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Poll

What is the best time to retire a fortress?

When it's not fun/challenging anymore or FPS death
When everything is working like clockwork
When something wipes out all but a few dwarves
When the adventurer's murder-dungeon is complete
Other (List what)

Author Topic: Best time to retire a fortress poll!  (Read 3716 times)

FrankMcFuzz

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Best time to retire a fortress poll!
« on: July 23, 2015, 01:44:32 am »

So I'm on the 14th year of my current fortress, but nothing of note has happened in years. I'm thinking about retiring it and starting another because I want to keep the world going, but I've never done it before. That made me wonder what the best time to retire the fort would be and what the community feel is their optimum retire time, and if they ever go back to it.

Keep in mind this is specifically for retiring, and not abandoning.
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Space Wizard

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Re: Best time to retire a fortress poll!
« Reply #1 on: July 23, 2015, 03:36:19 am »

Depends on what you're up to in my opinion. In a world I use for adventure mode, I usually make various interesting fortresses with functions that are interesting to visit, and I just retire them when I'm done making them what I want them to be.

If I'm messing with a random fortress on a trash world, after I get it to the point where it's boring I begin doing some stupid dwarf tricks and nefarious experimentation that usually ends up in some kind of horrific accident like in this picture:

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timotheos

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Re: Best time to retire a fortress poll!
« Reply #2 on: July 23, 2015, 01:32:00 pm »

I have 3 reasons to retire a fort.
1) when the king/queen arrives. I'll make them a nice set of rooms and then retire the fort.
2) the mega project i was working on is either finished or gets messed up in a way that doesn't result in terminal !Fun! but which i can't be bothered to re-build from.
3) after a long break when I look at the fort and can't remember what I was doing with it.

The best thing about Toady adding the ability to retire forts is number 1).  2) & 3) i could cope with, but abandoning after the king came always felt wrong. I hated the idea of the king being killed just so I can start something else.

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Evaris

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Re: Best time to retire a fortress poll!
« Reply #3 on: July 23, 2015, 11:33:29 pm »

For me, the only time I retire a fort is when I experience FPS death of 3-4 fps and can no longer stand how slow things are going. 
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Octocaesar

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Re: Best time to retire a fortress poll!
« Reply #4 on: July 24, 2015, 12:03:40 am »

I've never retired a fort. All my games come down to either FPS death or broken game file. I really wish we can get rid of these problems in the future.
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BoogieMan

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Re: Best time to retire a fortress poll!
« Reply #5 on: July 24, 2015, 06:36:28 am »

I've never retired a fort. All my games come down to either FPS death or broken game file. I really wish we can get rid of these problems in the future.


Same, it's always been FPS death for me. Never had broken game files though.
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Iamblichos

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Re: Best time to retire a fortress poll!
« Reply #6 on: July 24, 2015, 09:36:50 am »

Same here.  FPS death quickly gets me bored... I can't get anything done, and usually by the time I get to FPS death, there's not really that much left to do.  Fort is stupidly wealthy, amazingly strong militarily, and doesn't really get challenged by the game very often.  For every flying, webby FB made of adamantine, there are 10 others whose corpses are sent to the kitchens within seconds of arrival at the door.  Goblins are no challenge, and undead are so broken in this release that it's pointless trying to fight them the proper way.  Sadly, I don't see a lot of dragons.
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I'm new to succession forts in general, yes, but do all forts designed by multiple overseers inevitably degenerate into a body-filled labyrinth of chaos and despair like this? Or is this just a Battlefailed thing?

There isn't much middle ground between killed-by-dragon and never-seen-by-dragon.

NESgamer190

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Re: Best time to retire a fortress poll!
« Reply #7 on: July 24, 2015, 02:44:55 pm »

I've made my vote on when the fort wipe is imminent.  A bloody shame I lost my fort to a knockout gas forgotten beast.
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Vercingetorix

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Re: Best time to retire a fortress poll!
« Reply #8 on: July 24, 2015, 03:31:03 pm »

Usually when the first generation of fortress children reaches adulthood, so ~15 years from founding. 
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vjmdhzgr

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Re: Best time to retire a fortress poll!
« Reply #9 on: July 24, 2015, 04:34:36 pm »

I normally would only retire if I want do something else in that world specifically. Like maybe go back to the fortress with an adventurer, or start a new fortress and revive a civilization. Or maybe attempt to wipe out all goblins.
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StumpytheOzzie

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Re: Best time to retire a fortress poll!
« Reply #10 on: July 27, 2015, 11:26:33 pm »

FPS < 5 is the only factor that gets me to quit prematurely.
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Bearskie

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Re: Best time to retire a fortress poll!
« Reply #11 on: July 28, 2015, 02:11:18 am »

Only thing stopping me from retiring atm is waiting for Tekkud, sole survivor of the 'Incident' when she was a babe, to grow into an adult.  Feels really satisfying to see a fortborn dwarf grow up (together with my starting dwarves), and I look forward to recognising her in a migration wave in the future when I start it all over again with another fort.