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[Quartz_Mace]

Just wondering. I know this is "child care" and "schools/daycares" are the current priority, but I recall a very good super soldier program that could be added as a "College" for our "students." Basically, a Dwarf was sent into a room with a cave-in trap prepared. They wore full steel plate, except on one leg. A cave-in was triggered and sent the paralyzed beard flying backwards onto a weapon trap with serrated steel discs, surgically removing the leg. The Dwarf is then rushed to the hospital, given a platinum or other heavy crutch and is given work hauling around stones while hobbling with his crutch. Once the subject has developed proper crutch-walking skills, they can hobble faster than a normal Dwarf can run and have gained much strength and speed from hauling. Would it be viable to add this horrible practice Graduation Program?

[Drewigi]

Just wondering. I know this is "child care" and "schools/daycares" are the current priority, but I recall a very good super soldier program that could be added as a "College" for our "students." Basically, a Dwarf was sent into a room with a cave-in trap prepared. They wore full steel plate, except on one leg. A cave-in was triggered and sent the paralyzed beard flying backwards onto a weapon trap with serrated steel discs, surgically removing the leg. The Dwarf is then rushed to the hospital, given a platinum or other heavy crutch and is given work hauling around stones while hobbling with his crutch. Once the subject has developed proper crutch-walking skills, they can hobble faster than a normal Dwarf can run and have gained much strength and speed from hauling. Would it be viable to add this horrible practice Graduation Program?

That is awesome for people like me who embrace the cruelty.

[Girlinhat]

...I have a lot to think about.

[Bumber]

..and have gained much strength and speed from hauling.

Hauling doesn't raise attributes, does it?

[Staalo]

I think I found something that might help with tragedy training...

I noticed recently that all the students are now at "doesn't really care about anything" level, even when I stopped puppy slaughtering months ago. At that point several students were still at "is a hardened individual" level. Now I can't be sure but I think that's because there are still spare teeth laying around the classroom. They count as body parts, right?

Normally seeing these body parts elicits some variation of "Death... this is truly horrifying" response and I'm assuming the combat hardening level goes up small amount. I'd think it should also train Discipline for small amount but that isn't happening for some reason with these students.

Now, when these teeth are scattered among the spear traps, the spears going up hide the teeth and then reveal them again going back. This seems to trigger a tragedy event every cycle, for each tooth separately; the students combat logs are full of these horrified exclamations.

This requires more testing; was this a coincidence or is there potential for some kind of... tragedy repeater? All evidence I have now are the combat logs and the sudden maxing out of combat hardening for all students.

[Quartz_Mace]

..and have gained much strength and speed from hauling.

Hauling doesn't raise attributes, does it?

I thought it did. I might have to double check, but I thought it did. In the case that it does not, it'll still train crutch-walker and they'll probably have superDwarven attributes from the program.

[Insanegame27]

Everyone here is a sick, emotionally deprived, psychopathic, child-hating inhumane being. +1 now that I'm here.
Idea: lock the children in towers (with windows and a roof, food and water) in the countryside so that they can see the slaughter of all the goblin sieges. this way, there is no danger to the children and they can still see all the blood and gore. although this doesnt train combat skills, you could lock a cat in there as well. or give the kid a LOT of pets and then kill them one by one within view of the tower. Engrave the tower, give him a bed, table, chair, chest and cabinet with all the furniture being good quality. this should give him/her good thoughts from the furni, and bad thoughts+mental hardening from the loss of his pets and view of the gore. bonus points for having a marksdwarf floor on top of the tower with a door that is unlockable by lever and a shitton of bolts and a crossbow locked in the marksdwarf floor.

Stilts keeping the tower up&seperated from the rest of the world and out of reach from building destroyers
1st floor: day/night care. lines represent windows
   ____________
 /                       \
|                         |
|            X           |
|                         |
 \_____________/

2nd floor: replace the windows with fortifications

   ____________
 /                       \
|           __          |
|          [XD          |    X represents stairs surrounded by walls. with a door
|                         |         locked via lever
 \_____________/



Then build a roof over the top

[TheHossofMoss]

Everyone here is a sick, emotionally deprived, psychopathic, child-hating inhumane being. +1 now that I'm here.
Idea: lock the children in towers (with windows and a roof, food and water) in the countryside so that they can see the slaughter of all the goblin sieges. this way, there is no danger to the children and they can still see all the blood and gore. although this doesnt train combat skills, you could lock a cat in there as well. or give the kid a LOT of pets and then kill them one by one within view of the tower. Engrave the tower, give him a bed, table, chair, chest and cabinet with all the furniture being good quality. this should give him/her good thoughts from the furni, and bad thoughts+mental hardening from the loss of his pets and view of the gore. bonus points for having a marksdwarf floor on top of the tower with a door that is unlockable by lever and a shitton of bolts and a crossbow locked in the marksdwarf floor.

Stilts keeping the tower up&seperated from the rest of the world and out of reach from building destroyers
1st floor: day/night care. lines represent windows
   ____________
 /                       \
|                         |
|            X           |
|                         |
 \_____________/

2nd floor: replace the windows with fortifications

   ____________
 /                       \
|           __          |
|          [XD          |    X represents stairs surrounded by walls. with a door
|                         |         locked via lever
 \_____________/



Then build a roof over the top

You insult me sir. I'm no human! I'm a dwarf!

[dwarf_reform]

I had a kobold attack and one of their partial mangled skeletons ended up right outside the main entrance.. In a fort of 80+ dwarves virtually everyone walks past it bravely, though I still get a couple horrified-dwarf messages every once in a while (they make me happy)..

