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[Fleeb]

When you get the message "a kidnapper has made of with child so-and-so" does that mean that they're gotten to the edge of the map and are gone? If so, a suggestion would be to have a message alerting "so-and-so has been kidnapped!" at the time of the snatching, not when he's gone. Because there's no way a goblins could have gotten into my fortress, snagged a kid from a busy hallway and footed it out (through my well guarded doors) undetected. These goblins must be bionic ninjas.

[ October 19, 2007: Message edited by: Fleeb ]

[Sowelu]

You'd be surprised how many woodcutters, hunters, militia, and people who drink from the outside river bring their children along and then don't notice when they go missing.  Even people who go on break and hang around outside by the gates!

[BurnedToast]

yeah, the kidnapper message means they are out of your reach - same with the stolen item message.

goblins are VERY good at sneaking, and can easily slip into your fort past a large number of people. Unlike kobolds however, goblins can NOT walk past traps (goblin master thieves might be able to I'm not sure) so a row of even stonefall traps will stop them from getting in.

Usually, though, like Sowelu said they snag them from right outside which is annoying because there is nothing you can do about it and virtually no chance you get get military units out there in time to intercept them. the best you can do is give everyone a room so they usually hang out there instead of by the front door to decrease the chance of the kids being snagged.

If you don't care to roleplay at all, children getting snagged is actually a good thing though IMO. they don't do anything useful (except harvest and take things to the depot sometimes) and eat your food/drink your booze. They take 14 years (I think) to grow up, which is longer then most forts last and when they do finally grow up they are just worthless unskilled peasants. The sad thought for them getting snagged also seems to be small, I've never had a parent tantrum because of a kidnapping, so the goblins can take them all for all I care.

[Lightning4]

Lies. When they grow up they're not unskilled. Professional and above growers?

I think I've had kids almost hit legendary grower before they grow up.

[kuro_suna]

in the next version im hoping to wall off a large courtyard on the map so my dwarfs can go outside in relative safty

[Aquillion]

Maybe we need the ability to build some sort of room for children -- a creche or schoolroom or something like that.  Children would spend most of their time there, and would be taught skills by dwarves who were set to the appropriate job.  Perhaps they could pick up some skills by watching their parents at work if they're not in the creche, but overall, dwarven children are rarely (if ever) seen in fantasy, so it makes sense for them to be kept safely in a hidden underground creche.  An adult dwarf assigned as a teacher would also have the job of keeping them there; while a child is in the care of the teacher, parents don't worry about it.

Regarding the usefulness of children, once they're old enough to stop crawling, I think they could help out more, too...  Dwarves tend to value industry, and I doubt they have strong child-labor laws.  A child could help their parents work on many different things...  There could be a 'child bonus' to the speed of many jobs (like metalworking or planting) if a parent's child is nearby, to represent the child handing them things and so on.

They could handle some hauling, even, at least for small objects (and dwarf children are strong anyway!)  They could occasionally produce small crafts on their own initiative, especially if their parents are craftdwarves.  They could play with wooden toy weapons, and even use them for self-defense in an emergency.

[Klokjammer]

quote:Originally posted by BurnedToast:
<STRONG>

... They take 14 years (I think) to grow up, which is longer then most forts last and when they do finally grow up they are just worthless unskilled peasants... </STRONG>

The Raws say [CHILD:12], so I assume they are adults at age 12.  I've had some children who successfully became legendary from fey/secretive moods, and although I have yet to see them grow.  I should have been keeping a yearly census because I can't tell what age they are or who their parents are.

But yeah, you're right, they eat at your food stores like pigs and they're mostly useless.  You'd think they would haul small objects on a regular basis, or apprentice in the workshops.  But no, they have a life of leisure until they hit puberty when the person in charge (you) give them a whole list of labors, and they do that for the rest of their lives.

EDIT: This post was written before Aquillion posted

[ October 19, 2007: Message edited by: Klokjammer ]

[jester]

A wall of statues around the entrance making a nice big courtyard that only has access to the rest of the world through doors that can be locked and trapped corridors stops 95% of the snatchers.  If you are serious about keeping your kids safe then put doors and statues at all of the outside river crossings, lock them, assign military to your trade bridge and just dont go to the other side of the outside river.  Also as soon as you see that a snatcher has triggered one of your traps moblilize all of your marksdwarves and send them out to the edge of the map to try to run down any outgoing gobsthat may turn up.

[Fleeb]

Ahhh, good advice.

[BurnedToast]

quote:Originally posted by Lightning4:
<STRONG>Lies. When they grow up they're not unskilled. Professional and above growers?

I think I've had kids almost hit legendary grower before they grow up.</STRONG>

only because they get skill for picking crops out of the fields just like everyone else, and because they don't have any real jobs to do they tend to be the first to grab things from the field.

any normal immigrant would do the same thing PLUS haul, PLUS come with some basic skills in a profession.

If you survive 14 (or 12, or whatever the case may be) years for them to grow up, you should already have a boatload of legendary farmers so you don't really need the kid's growing skills. Also note it does not set farmer skills on them, even though it shows them as farmer so you have to manually track them down and enable growing (and anything else you want them to do) which is just one more annoyance.

edit: spelling

[ October 20, 2007: Message edited by: BurnedToast ]

[nerdpride]

Actually, letting them die or be kidnapped would hurt your fortress by lowering immigration rate, unless I've got it figured out wrong, but I don't know any way to make my computer play DF at any reasonable rate when 200 dwarves are around anyways.

I'd say they're still pretty useless because it's such a pain to have all of the dwarves harvesting crops.  I have "farmers only" on permanently, the farmers need the experience most.