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[vexxice]

Just like the topic says, I have a ridiculously large amount of caged prisoners and I need to get rid of most of them. I'm looking for quick and easy ways that do not pose a large risk to my dwarves.

My initial method of mass murder was drowning, but unfortunately one cannot drown a creature in a cage, and I do not have the patience or the resources to link a lever to all of those cages.

My OTHER method of mass murder was a pit over a cavern lake. This works, but dwarves are frequently attacked by the creature they are moving to the pit.

I could atom smash the cages, but it took so damn long to make 100s of cages that I really don't want to throw them away.

Does anyone have a suggestion to improve the methods above or perhaps a new idea?

[PatrikLundell]

You may try to cram all the prisoner into a single cage and then either smash the cage or hook a lever to it and release the prisoners into an atom smasher or drowning chamber. It's dwarfier, and cleaner to use a green glass cage hooked up with a gabbro mechanism and release the cage in a magma filled room, though.

My normal execution method is to build the victim cage (one at a time, if need be) at the end of a 43 tile long corridor. The next tile is a pressure plate activated by everything but citizens. Thereafter I have 4 10 tile long raising drawbridges (raising away from the cage) hooked up to both the pressure plate and a lever outside the area (an override is occasionally needed when the victim(s) keep standing on the pressure plate). Outside of that I have a door I lock before pulling the lever than releases the cage (to keep dorfs from walking in and getting smashed).

Moving the prisoners between cages may still carry some risk, but if the distance is short you can have your militia stationed there, so they can respond quickly.
Also be careful about relocating a lot of prisoners at a time, since one getting lose may cause others to get lose as well, as their haulers panic. And, finally, don't do prisoner hauling around the time caravans are due: I've had a lot of incidents (with animals) that are let out of their cages and then NOT hauled to the butchery. Not much of a problem if they're trained, but I don't want to try that with a cyclops. Also, I get stupid spam about failure to haul junk to the trade depot due to handling of a dangerous animal from the butcher who abandoned the job halfway though, only to fail at both jobs.

[Aussiemon]

More of a future solution, unless you don't care about your existing cages (EDIT: I see that you do):

• Dedicate a carpenter's workshop to wooden cage production.
• Restrict that workshop to no-talent carpenters.
• Dump the reject cages into the magma sea, or lesser body of magma.

This solution has the benefit of being fast. You would not need to set up cages as buildings, nor produce mechanisms. The speed in disposal would make up for the time needed to create more, I'd think. The drawback is the increased wood consumption.

[Skorpion]

Have a stockpile set up by the pit you want them thrown in. 99% of the hauling will then be done in cages.

Then station a squad of military nearby while you begin the pitting, to catch any escapees.

[NW_Kohaku]

Personally, I would just strip weapons from them and have my dwarves fight them for live training purposes unless they were a truly dangerous threat to even an armored dwarf.  In that case, I would probably want to keep the cage held back and open it on a wave of zombies. Naked goblins are no threat to a steel-armored dwarf, and it gives perfectly good axedwarf training.

[Dunamisdeos]

Personally, I would just strip weapons from them and have my dwarves fight them for live training purposes unless they were a truly dangerous threat to even an armored dwarf.  In that case, I would probably want to keep the cage held back and open it on a wave of zombies. Naked goblins are no threat to a steel-armored dwarf, and it gives perfectly good axedwarf training.

This, to me, is the easiest and most efficient solution. I generally have a pit that the goblins get chucked into after being stripped of danger, whereupon the dwarf in question is unleashed from a separate room/airlock.

[Shurikane]

I had the same woes as you recently.  Together with other Bay Watchers, we developed the following solution.  It was made to dispose of prisoners, while keeping their gear available for looting, and while keeping the cages available to be used again.

