Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Strog211]

So, I have recently been berated with goblins. I get about 2-3 Ambushes several times a year, and wanted too do something cool with all the caged goblins I seem to be getting. So, I channeled a 5x5, 3 z level deep pit for them. It has a 5x5 retracting bridge over it, and I had hoped to use it as a sort of execution pit, dumping elves and the like in. Atm, I have 4 goblins (2 Wrestlers, a Thief, and a Swordsman). I decided to test it out, and dumped Urist McFarmer in. The fall gave him a red upper leg, and a few misc injury's, but the goblins are ignoring him. He's currently in and out of consciousness, but still very much alive. Is there anyway I can make the goblins attack the people I dump in the pit? Also, would there be a different way to use caged goblins in anyway that isn't just killing them, or putting them in a zoo?

[Cheddarius]

How about this: Make a bunch of small 2*2 rooms surrounding the arena, and place levers in them that don't do anything. Also have some levers in the arena itself, which are queued to be pulled on repeat. Have them be "airlocks" - have doors going into the arena from them and out into the rest of your fortress. Forbid the doors going into the arena. When you want to kill a dwarf, designate a lever to be pulled by him only and queue it to be pulled repeatedly. When he goes inside, forbid the door to the outside, unforbid the door to the arena, and hopefully he'll enter unharmed and the goblins will hopefully attack him. Also, you can just forbid both doors until he goes berserk (if he does in fact go berserk) and then let him loose into the arena, which would be pretty cool.
Plus, if any go melancholy, you can just let them rot and the miasma will speed up future madness in your unfortunate prisoners!

It doesn't work for elves and such though.

[Retro]

I've found that captured goblins, when released, do one of two things: Path towards the nearest screen edge, or stand around if there's no way out. In neither state do they bother attacking dwarves. I'm not sure why; as best I can tell it seems to have something to do with their attacking goblin party having cancelled their attack midway through, leaving the POWs with the mentality "okay okay okay just get out please oh god" without bothering to attack anyone around. I dunno, maybe it's just me since I hear about released goblins in noble rooms killing the offending noble all the time, but that's my experience with them.

As for what you can do with them, you can actually make a repeater! Goblin runs towards exit, hits switch, falls down bridge a single floor, bridge resets thanks to other automatic mechanism (perhaps goblin 2) and it runs back up again. Someone made one in a succession game. Or, if you're feeling less kind, make the drop 3 or 4 z-levels and watch the goblin slooowly take more and more minor damage.

[Cheddarius]

Ah. If they don't attack, that doesn't work... hmmm.

Do they attack if they're attacked themselves?

[Strog211]

Okay, so what i did is this: I dropped my tame Giant Jaguar into the pit, and he proceeded to kill all of the goblins. He killed them all with only a few scrapes. They did attack, but only after directly being attacked themselves. They didn't swarm as far as I could tell.

[Retro]

Okay, so what i did is this: I dropped my tame Giant Jaguar into the pit, and he proceeded to kill all of the goblins. He killed them all with only a few scrapes. They did attack, but only after directly being attacked themselves. They didn't swarm as far as I could tell.

Yeah. I got my prisoners from the fort I mentioned above to fight some Giant Eagles, but they mostly just ran away until they were attacked. It's like non-recruited dwarves - they just run. They're reactive.

[Strog211]

Well, how would wild animals work then? On my map I mostly have things like elk. Would elk attack invaders? I'd tend to think not, but ill be on the lookout for more aggressive things to catch.

[Grendus]

Elk? No. Skelk? Yeeeeeeeeees.

[Cheddarius]

Okay, so what i did is this: I dropped my tame Giant Jaguar into the pit, and he proceeded to kill all of the goblins. He killed them all with only a few scrapes. They did attack, but only after directly being attacked themselves. They didn't swarm as far as I could tell.

The berserk thing would work then, right? For the dwarves that do go berserk...

[TKGP]

Okay, so what i did is this: I dropped my tame Giant Jaguar into the pit, and he proceeded to kill all of the goblins. He killed them all with only a few scrapes. They did attack, but only after directly being attacked themselves. They didn't swarm as far as I could tell.

The berserk thing would work then, right? For the dwarves that do go berserk...

Well, you could just draft the dorfs you throw in so they'll initiate combat. If you're dumping in elves or something that refuse to attack, drop a hostile creature in to get things started.

[Cheddarius]

Yeah, that's a good point.