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[Hoshiqua]

Heya !

So, I've been playing Dwarf Fortress for quite a long time now, or at least following its development.

It's very good as it is now, and in my own opinion the game would simply be the perfect time sink if there was more emphasis on politics and generally commanding people and owning land in "Adventurer" mode. Anyway...

In many of my (short) adventure playthrough, my goal has been to :

- Get decent at fighting, and build up a reputation
- Get a band of strong, loyal soldiers to follow me and protect me
- Attack and take over a hamlet, become Lord
- Make my former companions my hearthpersons
- Force my neighbours to pay homage
- When strong enough (I imagine making people pay homage to you gives you quite the "fame" in the land they control, allowing you to get more companions to follow you), attack and take over a town, make it my "capital" and so forth..

Now, I've only been able to get to the third step, that is becoming a Lord. However, in the few playthrough where I actually managed to take a hamlet over and have the people there say I'm the area's unconstested Lord, I could never get my companions to become my hearthpersons. I blame a lack of fame, and maybe the fact they are mostly already "hearthed" to some other government entity.

My questions are : What is a civilization exactly in terms of hierarchy (is it the common liege of all its sites' government entity ?) ? How does "homage" work (how do force someone to pay homage to you reliably, what do you gain from it...) ? Once you have hearthpersons under you, can you send them on missions like your own lord can when you start a new playthrough ? Is there any way to have an entire civilization pay homage to you ?

I'll probably have a few more questions here and there, but that's already a lot... thank you in advance !

Edit : Extra question now that I gave some more thought to it : I am aware "Lordship" (Hamlet government entities) can declare war on one another and "Skirmish" one another. As the Lord of such an entity, is there any way to "properly" declare war upon some other entity ? I know I can just waltz in and kill who I want to kill and I'll get my fight, but it's not very clean !

[ShinQuickMan]

The sad truth is that there won't be much of a difference. Tributes and territory aren't respected, citizens will continue their lives as they did (if they don't just abandon the site, that is), and your adventuring lord plus hearthpeople won't really do much besides sit on their laurels between adventure retirement. And no, you can't send your hearthpeople to off-site missions at the moment.

[Hoshiqua]

Too bad... I just managed to get a few soldiers to become my hearthpersons after I told them I killed their Lady. Wierd. And it's not like they didn't hate me for it : they called me murderer, spat at me every 10 seconds, but said they would be "glad" to be my hearthpersons. Strange. Now I have to test if making someone your hearthperson makes them accept your offer to join you on adventure regardless. !!SCIENCE!!

[Uzu Bash]

These are all relatively new features that are still in development, so everyone's still learning from experimentation, and what's best understood has been put in the wiki. I can tell you that seizing a town isn't something you have to work up to, you can do it any time. You can also find and claim ruins of any size, create or take over camps, and I don't believe there's a limit. I also don't believe it'll make you a civ ruler; no one will accept as legitimate any site government that isn't part of a civ; but maybe you just need to hold enough lordships and/or gather enough tribute pledges. So far, the only known effect of tribute is a note in history, which may or may not be significant.

The process for civ ruler selection is completely opaque to us, and no player has been appointed, but maybe persistent enough serial regicide will eventually earn you the throne! In principle, the civ ruler can transfer their role directly to to another character, including you, but I don't know the conditions for that. I'm still trying to figure out, and haven't seen anything to eliminate the possibility. Twice I've been offered lordships by the lords themselves, and have no clear understanding why.


Btw, getting hearthfolk and companions are both easier if you have a legendary record to tell of. It's confirmed that you can get hearthies to join you and that you can get companions to be your hearthies, even if they already have a lord/lady.

[Untrustedlife]

Heya !

So, I've been playing Dwarf Fortress for quite a long time now, or at least following its development.

It's very good as it is now, and in my own opinion the game would simply be the perfect time sink if there was more emphasis on politics and generally commanding people and owning land in "Adventurer" mode. Anyway...

