Wolf Enclosure (in Mountains)

[SirRonald]

I added 3 screen shots to show what I had to expand too. I did not have much time to think about design considering I was being attacked nearly non stop through this. At least, it has calmed down a bit now.

I've been able to catch a number of wolves and those that I have been able to tame have died immediately after taming them. Since they cannot teleport I made my way back to my main camp and he decided to attack an Ogre that I was trying to avoid.
The pen I used was a pit I dug in the ground so they could not climb out. No material built by the player lasts long with the wolves. They have gotten through every kind of fence or wall I have built other than a pit. That is just not right and almost had me quit the game.
The second, I caught both a 2 star and a regular wolf, the 2 star tamed, the regular never tamed. Well, just after he tamed a Drake came along and blasted him to bits, then attacked me.
So, an open pen is not the answer. Closing it makes it very difficult to check up on them with out getting them excited and making the taming longer.
Any suggestions on building a taming pen that is versatile? ie, can view the wolf, close enough to see their status bar, not antagonize them, and be able to feed them?

OR, am I asking too much from this game?

[Lurksmore]

Floating hearts are visible long before agro.

[Kursor1]

Ok, once you have your wolves in a pit by whatever method you use, put a full roof over the pit. What drakes cant see they cant attack, although they will sometimes sense the wolves and circle around the roof trying to get a line of sight. Once you have 2 tames, breed tiil you have 2 cubs of the right size, careully killing any cub that doesnt have the right number of stars. While youre waiting for breeding etc, dig another wolf pit with covered roof etc just far enough away that the two pits dont interfere with breeding limits. Once you have 2 cubs with the right number of stars, wall them up in the back of their pit so they cant escape, then open the front of the pen (dig trench as needed) and lead the two adults over to the other pen and close them in and keep breeding more cubs there till again you have 2 good cubs. Once you do, gank the substandard adult in the second pen, and go away and do something somewhere else entirely till the cubs are all grown up. Come back, feed the wolves untill you have 2 new cubs in the first pen and a new cub in the second pen. Run the shortest route down the mountain killing all drakes and golems anywhere near the route. The shortest route, more or less regardless of where you actually want to wind up, that does not lead to swamps. Once youre satisfied its clear, go back up the mountain, grab 2 wolves from the pit with 4 adults, feed the remaining wollves in the pits, close the pits and quickly lead your pack of 4 wolves down the mountain along that cleared route. Once youre low on the mountain, but still fully on it (about halfway down the mountain from the lowest elevation that obsidian can spawn) then you can circle around the mountain to your prefered terrain since golems and drakes dont spawn below the obsidian line, and hostile wolves wont attack your wolves.
Assuming your plans involve water transport i recommend chosing the spot on the map with the narrowest strip of non-swamp terrain to cross to get to the coast. once at the coast build a secure pen, preferably raised earth with a full roof, put the wolves in it and breed 2 new cubs. Once you have them (dont need to wait for them to grow up) pull the 2 adults out, searl the puppies inside, feed the adults, get them on the boat and head for home. Stay away from shore, and even further away from swamps on your route. If its a long trip consider stopping once or even twice to get your wolves off the boat to breed 2 more cubs before continuing. This way you have permanent "save points" along the way in case of accidents rather than having to find and tame entirely new wolves.
Trolls- trolls are obvious and slow, usually. if you move cautiously you should see them before they see you. Snipe once then charge in. As long as you've already drawn blood and arrive at the troll first it should target you and not the wolves and when the wolves arrive they will stagger and kill it. if one surprises you, just charge. Again, as long as you're there first the troll should target you, and shouldnt get a second attack to harm the wolves. Dont forget to keep your wolves fed as you travel. A trail of puppies to grow up behind you is never a bad thing. Loxes- there's no excuse for being surprised by a lox.
Watch where you're going and give loxes a wide berth. Charge fulings if you cant aavoid them so they target you.
And as I've said before, avoid going anywhere near swamps. if there's any terrain wolves cant handle its swamp.

[SirRonald]

Thank you. I was basically gravitating to this technique hoping for something easier. The Troll tip I am sure will work. I had tried to go around it, obviously not far enough away and lost him. I now have a 1 star being tamed. I did put the roof over it but made a 2 section pit. One for the wild, one for the taming. I will separate them as you say.

[SirRonald]

I just realized I did not try the iron gate. Can wolves destroy that as the other barriers?

[Humpenstilzchen]

There is a trick to stop them from attacking walls.Run away out of their render distance. Once you reenter their render distance the game will have reset their aggro state and they won´t attack walls anymore.

