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[IndonesiaWarMinister]

Anyway, I still don't understand, that why we can't order our dwarves to attack non-hostile entities ["units" of friendly civs, traders etc.].
It would be much easier to send the "annihilate the elven traders" order to the machinegunner squadron afterall. 

Next release

[Footkerchief]

Berserkers usually lose an even matchup. The rest of the animals & elves will just go emo and never ever die

No, the insane/melancholy ones will die of thirst before too long.  It's only caravan guards that are immortal.

[detinith]

Berserkers usually lose an even matchup. The rest of the animals & elves will just go emo and never ever die

No, the insane/melancholy ones will die of thirst before too long.  It's only caravan guards that are immortal.

I wait only long enough for the mules and merchants to be dead and let the guards out. They don't carry any of the trader loot nor hold anything against me, so I don't care I do eventually want to make a water death depot, but for the first fall caravan, locked doors are very convenient.

[Footkerchief]

Berserkers usually lose an even matchup. The rest of the animals & elves will just go emo and never ever die

No, the insane/melancholy ones will die of thirst before too long.  It's only caravan guards that are immortal.

I wait only long enough for the mules and merchants to be dead and let the guards out. They don't carry any of the trader loot nor hold anything against me, so I don't care I do eventually want to make a water death depot, but for the first fall caravan, locked doors are very convenient.

I like to build a wall of grates around the depot and put a marksdwarf on patrol around it so that he can shoot the shit of the berserk ones.

[StrayCat]

Anyway, I still don't understand, that why we can't order our dwarves to attack non-hostile entities ["units" of friendly civs, traders etc.].
It would be much easier to send the "annihilate the elven traders" order to the machinegunner squadron afterall. 

Next release

Bull. Show me where you heard that.

As for the main topic, I'm going to have to pull out an ol' schematic of mine...

       
        F  F F
        f  F f
ccccFTTTTTFcccc
        TTTTT
ccccFTTTTTFcccc
        TTTTT
ccccFTTTTTFcccc
        FFFFF

F = Floodgate
f = fortification
T = Trade Depot
c= constructed cage holding goblins/nightwings/harpies/ogres/general nasty things
Open spaces between the rows of constructed cages are unmined areas.

Requires:

Trade Depot, 1, underground
Flood gate, 15
Cages, 24
Nasty critters, 24
Fortifications, 2
Mechanisms, 81 (3 for the levers, 78 for the double linking from item to levers of 15 floodgates and 24 cages)
Levers, 3
Elves, Too many for comfort/More than zero
A good sense of humor, 1

Start with the floodgate between the fortifications and the five floodgates at the bottom of the trade depot open, the six on the perimeter closed, the three in at the top closed. Wait for the elves to come in, all smiles, sunshine, and rainbows- both of you. Wait for them to unload their trade goods entirely, give it a few days (in-game minutes). NOW! Pull the first lever (Lever 1) to drop the five floodgates at the bottom and the one floodgate between the fortifications. Either wait a while, imagine their unsettlement, their fear, their panic... or go straight to lever two (Lever 2), which opens all the floodgates and the cages. Hijinks ensue!

Once the elves are annihilated, go and pull lever three, which will raise the three floodgates at the top. Station two marksdwarves at the fortifications, and wait at leisure until they have annihilated the remaining beasties. Once that's over, pull the first lever again. Gather the goods, relink and reload the cages with more nasties, haul the corpses, take their clothing from their still-warm backs, and have a good laugh about these interlopers who think they can boss you around, then just walk into YOUR fortress and overcharge you for inferior goods and the occasional violent animal... in a legendary dining room full of tables and chairs made of wood.

For bonus points, mix in any nasty animals they've brought for the next batch.


And that's how you take care of wood demand.

[DanielLC]

Drain your magma pipe.
Build a trade depot inside.
Refill the magma pipe.
Build a cistern above the depot.
Fill the cistern.
Wait for the Elves to come.
Empty the cistern.

This way you get to kill the elves with water, magma, cave-ins, and dropping them off of the edge of the world! Does anybody have anything else to add?

[Hamster Man]

(Text removed due to irrelevance)

[StrayCat]

You can always sub in my idea with a simple empty room and no TD in it.

