v0.31 Talk:Siege

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.

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