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[Loam]

So, finally tried my hand at conquest: seized an elf site nearby (they started it). Expected to have trouble, and was not disappointed.

All the dwarves I sent (~45 in all, 5 squads) joined the occupation - I didn't realize this would kick them off their squads at home, though, so that when they came back I'd have to put them back manually. I suppose this is more of a pain than a problem, though.
More of an issue is that my mercenaries couldn't come back - this makes sense since they weren't fort citizens. Guess you just can't sent mercs on a conquest mission...

So I guess my question is: what's the best way to conquer another site, one that involves the least hassle of replacing/reorganizing the entire military every time? I want to take over this whole elven civ, but I need a more efficient way to do it.
Also, as one of my militia captains became the "administrator" he couldn't be brought back - is there a way to get him back and place a new administrator in charge?
And one more thing: when I took over the site my duke changed his title: he went from being "Duke of Legendsteels" to "Duke of Fondledstyle." I rather prefer the former name, myself. Maybe this has something to do with the relative size of the sites - ~150 dwarves in mine vs. ~400 elves in theirs?

[PatrikLundell]

My experience of conquest is that you lose all the army members as occupation forces, and that you can then request 1-3 of them (seemingly randomly selected, but obviously not the administrator) with a messenger, so I expect to get back just enough soldiers to act as captains of replacement squads. My squads have consisted of naturalized citizens, which mainly means human bards and scholars, trained, send, and lost.

Unfortunately, there's a horrible crash bug that corrupts the equipment menus and eventually crashes your fortress unless you disband all squads. My single attempt to bypass this by waiting two weeks and then recreate some squads resulted in an immediate crash on unpausing. I don't know if this bug is related to raiding/conquest, but I wouldn't be surprised if the corruption results when troops and/or squads return. As far as I know no research has been done along that line, but some rather significant investigation into crash saves has shown that most of them stop crashing if all squads are disbanded.

Thus, it might be possible to play a fortress in the old way, i.e. repel attacks, but not perform any attacks yourself, but, as mentioned, it has not been investigated if that is the case. If returning soldiers are the trigger corruption, it may or may not be returning squads and/or returning former squad members that causes the game to crash.

As far as I'm concerned, conquest is currently broken beyond repair (you may be able to play for several years before the game is corrupted, but none of my 0.44.X fortresses that were able to raid (dead civ raiding is completely broken: squads can be sent out, but they neither arrive nor return) survived for 20 years).

[Loci]

So I guess my question is: what's the best way to conquer another site, one that involves the least hassle of replacing/reorganizing the entire military every time?

You can send a large force to pillage or raze the site, then send a small occupying force (composed of overstressed dwarves, unwanted migrants, mandate-spamming nobles, and anyone else you don't want back) once the defenders have been routed.

It would be nice if the game allowed the player to select one squad to lead the attack and a second squad to occupy the site.

And one more thing: when I took over the site my duke changed his title: he went from being "Duke of Legendsteels" to "Duke of Fondledstyle." I rather prefer the former name, myself. Maybe this has something to do with the relative size of the sites - ~150 dwarves in mine vs. ~400 elves in theirs?

I think the intent is for your new holding to be represented by a (new) minor noble at your fortress, but instead it is transferring your fortress's noble site reference to the new holding. I'd say it's somewhere between "bug" and "unfinished feature".

[Loam]

Thanks, guys. Might try the "small occupying force" if it's not too much trouble to find dwarves to send (I hate census-taking...); otherwise I might just burn the place down after all.

What's most frustrating is, since I had to save-scum to avoid all this weirdness, I lost a neat pair of artifact greaves someone made. Oh, well; they were only bronze greaves anyway, and who needs two legendary armorsmiths?

[Loam]

An update with an additional problem: now I apparently can't raze sites at all. Two attempts each on five small sites brought the pops down from ~100 to <10, but all my dwarves did was "searched and found nothing" and "rampaged throughout," and the sites are still there, unruined. I had previously razed a few sites, so I know it used to work; I've no idea why it would stop now.