How MOBs spawn & how to handle Zombie virus?

[Astrolibrarian™]

I'm on Tiny w/standard sectioned mud wall, so MOBs/NPCs spawn on outer perimeter.
Year 2 (Please see my screenshots if needed)
I think i understand above-ground MOBs spawn on any border square, & if you dig a border trench they spawn down in it..
I have many questions before i start stone walls & other permanent stuff:
(If you have info on even 1-2 things, it helps)

1. Do ground-0 MOBs spawn (at the edge) even if there's torches?
2. If i make a wall on the very outer edge, instead of leaving the last space open, do spawns occur on top of walls?..or inside my perimeter?...or not at all?? They don't seem to appear on my 1-high 'divider' blocks at the very edges (about 30 mud blocks w/no 'floor' tops).
3. If i wall the very edge as above, but leave a 5x5 'courtyard' at 1 edge, do spawns all occur there? Would be great cause i can put guards/traps at a choke point 'front door'. But...
4. Are spawns rarer w/less open squares?
5. If i dig small trenches, for example a 5x1 down to -3 floor, might 'ground' spawns appear underground where i can imprison/shoot/experiment them in dungeon rooms?

Since it's my 1st walled-in town, i have few problems besides MOBs (possibly) appearing as i let in NPCs...
...Just one more thing...this Zombie Virus.
I have 3-4 infected, not high-skilled, but useful...& population only 14.
I can increase my humble Hall to gain 2-3000 worth pretty fast, & still be under 10k.
There's enough food for dozens of gnomes, so it seems easy to replace infected.

Options i'm thinkin for Zombie Virus Carriers:
a. Quarantine them as crafters. Give em a floor with 'safety' blocks +guard point. Let em do prospecting & useful but non-urgent stuff. Haulers stop by & grab loads from safe point. Along w/b, this is nicest but most risky & inefficient option.
b. Wait a couple patches to see if we learn to cure virus w/magic or medicine.
c. Kill em. No chance of turning undead if i send em out to make a mini-cotton farm, wall em out til they starve or get killed. Ruthless, but easiest option, i like it..or...
d. Send them on suicide missions. Blacksmith's new, but maybe can afford to give em picks to mine a closed 1-way shaft to the bottom. If MOBs kill em, they turn & perhaps
damage other mobs as zombies? If they hit bottom, they could attempt to start an infected shelter 'sister village' w/mushroom farms...but i dunno how it'd affect the rest of my game, since i've barely sealed & lit floors -8/-9.

...Do zombies starve/retreat?
Thanks!

[Not Sure]

1) yes
2) they ned a floor to spawn, you can prevent spawning completely if you build a wall around your map at the very edge. but that also means no merchants and no more gnomads...
3) yes
4) i don't think so. the lag before spawning will increase as it takes longer to find a valid spawn.
5) yes, at the very edge there might spawn enemies (and merchants/gnomads) at level -3, below -7 there will be skeletons etc.

There is just one difference to non infected gnomes: if they die they turn into a zombie. so keep them away from danger or get them killed. and kill them again... :P

[lPaladinl]

Enemies never spawn underground until floor -8 and below. Surface enemies never spawn underground, even at edges. If they are found underground, it means they found an access from the surface and climbed down into your tunnels.

Zombie Infected Gnomes remain normal Gnomes, they still do their work as usual and go about their normal daily lives like any Gnome would. They do not suffer or die from the virus. The only effect the Zombie Virus has is that when they die, from being killed by an enemy or purposefully starved, they will reanimate as a Zombie, and become an enemy. In most cases Virus Infections pose no real threat to your kingdom, however it can cause you to easily be overrun if you have a lot of infected around the fort, and many of them somehow die in quick succession, resulting in an army of zombies fighting along whatever attacked you.

Zombies do not starve to death, nor do any of the underground monsters.

Enemies can spawn on top of walls easily, as well as inside them, but only if they are close enough to the borders, and you have floors placed on top of your walls. If you remove all of the floors around your Borders, I believe it may cause studders of lag while the game tries to locate a place to spawn units, and being unable to do so. I have never personally experienced removing all of the tiles, but I assume the worst would happen if doing so. Besides it would greatly harm your kingdom's advancement.

You can probably try to "force" the spawns to only be at your front gate, but to be honest, I don't see the point, for so long as you only have one enterance, Enemies have to pass through it no matter what. Forcing them to spawn in only one area seems to have no point if you have an open gate with guards.

