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Author Topic: The eerie fascination of reclaimed fortresses  (Read 3717 times)

PopTart

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The eerie fascination of reclaimed fortresses
« on: February 09, 2016, 08:07:28 pm »

I abandoned a fortress and didn't want to leave the world I had created. It was just so rich in history and so full of evil and savagery, and I didn't want to wait another two hours to replicate it!

So I reclaimed a ruined fortress in the same world. And it is way more fascinating than the wiki would suggest! First off, even though it's "ruined," it's filled with hostiles! But they're not actually hostile, they're just people and animal people that live there. Every door you open reveals more people. What am I going to do with them?

As promised in the wiki, there's a couple hundred forges down there, and no one's using them. There's 5 magma smelters, too, so I'm melting down the 200 free anvils, fuel-free. Of course, I realized way too late that I had to destroy and reconstruct the smelters in order to actually keep the bars produced. I think that's a bug.

What else? There's hundreds of procedurally-generated bedrooms and storage areas in bizarre configurations, a couple storehouses of free meltable copper junk, a huge outdoor floor made of thousands(!) of garnierite blocks, and an eerie spiral rampway snaking all the way down to magma. The experience of exploring these chaotic chambers and passageways is eerie, especially for someone like me who's never tried adventure mode. The way my dwarfs take over this place and make it their own will be the stuff of storytelling. I can't wait to see what happens.
« Last Edit: February 09, 2016, 08:16:15 pm by PopTart »
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MoonyTheHuman

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Re: The eerie fascination of reclaimed fortresses
« Reply #1 on: February 09, 2016, 08:57:01 pm »

save pl0x i wana play too C:

Salmeuk

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Re: The eerie fascination of reclaimed fortresses
« Reply #2 on: February 09, 2016, 11:53:28 pm »

save pl0x i wana play too C:

Pretty much any world will have a few abandoned worldgen fortresses for you to reclaim!
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PopTart

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Re: The eerie fascination of reclaimed fortresses
« Reply #3 on: February 10, 2016, 12:55:24 am »

Another nice feature of these fortresses I forgot to mention is that all the mined-out rocks are gone and most of the walls are smoothed. So the whole place looks cleaner and the dirty work is done for you. Plus it's nice to take a break from my obsessive digfort designing and just use the given layout.

Saiko Kila

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Re: The eerie fascination of reclaimed fortresses
« Reply #4 on: February 10, 2016, 02:54:45 am »

Another nice feature of these fortresses I forgot to mention is that all the mined-out rocks are gone and most of the walls are smoothed. So the whole place looks cleaner and the dirty work is done for you. Plus it's nice to take a break from my obsessive digfort designing and just use the given layout.

Have you explored all rooms? Because the reason this fortress was abandoned can still lurk there. It is hidden in ambush, but can be activated if your dwarf comes too close. I'd check in Legends what is that (if exists at all).
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BlackBronze

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Re: The eerie fascination of reclaimed fortresses
« Reply #5 on: February 10, 2016, 04:15:01 pm »


I'm currently going through that problem. Ugh, it's frustrating trying to get rid of a forgotten beast living in one of the many basements of my ruin. It's a web-spitter, and I've lost far too many dwarves already (including my talented paper maker). Luckily, it likes to sit in a corner all day and night.
« Last Edit: February 10, 2016, 05:39:14 pm by BlackBronze »
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khearn

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Re: The eerie fascination of reclaimed fortresses
« Reply #6 on: February 10, 2016, 04:31:14 pm »

Just wall it in and let it wait until you're better prepared to handle it.
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PopTart

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Re: The eerie fascination of reclaimed fortresses
« Reply #7 on: February 10, 2016, 05:57:25 pm »

Have you explored all rooms? Because the reason this fortress was abandoned can still lurk there. It is hidden in ambush, but can be activated if your dwarf comes too close. I'd check in Legends what is that (if exists at all).

That possibility sounds terrifying. Yeah, every room I discover with inhabitants brings up the "Ambush!" message, but so far no hostile hostiles. If there really is some terrible reason for the fortress's abandonment, then why is everyone still hanging out? I will check the legends, or just prepare for a surprise. I love this game.

khearn

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Re: The eerie fascination of reclaimed fortresses
« Reply #8 on: February 10, 2016, 06:05:21 pm »

You're right, there would be no logical reason for the other dwarves to be hanging out there if there was some nasty monster hiding nearby. And we know that dwarves would never do something illogical. So you should be perfectly safe. What could possibly go wrong?
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Rumrusher

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Re: The eerie fascination of reclaimed fortresses
« Reply #9 on: February 10, 2016, 06:42:58 pm »

oh wait maybe it's the 'fortress entrance' that got turn into a ruin but not the mountainhome that Directly under it. since dwarf forts are only a cavern located civ(since  mountain homes can start with no entrance and just connected to a tunnel in adventure mode).
so you might have taken over the upper part of the fort site where it the only access to the outside.
which is funny since that means No goblin or elf or human breached the caverns to lead an army into a dwarf settlement they just happily take over or raze the front door then leave.
 
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Loud Whispers

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Re: The eerie fascination of reclaimed fortresses
« Reply #10 on: February 10, 2016, 07:14:52 pm »

When I do abandoned Fortress reclaims I like to imagine my settler Dwarves are hobos with really low taste, even by hobo standards. As long as there aren't more than 9 eldritch unkillable monstrosities hiding in the depths, the ruin is habitable.

Niddhoger

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Re: The eerie fascination of reclaimed fortresses
« Reply #11 on: February 10, 2016, 07:54:30 pm »

They also tend to have open doors into the caverns where a dwarven tunnel connects to the central ramp.  You really have to explore all the way down asap to catch these.  Otherwise you'll get trolls (or worse!) popping up in your dining hall. 

And yeah, the FBs/dragons/whatever are easy to deal with.  Just wall them in from out of LoS- they tend to be largely passive when caught chilling in their respective lairs.
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Bearskie

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Re: The eerie fascination of reclaimed fortresses
« Reply #12 on: February 10, 2016, 11:09:20 pm »

Think its a bug, where conquered sites in the world suddenly end up being liberated upon retiring yet not being returned to their original civ, thus being listed as ruins despite the fortress still having a full population of previously-conquered inhabitants. I think.

On the good side, you can actually reclaim such ruins, resulting in a free supply of 100s of Friendly dwarves who just mill around and suck on your fps. :D

Saiko Kila

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Re: The eerie fascination of reclaimed fortresses
« Reply #13 on: February 11, 2016, 10:10:45 am »

It is quite possible there's another mini-fortress, if the main fortress has no cavern road access. Sometimes it can be implied: when you build a forge, there's number of forges already built displayed. If this number is higher than the actual number of forges you see (you have to count them manually, I'm afraid) then there's another, isolated part. It also can be found after exploring caverns. I use speluncats for that. If you see a road, but no rooms nearby, it may be worth to dig around...
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BlackBronze

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Re: The eerie fascination of reclaimed fortresses
« Reply #14 on: February 11, 2016, 06:25:29 pm »

It is quite possible there's another mini-fortress, if the main fortress has no cavern road access. Sometimes it can be implied: when you build a forge, there's number of forges already built displayed. If this number is higher than the actual number of forges you see (you have to count them manually, I'm afraid) then there's another, isolated part. It also can be found after exploring caverns. I use speluncats for that. If you see a road, but no rooms nearby, it may be worth to dig around...

Wait, really? That's so COOL!! :o
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