After running modifications for a period of time, if you were going to use sentient creatures at all, i highly recommend that you have DFhack to cover any problems and DO NOT, attempt to gui-edit sentient tamable creatures to any extensive degree because they are hard work and will almost never function properly.
* Core problem being that if the creature is
NOT related to one of your embarked-with creatures, they will not have a historical figure entry, which makes later things like assigning a name (done via gui-hacking) pointless. They will also have no predisposed entity values besides those that they learn on site reading books if they're open minded enough to do so, so converting gorlaks with hacking tools is pointless for instance until you recieve offspring most likely.
*Try as you might, you can't presently just slot in a new historical entry for a creature on the spot by typing some numbers in advance into a field, it needs to be staged appropriately so it is in order and importantly not overlapping with any of the 1000 other or so historicals you can't see off map.
You can substitute this by embarking with only female members of your captive sentient race (trolls let say), handle them normally, then use captured male trolls from the caverns as mates either by taming them further on the basis that Troll breeding habits are very relaxed like animals into contact breeding rather than dedicated marriage.
- For this step you might want to alter the tags around the rate of troll maturity and remove the baby stage so that a mother can support many children within her lifetime. Trolls really don't care about genetics so bundle as many in together and make notice of which trolls are wild and which are not bloodline wise.
On the subject of how to obtain trolls [ANIMAL] tags work fine and, ANIMAL_ALWAYS_PRESENT substitutes [COMMON_DOMESTIC] entirely, while [ANIMAL_NEVER_PET] will stop off site citizens bringing pet trolls.
[ANIMAL]
[ANIMAL_TOKEN:TROLL]
[ANIMAL_NEVER_MOUNT]
[ANIMAL_NEVER_WAGON_PULLER]
[ANIMAL_ALWAYS_SIEGE]
[ANIMAL_NEVER_PET]
[ANIMAL_NEVER_PACK_ANIMAL]
[ANIMAL_ALWAYS_PRESENT]