Animal trainer - Revision history

91.49.240.46: Undo revision 315236 by 91.49.240.46 (talk)

2026-03-05T12:57:41Z

Undo revision 315236 by 91.49.240.46 (talk)

91.49.240.46: /* Bonding */ added a note of a current side effect of traded bonded animals on the relations of an animal trainer with the beginning of a new year. (I assume that this is a temporary note).

2026-03-05T03:18:59Z

Bonding: added a note of a current side effect of traded bonded animals on the relations of an animal trainer with the beginning of a new year. (I assume that this is a temporary note).

Quietust: /* Hunting/War training */ the link goes to "cage" but the actual link text is "uncaged" (and you don't say "a uncaged")

2026-03-01T18:39:22Z

Hunting/War training: the link goes to "cage" but the actual link text is "uncaged" (and you don't say "a uncaged")

Silverwing235: /* Hunting/War training */

2026-03-01T11:32:15Z

Hunting/War training

91.49.240.46: /* Hunting/War training */ pastured animals do not need an overlapping animal training zone for war/hunting training; added text that work animals can be re-assigned and un-assigned via the work labors tab etc.

2026-02-28T23:27:56Z

Hunting/War training: pastured animals do not need an overlapping animal training zone for war/hunting training; added text that work animals can be re-assigned and un-assigned via the work labors tab etc.

Silverwing235 at 00:37, 28 February 2026

2026-02-28T00:37:41Z

GeloMor at 09:51, 26 February 2026

2026-02-26T09:51:57Z

108.66.191.79: /* Training */ Fixed two extremely minor but obvious typos ("...hemmed [in] in case..." -> "...contained in case...", "...must be regular[ly] re-trained..." -> "...must be regularly re-trained..."). Left everything else untouched.

2026-02-26T06:33:16Z

Training: Fixed two extremely minor but obvious typos ("...hemmed [in] in case..." -> "...contained in case...", "...must be regular[ly] re-trained..." -> "...must be regularly re-trained..."). Left everything else untouched.

91.49.240.46: /* Animal AI */

2026-02-20T18:23:12Z

Animal AI

108.85.197.99: /* Bonding */ style

2026-01-23T18:44:14Z

Bonding: style

@@ Line 155: / Line 155: @@
 An animal trainer with a preference for the animal may adopt and name the animal at the time of training, even if the animal is not designated for adoption. This leaves the trainer highly susceptible to the bad "pet death" thought, renders the animal inedible, and eventually requires an extra coffin. It may be advisable to disable animal training on any trainer with such a preference, especially for war training.
 Bonded animals can be traded. In that case the bonded animals will currently live happily ever after, as the game does not let them die (neither when they reach their max age nor when they reach the max possible age for that species). So it is currently an open question as to whether the death of an off-site bonded animal would cause a bad thought for the on-site bonded trainer.
 == Trainable war/hunting animals ==

@@ Line 155: / Line 155: @@
 An animal trainer with a preference for the animal may adopt and name the animal at the time of training, even if the animal is not designated for adoption. This leaves the trainer highly susceptible to the bad "pet death" thought, renders the animal inedible, and eventually requires an extra coffin. It may be advisable to disable animal training on any trainer with such a preference, especially for war training.
 Bonded animals can be traded. In that case the bonded animals will currently live happily ever after, as the game does not let them die (neither when they reach their max age nor when they reach the max possible age for that species). So it is currently an open question as to whether the death of an off-site bonded animal would cause a bad thought for the on-site bonded trainer.
 == Trainable war/hunting animals ==

