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[Deathworks]

Hi!

More news from my current fortress, this time something completely different.

I read a lot of people saying that cats are useless or even a nuisance, but I love to have them around, and they are not as bad as people say.

Anyhow, the first incident involved a male kitten that had already become a pet to a farmer, I think. As it was inside the fortress near the entrance, a kobold thief appeared, running towards the fortress entrance. Without hesitating, the kitten ran towards the criminal, confronted him and made him stop in his tracks. They exchanged blows, and while neither was hurt, it did cause the kobold to stop giving some angry civilian dwarf to tell him to get off our property.

However, when the dwarf let go of the kobold, he wasn't quite dead yet. Seriously wounded and on his knees, but still alive. Seeing his chance, the valiant kitten jumped at the kobold and finished him off. (I know that the kobold probably simply bled to death from the injuries caused by the dwarf, but it really looked as if the kitten killed him).

A little while later, I noticed a seriously injured female kitten. I don't know the circumstances of her injury, but it may have been during that frogman raid I had experienced. After seeing that my civilians did a good job at turning them into paste without even getting a scratch, I didn't pay much attention to them and only checked if any reached the river so that I might have to draft a dwarf to finish them off (with no sieges in sight, I don't have a military besides the Sheriff).

Anyhow, the kitten had yellow injuries on her right rear leg and pawn, a light grey injury on her neck and a red injury on her head. She would walk around the entrance and the meeting hall area, falling unconscious every few steps.

I really felt sorry for her, so I first tried if I could get a dwarf to take care of her (I knew she wouldn't recover, but if someone could at least feed her and put her at ease). So, I stripped a peasant of all jobs, including hauling and gave him only animal handling/training and health care, but alas, he wouldn't even look at her.

As I couldn't bear it, I decided that sending her to the capital where there may be people who treat her better would be the best choice. So I forged a silver cage, made it a building - and ran into a major annoyance in the game: The list of animals you could cage doesn't allow you to view the animal! So, I had a list of 6 or 7 "stray tame kittens" with no hint which was which. To make matters worse, while the kitten was inside the cage, I couldn't check on it either.

So, it took me about an hour and many tries to eventually catch the right kitten (just to make matters worse, it was main harvesting season, so making five more cages was illusory as all dwarves were in the fields). But eventually I succeeded and was able to send her of to a hopefully brighter future.

I really hope that caging will be improved. And why won't dwarves name cats and kittens? Even if the cats don't accept the names, they can still be used to identify them.

Deathworks

[herrbdog]

You really, really don't live up to your name.  

[Sappho]

I modded my game to make cats trainable.  Now they're as ferocious as dogs and not helpless kittens.  Believe me, I have four cats, and they are far from helpless!  Realistic game my foot.

[Deathworks]

Hi!

Well, I came up with that name years ago, and it actually laments that which I cannot change.

Anyhow, even without making any changes to the game, cats really rock. Currently, I have three named cats in my fortress! As far as I know, cats do not get names when they become pets, so they can only have earned them via kills, right?

And indeed, while I am still not sure about the incident with the kitten, yesterday, there was another incident:

A kobold thief tried to get into my fortress. Once again, it got spotted in the entrance area and three cats and a civilian stepped in to show him the way out. However, the civilian quickly decided to stay away, but the cats were more determined. They fought the kobold and killed him without any outside assistance, although one of the cats gave her life in that battle. It was a bit annoying to see that some useless mutt that drowned when trying to hunt racoons gets its own coffin, but that cat who bravely forfitted her life for the fortress simply got dumped in a refuse pile. At least they did not butcher her corpse ... That would have made me really angry.

I also noted that the cats are more territorial than the dogs. I had one kobold who saw the animals charging at him and made for a quick getaway without a fight (it seems my cats have a reputation ). Anyhow, it was a mixed group following the kobold. But once he was a few tiles away from the mountain, the cats decided that this wasn't fun anymore and returned to the fortress while the dogs pressed on (they didn't catch him, of course, useless as usual).

Another kobold seemingly tried to sneak along the mountain side and unfortunately ran into a kitten that was taking a walk there. The monster cornered the kitten and seriously wounded it before running away. The kitten moved towards the entrance of the fortress, the health care cross flashing, but before it arrived there or any help could be given, it suffocated (T_T)

Well, occasionally, dogs do somehow end up in the kobolds' way and one puppy got caught up in a fight with a kobold leaving the canine seriously wounded. I think it still wanders/crawls through the fortress, though I haven't really been watching out for it (yes, I do have some preferences in the animal kingdom). And since it is a pe(s)t, I can't even cage it and sell it off. Well, at least the dwarves seem to ignore it.

Deathworks

[Rakoth]

That's almost touching.  Poor refuse-piling kit.  Did'joo make certain that all the available coffins were marked to allow animals?  Or is it pets...  And if it is pets, do stray animals count for that?  Might be why.

[Deathworks]

Hi!

