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« on: August 17, 2014, 12:11:57 am »
In my third goblin siege, an event occurred which will be known as the Battle of the Northern Wall. What happened was that I was trying to build a fortified wall, but ran behind schedule. I ended up with a 1 z level high wall around my fortress attached to a floor, making a 2 tile wide walkway. There was only a small section of the wall which was fortified, so I had my militia hunkered down there, but I didn't know that creatures can jump up a z level, so three trolls and four goblin soldiers hopped up on the wall (not at the same time, or I probably would've lost the fortress right there, my militia isn't very big) and started fighting my melee soldiers while my rangers shot bolts at the rest of the siege, keeping them at bay while the jumpers got beaten to death.
In the end, approximately 4 military dwarves died (3 on the wall, 1 from jumping down and charging directly into the horde of goblins and trolls with no weapons), as well as a few civilians who got too close to the wall and a few animals that jumped into the fray and took it upon themselves to chase the trolls out of the area. Now to deal with the tantrum spiral that will inevitably come from this...
Lessons learned: creatures can jump up at least 1 z level, the fear system allows suppressive-fire to be a legitimate strategy, making sure soldier dwarves have weapons is very important, and I need to get civilians to retreat deeper into the base when goblins start jumping the wall...
