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[Somebodyelse]

Giant animal people.

Elephant men, elephant seal men, rhinoceros men, etc.

They're so big they don't need weapons. Or since they're big enough to not be encumbered by it, (and I've never tried this so I don't know if it's possible) assign them to use statues as weapons, perferably ones made of gold, platinum or if possible slade.

[Achanei]

Giant animal people.

Elephant men, elephant seal men, rhinoceros men, etc.

They're so big they don't need weapons. Or since they're big enough to not be encumbered by it, (and I've never tried this so I don't know if it's possible) assign them to use statues as weapons, perferably ones made of gold, platinum or if possible slade.

I did note that giant sperm whale people are half the size of dragons, can wear weapons and all armor except boots and as vampires can live on land. not quite sure how one would infect those, however.

If they do, it's sturdy doors and emergency lever time. Speaking of which, is a werekangaroo close to dwarf size? If it is, maybe I can use that to test armored werebeast shock troops.

On another note---one of my livestock (A puppy) was bit by the beast (And had that leg ripped off...). Can livestock go werebeasty?

afaik nonsentients can't go were, no. the size (and material weakness) you can find in your world file (df/data/save/regionx/world.sav), along with all the other werecreature raws your world has.
Has anyone tested whether wereism via defiled temple generates a new curse type, or just applies a random exisitng one? I suspect the latter, but it would be interesting if it was the former.

There is a lot of potential for shenanigans using adventure retirement/unretire forts, according to this thread. It certainly makes animal men fortress guards possible, however as there are claims that adventurers are sterile at this time, that alone might not be a sustainable population.

Regarding helpful syndromes, I found one that causes a targeted body part to swell, I wonder if that could be used to speed up animal people population growth...
Jokes aside, this thread here revolves around poisoning equipment for biological warfare, that sounds like something every good military dictatorship needs.

[Insert_Gnome_Here]

As for biological warfare, I've just ordered several barrels of several venoms from the liaison. I'm going for an xbow-based fort, so i'll have to work out how to cover bolts efficiently.

[Achanei]

As for biological warfare, I've just ordered several barrels of several venoms from the liaison. I'm going for an xbow-based fort, so i'll have to work out how to cover bolts efficiently.

I've had terrible experience with crossbow squads climbing my rather high wall fortifications then dropping down into the moat outside of the fort during sieges - be wary. Apart from that, I do not know if the caravan-imported venoms actually do something, but if they do, you can produce those yourself as well (depending on your embark, but GCS and some others should always be obtainable).



I genned a world with 1000 werecreature types, and went through about 200 of them in the raws.

Observations:
The only material weaknesses found were copper, bronze, bismuth bronze, silver, iron and steel Those were varied even over same creature types, so there was a wererhinoceros type with copper weakness, and another one with steel weakness. similarly, eyecolor variation.
There is a variety of large-ish creature types that always had the same size in the analyzed data, like weremammoths with size 9 000 000, werebears with size 500 000 and so on. Curiously, weregoats at size 200 000 are twice as big as werewolves at size 100 000.
Apart from those, there is a large variety of smaller creatures and vermin (cats, mice, lizards, opossums, rats, badgers, and so on) that did not have consistently the same size for each creature, but all the sizes were ranging between 80 000 and 90 000. This leads to things like a species of weremice being (slightly) taller than werecats. There were multiple instances of the same base creature (like werelizards) with varying size, eyecolor and material weakness.

Another noteworthy thing was that were gila monsters have the gila monster poison syndrome as well as the normal weremonster syndrome, this was the only species I observed with an extra syndrome. However, there might be some other inherited attributes that could be useful, things like shells for weretortoises for defensive advantage. I do not know if there are actual advantages to having a shell.

Conclusions:
from the roughly 200 distinct creature types observed, I am fairly confident to conclude that other material weaknesses or sizes below 80 000 do not exist in vanilla DF. Large creatures seem to have a size hard-coded, everything else gets a randomized value between 80k and 90k.
Regarding material weakness, I assume bismuth bronze or steel are the most desirable.

This means that armored weredwarves are not going to happen in vanilla, assuming the armor size checks work based on the average size (which it seems to do, otherwise according to this we'd have about 2% giant dwarves that vastly outgrow the average human with a size of 93000 cm³, which would certainly not allow them to wear regular dwarven armor).
However, that does not mean our goals are unreachable - depending on armor size tolerance, we have to find creatures that are close to or exactly the size of their associated werecurse, which is certainly doable considering the enormous amount of animalmen we have acess to. werewolf-panda men do seem kind of silly, but who says a deadly military can't also be a strange furry fetish?

This latest proposal will require extensive testing in adventure mode, as soon as I get access to a stable DF machine I will create a world with a single werecreature type, paste in one of the vanilla-genned ones with a fitting size, play an according animalman and go kick some statues.

