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[Garath]

Vampire Fortress.

It's like Dwarf Fortress, but you take half damage, don't need to eat, sleep, you won't get sick, won't get old, and probably won't ever die.

Your idea has been considered and discarded.

My valuable dwarfs are valuable because they work. Vampires pretty much stop working after a year or two. I usually do hope to make it to year ten, and further. Having a weaponsmith, mechanic and whatever else sitting on their thumbs and boasting how skilled they are is not an option.

seriously, why is that still brought up? it's been done and found totally useless as the whole fort grinds to a halt. Sure, there isn't much to do since you don't need to power the food and booze industry, but getting nothing done is a bit over the top.

[Nil Eyeglazed]

seriously, why is that still brought up? it's been done and found totally useless as the whole fort grinds to a halt. Sure, there isn't much to do since you don't need to power the food and booze industry, but getting nothing done is a bit over the top.

It's only useless when considered as a fully vampiric fortress.  Militia members, in particular, lose out from being turned into vampires.  Professionals that aren't in a "need-it-now" profession do fine.  When you're talking about a weaponsmith, who is probably something like speed 1000 (as compared to a militia member's speed 500), he becomes about half again as slow, which is easily made up for sleep/drink/eat.  It's true, the long parties can be frustrating, but only when you need it done now, and you've only got a single dwarf that can access the lever-- otherwise, they're pretty much the same as for regular dwarves.

I know-- I've set up individual professional vampires in this manner.  They didn't get it done as fast as non-vamps would have, but neither did I ever have to worry about their food, booze, going outside to get shot up by goblins, footrot, getting punched in the skull by a tantruming lye maker, etc.  My forts are not so starved for manpower that a slight loss in efficiency is a problem.  They are, however, very starved for my attention.  (This is especially relevant for somebody like a weaponsmith-- I do NOT need axes OH GOD RIGHT NOW, and I do not need them by the bin-load.  What I do need is for my weaponsmith to do just enough work to avoid skill rust, and more importantly, to stay alive.)

If you want an example of this, I currently have a vampire mayor chained up in his office (just forbid the chain, they'll never release the prisoner.)  He gets zero work done.  Neither is he ever unavailable for meetings.  That's just not possible with a non-vampire mayor.

[Garath]

I think there's a post somewhere from someone asking why a meeting with the liaison is taking two years to complete...

[Nil Eyeglazed]

Well, I can tell you right now, it doesn't take two years   It happens rapidly-- certainly much more rapidly than when I had a living mayor.  And yes, the vamp in question has been around a long, long time without a drink.  I'm going to guess maybe 10 years.

[kaijyuu]

Make a bunch of forges.
Have drone dwarves make bolts.
Wait for mood.
New legendary weaponsmith.
(and several more down the line)

[Rakushun]

I think it's a bug that vamps stay sober. The only thing they consume - dwarf blood - is an alcoholic beverage.

[imperium3]

Here's a suggestion regarding vampire fortresses which I haven't seen anywhere:

How about a task force of Vampire Haulers?

Hauling is the biggest task in my fortress and there are never enough available dwarves to move around the hundreds of stones, blocks, metal bars, crafts etc that a mature fortress produces. This leads to cluttered workshops and project delays.

Vampire haulers would be superior because they don't spend half their time on break, sleeping etc. Also I suspect that sobriety may not affect them as much as workshop-using tasks - unless it affects movement speed? Not sure on that one.

Course, there is the minor issue of the other half of the fortress showing up drained of blood...

[Undeadlord]

Once I have a vampire trapped in a room (he has been there a year or two now) is there any way to move him elsewhere? Or if I open the door is he going to sprint to a bedroom for a snack?

[jcnorris00]

Rakushun, it's not a bug.  The slow vampires being discussed (isolated vamps, or vamps in an all vampire fortress) aren't able to consume any dwarf blood, so it doesn't really matter how alcoholic it might be.  In any case, vampires that are able to feed aren't slow.

[GavJ]

In my current fort, he would be enlisted into the "Volunteer underground volcano breachers" corps.  These fine dwarves heroically sacrifice themselves to allow the convenient floodgating and harnessing of new volcano taps for convenient, high-volume projects that should not be fed from the main reservoir.

Vampires always seem particularly eager to volunteer, for some reason.

[Sindri]

Wrong.
Feeding on dwarves has nothing to do with sobriety.

[Garath]

Once I have a vampire trapped in a room (he has been there a year or two now) is there any way to move him elsewhere? Or if I open the door is he going to sprint to a bedroom for a snack?

draft into military and isue a station order. He'll even stop feeding if he ran off already to obey the station order.

[jcnorris00]

Wrong.
Feeding on dwarves has nothing to do with sobriety.

So vampires that feed do in fact slow down?  I didn't know that.  That certainly seems buggy since it would at the very least make vampires really easy to spot.

"Hey Urist, have you noticed that Urist has been getting less and less productive?"
"Why yes, Urist, I have.  Let's check him for fangs."

But that's still beside the point when discussing dwarves that are unable to feed.

[GavJ]

Once I have a vampire trapped in a room (he has been there a year or two now) is there any way to move him elsewhere? Or if I open the door is he going to sprint to a bedroom for a snack?

draft into military and isue a station order. He'll even stop feeding if he ran off already to obey the station order.

Nope, doesn't work.  I've had a vamp on station duty just sitting there for 10 minutes, and he randomly stopped obeying the order, went and drained somebody, then went back to station.