So I embarked in a haunted glacier as an dead faction using 0 embark points for F.U.N. and profit!
- Went a-viking
- Stole Pick and Anvil
- Struck the earth
- All going to plan!
And so we jump forward a year or two; The beer is flowing, the forge furnace is aflame, and my Ice Wolf breeding / training programme was poised to become a glorious success... Praise Armok!
Just two (small) snags though...
- You can't train Ice Wolves (they are evil)
- You can't breed Ice Wolf Offspring
Children are the future! Without bright eyed young cubs... to where can we look to for fresh and supple pelts?
After some exciting (and oftentimes lavishly prepared) ☼SCIENCE☼ I've come to believe the following (probably already common knowledge).
While partially/fully tame animals will breed when relaxing together... Completely wild (entirely untamable / evil) animals will only breed when they are pathing as a cluster / pack. Alpha's and Adult offspring can never do this, therefore your freshly grown cubs (or the first wolf to enter the map) will never give birth.
If I'm right, this also means you can't ever breed evil (untamable) live birth animals that have a maximum cluster size of 1.
Ice Wolves (and other wild animals) enter the map as a pack (A "Cluster" of 3 - 7 for Ice Wolves). Each wolf seems driven to follow whichever wolf in their cluster entered immediately before them... the Alpha (first in the cluster) follows no wolf; alpha's ain't no simp! Remove a wolf from this chain (by inviting it to join you for a ☼Lavish Meal☼) and the chain get's one link shorter... it doesn't break.
Offspring will follow their mother while they are cubs, upon adulthood this bond breaks and they will (if allowed) path right off the map. You could hold them captive in a room, but these females still won't breed as they aren't playing follow the leader... teen wolf ain't no simp either.
Why should you care? at most a cluster has 7 wolves... best case 6 non alpha females. That's 6 non breeders. You can't grow that number with offspring, and age will slowly take them away from you.
Why else should you care? Keeping this wild cluster on the map will gum up the surface spawn of other F.U.N. animal friends. I don't want to loose my friendly Blizzard Men visitors or wild Giant Polar Plusheyfriends (#deathHugIsStillHug).
* I think an adjacent male wolf needs to be a part of the females cluster, they also need to be uncaged... but can be chained.Want to start an Ice Wolf farm anyway? Here's how I go about it.
Lure a surface roaming Alpha wolf into a cage, the rest of the pack will mill about near it's cage and choose to breed. New cubs follow their mothers until adulthood (one year) at which point they will path off the map.
You can build a wall around these new surface dwelling friends (and hope they don't fall prey to winged F.U.N.
Or you can lure the entire pack into cages. Then create a breeding room where the rest of the pack are free, but the Alpha is chained or caged in with them.
Leave a path out of the room and to the surface and as offspring reach adulthood they will wander off to find their place in the world... specifically the inside of a cage trap in the next hallway... and eventually a ☼Barrel☼ of fun.
It's a fully automated pelt farm, where the freshly grown pelts come to you!
Beware however, if a
fresh pelt wolf can wander out, a guest can wander in. I've lost more than one farm to guests who came to slay monsters, and drunkenly decided an "evil" wolf tied to a ribbon of finest silk was close enough for government work.
Am I missing something? I'd love to breed the offspring and free up a surface cluster!
Since when did the lycanthrope proletariat require "freedom" in order to do their duty to the
state fortress!
PS:
I don't want to modify the RAW's to make the wolves non evil. Though if you do, they have every other tag you'll need to train them. Alternately you could modify dwarves as an entity_civ to be able to train evil animals.
PPS:
I know you can simply hunt these viciously lovable beasties, but they have a POPULATION_NUMBER of 10:20 and can go extinct in your region. This lets you replenish their numbers and continue to farm leather even while under siege.
Besides.
Haunted glaciers aren't always a great place to hang about on the surface. FAFO
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Topic: Breeding Evil Wild Animals (Ice Wolves) (Read 479 times)