@@ Line 141: / Line 141: @@
 ''This Animal hunts at will.''
-This requires a [[Cage|uncaged]] trainable animal with {{token|TRAINABLE|c}} or {{token|TRAINABLE_HUNTING|c}}, an animal training activity zone, and an animal trainer. Note that an animal that is in a pasture does not need an additional overlapping animal training zone to receive hunting training. Hunting animals can be assigned to follow a hunter and assist in the hunting process (see above for assignment and unassignment of hunting animals). They are intrinsically faster and more agile than a regular animal, and can [[ambusher|sneak]] alongside their partner, but are not as strong as a war animal.
+This requires an [[Cage|uncaged]] trainable animal with {{token|TRAINABLE|c}} or {{token|TRAINABLE_HUNTING|c}}, an animal training activity zone, and an animal trainer. Note that an animal that is in a pasture does not need an additional overlapping animal training zone to receive hunting training. Hunting animals can be assigned to follow a hunter and assist in the hunting process (see above for assignment and unassignment of hunting animals). They are intrinsically faster and more agile than a regular animal, and can [[ambusher|sneak]] alongside their partner, but are not as strong as a war animal.
 === Train a war animal ===
 ''This Animal is waiting for conflict.''
-This requires a [[Cage|uncaged]] trainable animal with {{token|TRAINABLE|c}} or {{token|TRAINABLE_WAR|c}}, an animal training activity zone, and an animal trainer. [[Pasture|Pastured]] animals do not need an additional animal training zone overlapping the pasture. War animals are significantly stronger than their untrained counterparts; war dogs make excellent companions when starting a fortress, when you can't spare many dwarves for fighting.
+This requires an [[Cage|uncaged]] trainable animal with {{token|TRAINABLE|c}} or {{token|TRAINABLE_WAR|c}}, an animal training activity zone, and an animal trainer. [[Pasture|Pastured]] animals do not need an additional animal training zone overlapping the pasture. War animals are significantly stronger than their untrained counterparts; war dogs make excellent companions when starting a fortress, when you can't spare many dwarves for fighting.
 Like hunting animals, they can be assigned (unassigned and re-assigned) to individual dwarves the same way; combined with their strength, this makes them effective expendable bodyguards for any dwarf likely to see danger or who you feel is valuable enough to be worth protecting. Even if they fail to defeat an attacker, they can often buy their charge time to escape, or for additional reinforcements to arrive.

@@ Line 134: / Line 134: @@
 Some domesticated animal juveniles, such as puppies, are unable to be trained until they reach adulthood, at which point they only need hunting/war training once in their training zone (or assigned pasture).
-War and hunting trained animals can be assigned to a character, either via the pet/livestock tab of the unit list or via work animals sub-tab of the character sheet. If the pet/livestock tab (of the unit list) is used, then children and babies appear in the list of possible characters the animal can be assigned to. But work animals currently assigned to a dwarf cannot be unassigned via the pet/livestock tab of the unit list, still unassigning (or re-assigning) of work animals is possible via the work animals sub-tab (of the labors tab) of the character sheet. (Note that work animals assigned to children or babies need first to be assigned to another character before the animal can be unassigned, as the work animals sub tabs of children and babies - incorrectly - claims, that work animals cannot be assigned to the character).
+War and hunting trained animals can be assigned to a character, either via the pet/livestock tab of the unit list or via the work animals sub-tab of the character sheet. If the pet/livestock tab (of the unit list) is used, then children and babies appear in the list of possible characters the animal can be assigned to. But work animals currently assigned to a dwarf cannot be unassigned via the pet/livestock tab of the unit list, still unassigning (or re-assigning) of work animals is possible via the work animals sub-tab (of the labors tab) of the character sheet. (Note that work animals assigned to children or babies need first to be assigned to another character before the animal can be unassigned, as the work animal sub tabs of children and babies - incorrectly - claims that work animals cannot be assigned to the character).
-A work animals, which is not a pet, receives a name the first time the animal is assigned as work animal to a character.
+A work animal which is not a pet, receives a name the first time the animal is assigned as a work animal to a character.
 ===Train a hunting animal===
 ''This Animal hunts at will.''
-This requires an [[Cage|uncaged]] trainable animal with {{token|TRAINABLE|c}} or {{token|TRAINABLE_HUNTING|c}}, an animal training activity zone, and an animal trainer. Note that an animal that is in a pasture does not need an additional overlapping animal training zone to receive hunting training. Hunting animals can be assigned to follow a hunter and assist in the hunting process (see above for assignment and unassignment of hunting animals). They are intrinsically faster and more agile than a regular animal, and can [[ambusher|sneak]] alongside their partner, but are not as strong as a war animal.
+This requires a [[Cage|uncaged]] trainable animal with {{token|TRAINABLE|c}} or {{token|TRAINABLE_HUNTING|c}}, an animal training activity zone, and an animal trainer. Note that an animal that is in a pasture does not need an additional overlapping animal training zone to receive hunting training. Hunting animals can be assigned to follow a hunter and assist in the hunting process (see above for assignment and unassignment of hunting animals). They are intrinsically faster and more agile than a regular animal, and can [[ambusher|sneak]] alongside their partner, but are not as strong as a war animal.
 === Train a war animal ===
 ''This Animal is waiting for conflict.''
-This requires an [[Cage|uncaged]] trainable animal with {{token|TRAINABLE|c}} or {{token|TRAINABLE_WAR|c}}, an animal training activity zone, and an animal trainer. [[Pasture|Pastured]] animals do not need an additional animal training zone overlapping the pasture. War animals are significantly stronger than their untrained counterparts; war dogs make excellent companions when starting a fortress, when you can't spare many dwarves for fighting.
+This requires a [[Cage|uncaged]] trainable animal with {{token|TRAINABLE|c}} or {{token|TRAINABLE_WAR|c}}, an animal training activity zone, and an animal trainer. [[Pasture|Pastured]] animals do not need an additional animal training zone overlapping the pasture. War animals are significantly stronger than their untrained counterparts; war dogs make excellent companions when starting a fortress, when you can't spare many dwarves for fighting.
-Like hunting animals, they can be assigned (unassigned and re-assigned) to individual dwarves the same way; combined with their strength, this makes them effective expendable bodyguards for any dwarf likely to see danger or who you feel is valuable enough to be worth protecting. Even if they fail to defeat an attacker, they can often buy their charge time to escape or for additional reinforcements to arrive.
+Like hunting animals, they can be assigned (unassigned and re-assigned) to individual dwarves the same way; combined with their strength, this makes them effective expendable bodyguards for any dwarf likely to see danger or who you feel is valuable enough to be worth protecting. Even if they fail to defeat an attacker, they can often buy their charge time to escape, or for additional reinforcements to arrive.
 == Bonding ==

