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Author Topic: Forgotten Beast Battle  (Read 6179 times)

Talvieno

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Forgotten Beast Battle
« on: November 03, 2011, 06:49:37 pm »

I'm somewhat new to Dwarf Fortress - I've only been playing a week. I've got a battle-related question, Dwarf Fortress mode. Please forgive the length of the post. I recently read Boatmurdered, it might have something to do with it.

The way it began was relatively simple. I started a new fortress- Snaketown - my third on the world, and I think my sixth total. I meant Snaketown to be a challenge - no trees, no plants. Frozen glacier in evil territory. And it was tough.

I figured the first thing I needed to do was dig down as fast as I could, find a nice, decent-sized cavern and put up walls around a little portion. I needed a place to farm, and I needed a place to chop down trees (or mushrooms, really) for wood. After I got a nice little hole dug out up top for my people to shelter in, I dug downwards and found a cavern around z-level -30. Walling this off, I harvested every mushroom in sight, and felt pretty good. Now I could make beds.

I noticed a small band of reptilemen over a level or so down in the caverns, and intentionally avoided them. No sense starting a fight when I didn't have an army. But after the wall was built, I dug even deeper, aiming for magma (my first time). I later found it and started a magma forge... Though my obsidian floodgates came loose for some reason and set me to panicking. I didn't want any enemies in my fortress (demons or whatever spawns in lava, I think I read somewhere that something does - fire imps?).

It was about this time, that I was panicking about the magma going everywhere, that a forgotten beast showed up. Horrible timing. Adith, I think the name was - a giant three-eyed pelican, if I remember right. Adith roared into the caverns and mercilessly began killing and devouring the reptilemen. I let it gladly - two birds with one stone. I could weaken Adith and kill off the reptilemen all at once, I figured. I used the time I had to finish off sealing my place from magma.

About a season later, when I finally had everything under control, I went back and looked at the forgotten beast using the "U" key - and there it was, right at the edge of my vision. It was underwater, and had murdered all of the poor, helpless reptilemen... except one. This lone survivor, a reptile spearwoman, was missing her left leg (or right, one or the other). I checked the reports and was astonished to see a full 88 pages of combat. The reptile woman would stab the beast and roll out of the way when it tried to grab her, only to stab it again the next time it charged. I could only shake my head. This creature had earned my respect at that point. I continued to keep tabs on the battle every now and then.

Two seasons later, the battle was still going. They were on the edge of my vision, but every once in a while old Adith would stumble back towards the shore with the spearwoman (now a spearmaster) following it behind, stabbing and dodging. I looked at Adith in surprise, wondering first, how the reptilewoman was still alive, and second, how wounded was the beast?

The epic underwater war aside (which lasted over a year - surely something worthy of being sung in the halls of my dwarves for years and years to come), this is what intrigues me. Looking at Adith, the beast had an enormous list of - not wounds - scars. The beast had about one page of red-letter text, the wounds and everything, and I could scroll down for twenty seconds at top speed before I got to the end of the scars. I'm guessing it must've had... 30 pages? If I make a (very) rough estimate of 20 scars per page, there were ~600 scars on the thing. Which means it was healing during combat.

My question is this: are enemies supposed to heal while in combat? I didn't know it was possible, but obviously they can, or else Adith would've been dead long before the reptile woman became a spearmaster, and Adith wouldn't have any scars (playing adventure mode tells me that this is what happens when they heal). Also, has anything like this happened to anyone else, or is it unique?

I use no mods (that I know of) and have not edited the raws in any way. I will admit to using the Lazy Newb pack, though (I am a newb, give me a break), with sound sense and dwarf therapist. I don't think that would have affected anything, though.


tl;dr version: A reptile spearwoman fought a forgotten beast underwater for over a year, and both healed during combat. Are enemies supposed to heal while you fight them, and are battles supposed to last this long?
I have the save if anyone wants to see it, though you won't get it in the middle of the fight, so it's kind of useless.
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UltraValican

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Re: Forgotten Beast Battle
« Reply #1 on: November 03, 2011, 06:52:10 pm »

Wounds heal over time, its very possible to have a cut scab up during combat in DF, bruises heal even quicker.
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CapnUrist

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Re: Forgotten Beast Battle
« Reply #2 on: November 03, 2011, 06:56:38 pm »

The wounds do heal over time, though with dwarves they tend to be babies about it and need a doctor for every little scratch (some military excepting). I find it more interesting that you have a legendary reptilewoman in eternal battle with a monstrous pelican. You can only hope that as you begin engraving your fortress your engravers include it in your history.

Usually enemies don't stick around as living enemies long enough to heal their wounds; they're usually either dead or routed long before that becomes a factor.
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GoldenShadow

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Re: Forgotten Beast Battle
« Reply #3 on: November 03, 2011, 07:32:20 pm »

As long as they never stop fighting, you are safe. See if you can sneak up and wall them in so you never have to worry about one finally winning.
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Talvieno

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Re: Forgotten Beast Battle
« Reply #4 on: November 04, 2011, 12:20:13 am »

I know wounds heal over time, I just didn't expect them to heal in the middle of a battle. I'd thought they only heal during sleep.

