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[Melting Sky]

I invited some dirty human traders into my fortress to do business and one if their swordsman ran deep into my fort to kill my only female Jabberer. She was harmlessly chained up next to a nest box. I think its time to show this swine and his comrades how dwarves treat unwelcome guests. My dreams of war jabberers is no more.

Now I just need to decide a fitting death. Magma seems far to kind an end for this fool.

[zubb2]

One tile room with... one billion chickens.

[Larix]

Can it be the jabberer was from a siege? Those creatures don't become properly tame even when an animal trainer works with them, and may cause additional trouble even if they lay and hatch eggs. It's more of a facepalm moment really, because it's standard procedure with visiting friendlies - they'll attack chained wild/hostile critters on principle, so you absolutely need to keep such chained beasts where no caravan guards (or diplomats) can see them.

No matter how much satisfaction you might get from "punishing" the guard, more important is to keep this quirk in mind next time you want to chain up hostile or improperly tame beasts.

[Melting Sky]

Yeah, I guessed that the reason he killed it was likely because it was an enemy POW. I still do not take kindly to guests killing each other in my fort, particularly when a rather useless guest kills a very valuable one. The reason he was able to reach it was that the door to its room was jammed open by a nest box that got dumped there probably by some inept hauler or the guy who was deconstructing it. The door was there as a means to isolate the jabberer if need be rather than to keep guests of my fort from murdering it as I didn't think they would do such a thing but it would have incidentally worked to prevent the incident had some lazy dwarf not jammed the door with junk. My other exotic pets all remained safe behind the working doors to their cells. It does nothing to change the fact that I will be killing that guard and everyone he knows as painfully as I can. I always knew that air lock I built around the trade depot might come in handy someday. At the time I was thinking about keeping enemies out with it rather than in but it works well both ways.  

Thanks for the heads up about the reason the jabber was killed. I was already pretty sure I knew why he went after it but its always nice when people take the time to explain things to others and now I have confirmation of my suspicions. My guess is that caravan guards will hunt any creature they can reach on the map that is marked as hostile regardless of whether it has been rendered harmless via restraints. I assume that neutral creatures will be left alone unless they attack first?

It's a shame I don't have an army of chickens. I really like that idea.

I wonder how high of a drop it would take for a jabberer corpse to kill a human? Time for some science.

Quick question. If you wall in enemy combatants will they eventually die of thirst or hunger? It will probably take a while to put together a properly circumlocutory execution machine and I wouldn't want my guests starving to death before I can kill them in proper dwarfy fashion.

[Eric Blank]

The guards will survive walled in just fine, but the merchants and their animals will go insane and eventually die of dehydration.

[Propman]

Who cares whether or not slaying it was justified? It was dwarven property, and we'll be damned if those hairless gorillas simply slay our livestock confiscated from our enemies willy-nilly! Release the magma!

[Melting Sky]

Hmmm, I like the sound of that. I'll lock them inside while I construct the execution machine, let the merchants go mad and attack each other and then after the guards have been forced to put down their own friends like rabid dogs I will begin the falling corpse ballistics experiments. I bet I can even find a way to light the corpses on fire first but then again that might make the clean up a little more dangerous fun than intended.

[Loci]

My guess is that caravan guards will hunt any creature they can reach on the map that is marked as hostile regardless of whether it has been rendered harmless via restraints. I assume that neutral creatures will be left alone unless they attack first?

Chained wild animals are *not* rendered harmless--they will still actively attack "friendly" and "neutral" units, including traders, caravan guards, diplomats, and some mischievous critters. I had a surplus of wild cave crocodiles, so I tried chaining them up by the entrance to deter the local monkey population. I had to remove them after one trader unnecessarily led his wagon over the crocodile--the crocodile attacked the yak, the yak dodged, the wagon scuttled, and the traders promptly turned around and left.

Oddly, chained wild animals ignore enemy units, and fail to detect ambushers.

[Melting Sky]

My guess is that caravan guards will hunt any creature they can reach on the map that is marked as hostile regardless of whether it has been rendered harmless via restraints. I assume that neutral creatures will be left alone unless they attack first?

Chained wild animals are *not* rendered harmless--they will still actively attack "friendly" and "neutral" units, including traders, caravan guards, diplomats, and some mischievous critters. I had a surplus of wild cave crocodiles, so I tried chaining them up by the entrance to deter the local monkey population. I had to remove them after one trader unnecessarily led his wagon over the crocodile--the crocodile attacked the yak, the yak dodged, the wagon scuttled, and the traders promptly turned around and left.