Giant animal people.

Elephant men, elephant seal men, rhinoceros men, etc.

I can't seem to find elephant people or rhinoceros people in the wiki, do you have size stats for them? I noticed some other animal people are not yet in the wiki as well.

[90908]

Is it possible to get gods in your tavern?

If so, I think we might have something to go on...

[Thorgrim Grudgebearer]

If I am not mistaken some werecreatures can equip weapons right? So if we can find the most resilient werecreature that can still equip weapons you could probably have a effective team of super were dwarfs. 

[Bumber]

However, there might be some other inherited attributes that could be useful, things like shells for weretortoises for defensive advantage. I do not know if there are actual advantages to having a shell.

If anything, it's an extra target to be hit that won't bleed.

[MoonyTheHuman]

However, there might be some other inherited attributes that could be useful, things like shells for weretortoises for defensive advantage. I do not know if there are actual advantages to having a shell.

If anything, it's an extra target to be hit that won't bleed.

Ya.. but fingernails... can be infected... so shells too possibly? this needs a little !!SCIENCE!!

[Bumber]

However, there might be some other inherited attributes that could be useful, things like shells for weretortoises for defensive advantage. I do not know if there are actual advantages to having a shell.

If anything, it's an extra target to be hit that won't bleed.

Ya.. but fingernails... can be infected... so shells too possibly? this needs a little !!SCIENCE!!

They're not going to stay weretortoise long enough for that to happen.

[Skullsploder]

Brown recluse spider men would also be a good addition to the fort because it would mean free silk lying around in the corridors, without exposing weavers to that oh-so-annoying cave spider bite.

What is their average size? If possible, the best weapon combo for them would probably be battleaxe + spear (or whip or pick) + crossbow + shieldx6. I have been having serious success in my current fort regarding crossbows with melee weapons - when there is no available path to the enemy, my dwarves will fire their crossbows, and when there is a path, they will charge into melee. The main caveat is that with both a barracks and an archery range available, they will almost always choose the barracks, so you have to either set up a live-training range in the barracks so they can periodically fire on prisoners or whatever, or ensure that they have plenty to shoot at while on guard duty by being in a savage biome/under siege/whatever.

[Achanei]

Brown recluse spider men would also be a good addition to the fort because it would mean free silk lying around in the corridors, without exposing weavers to that oh-so-annoying cave spider bite.

What is their average size? If possible, the best weapon combo for them would probably be battleaxe + spear (or whip or pick) + crossbow + shieldx6. I have been having serious success in my current fort regarding crossbows with melee weapons - when there is no available path to the enemy, my dwarves will fire their crossbows, and when there is a path, they will charge into melee. The main caveat is that with both a barracks and an archery range available, they will almost always choose the barracks, so you have to either set up a live-training range in the barracks so they can periodically fire on prisoners or whatever, or ensure that they have plenty to shoot at while on guard duty by being in a savage biome/under siege/whatever.

I seem to have succeeded in avoiding cave spider bite syndrome by capturing cave spiders via the kennels labor, taming them and subsequently releasing them (assign to cage, lever to open cage) in an enclosed room. This also has the advantage of significantly shortened distances for the weaver.

Brown recluse spider men have an average size of 35000, so they are significantly smaller than dwarves. According to the size list on the wiki, the only weapon they can wield one-handed without penalty are daggers, scourges and whips. Of course, the tallest BRS-men reach 54600 cm³, allowing them to wield any dwarven weapon one-handed, and the second size tier ranging 38500 cm³ to 45900 cm³ could still use short swords, hammers and maces without penalty. However, this would mean that assuming a linear population distribution, only 2% or or 23% respectively would be fit for military service.

edit: this is based on the assumption that animal people have the same body variations as other humanoids. In the raws for spider men themselves, I don't even find their size, this seems to be determined by the inheritance of the brown recluse spider raws combined with the [APPLY_CREATURE_VARIATION:ANIMAL_PERSON] tag. however, I do not know what this tag in particular does, my raw-fu is not that good.

On your weapon suggestion, are multiple shields still a thing? I thought that got fixed. training multiple weapon skills is certainly worth testing given that we are building an elite force, but my information so far has been that combining melee and ranged weapons has a tendency to end with crossbows being ineffectually used as hammers. in that case, going full melee seems advantageous, but I'd be happy to be proven wrong on that.

If I am not mistaken some werecreatures can equip weapons right? So if we can find the most resilient werecreature that can still equip weapons you could probably have a effective team of super were dwarfs. 

almost all or all werecreatures have hands and therefore the ability to wield weapons (opposable thumbs are not relevant in DF it seems), even though for the huge ones like were-elephants and mammoths those seem almost redundant, as they can punch extremely hard. the problem at hand, however, is that the super were dwarf will then revert back to dwarven form in the middle of a fight, naked and subsequently dead. That is why I am trying to get some military that doesn't drop their armor on transformation, either still using it in wereform (not that important) or at least still wearing it upon transforming back.