But an update on it all. Aditha finally fled, leaving the reptile woman spearmaster happy to be free of it. Somehow she also went from "hostile" to "friendly". It sent another forgotten beast at her, and she quickly dispatched it. Then it sent a third - and at the same time, Aditha decided he/she/it was healed up enough to re-attack. With two foes on her at once, the reptile woman died (she'd earned herself an extra title, lol). In vengeance I tore down my walls and sent my army out and dispatched the two beasts. I learned a lot from it all, and I especially think that battle was just epic. Locked in eternal battle for over a year and a half is mindblowing.
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evillevi

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Re: Forgotten Beast Battle
« Reply #5 on: November 04, 2011, 12:41:22 am »

hahahahah ;D Boatmurder epic. God how the hell could someone fight for that long
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BackgroundGuy

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Re: Forgotten Beast Battle
« Reply #6 on: November 04, 2011, 01:08:41 am »

hahahahah ;D Boatmurder epic. God how the hell could someone fight for that long

I'm aware you said this out of admiration for the reptile person in the OP, but I think it is mainly because the only way to become tired during combat is by wrestling and blocking.  Literally every other action (attacking, dodging, having an attack miss you) will decrease your invisible fatigue meter, making it possible for battles to last ages.  And animal people don't need to eat as they are now.
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evillevi

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Re: Forgotten Beast Battle
« Reply #7 on: November 04, 2011, 04:59:26 am »

Your probably correct but still it is so cool to actually experience that.
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Azated

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Re: Forgotten Beast Battle
« Reply #8 on: November 04, 2011, 06:21:47 am »

I've stories of creatures fighting for decades. It seems that the cave creatures have an unreasonable hatred for forgotten beasts.
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GreatWyrmGold

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Re: Forgotten Beast Battle
« Reply #9 on: November 04, 2011, 06:29:38 am »

Cavern animalpeople have been known to survive combat with forgotten beasts before. The most famous example is Asax, who killed TWO forgotten beasts.

And, in DF, there is no such thing as "in combat" or "out of combat." There is only "attack that creature/dodge that attack" and "wander menacingly towards your dwarves." If combat takes long enough, you'll heal during it. Think--dwarves take days to cross your fortress, but healing occurs at relatively realistic rates.
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Re: Forgotten Beast Battle
« Reply #10 on: November 04, 2011, 06:53:33 am »

I had an almost identical incident with a snakeman.  His tribe was also whiped out by a FB (a one eyed-fire breathing serpent).   He also lost his left (or right) leg, and locked himself into an eternal battle.  The battle ended after 2 years with me losing the save file.  Bummer eh'?
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ive gotten in the habit of replacing my chief medical dwarf as soon as he gains any notable skill in diagnosis.
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the conditions were bad enough to turn a dwarf who didn't care about anything mad, that's pretty hardcore.

Talvieno

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Re: Forgotten Beast Battle
« Reply #11 on: November 04, 2011, 10:04:42 am »

All right, so it was nowhere near unique, then. lol    She would've killed Adith, if it hadn't been for the other beast (Nula) that showed up at the same time, and that would've put her score up to 2 Forgotten Beast kills, but oh well. Lethiirecu was her name, had to look at her corpse (still underwater, along with the last beast she sent to the underworld - Sapi). She's not going to be as famous as Asax, but I still think it's pretty epic. I'm going to keep an eye out for an engraving with her on it.

Also, Thanks, BackgroundGuy. That explains how they fought so long without sleep. There wasn't any blocking or wrestling going on at all. It was all dodging and stabbing.
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saltmummy626

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Re: Forgotten Beast Battle
« Reply #12 on: November 06, 2011, 03:46:19 pm »

you know, a cool plan would be to memorialize the lizard woman. make a slab at the masons workshop, then have it turned into a memorial to her at the craftsdorfs workshop. if there was alot of deaths in your fort, you might have to scroll around a bit to find her in the list of memorializable critters.
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Talvieno

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Re: Forgotten Beast Battle
« Reply #13 on: November 07, 2011, 02:07:02 pm »

I thought it was a great idea, so I acted on it, though I did more than just a slab.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Maybe it's not especially creative, but hey - it's my first completed semimegaproject. The two slabs shown are engraved to Lethiirecu. The statue next to the lower one is an artifact. Unfortunately, my dwarves haven't engraved anything about Lethiirecu. Most of it's dwarves dying and drawbridges crushing cringing trolls.
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jjcarver

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Re: Forgotten Beast Battle
« Reply #14 on: November 07, 2011, 02:27:00 pm »

Somehow she also went from "hostile" to "friendly".

I'm not sure exactly how disposition works with foreign NPCs, but I seem to recall reading something about captured goblins becoming assimilated into dwarven society.  Is it possible that at some point (if she hadn't died), you could have invited this lizard lady into your fortress, and then assigned labors and rooms to her just like any other dwarf?  If so, that would be awesome.
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