Now I've set up a stockpile for skulls and skeletons around the kobold, waited for it to get full, then removed the stockpile and forbid all the bones (worried they may not panic about stored body parts, just in case..)

[TheHossofMoss]

I had a kobold attack and one of their partial mangled skeletons ended up right outside the main entrance.. In a fort of 80+ dwarves virtually everyone walks past it bravely, though I still get a couple horrified-dwarf messages every once in a while (they make me happy)..

Now I've set up a stockpile for skulls and skeletons around the kobold, waited for it to get full, then removed the stockpile and forbid all the bones (worried they may not panic about stored body parts, just in case..)

Yeah most dwarves in my fort are the same way. I've got a carpenter who has walked by so many dead animals from hunters that he now has Skilled Discipline.

[khearn]

I've seen a soldier climb down the wall of my didge-fall pit to pickup equipment at the bottom of the pit. He had a normal route down there, but I guess he thought climbing would be quicker/shorter. SO it appears that dwarves will take a job as long as there is a non-climbing path, but may then choose to take the climbing path. So if you have a very long walk to the booze stockpile and a much shorter climb, it might work to get students to climb. The potential problem would be bootstrapping the skill. I suspect a dwarf with no climbing skill at all wouldn't think a climbing route is shorter, no matter how much shorter it might be.

Regarding swimming while sleeping, won't dwarfs with no swimming skill at all drown if they are in deep water while sleeping? Wouldn't you need to fill, then drain the bedroom quickly enough so that they got some "swim" time, without having time to drown? That should certainly be doable with timers, but a lot of the discussion I'm seeing in this thread seems to assume that you can just flood the room and they'll lay there raising swim skill until they wake up with no danger of drowning.

   Keith

[☼!!Troll Fur Sock!!☼]

Climbing can be trained by *insert evil laughter* making them enter their rooms through the food chute. And swimming can be trained to Novice while they're awake.

I was just wondering, how old are the kids when their mothers stop carrying them? Because we could make an all-female hunter/crossbow squad. The newborns would get to see death from a safe distance every single day untill they're too old to be carried. And then they enter the school. This should also train observer and discipline...

[Staalo]

I thought Invader Santa had finally decided I'm on the good list when a wandering Minotaur stumbled into a cage trap. Unfortunately, despite being a truly hostile being this time, the students ignored it totally when it was shown to them behind fortifications. Then, while trying to reconfigure the containment I accidentally opened a route between the containment and the classroom; the children immediately swarmed the Minotaur and beat it to death with their mitten clad little fists. Scary.

I also tested out the tragedy repeater idea: a test subject with suitable personality (both "has great trouble mastering fear when confronted by danger" and "doesn't handle stress well") was locked into a tiny apartment for few months. In this room the subject was shown repeatedly visions of horror and violence, meaning assorted body parts from sentient creatures, blocked periodically by drawbridge.

The results weren't what I expected. Discipline was trained very slowly but no noticeable tragedy training happened. I'm now unsure what caused the students to max out their combat hardness so fast.

In other news, Swimming and Observer training is progressing better than expected, with first students reaching Legendary very soon.

[khearn]

I was just wondering, how old are the kids when their mothers stop carrying them? Because we could make an all-female hunter/crossbow squad. The newborns would get to see death from a safe distance every single day untill they're too old to be carried. And then they enter the school. This should also train observer and discipline...

In general, mothers stop carrying the babies when they become children, and 1 year of age. But immigrant mothers often seem to stop carrying their babies when they reach the edge of the embark area. Those babies spend the remainder of their first year crawling around trying to catch up with their oblivious mothers.

The problem with exposing babies to death is that there are not many (if any) ways to give a baby happy thoughts. I've had times when my fort is full of happy dwarves, and one very unhappy baby who has seen death a few times. I'm always afraid that baby will soon grow up into a very unhappy child who will immediately start tantruming, punch someone popular in the head, and start a nasty spiral.

It really ought to be possible to convince dwarven mothers not to take their babies into combat. This isn't friggin' take your kids to work day.

I don't recall seeing any babies get killed in combat lately, though. That used to be pretty inevitable if you had mothers in your melee squads.

   Keith

[Quartz_Mace]

I was just wondering, how old are the kids when their mothers stop carrying them? Because we could make an all-female hunter/crossbow squad. The newborns would get to see death from a safe distance every single day untill they're too old to be carried. And then they enter the school. This should also train observer and discipline...

In general, mothers stop carrying the babies when they become children, and 1 year of age. But immigrant mothers often seem to stop carrying their babies when they reach the edge of the embark area. Those babies spend the remainder of their first year crawling around trying to catch up with their oblivious mothers.

The problem with exposing babies to death is that there are not many (if any) ways to give a baby happy thoughts. I've had times when my fort is full of happy dwarves, and one very unhappy baby who has seen death a few times. I'm always afraid that baby will soon grow up into a very unhappy child who will immediately start tantruming, punch someone popular in the head, and start a nasty spiral.

It really ought to be possible to convince dwarven mothers not to take their babies into combat. This isn't friggin' take your kids to work day.

I don't recall seeing any babies get killed in combat lately, though. That used to be pretty inevitable if you had mothers in your melee squads.

   Keith

I used to create military families just so that the babies, a parent, or both would die and harden the surviving members. It worked fairly well.

Also, about the whole Minotaur thing above, those are promising results. The soldiers have already killed a semi-Megabeast.