@@ Line 130: / Line 130: @@
 ==Hunting/War training==
-Some tamed animals can receive additional training for hunting or for war, for which you need a [[Zone#Animal_Training|training zone]] and a dwarf with the animal training labor enabled. Then you can go to your Pets/Livestock list and find your trainable animal. Trainable animals are those where you see either war training or hunting training icons in the middle column. If you wish you can also select a particular trainer to perform this task with the first icon in the column.
+Some tamed animals can receive additional training for hunting or for war, for which you need a [[Zone#Animal_Training|training zone]] and a dwarf with the animal training labor enabled, but animals in a pasture can be trained for hunting/war without any animal training zone overlapping the zone. Then you can go to your Pets/Livestock list and find your trainable animal. Trainable animals are those where you see either war training or hunting training icons in the middle column. If you wish you can also select a particular trainer to perform this task with the first icon in the column.
-Some domesticated animal juveniles, such as puppies, are unable to be trained until they reach adulthood, at which point they only need hunting/war training once in their training zone.
+Some domesticated animal juveniles, such as puppies, are unable to be trained until they reach adulthood, at which point they only need hunting/war training once in their training zone (or assigned pasture).
 ===Train a hunting animal===
 ''This Animal hunts at will.''
-This requires an [[Cage|uncaged]] trainable animal with {{token|TRAINABLE|c}} or {{token|TRAINABLE_HUNTING|c}}, an animal training activity zone, and an animal trainer. Note that an animal that is in a pasture can only be trained if the zone is also in the same [[pasture]]. Hunting animals can be assigned to follow a hunter and assist in the hunting process; once assigned they cannot be unassigned. They are intrinsically faster and more agile than a regular animal, and can [[ambusher|sneak]] alongside their partner, but are not as strong as a war animal.
+This requires an [[Cage|uncaged]] trainable animal with {{token|TRAINABLE|c}} or {{token|TRAINABLE_HUNTING|c}}, an animal training activity zone, and an animal trainer. Note that an animal that is in a pasture does not need an additional overlapping animal training zone to receive hunting training. Hunting animals can be assigned to follow a hunter and assist in the hunting process (see above for assignment and unassignment of hunting animals). They are intrinsically faster and more agile than a regular animal, and can [[ambusher|sneak]] alongside their partner, but are not as strong as a war animal.
 === Train a war animal ===
 ''This Animal is waiting for conflict.''
-This requires an [[Cage|uncaged]] trainable animal with {{token|TRAINABLE|c}} or {{token|TRAINABLE_WAR|c}}, an animal training activity zone, and an animal trainer. [[Pasture|Pastured]] animals can only be trained if the zone is located within their pasture. War animals are significantly stronger than their untrained counterparts; war dogs make excellent companions when starting a fortress, when you can't spare many dwarves for fighting.
+This requires an [[Cage|uncaged]] trainable animal with {{token|TRAINABLE|c}} or {{token|TRAINABLE_WAR|c}}, an animal training activity zone, and an animal trainer. [[Pasture|Pastured]] animals do not need an additional animal training zone overlapping the pasture. War animals are significantly stronger than their untrained counterparts; war dogs make excellent companions when starting a fortress, when you can't spare many dwarves for fighting.
-Like hunting animals, they can be assigned to individual dwarves the same way, and cannot be unassigned; combined with their strength, this makes them effective expendable bodyguards for any dwarf likely to see danger or who you feel is valuable enough to be worth protecting. Even if they fail to defeat an attacker, they can often buy their charge time to escape or for additional reinforcements to arrive.
+Like hunting animals, they can be assigned (unassigned and re-assigned) to individual dwarves the same way; combined with their strength, this makes them effective expendable bodyguards for any dwarf likely to see danger or who you feel is valuable enough to be worth protecting. Even if they fail to defeat an attacker, they can often buy their charge time to escape or for additional reinforcements to arrive.
 == Bonding ==

