40d Talk:Giant eagle

More dangerous than Carp? Oooh...we need a King of the beasts page just to debate the most evil of creatures.--Draco18s 12:11, 2 November 2007 (EDT)

Are we sure that a giant eagle really gives 10 bones, and 10 meat? The thing must be the size of an elephant. That's more like a Roc, not an eagle.

Well, that *is* basically what a Roc is. No one said how big 'giant' is. I wouldn't be surprised if giant eagles could eventually pick up and drop dwarves. --Edward 02:30, 31 December 2007 (EST)

Actually, there were real Giant Eagles before but they went extinct. They had a wingspan of 2.6m to 3m, according to Wikipedia. But then again, this would be a mythological Giant Eagle, so I guess it could be any size. Oh, and checking the coding on the thing, it's size is a little under 2/3 that of an Elephant, which for a bit of guidance, is on average about 3 meters tall.Plasma 18:52, 12 June 2008 (EDT)

I have a couple of those GEs hovering in the middle of the map, any chance i could catch one? --Digger 12:09, 25 February 2008 (EST)

I'd doubt it. You'd have to be pretty damn lucky to trap a flying creature in a cage on the ground. The only way you could do it would be to lure it into a corridor, as it means it won't be able to fly. Plasma 18:52, 12 June 2008 (EDT)

Dangerous???

After this wiki page, I was really scared when at some point a zombie giant eagle occured and marched straight into my fortress. in the end, my untrained woodcutter slaughtered it and had to stay in bed for half a week due to minor injuries. The second zombie giant eagle was killed by a single skilled wrestler (very agile, so he was the first to arrive) without armour and without getting injured. Is the information on the page really correct? Or should it rather be "dangerous for non-military dwarves"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Qwertyu (talk•contribs)

more so since sending peasants as recruits into the fray and see them die is not a proof that a creature is so especially dangerous. --Koltom 03:22, 10 March 2008 (EDT)

Giant Eagles are so powerful because they use swift hit-and-run attacks, darting out of the sky to attack it's target, and return back to the sky, making it very hard to fight normally. Not only would a zombie Giant Eagle be much slower (and perhaps be on the ground too, I don't know), but having one stuck inside your fortress means that it can't fly at all. Plasma 18:52, 12 June 2008 (EDT)

Wait a second though. He said "marched straight into my fortress" as in not flying... as in nothing more than a plain zombie... Go figure that a walking bird that's meant to fly isn't dangerous! Personally, I doubt a flying GE would ever enter a fortress. Normal (or otherwise flying, do skel-GEs fly?) Giant Eagles are very dangerous *because* they fly. They easily avoid any dwarves that would be a danger to it, while picking off any peasant that goes outdoors. I haven't heard much talk about them since the z-level ranged attacks were fixed, (didn't use to shoot between z-levels for a bit after z's were implemented,) so perhaps the fact that they fly isn't a big problem if you've got a supply of bolts and a decent marksdwarf. But I could be wrong on both accounts, who knows? Proof is always welcome of either way! --Edward 05:07, 10 March 2008 (EDT)

Well, parts of my fortress needed a roof, that's how it entered. But don't attack undead everything? So if you send your military dwarves, it should attack them instead of some poor peasants, correct? Besides, especially the Zombie GE is so slow that even my exhausted half-time fighters (They had just practiced their wrestling with a group of skeletal hoary marmots) could outcrouch it, so I cannot imagine that it would make such an incredible killer even if it spent more time flying. -- Qwertyu 10:30, 10 March 2008 (CET)

Oh, but you haven't seen a skeletal eagle--the time I saw it, it was horrific...I brought six dogs with me to a terrifying mountain, and I was busy digging out a fort next to the volcano nearby. Then, I saw "______ cancels store item in stockpile: Interrupted by Skeletal giant eagle."

My god, that scared the hell out of me, and rightfully so. It SLAUGHTERED my six dogs with about what looked like one hit each (about a fourth of a second each kill) and then seemed to guard the wagon which had my supplies and about 20 more tin bars (I'd hauled about a third of them). It then came back later on to harrass the Solen building the water pumping system--which, for that matter, froze up later on.

EDIT: Yes, skeletal GEs fly.

...Man, that fort was...odd. ~ Midna 12:11, 23 May 2008 (EDT)

I had just started out in a calm area and looked on the unit list and saw a giant eagle, I couldn't stop my hunter from going after it and he was unfortunatley killed by it. Afterwards it was considered legend (I guess) and named Woodchoke. --DUMBELLS 15:09, 25 May 2008 (EDT)

Ah, I remember I had a similar situation. Only replaced "six dogs" with "six dwarves". Owch. And, in case you're wondering, the seventh dwarf didn't escape, he just got mauled by a Skeletal Mountain Goat. Plasma 18:46, 12 June 2008 (EDT)

As others have said, the thing that makes giant eagles dangerous is their flight. At least you can generally keep your dwarves away from elephants or place traps to keep them away from your dwarves. It's probably almost impossible to stop a giant eagle with a trap, and you can't even keep track of its position because civilian dwarves don't seem to be scared by it till it drops to their Z-level - if it's flying around six levels above that road you're building, none of your dwarves will sound the alarm until it swoops down out of nowhere to eviscerate a peasant. It's probably not anywhere near as tough as an elephant in melee combat (a single war dog, though mortally wounded in the process, managed to knock one out long enough for me to notice and send a dwarf to finish it off), but the psychological torment more than makes up for it - it's silent and deadly. Topping it all off is that while marksdwarves make short work of it, marksdwarves are just about the only thing that can kill it on your terms. If you don't have any, you have to just have to wait around and hope it attacks someone strong enough to take it out. Gelmax 01:48, 16 July 2008 (EDT)

When I saw a Skeletal Giant Eagle appear, due to the article I was terrified. Needless to say, they are no where near as dangerous as they are made out to be. 2 semi-trained marksdwarves and a recruit marksdwarf were able to kill it with only one loss. I don't think the article is doing any favors to new players by encouraging them to abandon their fortress at the sight of one. --Aristoi 15:31, 13 August 2008 (EDT)

When I encountered one in Adventure mode as a professional Hammerer i was pretty scared but I killed it in one hit!! Hoborobo 15:38, 13 August 2008 (EDT)

BTW: Wouldn't there be an option to bring it down with just some recruits? As an idea: Two waves: One consisting of wrestling recruits (say 2-3), the other one consisting of your somewhat skilled miners, and an axe carrier (if you have one). It comes down to engage the first three dwarves, the second group should be able to tear it apart, especially due to the axe. Worked nicely with a giant bat (however, this was killed even by a lone axedwarf). Qwertyu 07:27, 31 August 2008 (EDT)

I had a Giant Eagle (non-undead, thankfully) hanging out on the north end of the map on my current fortress (v0.28.181.40c). Fearing for my dorfs, I kept them inside for the better part of the next year after it arrived. The following summer, I forced the human caravan to arrive on the west end of the map, but their Guild Representative spawned literally twenty tiles away from the GE. The weird thing is that the GE fled from the unarmed, unskilled Guild Rep. It hasn't been seen since. Thrawn 13:58, 30 August 2008 (EDT)

Well, many of the dangerous living creatures do not attack automatically, but only sometimes. Fire imps also flee from your dwarves most of the time, but you should not count on it. Qwertyu 07:27, 31 August 2008 (EDT)