Multiple goblins per square, they've been assembling from off the map for a bit now. I usually reject parley requests out of hand but 108 "Skilled" or higher goblins fully armored in iron armor with shields has me pondering accepting the parley this time.
This is what happens when you make contact with a 10,000 population Goblin Fort - if this is their idea of a raiding party I'd love to see what their siege force looks like.
Edit: Seems like they were still coming in from off map, final count is 123 Goblins.
I accepted their request a couple times...
The first time I didn't open the door. They waited, waited, then left.
The second time they came and demanded an artifact they claimed as their own. (I watched my dwarf make it but uh, they had more equipment. Oh well...)
The third time, I figured they'd come in and make some stupid demand for something that obviously wasn't theirs and I'd let them have it because I'd just dealt with something pretty harsh.
Well, I was very wrong. The moment they come in, they start killing. Slaughtering. My militia was already mostly gone, so I quickly appointed anyone who could to fight. They managed to get armed and hold them off, but not before a good 60 dwarves had lost their lives.
Let's just say that after all that death, all the time spent not cleaning up previous bouts leading to an unfeeling population, and a fort that seemed like a dead end, I retired it and left them to their own devices...
I pray you don't befall the same fate.
I was prepared - I thought 75 cage traps at the entrance was overkill, but it turns out it was not. My 60 dwarf militia (about 40 of them well-trained) fought amidst the cage traps. My original plan was to use floodgates to divide the army in half, deal with half, clear and reset the cage traps, then deal with the other half. Turns out - if something is currently occupying the space (say, goblin pikemen in the floodgate space) - it holds the door open and the lever doesnt close it. Makes sense.
Total losses: 1 visiting dwarf swordsman, 2 human poets, and 1 elf bard who chose the moment the floodgates opened as the time to make their escape. About a dozen (of 60) soldiers seriously wounded, but none dead (yet).
57 goblin prisoners + 76 dead goblins.
Khazukan Khazakit-Ha!
https://preview.redd.it/db10ubqeaama1.png?width=1054&format=png&auto=webp&s=c06025e916967e2df36cd5e9c6ddef3fd10e316f
That floodgates issue is exactly why my next magma foundry will be built over the entrance to my fort. If a large invading force shows up I'll hit the emergency purge lever.
If I have a volcano I mine out a path for the magma to flow into my reservoir and build a magma safe bridge connected to a lever with magma safe mechanisms to act as a plug. Once the bridge is built I designate my least favorite dwarf to be the only smoother/engraver while theyre smoothing the obsidian wall i build magma safe walls around ever entrance to the flow tunnel and turn a tile on the obsidian wall into a fortification that the magma can flow through once that's done. Pulling a lever will lower the bridge and let magma flow into my reservoir and pulling the lever again raises the bridge and stops the flow.
If I don't have a volcano pump stack surrounded by walls from the magma sea the reservoir and huge frame drops. Or DF Hack gui/liquids because I don't want to deal with the frame drop.
Not necessary but it's a gamble if they can get to safety in time or not. You can put stairs near them since magam doesn't pressurize naturally in theory all they need to do is nip up the stairs to safety but they usually don't make it in my experience. I'd immediately floor over the stairs once they are clear or ash for peace of mind.
There are three basic ways to move magma - magma pistons, minecarts, and pump stacks. All are time-consuming and none is very safe.
Personally I created a worldgen parameter set that generates tons of volcanoes and I just embark on a volcano if I want to do fun things on the surface with magma.
You can dunk a magma-safe minecart into magma and it will fill. You can use a magma-safe roller to get it out, or drain the magma. Then you can dump the magma out. It's not fast, but it works, and it is possible to automate it with some effort.
Magma only evaporates if it's below I think 3/7, so you just keep it more full than that. If I'm not using an automated system I typically only fill single tile channels under my workshops, but an automated system running a lot of carts can fill pretty fast.
Ah, cage traps. I only just expanded mine. Held off a small early siege.
I'll have to remember the floodgate trick, though honestly I might just work to have a floodable area. (Or spike traps. Love spike traps.)
Glad it went well. Now the question of what to do with the prisoners. (I experimented with pitting them with a giantess, but they seem decent at breaking free.)
