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[marvalis]

Hello,

Make vampires feed on the weak.
A fortress generally has a few legendary <profession> dwarf, and a lot of haulers.

It would kinda make sense if vampires try to kill your untrained, 'weaker', dwarf and not go for your legendary dwarves.
Some legendary dwarves are hard to get (weaponsmith, ...) and hard to replace.

Right now I have to go trough all recruits and make sure that none is a vampire. If I get one vampire in the fort, then I might loose some of my key dwarves. This is not fun. There are several ways to micromanage this (burrows, two forts, ...) but all of them are kinda cumbersome.

If vampires feed on the weak, then all of this becomes much easier to manage, and more fun. I wouldn't mind a vampire in my fort weeding out the weak and useless dwarves (low str, agi etc.).

[NRDL]

This does imply that if all the "useless" dwarves are dead, the vampire WILL go for the stronger ones, because there's no other food left?  Yeah, that's probably what you mean. 

I dunno, maybe the "personalities" of vampires should be fleshed out.  There are different types of vampires, right ( or at least planned different versions )?  Some vampires would be like jackals, being opportunistic by attacking only nearby weak ones.  Perhaps other vampires would like a challenge, or a stronger food source.  Think about it, if a vampire "values" martial strength, wouldn't he/she want to feed on a soldier or really strong dwarf? 

Still your idea does have merit. +1

[NW_Kohaku]

More fun, perhaps, but not more Fun.

The point of having the vampire mechanics is to make you hunt for, and eliminate them. If they only weeded out the haulers, of which you have an infinite supply, then you would never need to bother trying to find the vampires, would you? 

It's only by making them target the dwarves that have actual value that they become an actual threat.

[jaxy15]

So, basically you're suggesting less fun?

[Mckee]

Also, someone mentioned before on some none suggestion thread about them targetting socialite dwarfs, so they have more chance of getting noble positions. Whether this is the case or not currently, I dont know. However, It makes more sense to pick off dwarves in a position of power if you yourself want to take control. I'm 'happy' with them targetting skilled dwarves, it makes them a priority to deal with, if they only ever picked off useless dwarves, then deciding whether to keep them in containment (for militia purposes) and run a risk or just kill them never really occurs. As it stands, I quite enjoyed sentencing the son of an elf that killed my starting miner to pit fighting.

[IT 000]

Yeah, I have to agree with the opposition. Vampires need to cause chaos if people are ever going to hunt him down. Otherwise, people will treat them like pasturing their cats outside during a siege.

That said, I kind of agree, but on a different principle.

Picture it this way, you want a hamburger, your neighbor has a large herd of cows, so you dress up as a cow and go into his pasture. If you slaughter one of his prize cows with the golden cowbell and a red ribbon tied around its horn, he's going to notice. If you slaughter one of his average same ol' same ol' cows, he won't notice as quickly. Likewise, vampires should have a certain level of self-preservation.

When a vampire gets hungry, he should check everyone whose sleeping in an owned room. He then targets the person with the least amount of friends. If everyone has more then five friends he'll randomly pick one whose sleeping regardless of the number of friends. If there are no owned rooms, he will check the hospital, and if there is no one in the hospital, he will check the dorms.

This is because the person with the least amount of friends would be less noticed when he goes missing, by both the player and the other dwarves. Having a vampire kill your broker causes a certain amount of Fun. But you'll notice it very quickly.

I suppose it comes down to what you find more Fun. Having a vampire kill your broker, or having a vampire kill six skilled (not legendary) workers.

[GreatWyrmGold]

It should depend on vampire type, his/her personality, and the situation. A sufficiently hungry or stupid vampire will just munch on whoever's nearest, maybe without even waiting for them to go to sleep first. Another vampire might randomly hate jewlers and thus targets them above all others. A third could feed only on children and the lazy, so as to not affect the working of the fortress. A fourth might be interested in chaos, and thus targets food producers, miners, and friendly dwarves while leaving the fortress guard intact, perhaps smashing furniture occasionally, feighning a tantrum. A fifth might pick off everyone higher on the social ladder than him, especially if he's a noble. A sixth might try and convince young adult dwarves of the opposite sex to be fed on willingly, sparkles optional. A seventh might slaughter sleeping dwarves whenever he has some spare time, just because he's bored (maybe this could happen with non-vampires?). And so forth.

