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[Urist Da Vinci]

...
So to rephrase my question:

Which is more hardcore - a regular-sized war animal or a giant animal without war training?

Giant animal. Why? In my current fort, I have a breeding pack of black bears which I use to guard the sally port against kobolds. They can't be given war training, but they do attack the kobolds that they spot, and are rather effective. You can simply pasture giant animals in convenient locations as guards, and they'll be more effective than a war dog.

[Sabreur]

...
So to rephrase my question:

Which is more hardcore - a regular-sized war animal or a giant animal without war training?

Giant animal. Why? In my current fort, I have a breeding pack of black bears which I use to guard the sally port against kobolds. They can't be given war training, but they do attack the kobolds that they spot, and are rather effective. You can simply pasture giant animals in convenient locations as guards, and they'll be more effective than a war dog.

Okay, that answers my question nicely.  I'll make do with lions for now, then switch to dingos as soon as the elves bring me a breeding pair.  Thanks all!

[Niyazov]

Dingos will be worse than war dogs, since they are 33% smaller.

I may be totally off-base here, but I believe that the most important tag for an animal that you want to use for fighting but that can't be war trained is LARGE_PREDATOR. On wild creatures it causes them to attack members of your civ that it encounters if they are smaller than it is, although they are still likely to flee when confronted with groups. This effect is reversed once it is tamed; it will pursue and attack enemies if they are smaller than it is, although it will not display the suicidal courage that war animals get.

Since giant creatures are usually bigger than the enemies they run into, a giant animal that inherits the LARGE_PREDATOR tag from its base animal is likely to proactively attack most enemies, whereas a giant creature without it will not. For example, even though a giant hamster is the size of a grizzly, it will flee a kobold thief unless it (the hamster) is chained up or cornered. A cowardly animal on a chain can still be an effective defense if it's big enough, since the counterattacks can still hurt like heck.

Has anyone seen a tame giant animal that doesn't have LARGE_PREDATOR pursue an enemy?

[Sadrice]

Here's the first bit of the dingo raws:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Code: [Select]

[CREATURE:DINGO]
[DESCRIPTION:A small dog-like creature.  They are known to attack livestock.]
[NAME:dingo:dingoes:dingo] [CASTE_NAME:dingo:dingoes:dingo]
[CHILD:1][GENERAL_CHILD_NAME:dingo pup:dingo pups]
 [CREATURE_TILE:'d'][COLOR:6:0:1]
[LARGE_PREDATOR][MEANDERER]
[LARGE_ROAMING][FREQUENCY:5]
 [BIOME:NOT_FREEZING]
 [POPULATION_NUMBER:10:20]
[CLUSTER_NUMBER:3:12]
 [GRASSTRAMPLE:0]
[NATURAL] [PETVALUE:50]
 [PET_EXOTIC]
[BONECARN]
[PREFSTRING:coloration]

As you can see, they are already LARGE_PREDATORs, and the giant form is thus 17.09 times more awesome than ordinary dingos, and 11.4 times more awesome than mere dogs.

[Niyazov]

Here's the first bit of the dingo raws:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Code: [Select]

[CREATURE:DINGO]
[DESCRIPTION:A small dog-like creature.  They are known to attack livestock.]
[NAME:dingo:dingoes:dingo] [CASTE_NAME:dingo:dingoes:dingo]
[CHILD:1][GENERAL_CHILD_NAME:dingo pup:dingo pups]
 [CREATURE_TILE:'d'][COLOR:6:0:1]
[LARGE_PREDATOR][MEANDERER]
[LARGE_ROAMING][FREQUENCY:5]
 [BIOME:NOT_FREEZING]
 [POPULATION_NUMBER:10:20]
[CLUSTER_NUMBER:3:12]
 [GRASSTRAMPLE:0]
[NATURAL] [PETVALUE:50]
 [PET_EXOTIC]
[BONECARN]
[PREFSTRING:coloration]

As you can see, they are already LARGE_PREDATORs, and the giant form is thus 17.09 times more awesome than ordinary dingos, and 11.4 times more awesome than mere dogs.

Ah right, I overlooked the fact that these are giant dingos. Carry on.

[thegoatgod_pan]

If I may drop in with a useless (at least to you, deciding between dogs, dingos and lions) bit of advice: if you can set up some cavern cage traps and catch a cave crocodile breeding pair--those bugger breed like crazy--laying dozens and dozens of eggs.  If you really want a pet swarm, newly hatched crocodiles are a very fast way of getting there.

[Twangykid]

Either add [TRAINABLE] to giant dingoes or lions.

I prefer to play vanilla, and the lions are already tamable.

What I meant was, either add trainable or USE lions. One word can make a large difference.

[Garath]

I've had giant dingos in one fort and they fight fine without [war]

I recall a thread where someone claimed toady had stated that war training only caused animals to actively engage hostiles instead of running away and added no further benefits, and the giant dingos did that just fine, ripping kobolds apart with great delight. Dingos also breed as fast as dogs. Unless lions do too, I'd go for the giant dingo when you can

[Dunamisdeos]

Giant War Lions are some of the scariest things ive ever had the good fortune to embark with. They will murder armed goblins one on one. Only thing i've ever found to be better are saltwater crocodiles, who generally bite the legs clean off of anything they fight.

[Garath]

if only he had giant lions and we wouldn't have the discussion, I guess

[Sabreur]

Okay, it looks like the general consensus is that war training doesn't add enough to make a regular-sized war animal better than a giant predator. So giant dingoes it is.

Naturally, the instant I decided this the elves stopped bringing me anything larger than a squirrel. 

In any case, thanks for the advice!