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[Tomcost]

Has anyone here tried to enforce a legal drinking age of 12 in a fortress? I see a huge efficiency gain if the children don't become too sad about it.

Well, the idea was to traumatize children and make them supersoldiers, which creates a huge happiness penalty, so the option to cut children from booze would have caused them to go insane in less than a year.

It would be a great torture anyway, but useless as booze is usually something that can be overprduced.

[Gigaz]

It would be a great torture anyway, but useless as booze is usually something that can be overprduced.

Some fortresses overproduce booze, other fortresses overproduce children. They can easily make up for 1/3 of the fortress and they consume alcohol like a grown dwarf.

[Tomcost]

It would be a great torture anyway, but useless as booze is usually something that can be overprduced.

Some fortresses overproduce booze, other fortresses overproduce children. They can easily make up for 1/3 of the fortress and they consume alcohol like a grown dwarf.

Maybe you should ask how to segregate children from the rest of the fortress. You could give them water with a well, but it would be quite tiring to micromanage both the children who enter the booze-free part of your fortress and the grown ups who leave it. Anyway, this is not the thread to ask. Maybe you should make a new thread in the gameplay questions subforum.

[SharkForce]

Can you put a lid on the chamber? A retractable bridge or something and a hole to the sunny overworld. That way the hand won't produce miasma.

might also be a good way to make sure they don't get cave adaptation...

hmmm... you could also make them work in aboveground farms, harvesting plants. just have to let the farmer in to plant, seal it off, then make sure the kids are the only ones available to harvest. not sure how much attribute gain will be caused by farming though. it could give them a civilian skill so that they aren't angry if you have to put them off duty, at the very least.

[Meistermoxx]

Change the raws to make them adults at two years of age. Problem solved.

[Girlinhat]

Change the raws to make them adults at two years of age. Problem solved.

You are a shame to the civilization.  Your starting seven were not sent to found a new settlement.  They were banished and you should feel bad.

[Tomcost]

Can you put a lid on the chamber? A retractable bridge or something and a hole to the sunny overworld. That way the hand won't produce miasma.

might also be a good way to make sure they don't get cave adaptation...

hmmm... you could also make them work in aboveground farms, harvesting plants. just have to let the farmer in to plant, seal it off, then make sure the kids are the only ones available to harvest. not sure how much attribute gain will be caused by farming though. it could give them a civilian skill so that they aren't angry if you have to put them off duty, at the very least.

That could be a possibility, but it would need micromanagement. Growing trains strenght, agility, endurance and kinesthetic sense. These are all good atributes for our soldiers.
The other option for our soldiers in their free time is pump operating, which, despite the fact that there is no way to train it before adulthood, provides a faster and more manageable way to level skills, while still giving them a profession. It trains them in more skills also.

PD: about the hand, well, read how it ended a few posts above

[Girlinhat]

I don't think doing children into farm labor is worth it - they don't produce much labor, don't do it very often, and don't gain much from it.  It becomes more chore to overseer than benefit to weaponization.  These things can easily be trained afterwards via pump operation or just throwing them straight into battle.

[Scruffy]

I don't think doing children into farm labor is worth it - they don't produce much labor, don't do it very often, and don't gain much from it.  It becomes more chore to overseer than benefit to weaponization.  These things can easily be trained afterwards via pump operation or just throwing them straight into battle.

We do not do these things because they are beneficial or improvements over the traditional methods. We do overly complicated things needing alot of micromanagement and work for a small gain because we can. It is dwarven. It is Science! 

[Eotyrannus]

Okay, guys. I have a few questions for !!science!!:

Is there a way to firstly capture a Necromancer and put him safely somewhere where he can revive stuff?
Is there something that will not be caught by a cage trap when alive, can safely fight a child and is caught when dead? (I saw a yak go melanchony at the same time as its owner, so perhaps beserk cats would work?)
Can we keep the child in a safe square, while killing the training dummies, before catching the subsequent zombies in cages?
Can we keep the child from making friends in a short period of time while we replace the cage traps?

