0013386: Extreme Cowardice Possibly Caused by Special Orders (kill, station, and patrol orders) - Dwarf Fortress Bug Tracker

ID	Project	Category	View Status	Date Submitted	Last Update

0013386	Dwarf Fortress	Combat -- General	public	2025-12-19 22:41	2025-12-19 22:41

Reporter	TheGuardiansArm	Assigned To
Priority	high	Severity	major	Reproducibility	random
Status	new	Resolution	open
Platform	Steam	OS	Windows 10	OS Version	19045.6466
Product Version	53.06

Summary	0013386: Extreme Cowardice Possibly Caused by Special Orders (kill, station, and patrol orders)
Description	All of my legendary dwarves have randomly become extremely cowardly despite not having any personality changes that would cause this. These are legendary martial artists who have double-digit kill counts and have had no problem fighting goblin and undead sieges in the past. The fleeing soldiers do NOT have the "overcome by terror" task displayed, nor do their combat logs show anything like "I must withdraw!" as would typically be expected from fleeing units. This bug seems to affect certain squads and not others. It also doesn't seem to affect every dwarf in those squads. The only possible criteria I have observed have been special orders like kill, station, or patrol, and legendary combat skill levels, though this is also inconsistent. I have observed this happening when dwarves are commanded to KILL entities (whether the creature was previously hostile seems irrelevant, and this results in mutual fear, with both the dwarves and the target creature running from each other), when dwarves are commanded to STATION near hostiles (this does not result in mutual fear, only the dwarves run away), and when dwarves are commanded to PATROL a route and hostiles approach (again, fear is not mutual). I have NOT experimented with creating a burrow near besieging enemies and giving them scheduled orders to patrol it. This initially happened 11/29/25 (but has persisted and is currently still happening in 53.08) with an undead siege during which they all would run away from the undead regardless of being stationed near them or being commanded to kill them. I chalked it up to zombies being scary. I don't think it's a siege update bug because they dealt with a goblin siege after it came out and behaved normally, killing the attackers. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF ALL INCIDENTS: -undead invaders. The legendary dwarves immediately ran from the undead soldiers. The siege was dealt with by human soldiers from a visiting caravan. This happened both when they were commanded to kill the invaders or simply station near them to induce combat. -an unarmed human thief they were commanded to kill. Worth mentioning the human also fled from them. A random passing soldier from a different squad (not assigned the kill order) proceeded to beat the thief nearly to death, and the one dwarf on the squad who was not legendary delivered the killing blow. -an armed goblin thief they were commanded to kill. This instance is interesting because I revoked the kill command when I saw this happening and instead attempted to let them beat him for a crime conviction, hoping they'd break his arm so he would drop the item. Before administering the beating, both parties continued to run in terror at the sight of each other for around ten minutes. The assigned officer leaving to get a drink seemed to reset this, as when he came back, he administered the beating normally. Afterwards, assigning a kill order to finish him off resulted in all of them running away again, with passing soldiers from a different squad jumping in to actually kill the goblin. -a forgotten beast they were commanded to station in the path of. A forgotten beast emerged from the deep caverns, so I commanded the squad to station near where it would enter the fort. Upon its emergence, all of the legendary dwarves present (4 of them) ran away. The one dwarf present whose highest combat skill level was merely accomplished (the same one who had earlier finished off the human thief) did not run and killed the beast on his own. -a dwarf frozen corpse thief. This was a different, less-skilled squad than the one from the previous examples. They were training in a room with two other squads, and I assigned the kill order on the thief. All members of the squad with the kill order immediately fled the room, and the thief was killed by the dwarves from the other two squads nearby, both of which were also low-skill squads. -goblin invaders. I currently have a siege. I have assigned two squads to patrol my walls, the legendary one from most of the previous examples, and a slightly less-skilled one. The legendary dwarves all immediately run at the sight of the goblin soldiers, while the less-skilled ones fight but are overwhelmed by the superior numbers.
Steps To Reproduce	Issuing special (non-scheduled) orders that would normally result in combat seem to always result in this behavior, albeit only with certain dwarves and squads.
Additional Information	DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF ALL INCIDENTS: -undead invaders. The legendary dwarves immediately ran from the undead soldiers. The siege was dealt with by human soldiers from a visiting caravan. This happened both when they were commanded to kill the invaders or simply station near them to induce combat. -an unarmed human thief they were commanded to kill. Worth mentioning the human also fled from them. A random passing soldier from a different squad (not assigned the kill order) proceeded to beat the thief nearly to death, and the one dwarf on the squad who was not legendary delivered the killing blow. -an armed goblin thief they were commanded to kill. This instance is interesting because I revoked the kill command when I saw this happening and instead attempted to let them beat him for a crime conviction, hoping they'd break his arm so he would drop the item. Before administering the beating, both parties continued to run in terror at the sight of each other for around ten minutes. The assigned officer leaving to get a drink seemed to reset this, as when he came back, he administered the beating normally. Afterwards, assigning a kill order to finish him off resulted in all of them running away again, with passing soldiers from a different squad jumping in to actually kill the goblin. -a forgotten beast they were commanded to station in the path of. A forgotten beast emerged from the deep caverns, so I commanded the squad to station near where it would enter the fort. Upon its emergence, all of the legendary dwarves present (4 of them) ran away. The one dwarf present whose highest combat skill level was merely accomplished (the same one who had earlier finished off the human thief) did not run and killed the beast on his own. -a dwarf frozen corpse thief. This was a different, less-skilled squad than the one from the previous examples. They were training in a room with two other squads, and I assigned the kill order on the thief. All members of the squad with the kill order immediately fled the room, and the thief was killed by the dwarves from the other two squads nearby, both of which were also low-skill squads. -goblin invaders. I currently have a siege. I have assigned two squads to patrol my walls, the legendary one from most of the previous examples, and a slightly less-skilled one. The legendary dwarves all immediately run at the sight of the goblin soldiers, while the less-skilled ones fight but are overwhelmed by the superior numbers.
Tags	53.06, 53.07, 53.08, combat, combat skills, fear, kill, martial skills, militia

Date Modified	Username	Field	Change
2025-12-19 22:41	TheGuardiansArm	New Issue
2025-12-19 22:41	TheGuardiansArm	Tag Attached: 53.06
2025-12-19 22:41	TheGuardiansArm	Tag Attached: 53.07
2025-12-19 22:41	TheGuardiansArm	Tag Attached: 53.08
2025-12-19 22:41	TheGuardiansArm	Tag Attached: combat
2025-12-19 22:41	TheGuardiansArm	Tag Attached: combat skills
2025-12-19 22:41	TheGuardiansArm	Tag Attached: fear
2025-12-19 22:41	TheGuardiansArm	Tag Attached: kill
2025-12-19 22:41	TheGuardiansArm	Tag Attached: martial skills
2025-12-19 22:41	TheGuardiansArm	Tag Attached: militia