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[em1LL]

Hi all!

With one of the waves of migrants a vampire came to my fortress. Please tell me what can be cons of creating a vampire fortress?

Thanks in advance.

[Zammer990]

After a few months (years?) vampires will begin working very slowly, due to their inability to drink booze, and the production penalties.
New migrants will be swarmed by thirsty vampires when they sleep
It's very difficult to actually convert people to vampires

But hey, strength bonuses and no more food industry (excl. trade good)

[Cellmonk]

Well, there are a couple. Although don't let them stop you from trying.... its a very !!fun!! challenge.

1. Vampires will get a bad thought/general slowdown from lack of alcohol. apparently blood just doesn't have the same kick to it (even though dwarf blood should have pretty high alcohol content).

2. Vampires can have some negative effects from not drinking blood, and there are only a few possible sources (migrants and *unconfirmed* possibly animals/enemies that have fallen unconscious). Other posters might have more to say along these lines, as I haven't done much !!Science!! here.

3. Insane vampires WILL NOT DIE of starvation. You gotta build your fort for easy "accidents" if you don't want tons of immortal crazies running around and clogging the machinery with their claimed xXSocksXx.

4. Converting the fortress is hard, and will result in much random death and potential insanity. The only way I've seen of doing it is to make a well with some vampire blood as a contaminant in its source. You need to get rid of alcohol production to get dwarves to drink it, and dwarven drinking is so sporadic that you will likely find only portions of your fort converted, and feeding on the rest.

5. After feeding, dwarves will get a permanent slowdown in their movement speed due to the game checking their muscle growth's effect on their weight when their teeth grow. At least I know this happens in adventure mode. The muscles and toughness still make them good tanks.

Aside from that, they are excellent citizens. They get along will with the zombies, and make short work of many enemies. They won't drown, and won't rush to refill canteens in battle. they are good soldier and diligent (albeit slow due to lack of alcohol) workers. And they will never die of old age (if your computer is magic and runs the fort that long).

EDIT: ninja'd
EDIT2: Good point about the food industry. That could have some major long term ramifications... including reduced slowdown due to not stockpiling tons of +Koala roasts+.

[MDFification]

Steelhold managed to convert to a vampire fort using careful burrowing/locked doors to segregate vampires and non-vampire populations.
A big problem though is that vampires don't get the good thoughts from sleeping, eating and drinking, which are the principle source of good thoughts. So it's very easy for a vampire fort to enter a tantrum spiral.

[Zac]

I wonder if a vampire can target another vampire to feast on him. Because vampires do have blood, that's how we make vampiric wells, and the only thing that seems to protect them from each other IMHO is the fact they never sleep.

But in a full vampire fortress, running an hospital can become a problem if vampires are cannibals.

[Berserkenstein]

3. Insane vampires WILL NOT DIE of starvation. You gotta build your fort for easy "accidents" if you don't want tons of immortal crazies running around and clogging the machinery with their claimed xXSocksXx.

A fortress full of the immortally insane. 

I don't think there is a con that can outweigh this.

[Zammer990]

3. Insane vampires WILL NOT DIE of starvation. You gotta build your fort for easy "accidents" if you don't want tons of immortal crazies running around and clogging the machinery with their claimed xXSocksXx.

A fortress full of the immortally insane. 

I don't think there is a con that can outweigh this.

Well... they could be thralled

[FallenAngel]

Well, in case of the immortally insane, I have an equally insane solution.
To lessen the chances of said insanity, use a mist generator and have fine furniture everywhere.
Also, have a few areas that are accessible only by retracting bridges which also happen to be over small pools of magma. If one of them ends up trapped in one of those bridge-crossing-only areas, have a backup plan which involves dropping the ENTIRE CEILING on them. You can counteract the bad thoughts from losing a loved one or a friend with mist. LOTS AND LOTS OF MIST.
Oh, and one more thing - make it so the area where migrants live is a different area entirely, with mine carts between the food and other needed item stockpiles to supply them with what they can't make. Have two trade depots; one in the vampire area and one in the normal dwarf area, but be able to block either one off. Never let the migrants see a vampire with extreme usage of doors and drawbridges. It's the ULTIMATE SEGREGATION with the ULTIMATE REASONS.
Now, my !!Science!! isn't the best, so this may not work, but it is worth a shot.

[Nikow]

One thing, you don't need two depots. When you have two trade deepots traders start being buggy as hell. I had two, one for wagons and one reached by animals. They was unable to embark propery.
If you're speaking about trade... There trade goods from vampires can be send by minecarts too, with "jump hole" to avoid any connections between fortress.

[Deinos]

Has anyone analyzed the rules of vampire feeding as far as killing people is concerned?

For example, perhaps an adventurer with superdwarven toughness, large size, and max healing rate could be fed on safely.

I wonder if its possible to tweak the dwarf entry so that they get an interaction activated when they have blood drinker or undead traits or whatever, that removes their alcohol dependence.

[Deus Asmoth]

A minor problem I've found is that children that become vampires won't grow up (I even had an immortal vampire baby at one point), but if you don't vampire them, parents and friends will get a bad thought from their inevitable death (I'm not sure whether vampires will kill their friends).

A related issue is that there'll be an immediate drop in happiness from the deaths of friends, combined with losing the good thoughts from eating in a good dining room or sleeping in a good bedroom. You could offset this with statue gardens or memorial halls, though.

I think that the loss of speed from booze deprivation is compensated for by the multiplier on agility and strength, and since you can dump all your booze and food, it'll be good for fps as well.

The final downside I can think of is that if you're running a succession fort, the next player might burn all your new vampires in magma.

[Zac]

The final downside I can think of is that if you're running a succession fort, the next player might burn all your new vampires in magma.

That's a bit irrelevant since in a succession fort the next player might flood the entire world with magma if he want to do so. And anyway, all good strories should end in magma.

[jonsnow]

the best way to keep vampires happy is to use an aquifer to create a a waterfall that cascades down through every level of your fortress.  By doing this, every time they go downstairs or up they will get happy thoughts.  The waterfall only needs to be one tile in size.

[Miuramir]

Well, in case of the immortally insane, I have an equally insane solution.
To lessen the chances of said insanity, use a mist generator and have fine furniture everywhere.
Also, have a few areas that are accessible only by retracting bridges which also happen to be over small pools of magma. If one of them ends up trapped in one of those bridge-crossing-only areas, have a backup plan which involves dropping the ENTIRE CEILING on them. You can counteract the bad thoughts from losing a loved one or a friend with mist. LOTS AND LOTS OF MIST.

It hadn't occurred to me this way before, but if you think of the classic "gothic" vampire...

* They live in a dramatic castle with unusual architecture covered with all sorts of elaborate engravings
* Said castle is full of high-quality furniture and statues, and probably some mounted armor and weapons
* They have closets full of high-quality clothing even though they rarely have visitors
* They live someplace shrouded in mist, like a moor or a mountain ridge (or sometimes a swamp)
* They often have some mid-level noble title
* Optionally, they may be mourning a lost love in some sort of unpleasant cycle

It really does sound like someone trying to deal with a moody dwarf through "happiness engineering", doesn't it?  Probably one who got promoted to Baron, then Count, then their player realized if their leader went mad they'd never make Mountainhome, and needed elaborate precautions. 

[thegoatgod_pan]

This is from my experience with a necromancer fort: but a lot of the same issues apply (especially the slowdown)

I've found that danger-rooms actually fix the slowdown almost completely (simply by insanely upping their stats). However, work quality will still degrade.

Happiness is always a little iffy but keeping them isolated from potential mortal friends helps.