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[SenorPiquante]

I have a plan for robbing the elves with greater profit, based on the following points:
1) Caravans will not accept items that have been seized from other caravans.
2) Caravans seem perfectly happy taking items that came from DEAD other caravans.
3) If you keep a caravan locked up long enough, some of the merchants and animals will go berserk and turn on each other.

Now, there is one thing I would like your input on: If I make a small weapons stockpile next to where I have these elves locked up, will the berserk elves arm themselves? Right now they're just punching each other and it's taking forever.

[Sphalerite]

I have a plan for robbing the elves with greater profit, based on the following points:
1) Caravans will not accept items that have been seized from other caravans.

This is the first I've heard of that point.  Is this verified?  Does it apply only to the same race, or to all caravans?

Now, there is one thing I would like your input on: If I make a small weapons stockpile next to where I have these elves locked up, will the berserk elves arm themselves? Right now they're just punching each other and it's taking forever.

Berserk creatures won't deliberately pick up and use weapons.  If they happen to grab an item off another creature while wrestling they may then use that as a weapon, but they won't pick up a weapon on the ground and use it.

[SenorPiquante]

I have a plan for robbing the elves with greater profit, based on the following points:
1) Caravans will not accept items that have been seized from other caravans.

This is the first I've heard of that point.  Is this verified?  Does it apply only to the same race, or to all caravans?

I think it's mentioned on the wiki, and I've noticed that when the humans come to trade, things I seized from the elves (via the normal method, that is) are in red and can't be traded or offered.

EDIT: Hmm, I may need to rethink just how I trap these elves. Having two Depots seems to be confusing the humans, despite only one having a path to it (the one the elves are stuck in is behind a locked door and a raised bridge)

[Patchy]

What about a good old fashioned drowning trap? Seal the depot and turn on the pumps, and you got all their goods without seizing.

[SenorPiquante]

What about a good old fashioned drowning trap? Seal the depot and turn on the pumps, and you got all their goods without seizing.

I could, I'd just need to work out some sort of cistern system. I was hoping it'd be as easy as an oubliette

[Patchy]

I usually build the depot on the level right above an aquifer. Pump the water in from that (can be dwarf powered) and voila. Have a lever activated hatch cover in the depot room to drain back into the aquifer. If no aquifer is present, a cistern can do the trick. Jus build the cistern underneathe the depot.

[Josephus]

Dropping the roof on them would of course be quicker, but you'll probably destroy some of the stuff you want (I can't remember if atomsmashing applies to cave-ins as well)

Also? I initially read the thread title as "Rubbing the elves with greater efficiency". And I was like, what the hell.

[Hyndis]

Why would you want to rob from them? Most of what they bring is utter garbage. Elves only have 3 things worth stealing:

1) Exotic animals.
2) Exotic plants for brewing.
3) Cloth to use for export. Turn the rope reed cloth into decorated crafts and sell it to humans and dwarves.

Aside from that I don't even like killing them unless it involves magma. If you kill an elven caravan its like this huge pinata spewing all sorts of worthless crap all over the place.

[SenorPiquante]

Also? I initially read the thread title as "Rubbing the elves with greater efficiency". And I was like, what the hell.

Nah, that thread's in the "DF ADULT Questions" board

Alas, I haven't got an aquifer to use here; I'll have to have a small cave full of enough water to fill the Depot, stored above it, and pumps to put the water back when I'm done. Does anyone know if using nothing but constructed surfaces in this will keep my nice aluminum Depot from getting muddy?

Why would you want to rob from them? Most of what they bring is utter garbage.

But at least I can use their garbage to get greater amounts of useful things from the humans and dwarves. If I just seize their <birch puzzleboxes>, the other caravans won't accept them. Not to mention the barrels of gnomeblight they keep bringing.

[Snook]

What is gnomeblight? The wiki is silent on it. Also, golden salve?

[Akura]

What is gnomeblight? The wiki is silent on it. Also, golden salve?

Gnomeblight is supposed to be lethal to mountain/dark gnomes, but there's no way to use it. Golden salve is supposed to be some kind of medicine(?), but there's no way to use it either.


For robbing the elves, why not a 15 z-level drop onto upright spikes? Animals in cages aren't hurt by falls, right? Just make a single pathway to your depot, along which some floor grates linked to a lever or pressure plate.

[LordHavoc]

There's nothing like a good drawbridge corridor trap to ruin someones day

Just make a corridor a couple of Z axis tall, load em up with big drawbridges in the down position. Drawbridges at either end perpendicular to the corridor to allow/disallow access to it.
When the get in, seal the corridor and then catapult the occupants; then repeat

[SenorPiquante]

For robbing the elves, why not a 15 z-level drop onto upright spikes? Animals in cages aren't hurt by falls, right? Just make a single pathway to your depot, along which some floor grates linked to a lever or pressure plate.

See, now why didn't I think of that? Great idea, I'll have to double-check when I get home whether I have enough space beneath the Depot to do that.

[gtmattz]

I prefer to simply drown the elves in the trade depot, but I think that is just an excuse to support my obsession with designing the optimal drowning chamber.