In many of my (short) adventure playthrough, my goal has been to :

- Get decent at fighting, and build up a reputation
- Get a band of strong, loyal soldiers to follow me and protect me
- Attack and take over a hamlet, become Lord
- Make my former companions my hearthpersons
- Force my neighbours to pay homage
- When strong enough (I imagine making people pay homage to you gives you quite the "fame" in the land they control, allowing you to get more companions to follow you), attack and take over a town, make it my "capital" and so forth..

Now, I've only been able to get to the third step, that is becoming a Lord. However, in the few playthrough where I actually managed to take a hamlet over and have the people there say I'm the area's unconstested Lord, I could never get my companions to become my hearthpersons. I blame a lack of fame, and maybe the fact they are mostly already "hearthed" to some other government entity.

My questions are : What is a civilization exactly in terms of hierarchy (is it the common liege of all its sites' government entity ?) ? How does "homage" work (how do force someone to pay homage to you reliably, what do you gain from it...) ? Once you have hearthpersons under you, can you send them on missions like your own lord can when you start a new playthrough ? Is there any way to have an entire civilization pay homage to you ?

I'll probably have a few more questions here and there, but that's already a lot... thank you in advance !

Edit : Extra question now that I gave some more thought to it : I am aware "Lordship" (Hamlet government entities) can declare war on one another and "Skirmish" one another. As the Lord of such an entity, is there any way to "properly" declare war upon some other entity ? I know I can just waltz in and kill who I want to kill and I'll get my fight, but it's not very clean !

The most interesting thing you can do in camps right now, is assign hearthpeople to stand in zones you define, so you can post a guard next to your bedroom for example. Nothing more complex then that. If you are lord of a camp and have hearthpeople, they will follow normal hearth AI and patrol the site automatically and sit in zones you assign them. You can define temples taverns etc. But that has no real effect. The meadhall is the most interesting since you can claim it.


I know that children of the lord/lady and hearthpeople can both inherit if a lord is killed. In bandit camps if you become a lieutenant, and kill the leader, and the rest of the lieutenants you become the bandit leader and can hire liutenants. I haven't messed around with inheritance as much as I could but this is what I know.

[Untrustedlife]

These are all relatively new features that are still in development, so everyone's still learning from experimentation, and what's best understood has been put in the wiki. I can tell you that seizing a town isn't something you have to work up to, you can do it any time. You can also find and claim ruins of any size, create or take over camps, and I don't believe there's a limit. I also don't believe it'll make you a civ ruler; no one will accept as legitimate any site government that isn't part of a civ; but maybe you just need to hold enough lordships and/or gather enough tribute pledges. So far, the only known effect of tribute is a note in history, which may or may not be significant.

The process for civ ruler selection is completely opaque to us, and no player has been appointed, but maybe persistent enough serial regicide will eventually earn you the throne! In principle, the civ ruler can transfer their role directly to to another character, including you, but I don't know the conditions for that. I'm still trying to figure out, and haven't seen anything to eliminate the possibility. Twice I've been offered lordships by the lords themselves, and have no clear understanding why.


Btw, getting hearthfolk and companions are both easier if you have a legendary record to tell of. It's confirmed that you can get hearthies to join you and that you can get companions to be your hearthies, even if they already have a lord/lady.

I feel like we definitely need more science. But unfortunately it just isnt all that interesting yet.

If we could use toadies debug "kill entire hist fig population button"  it would be much easier to see if you can in fact inherit the kingship.

[Uzu Bash]

The most interesting thing you can do in camps right now, is assign hearthpeople to stand in zones you define, so you can post a guard next to your bedroom for example. Nothing more complex then that. If you are lord of a camp and have hearthpeople, they will follow normal hearth AI and patrol the site automatically and sit in zones you assign them. You can define temples taverns etc. But that has no real effect. The meadhall is the most interesting since you can claim it.

There's a bit more to it than that. If you assign any companion to one or more zones, that will become their home, and they'll stay there if you drop them from the party, and they'll head there if you get separated long enough. In any zone they'll mill around and talk to each other, in main hall a hearthperson may go into patrol mode, in a tavern they'll socialize more and perform for each other. I'm not certain what effect temples have; I'd have to observe before concluding that there isn't any, but I haven't built one yet.