Have a workbecnch closeby to stop stuff from despawning and put food into their pen before you leave the render distance to reset their aggro state so you don´t have to go close again which would make them yet again hostile and thus attack the enclosure.

Don´t do this with two star wolves during daytime as they will immerdiately despawn if you leave their render distance. For them you can only do this at nighttime.

The trick is to get them inside an enclosure with a normal wolf during nighttime, quickly leave the area and then come right back and wait nearby in a little cabin or something until they are tamed and then wait some more until they have made some two star wolf puppies which will then not despawn anymore.

I did this with three layers of regular wooden palisade walls stacked together so that the wolves can´t get through them before I was able to leave the render distance. A pit is of course a better option. Also, do this at the border of the mountains where no drakes or golems spawn or have a roof over the enclosure as mentioned before.

[OctoberSky]

Originally posted by SirRonald:

They have gotten through every kind of fence or wall I have built other than a pit. That is just not right and almost had me quit the game.

I've used the hoe to raise a terrain elliptical enclosure with a small gap and a step ladder inside the enclosure. Wolf chases me into the enclosure through the gap. I run up the ladder (which the wolf destroys almost immediately) and I use the hoe to fill in the gap. Then I build a ladder outside to a platform halfway up the terrain wall and stay out of sight of the wolf as I toss meat over the top and wait for the hearts. When tame I jump in and have the wolf follow me as I pickaxe the terrain wall down. If lucky, wolf will stay with me and I get off the mountain toward the least threatening biome I can find. Ship nearby and I push the wolf up the gangplank and off we go. I usually keep animal pens as stand alone bases with only a workbench so they don't themselves inherit base attacks. I also keep them far enough away so that the drakes who come with that cold wind from the mountains don't wander over and take out the entire herd. Recently I have only bothered with chickens. Boars are great to feed wolves but wolf companions are fickle and wolf skewers only good until Plains meals replace them. Lox are good for riding in the Plains but that saddle should have cargo slots to make them more efficient. Catching and breeding hares would have been very profitable given the number of recipes that require scale hide. We'll see what, if any, critters can be tamed in Ashlands. Maybe that new sea monster will do flips if we offer magma fish treats.

[SirRonald]

All good advice. Shortly after the the initial answer I was able to get a 1 star and a regular wolf again. Bred them, keeping the 1 star cubs. Separated out the normal ones. Not sure what I am going to do with them. Once I get the area covered and those two tamed, the breeding was easier. Now, I just need a 2 star wolf.
On a side note. Once they started having cubs, the drakes would circle the building. I had 2 golems walking around the sides. Made both of them easier to farm although, the golems still hit hard.

[Humpenstilzchen]

Originally posted by SirRonald:

although, the golems still hit hard.

Yes they can be annoying. Use the bonemass ability to mitigate most of their damage.

[knighttemplar1960]

I always build a lodge by my taming pit (which is always at the foot of the mountain instead of on the mountain) for standard things like a bed, portals, mountain storage, etc.

Drakes and untamed wolves are the same faction and won't attack each other. When the wolf is tamed it becomes part of the player faction and drakes will then attack it. When I tame a wolf I move it inside the lodge. When I have 2 I start breeding them inside the lodge. When I have several tame wolves, I'll leave a breeding pair at that lodge and take an entire pack with me to go back to main base. I might lose one or two to a troll but I have always been able to get at least a breeding pair back to the main lodge.

If you don't mind changing difficulty settings, you can set the enemies to passive while you move the wolves, and change the settings back once you have them home.

[SirRonald]

I have changed settings for the portal. I do not buy into that restriction. I will down the raids, I had one day there where I had several raids in a row of difficult enemies. My base was nearly ruined. I found this "camp" and thought it would be a great place for a portal and for a quick stop off point for supplies. It worked, until I tired to use it for taming. Seems everything spawns nearby.
I gather that one should expect to build more than a camp far from home. If I kept the portal settings, it is nearly impossible to make it back to camp. Do people build a smelting camp and full workshops in biomes far off from their main camp?
I am asking because this has now become a second camp at this point. It is not fully functional like my main base but that is not too far away now. My concern is building such extensive camps at say an intersection of 2 or three biomes would still take a lot of resources.

[SirRonald]

Knight, I like that idea. I upgraded this because I caught a 2 star wolf to begin with. I should have concentrated on a taming hut below. I think I will take the time to do so in the near future. It will help cut down on the attacks I am sure, at least make them manageable enemy hordes.

