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[Gravitybeat]

I was playing on a map to try to learn how to create a military and metalworking system (Without magma for now, as I'm going to try to figure out how pressure and pumpstacks with less fun materials first) when I noticed that first dire message of someone being drained of blood.  I've been mostly trying to run a good fortress (IE, one that is unlikely to tantrum spiral) and figure out how to get food production running smoothly so I wasn't screening migrants or anything.

Today I took a look and was shocked to see what I found. Eleven Vampires- all cursed by the same god in the same place (though this may mean that they all come from one sire, I'm not sure. I've not had any blood contamination, so I can't see how it's spread unless they spread by feeding now?) and four Were-Elephants, all cursed by the same god in the same place, though it's a different god from the vampire's.

At this point I have a population of about fifty. I've not experienced a full moon yet, but it's only a matter of time. I don't know a lot about this game aside from basic crafting and farming.

I suppose my questions boils down to "How common is this?" "Should I just write this map off as lost?" "What can I do to prevent it?" and perhaps most importantly "How can I use this for personal gain?"

Also, does anyone know if were-beasts and vampires are likely to duke it out, like in the movies? Or am I going to have to build an arena to force this?

[Dunamisdeos]

1) I have never had anything like that happen ever.

2) You should ride that fort to the end. Record what happens on the first full moon, please!

3) Got nothin'.

4) Draft 10 Vampires into a military unit, and put the last one in a sealed room filled with expensive happy-thought items. You will have an awesome vampire squad, and a fortress failsafe if everything goes south. I suggest infecting as many dwarves as possible with... Pachythropy? Make more were-elephants is what I'm getting at here.

Finally, I don't think they aren't MORE likely to duke it out, but I'm pretty sure your transformed were-a-phants are going to indescriminately bash anything near them into the consistency of tapioca pudding, vampire or no.

[sal880612m]

I think you would need to use bridges if you wanted to seal the were-elephants in anywhere because were-creatures are building destroyers.

[Gnomeknows]

Definitely agree with dunamisdeos, ride it out.  Can't you trade for barrels of blood from caravans?  Vampire fortress?

[m-logik]

I suspect the situation isn't what you think it is. Let me explain.

I assume you were looking at the gods' relationship lists, or looking them up in legends mode. In either case, seeing that the gods cursed urist mcdefiler does not necessarily mean he's in your fort. And if you have 50 dwarves, then that means you've gotten at least three migrant waves, which means you've had somewhere in the neighborhood of 6-10 full moons already. And if you had more than one vampire, you would have more than one corpse already, assuming they came in the same migrant wave. I'm pretty sure, they enter the map with their "I need blood!" cooldown full, so they would be feeding around the same time if they arrived together.

Also, I don't think you can get vampires in the first two migrants waves, and I don't think you can get werebeast migrants at all. They become enemies of your civ the first time they trnsform in world gen, and always enter the map with an announcement, even if they aren't in beast form.

So don't panic! Just track down the blood sucker you have and put him to some nefarious use.

As an aside, I would pay good money for a fort with the situation you described! I'll bet a lot of other players would, too.

As a disclaimer, I'm only 70-85% certain of everything I just wrote.

[Duuvian]

Were-Elephants makes me think of Boatmurdered. I suppose anything elephant related might.

[Merendel]

Definitely agree with dunamisdeos, ride it out.  Can't you trade for barrels of blood from caravans?  Vampire fortress?

I wish it worked like that.  would be kinda cool if you could feed your pet vampires with imported blood.  Even better if you could feed em captured goblins/elves, actually I guess that would still be imported blood.

[Dunamisdeos]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

OH SH..!!! IT HAS A WARHAMM---
~Urist McGravityBeat, last words.

[Duuvian]

Haha nice

[Gravitybeat]

Thank you all so much for your advice!

I assume you were looking at the gods' relationship lists, or looking them up in legends mode. In either case, seeing that the gods cursed urist mcdefiler does not necessarily mean he's in your fort. And if you have 50 dwarves, then that means you've gotten at least three migrant waves, which means you've had somewhere in the neighborhood of 6-10 full moons already. And if you had more than one vampire, you would have more than one corpse already, assuming they came in the same migrant wave. I'm pretty sure, they enter the map with their "I need blood!" cooldown full, so they would be feeding around the same time if they arrived together.

