Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[codeman]

I had started up a knew world to try out a gathering build,
and was looking at the area picking screen when the perfect place!
warm lush vegitation and lots of trees, and calm on top of that.
I chose it and started playing. It wasn't till i looked in the units screen
that I realized the horror it contained. A pack of 17 elephants lived just across the river, and right in front of spawn point for migrating dwarves!
I'm lucky that i only lost two in the first migration, but i don't know how long they'll make it.

[Turgid Bolk]

Actually elephants got a bad reputation in earlier versions, when they were bloodthirsty beasts.  In the current version, however, they are usually quite calm and leave you alone...unless you attack them first.  (In the raws they got some tag removed that made them kill anything that moved.)  Unicorns and gorillas are generally more deadly.  Eventually they'll wander off and leave your immigrants in peace.  :cool:

[Asehujiko]

My Skeletal Giant Mammoths pwn your 'phants.

[mikefictiti0us]

Check out this section of the wiki, specifically the Threat Matrix, if you want a rough idea of which areas are best for ease of play.

But yeah, "warm" locations always spawn elephants for me.

[Kylaer]

quote:Originally posted by Turgid Bolk:
(In the raws they got some tag removed that made them kill anything that moved.)  

I knew they'd been nerfed. We need to fix that, stat. Elephants are SUPPOSED to be dangerous, evil beasts. What's the tag to add back in?

[Fieari]

Elephants were always exactly as dangerous as they are now.  They are ostensibly herbavores, so they won't hunt you down until you annoy them, at which point they will treat you, the petty annoyance, just as you the dwarves treak kobolds.  Actually, you don't even have to annoy them... the caravans might (and will) annoy them, and then they'll take their vengence out on YOU.

Once their bloodlust has started, it cannot be stopped.

The people saying elephants aren't scary simply know how to leave them alone, and are lucky enough that caravans aren't going near the herds.

[Deathworks]

Hi!

quote:Originally posted by Fieari:
<STRONG>...
Once their bloodlust has started, it cannot be stopped.
...
</STRONG>

Well, six layers of stone fall traps in a five tiles wide entrance area actually can

Deathworks

[Fieari]

It doesn't actually stop their bloodlust though.  Their spirits go run off looking for reinforcements.  More elephants will appear soon enough.

Anyway, the real terror of elephants can be exemplified in the saga of Boatmurdered.  Dwarves being killed outside, other dwarves running out to claim the recently departed's stuff, dying, making more dwarves want to get free stuff, etc.  If anything nerfed elephants, it was the ability to keep your dwarves insides so they stop running into the gaping ivory jaws of death.

[codeman]

Any Ideas about cool things to do with them while I have a large supply of elephants at hand? Can you tame them? And if so how?

[mikefictiti0us]

quote:Originally posted by codeman:
<STRONG>Any Ideas about cool things to do with them while I have a large supply of elephants at hand? Can you tame them? And if so how?</STRONG>

I've never tried it, but the wiki claims that they can be tamed (and thus, made into pets) if you can catch them in a cage trap, but you can't train them unless you mod them into trainable creatures (which I'm about to do! Mmmm, War Elephants!).

It also says that traders pay a lot of money for them, or you could butcher them after taming, which gives you a stack of 16 bones (which equates to 80 bone bolts).

[codeman]

Now How would one go about making them trainable. And would it Work on a game that was already created or would i have to make a new world for it to work.

Also on another note my brother's world has a herd of unicorns, which promptly murdered a group of traders, and after the unicorns had moved a safe distance away the dwarves gleefully pillaged the remains.

[ August 22, 2007: Message edited by: codeman ]

[Grek]

Go into the dwarf fortress directory, open raw, objects, creature_large_tropical and replace the lines:

code:

[CREATURE:ELEPHANT]
   [NAME:elephant:elephants:elephant]
   [TILE:'E'][COLOR:7:0:0]
   [LARGE_ROAMING]
   [MODVALUE:3]
   [GENPOWER:3]
   [PREFSTRING:strength]
   [IVORY]
   [DIURNAL]
   [POPULATION_NUMBER:15:30]
   [CLUSTER_NUMBER:3:7]
   [BENIGN][MEANDERER][NATURAL][PET]
   [PETVALUE:500]
   [BODY:QUADRUPED:TAIL:2EYES:2EARS:TRUNK:2LUNGS:HEART:GUTS:ORGANS:THROAT:NECK:SPINE:BRAIN:MOUTH]
   [SIZE:16]
   [MAXAGE:50:70]
   [ATTACK:MAIN:BYTYPE:STANCE:kick:kicks:1:2:BLUDGEON][ATTACKFLAG_WITH]
   [CHILD:10][CHILDNAME:elephant calf:elephant calves]
   [FAT:10]
   [BIOME_ANY_TROPICAL_FOREST]
   [BIOME_SHRUBLAND_TROPICAL]
   [STANDARD_FLESH]
   [HOMEOTHERM:10066]

With:

code:

[CREATURE:ELEPHANT]
   [NAME:elephant:elephants:elephant]
   [TILE:'E'][COLOR:7:0:0]
   [LARGE_ROAMING]
   [MODVALUE:3]
   [GENPOWER:3]
   [PREFSTRING:strength]
   [IVORY]
   [DIURNAL]
   [POPULATION_NUMBER:15:30]
   [CLUSTER_NUMBER:3:7]
   [BENIGN][MEANDERER][NATURAL][TRAINABLE][PET]
   [PETVALUE:500]
   [BODY:QUADRUPED:TAIL:2EYES:2EARS:TRUNK:2LUNGS:HEART:GUTS:ORGANS:THROAT:NECK:SPINE:BRAIN:MOUTH]
   [SIZE:16]
   [MAXAGE:50:70]
   [ATTACK:MAIN:BYTYPE:STANCE:kick:kicks:1:2:BLUDGEON][ATTACKFLAG_WITH]
   [CHILD:10][CHILDNAME:elephant calf:elephant calves]
   [FAT:10]
   [BIOME_ANY_TROPICAL_FOREST]
   [BIOME_SHRUBLAND_TROPICAL]
   [STANDARD_FLESH]
   [HOMEOTHERM:10066]

[ August 22, 2007: Message edited by: Grek ]

[Savok]

Or just add [TRAINABLE].

[ August 22, 2007: Message edited by: Savok ]