Does anybody have anything else to add?

You missed killing them with wild animals, but don't worry, I got your back.

[Foa]

Drain your magma pipe.
Build a trade depot inside.
Refill the magma pipe.
Build a cistern above the depot.
Fill the cistern.
Wait for the Elves to come.
Empty the cistern.

This way you get to kill the elves with water, magma, cave-ins, and dropping them off of the edge of the world! Does anybody have anything else to add?

I just drop the cistern.

[kurisukun]

I have 20 caged goblins in my trading room (which is surrounded by cage traps to begin with.

Close the doors, let the goblins out, watch as they kill the elves (Actually, one of the elves camels came out of that with 3 kills once...)  open the doors, and capture all the surviving goblins (And berserk elves)

[Keldor]

Hmm...  Lock up the only way in or out, then drop a single square of lava in with the conviently located lava spigot.  Watch as the elves catch fire and run around screaming.  Afterward, once the fires go out, let the dwarves in to clean up the mess.

Better yet, drop the lava into the grassland surrounding the elves and let them catch on fire that way.  Or release a caged dragon behind some fortifications and allow it to set them on fire with one breath before blocking its los with a floodgate.

[DanielLC]

Drain your magma pipe.
Build a trade depot inside.
Refill the magma pipe.
Build a cistern above the depot.
Fill the cistern.
Wait for the Elves to come.
Empty the cistern.

This way you get to kill the elves with water, magma, cave-ins, and dropping them off of the edge of the world! Does anybody have anything else to add?

I just drop the cistern.

If you do that, you don't kill them with water.

Does anybody have anything else to add?

You missed killing them with wild animals, but don't worry, I got your back.

How do I add wild animals to the mix? I guess you could make the death area outside of the trade depot, and release the wild animals to scare the elves into the death area. Or you could use a wild gremlin to pull the lever that empties the cistern. Or just use a pressure plate and allow any animal to do it.

[IndonesiaWarMinister]

Anyway, I still don't understand, that why we can't order our dwarves to attack non-hostile entities ["units" of friendly civs, traders etc.].
It would be much easier to send the "annihilate the elven traders" order to the machinegunner squadron afterall. 

Next release

Bull. Show me where you heard that.

Wasn't it in the dev log? Or one of Toady's response in the new fortress thread? Anyway, with the army overhaul, we can choose a non hostile unit as a target for our army to attack. Hmm..

[Footkerchief]

Sounds like it's kind of up in the air.  We'll probably get more details when Toady actually does the squad control stuff.

10/10/2008: The forums have definitely been on and off (and quite a bit off) on account of database connection problems. I've got a support case number on this, so we'll see if that goes anywhere.

For the next week or so, I'm going to be plotting out some of the squad-level military changes (and actually finish up what I can manage) as the next component of the release. If the headers and some of the code are sitting there, then I won't be able to put it off, he he he.

The first part of the outline here is to revise attributes and make them have a wider range of values that vary between individuals, with practice and disuse determining changes rather than skill increases. The new attributes are pretty much supposed to cover the far future as well, so there are several beyond the three the game currently uses, but I'll try not to clutter any place important with them. There will also be some new skill tokens that don't see any use for a while.

For the actual squad changes, and this is still a bit loose, the plan is to create separate squad entities associated to the new command positions (your local captains or guard captain or hammerer for the royal/noble guard), and then give you more control over how those work and alter some aspects of squads. I'm thinking of allowing you to set schedules for active/training/off-time states, with alert states being in place to get around eat/sleep/drink problems when the need arises (not that the underlying need would be removed). Squads would be associated to their entity position rather than their commander's position, so if the commander goes off and does something they'd still generally be mindful of their orders. I'm thinking about doing formations when I'm messing around with that, but I'm not quite sure there. There are also some notions about specific targets/missions that you could assign to a squad or a member of a squad to take care of problems and achieve some more control. I'm not for allowing the targeting your own liaison or something though, as I don't think your dwarves would do that. Well, mine, maybe... in any case, (most of) your dwarves would likely not follow such an order if I allow them.

[StrayCat]

A glimmer of a hope, right there, but damned if it isn't awesome just hearing him mention that!