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Author Topic: My War animals just stand around and get killed... why?  (Read 6134 times)

mndfreeze

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My War animals just stand around and get killed... why?
« on: November 21, 2014, 04:46:15 am »

Maybe its the way I'm doing things, in fact I'll bet its my fault somehow but here is the basic scenario.

I pasture a group of war animals right outside my front gate.  It doesnt matter if I have 2 or 20.  A single weredonkey or weregerbil comes along and literally just kills every single one of them and when I look in the report they dont attack back even once.  They just sat there and took it.

However if some other small animal was to come near they would all rush to kill it.  Not sure I see their value other then assigning them directly to dwarven fighters, but even then if you use an alarm to burrow your civilians the assigned pets seem to go with them, even though they are attached to the war party to be sent out to defend..

plzhelpkthxbye.

:D
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bluephoenix

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Re: My War animals just stand around and get killed... why?
« Reply #1 on: November 21, 2014, 06:36:04 am »

Probably this bug.

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=143254.msg5643050#msg5643050

http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/mantisbt/view.php?id=8250

Which Toady still hasn't fixed sadly. It is pretty common and game breaking so I don't know why it hasn't been touched yet.
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ptb_ptb

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Re: My War animals just stand around and get killed... why?
« Reply #2 on: November 21, 2014, 06:46:25 am »

I don't know why it hasn't been touched yet.
There are a lot of nasty bugs out there. Everybody has their 'favorite' that they want to see go most. This one has been around since 2010, there are others from further back.
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bluephoenix

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Re: My War animals just stand around and get killed... why?
« Reply #3 on: November 21, 2014, 07:52:34 am »

I don't know why it hasn't been touched yet.
There are a lot of nasty bugs out there. Everybody has their 'favorite' that they want to see go most. This one has been around since 2010, there are others from further back.
Yeah but the "dwarves ignoring attackers bug" is pretty bad and very common, I have played DF for about 5 years now and have never seen the one you are presenting.
I know there are still many bugs but game breaking ones like this one should have a bit of a higher priority.
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mndfreeze

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Re: My War animals just stand around and get killed... why?
« Reply #4 on: November 21, 2014, 08:39:27 am »

I have actually had that EXACT problem you linked in your bug report with were*beasts.  I sent my full squad of melee soldiers in and only a few of them ever attacked the rest just rolled around and dodged.  It got even worse when the were beast turned human halfway through the fight.  That caused ALL my squad to stop attacking even tho the order was still there and they followed it when it started running away.  However cancelling and resubmitting the order with a direct click (not rectangle selection or anything) caused my dwarves to 'wake up' and go kill it correctly this time.

So for sure the bug where some or all dwarves dont attack were beasts is alive and running still.

And there is surely something about the beast before and after turn that changes all the rules.

I didn't think this applied to my war animals though because I only see this bug behavior SOMETIMES with dwarves.  With my war animals sitting in a pasture its EVERY time.  Its almost like the monster see's them from way far away and rush into combat and my animals are so surprised by them that they just lose a million turns due to critical failure roll on initiative or something.
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Illogical_Blox

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Re: My War animals just stand around and get killed... why?
« Reply #5 on: November 21, 2014, 02:36:26 pm »

So THAT'S why my Piscesi Warrior Priest's war trolls weren't attacking!
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smeeprocket

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Re: My War animals just stand around and get killed... why?
« Reply #6 on: November 21, 2014, 02:41:14 pm »

This would explain why keas keep getting into my stockpile and the trade depot despite an entire fortress worth of war dogs pastured on top of them.
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mndfreeze

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Re: My War animals just stand around and get killed... why?
« Reply #7 on: November 22, 2014, 08:13:34 pm »

So I started a new fortress as my old just wasnt coming together after all the issues with stress and missing relatives from the earlier releases. Have to say its great now that my dwarves are not constantly killing each other in fits of depression and rage over a list of missing relatives 2 pages long...

Of course, my war animal issues are still here.  I got attacked by another were-random and with the castle being so new I had no traps laid or a military setup yet, so thankfully my 8 war dogs were pastured att he gate entrance to hold it off while a dwarf pulled the lever to raise the drawbridge. 

Once again all 8 dogs just danced around and got killed.  Oddly enough though a capybara got close enough and in the middle of NOT attacking the werebeast a few of them decided they should at least attack the capybara.  smh..

a year later a small seige of 5 goblins attacked and the war dogs that were pastued just sat and got killed.  However I did have 2 of them attached to 2 soldiers that were training and THOSE 2 attacked when my soldiers were ordered too.

I am really wondering if there is more to this then just specifically against were-beasts like the bug ticket described, and if its any war animal in a pasture. 

war animals need a way to take orders from the player directly without having to be tied to a military unit. :(

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draeath

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Re: My War animals just stand around and get killed... why?
« Reply #8 on: November 23, 2014, 03:52:52 pm »

... might be heresay to say it, but it would be nice if a release or two were dedicated to bugsquishing - hold off on the new features until things are cleaned up.
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Cptn Kaladin Anrizlokum

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Re: My War animals just stand around and get killed... why?
« Reply #9 on: November 23, 2014, 03:57:41 pm »

I think this bug might be because the werebeast is too strong for them to consider fighting, so they just don't? But they can't run away because they are pastured, so they just ignore it or something...

Or just a bug with pastures in general. Have you tried chaining up the dogs?
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bluephoenix

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Re: My War animals just stand around and get killed... why?
« Reply #10 on: November 23, 2014, 07:49:59 pm »

I think this bug might be because the werebeast is too strong for them to consider fighting, so they just don't? But they can't run away because they are pastured, so they just ignore it or something...

Or just a bug with pastures in general. Have you tried chaining up the dogs?
It is some sort of "no quarter" or loyalty bug or something, it doesn't only happen to animals. I had a save game with a large military that never touched the attacking goblin and troll army, no matter if I stationed them near the goblins or gave a direct attack order.
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mndfreeze

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Re: My War animals just stand around and get killed... why?
« Reply #11 on: November 27, 2014, 10:14:45 pm »

So because it happened 5 more times with my front door pastured war dogs/bears/etc I decided to just remove the pasture and assign the war animals to my soldier dwarves.  I happened to get attacked after assigning to dwarves but before I removed the pasture. 

The war animals that were assigned to dwarves charged and attacked when I set my soldiers to attack the goblin group.   the pastured animals stood there doing nothing even though the battle raged around them.  Didn't matter if they were being attacked or not. 

My civ alarm was set on and as expected all war dogs that were not assigned to the pasture ran inside regardless of being assigned to a dwarf.  The ones that were assigned to the pasture however stuck around, with the ones assigned to dwarves actually attacking like I stated above.

I'm thinking this issue is separate from the werebeast issue.  While there are similarities and I've had both of them happens at the same time, I'm pretty sure there is an issue with war animals that are pastured AND animals or people not attacking/counter attacking.   The attack/counterattack thing happens with way more then just were beasts also as I've had many instances of normal goblin sieges showing that effect when I send in my soldiers to clean up.
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