40d Talk:Ambush

Yesterday, I had an ambush. My woodcutter was ambushed by a group of one goblin bowman and five swordsmen. They were invisible, until attacked him. I had never seen anything like this until 38a. Think, it's something new, should we add the article? What do you think?--Dorten 23:23, 6 February 2008 (EST)

yes definitely. I have been ambushed 3 times already in one year. These attacks seem to coincide with trading caravans. --Kingzilla 23:28, 6 February 2008 (EST)

Is this really new? I started with 38a, but from reading i never expected anything else than thieves and ambushes with every caravan.--Koltom 23:17, 29 February 2008 (EST)

38a was the first time that caravans caused direct attacks. Previously the only worry was theives which could be easily defeated by recruits.--Kingzilla 14:07, 10 March 2008 (EDT)

Ambush messages

In my experience with last version (38a) it showed 'Ambush, curse them' on kobold thieves, and 'Amush!' on beforementioned goblins. This surely needs verification--Dorten 01:10, 7 February 2008 (EST)

I have:

38a

Kobold thieves (2): An ambush! curse them!

Goblins: An ambush! curse them!

38c

Kobold thieves (2): Thief! protect the hoard from skulking filth! (the different message may be caused by increased wealth)

Goblins: An ambush! curse them!

You can read back the whole announcements log (page up key) if you have the patience ;) --Koltom 23:17, 29 February 2008 (EST)

Toady stated that the "Ambush!" message appearing for kobold thieves was a bug, and it has now been fixed. Furiousfish 21:26, 6 March 2008 (EST)

Enemy squad supposedly fleeing after the commander's death

Well, in my case he got caged, does that count? The squad of the 5 remaining goblin bowmen, however did not retreat, and continued to advance until torn apart by dogs. Only 1, last(after the other 4 died) goblin started retreating. That was 38a. --Digger 05:07, 1 March 2008 (EST)

I just had my marksdwarves pump a goblin leader full of timber, and his squadmates just charged. --Shadow archmagi 08:15, 1 March 2008 (EST)

Alright I'm killing that part then. It's obviously wrong now. --Digger 09:44, 1 March 2008 (EST)

yep, just had an ambush too: leader dead, 1 unconscious, rest dead, and the last bowman was still charging.--Koltom 11:49, 1 March 2008 (EST)

weapon trap did not cause warning

So i thought i had a squad of only 3 goblins, but it turned out a weapon trap had already finished of 2, but without giving the ambush-message. My cagetraps always gave the warning when they caught a goblin. Is this a known fact? how about other trap types? I think stone fall traps also triggered the warning before, but im not so sure anymore. --Koltom 23:16, 11 March 2008 (EDT)

Suppositions on ambush spawning/spotting

So, it seems like the game generates (invisible) goblins to ambush you that actually move about the map, and are only revealed when spotted or when they attack. They still interact normally with map features and objects that don't require awareness.

There are times when you'll spot them from a different z-level. However, my supposition is that ambushers only ever spawn on a z-level from which they can access an open level of your fortress, even if there exist z-levels from which they could rain ranged death down upon your dwarves the game won't spawn them there if that level has no (path traceable) access to your fortress. Can anyone confirm? (Note that forbidden doors block path tracing, and if the only access to a given z-level is through a forbidden door...)

My anecdotal evidence: Given traps on 2 z-levels, one of which I had locked (forbade) all doors access to, and to which i often had LoS by dwarves walking about on raised walkways, I only ever had goblin 'ambushers' walk into traps on the level that actually had an open entrance to the base. (I was no longer actually being ambushed at that point, i just kept seeing corpses appear).

Similarly, I think siege forces only spawn on levels where they can path into your base, but i won't swear to that.

Possibly replace all instances of 'into your base' with 'to a dwarf'. I am unable to differentiate these with the games i've played.

Unrelatedly, I've also had a wild elephant spot a goblin thief for me before - can wild animals spot ambushers?

