40d Talk:Demon

This article contains massive spoilers. If you do not wish to have your game experience spoiled, do not scroll down!

Additions

If anyone has tried other defenses against Demons and they either failed or they worked then please add it to the article.

Thoughts on Demons

(from the raws) It seems that all demons can swim... except for spirits of fire (the only ones without lungs, heart, brain exc)... i see spirits of fire as the most dangerous for this reason... perhaps water puts them out? tentacal and frog demons seem a bit less of a threat, due to their lack of fire breath. Also, none of the Demons are fireImmune_super... which means dragonbreath hurts them... so... demons vs dragons anyone?--Pbhead 02:04, 13 December 2007 (EST)

I agree on spirits of fire being the most dangerous. From my experience with them they are quite vulnerable to crossbow bolts (killed a total of 16 exclusively this way). As giant cave spiders don't even try to shoot web trough fortifications I think that fortifications and marksdwarves are the way to deal with the demons. Melee champions in steel are way superior to any demons but the problem is that they are very vulnerable to fire ("bug 000001" in reported bugs) and are frequently not able to get close (even worse if there is at least 1 z-level up as spirits of fire WILL fly up). Piling spirits of fire with lots of wardogs or anything else is useless due to their firebreath attack. Don't even try to counter demons with less then 6-8 elite marksdwarves or 50-60 novice ones or an extremely long 1 tile wide corridor with a masterpiece ballista + 2 legendary siege operators + a ballista arrows stockpile. Crushing them with bridges could also work if you don't consider it a cheat and are sure that the demons won't have time to destroy the bridges as IMHO they will actively try to.--Another 15:42, 13 December 2007 (EST)

I have a backup from a fort which has an unbreached pit and a tame dragon. My original plan was to use the dragon as part of my demon defence but when I didn't find the pit for a while I assumed I didn't have one so moved the dragon elsewhere. When I eventually did find the pit I was able to fight off the demons (frog demons, thankfully) with my champions and only lost a few children who were hanging around the mine when I opened the pit. I'm going to reload that backup now and pit dragon vs demon in a contest of strength. --Paradigmlost 06:35, 10 February 2009 (EST)

Results: The dragon managed to take down about 6 frog demons with a combination of dragonbreath and brute strength but was eventually overcome and strangled to death (can demons strangle? he bled to death from a mangled throat which to me indicated strangling). I imagine that had I used the dragon first time round he would have been a dwarf-burning liability. --Paradigmlost 06:51, 10 February 2009 (EST)

Possible defences?

when i breach my pit, (eventually) i hope to be able to A: seal it off quickly without losing too much admantine. B if that fails, have a large "dwarven toliet" (a artificial river with a large water fall...) if i am lucky, the water will be fast enough to sweep even the non-spirits of fire down the waterfall... where they will hopefully go *splat*. IF that fails... i plan to have a LOONG corridor, with fortifications on either side, and leet archers behind the fortifications and at the end of the tunnel, seige weapons, and spear masters hidden behind blind spots. and if that fails, hopefully by then i will have sealed my mines off from the main fortress. --Pbhead 02:04, 13 December 2007 (EST)

Spoiler warning?

We should probably have a spoiler warning for this page, especially for the picture of the pits. --Valdemar 10:05, 1 January 2008 (EST)

Agreed and added --Edward 16:16, 16 January 2008 (EST)

Upright spear repeating traps

I assume these work and are effective, I was wondering if this was considered too cheap to use or was known to be ineffectual (maybe they destroy them before they walk into them, as they are buildings).

This is my first demon attack since df-23a, and I've been preparing multiple types of active defense in different layers, (ballistas on z-8, spears on z-7, pit with fortifications and 18 elite/champion marks-dwarves on z-5/6/4 [with 3 open z-levels to see how they deal with spirits of fire], 7 mace dwarves and 7 sword-dwarves with 62 war dogs for lulz if they get to z-3 and re-walling at z-2) so it'll be a learning experience. My last successful demon defense hinged on a drawbridge...wasn't as fun as this should be.

The spoiler is there for the eerily glowing pits, so I think once more people post success/defeats on the demon page, or specific demon information, such as the different types and abilities, the spoiler should be here as well.

