Wolf Strategy

[Fawkesian]

Not really a newbie question, just felt like discussing. How do you deal with the wolf (and bear) populations around your base?

I live in a dry, windswept gravel biome and have a wall built around my camp. Visibility is pretty good in most directions, so every morning I climb up and walk a lap of the perimeter. Most days there's at least one wolf (or pack) spawned out in the flats, sometimes a bear or two to keep it spicy. Today I think the total was 4-5 adult wolves and another 4 pups. I've given up on keeping pace with leather production, to be honest, and now everything goes directly to compost except for the wolf pup pelts, which make pretty good parchment.

I think I read somewhere that keeping some predators in a pit will limit additional spawns, but in my other world I'm up to like half a dozen bears in a hole and they keep coming, so I'm not sure if that's true. Maybe I should try it again? (Leaving the skeletons definitely hasn't helped; I keep stepping on wolf bones every time I march out there to deal with the new spawns.)

What strategies has everyone else developed to handle the eternal wolf siege?

[cjameshuff]

I settle in open plains. In my latest game, several in-game years have gone by with no bears in the immediate vicinity, and a pair of wolves the first year are all I've seen of them in this area, though I get lots of pigs and mouflon sheep. Useful, because in my previous world fat was a post-steel tier material, rarer than gold. Now I have plenty...

In my previous world I came across an area where you could not find a location that wasn't within sight of multiple groups of wolves, so their population density seems to be quite variable, and maybe you just need to move...

[EnbyKaiju]

My strategy, if I'm not setting up in a plains biome, is to dig a few bear/wolf pits around the place close to my base.
Eventually they will stumble into them, and since there's a cap on how many can spawn (I believe) as long as I don't go trying to evict them from their new hobbit holes they don't bother me.

It also helps when I need to replenish my bear armour or hide supply.

[Dilan Rona]

Cases like that with bears that keep showing up, i increase the size of the pit (max distance I can jump I noticed is 5 block gaps.). And I keep collecting them. The bears serve as a source of bushmeat (made better with Expanded foods installed), fat, and hides (for leather). I do the same with the wolves. Tag one, and then run like the wind to the nearest pit to trap them.

[EnbyKaiju]

The power move is to trap 3 bears in one pit, and build a small house over the top. It needs to have three beds, two chairs and a broken one, and a regular supply of porridge.

[Fawkesian]

1 hour ago, cjameshuff said:

I settle in open plains. In my latest game, several in-game years have gone by with no bears in the immediate vicinity, and a pair of wolves the first year are all I've seen of them in this area, though I get lots of pigs and mouflon sheep. Useful, because in my previous world fat was a post-steel tier material, rarer than gold. Now I have plenty...

In my previous world I came across an area where you could not find a location that wasn't within sight of multiple groups of wolves, so their population density seems to be quite variable, and maybe you just need to move...

Two wolves over the course of years?! That's crazy. I don't think I've seen anywhere with such low spawns. Unfortunately I'm quite attached to my base, so no moving for me - it's my first + main world, and I've spent over three years building up this camp. I'm lucky that I've gotten far enough in the tech tree as to make wild animal fights trivial. At this point I just keep my plate armor permanently in my hotbar and slap it on whenever it's hunting time.

Besides, if I moved, my leather stockpile might diminish (gasp!), and I don't know if I'm ready for that sort of life...

 

55 minutes ago, EnbyKaiju said:

My strategy, if I'm not setting up in a plains biome, is to dig a few bear/wolf pits around the place close to my base.
Eventually they will stumble into them, and since there's a cap on how many can spawn (I believe) as long as I don't go trying to evict them from their new hobbit holes they don't bother me.

It also helps when I need to replenish my bear armour or hide supply.

1 minute ago, Dilan Rona said:

Cases like that with bears that keep showing up, i increase the size of the pit (max distance I can jump I noticed is 5 block gaps.). And I keep collecting them. The bears serve as a source of bushmeat (made better with Expanded foods installed), fat, and hides (for leather). I do the same with the wolves. Tag one, and then run like the wind to the nearest pit to trap them.

Right, time to give the pit strategy another shot!

[Dilan Rona]

Funny enough, that looks like my supply on Yeen's server.

[Rainbow Fresh]

As I settled in the first set of ruins I came across in big, grassy plains next to a lake near spawn, I don't really have wolves or bears near me. As such, my strategy for dealing with wolves is just to... not deal with them. Most I've come across is 1, rarely 2 in an area and usually they seem to run away like normal animals? And the times they don't - seeing has how little useful stuff they drop I feel to bad to hurt the puppy so I just keep on walking at a slighly more sprinting pace. Seeing as wolf and bear spawnpoints are apparently fixed per world, I have a wolf spawn on the other side of the big lake next to my base. But that hasn't been a problem the entire first year I played so far.

As for bears. We don't deal with bears. We don't talk about bears. We don't acknowledge bears exist. Forests are just haunted and that's why I am overly cautious everytime I have to travel through one. If anyone tells you I got audibly startled one night out by a ninja bear materializing behind me (despite me constantly looking around in a not-even-forest area) they are a liar. ...I have lured one into a pond and ran circles around him on horseback trying to pelter him with arrows one desperate winter day, though.

[Broccoli Clock]

If you are new to the game then literally the easiest way to clear out wolves or bears is using a spear (stabbing, not throwing) and to be in a confined area they cannot get you. Say something like a walled in garden (simple dry stone fence) and neither animal can get into the enclosure but will try to, meanwhile you can stab them repeatedly with the spear. You'll need to jink a little to keep out of their range while landing shots, but it's a really good way to judge their hitboxes/melee range.

If not "cheesing" it, then I tend to only take on wolves in the open if I have a spear (ideally copper or higher) or falx, both of these weapons shouldn't take more than 4 or 5 hits to despatch it, normally the last hit is on the run as it scarpers when it's close to death. With wolves there is a strategy of being able to hit them, knocking them back, and not getting hit. It's one of those things that once you learn you'll find is easier than you expect, but you do have to contend with the wolves slightly off hitbox and their reach (more so if they lunge, it can feel they cover 4 blocks distance). Then you have the terrain around you which you have to be careful with, an unseen block that stops you retreating can end up with you getting a wolf paw to the face.

As for bears, you can cheese them with height (ladders being the meta here) but it's a dangerous strat, as unlike the wolves you could get one shotted in early game down to a lack of armour and health.

Probably my least favourite strat is one that always gets mentioned because it works. I hate that it works, but it does. Just dig a fuck off sized pit. That's it. The pinnacle of neolithic tech.. a hole in the ground. As I say, it works and it works for everything not just bears/wolves, but yeah... not the most "elegant" of solutions.

[HalfAxd]

I build long animal pits around my base with gates in specific areas to channel breeding animals to pens.

If I lure bears or wolves to them, I kill them right away and take their "loot".

Effective and easy to dig out (usually).

Enjoy