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Author Topic: Cage Management  (Read 957 times)

idgarad

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Cage Management
« on: October 19, 2010, 02:33:00 pm »

Killing prisoners in cages is a pain.

Build Flood Room
build floodgates
link flood gates to level

then
Build Cages
Build Lever
Build Links to cages to lever
release
flood
repeat build cage and link.

With 107 dwarves I have to kill on average 10-15 mobs (I've been sieged and ambushed non-stop for about 3 years now game time) each month. From the time I start building cages, linking levers, flooding, and mopping up we are talking about 3 real hours of time, just for 9 of them... at this rate I have a backlog to last me till Christmas. I'd rather not dwarven atom smash them but I am up to my armpits in cats, goblins, werewolves, and trolls. Is there a better way to manage these prisoners?


Can we just get an execute option for things in cages?

e.g.

assign
execute

Or allow caged things to drown so I can just build the cages and floor a giant room rather then the whole lever thingiee...
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thijser

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Re: Cage Management
« Reply #1 on: October 19, 2010, 02:50:07 pm »

Yes having a way by which we can easily kill of traped creatures would be great. Currently the main problem with them is the fact that it takes a lot of player time as opposed to dwarf time.

There is however a quick way to get rid of them already: use wooden cages and drop some magma on them.
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blue sam3

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Re: Cage Management
« Reply #2 on: October 19, 2010, 02:58:51 pm »

Let em out, axe to face.
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Akjosch

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Re: Cage Management
« Reply #3 on: October 19, 2010, 04:16:47 pm »

The military prisoners you can just all stuff into a single cage for a later mass execution; they don't tend to try and break free from being led from one cage to another in my experience, even when still fully armed. That's at least with Goblins and Trolls. Thieves are another matter, of course, as are big beasties like ettins, bronze colossi or dragons ...
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Chocolatemilkgod

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Re: Cage Management
« Reply #4 on: October 19, 2010, 06:07:47 pm »

You people! Come on there are much more efficient ways to get rid of enemies! First of all we got the weapon trap room of death (Its great when they think they can get out alive ^^). Then we have the tower of death, or you could go with the tower of death over burning magma. Or, have my personal favourite! THE ARENA. Pit some grizzly bears against some goblins with no armour and weapons and see what happens! Or use them as target practice. Watching as your axemen go in to vanquish them is always effective ^^. Or you can use them to 'scout' some of the caverns. I'm sure the neighborhood Forgotten Beast wouldn't mind.

Anyway basically for most of them you have to set up the cage to a lever or whatever, but that doesn't take too long especially if you have a few more mechanics.

However I do agree that even inside a cage something should drown. Or burn. Or both.
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idgarad

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Re: Cage Management
« Reply #5 on: October 20, 2010, 09:04:11 pm »

You people! Come on there are much more efficient ways to get rid of enemies! First of all we got the weapon trap room of death (Its great when they think they can get out alive ^^). Then we have the tower of death, or you could go with the tower of death over burning magma. Or, have my personal favourite! THE ARENA. Pit some grizzly bears against some goblins with no armour and weapons and see what happens! Or use them as target practice. Watching as your axemen go in to vanquish them is always effective ^^. Or you can use them to 'scout' some of the caverns. I'm sure the neighborhood Forgotten Beast wouldn't mind.

Anyway basically for most of them you have to set up the cage to a lever or whatever, but that doesn't take too long especially if you have a few more mechanics.

However I do agree that even inside a cage something should drown. Or burn. Or both.

No no there are plenty of way to kill them, but efficent none of those items are. Why haul a prisoner to the weapon trap room of death. I've got another 30 goblins outside with 4 squads trying to mow them down all the while hauling other crap. It takes HOURS to get 9 cages moved because of everything else. Why move the cage at all is my issue. A long spear for some quick stabbity stab stab stab action is needed so I can just leave the damn 50+ now cages in the Animal storehouse. And 7 years now almost straight sieged and ambushed.. I got 1 month in winter without an ambush... down from 164 dwarves to 59 now....
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rephikul

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Re: Cage Management
« Reply #6 on: October 21, 2010, 08:04:13 am »


side view

z 10+  __P
      X
      X
      X
      X
      X
      X
      X
z 0   XO_O_O

top view
       O---O
       |   |
      x++P |
       |   |
       O---O

X Stair
O_O_O Trade depot (side view)
O---O
|   |
| O | Trade depot (top view)
|   |
O---O
_ constructed floor (side view)
+ constructed floor (top view)
P Pit zone over empty space

Pit the goblins, they'll pummel onto the trade depot, coating it in red and leave their stuff on the depot. When caravans arrive, designate reclaim over the depot and sell goblinites away, no hauling needed.
I wish i can name buildings, I'd definitely name my depot "Altar of Armok"
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Silverionmox

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Re: Cage Management
« Reply #7 on: October 21, 2010, 12:10:49 pm »

Some nice options in the Work Orders menu would be:
Disarm caged prisoners all/metal only/nothing
Strip caged prisoners all/metal only/nothing

We need a way to open a cage to let a tame creature out. It's ridiculous to have to build the cage and link it to a lever just to let a tame dog out.

(I just thought of an alternative trap, where they end up chained on the square instead of caged.)
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jei

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Re: Cage Management
« Reply #8 on: October 21, 2010, 11:13:19 pm »

Some nice options in the Work Orders menu would be:
Disarm caged prisoners all/metal only/nothing
Strip caged prisoners all/metal only/nothing

We need a way to open a cage to let a tame creature out. It's ridiculous to have to build the cage and link it to a lever just to let a tame dog out.

(I just thought of an alternative trap, where they end up chained on the square instead of caged.)

Or just dump the weapons of the prisoners. I prefer armored opponents to kill for training dorfs.

Also we already can do q->a assign list check out the + from the name on top. To disassign a creature from a cage.
But you still need to build the damn cage and then dissassemble it to be able to reuse it for traps.
Last game I had well over 900+ cages since I was pretty much relying on cage traps for protecting everything.


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i2amroy

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Re: Cage Management
« Reply #9 on: October 22, 2010, 02:19:46 am »

In the event of freeing tamed animals you could have an empty cage built somewhere. Just reassign any new caged tamed animals to that cage and then every once in a while go along and unassign all of the creatures from that cage. But yeah, a kill enemy option along with some disarming options would be rather nice.
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AngleWyrm

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Re: Cage Management
« Reply #10 on: October 22, 2010, 04:58:16 am »

Ten story Pit-O-Doom. With a stairwell to go collect goblinite as spoils of war income.
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zilpin

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Re: Cage Management
« Reply #11 on: October 22, 2010, 12:01:57 pm »



I vote +1 to all of the above

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