--Squirrelloid 05:50, 18 April 2008 (EDT)

I can verify the part about "to a dwarf" as I've played several isolationist games where migrants are just left outside beyond a channel-trench or what not to fend for themselves, and often get ambushers and/or siegers that slaughter them and then have nothing else to do (until sappers are created by Toady anyways;) ) --Edward 16:10, 18 April 2008 (EDT)

Ambushes do NOT have to be an enemy force; it's anybody using the ambusher skill. After abandoning a propserous fortress and reclaiming it, I had several dwarves still there. Periodically I'd get the ambush message; it was almost always a hunter stalking game. --Propatriamori 00:23, 22 April 2008 (EDT)

Updated "Tips"

I tried to update the "tips" portion to be more relevant to actual ambushes, rather than to sieges. Hopefully I didn't do too bad a job, but I'm sure it still needs plenty of work. --LegacyCWAL 16:25, 9 June 2008 (EDT)

Some of the tips are useful, but I have a couple of complaints. Firstly, War Dogs are not useless. You can chain them to important locations, and discover ambushes a lot sooner then normal. Secondly, moats do not work. If you have a moat, and there is no bridge, the invader AI will completely break, and they will just stand still for eternity. A one way entrance to your fortress filled with traps might be better, but I'm not sure if that's possible. Can anyone confirm if one way corridors are any way feasable? --AlexFili 04:25, 10 June 2008 (EDT)

This is the sort of thing I meant by "still needs plenty of work"...namely clarifications in this case.

With War Dogs, I didn't mean that they were useless per se, and I actually do mention using them to detect ambushes earlier than normal. However, in order to fight, they have to get to the fight in the first place. But if you're trying to cover something over a large area (such as a road you're building or a caravan route that goes to the far end of the map), you start to need a LOT of packs of dogs in various places to make sure that one is close enough. So while you can use them just fine for spotting and for their usual base-defense duties, you need an insane number of dogs to include them in your anti-ambush reaction plans as combatants.

As for moats, yes, cutting off an area entirely will break the pathfinding AI, but that goes for any situation a moat is used. What I meant by cutting off an area with moats is to use moats to cut off all access routes except the ones that go through your fortress. There's still a path to the area, but the only path involves going through your Main Entrance, and thus your Main Entrance's defenses. In turn, the enemy can't use the access route as a "back door" because the moat is in the way. --LegacyCWAL 21:34, 10 June 2008 (EDT)

Oh right, I guess that would work fairly well. A tip for noobs; If a goblin raid appears, draft the whole population into the military and station them in the deepest part of your fortress. This work's pretty well as an alternative to watching all of your peasants die. By the way, is there a way of stopping all my fortress guards from running straight into the battlefield and getting their butts kicked? Or should I just not appoint a Sheriff at all. Does it matter? --AlexFili 03:43, 11 June 2008 (EDT)

It may be a coincidence, but keeping the "inhabited" area - and thus any guards - as far away from your main defenses as possible seems to be doing a good job of keeping my Fortress Guards away from the fray. My living quarters, kitchens, workshops, etc. are seperated from my last line of defense by a fairly long corridor, and that is seperated from the very first line of defense by a LOT of trap-filled space to travel through. So by the time the Guards would even notice that there's invaders to charge, the attackers have already spent five minutes being torn apart by Weapon Traps and Ballistae. As for drafting everybody, that works as a last resort, but it would be best to try to design the fortress to keep that from becoming necessary in the first place (which, admittedly, is easier said than done). --LegacyCWAL 19:17, 11 June 2008 (EDT)

One-Way corridors would solve this problem, because the invader AI would remain unbroken. The trouble is trying to keep your people from foolishly running into the fray. The only thing I can think of is this kind of setup;

>[]**************....

Where the stars represent a retractable bridge, the box represents a pressure plate, and the arrow means the stairway out of the pit below. Perhaps that could work? --AlexFili 04:19, 12 June 2008 (EDT)

If you could manage a one-way corridor, sure, it would keep your people from running into the fray. It'd have to be a series of bridges/pressure plates/whatever though to try to make it work as one. The way I've managed to keep my citizens out of the fray is when an enemy is detected, I use the "cancel everything outside and set "dwarves stay indoors" method of keeping everybody inside, but I have a skylight a ways behind my defenses. So they still go running to pick up the stuff and don't stop until they hit sunlight, but the skylight means that they hit sunlight and turn around before they get to the battlefield. It's something like this:

(Fortress) - (Skylight) - (Corridor Of Doom) - (Outside)