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[Callista]

So I'm going along as usual, playing with the not-so-friendly neighborhood necromancer, who keeps sending zombie hordes, which are fun (and on one occasion !!fun!! involving magma diverted from my smelters into a magma pit trap, though not an experiment to be repeated because zombies might melt, but they don't die).

So one day I'm looking through the cage traps to see if there's anything interesting, and I find "Dwarf Cage". Thinking one of my dorfs has been stupid enough to take a nap on a cage trap, I check out the cage. Nope--"Urist McNecromancer, Dwarf Necromancer."

Ah, the potential.

Oddly enough, he's not the first caged hostile dwarf I've had. A dwarf came with the goblin invaders last siege, hostile and trying to pincushion my dorfs with crossbow bolts. I caged her and put her in the dining room. I guess she must be a former abductee. She doesn't need to eat or drink, just like a goblin.

Now that I've got the necromancer, I guess I'm not going to be dealing with zombie hordes anymore, which is a little disappointing; but my cemetery was filling up with unnamed dwarves anyway.

So what should I do with the necromancer?

[Loud Whispers]

Bacon

[pixl97]

On the list of things not to do with one...

I'd manage to gather around 400 caged enemies and animals including a few necromancers. I decided that I would like to kill them all in a cruel and fun fashion so I build a pit about 10z levels deep with an upright spike in the bottom of it. After commanding a mass pitting of a few hundred of them building up a huge pile of dead parts they pitched the necro in there who did not die on impact... He then immediately brought all the parts to life. Over 500 creeping parts were in the bottom of the pit. Ended up dropping a square of land to squish the squirming, ichor and blood covered mess.

Could probably be weaponized where you let it loose, but that many would kill the FPS.

[Wrex]

On the list of things not to do with one...

I'd manage to gather around 400 caged enemies and animals including a few necromancers. I decided that I would like to kill them all in a cruel and fun fashion so I build a pit about 10z levels deep with an upright spike in the bottom of it. After commanding a mass pitting of a few hundred of them building up a huge pile of dead parts they pitched the necro in there who did not die on impact... He then immediately brought all the parts to life. Over 500 creeping parts were in the bottom of the pit. Ended up dropping a square of land to squish the squirming, ichor and blood covered mess.

Could probably be weaponized where you let it loose, but that many would kill the FPS.

FPS problems? Fastdwarf 1.

[Callista]

Fastdwarf takes your FPS down even further... I mean, sure, it makes your dwarves move faster, but the world itself is still as slow as it always is, and even slower because those fast-moving dwarves now have to make a lot more pathing calculations. It's nice for when your dwarves are engaged in boring hauling jobs and you want them to hurry up and finish, but it's murder on FPS.

That does make me think of an idea, though.

Necromancer goblin execution pit... Start with a pit, caged necromancer at the bottom. Drop goblins in. Dump a few corpses. Let the goblins fight the corpses, which reanimate constantly until the goblins are overwhelmed.

Now I just need a necromancer on-off switch... How does a necromancer decide when to animate stuff? Is there a range? Does he need line of sight? If it's just line of sight I can break that with a bridge, and then activate repeating spikes on the pit bottom to kill the zombies. On the other hand, if it's a range, I might need to either manually carry the cage around or mess around with mine carts.

For that matter, can a caged necromancer animate stuff, or do I need to put him in a pit of his own? I need to keep him safe from the zombies somehow.

[misko27]

Necromancer goblin execution pit... Start with a pit, caged necromancer at the bottom. Drop goblins in. Dump a few corpses. Let the goblins fight the corpses, which reanimate constantly until the goblins are overwhelmed.

Loud whispers already made that. Called it the moose pit. Look it up.

[Callista]

Oooo.... Moose pit! Must have. *chuckles evilly*

[darkgloomie]

Fastdwarf takes your FPS down even further... I mean, sure, it makes your dwarves move faster, but the world itself is still as slow as it always is, and even slower because those fast-moving dwarves now have to make a lot more pathing calculations. It's nice for when your dwarves are engaged in boring hauling jobs and you want them to hurry up and finish, but it's murder on FPS.

That does make me think of an idea, though.

Necromancer goblin execution pit... Start with a pit, caged necromancer at the bottom. Drop goblins in. Dump a few corpses. Let the goblins fight the corpses, which reanimate constantly until the goblins are overwhelmed.

