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Author Topic: Reuse dwarves from abandoned fortresses  (Read 5303 times)

Neowulf

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Reuse dwarves from abandoned fortresses
« on: January 06, 2011, 05:30:02 pm »

Would have to wait for the fortress starting scenarios improvement, but dwarves in a fortress that gets abandoned should return back to the parent civ and be available for future embarks.

When a fortress gets abandoned, take all the surviving dwarves and track them in a group linked to the parent civ. All their skills, stats, and equipment, plus any other owned items they can easily carry, stay with them.
If the fortress was abandoned in an ambush, siege, or any other sort of attack, each dwarf has a random chance of getting killed trying to escape. Injured dwarves have a dramatically reduced chance of surviving.

When preparing for embark you get a list of the survivors from previous fortresses and can choose them to replace any/all of the standard random starters. The embark cost is based on their skills, but at a decent discount (explained later). All their equipment stays with them at little or no cost to you.
Married dwarves may require their spouse to be in the embark group, or their spouse will be in one of the first 3 immigrant waves. Children follow their parents, you gets no say or warning.

Dwarves returned from abandoned fortresses have a semi-permanent unhappy thought stemming from the previous failure. They saw their last fortress fail and therefor aren't very optimistic about the new settlement. Especially if you reclaim their previously abandoned fortress, it already failed once, what's so different about this time around?
This scales with how happy they were on average in their previous fortress. If the scaled unhappy thought brings them below a certain base happy level, they get removed from the list, too emo to try again.
This is the reason for the embark cost discount, they may have greater than 5 in some skills but they're also a lot harder to keep happy.
This unhappy thought slowly decreases in severity over time, and certain events can decrease it quickly. Like killing off a siege, downing a FB, fortress wealth reaches certain thresholds.
Returned dwarves will also have a permanent attribute that causes them to complain to the leader/mayor/ect... more often. They think they know what went wrong last time, and they're going to be sure their leaders never forget.

Good idea, no?
Sorry if this is a common suggestion I've somehow missed.
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Javarock

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Re: Reuse dwarves from abandoned fortresses
« Reply #1 on: January 06, 2011, 05:44:20 pm »

I liked the suggestion. One question though, If an Injured dwarf ((Say one with a mortal Injury)) In the hosptial and theres no seiges, Then you abandon, Would he still have a chance to survive ((Ie, If both legs and arms are chopped off hes unconcess on bed you abandon then he would appear on the list?))
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Sunken

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Re: Reuse dwarves from abandoned fortresses
« Reply #2 on: January 06, 2011, 05:53:26 pm »

Perhaps the game could try to run a hidden simulation of the evacuation of the fortress - everyone trying to path to the map edge, basically - and whoever doesn't make it (because of injuries or because of the sea of elephants or whatever) remains there to be found by adventurers instead..?
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Sunken

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Re: Reuse dwarves from abandoned fortresses
« Reply #3 on: January 06, 2011, 05:55:49 pm »

Or, it could be done in-game by the player - trying to organise the final break-out and escape (do we try and save those trapped in Mine Four with the tentacle demons, or do we just run for it) might be a final act of Fun for the player.
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Neowulf

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Re: Reuse dwarves from abandoned fortresses
« Reply #4 on: January 06, 2011, 06:23:00 pm »

I think pathing to the edge of the map and running sim till they're dead or across it would be best. The player's could either leave it up to the AI or try to do it themselves by sending all their dwarves to map edge burrows before abandoning.


And I forgot to mention, survivor dwarves could also show up by themselves in immigrant waves (with no unhappy thought due to it being their decision to show up).
Imagine you abandoned your fortress to Magma Fun, you sadly embark with the standard random dwarves because you didn't feel like redistributing points to make up the cost of your best dwarves, and suddenly it becomes christmas in late summer, your legendary miner in full steel armor from your previous fortress decides to grace you with his presence once again.
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nenjin

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Re: Reuse dwarves from abandoned fortresses
« Reply #5 on: January 06, 2011, 07:20:08 pm »

I believe Toady eventually wants full population tracking....as in your initial 7 dwarves come from an actual defined groups of dwarves.

Once that is in place, it might be trivial to re-add dwarves from an abandoned fortress to the population list that new fortress dwarves get pulled from.
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Vercingetorix

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Re: Reuse dwarves from abandoned fortresses
« Reply #6 on: January 07, 2011, 05:03:49 pm »

I do believe dwarves are reused, but they're basically clean-slated back to the default; the only real sign of their previous existence would be families from your previous fortress immigrating to the new fort, provided it's in a nearby region.
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Maklak

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Re: Reuse dwarves from abandoned fortresses
« Reply #7 on: January 08, 2011, 04:28:37 pm »

I'd like the ability to stop governing a fortress without abandoning it. Dwarves don't die, they stay where they are, but player can no longer control them, and cannot embark in that area. There should be some preconditions (high population, king present, 20 years survived, etc.) Basically this would be a way of "winning" the game with fortress turning into a new NPC-run mountainhome.
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vadia

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Re: Reuse dwarves from abandoned fortresses
« Reply #8 on: January 08, 2011, 08:35:01 pm »

I'd think that if you'd get skills they'd be vrusty. 
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DrunkDorfPally