Oddly, chained wild animals ignore enemy units, and fail to detect ambushers.

It's a shame I never got around to chaining up that cave dragon out front. It would have attacked the caravan on the way in and alerted me to the issue before it cost me the one animal in my collection that actually mattered. From what I have seen, chained enemy combatants can't harm dwarfs unless freed or have I just been lucky so far? My dwarves have repeatedly wandered into the rooms where I keep my captured war beasts chained up without any incidents. The only problem I have seen so far has been between chained prisoners and factions from outside of my fortress.

I wonder. How does the faction the caravan belongs to view it when their caravan gets attacked or killed on your land by creatures that belong to groups other than your local dwarves? In other words if goblin invaders kill a caravan is it looked upon as negatively as if your dwarves do it or does the game take the circumstances into account? I wonder how they view it if one of your prisoners does the killing? Does a POW gain an association with your own fortress after capture in addition to maintaining their original allegiance to the society they came from or does their association with the original enemy faction remain their only one?

I guess for all intensive purposes it doesn't really matter in this current situation since we will be executing every last one of those filthy humans for their willful destruction of priceless dwarven property and for undermining the future security of the fortress and our people but it would be a good thing to know for future fortresses.

[EvilBob22]

In addition to chained animals (or prisoners), caravan guards will attack prisoners being led somewhere -- like to the training arena where your militia is waiting to practice.

[Loci]

From what I have seen, chained enemy combatants can't harm dwarfs unless freed or have I just been lucky so far? My dwarves have repeatedly wandered into the rooms where I keep my captured war beasts chained up without any incidents. The only problem I have seen so far has been between chained prisoners and factions from outside of my fortress.

That sounds about right. I think I have seen trained animals attacking restrained enemies, but I'm not sure if that was in the current version. Enemies with special attacks may still cause some trouble. Some special attacks, like noxious secretions, are not actually controllable, meaning a chained creature will still infect everyone around them. Others, like dragonfire, are large area blasts that will cook any fortress dwarves caught in the crossfire if, say, your mayor happens to walk by with a diplomat.

I wonder. How does the faction the caravan belongs to view it when their caravan gets attacked or killed on your land by creatures that belong to groups other than your local dwarves? In other words if goblin invaders kill a caravan is it looked upon as negatively as if your dwarves do it or does the game take the circumstances into account? I wonder how they view it if one of your prisoners does the killing? Does a POW gain an association with your own fortress after capture in addition to maintaining their original allegiance to the society they came from or does their association with the original enemy faction remain their only one?

One of my chained wild cave crocs developed a habit of chomping on human diplomats. A couple years (and diplomats) later, the humans sieged my fortress, marching right past the killer croc without a second glance. I'd say if it happens on your map, you're taking the blame for it.

[Melting Sky]

One of my chained wild cave crocs developed a habit of chomping on human diplomats. A couple years (and diplomats) later, the humans sieged my fortress, marching right past the killer croc without a second glance. I'd say if it happens on your map, you're taking the blame for it.

I know that you are held responsible for anything that happens on your land but does the game weigh it any differently depending on how it happens or is it a generic and equally negative response regardless of what goes down? For instance I have lost two elven caravans due to the fools showing up at the same time as mounted goblin sieges yet I have never seen any sort of repercussions for it. I'm sure the elves are pissed about it but I think if I had actually murdered two whole caravans myself I would be getting sieged by them already.

[Larix]

Civilisations don't seem to care much about merchants. I once tried to stir up trouble with the elven civ and slaughtered all their caravans for a dozen years or more. This was all done in open combat, kill orders and everything. They just kept sending caravans until i gave up and returned to normal trade. Letting a diplomat die seems the most effective way to anger trading civs, and elves have no diplomats.

If a caravan gets massacred, this will hurt your relations with the parent civ, but not very much. And afaik, the parent civ just pins the blame on you, regardless of what went down. I spiked a demonic diplomat to death with repeating spikes, and the humans instantly sent a siege. I think trap activity isn't considered your doing (you can crush or spike dwarven caravans and liaisons as much as you like, this will not cause a loyalty cascade), so it was "died on your site - your fault".