I don't know what you mean by god's relationships, but I was actually looking at my units, one by one and checking their relationship screens. However you're probably right about the full moon thing- I honestly didn't think of it because I would have assumed I would get an announcement. I haven't gotten any invasions yet, but there's a forgotten beast wandering around and as far as I can tell, it's only maybe the 3rd-4th year. I've had the two standard migrant waves and then maybe three more? I don't know how much that is in terms of time.

Despite this I've only found one drained corpse- mind you, there might be others I can't see.

Draft 10 Vampires into a military unit, and put the last one in a sealed room filled with expensive happy-thought items. You will have an awesome vampire squad, and a fortress failsafe if everything goes south. I suggest infecting as many dwarves as possible with... Pachythropy? Make more were-elephants is what I'm getting at here.

I like this plan, but I have to ask, how do I make MORE? I read the Wiki and it says anyone attacked by a were-beast will become that beast, but at the same time I can't picture a werepachy leaving ANYTHING alive. Still, all that means is that I have to keep up my no-military policy until the next full moon.

As an aside, I would pay good money for a fort with the situation you described! I'll bet a lot of other players would, too.

If someone told me how to save DF files and offer them to others, I would happily go over to the main thread and offer it to anyone who would take it. I don't think I can make the fullest of this situation due to inexperience, but I'd be absolutely jazzed to see what other people do.

[greycat]

If someone told me how to save DF files and offer them to others, I would happily go over to the main thread and offer it to anyone who would take it. I don't think I can make the fullest of this situation due to inexperience, but I'd be absolutely jazzed to see what other people do.

Inside your Dwarf Fortress play directory, there should be a data/save/ subdirectory.  Inside that, there should be one directory for each world you've generated (region1, region2 and so on).  Use your favorite compression/archiving program to compress the region directory that you want to share, and then upload the resulting compressed archive file to http://dffd.wimbli.com/ or any other file-sharing site.

[Dunamisdeos]

I know you can make more vampires by having dwarves drink water contaminated with vamp blood. Pretty sure you have to survive a werebeast attack.

Maybe if you put a lot of dwarves in the room with it, it'll switch targets instead of smooshing one dwarf, thereby increasing the survival rate?

[ShadowHammer]

I know you can make more vampires by having dwarves drink water contaminated with vamp blood. Pretty sure you have to survive a werebeast attack.

Maybe if you put a lot of dwarves in the room with it, it'll switch targets instead of smooshing one dwarf, thereby increasing the survival rate?

You can just have one dwarf at a time, wearing full armor except either one gauntlet or one boot. They may still get their skulls crushed by the blunt force trauma, but that isn't too likely, I don't think.

[Gravitybeat]

I know you can make more vampires by having dwarves drink water contaminated with vamp blood. Pretty sure you have to survive a werebeast attack.

Maybe if you put a lot of dwarves in the room with it, it'll switch targets instead of smooshing one dwarf, thereby increasing the survival rate?

You can just have one dwarf at a time, wearing full armor except either one gauntlet or one boot. They may still get their skulls crushed by the blunt force trauma, but that isn't too likely, I don't think.

That sounds like a good plan, but will something like leather armor work? I've uncovered nothing but Galena and Cassiterite so far (though I am not the best at strip mining yet- again, I mostly know farming and crafting) and all I've made from it is silver warhammers. I don't know how good silver armor is, so I haven't made any, in the hopes I might be able to find something better than tin and less heavy than silver.

Inside your Dwarf Fortress play directory, there should be a data/save/ subdirectory.  Inside that, there should be one directory for each world you've generated (region1, region2 and so on).  Use your favorite compression/archiving program to compress the region directory that you want to share, and then upload the resulting compressed archive file to http://dffd.wimbli.com/ or any other file-sharing site.

Okay, so just being clear- if I take the region file and compress it, it will contain my fortress as well, in addition to all of the world history and the world in general? I don't want to send people an empty world when it's the fort that's notable.

[greycat]

That sounds like a good plan, but will something like leather armor work? I've uncovered nothing but Galena and Cassiterite so far (though I am not the best at strip mining yet- again, I mostly know farming and crafting) and all I've made from it is silver warhammers. I don't know how good silver armor is, so I haven't made any, in the hopes I might be able to find something better than tin and less heavy than silver.

You can't make silver armor.  Unfortunately, neither galena (silver + lead) nor cassiterite (tin) gives you a metal that you can make into armor.  Not by themselves, anyway.  Until you find some copper or iron, you're stuck with leather/bone armor.