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[Panando]

Seems wrong that the elves should enslave such majestic beasts, when they could be serving my fortress.

Anyway, does anyone know how stealing pack animals works? I understand they can't be trained, but they have babies right? And their babies can be trained?

Unfortunately they are both females so I'd have to acquire a male later, but I'm sure the elves would oblige and bring more other years.

edit: Also trying to make it happen using DFHack. Using catsplosion allows them to give birth, then the civilization of the babies can be changed to mine, and they hang around as resident animals, and a trainer can be assigned, but they are tame but cannot be turned into war animals or pets. hmmmm....

[Blue_Dwarf]

Maybe at least one of them is already pregnant.

Anyway, how are you planning to feed them?

[Thisfox]

My usual method is to give them many gifts (without any wood) and trade them many useless items (wood free!) for every cage they have (empty or full) so they make a massive profit, and when they return they bring more cages, some of which contain the animal I wish to own. Repeat that for a few years and you will have a breeding pair pretty fast.

[Hans Lemurson]

How many Giant Elephants can a Giant Elephant carry?

[jipehog]

no, that what the giant turtle is for. Inb4 you ask there is also a giant snake for the turtle.

[Blue_Dwarf]

How many Giant Elephants can a Giant Elephant carry?

If a Giant Elephant could carry Giant Elephants.

[Panando]

The elves brought giant elephants the next year to taunt me some more, and show off their unethical enslavement of the majestic beasts. They bought two male Giant Elephants this time.

While some elf-lover recommended giving stuff to the elves in exchange for them possibly bringing a giant elephant in a cage, I question if that's even possible. Elephants (of either size) don't seem to have a TRADE_CAPACITY defined so they must be using some default value. The Elf caravan with 2x Giant Elephants has a weight budget of 2200 units, so I'm guessing something like the elephants have a default of 1000 and the elves a default of 100, Elephants would actually seem to be one of the weaker pack beasts. Anyway, this is clearly not enough capacity to actually carry a Giant Elephant, leading me to doubt the elves would ever bring a Giant Elephant in a cage.

My next thought then, is instead of trying to buy Giant Elephants from the elves, sending a party of dwarves skilled in dwarven negotiations with the finest steel items to engage in a form of exchange where the Elves lose their Giant Elephants, and the party of dwarves bring the Giant Elephants home.

[Saiko Kila]

If they have them employed, then stealing them is an option (*). You will cause a war, of course, but I think it is justified thanks to the noble intention of freeing the giant elephants (I mean, freeing them to do you bidding).

*)Just for clarification - stealing through raiding, like you steal tame beak dogs from goblins.

[Panando]

Efforts to liberate the Giant Elephants have met with a difficulty, in that the Giant Elephants conceal themselves and ambush the dwarves.

[Thisfox]

Efforts to liberate the Giant Elephants have met with a difficulty, in that the Giant Elephants conceal themselves and ambush the dwarves.

Echoes of Boatmurdered....

[Blue_Dwarf]

That was unexpected.

[Panando]

Update:

After disastrous attempts to steal the Giant Elephants, thwarted by combats such as "clashes with 18 giant elephants", I decided I needed a better strategy.

So I embarked right next to the Elf Forest Retreat which sends the caravans, and the elves had obviously clear-cut the forests around their "forest retreat" as all the trees were missing, with suspicious patches of sand which tend to be left when cutting down a tree. There were some elves living in the area. I trapped the elves and imprisoned them for their crimes against the forest (I'd have set a quota, but since they'd already cut the trees down it wouldn't do any good).

I then built up the fortress and started raiding. I figured that sending a bunch of raids not to steal but just look around would be good, and trained up ambusher some.

Then I started stealing livestock, and it got hilarious.

I have so far failed to steal a giant elephant, but I have stolen hundreds of animals, including many giant animals some of which are war-trainable. I'll send in about 25 dwarves at a time, and bring back about that many animals. I feel like animal control dealing with a crazy cat lady cat hoarder, if I'm not to become the crazy cat lady I'm going to have to start dumping the less valuable animals into magma. The animals are of course extremely happy to have been liberated from the inhumane conditions the elves keep them, so it would be sad to toss them down the magma shaft, buuut FPS.



My dwarves meet the Giant Elephants during the raids sometimes, so they're definitely there. They just can't or wont steal any.

[Panando]

After stealing hundreds of animals any only seeing giant elephants during the raids, I am thinking that they cannot be stolen. Furthermore the giant elephants are a formidable defense for their forest retreats against pillage/conquer and such, it seems to be basically impossible to defeat a giant elephant.... unless one has a giant elephant of their own, exactly what I'm trying to do!

The next possibility then, is just waiting for the elves to send a siege and hoping they bring giant elephants to catch in cage traps.

[Panando]

Update:

Still haven't managed to liberate a Giant Elephant. They are also the main creatures the liberating dwarves encounter, usually with a Giant Elephant spotting the dwarves sneaking away. I am starting to wonder if it is in fact a Giant Elephant forest retreat, with the Elves being kept as pets.

I've had a couple of elf sieges but both very small. Might have to try and ramp up my fortress value to attract bigger sieges.

With some sadness I pitted all the small animals and most of the giant ones that can't be war-trained down the magma chute.


But it is wonderful to see the lands recover after being scoured by the vile elves. Trees are growing where the elves had clear-cut them, and great herds of elephants roam the countryside.

I also still have the elves I captured, sometimes I throw animals in there and shoot the animals through the foritications. This does not bother the elves. I think they have been lobotomized by having their brains sucked out by a Giant Elephant.

[Superdorf]

Perhaps it's time to cage-trap some lesser elephants of your own?