Is it possible to get gods in your tavern?

If so, I think we might have something to go on...

I have not heard any reports on encountering wandering gods or demons, so this doesn not seem likely. would be fun, though.

[Skullsploder]

I don't know if multi-shielding on one hand is still a thing, but my dwarves definitely equip crossbows and shields both in their left hand. So 6 shields meant 1 for each of the spider man's hands.

And the trick to multiple weapons:

Make sure that the uniform assigns first a melee weapon then their crossbow. This will result in ~4/5 of attacks being with the melee weapon in barely trained dwarves. It probably also helps that the value is way higher on the melee weapons (steel) than the crossbows (wood/copper).

Another thing that would probably help, but require some micromanagement, is to assign a new squad a melee only uniform, then individually assign crossbows as the dwarves hit competent in their melee skills (which would obviously need to not be hammerdwarf). It's possible that the highest skill melee weapon gets used, and if that's true, it would apply to training as well.

I recommend copper crossbows as they are the most likely to actually do something when urist decides a crossbow bash is better than chopping the thing in half with a steel axe.

[Achanei]

I don't know if multi-shielding on one hand is still a thing, but my dwarves definitely equip crossbows and shields both in their left hand. So 6 shields meant 1 for each of the spider man's hands.

And the trick to multiple weapons:

Make sure that the uniform assigns first a melee weapon then their crossbow. This will result in ~4/5 of attacks being with the melee weapon in barely trained dwarves. It probably also helps that the value is way higher on the melee weapons (steel) than the crossbows (wood/copper).

Another thing that would probably help, but require some micromanagement, is to assign a new squad a melee only uniform, then individually assign crossbows as the dwarves hit competent in their melee skills (which would obviously need to not be hammerdwarf). It's possible that the highest skill melee weapon gets used, and if that's true, it would apply to training as well.

I recommend copper crossbows as they are the most likely to actually do something when urist decides a crossbow bash is better than chopping the thing in half with a steel axe.

I will run some tests on thzis in the next days, very good information - might significanty improve the performance of crossbowdwarves. thanks!

Did check through the animal people data that is available on the wiki, besides the already mentioned werewolf-pandamen (size 100 000):
Kangaroo men (80 000)
Moose men (297 500), hooves, antlers (?)
Anaconda men (85 000)
Giant tortoise men (185 000), shell
Monitor lizard men (85 000)
Python men (135 000)
Sloth bear men (85 000)
Tapir men (135 000)
Tiger men (147 500)
Elephant seal men (1 535 000), amphibious
Harp seal men (117 500), amphibious
Leopard seal men (235 000) amphibious
Ostrich men (80 000)

Out of these candidates, those in the 80k - 90k range will be able to get a werecurse with the exact same size, the bigger ones all have somewhat less round numbers than the werecreatures, so there'd be a small size difference upon transformation. Both types of snake people on this list do not have a syndrome attack, sadly.
Special mention to the monitor lizard people, who are in the same size range as their corresponding werecreature - so it is possible to have monitor lizard men "A person with the head and tail of a monitor lizard." that transform into were monitors "A giant monitor lizard, twisted into humanoid form." for extra irony.
I will test the same-size transformation effect on armor as soon as possible, ideally we'd want the biggest creatures possible, but it might very well be that armor does not allow size variation at all (so that even the 147k tiger man turning into a 150k were-something could drop the armor). The only working cross-species armor I have observed is goblin - dwarf, and those are exactly the same size.

[Skullsploder]

I just remembered something.

Code: [Select]

oxoo
o.oo
D_.o
oo.o
oo_o

This is a side view.
o - wall
x - up/down stair
. - empty space
_ - floor
D - door

Make a burrow covering only the up/down stair at the top. Place an enemy of some kind at the bottom. Assign a squad to defend said burrow rather than training. They will fire down at the enemy and every single bolt they fire will miss and land on the floor directly in front of the door. A dwarf standing in front of the door will not see the enemy below. This means civilians can safely collect the bolts while the range is in use. Guaranteed archery training with no bolt loss and faster skill gain. I managed to get an entire fort to legendary in archery and marksdwarf using this. The downside is an avalanche of vengeful thoughts, so make sure you have a well stocked tavern and nice individual rooms for your dwarves, as well as some pretty statues. Also, be sure to smooth the shaft leading to the hostile, or use a hostile that can't climb, like a wild badger or something. And obviously don't use a flyer.

[Heretic]

PTW