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[Lummox JR]

Last night my fortress survived its third siege. A good number of the invaders got away when they retreated, but about half the invasion force was captured in cage traps (some while running away). I already had a goblin-raised dwarf and a goblin thief on my hands. Now my dwarves are busy stripping the new prisoners of their stuff.

My drowning chamber isn't ready yet, but I'm concerned that even once it is, it's going to take a long time to link levers to all those cages. What I'm wondering is, is there an easier way to dispose of prisoners through which I could reclaim the cages? I fear dropping them from a height will break the cage, and may not do enough damage to the enemy.

[Scarpa]

You can just pit non thief goblins, you don't need to setup a lever.

[Rutilant]

Once they're totally naked, make a pit and assign your prisoners to it. A dwarf will come along, grab the prisoner, and tow them to the hole to dump them in. Only catch is that sometimes something already in the pit will scare them and make them drop the one they're hauling..

Oh, and if they're not totally naked your dwarves will just drop them instantly and try to flee.

[Lummox JR]

I'm not sure I follow here. You can just assign a prisoner to be dumped, and they won't fight back? I can understand them being weaker without weapons, but unless they're restrained in some way I'd think they would just get away. Seems like this would be problematic, even more so if I ever manage to cage, say, a troll.

[Smew]

1: Build a cage right next to your animal stockpile.
2: Assign every prisoner to that cage.
3:
4:Enjoy your quantum cage!

Goblin thieves usually only break free if you haul them a long way, but 1-3 spaces shouldn't matter.
I do, however, have bad luck with non-tame animals escaping, that's just me though.
Also, you can pit armed prisoners just fine, I sometimes throw them down to a hydra. haha

[Teiwaz]

I put a hatch cover at the top of my prisoner disposal chute. The dwarves will open the hatch to throw the prisoners down, but while the hatch is closed, it prevents any survivors in the pit from scaring your executioners into releasing their victims early.

[Lummox JR]

If breaking free is a real risk, it's a risk I'd rather not take. My civilians kinda suck at combat and I have not a few wrestlers caged up. Of course I could station some hammerdwarves or axedwarves around in case of trouble, but that won't help if I ever have to deal with a megabeast. What I'm really looking for are good low-risk or no-risk solutions for freeing up those cages. To that end I'm not even sure my drowning chamber will suffice for a megabeast.

[Vilien]

Make an arena to pit dangerous animals against the goblins in.

[Lummox JR]

To have an arena I'd either have to station a lot of valuable war dogs there or I'd have to get a dangerous creature beyond the racoons I've caught and the one black bear I got so far from the elves. Anyway that doesn't solve the whole lever problem.

[Time Kitten]

Be sure to release any leaders into the wild, so they can bring back more partiers later.

[P-Luke]

I usually throw them into my archery ranges. The archers can kill them from the top, and the (stripped) gobbos have nowhere to run!
This makes your archers happy (enjoyed slaughter), and trains them as well.

And, of course, it's a perfectly safe way to torture your goblins. You can even build a little maze for them if you like, to "give them a chance". Just drop in a dangerous animal if they get somewhere you can't shoot.

The only thing you have to be careful with, as mentioned in a post somewhere above this one:
Don't try to pit two gobbos into the same place, at the same time. It's better if you drop + kill them one by one. That way you won't scare away your dwarves who are trying to throw a goblin into the pit.

[Derakon]

What I generally do is dig a single ramp, to make a small pit. Then I build all the cages next to this pit, station some military dwarves there, and then assign goblins to be pitted into the pit. The short distance and presence of the military prevents the goblins from escaping, and the 1-z-level drop stuns them briefly, which makes them easily slain by the military. As noted above, this is good practice for your dwarves.

But yeah, don't do this for the leaders. They're actually somewhat dangerous.

[Lummox JR]

My map supposedly has a magma pipe somewhere (the locator said so), but it's not at the surface and exploratory mining hasn't found it yet. I haven't taken my exploratory mining to great depths yet however because I've really had too much else to do. Anyway, I want to keep the cages, so magma is not an option for destroying prisoners. Plus their bones are valuable. I have a number of legendary bonecarvers (minus one who recently got drowned by a carp) whose skills have been quite valuable, and they keep my marksdwarves supplied with practice ammunition.