I use huskies as my haulers, so I can't just forbid them from the area, and forbidding the area doesn't stop trade caravan's muffalo from tearing through my beer stock at an alarming rate.
First, my huskies, seem to get hooked on it young, I haven't found out exactly when or how, but by the time I can actually train them to haul, half have "massive" alcohol resistance, a quarter have alcohol addiction and about another quarter has cirrhosis. How can you stop this?!? Dogs should NOT be drinking beer all on their own, especially in that excess. It is really eating into profits too.
Second, these stupid trade caravans. They should NOT be eating my food! Two muffalo burned through at least a dozen beers a piece and the only thing that stopped them was the caravan leaving. Forbidding doors and the piles had NO effect on them, they just disregarded it completely. At 6$ per beer that is quite a lot for them to be guzzling down a dozen at a time with no repercussions.
You pretty much have to forbid them from the area. I've found that when using dogs as haulers I have to forbid them from my crop zones (they'll eat the crops) and my beer fridge. At least they're hauling everything else.
Using wargs as haulers is the other option, since they *only* eat meat, but they take forever to train and tend to get themselves killed.
You just need to have kibble near your beer. Animals will only drink beer when they don't see any other option, and they have a limited range that they will look for food. Whatever you intend them to eat is too far away. Avoid putting doors between your animals and the desired animal food; doors significantly reduce the distance from which pets can detect food. (That also works for trader muffalo, incidentally, so put lots of doors between your beer and where trader muffalo idle)
That's one reason why I generally prefer a combination of Timber Wolves and Bears. While bears can drink, they'll generally try to hunt first - and wolves are teetotallers.
Don't forget that when the trade caravan shows up you can build walls in front of the doors to your beer cellar to barricade them shut.
@Shurp: "Quick, barricade the beer, we've got visitors" :-D
Interventions my brother, interventions!
Quote from: Zhentar on December 16, 2016, 09:21:51 AM
You just need to have kibble near your beer. Animals will only drink beer when they don't see any other option, and they have a limited range that they will look for food. Whatever you intend them to eat is too far away. Avoid putting doors between your animals and the desired animal food; doors significantly reduce the distance from which pets can detect food. (That also works for trader muffalo, incidentally, so put lots of doors between your beer and where trader muffalo idle)
I've noticed that when looking for food, animals ignore walls and doors. If they idle a lot near your dining room, put the kibble close to the hallway where they idle inside, with the beer on a far wall, and they'll always go for the kibble. Like so: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=812850581 (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=812850581)
Quote from: Zhentar on December 16, 2016, 09:21:51 AM
You just need to have kibble near your beer...
Wow, why didn't I think of that? That simplifies animal zoning!
Quote from: Shurp on December 18, 2016, 04:45:08 PM
Don't forget that when the trade caravan shows up you can build walls in front of the doors to your beer cellar to barricade them shut.
Or do the opposite and actively try to get them drunk. :D
Quote from: Pichu0102 on December 19, 2016, 01:42:33 PM
I've noticed that when looking for food, animals ignore walls and doors. If they idle a lot near your dining room, put the kibble close to the hallway where they idle inside, with the beer on a far wall, and they'll always go for the kibble. Like so: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=812850581 (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=812850581)
This is not exactly true. I made a mod (A15) to visualize the food search area of animals, you can download it here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_iRcVI-TJMZTGxmTDgteVNGcVk
If you play around with it, you'll notice that the search space can be quite irregular. Animals search for food by looking through the "regions" nearest them; in open spaces regions can be quite large, but walls and doors can break them up into much smaller pieces, so while they'll search far and wide in fields, inside a base they may not notice something sitting 20 tiles away, if there are three doors along the path. A door-space-door airlock will usually make whatever is on the other side effectively invisible to trader muffalo.
Things labeled "!" the animal would eat when they are hungry, "~" shows things they will only eat when they are 'desperate' (like beer), and "x" they will never eat.
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