Now I just need a necromancer on-off switch... How does a necromancer decide when to animate stuff? Is there a range? Does he need line of sight? If it's just line of sight I can break that with a bridge, and then activate repeating spikes on the pit bottom to kill the zombies. On the other hand, if it's a range, I might need to either manually carry the cage around or mess around with mine carts.

For that matter, can a caged necromancer animate stuff, or do I need to put him in a pit of his own? I need to keep him safe from the zombies somehow.

iirc, they animate stuff in their line of sight, so it's as simple as chaining them somewhere and having a raised bridge to open/close as needed.

[Broken]

Captured necros are realy, really useful.

A few uses:

Training. A necro behind fotificatations and a bridge can be used to make infinite training dummies.

Defense: Put the necromancer in a tower outside, again with behind fortifications and bridges. When a siege comes, lower the bridge and let
the zombies kill the enemies. When all of them are dead, close the bridge and use your military kill the (much weaker) zombies.

Leather farm: Necromancers can rise skin. Zombie skins can be cuted in many zombie skins. You can exploit this to make infinite dragon leather.

[WealthyRadish]

I read this title to the tune of 'What do you do with a drunken sailor' and consequently belted out 'EARLEYE IN THA MORNIN', and then remembered that part from Hitman with the guy in the shower.


...uh, yeah, training practice. Or bacon.

[Di]

Apart from uses mentioned above, necros are invaluable when you need to place FB in some place it won't go willingly.

[omg_scout]

When all of them are dead, close the bridge and use your military kill the (much weaker) zombies.

This is the funny part until you fight zombie bears. Fucker just pushes my adamantite axedorfs to death. Bah.

[Callista]

Fastdwarf takes your FPS down even further... I mean, sure, it makes your dwarves move faster, but the world itself is still as slow as it always is, and even slower because those fast-moving dwarves now have to make a lot more pathing calculations. It's nice for when your dwarves are engaged in boring hauling jobs and you want them to hurry up and finish, but it's murder on FPS.

That does make me think of an idea, though.

Necromancer goblin execution pit... Start with a pit, caged necromancer at the bottom. Drop goblins in. Dump a few corpses. Let the goblins fight the corpses, which reanimate constantly until the goblins are overwhelmed.

Now I just need a necromancer on-off switch... How does a necromancer decide when to animate stuff? Is there a range? Does he need line of sight? If it's just line of sight I can break that with a bridge, and then activate repeating spikes on the pit bottom to kill the zombies. On the other hand, if it's a range, I might need to either manually carry the cage around or mess around with mine carts.

For that matter, can a caged necromancer animate stuff, or do I need to put him in a pit of his own? I need to keep him safe from the zombies somehow.

iirc, they animate stuff in their line of sight, so it's as simple as chaining them somewhere and having a raised bridge to open/close as needed.

You gotta chain them, or can they remain caged?

[Broken]

either you chain them, or you surround then completely with fortifications, leaving only a 1 tile space. (where you have put the cage,
connected to a lever to free the necromancer when the construcion is done.)

[darkgloomie]

Fastdwarf takes your FPS down even further... I mean, sure, it makes your dwarves move faster, but the world itself is still as slow as it always is, and even slower because those fast-moving dwarves now have to make a lot more pathing calculations. It's nice for when your dwarves are engaged in boring hauling jobs and you want them to hurry up and finish, but it's murder on FPS.

That does make me think of an idea, though.

Necromancer goblin execution pit... Start with a pit, caged necromancer at the bottom. Drop goblins in. Dump a few corpses. Let the goblins fight the corpses, which reanimate constantly until the goblins are overwhelmed.

Now I just need a necromancer on-off switch... How does a necromancer decide when to animate stuff? Is there a range? Does he need line of sight? If it's just line of sight I can break that with a bridge, and then activate repeating spikes on the pit bottom to kill the zombies. On the other hand, if it's a range, I might need to either manually carry the cage around or mess around with mine carts.

For that matter, can a caged necromancer animate stuff, or do I need to put him in a pit of his own? I need to keep him safe from the zombies somehow.

iirc, they animate stuff in their line of sight, so it's as simple as chaining them somewhere and having a raised bridge to open/close as needed.

You gotta chain them, or can they remain caged?

i think "caged" is mutually exclusive with "has something in sight"

but you can plan the fortifications like Broken said, it'd probably be easier- put a cage somewhere, link it to a lever, then surround it on every side with fortifications. When the lever is pulled, the Necromances gets out of the cage but can't move, and the fortifications allow line of sight.

Adding raised bridges near the fortifications allows you to stop the necromancer at will.