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[darkflagrance]

Interesting. Might just be my choice of embark then.
Goblins apparently finished off my fort less than a year after I retired it. Must send in an adventurer to take revenge.

No sieges in first two years of the new fort. Elf and Human caravans showed up though. Wonder why they never came to the last place? It's only just down the road with all the same neighbours. Pathing bug?

I have gotten elves/humans at forts that were later attacked before.

That said, now that I know more about the pathing bug, check the list of civs in contact range to see if you have contact with hostile civs. Hostile civs vanishing from that list was one of the symptoms of the pathfinding bug.

[TheHossofMoss]

Please forgive me if this has already been addressed in this topic, but has anyone used this mod with the Modest Mod in addition and encountered any problems?

If not, I'll happily be the guinea pig cavy boar for testing in it.

[darkflagrance]

Might have to replace leather materials or tissue layers, if you're using Accelerated Modest Mod. Otherwise, it looks like the regular Modest Mod is designed to interface with the vanilla tags and definitions, which should mean that Fortress Defense II is also compatible.

[RocheLimit]

Just realized this was still ongoing and you were asking for information!  I used Fortress Defense 2014 r3 with DF 40.24.  I hope the data I have is applicable.


My current fort LeopardLens was begun in the year 250.  Here is the embark screen:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

So this fort is near Goblins, Ferric Elves, Greater Badgermen, Great Fiend Spiders, Jotunar, Humans, White Tigermen, Frogmen, and Warwolves.  Pretty much as extensive a group as I could find.

The fort is now in its 36th year.  It has experienced 43 separate sieges.  The numbers of every siege are detailed in the following images:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

One interesting thing noted during these fights were the usefulness of various animals brought.  White Tigermen had a habit of bringing great numbers of horses and camels, even appearing mounted on them in three attacks.  Yet in each attack, the animals fled wildly at the mere sight of a dwarf.  Here is a picture and gif from siege #3, composed of 31 tigermen and 31 horses/camels, all mounted, and siege #7, composed of 36 tigermen and 37 horses/camels, with all tigermen mounted:

Siege #3, 255-10-04

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Siege #7, 261-10-02

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The mounted fights were both interesting and annoying, as while the mounts fled the tigermen were more than willing to fight.  Which resulted in my dwarfs giving chase to pummel the mount, and having the tigermen take free shots at the dwarf as the mount ran all over the place.

If you would like any additional information concerning any of the sieges listed, I have detailed write-ups of each, pictures of the attacking force before engagement, animated gifs of every fight save some of the earlier ones, and pictures showing the aftermath.  Just let me know and I will post what I have.

[darkflagrance]

AWESOMELY EXTENSIVE DATA LOGS

Thank you for the data RocheLimit! The animated gifs are extremely impressive; they're an excellent way to document a decades-long campaign. I find myself entranced by the Tigermen milling about before they engage the dwarves, and I wonder if you considered making an album or posting a campaign history to share with the community. I'm in the process of looking through the data logs, but a couple of things stood out to me. I've been trying to confirm whether Fortress Defense races suffer from the problem of running out of trained soldiers, and it looks like late-stage Badgermen were arriving naked, or as wrestlers. I'm also surprised that Goblins eventually petered out completely but Tigermen stayed strong. Go Tigermen!

How tough are naked Jotunar and Fiend Spiders? I've learned tricks to deal with them myself, but I've been wondering how users of the mod perceive their difficulty, considering their size and/or mechanics.

I noticed the fort waited four years to receive its first siege. That seems in line with other data that has been collected for the mod, and for invasions in general. I think it's an acceptable wait period, as long as the sieges do come after that point is reached. I also see it took a progress_trigger_x:5 race 27 years to start coming to the fort. I suspect the late arrival of Ferric Elves was due to conflicting triggers with the Tigermen. This might even have been the case for the other later arriving races.

The fleeing Tigerman mounts exhibit behavior that human mounts also exhibited historically, because the siege code doesn't war train invader animals (probably due to a lack of identifying tags). I am personally fond of this behavior because I see the kiting tactics as semi-realistic, but I have been considering changing how the FD civilizations interact with mounts/animal allies. Considering that Tigermen only rarely mounted their sieges, it might even be a good change of mechanics to have once in a while.

[Shonai_Dweller]

Is the population trigger for each race actually working? By the end of year three I usually have enough dwarves to trigger all the sieges, so it's kind of hard to tell.

[darkflagrance]

Is the population trigger for each race actually working? By the end of year three I usually have enough dwarves to trigger all the sieges, so it's kind of hard to tell.

I'm still in the very slow process of testing, but I have not been able to confirm anything. The three year wait for sieges is a great hindrance to my testing, along with my work schedule eating up DF time. I'd need to set up a set of trials to test out individual triggers in isolation, but each trial would require a new fort, as far as I can tell.

That said, given the constant 3-year wait for sieges, the actual specified value of tags might be irrelevant, or might mean higher triggers mean even later arrivals, as I theorized in my previous post in reaction to RocheLimit's logs.

[RocheLimit]

I'm glad my data is helpful!  I've been documenting this fort for months now with the end goal of releasing the story once finished.  I did upload all the siege-relevant pictures/gifs though, with accurate titles and descriptions; I will pm you a link to the album.

Hmmm, Jotunar and Fiend Spiders? 

