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[FantasticDorf]

You missed my point - they DIDN'T have pet tokens, and weren't defined as pets in the entity - they were a caste of the civs main race which just had SLOW_LEARNER.

[USE_EVIL_CREATURES] has implicit influence of adding [COMMON_DOMESTIC] like acquisition behaviour and non interfacable pet/livestock tags & war training to trolls which conflicts with existing issues surrounding the creature's restrained but not total lack of intelligence when put in realised play sort of like how [PET] had to be added to beak dogs & unicorns (the good creature diametric) after the raiding update because they were being taken, unusable with weird hostilities because for a long time they were a AI civ only accessory designed to be a unreachable game-adversary rather than a equal creature codewise taken for its [MOUNT] tag and not much else by systems outside the player's space.

Edit - whoops i completely missed your message too, i just had to reread it to make sure and yeah, that's a really weird application of a caste.

Before i feel like someone pipes in, should we move this discussion to a DF general thread if this clutters the thread up too much.

Back onto FotF talk, like toady said about 'human' lumber camps or when systems like managing slaves or lesser intelligent creatures becomes good enough to build around and slap on a sticker calling it a mode i guess it'll be focused under a microscope.

[GoblinCookie]

The reason for most the differences that they are defined as pets in the entity, it does not have anything to do with their tokens.

You missed my point - they DIDN'T have pet tokens, and weren't defined as pets in the entity - they were a caste of the civs main race which just had SLOW_LEARNER. The "unarmed, unarmored, no last name" thing didn't happen with the non-slow learner castes. Civilized creatures tend to have both a first and last name regardless of their kills - obviously this didn't happen with those slow learner castes - some seemingly were treated the same way as trolls, others were normal recruits. So that's why I'm thinking there's something up with the slow learner token.

It has nothing to do with the tokens.  Creatures are either defined as citizens, or they are defined as pets, if they are not citizens then they are pets.  [PET] simple allows civilizations to take wild creatures as pets.  The naming thing is wield, it appears that all the two-headed ogres in your screenshot have double names but so do some of the single-headed ogres, but only the ones that were drafted into the military.  I think that this is may be a historical character thing, all intelligent historical characters get double barrel names but regular non-historicals only get given double names if they do not have [SLOW_LEARNER] and are intelligent.

Another possibility is that intelligent creatures that get promoted into historicals simply become citizens UNLESS they are [SLOW_LEARNER].

[FantasticDorf]

I've moved my reply to a dedicated general discussion thread where we can all go over slow-learners in unlimited length as to keep the FotF thread stable and not derailed.

[Werdna]

In the Great Crundle Encroachment of 140, a horde of crundles were harassing dwarves peacefully harvesting the caverns of all their valuable resources.  As the military thundered onto the scene to butcher the fiends, a lone Gem Cutter decided to join the fray and cornered a single crundle in the dark.  What started out as a wrestling match with the occasional biting turned decidedly nastier when the crundle exhausted.  What followed were 3 combat log pages of the Gem Cutter gouging the crundle's eyes out, over and over, with the occasional punch to the head.  Even after falling exhausted from his efforts, he would arise and repeat the vicious torture.  The horror ended when a passing soldier saw the scuffle and promptly separated the crundle's head from its body.

Any chance choking out an opponent could be added to the combat code for unarmed combat?

[Shonai_Dweller]

In the Great Crundle Encroachment of 140, a horde of crundles were harassing dwarves peacefully harvesting the caverns of all their valuable resources.  As the military thundered onto the scene to butcher the fiends, a lone Gem Cutter decided to join the fray and cornered a single crundle in the dark.  What started out as a wrestling match with the occasional biting turned decidedly nastier when the crundle exhausted.  What followed were 3 combat log pages of the Gem Cutter gouging the crundle's eyes out, over and over, with the occasional punch to the head.  Even after falling exhausted from his efforts, he would arise and repeat the vicious torture.  The horror ended when a passing soldier saw the scuffle and promptly separated the crundle's head from its body.

Any chance choking out an opponent could be added to the combat code for unarmed combat?

Choking is already part of unarmed combat.
When is that quote from? Never seen repeated eye gouging in fortress mode. Once an enemy is down it gets hit in the head until it's dead (or until the attacker collapses exhausted).

[Random_Dragon]

Choking is already part of unarmed combat.
When is that quote from? Never seen repeated eye gouging in fortress mode. Once an enemy is down it gets hit in the head until it's dead (or until the attacker collapses exhausted).

What they're getting at is they're suggesting that unarmed AI should be smart enough to figure out that, if punching an unconscious enemy in the head is doing jack shit, they should be able to switch to grabbing the throat (when the target has a throat) and strangling instead. Like how the AI will acknowledge that helmets are an impediment to head blows.

[Shonai_Dweller]

Choking is already part of unarmed combat.
When is that quote from? Never seen repeated eye gouging in fortress mode. Once an enemy is down it gets hit in the head until it's dead (or until the attacker collapses exhausted).

What they're getting at is they're suggesting that unarmed AI should be smart enough to figure out that, if punching an unconscious enemy in the head is doing jack shit, they should be able to switch to grabbing the throat (when the target has a throat) and strangling instead. Like how the AI will acknowledge that helmets are an impediment to head blows.