[knighttemplar1960]

For the other biomes yes. You'll need at least a farm in the plains and in the mistlands. When I get to the plains I always build another full base there to compliment my meadows base. Mistlands gets an outpost and a farm.

You can also make a raid proof breeding pasture in the meadows for boars and wolves by using only 2 base structures. All raids require 3 base items as a trigger (except for one raid that can only occur in the plains and mountains) and you can build an elliptical pen with fences with work benches at the foci and then once you have a breeding pair in the pen you can replace one of the work benches with a portal. As long as you only go there during the day you'll only have to deal with the occasional greyling that is attracted by the noise.

A garden doesn't require a work bench so you can cultivate outside the pen, feed the critters when you arrive, harvest and plant while they produce offspring, make sure no greylings have wandered in, and then portal out. No risk, little fuss.

[SirRonald]

It seems I am doing some things right. It is a matter of knowing some of these helpful tips in addition to make the difference. I do have a farm and have several Lox for meat in the Plains. I took over a Fuling camp. It is relatively quiet, I only have one building I built inside the camp. I could consolidate the meadows down to 2. I am counting my main building as one although it is becoming a large castle.

[SirRonald]

I have to say I am glad I came back to the game this time. It was frustrating but with what I have learned in addition to the great tips in this thread, my interest has increased in the game. This week, especially after this experience taming wolves, I see a number of things that I was doing that made this game more difficult.

[Dickbutt da Memelord]

For taming in general I would advise to dig a little pit with steep walls that the mobs can't climb out of, not even lox. Then surround the pit with stone walls (may take a lot of stone, that's why the pit should be small), build a roof, a door and a fore-room to the door, with a chest for taming food, and close that room off with a roof and a door, too. Put a ladder inside the pit to reach the door.
Now for boars and wolves I would advise to immediately go for 2-star ones, you won't need any other once you got a 2-star farm going. Lox don't have stars (luckily).
Get a harpoon (crafted with the abyssal chitin from the mini islands that rarely spawn in ocean bioms).
Harpoon a 2-star mob and just drag it straight through the doors into the pit, do a dodge-roll to quickly release the harpoon, get on the ladder, throw food into the pit, close the doors and get out.
To get a lox inside, keep the backwall to the pit open and drag it through there instead, then build the wall.
For boars and lox you could quickly leave their render distance to de-aggro them, for wolves I would only get a few meters away, 2-star wolves will despawn during daytime if out of render-distance, unless born tamed.
For taming to proceed you will need to be in render-distance of the mob, or else they won't eat. The easiest way would be to afk in the fore-room of the pit, sneak in to not alarm them, close both doors, done. Feed them frequently by throwing food through the door. They won't see you.

Transportation:
For lox, once it's tamed, get a saddle, open the backwall again, build stairs and ride it out and to your base on the safest path possible.
For wolves, build stairs out the pit, set 2 wolves on follow and get out, break the stairs to keep the others inside. Then bring them to your base, avoiding fights, especially in the plains. Maybe clear the path to your base first before transportation.
With boars, harpoon one to your base (build stairs in the pit to get it out). On your way, make sure to keep running and keep your stamina up or the harpoon will let go, any enemies would quickly kill your boars and they would run away. Once in your base, build another pit-pen for it. Then repeat the process with a second one and you have an active farm in your base. The pit ensures that trolls and lox can't hit them through walls if your base gets raided and they get in somehow and attack your buildings.
In general, build roofed pens for all tamed animals in your base so flying raids won't aggro on them.
Keep your original breeding pits as backups, just in case your base really gets wrecked and your mobs still die somehow, or in case your transport fails.

To transport any mobs over oceans to other islands, harpoon them, get in a fast boat and start sailing. Eat high stamina food and take a few stamina potions with you. Never switch to another weapon and never let your stamina run out or the harpoon will let go and your mob will swim aimlessly through the ocean, an easy kill for a serpent. Don't try to kill serpents either, once you switch to anything else but the harpoon it will let go and doom your mob. So avoid serpents at all costs. Preferably stay close to coastlines unless it's plains (deathsquitos could fly out and kill your animal).
Also, the harpoon deals a bit of damage to your mob, so letting go repeatedly means hurting it repeatedly to hook it up again, until it would eventually die.
It's tricky, but the only way to transport your 2-star tames to other islands without having to search for them again. You only need to transport one if you find a breeding partner of any level on the new island. Get a 2-star baby, get rid of the starless ones, build a new shelter in your new base, done.