DWARVEN DEATH PIT (MINIMAL VERSION)

• Prepare a chamber.  It must be 5x5 tiles, and 2 Z-levels high.  The floor of the upper Z-level must have been dug out.  This'll be the Death Room.
• Above the chamber, prepare a room of any size (3x3 minimum).  We'll call it the Prep Room.
• In the middle of the Prep Room, channel one tile, build a hatch cover onto the hole, and forbid it.
• Around that hatch cover, put an animal stockpile that's 3x3 tiles, this way every space of the stockpile touches the hatch cover from any direction.
• Setup another animal stockpile elsewhere, and set it to Give To Pile, specifically to the stockpile in the Prep Room.  Make sure to set up a lockable entry point to the animal stockpile there, as you want your dwarves to be forced to use the Prep Room stockpile in specific circumstances.  More on that further below.
• Arm your Death Room with whatever you choose.  Weapon traps are the ideal middle ground in terms of ease of setup, and maintenance.  Take note however that some of your enemies might be able to dodge weapon tracks endlessly, thus forcing you to eventually open up the Death Room and have the militia finish off the stragglers.  Magma is another option, but then again some rare foes can easily live submerged in magma.

With the above design, you can designate your foes for pitting.  Lock the door to any other animal stockpiles (if you're like me and you select the entire list, then de-select whatever wasn't pitted afterwards.)  Your dwarves will take your prisoners, and somehow shove them through the forbidden hatch cover, down into the Death Room.  Because some foes can climb, the Death Room was made large enough that enemies can't climb back up the hole, and high enough that they can't fight back from below.  Enemy escapes are also made exceedingly rare, and only in the event that a dwarf somehow gets interrupted or attacked while trying to pit a creature.


DWARVEN DEATH PIT (ADVANCED VERSION)

• Prepare a Prep Room and a Death Room much like you'd do above.  However, this time, make the Death Room as large as you desire.  The bigger the Death Room, the more quickly you'll be able to put your prisoners.
• Your Prep Room will contain several zones, each of 5x5 size.  Each zone will have one hole with a forbidden hatch cover, surrounded by an animal stockpile, and thus there will be at least a tile's width of space between each drop-zone if you will.  Make just one big animal stockpile, and then remove pieces of it until you're left with the desired layout.

With this design, you can pit enemies much more efficiently, by the dozens instead of only by the eights.  Making the Prep Room large enough may even remove the need for a giver stockpile.



THAT SAID!

Considering how cumbersome mass-disposal maneuvers have become lately, I recommend a more expeditive approach: a glorious battle between your militia and the invading force!  If your dwarves are well-trained and numerous enough, they'll be able to take on a full-sized siege with but the occasional loss every few years or so.  I suggest this approach if your focus shifts towards managing other areas of the fort.

[PatrikLundell]

My experience from 0.40.24 pitting is that when mass pitting from the 8 surrounding tiles either none of the victims gets free, or all of them do (and this despite the first one having been properly dealt with before the next hauler comes around, so it's not due to disturbance by fighting). I thus ended up pitting the victims one at a time for minimum civilian harm, as well as keeping the militia stationed in the pitting area during the whole process.
A suggestion from the forum was that breaking free might be dependent on the pitter dwarf's strength, but I found no such correlation.

[zilpin]

I used to have this problem.

Then I decided that the cause was over use of cage traps.

Now I only use cage traps as my last line of defense (or to catch wild life), with weapon traps as first line, militia as second, warbeasts third.

Problem solved.

[PatrikLundell]

I used to have this problem.

Then I decided that the cause was over use of cage traps.

Now I only use cage traps as my last line of defense (or to catch wild life), with weapon traps as first line, militia as second, warbeasts third.

Problem solved.

No. You replaced the problem of stripping prisoners and pitting them with the (in my opinion) greater problems of:
- Ensuring the corpses are out of the way before any sensitive caravan eyes land on them.
- Hauling off the corpses and the corresponding stress (much reduced in 0.42.X, so it might no longer be much of a factor).
- Hauling off all the stuff strewn all over the battlefield. Not only does this take time from doing useful stuff in the fortress, but the haulers are also vulnerable to any hostiles that may show up. If battle takes place inside the lines of defense the risk is reduced, however.

