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[FreakyCheeseMan]

Working on ideas for new chapters to the Art of War (not just for use against demons or titans). Wanted ideas on using the new syndromes as weapons.

So, starting with common creatures... we have trouble. The only hard-coded syndromes are iron men, cave floater, cave blob and gnomeblight. Seeing as gnomeblight only works against gnomes (and I have no idea how to implement it anyway), our options are limited.

Cave floaters and iron men can both be captured and put in rooms adjoining the enemy, seperated by fortifications- just keep your dwarves well away, and they should get *some* damage, but not much. Maybe enough to turn the tide of battle, if it wouldn't mean exposing your dwarves to it as well.

Cave blobs have an even weaker attack, but are tameable... still, the best you could do is establish a breeding pit (do they breed?) above the entrance way, and drop a ton of them on your enemies.

Actually, all of these are so weak so far you might bet better off using them as part of a torture chamber.

That leaves us with syndromes from forgotten beasts and titans... for the moment I'll assume you can't capture them (if you can, you certainly have the skill and creativity to figure out what to do with them yourself).

The real idea seems to be to use syndromes with SYN_CONTACT, and try to spread the creature's blood to where your enemies are... an uncleaned "Death Room" could work for this, where you put your infected champion and a bunch of sacrificial animals and lock them in to track blood over the floor, then run your enemies through it... poses significant danger to your fort.

More fun would be to keep adding animals to the death room, (pref. war animals), so they all get nice and coated with blood- then release them at the enemy, hoping the latter will get coated during the ensuing fight.)

You can also, of course, use creatures directly- snakes and GCSs will do nicely.

Oh, and if you're lucky enough to get a contact syndrome that causes unconsciousness, try to make a "death room" on the entrance to your fortress from the caverns, or even from Hell, with the floor covered in the stuff- then you might actually be able to capture a forgotten beastie or two.

Thoughts, comments?

[ISGC]

are you sure cave blobs are tamable?
also, I don't know how effective a syndrome trap would be to do anything other then reusable trade depot purging.
positives, I don't know

[FreakyCheeseMan]

are you sure cave blobs are tamable?
also, I don't know how effective a syndrome trap would be to do anything other then reusable trade depot purging.
positives, I don't know

The wiki says they are. *shrugs*

And no, right now they're less effective than most things. But then, damn near *everything* is less effective than cage traps- the point of dwarven war is not to win, but to win in as many ways as possible.

[Coidzure Dreams]

As it is now, I'm-a have to agree.  Probably most useful for torture (of which trade depot purges are a subset).

If a syndrome can be farmed from a forgotten beast and on to a population of animals who can be contained rather than spreading it to the entire dorf population...

Then it's most useful to either cause a preliminary bit of damage or as a trap against whatever's susceptible to syndromes but not directly killable.

and preferably it'd be in some place where a really long shaft would expose it to the surface so that it'd rot away the contaminant, allowing the swag to be retrieved if there is any, if I understand how such things currently work.

[ISGC]

are you sure cave blobs are tamable?
also, I don't know how effective a syndrome trap would be to do anything other then reusable trade depot purging.
positives, I don't know

The wiki says they are. *shrugs*

And no, right now they're less effective than most things. But then, damn near *everything* is less effective than cage traps- the point of dwarven war is not to win, but to win in as many ways as possible.

yea, lol, I have cage traps lined up, but I release magma into the chamber after every siege.  no prisoners.
on cave blobs, I might be mistaken, but I don't believe they are tamable.

[FreakyCheeseMan]

are you sure cave blobs are tamable?
also, I don't know how effective a syndrome trap would be to do anything other then reusable trade depot purging.
positives, I don't know

The wiki says they are. *shrugs*

And no, right now they're less effective than most things. But then, damn near *everything* is less effective than cage traps- the point of dwarven war is not to win, but to win in as many ways as possible.

yea, lol, I have cage traps lined up, but I release magma into the chamber after every siege.  no prisoners.
on cave blobs, I might be mistaken, but I don't believe they are tamable.

"A Cave blob is a single body/cell organism, they are really weak [really, really, weak], it takes a dungeon master to tame these beautifu unique creatures"

From the wiki.

[darius]

Helmet snakes FTW just gathering them is ... dangeruos

[Owlbread]

I believe that dangerous and infectious coverings have a lot of potential for dwarven warfare, if they can be harnessed appropriately.

[ISGC]

"A Cave blob is a single body/cell organism, they are really weak [really, really, weak], it takes a dungeon master to tame these beautifu unique creatures"

From the wiki.

ok, that makes sense, I don't have a dungeon master yet D:
hard to get my population up when I'm fighting off skeletal elk birds constantly

[chaoticag]

I spy the [PET_EXOTIC] tag.

[darius]

Cave blobs cause a lot of trouble. Killed a few and then all of my fort was covered in they're coverings (+ blood, mud, vomit, ichor, etc) so all the animals had blisters on they're feet. But that's all. No "dangerous" or "awesome" effects. On the other hand Titan came and all who were near him during the battle rotted to death.

[FreakyCheeseMan]

Cave blobs cause a lot of trouble. Killed a few and then all of my fort was covered in they're coverings (+ blood, mud, vomit, ichor, etc) so all the animals had blisters on they're feet. But that's all. No "dangerous" or "awesome" effects. On the other hand Titan came and all who were near him during the battle rotted to death.

Yeah, all the really cool "infection" syndromes aren't that dangerous, unless you get them from titans.

When/if Toady does clean up blood spreading, I really hope he gives us some alternative way for disease to spread... or, at the very least, give us some sort of option to "bottle" dangerous spilled blood from uncatchable creatures, and use it somehow. Poisoned weapon traps?

[darius]

Hmm an idea...

Code: [Select]

ENTRY
 |||
 VVV
#...#WW
#...#T# <- Water
#...#WW

# grates, T titan on spikes, And water is about 2/3 lvls...
oh and of course this needs work. coz now Titant can break grates easily... Maybe something like this:

Code: [Select]

WATER
 |
 V
 T    Z2
_W_   Z1
ENTRY Z0
if titan is not flying

Most important thing: need a titan with poisonous blood, or slime, or if it has vapour just dump it below path

[FreakyCheeseMan]

Nice... good luck controlling the titan, though.

[Coidzure Dreams]

I believe that dangerous and infectious coverings have a lot of potential for dwarven warfare, if they can be harnessed appropriately.

It's possible that their truest potential for effective use lies in the hand of unscrupulous terrorists heroic adventurers to cowardly kill offvanquish the women and children of opposing civsevil races once and for all!