[Tomcost]

I don't think doing children into farm labor is worth it - they don't produce much labor, don't do it very often, and don't gain much from it.  It becomes more chore to overseer than benefit to weaponization.  These things can easily be trained afterwards via pump operation or just throwing them straight into battle.

We do not do these things because they are beneficial or improvements over the traditional methods. We do overly complicated things needing alot of micromanagement and work for a small gain because we can. It is dwarven. It is Science! 

Here we have the two different postures in this thread: one who seeks efficiency, and the other who wants fun and, generally speaking, dwarfy experiences.
I follow the first posture, as I see this thread as an intent on training a dwarf to it's maximum potential. This includes extending as far as possible the useful military life of a dwarf. Unfortnately, I failed in my experiments, but I still hope for somebody to ideate a method to train a child, even if the experience doesn't look as traumatizing as the things we have ideated. (note that some trauma is needed to make them resistant to death, even f it means setting a room with spikes killing poultry and make a child to watch it).

Also, Girlinhat, you said "these things" while speaking about the children. Just noted that...

[Tomcost]

Okay, guys. I have a few questions for !!science!!:

Is there a way to firstly capture a Necromancer and put him safely somewhere where he can revive stuff?
Is there something that will not be caught by a cage trap when alive, can safely fight a child and is caught when dead? (I saw a yak go melanchony at the same time as its owner, so perhaps beserk cats would work?)
Can we keep the child in a safe square, while killing the training dummies, before catching the subsequent zombies in cages?
Can we keep the child from making friends in a short period of time while we replace the cage traps?

I already tried that, and posted some pics here a few posts ago, that necromancer live training can't be used with children. A broken baby hand can kill a child in no time.

As for your questions:
1)Yes. See the wiki for necromancer live training
2) No. Creatures keep their ability to bypass traps after death.
3)Yes, you can forbid doors to do that, as long as the zombies cuoldn't open dorrs when they were alive.
4)Probably yes, see previous point.

I still say that zombies should not be used to do this kind of training.

[coldmonkey]

Copperhead snakes, adders, cave blobs, gila monsters. These all sound useful for training willpower and toughness due to non-lethal syndromes and a manageable danger level.

[Girlinhat]

There is a fine line between "overcomplicated and cool" and "micromanagement without purpose" that dwarven science walks.  These atrocities we commit are not because they are difficult.  We do not do these things for the challenge.  We do these things for the sheer, epic joy.  We cage sea monsters, we defile children, we shoot wales with balistae, not because it is difficult but because it is worth doing.  Once a task has been declared worthwhile, it is undertaken with all due effort and be damned the consequences.

To say that undertaking a micromanagement nightmare to gain a few measly stat points (surely lost just as quickly to atrophy) is dwarven, then you sir have no beard worth speaking of.  It has no benefit, therefore it requires no effort.  If something is of no benefit, its pursuit is no longer Dwarven Science.  Only a task worth pursuing is true Science.

As yourself.  When you undertake a feat.  Are you engineering, or are you simply toiling?

[Eotyrannus]

It's not the zombies that are going to be doing the fighting. That's just so that you don't have rotting corpses, and so you have zombies in a cage for later use. My basic plan was this, with the question numbers for why I needed to ask them (cats can be replaced with a suitable animal that is a pet):

Firstly, you find a crazy cat-dwarf who is likely to go beserk if you drive him mad. Breed cats. Give cats. Put cats in cages.
Secondly, you get a necromancer, and put him somewhere where he can raise zombies. (1)
Thirdly, you get the cats, and tie enough up with the child to get reasonable training.
After that, you drive their owner mad, making the beserk cats attack the children. (2)
Once the child has had enough training for a bit, you drop pain on the cats, and the necromancer zombifies them, trapping them in a cage due to being wild zombies. These cats can be reserved for later use. The child, meanwhile is in a safe place and is not hit by pain. (3)
Finally, you move the captured animals, and replace them with more of your beserk cat storage. The child is left to put on some clothes and fill their booze-starved stomachs. (4)
Rinse, wash, repeat.