Bay 12 Games Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

Author Topic: [40d9] Trapped ambusher's mount gives birth, horse foal reveals ambush.  (Read 2674 times)

Untelligent

  • Bay Watcher
  • I eat flesh!
    • View Profile

I ctrl-f'd the bug list for "ambush" and I didn't find anything like this, I apologize if I missed it.


I was ambushed by an ambusher party at the edge of the map. However, I checked and no dwarf was around the revealed ambushers. In fact, there was way up or down the mountain from the ambushers' position, aside from the map edge.

Then I noticed that among the horses was a horse foal. "That's odd, I didn't think invaders could mount young animals." Although wild horses did spawn on the map, these ambushers were far up in the mountains where no wild horse tread. I looked it up in the unit list and the foal was listed as "hostile." That's odd.

Then I check the announcement log. Just before the "An Ambush! Curse them!" message, there's an announcement about a horse giving birth to a horse foal that I didn't notice before, despite checking the log shortly before the ambush warning.


Given all of the above, I deduced that in one of the previous raids, possibly even one of the very first ones, one of the ambushing parties became trapped on the mountain almost immediately due to the massive mining work I've been doing. They sat there unseen for years, the horses got bored, and now one of them has just given birth. Because the game wasn't expecting ambushers to last this long at all, let alone without being discovered, it didn't handle this optimally.

I don't have a very recent save from prior to the ambush discovery, but I do have a save from (assumingly) the exact frame in which the ambush paused the game, if that would help at all.
« Last Edit: June 21, 2009, 08:31:36 pm by Untelligent »
Logged
The World Without Knifebear — A much safer world indeed.
regardless, the slime shooter will be completed, come hell or high water, which are both entirely plausible setbacks at this point.

ArkDelgato

  • Bay Watcher
  • ERROR - LOGICAL FALLACY
    • View Profile

The human's never get off the horses, do they...

WELL THAT'S AWKWARD TO THINK ABOUT.

And it seems that the mount's giving birth has severe drawbacks for the riders.

This and the one topic where the foal scared away the seige force add up to problems.

Could Toady rig it so invading animals don't give birth?
Logged

smjjames

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile

A pregnant mare probably wouldn't make a good warhorse (or ambush-horse for that matter), at least until the foal was weaned.
Logged

Derakon

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile

Normally any wildlife creature on-site will reveal ambushers, thieves, etc. (and if that's a bug, it's at least well-known). The fact that the foal is itself hostile throws a wrench into the works, though.
Logged
Jetblade - an open-source Metroid/Castlevania game with procedurally-generated levels

Toady One

  • The Great
    • View Profile
    • http://www.bay12games.com

Yeah, it should probably add foals to the invasion or at least not have same-civ creatures trigger ambushes.  The production of the foal in the first place is an additional matter.
Logged
The Toad, a Natural Resource:  Preserve yours today!

Aquillion

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile

There's also the fact that the ambushers sat there, trapped, on their horses, with no food or supplies for several years.  When that eventually changes, it'll make at least some of the issues here go away.
Logged
We don't want another cheap fantasy universe, we want a cheap fantasy universe generator. --Toady One

Untelligent

  • Bay Watcher
  • I eat flesh!
    • View Profile

I just started it up again, as soon as unpaused they tore the foal apart. =/


EDIT: Another ambush in a similar location just did the same thing, exactly as before, right down to the previous sentence, so this isn't just a fluke.
« Last Edit: June 22, 2009, 02:11:22 pm by Untelligent »
Logged
The World Without Knifebear — A much safer world indeed.
regardless, the slime shooter will be completed, come hell or high water, which are both entirely plausible setbacks at this point.

Untelligent

  • Bay Watcher
  • I eat flesh!
    • View Profile

Several ambushes later, there are now 37 raiders and 52 horses running around my mountain. As if my FPS wasn't low enough already. =/
Logged
The World Without Knifebear — A much safer world indeed.
regardless, the slime shooter will be completed, come hell or high water, which are both entirely plausible setbacks at this point.