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[Max™]

That's what we were missing, just when I started to think maybe we weren't completely monstrous for the shit we do in the name of childcare, proper eugenics and arranged marriages get folded into the mix somehow.

[Skullsploder]

I was planning on doing combat training... I embarked next to a necromancer tower and goblin dark fortress, and have been stockpiling corpses like crazy. But my military was a bit ah... overzealous in mopping up my first undead siege and two necromancers were killed. I haven't had another siege or ambush in the two years since and I'm not sure if there are any necros left. Perhaps its time to savescum and check legends. Do resurrected necromancer corpses still retain the ability to reanimate corpses? as I recall, both the bodies are more or less intact, having died to lost limbs, punctured hearts, and bisection rather than pulping. If worst comes to worst, I'll make a vampire fountain and then send a vamped adventurer to the tower to retrieve the tablet and then have someone else read it or something. Oh I never actually checked if the necros were carrying books! that would make acquiring a necromancer much easier. What is the best way to have an adventurer immigrate to your fort? Are there any major bugs with retiring and reclaiming that I should know about?

That's good news about the dodging and recovering food. I was very worried about rotten meals littering the childcare.
And they spend about half of their time on trapped tiles, which is a stat that will likely increase once the trapped tiles are actually active.

OH and I just noticed I made an error on my diagram. There should only be 2 beds and 2 statues per unit. Silly me. Also note that this design could be stacked vertically with ease.

That's what we were missing, just when I started to think maybe we weren't completely monstrous for the shit we do in the name of childcare, proper eugenics and arranged marriages get folded into the mix somehow.

He he he.

[Staalo]

Necrobacon isn't an absolute necessity for combat training, even if it helps. Just seed the surface and all three caverns with cage traps and you should catch enough aggressive critters to give your students some taste of real combat. Cage trap corridors leading to the inner fortress have proven irresistible for crundles, troglodytes and the like; they'll even wait patiently for your haulers to reload the traps before stepping into them.

[Madventurer]

So, we're discussing whether to do combat training by undead or horrible cavern creatures, trapped and unhappy.

Does the training even involve actual weapons?

[Skullsploder]

Necrobacon isn't an absolute necessity for combat training, even if it helps. Just seed the surface and all three caverns with cage traps and you should catch enough aggressive critters to give your students some taste of real combat. Cage trap corridors leading to the inner fortress have proven irresistible for crundles, troglodytes and the like; they'll even wait patiently for your haulers to reload the traps before stepping into them.

Oh thanks that's good advice. Hmm yes I do need to get a trap corridor in the caverns. I currently only have a single cavern cage trap but I have many many cage traps seeded about the surface for catching any unlucky necromancers that may wander through. I have an Ettin already. Have you done any testing with Forgotten Beasts as sparring partners?

Now I'm considering starting a breeding facility for hostile/wild critters a la Mermaid or sea monster farming... Possibilities. But yes, mass producing cage traps for the caverns sounds like a very good idea. I'll just go ahead and open caverns 2 and 3 with trap corridors. Any particular critters that are too dangerous for kiddies? What sort of skill levels do you recommend for certain un-baconed critters? I'm aiming for as few child casualties as possible, given how high adult mortality rates have been (tantruming axelords are both magnificent and terrifying).

[Staalo]

So, we're discussing whether to do combat training by undead or horrible cavern creatures, trapped and unhappy.

Does the training even involve actual weapons?

Of course not. It would be irresponsible to give children weapons. Someone could get hurt.

I have an Ettin already. Have you done any testing with Forgotten Beasts as sparring partners?

Forgotten Beasts are trapavoid so it's difficult to capture them for training. Ettins are good, clean if a bit short-lived fun.

Now I'm considering starting a breeding facility for hostile/wild critters a la Mermaid or sea monster farming... Possibilities.

That's one thing I'd very much like to see happening. I considered it myself but reanimating is so much easier when it's an option.

Any particular critters that are too dangerous for kiddies? What sort of skill levels do you recommend for certain un-baconed critters? I'm aiming for as few child casualties as possible, given how high adult mortality rates have been (tantruming axelords are both magnificent and terrifying).

In Copperfell I've usually moved kids to the fighting class when they reach Master in Armor user; at that point they've also been Legendary to Legendary+1 in Dodge as well. With those levels there aren't many flesh-based creatures who can withstand a massed assault of screaming two-year olds who can dodge just about anything. There are some exceptions:

- Invaders: Civilians seem to be hard-coded to run from anything with Invader status, rather than attack them; this means the invader will get a lucky strike in sooner or later. Curiously, killed and then zombified invaders do get attacked normally.
- Hydras: With nine seven. SEVEN! heads they can't be insta-killed with a head shot and they will inflict terrible wounds if they manage to reach your children. Be prepared to have a long fight in your hands and have your hospital ready.
- Anything non-fleshy: Varies. Titans made out of coral or something similar won't last more than few seconds but Bronze Colossi et al can be treated as indestructible training dummies who occasionally twist limbs out of shape.
- Webbers, dusters, flamers etc: Just avoid those.

[Max™]

Wait, I've killed a lot of hydras.

*counts on fingers*

1
2
3
4
5
6
7

...why do your hydras have two more heads than mine?

Does that mean male hydras... oh god dammit Staalo I didn't wanna go down this road.

[Staalo]

Oh, right. No double entendre intended. I don't know how that one slipped through when I edited the post several times already.

They are dangerous enough even when someone isn't giving them too much head.

