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Author Topic: Human Merchants leave gifts?  (Read 772 times)

Shadowdragon00

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Human Merchants leave gifts?
« on: February 21, 2019, 11:11:25 am »

I was running my fort when a human caravan showed up. They promptly visited my depot, dumped there cargo and ran for the hills. The only thing that I can think of causing this is an encounter one of the human archers had with a wild dingo. Does this sound right? Do human caravans run for the hills if even the smallest accident occurs?
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Starver

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Re: Human Merchants leave gifts?
« Reply #1 on: February 21, 2019, 12:27:43 pm »

Caravans of all kinds do tend to over-react, perhaps because the current alternative would be not to react at all, so they're primed to spooking unnecessarily rather than passively suffering ambush.

It doesn't matter what the cause (it could be something you did to them, via a remote lever, or an inconvenient hostile attack) they'll probably now downgrade their opinion of your site treating the goods you were left with as effectively stolen. At some point it could make their civilisation hostile to you (or maybe just stop sending the caravan) due to the reception they've been getting, but I don't think it'll trigger on this one event.

Such is life DF. You can pre-plan for it possibly happening or just deal with it once it's happened. Enjoy your 'free' stuff, and just hope it isn't herald of other misfortunes, but this time upon you!
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Khalari

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Re: Human Merchants leave gifts?
« Reply #2 on: February 21, 2019, 01:12:28 pm »

Slaughter them all. Problem solved.

They'll keep coming back with humanite and elvenite after a few caravans mysteriously disappear in your fort. You will, however, need to play the blood price LOL
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anewaname

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Re: Human Merchants leave gifts?
« Reply #3 on: February 25, 2019, 10:43:00 am »

I have seen caravan guards shoot at or melee with minor animals (birds, monkeys, ...) without interrupting the caravan process. It might imply that only the merchants, animals, and wagons can be spooked, not the guards, but a dingo is a predator and that might be what spooked them.
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How did I manage to successfully apply the lessons of The Screwtape Letters to my perceptions of big grocery stores?