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[RavingManiac]

Currently, most wildlife simply serves as a temporary food source for your dwarves, with only riverdwelling creatures like carp, hippopotamuses and alligators posing a threat since the dwarves drinking from the river get within one tile of them, triggering hostility. In order to achieve greater realism and Fun^tm, I propose the following changes:


Predatory creatures like wolves and cougars should roam the map more and attack your dwarves on sight, fleeing only against enough people(a fixed number or pack size percentage decided in the RAWS) or an armed dwarf(like a hunter). In the case of wolves, as soon as one member of the pack notices a dwarf, the entire pack will target him/her.

For herbivores, certain animals such as elephants and rhinos will charge at hunters when attacked even if the hunter is wielding a crossbow (currently, they defend themselves only when cornered). In the case of elephants, a herd that has been attacked by civilized creatures will show hostility to all civilized creatures for the rest of its existence, behaving like predators (without the roaming).

[kalida99]

not to mention making some wildlife more common, in all my years of fortressing, i've only had one fort with elephants, and 2 with giant eagles... being deadlier would also be a welcome change from the normal markman training my hunters get...

[Pilsu]

You're vastly overestimating the hostility of critters. While some of it has merit, we'd need better AI and assignable escorts before even considering it. I don't want to lose solitary Hunters and Woocutters to every pack of elephants that shows up just because they're too stupid to avoid them

[kalida99]

I don't see what the big problem is. I'm always reading interesting stories about how people forts are stormed by various wildlife and i just think,

what the heck? how is that possible??

even attempted to recreate it by going into the harshest conditions i can just to provide a little challenge. never really got any challenge, all i get is elephants that run when i shoot them and skeletal animals being an infinite supply of marksman training, and ammo...

heck if your having troubles with local wildlife buy some swords train a few troopers and set them to patrol the border of the map, then set your butcher to cut up some dead animals. only thing that should be even a minor problem is ambushes. And even a military with minor training should be able to take down a few gobbos

[Hyndis]

Make elephants carnivorous large predators.   

You can do this with other creatures as well. If they are a large predator they will chase and attack anything that is a size smaller than themselves. Dwarves are size 6. This means anything size 7 and above will actively attack dwarves should the dwarf get too close.

[chucks]

You need more than just saying that any animal bigger than a dwarf will attack.

You need to have animals create the danger of spooking or becoming frightened by your dorfs.  Have dorfs with low or nonexistant animal handling/care skills more likely to spook creatures.  Have large creature potentially charge to trample or gore your dwarf and flee, or stick around to pummel your dorfs into the ground.  Have rabbits and other small wildlife get spooked and flee from any nearby activity.  Have larger grazing animals like wild horses or elephants or unicorns or some creatures likely to spook and stampede.  Have monkey genuinely show interest in dwarfs and their activities, but only sneak in your fort to steal stuff when you're not paying attention and only spook if caught in the act.

There's so much more to a context based system of animal interactions than simply saying that anything bigger than your dorfs immediately develop some unexplained bloodlust and try to kill everyone.

EDIT:
Natural predators are exception to the previous.  I'm all for bloodthirsty, carniverous many-toothed-monsters of all varieties.

[G-Flex]

Ideally, animals should have personality traits, at least rudimentary ones, that affect behavior, at least on the creature-definition level if not on the individual level.

For instance, some animals are territorial, some aren't, some hunt in packs and some don't, some are smarter than others, etc.

Example: Some predators are fairly aggressive and will just plain attack you if you get too close. Others, like polar bears, are surprisingly docile when well-fed. Also, elephants are surprisingly nice as long as they don't have a reason to kick your ass, and if you mess with them, they're liable to actually make a concerted effort to attack your village. Monkeys apparently make some fairly coordinated attack plans as well, although that's mostly for stealing fruit and stuff.

[LordNagash]

I think the thing that is going to make this is if the game tracks some kind of basic food levels for predators out in the wild. In real life for example, wolves will basically not attack humans at all unless they are starving.

I think this would also add another layer of things to think about - 'Hmm, my dwarves are hungry. I could hunt all those deer out there, but then I'd have to worry about starving wolves coming to eat dwarves'

[Granite26]

Have dorfs with low or nonexistant animal handling/care skills more likely to spook creatures. 

Nice....  A+