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[twdog]

Just started playing Dwarf Fortress a week ago and it’s pretty awesome. I’ve got a question about capturing a Cyclops.

So I’ve embarked on a site with a named cave containing a Cyclops and a whole mob of xxxmen.  I’d like to capture the Cyclops and also clean out the cave so I can mine the valuable ores within.  I’ve got access to steel and I brought along a proficient weaponsmith/armorsmith so I could train up a squad with high quality gear and send them down into the cave, but it’s only mid-spring of the first year so it will take a couple of years to get some soapmakers trained up but more than that it doesn’t seem dwarfy enough to just send some troops in.

In addition to the cave I’ve also got a chasm and a brook. The entrance to the cave is on top of a ridge and the cave is in the ridge and also a few z-levels down. So my plan is to seal off the entrance of the cave except for one hallway that would be filled with cage traps. Then I’ll carve out a reservoir pool by the brook and then set up a series of pumps to pump the water up to the top of the ridge. Then I’ll send it down the cave entrance and flush out the Cyclops.  I’m hoping that as the water rises the Cyclops will come out and be trapped in a cage. Unfortunately I’ll probably end up capturing a bunch of stuff besides the Cyclops so I’ll need a lot of cages but I’ll store them in a room off the cave entrance. Once the Cyclops has been captured I can close the passage and drown whatever is left down in the cave and the also whatever else I captured in the cages. After that’s done I’ll carve out a tunnel from the chasm to under the flooded cave and then up into the lowest level of the cave so I can drain the water out into the chasm.

The Cyclops is in the middle z-level of the cave so I’m also considering building some grates and setting them up to block off the lower levels. Then the creatures below the Cyclops will just drown instead of using up my cage traps.

So … any thoughts? Likely to work or not? Will the Cyclops come out or will it just stay down there and drown?

[Shakma]

He will be immune to cage traps.

[twdog]

Are you sure about that? The wiki says cage traps will catch even a Bronze Colossus. Well if it won’t work I’ll settle for just drowning everyone in the cave to clear it out.

A big part of the reason that I want this cave cleared out is that when I first tried this site I designated the entire cave mouth as restricted but that didn’t stop half my dwarfs from running down to there to get some rat remains and promptly being torn to pieces. This is my second try and this time I built a wall around the entrance to keep them out.

In a way I wished I’d tried this anyway if it was going to fail. I’m imaging the look on their faces when the Cyclops comes out of the tunnel unscathed … Ha! Ha! Stupid beast! … Wait the traps aren’t stopping it! … Oh Shit! Break out the emergency pants!

[death]

Cyclops are intelligent. I think they have trap evoid in the raws.

[dood_]

Yeah, cage traps wont work on him. You could go into the init. file and remove [trAPAVOID] from the Cyclops raw, but, eh..
What do you want him for anyway? Have you considered sealing the entrance, but tunneling down yourself, and just dropping the gobbos in there? Sort of like Jason and the Minotaur, except with many, many bloody Goblin corpses instead.

[twdog]

I mostly wanted him because I was going to build a block of rooms for the nobles. Each room would have a passage with a closed door connecting the room to a central Cyclops lair. Then if a noble pissed me off I could pull a lever that would open the noble’s room up to the Cyclops. Plus mega-beasts are somewhat rare and I thought it would be an interesting challenge to try to capture one.

I like the labyrinth idea though. Now that the entrance is sealed I'm not concerned about suicidal dwarfs anyway so I might as well use it. Maybe I could set the mood a little by dropping kittens down there so it would be full of miasma.

[Shakma]

Resident semi-megabeasts can't be caged.  It's not trapavoid.  You can't mod it out.

[sonerohi]

You can still trap them though, via a large rectractable bridge with a pit. Wait for cyclops to approach, pull lever, , profit  !

[Aspgren]

This ... might seem like a stupid question but ...

How do you expect to mine the ores after flooding the cave?

[sonerohi]

He's carving a tunnel from the cave to the chasm.

[twdog]

This ... might seem like a stupid question but ...

How do you expect to mine the ores after flooding the cave?

I was going to dig a tunnel from a chasm to the bottom of the cave and setup a floodgate.  Then I was going to open the floodgate and drain the water out into the chasm when I was ready to mine the ores. 

[twdog]

Well if I can’t capture the Cyclops then labyrinth of DOOM it is. I’ll see if I can setup a lever down at the bottom of the cave and make nobles run down there to pull it.  Or I could setup a farm down in the bottom of the cave and exile dwarfs to live down there. Periodically I’d dump goblins, flaming trash or whatever down there as well.

[FrickenMoron]

wont anything thats unconscious be caught by a cage trap? causing a cave in might work.

[twdog]

wont anything thats unconscious be caught by a cage trap? causing a cave in might work.

But if it's unconscious and not moving then how can I capture it? I'm a n00b though so I could be missing something.

[Walliard]

You need to find a way for it to fall unconcsious on a cage trap. Make a room, fill it with cage traps, except for one tile with a support that's hooked up to a lever. Have the support holding up a small section of ceiling. Let the cyclops into the room. When he's near the collapsable ceiling (but not directly under it, or he'll be crushed) pull the lever. It'd be best to put the lever in a meeting hall, so that there will definitely be a dwarf available.