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Re: Reuse dwarves from abandoned fortresses
« Reply #9 on: January 15, 2011, 04:53:24 pm »

Yes, I'd like to get some of my old dwarves back, just make them very rusty.  XD
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ExdeathV

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Re: Reuse dwarves from abandoned fortresses
« Reply #10 on: January 16, 2011, 02:38:53 pm »

I hope that the items stay in tact too. I hate when I have to venture into a pack of wolves for a rope. Other than that, I like this idea.
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Eric Blank

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Re: Reuse dwarves from abandoned fortresses
« Reply #11 on: March 02, 2011, 07:51:12 pm »

I'd like the ability to stop governing a fortress without abandoning it. Dwarves don't die, they stay where they are, but player can no longer control them, and cannot embark in that area. There should be some preconditions (high population, king present, 20 years survived, etc.) Basically this would be a way of "winning" the game with fortress turning into a new NPC-run mountainhome.

I fully endorse this, on top of the rest of the thread.
I want:
-Ability to forfeit control of fortresses and leave them standing, including during a siege whereupon the standard world-gen battle scenario takes place to decide who wins. They should continue industry directed by the AI, preferably. Shouldn't be hard since the game already understands and saves the condition of units, and could be made to understand the condition and position of items and buildings.
-Ability to move goods and people from a real fortress in order to start a new one, purchasing them directly from stock instead of(or at least as supplement to) the current embark option.
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Granite26

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Re: Reuse dwarves from abandoned fortresses
« Reply #12 on: March 02, 2011, 07:59:50 pm »

I think pathing to the edge of the map and running sim till they're dead or across it would be best. The player's could either leave it up to the AI or try to do it themselves by sending all their dwarves to map edge burrows before abandoning.


And I forgot to mention, survivor dwarves could also show up by themselves in immigrant waves (with no unhappy thought due to it being their decision to show up).
Imagine you abandoned your fortress to Magma Fun, you sadly embark with the standard random dwarves because you didn't feel like redistributing points to make up the cost of your best dwarves, and suddenly it becomes christmas in late summer, your legendary miner in full steel armor from your previous fortress decides to grace you with his presence once again.

Hell, panic mode would be awesome... you retain control of your squads, the civies make a run for it...  Awesome story potential there.  Imagine the mason that escaped engraving nothing but tributes to the soldiers who covered his retreat.

Advanced options include dwarves with artifacts going to get the artifacts and trying to lug them out.

'Retiring' forts is a crazy popular suggestion.  Just below gunpowder and steampunk in it's perennial nature.

idgarad

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Re: Reuse dwarves from abandoned fortresses
« Reply #13 on: March 02, 2011, 11:02:29 pm »

Would have to wait for the fortress starting scenarios improvement, but dwarves in a fortress that gets abandoned should return back to the parent civ and be available for future embarks.

When a fortress gets abandoned, take all the surviving dwarves and track them in a group linked to the parent civ. All their skills, stats, and equipment, plus any other owned items they can easily carry, stay with them.
If the fortress was abandoned in an ambush, siege, or any other sort of attack, each dwarf has a random chance of getting killed trying to escape. Injured dwarves have a dramatically reduced chance of surviving.

When preparing for embark you get a list of the survivors from previous fortresses and can choose them to replace any/all of the standard random starters. The embark cost is based on their skills, but at a decent discount (explained later). All their equipment stays with them at little or no cost to you.
Married dwarves may require their spouse to be in the embark group, or their spouse will be in one of the first 3 immigrant waves. Children follow their parents, you gets no say or warning.

Dwarves returned from abandoned fortresses have a semi-permanent unhappy thought stemming from the previous failure. They saw their last fortress fail and therefor aren't very optimistic about the new settlement. Especially if you reclaim their previously abandoned fortress, it already failed once, what's so different about this time around?
This scales with how happy they were on average in their previous fortress. If the scaled unhappy thought brings them below a certain base happy level, they get removed from the list, too emo to try again.
This is the reason for the embark cost discount, they may have greater than 5 in some skills but they're also a lot harder to keep happy.
This unhappy thought slowly decreases in severity over time, and certain events can decrease it quickly. Like killing off a siege, downing a FB, fortress wealth reaches certain thresholds.
Returned dwarves will also have a permanent attribute that causes them to complain to the leader/mayor/ect... more often. They think they know what went wrong last time, and they're going to be sure their leaders never forget.

Good idea, no?
Sorry if this is a common suggestion I've somehow missed.

Err if there are still dwarves there... uhh.. then it really isn't abandoned is it?
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Babylon

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Re: Reuse dwarves from abandoned fortresses
« Reply #14 on: March 02, 2011, 11:21:46 pm »

I'd like the ability to stop governing a fortress without abandoning it. Dwarves don't die, they stay where they are, but player can no longer control them, and cannot embark in that area. There should be some preconditions (high population, king present, 20 years survived, etc.) Basically this would be a way of "winning" the game with fortress turning into a new NPC-run mountainhome.

I also think this would be good.  I don't think there needs to be preconditions, we should be able to set up fortresses that can later be visited in adventure mode or interacted with in fortress mode when trade and whatnot get more fleshed out.
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