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[lumin]

I've never gotten far enough in Fortress mode to see a Demon.  Are these creatures basically like ultra-powerful game enders (aka Balrogs)?

I remember Toady saying somewhere that death is inevitable in Fortress Mode.  He said, "You're going to have to learn to embrace inevitable death".

So is that what the Demon is supposed to do?  Is there a way to stop them from destroying your Fortress?

[puke]

well i havent dug past the lava to find out, but from what i hear, yeah, you can beat them.

it might be kinda difficult because most of them are immune to both water and fire (and by extension, steam), and trap immune.  but many people have beaten the demons.

if you plan for it, you can hold them at bay since they cant break down a raised drawbridge any better than anyone else.  i dont know if you can also squish them with said drawbridge, but that would be a pretty easy way of dealing with the problem .  cheesy, too.

the inevatable doom is if you mine all the way past the demons to the adamantine ore, and start mining that.  that kills your fortress, but you can still explore it in adventure mode afterwards.  I have never heard an answer as to if you can reclaim it.

[yarnosh]

Ha! Funny you should ask about demons. I just got slaughtered by these creatures yesterday for the first time. Apparently, once you dig past the magma, you run the risk of stumbling upon a "pit." Not too long after I did it, several demons poured out, destroyed my magma smelters, and slaughtered everyone. I took a couple out with crossbows (swordsdwarves and axedwarves were no match). Perhaps they could have been stopped if I had bothered with some good traps and put levers on my bridges. Who knows. Just when I thought the game was too easy...

Next time I'll be ready. Going past the magma  so early was really just an experiment. It was far less upsetting to lose my fortress than one might think.

-matthew

[Kylaer]

I just fought the demons for the first time, last night.

Here's how it works. When you dig past the magma (not just a couple of spaces, you have to go deeper; you can excavate along the far bank of the lava river safely, I think, if you want the obsidian), you'll run into a pit, which is a red # sign. There are lots of these, arranged so that you can't dig to the adamantine without hitting one, but the demons only get triggered once.

Demons are & symbols, and there are three kinds. Frog demons (which are water and fire immune), tentacle demons (fire immune), and spirits of fire (fire immune, breathe fire). Spirits of fire are, in my opinion, the most dangerous by far, due to the firebreath.

What I did was save, copy my save, marshal my entire population into my army (equipped with decent weapons, masterpiece obsidian swords mostly), and send them into my Hall of Doom, which led down to the furthest-south point of the map. From there, I bridged the lava and sent a single miner to dig into the far side. I hit a pit and the demons spawned; they killed my legendary miner in a few swings, and went towards my Hall. I triggered a flood trap, but the demons destroyed my exit floodgate before the water could emerge, so I failed to slay any of them with that. They then proceeded to charge up the Hall into my men.

I lost half my fort's population (down to 52 from ~100), but I killed them all. If my flood trap had worked, it would have been much easier, since the spirits of fire would have been dead, and they were the ones who caused the most casualties. I'll do it right next time.

Also, conventional traps (stonefall, weapon, cage, etc) don't have any effect whatsoever. The demons simply don't trigger them, else dealing with them would be really, really easy. (I don't care how tough a critter is, a trap can be made that can kill it easily. Six masterpiece obsidian swords, some bronze spears, and a couple of masterpiece large bronze disks, anyone?). You need to use "clever" traps; floods, drawbridges to splat them, etc.

Update:

Water doesn't hurt spirits of fire. Damn. Frog demons are WEAK, my squad of five fairly-well-trained swordsmen made short work of two or three of them, and tentacle demons drown, but fire spirits, arrrgh, they are hard to kill. And they're highly lethal.

[ November 13, 2006: Message edited by: Kylaer ]

[Citizen of Erl]

Good Armor seems to help a lot with the demons.

I had about seven marksdwarves and three sworddwarves fight off the demons with steel weapons, while using steel plate mail, all of about average quality. Only lost a couple dwarves.

[Saiph]

Aaah, I have so much to look forward to in the future!  

[Kjoery]

Yeah, with an army of about 12 steelish speardwarves as fodder, and 7 marksdwarves, the demons fell with minimal casualties. Flood traps are for sissies!