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Author Topic: Making first contact  (Read 1050 times)

Gutierrez

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Making first contact
« on: September 19, 2023, 09:12:42 am »

What is the best way of making contact with civilizations you don't have contact with yet?  My current fort has no contact with friendly humans or elves so I'm getting no seasonal traders outside my local dwarf civ.

Is the tribute mission the best way to do this?  I'm looking to remain as neutral as possible with them.  I want good relations with them to get wagons quickly.

Also, how do tributes from evil civilizations work?  I'm down for some !!SCIENCE!! with some goblins or kobolds but wasn't sure if that would increase the amount of sieges if I demand tribute from Goblin sites that don't know about me yet.
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thefinn

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Re: Making first contact
« Reply #1 on: September 20, 2023, 10:15:37 pm »

I believe you have to create your embark within range of them.

It usually tells you when you are selecting a spot.
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Gutierrez

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Re: Making first contact
« Reply #2 on: September 21, 2023, 02:51:21 pm »

!!SCIENCE!!

I have no contact with Elves or Humans, but there are settlements of both about five days march away:


I think it's time they get to know us.  I'm going to send a squad over to say, "hi" demand tribute:


Success!  They promise a load of goods come next Summer. 


But what about the hippies Elves? Hello Elves:


Contact with tree huggers Elf Barony secured:


Fast forward to next Spring and who's this jerk noble?


+<<*SUCCESS*>>+


!!SCIENCE!! has shown us with a gentle application of military through a mission to demand tribute, you too can make trade contact with civilizations you don't have access to at the beginning of the game!
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Saiko Kila

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Re: Making first contact
« Reply #3 on: September 24, 2023, 02:58:36 am »

What is the best way of making contact with civilizations you don't have contact with yet?  My current fort has no contact with friendly humans or elves so I'm getting no seasonal traders outside my local dwarf civ.

Is the tribute mission the best way to do this?  I'm looking to remain as neutral as possible with them.  I want good relations with them to get wagons quickly.

Also, how do tributes from evil civilizations work?  I'm down for some !!SCIENCE!! with some goblins or kobolds but wasn't sure if that would increase the amount of sieges if I demand tribute from Goblin sites that don't know about me yet.

Tribute mission is the best way, because you will receive the regular caravans from elves, humans, dwarves this way. I do one-time tribute, so far it never failed me regarding these types of civilisations, they will start both caravans and diplomats. I don't know how regular tribute works, one-time tribute is brought by your soldiers.

Sending to kobolds triggers a war (though they do not siege or even send thieves to me so far), sending to other types (single site govs) can result in tricky situations. I've send to a civ which also has a tower associated, the civ started caravans, but the tower sent a siege led by a monstrosity, with a team of intelligent undead and zombies. Which was my first undead siege in this fortress, after eight years of existence.
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muldrake

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Re: Making first contact
« Reply #4 on: September 24, 2023, 09:47:59 pm »

What is the best way of making contact with civilizations you don't have contact with yet?
Send out a single dwarf to demand tribute.  However this works out you generally have contact at that point.

So yes, the general method of dwarven diplomacy is to send out some dwarf who is drunk off his ass to bellow idiotically at the other civilization.
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thefinn

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Re: Making first contact
« Reply #5 on: September 24, 2023, 09:50:52 pm »

What is the best way of making contact with civilizations you don't have contact with yet?  My current fort has no contact with friendly humans or elves so I'm getting no seasonal traders outside my local dwarf civ.

Is the tribute mission the best way to do this?  I'm looking to remain as neutral as possible with them.  I want good relations with them to get wagons quickly.

Also, how do tributes from evil civilizations work?  I'm down for some !!SCIENCE!! with some goblins or kobolds but wasn't sure if that would increase the amount of sieges if I demand tribute from Goblin sites that don't know about me yet.

Tribute mission is the best way, because you will receive the regular caravans from elves, humans, dwarves this way. I do one-time tribute, so far it never failed me regarding these types of civilisations, they will start both caravans and diplomats. I don't know how regular tribute works, one-time tribute is brought by your soldiers.

Sending to kobolds triggers a war (though they do not siege or even send thieves to me so far), sending to other types (single site govs) can result in tricky situations. I've send to a civ which also has a tower associated, the civ started caravans, but the tower sent a siege led by a monstrosity, with a team of intelligent undead and zombies. Which was my first undead siege in this fortress, after eight years of existence.

It always freaks me out how I find these things out many years after playing lol
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Saiko Kila

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Re: Making first contact
« Reply #6 on: October 01, 2023, 03:48:19 am »

What is the best way of making contact with civilizations you don't have contact with yet?  My current fort has no contact with friendly humans or elves so I'm getting no seasonal traders outside my local dwarf civ.

Is the tribute mission the best way to do this?  I'm looking to remain as neutral as possible with them.  I want good relations with them to get wagons quickly.

Also, how do tributes from evil civilizations work?  I'm down for some !!SCIENCE!! with some goblins or kobolds but wasn't sure if that would increase the amount of sieges if I demand tribute from Goblin sites that don't know about me yet.

Tribute mission is the best way, because you will receive the regular caravans from elves, humans, dwarves this way. I do one-time tribute, so far it never failed me regarding these types of civilisations, they will start both caravans and diplomats. I don't know how regular tribute works, one-time tribute is brought by your soldiers.

Sending to kobolds triggers a war (though they do not siege or even send thieves to me so far), sending to other types (single site govs) can result in tricky situations. I've send to a civ which also has a tower associated, the civ started caravans, but the tower sent a siege led by a monstrosity, with a team of intelligent undead and zombies. Which was my first undead siege in this fortress, after eight years of existence.

It always freaks me out how I find these things out many years after playing lol

I'm not sure they are working this way for many years, sometimes features like these were working years ago but then stopped, or were intended to be working but did not. I myself am doing this for relatively short period (i.e. the "dwarven diplomacy: thing), only a small fraction of total time with DF :)
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FantasticDorf

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Re: Making first contact
« Reply #7 on: October 01, 2023, 05:27:25 am »

Something interesting i noticed, is that if you replace the order of tributing a site before seizing it, by cancelling the tribute and creating a new mission afterwards, then returning to it you can make contact and demand tribute from the new site government.

This establishes a tribute link, and enables migrants of your race to come from that government (not of the people you sent) if there's anybody there and adds it to the civilization screen.
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