Jotunar are the more difficult of the two, as a lucky fireball can end a dwarf's life easily.  If they get their hands on a dwarf, it is also bad news.  But overall, they aren't too bad.  By the time they came, I had 8 squads of 10 Legendary fighters.  Their overall lack of armor/weapons combined with DF2014's penchant for creatures giving into pain at a stubbed toe means they can be quickly incapacitated.  Shields negate most of their one advantage, fireballs.  To make them more terrifying?  Make them immune to pain, imo.  With giant-sized armor/weapons.

Great Fiend Spiders: they arrive with no armor or weapons.  They do not shoot web.  While I have not had many sieges from them, they are not too horrible.  They would be MUCH more difficult if they shot web; my dwarfs would have to hole up inside.

[darkflagrance]

I'm glad my data is helpful!  I've been documenting this fort for months now with the end goal of releasing the story once finished.  I did upload all the siege-relevant pictures/gifs though, with accurate titles and descriptions; I will pm you a link to the album.

Hmmm, Jotunar and Fiend Spiders? 

Jotunar are the more difficult of the two, as a lucky fireball can end a dwarf's life easily.  If they get their hands on a dwarf, it is also bad news.  But overall, they aren't too bad.  By the time they came, I had 8 squads of 10 Legendary fighters.  Their overall lack of armor/weapons combined with DF2014's penchant for creatures giving into pain at a stubbed toe means they can be quickly incapacitated.  Shields negate most of their one advantage, fireballs.  To make them more terrifying?  Make them immune to pain, imo.  With giant-sized armor/weapons.

Great Fiend Spiders: they arrive with no armor or weapons.  They do not shoot web.  While I have not had many sieges from them, they are not too horrible.  They would be MUCH more difficult if they shot web; my dwarfs would have to hole up inside.

Thanks to your data on later invaders, I can make some productive bug fixes.

Hotfix for Great Fiend Spiders:

Where it says

Code: [Select]

[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:SILK:SILK_TEMPLATE]
[STATE_COLOR:ALL:RED]
Paste underneath:

Code: [Select]

[WEBBER:LOCAL_CREATURE_MAT:SILK]
[CAN_DO_INTERACTION:MATERIAL_EMISSION]
[CDI:ADV_NAME:Spray web]
[CDI:USAGE_HINT:ATTACK]
[CDI:BP_REQUIRED:BY_TOKEN:LB]
[CDI:MATERIAL:LOCAL_CREATURE_MAT:SILK:WEB_SPRAY]
[CDI:TARGET:C:LINE_OF_SIGHT]
[CDI:TARGET_RANGE:C:5]
[CDI:MAX_TARGET_NUMBER:C:1]
[CDI:WAIT_PERIOD:30]
Paste this somewhere in the top part of their creature entry. It looks like they didn't make the crossover into the interactions rewrite properly.

Badgermen and Jotunar are supposed to be using armor and weapons. I'm currently scanning their raws to see what causes this bug.

Also, in the next update, Great Fiend Spiders will be able to bite dwarves through steel helmets (maybe not masterwork steel), to prevent them from being helpless against steel armor.

[Number7]

is there any way to make sure your civilisation isn't extinct at the start? i've been using 125 year histories but have gotten the no outpost liason every single embark (4 different world gens)

[darkflagrance]

is there any way to make sure your civilisation isn't extinct at the start? i've been using 125 year histories but have gotten the no outpost liason every single embark (4 different world gens)

I prefer to start with ~30 year world gens. The problem is that world gen invasions auto-succeed, so I suspect surviving for a longer period of time is harder.

You could also try increasing the size of the world and making sure you play on a region map.

[Shonai_Dweller]

I thought auto-invasion success was fixed towards the end of the last run? Doesn't seem to be the case glancing through legends. Dwarves always seem to survive 250 years (albeit a bit battered) in the worlds I've tried. Always large worlds, with 'very high' sites.

Annoyed to discover my Fury population is 6(!) in my new world. Result of 233 year war with Hellfire Imps. Ruthertaurs didn't make it all, wiped out by roc and colossus (my fault for setting beasts at very high I guess).

In other news, I see Toady has fixed mounted goblins, which is good news for future versions of this mod.

[CaptainLambcake]

Whenever I try to install this mod with lazy newb pack it says there is a merge conflict.  How do I go about fixing this?

[darkflagrance]

Whenever I try to install this mod with lazy newb pack it says there is a merge conflict.  How do I go about fixing this?

I can say that if you follow the installation instructions in the readme, and just paste the mod files directly into the game's raw folder, the LNP version of DF will still work properly and make changes accordingly.

It looks like you may not be using the PyLNP merge feature correctly. You need to set up the directory correctly so that there is a Fortress Defense/raw/objects folder in the Mod folder of PyLNP, and then use the up arrow to merge it into the "Merged" box.

I thought auto-invasion success was fixed towards the end of the last run? Doesn't seem to be the case glancing through legends. Dwarves always seem to survive 250 years (albeit a bit battered) in the worlds I've tried. Always large worlds, with 'very high' sites.

Annoyed to discover my Fury population is 6(!) in my new world. Result of 233 year war with Hellfire Imps. Ruthertaurs didn't make it all, wiped out by roc and colossus (my fault for setting beasts at very high I guess).

In other news, I see Toady has fixed mounted goblins, which is good news for future versions of this mod.

I might be wrong about the populations. Also, if you see any challenge or bonus civs (Jotunar, Badgermen, Pandashi, Nightwings, Ruthertaurs) coming naked, please let me know. I'll just run some test legends modes and get some data as well.

[darkflagrance]

Furies are abysmally bad at world gen, but it looks like past 70 years the current versions of the weaker races also get crapped on by the stronger ones. I am going to rework furies (I've already buffed stranglers and frogmen).