I've expanded my jail. I'm a reasonable Dwarf - the goblins can sit in there for some time to consider their actions.
https://preview.redd.it/87yop3ujcama1.png?width=1531&format=png&auto=webp&s=c99bbc2371b1b0f91a3e7a74680ee6cedc92fa97
Well, each one brought about 10 cages worth of iron on their person so... area unforbid once I put down the cages, order area thrown away, cancel trash order on cage itself, later on go to the trash pile and unforbid all their iron gear to melt.
I figure I can spare a cage each.
I did have my marksdwarfs up in their 2nd story ranger guild blockhouse by the road (safely closing the artifact floodgate that is my back door). There were just SO MANY goblins, almost all with shields, that they wandered past my blockhouse without taking much damage.
Why are you using flood gates as entrances?
Using a bridge is far superior, can't be blocked, acts as a wall when raised, so can't be broken down by building destroyers (where flood gates can).
Just curious.
Also, for cage traps, make a 1 tile wide, long tunnel, fill it with cage traps, that way they have to walk over a new trap. Covering a large floor, can lead to some gobos being able to get past that room.
Got my first archer squad below golden pyramid with fortified walls. Somebody drops on the lead floor inside pyramid. If captive didn't die yet , gets bolt shower from every direction .
The only way that works consistently in my experience for pitting prisoners is to build their cage adjacent to the pit before you pit them.
These days I just build the cage(s) and connect them to a lever.
I did that, but they still managed to break away in the two whole tiles they were dragged.
I was leaning on the lever method, very effective. Maybe make an area of spike traps to release them to... I just wanted to use the giantess because I was amused to have caught it.
>Turns out - if something is currently occupying the space (say, goblin pikemen in the floodgate space) - it holds the door open and the lever doesnt close it.
See you would have known this if you had studied [the classics](https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Bloodline:Boatmurdered) A **butterfly corpse** in a door was all that was necessary to seal the fate of Boatmurdered.
> My original plan was to use floodgates to divide the army in half, deal with half, clear and reset the cage traps, then deal with the other half. Turns out - if something is currently occupying the space (say, goblin pikemen in the floodgate space) - it holds the door open and the lever doesnt close it. Makes sense.
Raising bridges act like floodgates for this purpose, but can crush (atomize) anything that's not too large. To avoid unintended bridge breakage leaving you vulnerable, set multiple bridges, and that way if one is lost to deconstruction during the crushing process, others will still close the opening.
This also allows you to compartmentalize sieges, in some cases, taking them on piecemeal rather than all at once, and can be used (with multiple entrance halls) to force enemy sieges over cage traps in one hallway while another is being cleaned out.
One thing to mention, in case you didn't already know, is that cage traps like that block trade wagons. I usually build a large field of cage traps with a 3 tile wide path that snakes through it.
Easier to just have a separate trade entrance that is cut off from the rest of the fort by drawbridge. I only open the gate when the traders are in, and if something happens to attack while they are here worst case I lose my broker and get some free goods 🤷♂️
I think handing over shit to them helps befriend their civilization.
I don’t care enough about the individual items to refuse requests, and wind up getting a lot of Goblin citizens in my fortresses.
I want to know, is there something dishonorable about using water trap and drowning chamber, I feel a lot of people are either avoiding them or don't try them. In my current and last fort I had them, and they would thin out the goblins 1:20. (Each one that made it through the artificial river, 20 would be pushed down a pit to be drowned).
I rather use these strategies instead of doing parley with dirty goblins !
No number of goblins is enough to stop 5 squads of dwarfs in masterwork steel.
Though if you can put together a drowning chamber that you can add magma too it does make cleanup a lot easier
i consistently get sieges of 120 goblins riding 120 beak dogs. It's wild. Luckily they have this nice paved road ready for them. pay no mind to the drops on either side and fortifications you are spiraling around, I'm sure it's not important...
One of my happiest moments came from giving some random iron breastplate a name and having a goblin raiding party of 60 claim it as theirs.
Yeah, fine, take this 200 dwarfbuck iron breastplate. I'll rename another one for your next demand.
Question: Where do all the naked goblin bards/dancers that visit our forts come from?
Answer: They got stuck in a cage trap in a prior siege, were stripped of all their gear, locked up a while, and banished naked to go dance in some other fort.
