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[Hiarhu]

Can it be done? I've got what for me seems to be a fairly rare opportunity in that I have captured two hypothetically breeding pairs of semi-megabeasts. I'm running two forts at the moment, in one I've captured a male and female pair of Ettins and in the other I have captured a Giant and Giantess. I've had the Ettins locked in a room together for several in game years now and nothing has happened. Now I know these creatures are intelligent which presumably means they could have no interest in romance or reproduction but if both subjects are willing to mate is it possible in game?

If it isn't possible or if the creatures don't have the desire to mate can I change this through modding/dfhack? I'd prefer to find a way to make them reproduce without making the offspring friendly to my fort.

[clockwork]

i think it's possible, could be wrong. might take a while for them to mature. haven't looked at the raws in a while...

[PatrikLundell]

Most (all?) semi megabeasts are intelligent, which means they should play by "civilized" rules for breeding, which would mean marriage, which would require a maximum age difference of 10 years, plus socializing to get to know each other, and appropriate sexual preferences.
If somebody has done vanilla troll breeding I suspect those methods would apply.

You can use gui/gm-editor to change sexual preferences, personalities, and date of birth (possibly screwing up some legends entries). It's also possible to forcibly marry them (there's a family affairs DFHack tool for messing with citizens. The same logic might be applied here). If forcibly married the age difference hurdle has probably been jumped, as migrant couples can have a larger difference but still reproduce.

If nothing else, you can paint tavern zones over the ettin and giant rooms and see if they socialize (but disable it for baby making, as that activity has a lower priority than socializing).

[dragdeler]

Im not convinced that they need to respect the 10 year limit, IMO that's only relevant to dwarves... What makes say that? I have a breeding pair of procedural spoilers, and since I want to be recognised for that achievement in due time I won't go in too much detail... But I'd be surprised if they're within 10 years reach considering both are past the age 450. (I'll confirm this when back home)

So Hiarhu, I advise you to "tweak makeown" those semi megabeast and wait until they petition full citizenship, then you lock them into a room until they marry. I advise that because it worked for me and made sense in my setting. An alternate solution would be to directly marry them via DFhack, but I'd be too scared to break the AI of those VIP. Dont lock them in a room together in a state they're at now; they might kill eachother.

[PatrikLundell]

Fear of breaking the save: make a copy and mess with the copy...

Spoiler breeding: if they're not sapient it's nothing to write home about. If they are, however, that may or may not be something new. I haven't actually checked whether the breeders I've had were sapient or not.

Hm, come to think of it, I've had camping troglodytes give birth (in one case in while caged), so "wild" sapients probably operate by different rules from civilized ones (and quite possibly the animal ones). Semi megabeasts may have their own rules, of course.

[dragdeler]

Well well well, 720 and 714. You are probably right PatrikLundell, as allways 

[Hiarhu]

Thanks for all your answers but I might have discovered an additional problem. Upon further examination in legends viewer I discovered that I'm dealing with preexisting family groups. The Ettins are brother and sister and my male giant is the youngest son of the giantess. It seems to make sense, in both worlds a male and female came into existence at the beginning of the world and produced three children. It may not be possible or at least very unlikely for more than one natural breeding pair to exist.

Both pairs were getting along nicely without trying to kill each other, I thought it was because they were the same species but maybe it was because they're family.

Though the Ettin parents and the Giantess' original mate are all alive. It might be a long shot but I could always hope to capture them. It's too bad we can't send out a squad with orders to bring them back alive or die trying. 

I'll probably back up the saves and try some of the things mentioned here just for science but I don't think I'm going to run with this idea of a breeding program. It might be a little too squick even for me.

[dragdeler]

Very cool, maximize caravan exports and cage traps, maybe domesticate GCS; waiting for your report Urist  . I had been fantasizing about that kind of stuff. I think I'll hit the same problem as you, with siblings not intermarrying. That first pair is precious! Honestly I just hope that if you build up a large enough population, the passage of time with the miracle of abstraction might come up with a more general "non historical figure" population pool... Sorry for the rambling, good luck 

[Hiarhu]

maybe domesticate GCS

I lost my only two GCS in the ettin world to a FB started fire in my storage room but in the giant's world I have eighty. I don't think I need them for the project though, both ettins and giants are captured in normal cage traps just fine. Little overpowered if you ask me but I guess if it didn't work that way I wouldn't have this opportunity.

I just had an idea. In the ettin world I once sent the dwarves to recover an artifact sword. They failed because that sword was being held. What I didn't know at the time was that it was being held by a werebeast. Said werebeast arrived very soon after the failed mission transformed and with artifact sword in hand attacking my fort. I don't know for sure if this was a coincidence or a retaliatory attack but in legends viewer I can see that some of the target creatures are also holding artifacts. Perhaps if I send dwarves after those artifacts it will provoke the holder into responding by traveling to my fortress.

[Hiarhu]

Well I didn't have the chance to edit anything.

https://i.imgur.com/kFjVWKL.png

So parent child relationships among giants at least CAN indeed produce an offspring. The baby is Friendly to my fort and has no name. The parents aren't trying to murder it though the mother dropped it on the floor instead of carrying it. I did use legends viewer to confirm that the giantess didn't arrive pregnant, my captive male is the father.

That means my problem with the ettins is most likely either one of them has an incorrect orientation for breeding or has no interest in it rather than siblings not being able to reproduce. No baby from them in over five years while the giants produced in one.

Since I don't think there's a way to get Friendly non visitors to join the fort I'm going to pull the child out of the pit and use the makeown command so I can see if she petitions for full citizenship in a few years.

But since I don't have to force the issue, Giant breeding is back on the agenda!

[PatrikLundell]

Congratulations to the spiritual parenthood!

Looks like giants use animal breeding behavior then.

[dragdeler]

Concerning the not carrying around: was the giant born fully sized? I know mine are, simply because most creatures lack a child state.

Also: extremely cool!

[Hiarhu]

Concerning the not carrying around: was the giant born fully sized? I know mine are, simply because most creatures lack a child state.

Also: extremely cool!

Nope. It was definitely a baby. A baby the size of a GCS but a baby nonetheless. I finally found giants in the raws and they do have a fully defined child state. It's the same as dwarves actually, baby until 1 and a child until 12. I'm going to change that so it should grow up fully at age two for practicality.

Oh in case anyone ever wants to try this for themselves I found out you have to remove the SEMIMEGABEAST tag or else your military will attack "friendly" units and even ones that have been made a part of the fort with the makeown command. Presumably this means no future beasts of that type will attack your fortress.

[Bumber]

Oh in case anyone ever wants to try this for themselves I found out you have to remove the SEMIMEGABEAST tag or else your military will attack "friendly" units and even ones that have been made a part of the fort with the makeown command. Presumably this means no future beasts of that type will attack your fortress.

I can't help but feel that kind of defeats the entire purpose somehow.

[Hiarhu]

Oh in case anyone ever wants to try this for themselves I found out you have to remove the SEMIMEGABEAST tag or else your military will attack "friendly" units and even ones that have been made a part of the fort with the makeown command. Presumably this means no future beasts of that type will attack your fortress.

I can't help but feel that kind of defeats the entire purpose somehow.

It's a personal style thing, you only need to do that if you want them to be a part of your fort which for me is more fun than yet another pit filled with hostile breeding creatures. I made a Yeti repopulation program once, much less interesting than the time I tried to turn tamable trogs into an expendable military force. Turns out the effort involved in capturing, recruiting and training while setting up a stable breeding population means any individual trog is more valuable than your real military. I'm planning something similar for the giants.