[Skullsploder]

Well would you look at that! An undead siege just showed up with three very unpulped necromancers. Now lets just hope the cage traps don't get clogged before the necros walk into them. And thanks for that info! Very handy. Maybe I should make the combat area necromancer-observed? That way I can pit living combatants in and have them reanimated directly if they don't get pulped.

Which reminds me: in your experience, are most fatal wounds to living combatants pulping hits to the upper body/head or "and tearing the brain" kinda hits? (important for deciding whether to drop things onto steel serrated disk traps then reanimate the gibs or using them as living dummies first). Also does rekilling sentient corpses seem to count for the "doesn't care about anything anymore" trait?

So many questions I hope you don't get tired of answering them all I know most of them were answered earlier but I figure it's probably nice to have all the answers over the course of a couple pages (plus digging through the thread is a daunting prospect).

[Staalo]

Maybe I should make the combat area necromancer-observed? That way I can pit living combatants in and have them reanimated directly if they don't get pulped.

That works somewhat but I found that having a separate zombie factory is more efficient. Of course if you manage to catch several necros you could have both.

This is what I'm currently doing with zombie production:

1. Have a large room filled with cage traps, with the necromancer chained somewhere with a view to each trapped square.
2. Dump zombifiable corpses and body parts on top of the cage traps, preferably just a single corpse for each tile.
3. Station a member of military within the view of the necromancer.
4. In one or two days the necromancer will notice the hostile soldier (my necro seems to be a bit brain damaged) and reanimates the entire roomful of corpses at once.
5. Zombies instantly get caught in cage traps, without harming anyone or getting harmed before capturing. Rinse and repeat.

Which reminds me: in your experience, are most fatal wounds to living combatants pulping hits to the upper body/head or "and tearing the brain" kinda hits? (important for deciding whether to drop things onto steel serrated disk traps then reanimate the gibs or using them as living dummies first). Also does rekilling sentient corpses seem to count for the "doesn't care about anything anymore" trait?

Children's little mitten clad fists are actually terrible blunt weapons so yes, most of the time they'll pulp their enemies into unreanimatable mess. I'd still recommend having them fight whole creatures/zombies rather than just animated pieces: reanimated hands get destroyed by one hit and zombie heads are indestructible. Better prepare an emergency flushdown mechanism so your students won't fight themselves to starvation.

I have just dumped everything dead to my zombie factory to see which parts reanimate, atom smashing everything that doesn't. It requires a lot of hauling but has worked very well, especially after goblin sieges.

I'm not sure about zombies causing desensitization; all my students are now at "doesn't care about anything anymore" level but that could have come from fighting live enemies as well. I have not observed that part very closely.

[Skullsploder]

Quick question: Is there any practical difference in skill gain between 10 training spears per tile and 1 training spear per tile? Because I'm using 1 spear per tile and I just realised I may be shooting myself in the foot. The spears are also mostly linked at this point, so changing them to 10 per tile would be a significant investment in time.

As to desensitisation and zombies, I suppose I'll just try and breed wild troglodites for replaceable sentient punching bags, as I've seen little sign of living invaders (a single goblin squad arrived once with a human siege announcement).

The way I've got my corpse processing set up at present is that a single necro sits on a raised platform behind a window. Ahead of him is a pit, then a wall on his level, then another hole leading to the pit, down which civilians can drop corpses without them being reanimated in their arms. Off to the necro's one side is another window behind which a military dwarf can be stationed for aggroing purposes. The pit is connected directly to the main fort via a long winding passage filled with cage traps (and ending with an excessive amount of serrated disks). HOPEFULLY I'll be able to fully automate the process of reanimation via a minecart stop set to dump down the hole.

I'm curious, what would your guys' opinion be of me using the corpses of the fort's own dwarves as training dummies before picking up the pulped pieces later to be entombed?

Oh and I should mention that I caught two of the necromancers while the other ran off the map so NECROBACON IS A GOOOOOOOOO!!! ...Once these pesky zombies wander off, that is.

[Staalo]

Quick question: Is there any practical difference in skill gain between 10 training spears per tile and 1 training spear per tile? Because I'm using 1 spear per tile and I just realised I may be shooting myself in the foot. The spears are also mostly linked at this point, so changing them to 10 per tile would be a significant investment in time.

Spear load is directly linked to training speed since each spear will equal one attack to dodge or deflect. Ten spears will train ten times faster than one but since it takes about eight months to train Dodge from zero to Legendary with five spears there should be plenty of time.

I'm curious, what would your guys' opinion be of me using the corpses of the fort's own dwarves as training dummies before picking up the pulped pieces later to be entombed?

I currently have two dead students in store, reanimated as an experiment. It seems it isn't possible to pit or move these citizen zombies so they are a lot harder to use as training material. I'd suggest just burying your own and using invaders and wildlife for zombification.

[Staalo]

...now that I've read this last page again I realize how terribly wrong some of these sentences could be misunderstood out of context.

[Dwarf4Explosives]

Wait, I've killed a lot of hydras.

*counts on fingers*

1
2
3
4
5
6
7

...why do your hydras have two more heads than mine?

Does that mean male hydras... oh god dammit Staalo I didn't wanna go down this road.

That's just wrong. Sigged.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

I used to strangle wild animals when I was thirsty and far from a town then drink while they were knocked out.

You're still talking about Dwarf Fortress, right? Right?

But, I suspect the fortress mode vampire AI will only use sleeping dwarves for feeding.

Sorry, I was just grabbing a drink, what were you saying?

Btw, do I have cat blood on my face?

*falls over dying from laughter*