Yes, I did have empty coffins ready for burial of both civilians and pets (that's what the setting is). After the first death in the fortress, I built a small burial chamber with maybe 11 coffins or so, and only half of them are filled/claimed right now.

It may very well be that the cat was stray; in that fortress, the cats and kittens seem to be reluctant to adopt people, although, eventually they do. However, I am wondering. Even pet cats don't have names (which is why I was surprised about seeing named cats all of a sudden). Won't that be a problem as far as claiming a coffin is concerned? I mean the moment a dog becomes a pet, it gets a name which will be shown when you check the coffin once it got itself killed.

Deathworks

[Angela Christine]

Cats don't become pets, dwarfs become pets.  :p

I like the cats too, at least until my game slows to a crawl, because they wander around all the time.  Dogs are usually hanging out behind a specific dwarf, but the cats are all over the place.  That means that the cats are usually the first ones to trigger any ambushes and to spot any sneakers.  

Having too many cats can cut down on silk production, because they kill some of the spiders, but I've never found that to be a big problem.  By the time I need to start seriously thinking about cloth production my farms are ready to make all the pig tails I need, and pig tails are better than silk.  A dwarf in the farmer's workshop can whip up pig tail thread faster than a weaver can wander up and down the river collecting spider webs, and he does it without getting bitten by spiders or ambushed by cave crocodiles.

[Tarrasque]

The only real reason I do not like having cats around is that they are nastilly efficient killing machines of cave spiders. So, there goes my source of silk as they are slaughtered about my fortress left and right. Hehe, dern cats.

[Deathworks]

Hi!

Tarrasque: Wouldn't keeping the doors to any river banks tightly closed (= not pet-passable) be sufficient to prevent most of the spider killing? As far as I remember, the spiders like to hang around the river.

Thus far, I still have spider silk popping up in my fortress, but then again, my cat population is still relatively small (but we are working on it).

Has anyone ever seen a cat buried in a coffin?

Having a few named cats makes me "optimistic", so I hope that in a few years, when the named cats die of old age, I will actually see them get a proper burial as befits them. (Of course, I don't really want them to die, but if they do die, they should get a proper burial).

Deathworks

[Eagle of Fire]

Pets who get a name will get a burial if you select "yes" at the coffin option for pets.

Unnamed pets will simply be left to rot in the refuse pile.

Pets usually get a name after they kill an ennemy or an agressive wilderness animal.

[Tarrasque]

quote:Originally posted by Deathworks:
<STRONG>Hi!

Tarrasque: Wouldn't keeping the doors to any river banks tightly closed (= not pet-passable) be sufficient to prevent most of the spider killing? As far as I remember, the spiders like to hang around the river.

Thus far, I still have spider silk popping up in my fortress, but then again, my cat population is still relatively small (but we are working on it).

Deathworks</STRONG>

The real problem with that is the cats can still pass through the door when dwarves go through them and since to have any decent amount of traffic across areas you need multiple doors that means cats can get anywhere they damned well please. Which means dead spiders to me. Soo, I will just stick with lots and lots of dogs for now.  

[utunnels]

One of my dog (not hunt dog or war dog), killed 2 wolves and got killed by the third wolf 5 minutes ago.    :confused:

[ August 09, 2007: Message edited by: utunnels ]

[Deathworks]

Hi!

Tarrasque: I know about the pet following dwarf trick they use. Originally, I made my food chamber a no-pet-area, but after getting the mule (!) stuck in there repeatedly, I decided it wasn't worth the bother.

However, is your river-shore such a high-traffic area? I mean, okay, where you bridge it to get to the deeper reaches, there will be quite a bit of traffic, but around the mill or other minor things, I wouldn't expect that much traffic.

I kind of gave up on dogs after my first hunter died within his first working year. He had two dogs assigned to accompany him. But that didn't stop a cougar from killing him in the first year.

And seeing how a pet dog (I didn't buy any dogs in that fortress, they were imported by immigrants) fell into a channel and drowned when trying to fight some racoons hasn't really helped boost my confidence in them either. As far as I can tell, it tried to attack a racoon on the other side of the channel - so it wasn't the racoons pushing the dog into the channel but rather the dog jumping to its death all by itself - I guess Toady's game is really realistic.

No, I stay with cats and kittens.

Deathworks

[Tarrasque]

I build as much of my fortress as I can in between the river and the Chasm. This means that anyone who goes out or just roams around goes over my large bridge to the river. Now this will become less of a problem when I finnally get my dinning hall area setup since everyone will hang out there instead of roaming around. I also have a lot of carrying jobs for gathering wood that I had my carpenter chop down all winter. So, there is a lot of traffic there. I'd show you a picture, but, it looks kinda crappy right now. My experience with dogs is nothing, but, positive and I have not had any of my dwarves angry about vermin, although, they do smash them every now and again, ehehe.

[Angus the goblin killer.]

Cats are awsome! I had a cat who fell in the river but manged to survie for around a minute and swim back to the bridge (which by the way was 4 tiles away) which is way longer than any dwarf and overall says that cats are the best!

Can Toady make Cat Fortress?