@@ Line 123: / Line 123: @@
 If a tamed animal is "stray", that is, it's not a pet, it will (usually), if not assigned to a pen/pasture, wander around your fortress randomly, spending most of its time in meeting areas, and attacking any hostiles that it comes across or wild animals that are attacking citizens. Animals with the {{token|LARGE_PREDATOR}} token are somewhat more aggressive than animals lacking this token, and are more likely to attack hostiles, while animals with a {{token|BENIGN}} token will simply run away from any hostiles, which makes them useless for [[Attack|dwarven]] defense, but they can be used as arrow fodder to keep the enemy entertained while you're bunkering in. Grazing animals should be assigned to a [[pasture]] because they will otherwise starve to death.
-An animal, which did either bond with a trainer or was tamed (after birth) by a trainer or was hunting/war trained (but is not yet assigned to a dwarf as a work animal), will usually have its following link set to the corresponding trainer (eg. dwarf, who bonded with the animal or tamed the animal or war/hunting trained the animal) and thus comes to the trainer, if the trainer approaches the pen/pasture the animal is assigned to, follow the trainer around (if not assigned to a pen/pasture) and might even follow the trainer from an assigned pen/pasture (after the trainer leaves the pasture). But animals with the {{token|VERMINHUNTER}} token (read: peregrine falcons), who are domesticated after birth, will not necessarily display that behaviour (ie. if the following link is retained seems to be random). Bonded animals - even with the vermin hunter token - will still follow their trainer.
+An animal which did either bond with a trainer or was tamed (after birth) by a trainer, or was hunting/war trained (but is not yet assigned to a dwarf as a work animal), will usually have its following link set to the corresponding trainer (eg. the dwarf who bonded with the animal or tamed the animal or war/hunting trained the animal) and thus comes to the trainer, if the trainer approaches the pen/pasture the animal is assigned to, follow the trainer around (if not assigned to a pen/pasture) and might even follow the trainer from an assigned pen/pasture (after the trainer leaves the pasture). But animals with the {{token|VERMINHUNTER}} token (read: peregrine falcons), who are domesticated after birth, will not necessarily display that behaviour (ie. if the following link is retained seems to be random). Bonded animals - even with the vermin hunter token - will still follow their trainer.
 A pet or work animal, if not assigned to a pasture, will alternate between following its owner and visiting [[meeting area]]s. Should their owner die, the animal may instead be seen alternating between meeting areas and visiting the site of their death (even if their body is no longer there).