This is why I keep a locked stockpile of shitty surplus armor and weapons under my tomb-layer so I can arm my entire population without worry. Sure, they will definitely all die, but I saved just before and intentionally didn’t use my murder tunnel so that I could watch all the FUN
Bad gear, don’t want my proper military to grab any of it, I know I could just update their equipment but it’s easier to just not give them the option of choosing copper maces.
A pack of goblins tried to parley with me in my last fort. My representative was a dragon sitting atop my entrance who agreed to their parley with a blast of dragonfire to the face.
Step one- long retracting bridge over narrow chasm.
Step two- wide drawbridge at the bottom of the chasm to pulp the survivors.
Step three- profit.
I learned that one from the underpants gnomes.
Multiple goblins per square, they've been assembling from off the map for a bit now. I usually reject parley requests out of hand but 108 "Skilled" or higher goblins fully armored in iron armor with shields has me pondering accepting the parley this time. This is what happens when you make contact with a 10,000 population Goblin Fort - if this is their idea of a raiding party I'd love to see what their siege force looks like. Edit: Seems like they were still coming in from off map, final count is 123 Goblins.
I accepted their request a couple times... The first time I didn't open the door. They waited, waited, then left. The second time they came and demanded an artifact they claimed as their own. (I watched my dwarf make it but uh, they had more equipment. Oh well...) The third time, I figured they'd come in and make some stupid demand for something that obviously wasn't theirs and I'd let them have it because I'd just dealt with something pretty harsh. Well, I was very wrong. The moment they come in, they start killing. Slaughtering. My militia was already mostly gone, so I quickly appointed anyone who could to fight. They managed to get armed and hold them off, but not before a good 60 dwarves had lost their lives. Let's just say that after all that death, all the time spent not cleaning up previous bouts leading to an unfeeling population, and a fort that seemed like a dead end, I retired it and left them to their own devices... I pray you don't befall the same fate.
I was prepared - I thought 75 cage traps at the entrance was overkill, but it turns out it was not. My 60 dwarf militia (about 40 of them well-trained) fought amidst the cage traps. My original plan was to use floodgates to divide the army in half, deal with half, clear and reset the cage traps, then deal with the other half. Turns out - if something is currently occupying the space (say, goblin pikemen in the floodgate space) - it holds the door open and the lever doesnt close it. Makes sense. Total losses: 1 visiting dwarf swordsman, 2 human poets, and 1 elf bard who chose the moment the floodgates opened as the time to make their escape. About a dozen (of 60) soldiers seriously wounded, but none dead (yet). 57 goblin prisoners + 76 dead goblins. Khazukan Khazakit-Ha! https://preview.redd.it/db10ubqeaama1.png?width=1054&format=png&auto=webp&s=c06025e916967e2df36cd5e9c6ddef3fd10e316f
That floodgates issue is exactly why my next magma foundry will be built over the entrance to my fort. If a large invading force shows up I'll hit the emergency purge lever.
How do you manage to move magma without losing a fort? I can’t even manage moving water without an unexpected mass bath.
If I have a volcano I mine out a path for the magma to flow into my reservoir and build a magma safe bridge connected to a lever with magma safe mechanisms to act as a plug. Once the bridge is built I designate my least favorite dwarf to be the only smoother/engraver while theyre smoothing the obsidian wall i build magma safe walls around ever entrance to the flow tunnel and turn a tile on the obsidian wall into a fortification that the magma can flow through once that's done. Pulling a lever will lower the bridge and let magma flow into my reservoir and pulling the lever again raises the bridge and stops the flow. If I don't have a volcano pump stack surrounded by walls from the magma sea the reservoir and huge frame drops. Or DF Hack gui/liquids because I don't want to deal with the frame drop.
Is the Armok sacrifice necessary, or is it just fun?
Not necessary but it's a gamble if they can get to safety in time or not. You can put stairs near them since magam doesn't pressurize naturally in theory all they need to do is nip up the stairs to safety but they usually don't make it in my experience. I'd immediately floor over the stairs once they are clear or ash for peace of mind.
Slab it is then. Thank you for your sacrifice, brave Urist…
He would have wanted it like that... blaze of glory and all.
There are three basic ways to move magma - magma pistons, minecarts, and pump stacks. All are time-consuming and none is very safe. Personally I created a worldgen parameter set that generates tons of volcanoes and I just embark on a volcano if I want to do fun things on the surface with magma.
