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[Autumn]

Hello there. I have been playing DF for a few months now most of this has been spend lurking here and reading the wiki both of which has taught me alot so thank you.

Anyhow I have started a new fort in savage temperate grassland. My goal was to try to catch, train and breed some war Lions or Cheetahs and to this end I have set up some cage traps. I have placed five cage traps in each corner of the map and then towards the maps center but spaced well apart I have three "bait" traps which involve a chained cat with 3x3 space surrounded by cage traps in an 5x5 square (so 18 traps). I then check the "u" menu reguarly to see what wild animals are on my map and get an idea of how effective my traps are being.

So far the cage traps catch most of what enters the map. I have yet over 3 years to see any Lions or Cheetahs appear so my catches involve animal men, lots of vultures, a few giant mantis, gazelles and the odd honey badger. This has lead to me wondering a few things.

1) How rare are lions and jaguars? will be waiting a long time before seeing them?

2) I dont mind the animals I catch as I can use them for tameing practice and then butcher/sell them easily but the amount of animal men I am catching is just insane and they are clogging up valuable space (untill I finish my pitt/murder room). Ideally I would want to set up my traps so they will only catch any Lions or Cheetahs that stumble across them. I have never seen it on the wiki or here but is there a design people use using weighted pressure plates to only allow cage traps to catch certain types of animal?   

[Girlinhat]

Now you know the crux of the problem.  Pretty much every animal has a giant variety and a person variety, and many vermin had giant and person variety as well, so your "specialty" creatures rather outweigh your "normal" creatures.  Toady rushed into adding sponsorship animals and things aren't balanced.  In a new world you can snip out the vast majority of specialty creatures and be better for it.

I haven't seen a groundhog in 7 versions, but I've seen Thrips Women often enough that my axelords are keeling over exhausted!

[Autumn]

I see, so am I right in thinking the reason lions and cheetahs have been so rare is that the animal men are taking preference over them? do animal men still appear in map areas that are not savage etc? The only reason I went for the savage area was I quite liked the off chance of catching a giant lion.

[Naryar]

Solution : Draw furries animal men to extinction, or mod the RAWs and remove the creatures you don't like.

It's been twice that I embark on a desert and I get a giant grasshopper as first animal. I am fine with this : after all you just have to replace "grasshopper" with "migratory locust" and it makes sense.

But then, a horde of thrips men comes polluting my map. And then kea men. And then grasshopper men and AAAAAARGH

Also, you will get no giant animals (excepted for the subterranean ones) or animal men in a non-savage map. But savage maps are where all the fun (by that i mean GDS and giant tigers and giant badgers) comes. Now they're filled with useless animal men.

[Autumn]

Ah thank you for the responses. I was thinking about trying out a new fortress design soon anyhow so I might just try a new embark in a non savage region.

[KodKod]

I think your best bet is to simply tear all of the animal people out of the raws. It takes 10 minutes at best and makes the game as a whole a lot more enjoyable.

[Girlinhat]

Do note: If you remove an entry from the raws of an existing world, it won't load.  It's possible to mod an existing animal to become a cat, though, so instead of thrips women you'll get wild cats.  For that matter, you could make them aquatic and they'll die as soon as they come on the map.  Or explosive.

[KodKod]

For that matter, you could make them aquatic and they'll die as soon as they come on the map.  Or explosive.

Note, the bay12forums cannot be held responsible for any adverse effects that come about as a result of exploding cats. Side effects may include forest fires, the inflamation of dwarves, exploding barrels of alcohol, exsanguination, tantrum spirals and the end of all life as we know it. Exploding cats are not suitable for fortresses under 16 years of age. Please enjoy exploding cats responsibly.

[Garath]

Exploding animal people sound like a good idea though. Just channel around the map edge so the fire doesn't spread.

[melomel]

Now you know the crux of the problem.  Pretty much every animal has a giant variety and a person variety, and many vermin had giant and person variety as well, so your "specialty" creatures rather outweigh your "normal" creatures.  Toady rushed into adding sponsorship animals and things aren't balanced.

^--  That, basically.

Remove all unwanted animals from the raws, and make a new world.  (The files you want are in ../raw/objects/, named stuff like "creature_birds.new.txt".   Make back-up copies, open with notepad, delete all entries you don't want, save, done.)

Or do the exploding thing.  I like the idea of exploding.

[khearn]

While having them explode as soon as they appear does have a certain dadaesque charm to it, I suspect that in the long run it will result in a buildup of unsightly debris around the edges of one's map. Of course, many would say that "dadaesque art" and "unsightly debris" are pretty much equivalent, but that's not my point.

Maybe making the animal people evaporate (or more correctly, sublime), rather than explode would be better. They would softly and suddenly vanish away, and never be met with again, leaving no debris behind. I believe that could be done in the raws by making the boiling point lower than the melting point.

[Nil Eyeglazed]

I think that greatly reducing the frequency is the right way to do it, and it should be easy-- have the animal person and/or giant variation wipe the frequency tag and replace it.  (Of course, I haven't tried doing this, so maybe it's more difficult than just that.)

[lobstercow42]

don't the animal-people and giant variants only show up on savage maps? I just avoid the "untamed wilds"
granted now all i get is a bunch of keas -____-