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Author Topic: What is the most efficient way to kill a dwarven civ?  (Read 2400 times)

BionicMeatloaf

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What is the most efficient way to kill a dwarven civ?
« on: December 31, 2019, 05:00:56 pm »

Wanting to do a semi apocalypse scenario, but it's hard to stay immersed in it when I keep getting shitloads of dwarven caravans cause the civ is labeled as "dying" instead of "dead"
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PatrikLundell

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Re: What is the most efficient way to kill a dwarven civ?
« Reply #1 on: January 01, 2020, 04:32:26 am »

DF's handling of civs that ought to be dead is bugged, so in most cases they're treated as "struggling" (never mind that they haven't had a site or a living member for 1000 years). To make it even harder, dead civs are suppressed from the list of civs you can embark as if there is at least one civ DF considers not to be dead, so to be able to embark as one in vanilla you ought to restrict the number of dwarven civs to 1 (through raw editing) and then generate and regenerate worlds where they're likely to be stomped upon and killed off early (lots of Titans and megabeasts are good at genocide, but not only of dorfs... World where goblins are close to the dwarven civ are also possible candidates).

Note that a bug prevents raiding for dead civs: you can send squads out for raiding, artifact searches, etc. but they never return or reach their destination. Presumably their civ being dead means the house keeping that's done on the civ level is just skipped and moving "armies" is one such duty. Thus, raiding cannot be performed, although sites can still form economic links to your site, so you can send trouble dorfs to those (I wouldn't be surprised if they never arrive, but they will leave).

A couple of DFHack tools: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=165084.msg7526484#msg7526484
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wierd

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Re: What is the most efficient way to kill a dwarven civ?
« Reply #2 on: January 01, 2020, 05:12:30 am »

I've turned all the knobs past 11 that should completely kill all surface civs, and still had zombie dwarven civs.

It is definitely bugged.
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FantasticDorf

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Re: What is the most efficient way to kill a dwarven civ?
« Reply #3 on: January 01, 2020, 05:31:11 am »

I've turned all the knobs past 11 that should completely kill all surface civs, and still had zombie dwarven civs.

It is definitely bugged.

Refugee camps are very safe places that aren't really even targeted by armies when a site gets routed so that they just fill back up again. It'd be nice to be able to swoop in, knock out the camp security and take some prisoners back home to put a end to a conflict before they can properly relocate to somewhere.
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PatrikLundell

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Re: What is the most efficient way to kill a dwarven civ?
« Reply #4 on: January 01, 2020, 01:05:13 pm »

The bug has nothing to do with refugee camps. It's a matter of internal bookkeeping that gets screwed up (and Toady agreed with that in a FotF a number of years ago). Much of time a civ ought to be wiped out its df.global.world.entity_populations entry keeps fluctuating for 100 years or so, after which it freezes on a non zero number. If that number is set to zero prior to the finalization of the world (reaching the end date, typically), while the other conditions for a dead civ are met (no sites [including refugee camps/caves], no living hist figs, etc.), the civ typically ends up dead (that's basically what slabciv does).

It can be noted that for some reason DF suppresses some civs it treats as "struggling" from being included in the list of civs you can embark as. I don't know why, but at least one test showed that such a civ, when added to the list, played as a "struggling" one.

The only known, so far believed certain, sign of a civ being dead according to DF's opinion is to embark and look at the civ screen before any contact is made with anyone else (definitely caravans and goblin invasions, and probably necro ones as well, but visitors probably don't matter, although I haven't looked for that case) is that the civ subscreen is completely empty. If your civ is "struggling" according to DF's reckoning your civ will show up there from the start, and it's added as soon as anyone else is added to it if the civ was dead.

The signs of a civ being dead (according to DF) are:
- Two initial migrant waves of void dorfs for the first fortress (pop caps can block those, if desired), and then never any more migrants (but you can accept petitions from visitors nowadays).
- Never any dwarven caravan (they can go missing for long stretches of time both for "struggling" and healthy civs, so not seeing them for any number of initial years is still no proof of complete absence). The trade liaison is considered "caravan" for this purpose, which means you can never become a barony.
- No army movement, so raids don't work (but there are other reasons for raid parties to get AWOL, so a small number of failures is no proof).
- No monarch. Your civ, being dead, doesn't have any monarch (who'd have to be a hist fig, which would make your civ not actually being dead). "Struggling" civs often lack monarchs on embark as well, but you'll get one either at another site, through a "polite discussion" at your site, or through a timeout at the end of the first or second year (don't remember which one), with a slightly different message. In the last case it seems there's a good chance the expedition leader gets the crown, allowing you for a chance to influence who it will be. A dead civ doesn't get any monarch at any time.

