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[Holy Mittens]

Ok, so the underground river on my most recent fortress map is pretty long and is only on one level before running off the map. So it doesn't have a lot of pushing power to knock creatures in it away, nor a chasm to drop creatures into.

And now it is overflowing with cave crocodiles. Somewhat recently, a group of 10 or so emerged from the river and went on a killing spree, chasing my dwarfs around and killing 6 of them as my champions chased them around, mostly all chasing the same one and letting the others eat my Great Brewer and Adept Mason, among others. In order to keep them from doing so again, I walled off the tunnel to the river.

Only now there's about 50 of them down there and they just keep multiplying. I can catch them in cage traps (in fact, I have about a dozen in cages now) but this map has no magma, so no Dungeon Master to tame them. It also keeps me from my (now-preferred) solution of dumping magma into the river to kill them all in hellfire.

Any suggestions on how I can rid my dwarves of this scourge before there's hundreds of them down there devouring my FPS? Alternately, is there some sort of cap on animals of a certain type that can be on the map?

[Lord Dakoth]

Hmm... They "spawn" at the edge of the map, where the river enters, right?

If you could somehow block the river's entrance, you could restrict the crocs to a very small area. Then they might just wander off by themselves.

Or, you could collapse the above floor, and just completely cut off the flow of water.

[Demonic Spoon]

Well according to toady and the wiki you don't need magma specifically, another map feature like a brook or river will do?

I do believe there is a animal cap yes, it's something like 300 if I remember correctly.

Solutions to the crocodile menace. What about caving in the whole river? Alternatively carve fortifications into the walls and shoot all the crocs dead with impunity form behind them.

As to lord dakoth, new cave river creatures do not spawn no, you get a certain set amount when you embark and those are the only ones you'll ever have.

[Ubiq]

but this map has no magma, so no Dungeon Master to tame them. It also keeps me from my (now-preferred) solution of dumping magma into the river to kill them all in hellfire.

Magma isn't the sole determining factor as to whether or not you have a Dungeon Master; any feature will work far as I know. My current fort has a DM without anything more impressive on the map than a regular brook. You probably just haven't met the wealth or population requirement yet.

So Cage Trap the river to your heart's content and wait for him/her to show up so you can have an entire army of tame Cave Crocodiles to greet any visiting goblins.

[Holy Mittens]

Hmm... They "spawn" at the edge of the map, where the river enters, right?

No. The crocs are giving birth to hatchlings.

Magma isn't the sole determining factor as to whether or not you have a Dungeon Master; any feature will work far as I know. My current fort has a DM without anything more impressive on the map than a regular brook. You probably just haven't met the wealth or population requirement yet.

So Cage Trap the river to your heart's content and wait for him/her to show up so you can have an entire army of tame Cave Crocodiles to greet any visiting goblins.

Oh? I remember reading that you needed to strike Magma. But if that's not the case, then taming it will be. I'll have plenty of croc meat and leather as soon as I get that stupid DM.

[twwolfe]

yeah, i think the only requirement you absolutely need is 40 dwarves. everything else helps, but isn't necessary

[Demonic Spoon]

50 dwarves and special feature of some sort.

[Lord Dakoth]

I assume that the crocs are wandering your lands freely by now? If so, you could use the "channel herding" method.

Dig a channel in the shape of a plus sign across the entire map, but have single-tile crossings at strategic points. On these crossings, you put weapon traps, each loaded with 10 of any high-quality weapon. I hear that giant spiked balls jam the least, so this will be good for not having to clean the traps a lot.

Basically, what this does is it forces the crocs to path through these trapped choke points. If a croc wants to move to a different "quadrant" of the map, it must move through the traps.

Now, this will not completely eliminate the crocodile threat, but it will be a HUGE help, and will free up time and effort for other anti-croc measures.

[Holy Mittens]

Well, I put a floor over the only tunnel down into the river and they stopped coming out. Now that I know the DM can come, I reopened it and put up cage traps around it, but... the crocs don't want to come out any more.

Edit: Naturally, I post that and 2 minutes later another half dozen start to emerge.

[Lord Dakoth]

Well you have fun with your War Crocs, mate. Keep us posted, I'm curious to see how this whole deal turns out.

[Holy Mittens]

Cave Crocs would actually make poor war animals with their tendency to go all crazy and knock over buildings and eat foreign diplomats. I had a similar problem with Cacame's fort, where the two giant olms I'd caught kept knocking over my trade depot and trying to eat all the liasons that came by. Eventually, I just chained them down in his throne room.

I'm probably going to just use a mating pair of cave crocs as the beginning of a meat industry for this fort.

[Demonic Spoon]

Yeah, I always remove the building destroyer tag after I've tamed the entire population, I feel this isn't really cheating as the crocs are 'trained' not to knock down buildings anymore or something.

[Holy Mittens]

I'm not sure if that keeps them from trying to kill liasons though. That was the biggest problem with the giant olms. While it was funny watching them Benny Hill around for a while, eventually I had to go and save him.

[Skippy]

Maybe channel out the top so marksdwarves/hunters can shoot down at them?

[Hamster Man]

I'm not sure if that keeps them from trying to kill liasons though. That was the biggest problem with the giant olms. While it was funny watching them Benny Hill around for a while, eventually I had to go and save him.

ROFL. Now I want to go get that song, so next time this happens I can play it.