So this time I only dug my pit ten Z-levels deep and it wasn't enough to kill everything that fell. This happened to me before with my first pit which was naively only seven z-levels but pastured a population of friendly (to me) black bears down there and they actually did a good job finishing off the hostiles that landed there
This time I used my army to clean it up. At first I had the bottom of the pit walled off so nothing could escape and the first way I found was to shoot through the channels on the level above. This trained a lot of recruits up to marksdwarf, I could watch them turning green one after another as they used up their bolts. But I couldn't order my squads to 'kill' the gobs, since they couldn't -reach- them. They'd just go to "Soldier (cannot follow order)" since they couldn't draw a path. But -stationing- my archers on the level above where they could -see- the gobs through the channels made them start to shoot. So that worked great
But my archers would run out of bolts and restock until the fortress ran out of bolts and they'd all be in the pit. So I broke down the wall on the lower level and instituted a new policy. I'd station my whole army at the bottom of the pit before dropping the gobs and hope none landed on a recruit. (This was before I went ahead and dug the pit another 20 levels down, which obviated the need) So my dwarves could go ahead and aggro automatically on the stunned and wounded hostiles that fell. This got them tons of experience and kills and special labels for having so many named kills (spoiler) so, I was pretty happy.
But when I pitted rhinoceroses (they were filling up my cage stockpile) the army wouldn't aggro on them even though they were angry and dangerous. My squads wouldn't fight them unless they were attacked first or I said to kill the rhinos one at a time (speccing multiple creatures for killing rarely works, they stall at one of the corpses with killees still remaining). So I went ahead and dug out the pit some more
But let me discuss the results. I've been checking on my squads. One hammerdwarf with five kills, four notable, is holding a =silver war hammer=. I don't think I built it, I think he took it off a dead invader. Checking the kills of the war hammer could tell us for sure but when I do it doesn't say it's killed any dwarves so I'm still not sure. Here's what it says
This is an exceptional silver war hammer.
Twenty-Three Notable Kills
Asno Ruthlessdesert the goblin, d.163
Snodub Tormentrun the goblin, d. 163
Atu Monstrousached the goblin, d. 163
Utes Necrodungeons the goblin, d. 163
Mato Flysounded the goblin, d. 163
Strodno the troll, d. 163
...seventeen more goblins and trolls o_O
Fourteen Other Kills
Two rhinoceroses (female) in Chanceplank
Four rutherers (female) in Chanceplank
One giant toad (female) in Chanceplank
Four cave crocodiles (male) in Chanceplank
One cave crocodile (female) in Chanceplank
One rhinoceros (male) in Chanceplank
One draltha (female) in Chanceplank
Slayers
Rakust Shieldroads the Skunk of Destroyers the dwarf, d. 163, thirty kills
erith Salvecarries the Violet Medicine the dwarf, d. 166, two kills
Unib Daggervoices the dwarf, five kills
Unib Daggervoices is the most recent holder of the warhammer and is the dwarf whose kills I just enumerated as five. Examining the warhammer shows he made all five kills with it.
I imagine some people don't even know about this screen. It's pretty good. My question is, if there is a question, why didn't Rakust Shieldroads give this item a name? I've seen a dwarf name his weapon before (once) (spoiler) and it didn't take thirty named kills. Thirty! My god
I have a lot of weapons in my base but a few seem to be circulating more than the rest. Maybe they're choosing a few with the highest value (this one is Exceptional and made of silver, for instance).
Is silver really better for maces and war hammers (blunts)?
Thanks
flamoot