There have been speculations about the possibility to revive a civ, but I've never heard of any report of a success. Any player attempts to increase the civ pop numbers are complicated by the two migrant waves being drawn from existing hist figs, which means depopulating previous fortresses (although the expedition leader/mayor doesn't seem to move away).
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FantasticDorf

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Re: What is the most efficient way to kill a dwarven civ?
« Reply #5 on: January 01, 2020, 07:13:59 pm »

The bug has nothing to do with refugee camps. It's a matter of internal bookkeeping that gets screwed up (and Toady agreed with that in a FotF a number of years ago). Much of time a civ ought to be wiped out its df.global.world.entity_populations entry keeps fluctuating for 100 years or so, after which it freezes on a non zero number. If that number is set to zero prior to the finalization of the world (reaching the end date, typically), while the other conditions for a dead civ are met (no sites [including refugee camps/caves], no living hist figs, etc.), the civ typically ends up dead (that's basically what slabciv does).

I meant more for the cause of things in the process of the game, often getting cleared out by hostile action from hostile armies or beasts as the entire population will and sometimes figures flee into the wilderness to hide in obscure buildings like monument tombs, it doesn't properly (and like 1/16th's of the time by conquering and transferring ownership or razing it solidly flat) compute and consider killing off a nation in that circumstance that'd be a 'fast' way to achieve your modus operandi for a dead nation.

Assuming its not for your purposes just a unhappy coincidence that all the male/female dwarves have died or gone seperate ways leading to a stagnant ageing nation leading into obscurity; before your embark that is. I didnt know the full scope of the book-keeping fault as I always assumed the nature to be fragmented populations from similar issues to refugee camps (or any other hideouts) not being fully counted for a dead civ.

There are always Dwarves spawned as a prequisite in healthy starting numbers as to the RAW's so every spawn accepted by the map generator is healthy but always succumbs to some form of hostile circumstance before you can really say it's dead by the time you come to play in the two week embark timeskip.

Edit: That's a fair point, lowering staring numbers on the entity itself will also inhibit the dwarf nation's ability to really recover from disasters.

Quote
There have been speculations about the possibility to revive a civ, but I've never heard of any report of a success. Any player attempts to increase the civ pop numbers are complicated by the two migrant waves being drawn from existing hist figs, which means depopulating previous fortresses (although the expedition leader/mayor doesn't seem to move away).

If they aren't loyalty bound by noble position, Rumrusher's method of enlisting a adventurer to the site's army then running and recruiting the mayor left on site would be sufficient (and some other people) would work in all likelyhood.
« Last Edit: January 01, 2020, 07:18:33 pm by FantasticDorf »
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PatrikLundell

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Re: What is the most efficient way to kill a dwarven civ?
« Reply #6 on: January 02, 2020, 04:35:55 am »

I suspect civ's can't die after world gen, but have no proof (and haven't actively sought to disprove it). I've certainly had caravans arriving from other civs that no longer own any sites, since all of those were lost during the play (mostly, it seemed, by just breaking away from their civs and becoming independent sites, without anyone [else] claiming them). That was some time ago, though (0.40.24).

Can't say I know what "Rumrusher's Method" is, but sites belonging to a dead civ gets a mayor through election in the same way sites belonging to "live" civs do: it's a local affair. It might be possible for an adventurer to recruit the expedition leader/mayor from an earlier fortress, but I don't see how that would help in reviving a civ.
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wierd

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Re: What is the most efficient way to kill a dwarven civ?
« Reply #7 on: January 02, 2020, 05:48:12 am »

I mean I have genned worlds that are >80% evil, with syndromes out the wazoo, Megabeast:Site ratios of literally dozens to one, etc---  Worlds that literally wipe out humans, elves, and even Kobolds--- But somehow dwarves survive consistently, despite legends viewer reporting that the last members of their civ died horribly.