Spoiler Warning added --Edward 16:16, 16 January 2008 (EST)

Just had my encounter with 20+ tentacle demons and 1 Spirit of Fire. 4 civilian casualties, no military casualties. And I got a movie of it. Here's what worked for me, in reverse order:

1. Steel-plated Champions, about ten. These guys took their wrestling classes for five years before switching to actual weapons, and have occasionally been let loose on straggling goblins. I had prepared a bottleneck the moment I struck Adamantine, and when hell broke loose (heh) 6 different squads were stationed in the antechamber, crossbow-dwarves at the back ready to fire into the melee. Not every squad showed up. When the tentacle-demons broke down the final door, they were pinned, stabbed, shot, and speared. Only one got a square further than the bottleneck. (My veteran got 5 kills with an iron sword and a maple shield.) And first they had to make it through...

2. Six successive steel spikes, on repeating mechanisms. Only five of these were operational in time but in a stroke of luck they took out the Spirit of Fire before he reached the dwarves. The Duke Consort working the lever may have killed one-third or even half of the demons. Once they're wounded or stunned, they can't move quickly out of the way of the next spike, so a stun is nearly always a kill. It also helped that the demons were slowed down by...

3. Spamming them with cows. Livestock overpopulation getting you down? 20-odd cows suddenly released from a single cage into a narrow hallway don't put up much of a fight, but they definitely slowed down the demons and provided useful recon before being turned into hamburger. They were actually released by a melancholy elf stepping on the pressure plate early.

What I forgot to do, until the mounting casualties reminded me, was to send the triumphant military down into the chamber itself and secure the area. But still, pretty good. Anyone want to buy a dozen caged babbling elves? --Jellyfishgreen 20:58, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Cage Traps

has any one caught a demon in a cage trap? if you could catch them that would be the easest way to deal with them. --Rock n rat

I'm afraid demons are immune to cage, weapon, and stone-fall traps, although they will trigger pressure plates and the like. --Shadow archmagi 14:00, 28 July 2008 (EDT)

when i diged to chamber i tried to catch imprisoners and built a lot of cagetraps. After a battle i realised some of them was full of tentacle demons. 0.28.181.40d Media:tentacle_caged.jpg --Desperado

The Little Brother

I have added my favorite anti-demon tactic; massed archers on a single tile, to the wiki. It works reliably for me. --Shadow archmagi 14:00, 28 July 2008 (EDT)

Ruling Demons

Anyone know what makes demons rule goblins? Hardcoded, maybe? --Squeegy 21:42, 13 November 2008 (EST)

It's the goblin entity's [RELIGION:ANY_APPROPRIATE_POWER] tag in conjunction with the demon creature entry's [POWER] tag. Nothing else has either of those, and when I gave the former to another entity, they had demon rulers, too. --Navian 13:04, 14 November 2008 (EST)

Demons Spawning outside of Pits

So, I found the 'Strange Chamber' awhile ago, and quickly sealed it off before any demons spawned on me. However, I just got a "Horrors..." message and have a demon breathing fire at my poor strand extractor. There's still no breach into the pits through which it could have escaped. Do demons spawn in excavated areas on maps with the Pits feature? --Squirrelloid 10:12, 3 December 2008 (EST)

You weren't fast enough in sealing it off. --GreyMaria 13:58, 3 December 2008 (EST)

You are not omniscient. Creatures can hide from you. --Savok 22:55, 3 December 2008 (EST)

First of all, the miner that breached the pits sealed it himself, immediately. I'd believe monsters can hide from me, I can't believe they could move *though* the dwarf (putting a floor over a down staircase) while he was sealing it and remain unnoticed.

Second, I breached the pits *years* ago. Like 4 or 5. I've been actively mining and extracting strands in the area that entire time. I find it hard to believe that the demon stayed hidden that long in a high-activity area.

I have confirmed the pits are sealed, and I know the miner who breached it immediately picked up a stone and sealed it because I turned off all his other labors, enabled masonry, and built a floor with the piece of material sitting on it, and watched him do it.

--Squirrelloid 04:01, 4 December 2008 (EST)

Fireball and firebreath against fortification

A fireball can go through a fortification, what about a firebreath?– unsigned comment by Kami

Most likely, though I'm sure someone here knows for sure. Richards 11:35, 10 February 2009 (EST)