Bay 12 Games Forum

So recently a Bronze Colossus stumbled up to my 2-year-old Fort, (which I absolutely wasn't prepared for; I hadn't generated that much wealth and I've never had anything but werebeasts this early) and I panicked. After a series of misadventures involving the senseless slaughter of all my melee soldiers and livestock, I threw my hands up and as part of a Last Desperate Stand^TM, I threw open the drawbridge. The Colossus rushed right in... and didn't make it 3 feet before succumbing to the entire hallway of cage traps that I completely forgot I had built. One weapons-grade facepalm later, I find myself with a Colossus in a box.

My question is this: I was thinking of digging a pit in front of the gate and chaining the Colossus down there for goblin disposal/target practice. The wiki says that megabeasts on restraints aren't hostile to fortress dwarves, but I'm nervous about the transfer. If I build a chain and assign the monster to it, is Urist McBeastmaster just going to open the cage of a very angry statue in the trap-free bowels of my fort, or will the prisoner behave itself during the walk from cage to rope?

You could always build your pit.  Then build the cage in the center of your pit.  Attach the cage to a lever outside of your pit.  Seal your pit/wall it off.  Then use the lever to deconstruct the cage and release the Colossus into your pit.

Then the Colossus would be hostile to everyone and be able to move around the entire pit and attack anyone/anything that falls into it.

I suggest saving right before toppling unless you want to get stuck being a werelizard.

So a part of the game where've I've had quite some problems in the other versions I've played ( been around 1 and 1/2 year since last  time due to kids ) is particularly the military units and their strategy, sometimes I send the troops to somewhere and 2-3 out of 6 comes first and starts attacking, there's a lack of coordinated group effort and sometimes even when setting up 2 points, one to group and then hopefully to attack, it doesnt happen since some of those soldiers might run off to get water, supplies or just go to sleep.

Has this been changed in the new versions?
Is there better options on how you want your soldiers to form formations?

I do not know about the last several updates so I am not going to address that.  In previous versions soldiers might decide they need to fill their canteen or get more ammo or new socks.  I tend to get around this by sectioning off my fort using doors that can be shut tight and forbidden--this shuts off the option of more wine or new socks when battle is at hand. When forces of darkness enter the map, I put on a civilian alert that calls non-militia to the lower portions of my fort, and activate all of my militia and station them on the upper portion of my forts and I actively watch the doors to the lower portion of the fort to make sure all my military and civilians are on the right side of those doors.

The adventurers slay the dragon to complete the quest they travelled an entire continent to complete and upon returning (again crossing the continent) and reporting their victory they are met with "It was inevitable" and no reward.

Are you using any mods?

Well...interaction_vampire.txt example does have them get tags nonausea,no_dizziness, nopain and noexert (cave adaptation symptoms).

However, they'd have to stay in your fort bloodsucking for, what, 1,5 years? At a corpse a month, that's 18 dwarves drained of blood. Might as well as train everyone to superdwarvenly though instead and rely on them being strong enough to survive a bite.

That would still seriously narrow down the number of possible candidates depending on how he designs his forts. I rarely design my forts to prevent cave adaptation and as a result, all but a few hunters and foragers are completely cave adapted.

Do vampires still suffer from cave adaptation? If not, then you could send them out and whichever one wasn't spewing vomit would be the vampire.

May as well call it Hepatitis A-C rain.