You could try the cell approach by blocking off "cells" near the borders of the map, and only opening them up when enemies are inside and your army is ready. It's a very cheap but effective way to control your battles.

You might notice that it's difficult to get nomads trying to strain your borders like this though, Gnomads may spawn in the same cells/forced zoned as enemies, with no real room to escape, so by leaving enemies like that you're mostly hurting yourself.

Torches only affect the spawn rates (completely elliminating them within their radius) of underground monsters. Surface monsters are not affected by torches, however on a larger map, Torches can be used to give you Line of Sight. If a surface enemy crosses a Torch, where you normally wouldn't see them without a Gnome nearby, you'll spot them within the torch range giving you earlier detection.

You can build monster spawning rooms/nests by simply digging out an area, and then sealing it off. Use mechanical doors or simply destory and rebuild walls to let in soldiers, and hope they don't get slaughtered. A good way to get some live shooting practice for ranged gnomes is to dig out a room, with one of the walls having a trench, and just move your gnomes in to engage any enemies they see across the trench. The issue here however is that they will have limited Line of Sight and Range on most ranged weapons. You'll likely want a torch bearer to assist your ranged gnomes with greater LoS.

You cannot however dig a hole from the surface down to the monster spawning levels, and expect monsters to spawn directly inside of that hole, as the underground monsters require thick darkness and being within a certain distance of gnomes to spawn. You can however try to dig out a dungeon underground and link it to the surface, which may unleash monsters from underground, to the surface, so long as you have gnomes enter it from time to time to proc a spawning event.

[Astrolibrarian™]

Nice, that helps a lot!
When you guys mention pre-spawn lag...does it last seconds, or is it all day or something?

Enemies can spawn INSIDE walls? ..I hope you mean on the gnome-side of my wall, & not actually in a space that's occupied by wall.

The cell method is, i think, what i did...i put a block every 8 border spaces, so everyone gets a section when they spawn. Haven't lost any NPCs yet, & the MOBs mostly retreat, though occasionally i find a couple dead goblins+badger piled in a cell.

I'm definitely gonna make spawn rooms downstairs, if not ground level too.
If underground enemies never starve, does it mean it's possible for a room to build up a small monster army, if my gnomes pass by often?
..But are there no enemies who can shoot back at us across trenches??

I thought it'd make sense to force ground spawns on a 5x5, to get NPCs in quicker & avoid having em run into a bear if they spawn at the 'backside' of my kingdom.
But it sounds best if i just leave that border line of squares open all the way round, without even trees...spawning makes more sense now.

[lPaladinl]

Originally posted by Hackey McNoobster:

Enemies can spawn INSIDE walls? ..I hope you mean on the gnome-side of my wall, & not actually in a space that's occupied by wall.

Yes, I meant within the space that is considered the "inside" of your walls, not actually inside the blocks themselves. If you contruct your walls too close to the border (I think Goblins have a 2-tile range from the border to spawn) they can spawn within your fort instead of outside. But I think you already have it figured out.

Also, I don't think enemies ever retreat? At least, I never thought they did. I was always pretty sure they just exist on your map until they starve or die. I could be wrong as I don't tend to play on tiny maps or border watch anymore.

[Astrolibrarian™]

Ah ok, well i guess it's always changing...i did see someone else's maps, w/the wall further in, 2-3 spaces instead of 1 like mine, was wondering bout that...but i haven't seen anyone spawn inside my walls...only the cells, & then they eventually do seem to retreat, or disappear anyway, which i definitely don't think they did before....but it makes it even easier to forget them.....i just find occasional corpses outside my walls.
So maybe both those things are changed, dunno.

[lPaladinl]

Originally posted by Hackey McNoobster:

Ah ok, well i guess it's always changing...i did see someone else's maps, w/the wall further in, 2-3 spaces instead of 1 like mine, was wondering bout that...but i haven't seen anyone spawn inside my walls...only the cells, & then they eventually do seem to retreat, or disappear anyway, which i definitely don't think they did before....but it makes it even easier to forget them.....i just find occasional corpses outside my walls.
So maybe both those things are changed, dunno.

Well if you're using cells around your fort, you can't actually see into the cells all of the time unless you post gnomes above the walls to look in, or have torches inside of the cells to produce Line of Sight. That could be why you think they're retreating.

The Line of Sight mechanics are a little bit odd as well, sometimes you can see enemies during the day despite a lack of line of sight, and other times you can't.