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[StupidElves]

I think the title says it all. Are giant mantises good for war animals? I've got a few in cage traps and I'm hoping that they'll be great for killing elves and gobbos.

[Tacomagic]

I think the title says it all. Are giant mantises good for war animals? I've got a few in cage traps and I'm hoping that they'll be great for killing elves and gobbos.

Never tried them, to be honest.

But, like a lot of animals, they probably won't hold up well if the enemy is well equipped.  Killing elves largely depends on how many archers there are.  If the animal can close to Melee, it's got a fighting chance since elves are poorly armored.

Goblins are a different story.  Their metal armor makes them very resistant to animals, even big ones.  That said, some of the giant animals are still relatively effective, espeically if backed up with archer support.

But there is a larger problem here.  Giant Mantis only live for 1 year.  Because of that, it takes a lot of micro-management to keep their population going since any one mantis is only ever going to live long enough to produce one clutch of offspring.

You could plop the whole set down in a single room and keep them breeding at will, but the FPS hit you're gonna take will probably not be worth it.

There are only a few vermine giants that are worth keeping around, but most of those only ever show up in groups of 1, so getting a breeding population going is difficult at best.  The only one that is relatively easy to get your hands on is giant flying squirrels since they spawn in groups of 3-5, but they only appear in temperate forests.

There is a final problem here.  Mantis are not agressive.  As such, they will tend to flee from combat, rather than stick around. You could fix this by modding their raws to allow them to be trained as war Mantis.

[TheHossofMoss]

What I would like to do is this: So do you remember as a child, when you found that praying mantis and put him in a jar? Well, how about we remake this in Dwarf Fortress? Construct a several z-level wide and tall glass "jar!"

Then feed your Giant Mantis bugs (naked goblins), and watch the hilarity ensue!

[Nirreln]

The wiki says they are not good war animals, http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Giant_mantis. The main problem is they aren't trainable. Giant tigers, or any other great cat on the other hand would be great.

[StupidElves]

The wiki says they are not good war animals, http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Giant_mantis. The main problem is they aren't trainable. Giant tigers, or any other great cat on the other hand would be great.

Aw, damn. I was really hoping that they would make good war animals. I mean, they're mantises! They are amazing predators.

[Button]

My personal mods include LARGE_PREDATOR, TRAINABLE giant mantises, and oh lord Armok. They are terrifying. They've essentially got giant spears for hands.

[thegoatgod_pan]

The wiki says they are not good war animals, http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Giant_mantis. The main problem is they aren't trainable. Giant tigers, or any other great cat on the other hand would be great.

Aw, damn. I was really hoping that they would make good war animals. I mean, they're mantises! They are amazing predators.

Large insects make terrible war animals for one main reason: giant insects have normal insect lifespans: they always die after a year passes.

You can mod this, and mod them to be trainable as pets and war animals if you really want giant bug fortress to work, but in default raws they are a bad investment: lots of effort for something that will die on the first day of spring*. 

*at least that is how it worked before the last release, now it might have changed due to calendar etc.

[StupidElves]

Anyone else think that there should be a mod made for specifically training giant insects/arachnids and making them viable for breeding/hunting/war? Perhaps increased life spans and realistic egg numbers?

[Button]

Anyone else think that there should be a mod made for specifically training giant insects/arachnids and making them viable for breeding/hunting/war? Perhaps increased life spans and realistic egg numbers?

This was all included in the old Modest Mod, but it hasn't had a 0.40 release yet. In the meantime, you can find these features and a few others in my raws.

[senilking]

.

[Baffler]

A quick arena test confirms their extreme deadliness in combat, with their apparent default attack, "snatch" routinely severing goblin limbs. It also still manages to tear the muscle through copper armor with some regularity. They even manage to tear the muscle through iron, though rarely. You've got yourself a pretty big asset here. I'm using Stahl's Armory mod though, so armor is less protective. I think you can still count on them to do serious damage to unarmored opponents, and remain a credible threat against elves or goblins on the crappier end of their equipment spectrum.

[StupidElves]

Anyone else think that there should be a mod made for specifically training giant insects/arachnids and making them viable for breeding/hunting/war? Perhaps increased life spans and realistic egg numbers?

This was all included in the old Modest Mod, but it hasn't had a 0.40 release yet. In the meantime, you can find these features and a few others in my raws.

Alright, thanks. I'll be looking through those.

I have been thinking of uploading a few of my pet mods to DFFD, and I'm thinking of including improved raws for giant insects with them. What about something like a trainable Giant Desert Scorpion? Those deadly?

[ImagoDeo]

Anyone else think that there should be a mod made for specifically training giant insects/arachnids and making them viable for breeding/hunting/war? Perhaps increased life spans and realistic egg numbers?

This was all included in the old Modest Mod, but it hasn't had a 0.40 release yet. In the meantime, you can find these features and a few others in my raws.

Alright, thanks. I'll be looking through those.

I have been thinking of uploading a few of my pet mods to DFFD, and I'm thinking of including improved raws for giant insects with them. What about something like a trainable Giant Desert Scorpion? Those deadly?

Very.

[pisskop]

Does anybody know of a simple mod that adds sensible training tags to creatures?

I could probably be bothered to whip one up when I transition to the new version, but is there one already?

[Tacomagic]

A quick arena test confirms their extreme deadliness in combat, with their apparent default attack, "snatch" routinely severing goblin limbs. It also still manages to tear the muscle through copper armor with some regularity. They even manage to tear the muscle through iron, though rarely. You've got yourself a pretty big asset here. I'm using Stahl's Armory mod though, so armor is less protective. I think you can still count on them to do serious damage to unarmored opponents, and remain a credible threat against elves or goblins on the crappier end of their equipment spectrum.

I did a vanilla test.  6 giant Mantis vs. 3 adequately skilled goblins in basic copper equipment.

In three runs of the same scenario, none of the goblins died and they managed to kill all 6 mantis each time.  There were several broken bones leading to unconsciousness on the goblin's side, but nothing lethal.  If you had enough mantis to swarm the gobs and knock them all out with broken bones, then you could probably stave off an entire wave, but your mantis losses would be pretty high.

Stahl's Armory Mod appears to really make a huge difference here.