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[tylerb1230]

I'm new to dwarf fortress and just started my first serious game. Near my fortress are many wild unicorns and I was wondering two things.

1) Is there a way to capture them and train them to be ridden by militarydwarves. sort of like wardogs.

2) Are unicorns and foxes dangerous to my dwarves

Thanks in advance

[tylerb1230]

 Also my growers don't seen to be doing much growing

[Qloos]

The current version of Dwarf Fortress does not support mounts outside of invading armies.  Most native animals on the map will run from dwarfs, up until they are cornered at which point they will lash out.  They can be captured and even tamed if you have a dungeon master, (who is needed to tame exotic animals.)  But you can't ride them.

The lack of farming may be because your farm is set to "Fallow" aka nothing being planted, which is the default behavior for a farm.  Press 'Q' to enter into building query mode and designate which plants you want to grow.  Note that you'll need seeds and workers with the farming labor enabled.

[tylerb1230]

Thanks again. I'll try the suggestion about farming and my friend wanted to know if you could ride them, so I was just making sure before I start using my limited resources to try to catch unicorns instead of make defences.

[Cheddarius]

I've heard somewhere that unicorn bones are very high value - this means that when you have some extra military or whatnot, it might be useful to kill them and craft things out of their bones to sell to traders.
Note that if you have a legendary bonecrafter, unicorn bones are going to be amazing, since they add a huge multiplier to an already valuable (masterwork) craft, while if you have a novice bonecrafter, the same multiplier won't add that much value. (e.g. 1*5 is four more than one, but 1000*5 is 4000 more than 1000)

[Amalgam]

1) Dwarves can't ride mounts yet, but you can get the next best thing by modding them to include the [trAINABLE] token in the raws, which will allow you to train War Unicorns once they're tamed. Which is kind of awesome.

2) Foxes are too small to cause any significant damage to your dwarves, and they're not aggressive anyway. Unicorns, for what ever reason, are extremely aggressive though, so exercise caution when dealing with them. Bear in mind there's a bug that causes animals that have killed a dwarf to go on a rampage if you release them, even if they've been "tamed."

[Quietust]

Bear in mind there's a bug that causes animals that have killed a dwarf to go on a rampage if you release them, even if they've been "tamed."

Some argue that it isn't a bug - the animal killed one of your dwarves, making it an enemy of your civilization, and the animal seems to realize it and thus attacks the rest of your dwarves (but likely not other caravans).

[tylerb1230]

 Interesting, I'll keep that in mind if my fort can survive long enough for me to have extra dwarves and resources available. Although my next project will be to finish my moat, build a baracks and put a drawbridge over the moat, so that my entrance is well protected.

also, to amalgam
If I can figure out how I will have to try to make war unicorns sometime, but will I have to gen a new world?

and I had no idea unicorns were aggressive. I was wondering why my dwarves were cancelling tasks because of them, but they haven't done any harm yet so I'll leave them alone.

[Sphalerite]

and I had no idea unicorns were aggressive. I was wondering why my dwarves were cancelling tasks because of them, but they haven't done any harm yet so I'll leave them alone.

Dwarves will cancel tasks any time they see any wild animal, even if it's an unconscious groundhog a dozen tiles away on the other side of a magma moat.  It gets a bit annoying at times.

[ed boy]

I'm almost certainly sure that if oyu just add the [trainablee] ta gto unicorns, you won't require regen

[assimilateur]

1) Is there a way to capture them and train them to be ridden by militarydwarves. sort of like wardogs.

As others have said, they can't be used as mounts, nothing currently can, at least not by your dwarves. You could, however, catch them using cage traps (literally by building cage traps outside where you think they will have to pass through; the job "catch live land animal" assigned from the kennel doesn't help with that, it only applies to vermin). If you go to their raw file (unicorns are in creature_standard) you can add a tag like pet or exotic pet, which allows you to tame them. Note that they aren't currently breedable, but that is easily modded. Just add tags like [CHILD:1][CHILDNAME:unicorn foal:unicorn foals] to them.

This is highly profitable in that their bones, leather and meat are pretty valuable, exactly 10 times as much as the products of a horse or 5 times as much as those of a cow.

Unicorns, for what ever reason, are extremely aggressive though, so exercise caution when dealing with them.

I know that's the lore on the wiki, but have you ever seen them act aggressively? I've embarked near unicorns a couple of times, and I have yet to see them not run away, which isn't what I would call aggressive, let alone extremely aggressive, behavior.

Some argue that it isn't a bug - the animal killed one of your dwarves, making it an enemy of your civilization, and the animal seems to realize it and thus attacks the rest of your dwarves (but likely not other caravans).

Well, in that case the attacking part might conceivably not be a bug, but the part where your dwarves seem to treat it as friendly instead of putting it down as soon as they realize the hostile behavior probably is.

[EDIT]

I'm almost certainly sure that if oyu just add the [trainablee] ta gto unicorns, you won't require regen

I can vouch for this. Neither trainable, nor pet/pet_exotic, nor even the child-related tag that allowed you to breed them, and which I have explained above, will require a regen. I have successfully made my unicorns breedable mid-game the last time I caught them and realized that they were sterile, so to speak.

[qoonpooka]

Bear in mind there's a bug that causes animals that have killed a dwarf to go on a rampage if you release them, even if they've been "tamed."

Some argue that it isn't a bug - the animal killed one of your dwarves, making it an enemy of your civilization, and the animal seems to realize it and thus attacks the rest of your dwarves (but likely not other caravans).

More likely: The animal has the taste of dwarven blood, and liked it.  This is a problem with wild animals and why authorities will put down animals that have attacked humans.  It's not out of revenge, it's because the animal now recognizes humans as prey.

[tylerb1230]

Alright, I put in the tags [trAINABLE] and [PET] at the bottom of thier section in the file and started the game with no problems yet, but what should I look for that could be a problem?

[assimilateur]

Alright, I put in the tags [trAINABLE] and [PET] at the bottom of thier section in the file and started the game with no problems yet, but what should I look for that could be a problem?

Well, as I said, you should add something like [CHILD:1][CHILDNAME:unicorn foal:unicorn foals] to them. I mean, you do want to breed them, don't you?

[tylerb1230]

I'll probably do that soon, but can anything happen to the game that could ruin it that I should look for?