Bay 12 Games Forum

there could be the option of simply "cutting" walls to be very low, a few pixel high but high enough we know what it is (smoothed, door, ect)

With all anminals this is what i do;
Its all free meat production, or free, expendable soldiers.

Whenever a new one pops in my fortress, its immediately send it into a cage. Donkey/horse /whatever.. i usually keep all females and a few males male of each.
Distribute a fewe in cages scattered in my fortress (to keep dwarves happy).
Keep all the rest in a single cage... keep them as breeding stock for several years, keep the young inside too to do the same job.
When the numbers are high enough, butchers the yearly production of useless animals and cats.
With dogs, i train all the yearly production as war dogs, put them all in a cage somewhere near a defensive chokepoint, link that to a lever. When gobos shows up close enough, release the massive wave of wardogs on them.
loot, rinse and repeat.

Also i sometimes set several wardogs to follow important dwarves around and some of my soldiers.. extra meatshields are always good.

--edit--
nearly forgot; IIRC, animals in cages dont breed.. there are ways around that. Throw them all in a pit or link them to chains. Nowi remember why i had so many war dogs..  i was having 20+ of them folllowing my squad leader. The rest was popping up form the pets of my dwarves, since i cant control them.

immigration control? Drop them from a retractable bridge that is 20+ levels high.. or give them a room with a door, and lock them in until they starve.. The next few waves will be too scared to come to your fortress. Giving you more than enough time to prepare.

As previously said, when we get nobles they should "handle it", they give us a list and, like trading, we select what job we want most.
Also, early waves should not be 2-3 times your current population each time.  More like a gradual increase in immigrants. Very few, with 1-3 more each wave.

i usually keep two or three nobles at most:

The mayor/horadmaster/trader/yaddayadda. He does it all at embark. One guy to keep happy and it work out fine so far.
The dungeon master since he work and dont ask for much. Also needed to tame exotic stuff.
Sometime the philosopher since he usually does nothing at all: very good for lever activation. Otherwise hes useless.

All the others get starved to death upon arrival. They get a room assigned to them, as soon as they get in, they get locked in forever.
When the new ones comes, they get the same treatment, in the same rooms. Its slow, foolproof, and easy to do.
That doesnt stop them from manipulating the price of items and setting up mandates and stuff.. but they wont last.

And with their deaths, it stop the mass migration waves of 20 i constantly get (and too often those waves are made up of completely useless dwarves). So.. Nobles do serve a purpose in my fortress; but only posthumously.

i dont know either, but i usually assume that everything have a 4 tile radius of noise and design acordingly.

I got the same (death trap) message only with getting rid 5 nobles.

Use the D-B-D option for mass dump on the occupied cage, the use K on each cages to un-dump the cage itself (so only the content of the cage will get dumped; the loot!.. btw it is good to get rid of vermin inside cages that elves bring without having to build animal traps)

Then build a secured room with a channel over it. Create with "I" a pit/pond on the hole. Use I-P on it and select the goblins to be thrown in it. Civilians will move in, take the goblins (amred or not) and throw them down there. Be carefull as to not make the hole access too small, and have a few soldiers nearby in case one civilain get scared (cuz he saw a gobos down there).

Thieves are dangerous when moved this way; they will escape (never did it personally), in this case i suggest setting their cages to open with a lever in your arena.
With ennemy dwarves trapped in your cages, its different with them, you just cant "dump" them in the pit like the gobos, you will have to link their cage with a lever to let them out. Btw those buggers count as one of your civilian when killed; and he will use up a coffin.

 Once down there, and if they dont have any way of getting out (use channels and drwabridge to seal it) they will wander around in it forever... until you pop the door open and kill them all.