@@ Line 63: / Line 63: @@
 Once you have a captured, tamable creature trapped in a cage, you can start taming it. You will need an [[Zone#Animal Training|animal training zone]] and some [[plants]] or [[meat]] depending on whether the animal is herbivorous or carnivorous. To have your animal trainer begin taming a wild animal, use {{menu icon|u}} to open the citizen information screen and select the Pets/Livestock tab. Scroll through, or filter the list until your captured wild animal is selected and use the whistle icon to set a trainer to tame it (the cursor keys and {{k|Ctrl|t|sep=+}} also work).
-The trainer will bring food to the cage and perform the initial training, setting the animal to one of the trained levels (see table at right). A fully wild animal must be trained from its cage, but once an animal has been initially trained and it is no longer wild, it may be safely released from its cage (and preferably assigned to an enclosed [[pasture]] or [[restraint]], to keep it hemmed in case problems arise later). When a caged animal is fed a plant, [[seed]]s will be left in the cage. This has no effect on taming, but if you later release the animal, you will need to [[Activity zone#Garbage Dump|dump]] the seeds from the cage before it can be reused.
+The trainer will bring food to the cage and perform the initial training, setting the animal to one of the trained levels (see table at right). A fully wild animal must be trained from its cage, but once an animal has been initially trained and it is no longer wild, it may be safely released from its cage (and preferably assigned to an enclosed [[pasture]] or [[restraint]], to keep it contained in case problems arise later). When a caged animal is fed a plant, [[seed]]s will be left in the cage. This has no effect on taming, but if you later release the animal, you will need to [[Activity zone#Garbage Dump|dump]] the seeds from the cage before it can be reused.
 A notable exception from "training levels" are animals which are a member of a species your civilization already has domesticated. Only a few of them can occur in the wild to be captured - e.g. [[water buffalo]] and [[turkey]]. Such creatures become fully tame upon the completion of taming, and after that they will never require or receive training again, even if assigned to a trainer.
@@ Line 71: / Line 71: @@
 The overall difficulty and time required to tame an animal is roughly proportional to its [[List of creatures by pet value|pet value]]. As a general guideline, animals with pet values of less than 100 are easy to train, those with values of 100+ take some effort and a few years to train well, and creatures with pet values of 1000+ such as [[dragon]]s are very slow to train.
-Adult trained animals will slowly revert to their wild origins over time, and must be regular re-trained. Trained animals have a quality associated to their training that affects how long they will retain composure before reverting to the wild, but which may have other effects as well. The last state an animal reaches before it becomes fully wild is semi-wild, which prompts an [[announcement]]. Dwarves will instinctively know when their assigned animals need retraining, and will prioritize doing so, but will obviously not be able to if they are [[wound|injured]], experiencing a [[strange mood]], or are otherwise unable to reach their trainees. If you assign a single dwarf to an animal (Any available trainer is also an option) only that dwarf will ever attempt to train or retrain the creature, so care must be taken to keep that trainers healthy and available.
+Adult trained animals will slowly revert to their wild origins over time, and must be regularly re-trained. Trained animals have a quality associated to their training that affects how long they will retain composure before reverting to the wild, but which may have other effects as well. The last state an animal reaches before it becomes fully wild is semi-wild, which prompts an [[announcement]]. Dwarves will instinctively know when their assigned animals need retraining, and will prioritize doing so, but will obviously not be able to if they are [[wound|injured]], experiencing a [[strange mood]], or are otherwise unable to reach their trainees. If you assign a single dwarf to an animal (Any available trainer is also an option) only that dwarf will ever attempt to train or retrain the creature, so care must be taken to keep that trainers healthy and available.
 Animals acquired from [[merchants]] will be fully tame and will never revert to a wild state. This is also true when you seize the animals, or kill all the merchants. These animals will be in cages, so you will have to release them in some way; this is very important if they are grazers as they will starve due to the lack of grass in the cage. To do this you can either assign them to a pasture, or build the cage, link lever to it, and have the lever pulled. Killing all the merchants will '''not''' make the pack animals a part of your civilization, instead they will become "friendly" and wander around the map.