[vexxice]

Personally, I would just strip weapons from them and have my dwarves fight them for live training purposes unless they were a truly dangerous threat to even an armored dwarf.  In that case, I would probably want to keep the cage held back and open it on a wave of zombies. Naked goblins are no threat to a steel-armored dwarf, and it gives perfectly good axedwarf training.

This, to me, is the easiest and most efficient solution. I generally have a pit that the goblins get chucked into after being stripped of danger, whereupon the dwarf in question is unleashed from a separate room/airlock.

My original idea was to pit the prisoners against forgotten beasts, cyclops etc. . The problem is, the naked goblins form a circle around their enemy and repeatedly punch it, it can't get any hits in because it is constantly giving in to pain. This makes my arena really boring.

[zilpin]

No. You replaced the problem of stripping prisoners and pitting them with the (in my opinion) greater problems of:
- Ensuring the corpses are out of the way before any sensitive caravan eyes land on them.
- Hauling off the corpses and the corresponding stress (much reduced in 0.42.X, so it might no longer be much of a factor).
- Hauling off all the stuff strewn all over the battlefield. Not only does this take time from doing useful stuff in the fortress, but the haulers are also vulnerable to any hostiles that may show up. If battle takes place inside the lines of defense the risk is reduced, however.

1) The wagon has a separate, much longer entrance path.  Attackers always take the short path first, which is where i handle them. Also have a "dummy" depot.
2) I leave them to rot on the battle field.  Everything is forbidden by default.  The battle field is not on the wagon path.
3) Yes, battle (and traps) are within walls, past a drawbridge.  Eventually i build a primary and secondary attack route, both shorter than the caravan route, which can independently be locked down to permit item recovery or flanking the enemy.  Eventually I build a "quick access" alternate lockable path to battle fields for cleanup, which is usually locked down and leads directly to my last line of defense (warbeasts, cages).

Invasions are not frequent enough to worry about having another while picking up goblinite.  Maybe that will bite me eventually.


I have time to build this because i set a pop cap of 19 until I have enough infrastructure to handle more.
Once basic secure defenses are in place i increase the cap to 49.

[PatrikLundell]

No. You replaced the problem of stripping prisoners and pitting them with the (in my opinion) greater problems of:
- Ensuring the corpses are out of the way before any sensitive caravan eyes land on them.
- Hauling off the corpses and the corresponding stress (much reduced in 0.42.X, so it might no longer be much of a factor).
- Hauling off all the stuff strewn all over the battlefield. Not only does this take time from doing useful stuff in the fortress, but the haulers are also vulnerable to any hostiles that may show up. If battle takes place inside the lines of defense the risk is reduced, however.

1) The wagon has a separate, much longer entrance path.  Attackers always take the short path first, which is where i handle them. Also have a "dummy" depot.
2) I leave them to rot on the battle field.  Everything is forbidden by default.  The battle field is not on the wagon path.
3) Yes, battle (and traps) are within walls, past a drawbridge.  Eventually i build a primary and secondary attack route, both shorter than the caravan route, which can independently be locked down to permit item recovery or flanking the enemy.  Eventually I build a "quick access" alternate lockable path to battle fields for cleanup, which is usually locked down and leads directly to my last line of defense (warbeasts, cages).

Invasions are not frequent enough to worry about having another while picking up goblinite.  Maybe that will bite me eventually.


I have time to build this because i set a pop cap of 19 until I have enough infrastructure to handle more.
Once basic secure defenses are in place i increase the cap to 49.

You still have the problem of caravan animal haulers that might take the shorter routes, and thus get spooked, unless you block those on caravan arrival and departure.

[zilpin]

Yes, block when the caravan arrives, then unblock once the camels etc are on the right path.
If i even bother.

My fortress is always very self sufficient.
Typically the only things i'm trading for are ore and flux, or metal when rich enough.

Eventually a fortress gets so rich that everyone has masterwork steel armor, all the roads are made from gold bars, all the traps have masterwork steel weapons, and the only use a caravan is for me is to act as a garbage disposal.