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[flight]

The wiki says that you can move dangerous creatures between cages. I try to do this by building one cage, and then assigning the creature to it. Unfortunately he always gets out and is rather pissed off.

The wiki says something about having the cages close. Does this mean I have to set a 1x1 stockpile of that animal type right next to the cage I want to transfer to so that I can get my dwarfs to make them adjacent? How do I know they will move the right one? I tend to capture many of the same animal type at a time.

Right now I am trying to consolidate an elephant herd into one cage behind fortifications, link it to a lever and open it, and then have my archers do some target practice.

[BurnedToast]

Clever idea with the elephant target practice, shooting them gives marksdwarves alot of exp.

why not just build the cages the elephants are already in, then link them all up to a lever? it will take longer and use more mechanisms, but it should save you the trouble of transferring.

Otherwise.. I think they just have to be fairly close, try making an animal stockpile set only to accept elephants surrounding the cage you want them in, like  this:

code:

   
                 =====  
                 =====
                 ==X==
                 =====
                 =====        

and make sure all the elephants are in the stockpile, then transfer them 1 by 1. Be sure to have marksdwarves nearby in case something goes wrong!

[ktrey]

The only time I've ever been able to successfully move two hostiles into one cage was by building the respective cages (b, j) next to each other.

I'm not sure it works if the cages are unbuilt and in stockpiles.

[flight]

Damn, that is what I was afraid of. It will make the process much more of a pain and take a great deal longer.

Oh, and is a mechanism attached to a cage a one time thing or can you open and close the cage with the mechanism?

[Pacho]

Its a one time thing.  Once you open the cage with a mechanism, it gets deconstructed and you get the empty cage and the mechanism that was attached to it.  The mechanism on the lever remains on the lever though.

[oksir]

Transferring creatures between cages depends a lot on the type of creature. Goblin soldiers and trolls are always transferred just fine, while goblin thiefs and animals often break free.

[flight]

My animal handler is an idiot. I build two cages with elephants perfectly adjacent to each other and tell him to move one elephant to the other cage. What does he do? He gets third cage, brings it over, puts the elephant in that, brings it back to a stockpile, then frees the elephant. Imbecile.

My animal handler is just dabbling, so maybe that has something to do with it. All of my competent handlers met terrible ends trying this.

[ktrey]

Check the contents of your cages carefully by viewing them.

Remember, that assigning creatures from cage to cage doesn't necessarily require levers. When you choose to Assign, creatures with a plus sign next to them are currently in that cage, and other creatures can be assigned by simply putting the plus sign next to them.

I don't believe that animal skills have anything to do with the transfer, as any dwarf with animal hauling enabled will try to move the creatures.

[flight]

Yup, I only tell them to transfer when the two cages are built adjacent. As I said in my earlier post though, they still screw it up. Also, I believe an animal will have the plus sign by its name if it has been assigned to the cage but not yet transferred, as well as those who are already there.