as Caged Prisoner in the unit screen. These prisoners can be dragged around between cages (or tossed over tall towers) without risk of a jailbreak, unlike goblin thieves. If you abandon your fortress while an ambush is active, you will receive the message "Your strength has been broken." Finally, when the leader of an ambush is killed (or captured), but not the other units, they will stand around and "wait" for their leader; this is probably a bug.

Types of ambushes

Goblins

A goblin ambush imparts some !!FUN!! new lines in a player's announcements screen.

Goblin ambushes are usually announced with the message "An ambush! Curse them!", though this is occasionally modified to "A human has sprung from ambush!" if a captured human leads the squad (human civilizations themselves do not send ambushes, only sieges). Goblin ambushes are attracted by relatively high amounts of wealth; beyond a certain threshold, the higher the wealth, the more attractive your fortress becomes as a goblin ambush target.

Goblins usually enter the map with two to four squads, each of which must be detected separately. On the sliding scale of wealth attraction goblin ambushes lie squarely between thieves/snatchers and sieges, but are infinitely more annoying; snatchers are a mere nuisance and sieges can usually be dealt with, but you might not find an ambush until it's too late to prevent them from entering your fortress and slaughtering your populace (or staying outside of it and killing off your wood cutters, or your plant gatherers, or your livestock, or your fisherdwarvers, or your ambushers, or...). Dealing with the threat of a hidden ambush is an important element in military design.

It may be preferable to avoid goblin ambushes as much as possible by holding wealth down early on, and then creating a large number of high-value objects as possible in a short period of time on the way to "siege level" fortress wealth attraction. This reduces your exposure to ambushes, but means you have to deal with sieges off the bat instead.

As of v0.42.04, goblin ambushes no longer happen due to their entity raws having its [AMBUSHER] tag removed. Sieges still do occur after your fortress exceeds the population of 80 though.

Necromancers

Necromancers will also occasionally ambush your fortress, if you are in range of their tower and they opt out of a full-on siege. Necromancer ambushes consist of several necromancers, each one being detected individually; an early warning sign for a necromancer ambush is the presence of undead in non-evil biomes. These ambushes are announced with "An ambush! Drive them out!". The necromancers themselves are harmless, being regular old unarmed humanoids; however, very bad things will happen if they manage to find their way within sight of any left-over goblin sieges, corpse or refuse stockpiles, or (Armok forbid) last month's dragon invader. For this reason it is highly recommended that fortresses within sounding range of a tower internalize or atom smash all of their meat byproducts, and set standing orders to "gather refuse from outside" and clean up any meaty outdoor bits.

Kobolds

Kobold ambushes are triggered by a long enough string of successful kobold thieveries, and are announced with the message "An ambush! Skulking Vermin!". This usually only happens when kobold thieves manage to steal from an outdoor cache of some sort that your dwarves cannot access for some reason, possibly fallen goblinite from or during an ongoing siege. Kobold ambushes are mostly notable for being much more annoying than kobold thieves, and should not be allowed to occur. It should be noted that the first ambushes from kobold are full of recruits who have never seen a dwarf in their life, and will almost always scatter and run away instead of fighting.

Elves

Elven ambushes may occur (As of version 0.44.03) if your civilization is at war with a neighbouring elf civilization. These ambushes works as the elven seiges, where their numbers and the nature of an ambush may very well catch an unprepared fortress off-guard. The might also bring exotic beasts as they might do during seiges, as well as animal people can fight alongside elven ambushes. But as with elven seiges, the elves themselves are very poorly equipped and carry only wooden armor and weaponry. Clothing is also known to be dropped by slain hippies elves.

Adventure Mode

Ambushes also occur from Fast Travel in Adventurer_mode. When traveling, other traveling figures are identified as asterisks, and if hostile, then approaching the region tile they occupy will trigger an ambush. Depending on the savagery of the land, you may also be randomly ambushed by the dominant predator(s) of the biome. Traveling alone at night adds the probability of bogeyman ambush.

When ambushed, the fast travel map will close and you will appear on the local map with your ambusher(s). If they're in view, they will be identified in a major announcement, but if obscured by terrain, distance, lighting, then the announcement will inform you "You feel uneasy." As long as your ambushers can detect you or a party member you will be unable to fast travel, as "You don't feel safe enough to travel."

Typical ambushes come from roving large predators (including giants, giant zombies, night trolls,) and patrols from a hostile settlement nearby (such as from enemy civs or raider camps.) Muggers harassing towns also trigger ambushes; though they don't appear hostile at first they intend to commit crimes against persons and property, including yours. And angered settlements or raider groups may take revenge by sending assassins who will strike even in the safe confines of a city.

If you're unprepared for the ambush, you can evade it successfully by escaping your pursuer's view, using terrain, speed, stealth, until you're able to fast travel safely. This is easiest against random predators who can't detect you at the time of ambush. When evading historical figures, fast traveling to another region tile adjacent to it will trigger another ambush, so you must get sufficient distance from them in order to successfully elude them.

See also

• Siege
• Wealth
• Security design

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