Messages

106

Gameplay questions / Re: How do animals scent bait? distances?

« on: May 31, 2017, 04:43:36 PM »

There is something to animals not being hungry and ignoring traps. I observed it mainly on birds, but seen also on elks and some carnivores. When the birds eat berries, they normally ignore traps, i.e. don't target them. On the other hand, they still can be caught in a bait-less traps, or do not eat berries set as bait in the trap they are caught in. I have one special loop-snare set near the lake bank, which attracts (or rather: catches) birds more frequently than five other snares and small traps set nearby, despite being baited by only mushrooms and some seeds, which are never eaten. I suppose this is caused by terrain configuration.

Carnivores can hunt other animals, can eat carcasses (for example badgers can eat more than one rotten bird carcass in one sitting), and can attack animals caught in traps.
I've seen attacks of wolves on foxes, wolves on elks/stags (a stag killed and partially eaten by wolves can be still skinned and butchered, so I sometimes practice stealing a kill), goshawks and eagle owls on other birds (including ravens) and squirrels, foxes on hares, lynxes and gluttons on about anything that moves on the ground (including villagers) etc. The farm animals can be effectively a bait, but this is dangerous for them.

As for wolves, they are attracted and eat spoiled meat in the traps, the same lynxes and gluttons. I catch all of them near my home sometimes (two tiles away), but mostly after I spend some time away, preferably sleeping several tiles off my site, like in a village. It almost looks as if they weren't visiting when I'm too close.

As a side note, there are spells for increasing a chance to attract animals, both general and specialised (for certain animal types, like fox or bear). Might be worth trying. The one with bear seems to be worthless, I caught only a single bear in the trap in three years since I started using it, but the one for foxes seems OK.

107

Gameplay questions / Re: My trusty woodaxe

« on: May 25, 2017, 10:56:18 AM »

Battleaxe have a good looking stats but it is nothing compare with other top tier weapons (battlesword/ango/warflail) due to only having good (3/5) attack bonus where others have remarkable (5/5)

You should consider sword/spear as your main melee skill instead of axe

Not true anymore. Battleaxe has 4 attack bonus. But the attack bonus is not as important, especially if it is bigger than defence of opponent's weapon - which is usually the case. And ango's defence is lower, and battlesword's is the same as battleaxe's, all of them low. Battleaxe also has the highest damage of all melee weapons, bigger than battlesword and ango (which weigh 2.5x more, and you cannot really use a shield with them) or warflail had. There is no warflail in current game anyway, and good luck with finding better than average ango. If the skill in axe is bigger than in sword or spear, then it's a better choice as a main weapon.

Additionally, the axe is the best tool for breaking ice (from the news.txt, the order of ice-breakers from best to worst: axe, spear, sword, knife, stone).

Also there is a difference when blocking - spears degrade much faster than axes or swords, for example, no matter skill.

If choosing spear, I would take standard spear over ango. It has only a bit smaller attack bonus (4 instead of 5) and damage (7 vs , but has better defence (2 vs 1), is much easier to use with shield (penalty of 20 instead of 35), and is much, much lighter (5 lbs vs 8 lbs), making it great for throws as well as for melee fight. Plus you'll have a plenty of masterwork spears from traders.

Still, it's best to have more than one skill in melee weapons, plus one in ranged. If the next highest skill is in axe, there's no point in wasting time to train other skills.

108

Gameplay questions / Re: My trusty woodaxe

« on: May 24, 2017, 02:27:33 PM »

Axe is pretty decent. It's the best weapon against a shield, though it degrades other weapons quickly too. In one fight against a Njerp, my brand new masterwork shield was degraded to poor quality, i.e. lowest one. He was using a woodsman's axe. Still, I do prefer battleaxe, which is lighter, and has better attack bonus (and defence bonus, and blunt damage, and edge damage...).

The only reason I don't use the axe too much is it's degrading ability, I like my loot to be worth something. So I start fights with either spear or mace, and switch to battleaxe only if it takes too long, because the opponent is blocking too much. After a couple of axe blows he doesn't have anything to block with, heh. Additionally, I use the axe against the neck of unconscious or wounded opponent, to finish it quickly.

One potential issue with axes is that most of them, including battleaxe, are supposed to be used with two hands. But it is possible to use it successfully with one hand, to hold a shield with another.

109

General Discussion / Re: Luckiest kill?

« on: May 24, 2017, 10:07:37 AM »

I use broadhead as a first or sometimes second shot against very big animals - mainly varieties of elks, reindeer, and bears. Additionally against wolves, if they are numerous (wolves often come in six-packs). Also against humans, hoping to cause bleeding. However, with humans I use them only when they don't have too much armour, especially metal one. Whether the broadhead causes crippling damage/bleeding or not, I switch to other arrows, like fine arrows, for subsequent shots.

Broadhead damage both skin and clothing more than other arrows, and clothing is quite expensive, so I refrain from use it when the target has valuable hide or fancy clothes.

110

General Discussion / Re: Luckiest kill?

« on: May 23, 2017, 09:00:57 PM »

I had a couple of similar kills with bows (mostly northern bow). The one I consider the luckiest, was one-shot kill of the large stag, who was exactly at the border of visible screen, with maximum zoomout - i.e. the longest distance of shooting. My guy was quite a crappy shooter then, so I was surprised when he instakilled the stag with single try. In this case it was thorax, not eye shot, with a broadhead arrow.

I also had some intakills with humans, and other deer.

Quite often I have instakill of birds with thrown spear, but this is easier to do, since the distance is smaller than with bow.


I also had something which can be considered luckiest in another sense, when I wasn't targeting the subsequent kill. I shot at the stag, and missed, the arrow flew past the screen border. When I went there looking for it, I found it quite further, together with a badly damaged corpse of a goshawk (it was a broadhead, so nothing strange there). This way I learned that the ballistic curve and collision detection is calculated even for off-screen objects. Since then I was using this technique to shoot these nasty robbers from afar.