I’m sure all of us love slaughtering elves, maybe the occasional humans. But has one actually though of what these mean diplomatically? Sure they bring sieges and ambushes which are easily dealt with with traps, but what about the civilisation as a whole? Maybe those elves were crucial allies in a war with a goblin civ. They may be weak tree-huggers but they make good meat shields to distract the gobbos.
It just feels like fortresses have far too much autonomy. A fortress can sustain itself basically indefinitely, without the interference of any home civ. The only meaningful things they do would be to send migrants and trade caravans. In fact, it is quite common that fortresses don’t even prioritise the needs of their home civilization(training lords to fight the goblins) but instead do seemingly artistic and useless things(see: Stupid Dwarf Trick, Megastructure). And while I cannot deny that such things are not good for dwarf fortress(they look cool and make for a great read/look), I feel like some of the actions players do might warrant a little...ramifications from the home civ. Like deposing of a king using an atom smasher or seemingly neglecting the civ’s interests for its own.
Every now and then, the Mountainhomes may give you requests to supply the other sites(since yours is so productive anyways) with materials, ranging from food to goods to armour and even animals(provably a max of 10 or so). The player receives this information from the liaison when he arrives and has the option to accept or refuse. Accepting makes it so you have to offer the goods necessary to the dwarves caravan within a year or the request will be considered unfulfilled. If the caravan leaves early/does not come/does not have a chance to trade the request will be extended by another year. If you refuse, however...
The mountain homes will not be happy. At first all that happens is that the Liason seems somewhat annoyed but complies, chalking it up to some shortage of goods or something. However, the more times you refuse, the more upset he will get until they just stop coming allthogether. Things will start happening, such as migrants no longer arriving, caravans not coming, taxes being levied on goods, etc etc.
Such unhappiness will also occur if you indiscriminately attack civilisations that are at peace or allied with the home civ, or if you happen to depose of the king through an unfortunate accident. The indiscriminate attacking does not apply to goblin and kobold civs because they are always hostile. Things like sacking the caravan through glitches like trade depot deconstructions also anger the home civ. Having merchants/guards killed DOES NOT anger them, because dwarven civs have long accepted the fact that their caravans will probably be slaughtered by FBs or other fun.
After enough refusals, the Liason will come to the fortress with a siege guard(like an adventurer persuading you to give artifacts), giving you an ultimatum: to stop refusing the requests and actually contribute to the home civ, or leave entirely. If you choose the latter, the Liason denounces your fortress as a group of the dwarven civ, effectively outcasting your group, and asks for all dwarves still loyal to the civ to follow him away from the fortress. A large portion of your fortress will likely join him, INCLUDING YOUR LEGENDARY SMITHS, SOLDIERS AND ANY OTHER IMPORTANT SITES. NO DWARF IS EXEMPT. After this, the Liason leaves with the loyal dwarves and you are formally out of your own home civ. Now they can send sieges to you, which are exceptionally dangerous because they can do things like digging and breaking bridges and walls, as well as knowing where every trap the Liason has seen is(and using a more advanced version, know where a trap is even if you deconstruct and reconstruct it). At this point, you have reached the rock bottom; there is no going back, only trudging onwards into the mire of FUN
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Topic: More control exerted by home civilisation on player fortress (Read 727 times)