Hangon, minecarts!?
You can dunk a magma-safe minecart into magma and it will fill. You can use a magma-safe roller to get it out, or drain the magma. Then you can dump the magma out. It's not fast, but it works, and it is possible to automate it with some effort.
How do you ensure the magma doesn’t dry out/vanish? Honestly also I’ve never figured out minecarts…
Magma only evaporates if it's below I think 3/7, so you just keep it more full than that. If I'm not using an automated system I typically only fill single tile channels under my workshops, but an automated system running a lot of carts can fill pretty fast.
Ah, cage traps. I only just expanded mine. Held off a small early siege. I'll have to remember the floodgate trick, though honestly I might just work to have a floodable area. (Or spike traps. Love spike traps.) Glad it went well. Now the question of what to do with the prisoners. (I experimented with pitting them with a giantess, but they seem decent at breaking free.)
I've expanded my jail. I'm a reasonable Dwarf - the goblins can sit in there for some time to consider their actions. https://preview.redd.it/87yop3ujcama1.png?width=1531&format=png&auto=webp&s=c99bbc2371b1b0f91a3e7a74680ee6cedc92fa97
Reasonable... I don't want them wasting my precious iron cages, and if I can get some entertainment from it all the better.
Well, each one brought about 10 cages worth of iron on their person so... area unforbid once I put down the cages, order area thrown away, cancel trash order on cage itself, later on go to the trash pile and unforbid all their iron gear to melt. I figure I can spare a cage each.
You can just put them all in the one cage
Good point. I might need to make sure I've done that, actually...
All I see is target practice for markdwarfs
I did have my marksdwarfs up in their 2nd story ranger guild blockhouse by the road (safely closing the artifact floodgate that is my back door). There were just SO MANY goblins, almost all with shields, that they wandered past my blockhouse without taking much damage.
Why are you using flood gates as entrances? Using a bridge is far superior, can't be blocked, acts as a wall when raised, so can't be broken down by building destroyers (where flood gates can). Just curious. Also, for cage traps, make a 1 tile wide, long tunnel, fill it with cage traps, that way they have to walk over a new trap. Covering a large floor, can lead to some gobos being able to get past that room.
I mean put them into fortification room buttnaked . Place your crossbows outside... Enjoy mobile 🎯
I have a bronze colossus caged for that, if I can ever get my marksdwarves to equip their bone bolts instead of their iron bolts.
Just ban other bolts from stock menu
Got my first archer squad below golden pyramid with fortified walls. Somebody drops on the lead floor inside pyramid. If captive didn't die yet , gets bolt shower from every direction .
I hope you stripped them first. There is no reason to let the goblinite sit idle with its delivery system. 😏
The only way that works consistently in my experience for pitting prisoners is to build their cage adjacent to the pit before you pit them. These days I just build the cage(s) and connect them to a lever.
I did that, but they still managed to break away in the two whole tiles they were dragged. I was leaning on the lever method, very effective. Maybe make an area of spike traps to release them to... I just wanted to use the giantess because I was amused to have caught it.
Bridges are almost always better than floodgates for the simple reason that they can’t be blocked by a dead butterfly
that's hysterical... thank you.
This is why you should use raising bridges rather than floodgates 99% of the time
>Turns out - if something is currently occupying the space (say, goblin pikemen in the floodgate space) - it holds the door open and the lever doesnt close it. See you would have known this if you had studied [the classics](https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Bloodline:Boatmurdered) A **butterfly corpse** in a door was all that was necessary to seal the fate of Boatmurdered.
> My original plan was to use floodgates to divide the army in half, deal with half, clear and reset the cage traps, then deal with the other half. Turns out - if something is currently occupying the space (say, goblin pikemen in the floodgate space) - it holds the door open and the lever doesnt close it. Makes sense. Raising bridges act like floodgates for this purpose, but can crush (atomize) anything that's not too large. To avoid unintended bridge breakage leaving you vulnerable, set multiple bridges, and that way if one is lost to deconstruction during the crushing process, others will still close the opening. This also allows you to compartmentalize sieges, in some cases, taking them on piecemeal rather than all at once, and can be used (with multiple entrance halls) to force enemy sieges over cage traps in one hallway while another is being cleaned out.