Isn't it mainly large beasts and crocodiles which can withstand thousands of repeated non-helmeted blows to the head? Not sure how well strangling a crocodile or a hippo would be (or indeed a crundle if the sketches online are anything to go by).

It's interesting for variety of course. Is it just that fortress ai chooses not to grab the throat, or that throat grabbing isn't an option for them at all?

[Random_Dragon]

Isn't it mainly large beasts and crocodiles which can withstand thousands of repeated non-helmeted blows to the head? Not sure how well strangling a crocodile or a hippo would be (or indeed a crundle if the sketches online are anything to go by).

As the quote that started this discussion implies, sometimes punching a critter's head in can fail hilariously even from smaller things like crundles.

Thing is that the AI CAN do strangling, but it's a complete crapshoot dependent on them grabbing the throat first, and they won't attempt to if the target is out cold.

[Shonai_Dweller]

Isn't it mainly large beasts and crocodiles which can withstand thousands of repeated non-helmeted blows to the head? Not sure how well strangling a crocodile or a hippo would be (or indeed a crundle if the sketches online are anything to go by).

As the quote that started this discussion implies, sometimes punching a critter's head in can fail hilariously even from smaller things like crundles.

3 combat log pages of the Gem Cutter gouging the crundle's eyes out, over and over, with the occasional punch to the head.

That's just bugged combat ai in general. If he'd battered the thing in the head repeatedly, it probably would have died. That's why I wondered what version this quote was from.

[Random_Dragon]

Hmm. Ah right, that does sound more like an AI issue. In that case one additional supporting step would be for the AI to acknowledge successful gouges and disengage the grab, which would be one good step in the right direction.

[Putnam]

Choking is already part of unarmed combat.
When is that quote from? Never seen repeated eye gouging in fortress mode. Once an enemy is down it gets hit in the head until it's dead (or until the attacker collapses exhausted).

What they're getting at is they're suggesting that unarmed AI should be smart enough to figure out that, if punching an unconscious enemy in the head is doing jack shit, they should be able to switch to grabbing the throat (when the target has a throat) and strangling instead. Like how the AI will acknowledge that helmets are an impediment to head blows.

Units have removed helmets before attacking the head of unconscious opponents for over a year.

[Random_Dragon]

Units have removed helmets before attacking the head of unconscious opponents for over a year.

...I know this is a thing, and has been a thing for a while. Why did you think I mentioned it?

[FantasticDorf]

Choking is already part of unarmed combat.
When is that quote from? Never seen repeated eye gouging in fortress mode. Once an enemy is down it gets hit in the head until it's dead (or until the attacker collapses exhausted).

What they're getting at is they're suggesting that unarmed AI should be smart enough to figure out that, if punching an unconscious enemy in the head is doing jack shit, they should be able to switch to grabbing the throat (when the target has a throat) and strangling instead. Like how the AI will acknowledge that helmets are an impediment to head blows.

Units have removed helmets before attacking the head of unconscious opponents for over a year.

Whether the player has any indication of that logic happening is a seperate issue. Helmet removing is a good feature to stop the inevitable, but most early opponents players face don't have armor and may just well be thick skinned and tough.

Still a matter of choosing the most effective armed or unarmed combination, or opting to switch/discard weapons i found through talking to other people to be a bit of a issue given material depth and strength. One person had a cornered scholar beat a cave toad unconscious with a book for ages with strikes to the head doing nil further damage in combat rather than probably adopting a more effective unarmed fighting stance to retarget something else like a teeth or hand grip to the throat to asphyxiate it.

[Werdna]

Choking is already part of unarmed combat.
When is that quote from? Never seen repeated eye gouging in fortress mode. Once an enemy is down it gets hit in the head until it's dead (or until the attacker collapses exhausted).

It is a dramatization of a recent fort combat.  Version is 43.05.  The gem cutter never attempted to choke out the unconscious crundle, he just repeatedly gouged the left eye or the right eye (with results of 'tearing the tissue' and something else that I forget), and only occasionally punching the head (I'd say roughly 1 out of 10 of the time, only bruising).  The gem cutter was unarmed of course.

What they're getting at is they're suggesting that unarmed AI should be smart enough to figure out that, if punching an unconscious enemy in the head is doing jack shit, they should be able to switch to grabbing the throat (when the target has a throat) and strangling instead. Like how the AI will acknowledge that helmets are an impediment to head blows.

Spot on.  Seems to me that choking them out would get lethal results faster than gouging eye sockets when unarmed.     With dwarves smart enough to remove a helmet to get a faster kill, it seems like it'd make sense that that logic could maybe be extended to going for a choke when unarmed.  Sorry if that wasn't clear. 

Ideally we'd want to see combatants attempt various lethal methods, even if some of them are rare, to break endless combat loops where they are doing something ineffective (like that scholar banging away with a book).

[Random_Dragon]

In this case the likely issue isn't quite that punching is ineffective (AI should still be able to re-use the "am I getting results" check that goes into testing for when to remove helmets), in your specific issue is that it seems once the AI has randomly scored a grab on the head, they will spam gouges longer after the eyes are disabled, even after the target passes out.

In which case, the prescribed medicine is for the AI to acknowledge when they've succeeded in gouging out all USEFUL targets (gouging the tongue and other ineffective parts could maybe be allowed to continue based on attacker's cruelty value, but should be applied sparingly), and tell the AI to let go of the target's head after all eyes have been gouged.