cave dweller flood invasions

[Quack]

in the beginning it was fun being attacked by 100+ rodent men at a time, but now such attacks are too frequent, it's like a new invasion every month, hundreds and hundreds of invaders per year, my whole fortress is constantly busy hauling corpses in a futile attempt to clean up and what's worse my whole militia is at maximum stress always with no chance to relax ever. Evry character sheet I open is spammed with "he didn't feel anything after seeing a X corpse". It's a wonder how my fort can keep somehow going with such a stressed population. Often times not even 5 minutes irl pass between a rodent man attack and a serpent men invasion.
I guess I should employ traps but these guys just love to hide in trees forever hoping to ambush my dwarves, so they're not exactly predictable as to which route they'll take. Why are they so persistent? aand also why do these dwellers civs show I'm at peace with them in world map lol?

[Saver Sigonith]

Yeah, it's a mechanic separate from above ground raids called cavern agitation and it's pretty badly balanced. Once triggered they never stop or slow down, don't obey your invader caps (so can cause huge frame drops) and agitation raises even if you just dig around in the walls of a cavern layer rather than only when you chop trees or fish like on the surface.
DFHack's agitation-rebalance is a lifesaver. Forgotten beasts are hostile to them too so if you luck into a particularly strong one of those they can keep a walled-off cavern clear too.

[APTEMOH4UK]

The very first thing I do entering caverns is building walls, at lest level 1.
Walls built on the very edge of a map can prevent enemy's spawn. However 1 level walls isn't enough since flying enemies may also appear and ignore them (and rodent-man can ride a freaking giant birds, it is a nightmare).

There is also an option how to make underground lakes safe - a controlled collapse. It takes some time, yet is very effective. Helps me cutting off lakes and cleaning them even if they are already infested with some goobers.

Sometimes I leave a small closed piece where an enemy can spawn (dwellers or FB) and put cages there to alarm me if they do appear. If the amount of dwellers is too damn high, then I close those places as well.

Didn't know about DFHack's agitation-rebalance feature, thanks!

[Quack]

Originally posted by Saver Sigonith:

Yeah, it's a mechanic separate from above ground raids called cavern agitation and it's pretty badly balanced. Once triggered they never stop or slow down, don't obey your invader caps (so can cause huge frame drops) and agitation raises even if you just dig around in the walls of a cavern layer rather than only when you chop trees or fish like on the surface.
DFHack's agitation-rebalance is a lifesaver. Forgotten beasts are hostile to them too so if you luck into a particularly strong one of those they can keep a walled-off cavern clear too.

oh yes I have that dfhack feature turned off. I was wondering if they were related. So I can safely assume this is broken right now? Seeing as I also cannot send raids to these civs, feels like these issues are born of an unfinished mechanic

[Saver Sigonith]

Like most things in Dwarf Fortress, the line between a bug and a feature is blurry... I do think it's intended to have to fend off regular cave dweller and forgotten beast attacks with no way to squash the source, but the fact it ramps up so starkly and never lets up seems at the very least badly designed. And not obeying the invader limit is definitely a bug.

Agitation rebalance makes them actually obey the cap, as well as stop attacking if you haven't done anything to agitate (dig/cut trees) that layer in a while.

[Quack]

Originally posted by Saver Sigonith:

Like most things in DFHack, the line between a bug and a feature is blurry... I do think it's intended to have to fend off regular cave dweller and forgotten beast attacks with no way to squash the source, but the fact it ramps up so starkly and never lets up seems at the very least badly designed. And not obeying the invader limit is definitely a bug.

Agitation rebalance makes them actually obey the cap, as well as stop attacking if you haven't done anything to agitate (dig/cut trees) that layer in a while.

Yeah the ironic part is that I actually recently dug around a lot there, so to give my militia better maneuvering space, in answer to rampant cave invasions.. I guess that's what triggered this insane frequency..
I think I'll keep agit-rebalance off anyway I'm too curious to see if it can actually get worse. And I have an above magma biome yet to disturb..