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[Thuellai]

Couple questions regarding war animals

1.  They can be assigned to guard dwarfs, right?  How does that work?

2.  Are there any disadvantages to training animals for war, assuming they're domesticated?

3.  War animals still breed, right?

[Urist Da Vinci]

1. Press "v", target dwarf, press "p", look at the menu. You should see an option to assign war animals to the dwarf.

2. No disadvantages that I can think of.

3. Yes, they still breed. Beware, female war dogs may be surrounded by puppy swarms, unless you collect and cage the puppies.

[Thuellai]

Thanks for the help.  Just got an animal trainer, and I have some animals (dogs and stuff I've traded for) that could be trained, I figured that way I can train him up a lot and make sure he has a good animal trainer skill for if I capture anything awesome running around wild.

[Geldrin]

I have a question too.

What can I do with a dead soldier's pets?
One of my swordsdwarves has been killed, and his war dogs are sitting where their owner had died.
I can't assign them to a different person, because once they are assigned, they disappear from the "work animals" screen. If it's possible, I would like to keep them.

[Kumis]

I have a question too.

What can I do with a dead soldier's pets?
One of my swordsdwarves has been killed, and his war dogs are sitting where their owner had died.
I can't assign them to a different person, because once they are assigned, they disappear from the "work animals" screen. If it's possible, I would like to keep them.

Keep them in form of a quiver and exceptional dog brain roast. You know it's for the best.

[Uggh]

1. Press "v", target dwarf, press "p", look at the menu. You should see an option to assign war animals to the dwarf.

Please note there is a bug on the assignment screen. If you press v-p the number of already assigned animals might refer not to the current dwarf but to the one you assigned an animal immediately before. To update the view you could for example press v-i-p.

[Gedsaro]

Couple questions regarding war animals

2.  Are there any disadvantages to training animals for war, assuming they're domesticated?

Only possible disadvantage I can think of is that you can't train them for hunting afterwards.
Of course, that only matters if you care about hunting, and use animals to help with it.

[Saraias]

I have a question too.

What can I do with a dead soldier's pets?
One of my swordsdwarves has been killed, and his war dogs are sitting where their owner had died.
I can't assign them to a different person, because once they are assigned, they disappear from the "work animals" screen. If it's possible, I would like to keep them.

You can't assign them to a new master, but you can pasture them. Depending on your temperament, that could be giving them a home in a nice safe walled-in green (or mossy) field where their offspring can grow to protect other dwarfs... or a big swath outside the front gate where they'll absorb the first wave of invaders.

[Geldrin]

Keep them in form of a quiver and exceptional dog brain roast. You know it's for the best.

Hehe, not a bad idea, that's triple profit: food, ammo, and freeing slots for new puppies. I'll process the crippled ones, I don't want to keep them suffering.

Thanks for the advice, Saraias & Kumis!

[krenshala]

I have a question too.

What can I do with a dead soldier's pets?
One of my swordsdwarves has been killed, and his war dogs are sitting where their owner had died.
I can't assign them to a different person, because once they are assigned, they disappear from the "work animals" screen. If it's possible, I would like to keep them.

You can't assign them to a new master, but you can pasture them. Depending on your temperament, that could be giving them a home in a nice safe walled-in green (or mossy) field where their offspring can grow to protect other dwarfs... or a big swath outside the front gate where they'll absorb the first wave of invaders.

I use the later, myself.  I keep all unassigned war animals and all dogs (adult or not) in a pasture at the entrance to the secured section of the fortress (surface).  Usually the active militia are training just past that, though sometimes they overlap.  The dogs, whether war trained or not, will attack any invader/hostile that gets within sight and if the pasture is also a meeting area will go back to it on their own.

[Vid_the_Impaler]

One disadvantage to training animals for war is that when a dwarf trains an animal, they bond and form a trainer-animal relationship. If the animal dies, the trainer will receive an unhappy thought. If you train too many animals with one trainer and the animals die, this can lead to a very depressed trainer. One time I must've trained over 100 wild creatures, including a few enemy mounts and trolls, with one dwarf. I then sent them out to fight a siege and they got massacred. The poor animal trainer ended up going insane and killing herself of thirst because of all the unhappy thoughts from losing all her training partners.

Still, this will only happen if you have an insane amount of animals being trained by one dwarf and being killed in quick succession. Used responsibly, they shouldn't all die at the same time and your trainer should be fine.

[JimboM12]

One disadvantage to training animals for war is that when a dwarf trains an animal, they bond and form a trainer-animal relationship. If the animal dies, the trainer will receive an unhappy thought. If you train too many animals with one trainer and the animals die, this can lead to a very depressed trainer. One time I must've trained over 100 wild creatures, including a few enemy mounts and trolls, with one dwarf. I then sent them out to fight a siege and they got massacred. The poor animal trainer ended up going insane and killing herself of thirst because of all the unhappy thoughts from losing all her training partners.

Still, this will only happen if you have an insane amount of animals being trained by one dwarf and being killed in quick succession. Used responsibly, they shouldn't all die at the same time and your trainer should be fine.

Or you could expose the trainer to horrid acts of violence and harden him to the point he doesn't care anymore.

[Mr. Palau]

Give him a royal bedroom, dining room, tomb, and office. That should shut him up.

[Akura]

One disadvantage to training animals for war is that when a dwarf trains an animal, they bond and form a trainer-animal relationship. If the animal dies, the trainer will receive an unhappy thought. If you train too many animals with one trainer and the animals die, this can lead to a very depressed trainer. One time I must've trained over 100 wild creatures, including a few enemy mounts and trolls, with one dwarf. I then sent them out to fight a siege and they got massacred. The poor animal trainer ended up going insane and killing herself of thirst because of all the unhappy thoughts from losing all her training partners.

Still, this will only happen if you have an insane amount of animals being trained by one dwarf and being killed in quick succession. Used responsibly, they shouldn't all die at the same time and your trainer should be fine.

This applies to taming wild animals, not training war animals. I trained several war turkeys, donkeys, and sheep(yes, I modded them, it's just one simple tag), and not one of the trainers had formed a bond with their animal, checking both their thoughts and relationships.