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[IndigoSnake]

Bit of a subjective question, but Ive been pondering what the deciding factor should be when deciding whether an animal should be war trainable or not. Are there logical reasons why any one particular animal should not be capable of war training? A lot of the animals that do or do not have war training capability appear to be chosen arbitrarily to me, ^{dwarffortresswiki.org/Ocelot} for example.

I know I can just mod the raws to make everything war trainable but I am interested if there are patterns or thoughts on this that occur to anyone else on this matter.
What are your thoughts?

[anewaname]

Consider that history has shown that some animals were used in warfare and some were not. Those are the easy to declare as trainable or not. The remaining animals would all be arbitrary.

When you look at real world methods for training war animals, there are animals that obey commands (dogs, horses, elephants) and animals that were pointed at the enemy and let loose (bears, big cats, hornets). DF implements the first method, players implement the second method. There is a lot of room for arbitrary in all this, especially when you add different fantasy elements to this concept.

[pamelrabo]

I've always thought many more animals should be war trainable, just because I would enjoy the game more. Crocodiles, gorillas, other monsters... Not from a historic perspective of course, but we're in a world where cooks can do ant brain cookies, so...

Maybe it's time to get into raw editing

[IndigoSnake]

Consider that history has shown that some animals were used in warfare and some were not. Those are the easy to declare as trainable or not. The remaining animals would all be arbitrary.

When you look at real world methods for training war animals, there are animals that obey commands (dogs, horses, elephants) and animals that were pointed at the enemy and let loose (bears, big cats, hornets). DF implements the first method, players implement the second method. There is a lot of room for arbitrary in all this, especially when you add different fantasy elements to this concept.

Thank you for the well thought out points! I don't believe the historic angle is one that I considered.

Training a hornet to do much of anything, much less attack designated foes, would seem unfeasible to me, but I can see them being useful in battle as you imply. Contrastingly, I could imagine a bear being trained to defend an entrance, but calling specific targets on a confusing battlefield might be somewhat beyond them. And then you have dogs which are much more focused and quite advanced in what you can get them to do. The distinction of what constitutes a war animal is an important one I think, especially when it can refer to so many of the things we have already mentioned.

The point about fantasy elements is well observed as well, dwarf-kind may have some advantages in animal training that we lack.

Maybe it's time to get into raw editing

Apparently the [TRAINABLE] token can be added to creatures mid-playthrough, and speaking from personal experience creature tokens are quite simple to add. Just need to edit the raws in the save folder.

[Shonai_Dweller]

The historical viewpoint is very useful, but at the same time Elves, the main users of warbeasts, are meant to be very different from anything historical. They're not "dirty hippies who live in trees" much as the community likes to label them so, but mystical beings in tune with nature. To deny them war hornets, just because humans couldn't conceive of how it's possible would be detrimental to the game as fantasy world sim.

(Of course, that's possibly a bit beyond modding, to add "magical" training that only certain races get. Maybe post-Mythgen).

[IndigoSnake]

To deny them war hornets, just because humans couldn't conceive of how it's possible would be detrimental to the game as fantasy world sim.

Realistic or not, swarms of war bees following elves into battle is not something that should be denied. Though, I suppose they would have to be giant, as vermin aren't war trainable.

[Shonai_Dweller]

To deny them war hornets, just because humans couldn't conceive of how it's possible would be detrimental to the game as fantasy world sim.

Realistic or not, swarms of war bees following elves into battle is not something that should be denied. Though, I suppose they would have to be giant, as critters aren't war trainable.

Militia Captain: Ha ha elves, with their puny wooden weapons. This should be fun.

Ellf Ranger to as yet unseen cloud of pain: Aim straight for the beard...

Pandemonium ensures.

[daggaz]

All animals should have attributes and personality traits, which should affect whether or not a specific animal is trainable and to what extent.    Species should have a set of averages and variances, so pretty much most dogs could end up being war trainable, whereas war bears or giant warvarines might be more tricky, and giant war hornets would take some luck and a legendary animal trainer. 


It's not like my computer is slowing down or anything when I play DF.

[TheEqualsE]

Horses jump to mind, since they were trained and used in fighting.  Even if dwarves can't ride them they could still train them to kick.

[Iduno]

Carp.

[buuface]

This is almost meaningless until the animals/burrows bug is fixed.

Right now if you retreat your civilians to a burrow during a siege or attack, all the war animals follow them and even the ones which are chained up to guard your fortress will refuse to fight the invaders and just die pathetically.

[anewaname]

This is almost meaningless until the animals/burrows bug is fixed.

Right now if you retreat your civilians to a burrow during a siege or attack, all the war animals follow them and even the ones which are chained up to guard your fortress will refuse to fight the invaders and just die pathetically.

I started thinking about how it might be possible to assign a group of war animals to a squad, and then the animals could go on active duty when the dwarfs did... and what would happen if the animals trained with the dwarfs? Would they gain in skills? Could a fort end up with a squad of uber-wardogs with legendary bite, wrestle, and dodge skills?

[Shonai_Dweller]

This is almost meaningless until the animals/burrows bug is fixed.

Right now if you retreat your civilians to a burrow during a siege or attack, all the war animals follow them and even the ones which are chained up to guard your fortress will refuse to fight the invaders and just die pathetically.

Changes to the game involve Toady making changes to the game. Fixing bugs involves Toady making changes to the game. Is it so inconceivable that he might manage both at once?

And even if this were solely a modding discussion, people will attack you with war animals, war animas can be used on raids, war animals are used in worldgen battles. War animals could also be part of the new adventurer pets system.

There's plenty of scope even if you can't use them yourself in a fortress.

[IndigoSnake]

This is almost meaningless until the animals/burrows bug is fixed.

Right now if you retreat your civilians to a burrow during a siege or attack, all the war animals follow them and even the ones which are chained up to guard your fortress will refuse to fight the invaders and just die pathetically.

Didn't know this was an issue, shows my noobishness. Excuse my naivety, but the first thought that comes to my mind, as a possible work-around, would be something like this:

Code: [Select]

Stage One Burrow:
Safe dwarf area                   chained up dogs (not a part of burrow)
         |
         v
   +--------+
   |        |                                   x x x
   |        |
   +--------+
______________________________________________________

Stage Two Burrow:
Safe dwarf area                       chained up dogs area
         |           -note the lack of-          |
         v    -defined burrow tiles inbetween-   v
   +--------+              |                 +---------------+
   |        |              v                 |      x x x    |
   |        |                                |               |
   +--------+                                +---------------+
Assuming it works like I think it does, you could start an alert for for the first burrow, then when all the dwarves are inside their area, change the alert to the second burrow which includes the dog area. The dwarves shouldn't run to the dogs, since they would have to leave the burrow to do so, while the dogs should be able to focus on fighting since they aren't trying to run back inside the burrow.

[pamelrabo]

Changes to the game involve Toady making changes to the game. Fixing bugs involves Toady making changes to the game. Is it so inconceivable that he might manage both at once?

And even if this were solely a modding discussion, people will attack you with war animals, war animas can be used on raids, war animals are used in worldgen battles. War animals could also be part of the new adventurer pets system.

There's plenty of scope even if you can't use them yourself in a fortress.

I captured and war trained some rhinos in an old embark. While quite useless in when they were at home (they behave more like pet than war beasts), the raid reports against a necromancer tower showed furious rhinocerose charges clashing with dozens of zombies and Morul, the commander's pet war rhino, saving the day when the situation became desperate, stomping over the necromancer and turning the battle.

Yeah, war trained animals are awesome in raids, specially if big and stompy and several of them.