[Hoshiqua]

Do you guys think Toady will clear it up for us someday ? Or will we have to !!SCIENCE!! everything ourselves ? :p

[Uzu Bash]

I assume Toady left it to players to discover the features, aside from the ones he notified us of in the release notes. You could ask in Future of the Fortress whether something has been or will be implemented, and you might find that its already been answered in them. A little research could obviate the need for !!SCIENCE!!, but where's the fun in that?

[Butterfly]

The most interesting thing you can do in camps right now, is assign hearthpeople to stand in zones you define, so you can post a guard next to your bedroom for example. Nothing more complex then that. If you are lord of a camp and have hearthpeople, they will follow normal hearth AI and patrol the site automatically and sit in zones you assign them. You can define temples taverns etc. But that has no real effect. The meadhall is the most interesting since you can claim it.

There's a bit more to it than that. If you assign any companion to one or more zones, that will become their home, and they'll stay there if you drop them from the party, and they'll head there if you get separated long enough. In any zone they'll mill around and talk to each other, in main hall a hearthperson may go into patrol mode, in a tavern they'll socialize more and perform for each other. I'm not certain what effect temples have; I'd have to observe before concluding that there isn't any, but I haven't built one yet.

How do you assign companions to zones in Player Made Camps? Do you ask them to "wait here" or something else?

As for becoming a leader of a site: One of my friend's retired Elephant person adventurers, who was the hearthperson of a Human lord, invaded a Goblin dark pit and conquered it, setting up a new government and becoming the overlord!!! It's pretty neat to see this sort of behaviour happen to retired adventurers.

I wonder if a retired hearthperson/lieutenant could inherit leadership of the group if their leader dies (during week advancement or fort mode, or due to another adventurer possibly?) Sounds like a fun thing to test! 

[Uzu Bash]

How do you assign companions to zones in Player Made Camps? Do you ask them to "wait here" or something else?

If you ask them to wait, they'll behave the same as if you'd ask them to wait anywhere else. You'd have to drop them from your party, or if you use dfhack's companion order menu order them to (F) Wait. The first zone selection menu has the option to (a)ssign members of your party to a zone, including yourself should you retire. You can assign to any number of zones, and you can have overlapping zones; eg my tavern has a troupe of performers assigned to it, and I and my companions are assigned to zones that overlap the tavern and our own private rooms. When they're in the tavern area, they perform and participate like anyone assigned to it.

I wonder if a retired hearthperson/lieutenant could inherit leadership of the group if their leader dies (during week advancement or fort mode, or due to another adventurer possibly?) Sounds like a fun thing to test! 

Yes, if the leader dies another group member will be promoted in a few days to a week. And when I've left my own groups by joining a performance troupe, I can see immediately in history that leadership passes to the first person I recruited into the group.

[Jazz Cat]

Can your camp turn into a real site - a hamlet or a hillock or whatnot? I made a camp recently and declared myself leader of it, but I never got the notification about becoming the ruler. And while I was in the camp, I could only "give in to starvation," not "retire at this location."

[Shonai_Dweller]

Can your camp turn into a real site - a hamlet or a hillock or whatnot? I made a camp recently and declared myself leader of it, but I never got the notification about becoming the ruler. And while I was in the camp, I could only "give in to starvation," not "retire at this location."

You need to define a meeting hall and claim that.

[Jazz Cat]

Ooh, I'll try that.

[omada]

So wait, we can already make people recognize you as leader of an conquered hamlet?

It has been some time already, but if i remember well we can we make our companions lords, right?

So we could go to a dwarf fortress, recruit a fuckton of companions, make them the lords of nearby human towns/hamlets and if someone manage it even kingship if someone discover how. (or overthrow the local monarchy completely and just have a bunch of lords)

If they stop being from the original dwarf civ, we can at least have fun in seeing a bunch of historical figures that belonged to your fortress and now is the "legendary axedwarf lord"

If it continues being subordinates to the dwarf monarchy, it means you can create a dwarf fortress, become the capital, and manage to have the nobility of the entire continent under your rule? Or even having some lords/their consorts/their kids immigrating to your fortress as subjects?