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[Loctavus]

Is there any way to see the gender of an animal before you buy it? The stupid things are in cages and I can't examine them properly until after I have bought and de-caged them.

I finally figured out the secrets of trading with the elves. (I.E. don't offer them every bone and shell made craft object you own in exchange for their lovingly crafted goods and pets. They pack up and leave calling you barbaric.)

But so far I've taken pot luck with buying animals. I've bought a dog and a bear for defence so far, and I also bought a mule and a camel for breeding purpouses.

I fortunately got a male mule to go with my female one but I now have two male camels, which is no good to anybody. I also have musk oxen, but the single female that pulled my cart in randomly gave birth and started the population off proper.

I also created a trainable yak, if I chain that up will it fight off intruders? I basically designed into a bigger, meaner cow.

[Samyotix]

a) Trading with elves: No leather, no wood, no blood.
http://www.dwarffortresswiki.net/index.php/Trade#Elves

b) AFAIK tame creatures will not attack thieves; and only dogs can be trained as war animals unless you mod the game.

[Loctavus]

I worked out how to avoid upsetting the elves, that's how I got these animals in the first place. My main concern is telling wether an animal is male or female without having to fork out to buy it first.

I'll accept that tame animals will not attack intruders, but if I DO mod it and I DO train them, will they then assault things that wander in range if I set them up near doorways?

[Kagus]

Kobold thieves will get spotted by anything, and they appear directly adjacent to whatever spotted them.  "Benign" creatures will run away from anything hostile until it comes into one of their adjacent squares, whereupon it will attack with full ferocity.  So even a tame creature will fight a kobold thief.

As for goblins, they're a little bit better at hiding, so I'm not sure.

By the way, mules are sterile.  You can't breed them.

[Loctavus]

I deliberately removed the benign tag from them, I thought it was just related to what biomes they appeared in. This might result in 'king of the beasts' syndrome in the wild ones though? I gave them a fair amount of layering and added tundra, mountain and plains tags.

[Deon]

Also if you want to make them to fight more willingly, consder adding [RECKLESS] and [LIKES_FIGHTING] and even maybe [NOFEAR] tokens.

Do you want what are you training them for? The mail cons. of tamed creatures is that they can be assigned to a certain dwarf and will follow him as pesonal army. Sometimes it helps to save your woodcutter/herbalist from random animals or unexpected ambush - they will die while their master runs away. nd i the case of woodcutter if you draft him and he has some skills/attributes, they can even stop a small ambush. Consider your dwarf as a carrier ship and trained pets as fighter planes on it =).

[Loctavus]

I could add some tags like that yeah, they're supposed to be big angry cattle   I'm wondering if they arn't becoming a little too hardcore though, I realised the size I gave them is one bigger than a GCS and they have a single point of damage block which I might take away.

I think NOFEAR is probably the best.

As for what I'm training them for, I don't use animals as pets, on the grounds of them being a hideous liabilty if they get killed. My main intent for them is defence.

*kobold opens the door*

Ohshit, war yak! *SMASH-TRAMPLE-CRUNCH*

[gerkinzola]

dont the genders of animals arriving at your fort alternate?

[Loctavus]

They do when you initially buy the animals when you first embark. I think it's randomly generated from then on out. But I definately have two male camels.

[Bogdanov]

Tame animals definitely can be used for defense

My tame alligator thought he could take down a 8 goblins ambushers squad, and was quickly turned into a purse, but he definitely attacked the goblins along with the war dogs