These worlds really should be legends-mode-only, but somehow and for some reason, they still have active civs.  Sure, humans, elves, and kobolds are reliably all dead---- but not dwarves. Nope. /s
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Rumrusher

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Re: What is the most efficient way to kill a dwarven civ?
« Reply #8 on: January 02, 2020, 05:52:19 am »

ok for a second was wondering 'wait what this bit of reviving a dead civ is again with my method?' then remember oh yeah the method I found was more you can enlist folks to the military of your civ which would add them to the player's fort.
 
so I guess if a dead civ got no migrants you could retire the fort and move in an adventurer to that civ to enlist them as a recruiter by giving them the noble role of military commander and probably expedition leader.
said adventurer's task then would be to scour the region for folks to add to the fort then convincing them to join with artifacts you made on the spot when you gathered about 9 or so enlisted members for the civ you swap back to fort mode and send the squad you made off on a mission. though from what I gathered this method works on anyone on the fort site as anyone else not at the site would be stuck in a perma-traveling state that won't get cleaned until you retire and locate them to the fort.

that does lead to some weird idea of what happens to the revived civ if the population wasn't dwarves even though the civ is a dwarven one? like if the fort adv recruiter went around picking up elves and goblins for this dwarf fort, and got enough to revive the site, the next 'dwarf' fort migrants of that kingdom should send out goblin and elven migrants before kicking off randomly generated new folks.
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FantasticDorf

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Re: What is the most efficient way to kill a dwarven civ?
« Reply #9 on: January 02, 2020, 06:06:02 am »

that does lead to some weird idea of what happens to the revived civ if the population wasn't dwarves even though the civ is a dwarven one? like if the fort adv recruiter went around picking up elves and goblins for this dwarf fort, and got enough to revive the site, the next 'dwarf' fort migrants of that kingdom should send out goblin and elven migrants before kicking off randomly generated new folks.

I've only ever seen different race in adherence to the entity's [CREATURE:] primary token entry at embark screen including when there was more than one because of generating (unless it makes a copy of a doppleganger population) entity members rather than sourcing them directly.

You could feasibly export some people through exile and expulsion and relocation, conquering a hamlet yourself in adventure mode etc, though if they were truly dead and not >10 which is often indicative of one elf and a few hundred giant bears or so, it could still be quite challenging. Animals almost always clog up a site and stop it fading away, im not sure if there's a specific reason for this like the local animals can't enter and stay in a biome or flee, as nice as a wild-cat-splosion would be or escaped trolls and beak-dogs roaming the countryside until they all eventually die out from destroyed pits.

I would think animals also skew the strength ratios on what is appropriate since being generated they are hard to kill in one go and actually make a bulk of a defence (and offence for elves), dunno, elves would suck without them but if they consistently fell to ruins rather than depopuated sites it'd add more evidence to it.
« Last Edit: January 02, 2020, 06:11:48 am by FantasticDorf »
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PatrikLundell

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Re: What is the most efficient way to kill a dwarven civ?
« Reply #10 on: January 02, 2020, 08:30:31 am »

Given that migrants currently seem to be locked to be of the civ's race, I'd expect a dead civ fortress where you'd naturalized non dorfs, killed off all the dorfs (thus getting a non dwarven mayor), retired, and then embarked somewhere else would result in the new fortress getting void dorfs as their migrants (with no need for using an adventurer to achieve a wholly non dwarven pop in the civ prior to the new fortress).

I don't currently see a need for using Rumrusher's method of site recruitment (not saying people won't enjoy using it, but that's a different matter), as visitors seem to work well when it comes to build up numbers, and sucking up every dorf from old fortresses goes against the goal of repopulating the civ and spreading it. Potentially you might use it to restore some pop to a previous fortress sucked dry through migration, though, in the hope that the next one would leach its (stressed out, with the current version) migrants from the latest, largest fortress.

DF doesn't seem to have any problems with civs that have populations, but none of them is of the original race, although I've only seen that on non playable civs (and I haven't looked for it).

Building up a civ native pop (without recruiting visitors) would probably be done through old fashioned breeding. Breed your 12-23 dorfs (starting 7 + 2 waves) up to 50 or so with as many breeding couples as possible, retire, start a new fortress, repeat (with the migrants leeching of the previous fortress), repeat, retire ... The fortresses would need to be located in places where they are out of reach if gobbos (which makes for boring play), and other "civilized" threats or they'll probably be conquered. Still, I don't think that will actually revive the civ, just get a brain dead (i.e. no central leadership) civ with living limbs.

I'm having trouble understanding how an adventurer conquering sites would help a civ. Do adventurers "belong to" a civ in the manner that any such conquered sites become members of their parent civ (I have no experience with adventure mode)?