[RabidAnubis]

It should depend on vampire type, his/her personality, and the situation. A sufficiently hungry or stupid vampire will just munch on whoever's nearest, maybe without even waiting for them to go to sleep first. Another vampire might randomly hate jewlers and thus targets them above all others. A third could feed only on children and the lazy, so as to not affect the working of the fortress. A fourth might be interested in chaos, and thus targets food producers, miners, and friendly dwarves while leaving the fortress guard intact, perhaps smashing furniture occasionally, feighning a tantrum. A fifth might pick off everyone higher on the social ladder than him, especially if he's a noble. A sixth might try and convince young adult dwarves of the opposite sex to be fed on willingly, sparkles optional. A seventh might slaughter sleeping dwarves whenever he has some spare time, just because he's bored (maybe this could happen with non-vampires?). And so forth.

This is a good suggestion.

[bombzero]

+1 for GWG's suggestion, takes into account the other ideas too.

[FrisianDude]

This does imply that if all the "useless" dwarves are dead, the vampire WILL go for the stronger ones, because there's no other food left?  Yeah, that's probably what you mean. 

I dunno, maybe the "personalities" of vampires should be fleshed out.  There are different types of vampires, right ( or at least planned different versions )?  Some vampires would be like jackals, being opportunistic by attacking only nearby weak ones.  Perhaps other vampires would like a challenge, or a stronger food source.  Think about it, if a vampire "values" martial strength, wouldn't he/she want to feed on a soldier or really strong dwarf? 

Still your idea does have merit. +1

Ooh, and taste preference. Vampires who love tuber beer would drink more Dwarfs who have consumed a lot of tuber beer.

[NW_Kohaku]

I should also point out that it is currently possible to infect your important dwarves with vampirism through the use of tainting a well with vampire blood and forcing those dwarves to drink from the well, and keep the haulers around as "cattle" in order to have a super-strong pain-free military and unsleeping legendary craftsmen. 

Apparently, they don't even die from "thirst" if you run out of migrants to feed on.

[Courtesy Arloban]

The Vampire is a Spy!Again!

No seriously, the vampires don't exist to become an unstoppable fighting force for your convenience.  I imagine they pick the dwarf with the most friends specifically for that purpose, and sit back singing trolalalalalalalala when the tantrum spiral begins.

[Watsst]

From the subject title I thought you meant 'vampires should feed on those who are injured, bleeding or missing limbs', which I think would be a nice addition if they really got in the mood when blood was spewing from someones body, but it woud probably make them easier to spot. On the other hand I agree with the others that it would take out the urgency to find the vampire, you could just leave him to thin out the weaker heards of migrants, which would make vampires beneficial. I understand your pain, on my current fortress the first 8 vampire kills had 5 legendarys: weaponsmith, 2 armorers, mason and an axelord... taught me to deal with it extremely quickly. Learnt a lesson that day... and painfully fun lesson, but its really something needed to keep you from getting complacent and a fortress getting stale

[Belteshazzar]

I agree that the Vampires should probably take personality (since we have so many personality/soul stats already extand) into account when determining behavior. Some exercising excess caution taking only the weak, the sick, or the unnoticed, other reveling in only the 'finest' of prey, some only killing in feeding by accident or on occasion (perhaps targeting grudges for full draining) others going on slasher flick sprees, filling themselves on a glut of blood.

Some want to have a fortress all to themselves (publicly or not) and will protect their feeding grounds, even to the extend of targeting any other vampires who could threaten their dominance, others just want to watch the world burn, spreading their curse as much as possible to result in a growing clan of spawn and chattel under their thrall.

[Neonivek]

Why am I picturing Vampires now with Scouters that display a Dwarf's power level?

Ohh yes, because that would be relatively close to what this suggestion is actually asking.