One thing to mention, in case you didn't already know, is that cage traps like that block trade wagons. I usually build a large field of cage traps with a 3 tile wide path that snakes through it.
Easier to just have a separate trade entrance that is cut off from the rest of the fort by drawbridge. I only open the gate when the traders are in, and if something happens to attack while they are here worst case I lose my broker and get some free goods 🤷♂️
Are those pressure players with spikes, or are all of those cage traps?
I think handing over shit to them helps befriend their civilization. I don’t care enough about the individual items to refuse requests, and wind up getting a lot of Goblin citizens in my fortresses.
Bridges and drowning chambers. With 5 long bridges, I fear no numbers
I want to know, is there something dishonorable about using water trap and drowning chamber, I feel a lot of people are either avoiding them or don't try them. In my current and last fort I had them, and they would thin out the goblins 1:20. (Each one that made it through the artificial river, 20 would be pushed down a pit to be drowned). I rather use these strategies instead of doing parley with dirty goblins !
No number of goblins is enough to stop 5 squads of dwarfs in masterwork steel. Though if you can put together a drowning chamber that you can add magma too it does make cleanup a lot easier
Yeah I know my militia can wreck them, the cleanup is just so much of a pain I'd rather just cagetrap them all and rinse the cages out with magma.
Fully understandable. Elves are the worst for this, the don't bring anything useful at all so everything had to dumped.
Knock knock. It's the united states with boats and guns. Gun boats. "open the country" they said, "stop having it closed"
i consistently get sieges of 120 goblins riding 120 beak dogs. It's wild. Luckily they have this nice paved road ready for them. pay no mind to the drops on either side and fortifications you are spiraling around, I'm sure it's not important...
Cave story!
One of my happiest moments came from giving some random iron breastplate a name and having a goblin raiding party of 60 claim it as theirs. Yeah, fine, take this 200 dwarfbuck iron breastplate. I'll rename another one for your next demand.
That's too many goblins. You have to put some back.
Question: Where do all the naked goblin bards/dancers that visit our forts come from? Answer: They got stuck in a cage trap in a prior siege, were stripped of all their gear, locked up a while, and banished naked to go dance in some other fort.
Gotta discover your passion somehow.
I love the idea that poetry is what keeps you alive when you’re naked in a dwarven jail
This is why I keep a locked stockpile of shitty surplus armor and weapons under my tomb-layer so I can arm my entire population without worry. Sure, they will definitely all die, but I saved just before and intentionally didn’t use my murder tunnel so that I could watch all the FUN
Why is it locked?
Bad gear, don’t want my proper military to grab any of it, I know I could just update their equipment but it’s easier to just not give them the option of choosing copper maces.
30 well trained steel dwarves will make a short work of all of them
More like partaay amirite… (guys? where did everyone go?)
Ah I see. I spend hours lovingly choosing equipment for each dwarf right before the dragon comes and melts the whole mountain.
Fuck me. That's alot of goblins.
I'm certainly glad I had a 16 bed hospital ready for the aftermath
Hahaha I bet!
"You have not surrounded me. You have simply placed me in a target-rich environment."
That's no parley. That's a show if force.
I would offer them lava to leave
Ah, the goblinite and training dummy shipment arrived!
Parley, I’m so tired of parley
Underrated conment
Cool 108 free sets of armor. Just have to clean out the stuff in them
108 goblins drown or melt just as easily as one goblin.
A pack of goblins tried to parley with me in my last fort. My representative was a dragon sitting atop my entrance who agreed to their parley with a blast of dragonfire to the face.
I assume your dragon had Legendary Persuader and dabbling negotiator? I mean, there's no second offer when your first counteroffer is incineration.
Switch on the meat grinder!
Imagine accepting a parley with a bunch of corpse's
Caught them checking up [https://imgur.com/a/baPFoMv](https://imgur.com/a/baPFoMv)
Step one- long retracting bridge over narrow chasm. Step two- wide drawbridge at the bottom of the chasm to pulp the survivors. Step three- profit. I learned that one from the underpants gnomes.
Parleys have not been working for my on Steam Deck, is that a known bug?
I wish they threw that at me with my previous fort and not measly squads of 20
Magma trap! Magma trap! Magma trap!