Print

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

[UristMcDonald]

Hey guys! Long time lurker, first time poster. So I recently started a new fort, a jungle embark. The current fort is rather shallow, with a long hallway extending from the entrance (roofed of course) filled to the brim with traps. I decided to harvest the bounty of nature and managed to capture 4 or 5 gorillas, which I trained to become War Gorillas.(no exotic). A few gorillas escaped, so there should hopefully be more next season. I was wondering what the best use for the apes I have is. Keep in kind that my main goal is too keep them alive and breeding, at least until I can set apart four or five for breeding.

Ideas:
1) pasture them inside my front hall where they will be safe, but usefull as a last line of defense if the enemy breaches my traps.
2) pasture them with my grazers. I am currently walling off my outdoor pasture, but there's a chance that I won't finish before an ambush arrives, or that flying enemies will attack my grazers. The war gorillas could defend my herds.
3) attach them to my warriors to help fight, and hope they survive.

Any of you have better ideas? I'm pretty new to DF. If it matters, the fort is in the second summer. I have no real army yet, but will in a month or two.

[Conrad]

Most war animals don't pose much of a threat against siegers. I normally just assign a war-animal to all of my important dwarves (legendary weaponsmiths, armorsmiths...etc). Their main use is a distraction until the owner can run away.

[_DivideByZero_]

Gorillas should be decently effective against siegers and ambushes. Try to breed them and use them to support your troops, since otherwise your men will be horribly outnumbered most of the time.

[Graebeard]

As with all animals in DF, gorillas breed via spores; all you need are an uncaged male and female somewhere on the map.  One male is all you need, so what I'd do is set up two pastures. The first somewhere safe for all the females and the largest male, and a second near your entrance with all the other adult males to take care of visitors.  Just assign each pup to the appropriate pasture when they reach adulthood or you train them.

[NRDL]

I just got a mental image of planet of the apes...you should breed a frickin army of these guys, and set them loose on all your invaders en masse.  I wish you could mod them to wear armor...

[BurnedToast]

I'd say the last line of defense thing.

War animals are not very powerful because you can't armor them, and they can't use weapons to punch through the enemy's armor. That means they die really fast, and don't kill the enemy very often. However, if you have a lot of them and the enemy only has a small number of guys you might be able to swarm them and overwhelm them.

That situation is most likely if you keep them back so they can multiply, and leave them as a last line of defense so the enemy is weakened before hitting them.

Putting them on the front line will just get them killed and accomplish very little. Leaving them to defend your herds is kind of silly since they probably aren't significantly stronger then your herd animals, and those are all disposable anyway.

[NRDL]

Place a large number of war apes in a crowded room, with the invaders coming in through a single-file corridor.  This way, the apes could swarm attack the invaders as they come on by one through the corridor, limiting the enemy's ability to dodge. 

[UristMcDonald]

Dodging.... That's it! Practicality check: tame giant bats (or other flying monsters) and set them loose in a cavern. Single long hallway over a huge chasm. Add in traps. If anything has trapavoid, it'll still dodge the bats and plunge right off the cliff!

[peskyninja]

for dwarven sanity the bottom of this cliff must be

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

hell

!

[UristMcDonald]

The jungle fort survived it's first ambush, so I thought I'd give you guys an update on my animal army. At the time, my military consisted of 7 fresh recruits, unarmed and unarmored; I was counting on my traps to do the dirty work, but the ambush arrive just before I could build the shutting gates. Luckily there was a dwarven caravan that was only too glad to help me.

Before they even reached my fort, half the goblins fell for my animal traps. I'm still debating how to torture the bastards... Those goblins lucky or smart enough to escape and reach my fort were carved up by the caravan. Only two faced war animals.

My War Gorillas were mostly with their owners inside the fort, but one was following the dwarf who originally stumbled upon the ambush. He charged the goblin, missed, knocked the goblin to the ground, and tried to rip his head off. Sadly, the goblin blocked him and plunged his two handed sword into the ape's brain. I'm not sure if this shows much about war ape efficiency, since a 1 hit kill could easily be luck.

My Giant War Tiger fared much better. He charged a goblin lasher with a silver whip, tore his arm off, tore his other arm off, threw them both 4 or more tiles away, and mauled the goblin. Combat log showed that the goblin tried to counterattack, but failed. Badly.

I really hope I get a mate for my tiger...

[Umune]

Well, Giant animals are far more metal than their regular counterparts, as their larger size gives them greater strength and a little bit more protection.

[Logrin]

I'd also imagine that as far as support goes, your war apes would be at least better wrestlers then goblins, holding your foe down while they get a taste of Dwarven Hospitality.

Also not sure on what size catagory they fall into, but shouldn't apes be able to strangle larger things then human-sized creatures?

[NRDL]

McDonald, how many war apes do you have exactly?  As I suggested, use their sheer number and close spaces to slightly even the odds.  They may not be good front-liners, but as support ( and as potential arena combatants against captured gobs ) they would be awesome. 

[UristMcDonald]

Exactly? Not sure, but I've captured three full herds of gorillas (yay traps!) and have had at least 10 babies, so maybe 25-30 apes. Should I assign the entire herd to my best Marksdwarf and hope for the best?

[NRDL]

Exactly? Not sure, but I've captured three full herds of gorillas (yay traps!) and have had at least 10 babies, so maybe 25-30 apes. Should I assign the entire herd to my best Marksdwarf and hope for the best?

Go for it.