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[Arcanalor]

Hello all, first time poster and a fairly new(ish) player.

Today during some downtime at work, I came up with a strategy to break sieges in a way that seemed pretty intuitive.

The idea is to have a cage set up outside your main entrance with a single cat inside. The cage doors are linked to a lever near your main entrance. Once all the goblins, elephants, indignant elves, etc are all gathered outside, you save, exit, and edit the raws to set up kitties so that they explode. ...From this point, I think you can see what I'm getting at. This works best on a nice and grassy/forest-y map.

I'm currently between fortresses, so I don't have one mature enough to test it out on, but does the idea seem sound enough to work?

Obviously, the entire fortress's supply of cats would have to be set up in cages elsewhere (preferably close to the linked cage) so that they could be transferred easily (and without the random haulers adopting the offending cat).

Also, a series related questions -- do caged cats explode with the free ones? Does the wall of flames consume the cats inside the cage? Will the goblins laugh extremely hard at the meow-box bravely "defending" the fortress before it violently explodes?

[salttotart]

Sounds like a really good idea and may work.  May have to be tested though.  I also don't have any fortresses mature at this point after clearing out all my old saves.

As far as caged cats exploding, I don't think they will.  I haven't tried it, but since SoF don't melt things when they are in cages I don't think temp applies to things in cages.

[Icarus]

Once in a cage, an animal enters a parallel reality pocket dimensions where it is invincible, doesn't hunger, doesn't need water, and doesn't change.
Your plan WOULD work, except for one minor flaw
YOU WILL ALWAYS HAVE A DWARF THAT ADOPTS A CAT
Cat's that are adopted can't be stored in cages so you pretty much nuked your fortress.
PERSONALLY
I would use the lesser creatures: cows, mules, horses.
I noticed that when a female creature is caged, any offspring she had will crowd around the cage. Maybe you could use that to your advantage?

[salttotart]

YOU WILL ALWAYS HAVE A DWARF THAT ADOPTS A CAT
Cat's that are adopted can't be stored in cages so you pretty much nuked your fortress.

I forgot about that.  So, just take a cage with you at embark and put all animals in the cage, then all the animals that come with the migrants that aren't already pets.  If your quick about it there shouldn't be any adoptions.  Unless of course dorfs with adopt animals in cages, but I don't recall that every happening in any of my fortresses.

[Icarus]

Dwarves will not adopt from cages. I did have a few instances where a dwarf adopted a kitten when it was in the process of being caged, resulting in a caged adopted kitten. Just make sure you place the cage behind where you want your defenses to be.
Also, I have never had a migrant dwarf bring an adopted cat. Odd.

[Mzbundifund]

Well if you're already modding cats you might as well just remove the Prefstring:aloofness tag.  No dwarves will like them, thus no cats will adopt them.

[Martin]

Hell, if you are willing to modify raws, just give cats all the same attributes as dragons. I wonder if they'd burn down your fortress trying to barbecue vermin?

[LegoLord]

Wait, exploding cats need a use? 

Just so you know, this has been done before.  Just search "thermonuclear catsplosion".  The thread you are looking for give cats the [SEVERONBREAKS] tag, to make the boom go multiple z-levels with flying flaming body bits.

[Smew]

Once in a cage, an animal enters a parallel reality pocket dimensions where it is invincible, doesn't hunger,

This is only true for a creature that isn't intelligent.
Creatures that have [CAN_LEARN] and maybe [CAN_SPEAK] tend to go crazy if they are caged up, at least in my tests.
Of course, this is circumvented by adding in the [NO_SLEEP/EAT/DRINK] tags.

[AncientEnemy]

If you wanted to use brush fires as a defense strategy, it's quite easy to do without the use of modded cats, although it doesn't have the same bang. In a previous fortress I built a small pump system that would dump some magma on the surface near the middle of the map. Sets the countryside on fire quite handily.

[kefkakrazy]

Can't you still kill caged creatures if they're in a non-magmaproof cage? I certainly executed one prisoner (a dwarf spearmaster who was part of a gobbo invasion) by setting his wooden cage in my incinerator and giving him a bath.

Which worked really well, because he had some really, REALLY kickass steel armor.

[Marko]

if the cage is destroyed, anybody inhabiting it is as well.

[Fossaman]

It would be more interesting to edit the goblins to explode once they reached the map.

If you were feeling sporting, you could see how far they got into your fort by themselves before activating self destruct.

[ThtblovesDF]

I once had my orcs explode since  I forgot they still where at 40:000 therm.


Of course all dwarfs quickly rushed out into the bush fire...

[Wizardmon]

Your plan WOULD work, except for one minor flaw
YOU WILL ALWAYS HAVE A DWARFCAT THAT ADOPTS A CATDWARF

fixed

Cats own the dwarfs man.