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FantasticDorf

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Re: What is the most efficient way to kill a dwarven civ?
« Reply #11 on: January 02, 2020, 11:06:22 am »

I'm having trouble understanding how an adventurer conquering sites would help a civ. Do adventurers "belong to" a civ in the manner that any such conquered sites become members of their parent civ (I have no experience with adventure mode)?

Being enrolled into the military in fortress mode makes them a hearthsperson and therefore implicitly loyal enough to be representative and assumedly going from Rumrusher's method doing the raid with the people you've collected to a empty site (for safety) just re-updates all the links to the site for convenience.

It would likely mean that whoever you conquer in that status of working for your fort would be just the same as if you've sent a raid and set up a puppet government attached to your central site. Though im not 100% sure how neutral the player is supposed to be if not hearth affiliated and whether by the end of the year your independent adventurer site would be egible for a status of nobility when you come out of it if it survived that long in w.g by its own without a bunch of people deposited there also.

Player fortresses aren't really dwarven entity sites but its a start to have somewhere else under direct or mutual control if you decide to abandon your central fortress. This theory besides Rumrusher's is untested.
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Rumrusher

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Re: What is the most efficient way to kill a dwarven civ?
« Reply #12 on: January 02, 2020, 11:24:50 am »

yeah it's not really the adv conquering the site and more the adv being appointed to expedition leader and military commander in the noble screen in fort mode(as in the player does it not just waiting for the game to vote them in) then jump back into adventure mode using the new dialog option to enlist anyone you talk to as a 'military-dwarf' which adds that person to your fort's military squad, then jumping back to fort mode to use the raid system to send out folks to conquer those sites.

I don't think expedition leader or military commander adventurers could walk up to random sites and conquer them on their own.

and my method is more along the lines of a 'Faster Petition'(as fast as one can get under the 4 in game week time period to set this up)

I think the method was used when say someone exile their entire starting 7 leaving only the adventurer to be the sole owner of the fort site and the adventurer's enlisted to the military squad companions.
 

like I can see someone rebuilding a dead civ by.... picking up a bunch of drunk dwarves from a nearby dwarven settlement then adding them to a military in means to properly make them fort citizens.

though re-reading the thread I happen to miss out the bug with raiding which really Really hampers the process of getting new members as all those you recruit to the site would be flagged as friendly when you go back to fort mode and to fix that would require a quick mission to explore a site and back, but since they would never return I guess that crushes my method unless them being friendly still counts towards being part of the new revival of the fort civ.
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FantasticDorf

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Re: What is the most efficient way to kill a dwarven civ?
« Reply #13 on: January 02, 2020, 11:40:10 am »

Though re-reading the thread I happen to miss out the bug with raiding which really Really hampers the process of getting new members as all those you recruit to the site would be flagged as friendly when you go back to fort mode and to fix that would require a quick mission to explore a site and back, but since they would never return I guess that crushes my method unless them being friendly still counts towards being part of the new revival of the fort civ.

I've encountered raiding bugs really in a kind of low frequency, the best ones i've heard about are dwarves actually going mad on whilst in the middle of a trip and leading a squad on a rambling wander around the world aimlessly. There's also things to consider like cave adaption which i've read in extreme cases of it stacking up through exposure can actually cause them to pass out but never actually seen it happen.

I've they've died or became locked into a unconcious pool of vomit off site then i guess they're not coming back but that's more a speculative point surrounding that they do evidently suffer from cave adaption nausea travelling over long distances confirmed by Toady and apparently its also inadvisable to send badly coping dwarves out on missions (in-part that fortress mode is always bathed in sunlight)
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Sanctume

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Re: What is the most efficient way to kill a dwarven civ?
« Reply #14 on: January 02, 2020, 11:52:03 am »

I've been testing Bloodline type fort lately. 

There are dfhack scripts I've used thus far are: 

"start dwarf" can give a large pool of void dwarfs initially. 
"points" also for a generous embark points to bring lots of food and drink so I can focus on early socialization.  But default points is plenty. 

Since they are all void dwarfs, can gm edit their birth years to make them all within marrying age range. 

There there is "set-orientation" if I want them to socialize and find their lovers as all hetero and willing to marry. 

There's also "family-affairs" to force marriage if the honeymoon suite is slow. 

And if the honeymoon suite is slow to get pregnancy,  there's a pregnancy script I found also that gives insta birth while selecting the parents. 

So year's my to do so far. 
Popcap 19, strict pop 30, child 10:50%.
month 1-2 socialize
month 3 marry 
...
month 12 births and retire. 

then repeat with next set on next year in another fort. 
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