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Author Topic: Razing pretty much does nothing  (Read 5146 times)

Lummox JR

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Razing pretty much does nothing
« on: December 29, 2019, 10:59:48 pm »

The elves went to war with me for no reason (really; I was being nice about trees and everything) so I decided to screw them over hard and start attacking their nearby sites. A few that I razed got taken over by humans I haven't had contact with, one by other elves. But this one site has a really aggressive military that keeps going after other dwarves, and I've razed them multiple times. The most I ever got their population down to was about <30, from about 100, and then they bounced back to about 200.

Since then I've been unable to raze them at all. Every time I raze this site now, if I send say 5 squads they'll kill about 20 elves and then head back. They're not staying to commit wholesale mayhem, even though the mission report says they rampaged. I don't see how they can be rampaging very effectively if they only killed like 10% of the population and it's just as strong as ever. On one recent raze I sent 4 squads, and had them loot treasures and livestock so they came back with books and a crapload of animals, but the population remained unchanged. Shortly thereafter I sent out 5 squads and told them to forget about treasure or livestock; about a score of dead elves later, no change.

I want to knock this fortress down to the point where either I can send a small occupying force, or the site government flees and someone else takes over. What more do I have to do to raze Silkendrunken to the ground?
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Shonai_Dweller

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Re: Razing pretty much does nothing
« Reply #1 on: December 30, 2019, 12:27:22 am »

Send in an Adventurer to wipe out the defenders once and for all.
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Lummox JR

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Re: Razing pretty much does nothing
« Reply #2 on: December 30, 2019, 12:40:11 am »

Send in an Adventurer to wipe out the defenders once and for all.

Is that really an option in fortress mode? And if so how?
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Shonai_Dweller

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Re: Razing pretty much does nothing
« Reply #3 on: December 30, 2019, 12:42:01 am »

Send in an Adventurer to wipe out the defenders once and for all.

Is that really an option in fortress mode? And if so how?
Fortress Mode is not a separate game. Just retire, send in an Adventurer. Unretire later.
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gchristopher

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Re: Razing pretty much does nothing
« Reply #4 on: December 30, 2019, 01:12:22 am »

There's a few potentially disastrous consequences to unretiring. (caged guests are all freed! Yikes!)

Definitely back up your save before considering it.

This does sound more like a bug with razing.
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Laterigrade

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Re: Razing pretty much does nothing
« Reply #5 on: December 30, 2019, 01:16:10 am »

Sending in squads on separate missions might work; let each squad kill 20 of 'em and then leave. Do it enough and you should probably have it low enough to send in your unhappiest dwarves on a 'demand surrender and occupy' mission.

Alternatively, if you're willing to lose some fighters, send in a 'conquer and occupy' mission at some point. You'll lose whichever squads you send if the elves capitulate, but if that's what it takes to squish the tree-hugging bastards, and build wooden statues of your dwarves executing them via wardog and lava, that is what must be done.

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NordicNooob

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Re: Razing pretty much does nothing
« Reply #6 on: December 30, 2019, 05:40:12 pm »

Razing is quite useless, but works pretty well for lowering population. Just wallop as many of their sites as you can a few times, and you'll start dealing some damage to their population. Refugees will be the main cause of random sites becoming bigger; you're not even killing everybody that goes off of the population of a site, some just flee to another.

It takes a lot of squads and a lot of persistence to raze sites.
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Lummox JR

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Re: Razing pretty much does nothing
« Reply #7 on: December 31, 2019, 02:55:46 am »

Well, I just tried again with four different raze missions of two squads each, and... nope. Absolutely no change. The first mission reported killing a bunch of elves, but the other three came back and said they simply found nothing; no dead elves at all.

To be honest I kinda wonder if something is buggy about this site because at one time when I'd try to raze it the game would crash at some point either during the mission or on completion. It stopped doing that, but the site seems kinda invulnerable now.

I suppose I could try just taking it over and seeing what happens.
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Lummox JR

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Re: Razing pretty much does nothing
« Reply #8 on: January 16, 2020, 02:26:58 am »

Thought I'd post an update for those interested.

I believe I've discovered that razing does not necessarily cause all a site's population to flee; sometimes they'll stick around with mostly civilians in a weakened state. This is why I was able to raze Silkendrunken and then squads that were sent simultaneously as part of a different mission to the same site simply came back after doing nothing.

Since then I've been playing with conquest, actually taking over other sites. My dwarves conquered Squaresung, a settlement a short way to the south. I took over Ringcactus, a city of the same size as Silkendrunken (~200) but not surrounded by other elven settlements, which was immediately to the northwest.

Then for even more fun, I decided to take on an elf city about 500 strong. I sent most of my military, about 10 squads' worth at that time, to raze Verseleathered; they brought the population down to about 50, which quickly rebounded to about 75 while all my dwarves were still returning. Once everyone was back, I sent out an additional mission (can't remember if it was pillage or raze) with just one squad. Then, I sent in a squad of mostly losers whose only good fighter was the captain, who I'd called back from a previous conquest. That squad took over, and the captain now was the new administrator so I couldn't reuse him anymore.

Winter passed. Spring arrived and another annual elf siege showed up to get slaughtered on my western border. I've taken to saving most of their clothing, even the wooden shoes, because dwarves can apparently make do with elf or goblin clothing in a pinch. I save their crap weapons for traps, and discard the rest of the wooden shields and armor.

Finally I set my sights on Silkendrunken. With the siege cleaned up with a lot of help from DFHack, because I'm lazy and don't want dwarves traipsing all over the map for this junk for the next two years, I sent a raze mission of three seasoned squads to Silkendrunken. The population of about 200 didn't budge, but the raiders were successful in killing about 30 elves. Leaning on my theory that Silkendrunken was now ripe for the taking, I sent in another squad of nobodies. (Some of them were legendary observers, but had no serious fighting skills yet.) To my surprise and delight, Silkendrunken fell to the invading forces of the Faithful Chamber.

So this seems to be the solution: If raze doesn't cause the site's government to flee, it may still have done the job of destroying most of that site's army. Following up right away with a conquest mission is likely to succeed in this case.
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FantasticDorf

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Re: Razing pretty much does nothing
« Reply #9 on: January 16, 2020, 07:03:16 pm »

Not really suprising, though i will additionally say that razed sites do repopulate in less than a day in the cases where they flee with no resistance at all and you route the local government. There's no 'cooldown' on when they can move back in or even other refugees from unrelated.
  • I've had elves instantly occupy sites i've razed like human hamlets, i think severe overpopulation in terms of refugees is to blame mostly.
Maybe if you removed their ability to spawn captains & made them militia squad reliant which needs historical figures to do any kind of military action you wouldnt be sending your men against the subtle population that stays. On the other hand, tribute agreements help actually give you a sort of 'peace deal' when you dont want to bother conquering a place which often sacrifices your most proficient captains and squad organisers.

I got two deliveries of tribute, some troll fur mittens or something & a cave crocodile drum before the goblins decided the deal was off and they siege triggered to fight me again, im pretty sure a human or elf settlement would be continous.
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