Reclaim fortress mode

xTATTEREDx · +FINE+ · *SUPERIOR* · ≡EXCEPTIONAL≡ · ☼MASTERWORK☼

v50.14 · v0.47.05

This article is about the current version of DF.
Note that some content may still need to be updated.

Sometimes, a favorite fort in a remarkably wonderful location is extinguished for one reason or another. Sometimes, you just have to go back and try again. Thankfully, this mechanic has been built into the game in the form of Reclaim Fortress Mode.

How to reclaim or unretire a fortress

During world generation, sites can become ruins which you are able to reclaim in Fortress Mode. At the embark screen, press R in order to bring up a list of potential reclaim locations. There will be a list of locations you are able to scroll through. Pressing tab will select a site and give you a history of when the site was created, and how the fortress fell. If you previously retired or abandoned a fortress, those will also be available to unretire or reclaim respectively. Reclaiming a fortress is little different than a normal embark. The prepare-for-journey screen is identical to a normal embark, with the same number of points for item selection. Unretiring a fortress has no prepare-for-journey screen and immediately brings you to the fortress.

What you will find

Reclaim

On arrival at your old ruined fortress location, the player's initial impression will be one of untidiness.

All items that existed at the lost fortress will be forbidden and randomly strewn across the map and all accessible levels
Dwarves that were present during the fall of the last fortress will be scattered across the map along with the rotten carcasses of whatever livestock was left behind
If you have reclaimed the same fortress more than once, there may also be ghosts of citizens from attempts prior to the most recently lost fortress. These tortured souls will have no corresponding bodies - these poor spirits of repeated failed attempts must be memorialised
Food ingredients in barrels rot away for the reclaim and all alcohol barrels will be empty, however any prepared meals are still dwarf-edible and will be scattered everywhere (and initially forbidden as above)
Enemies that existed during abandonment will still be there if you reclaim the fortress immediately afterwards and may be lurking in ambush
Enemy invasion forces like goblin ambush parties may have changed to be peaceful, for some reason. Warning: if another siege turns up of the same race then those already present may revert to enemy again!
If your fortress fell to a tantrum spiral, there may be berserk dwarves lurking in ambush for your embark party. Be prepared to deal with whatever destroyed your fortress before.
Constructed buildings will have remained standing, including small buildings like cages and beds. Buildings, like items, must be reclaimed before they can be used
Stockpiles will no longer exist, and anything held within them will have been scattered and forbidden along with everything else
Any workshops that had profiles will continue to have those profiles, even when there is no manager assigned. If you assign a manager, you can edit those profiles, potentially allowing the workshops to be used again.

Unretire

Item positions are conserved
Assigned dwarf labors are conserved
Farm plot settings are conserved
Stockpiles and their settings are conserved
Pasture settings are cleared, however the pastures themselves still exist
Pending constructions are removed
Designations are not conserved
Dwarf positions are not conserved and seem to be randomly scattered throughout the entire fortress
Caverns and the magma sea will be un-revealed if you build constructions that block revealing them
- This results in constructed walls being right next to unrevealed terrain

Pre-existing Ruins

The forts most commonly brought to ruin during world generation (amongst dwarven civilizations) are cavern fortresses, which consist of a large, often empty building on the surface connected to multiple settlements in (or just below) the different cavern layers by a mineshaft. There may be roads leading out of the settlement on the surface or in the caverns. The settlements themselves will usually consist of unfurnished 2x2 bedrooms, relatively large meeting/dining halls, and many, many smelters and metalsmiths' forges, all of which will be smoothed and decorated by statues. Discovering the extent of the central mineshaft and pacifying/sealing off any dangerous underground areas might be a good idea upon arrival at such a location.

Note that when goblins successfully take over a site during world generation, it remains an active settlement under their civ's control and thus unreclaimable. However, there seems to be a bug where if a non-dwarf civilization reclaims a site, it will still be considered a ruin, and can be reclaimed. The most common cause of actual ruin for dwarven sites is the arrival of an unexpected guest, with whom any reclaimers will need to deal eventually.

Reclaiming buildings

In order to reclaim a building for your dwarves to use, say a smelter, you will need to reclaim all of the items that make up that workshop. You can do this two ways. First, you can hit t and move the cursor over the building, which will show all of the items within the building. This includes the materials used to build it. Hit f on each one to reclaim those items.

It is also possible to designate multiple items and workshops by using d-b-c.

If you have limited who can use the workshop prior to reclaiming, the workshop will remain locked until you change the settings.

Time

Each time a fortress is reclaimed or unretired, two weeks pass on the calendar, just as with a regular embark. Currently, there is a bug where the fortress may be reclaimed by some other dwarven party during this time. This will likely cause a crash.

Bugs

Reclaiming a fortress can make FPS drop to unplayable levels.^Bug:3825
The mud normally found in cave systems is gone on reclaim. ^Bug:133 This may interfere with your farming and/or wood cutting plans (depending if you rely on the underground forests for wood).
If for whatever reason you walled off a section of your fort (to wall a very unhappy dwarf in their bedroom, for example) the walled off section will be invisible on reclaim. On removal of the wall, the section will still be blacked out, and can be designated for mining. Miners will attempt to dig, fail, and walk away only to try again a few seconds later. To get around this, mine a tile adjacent to the invisible room and it will be revealed, allowing you to continue as normal. ^Bug:1871
When a dwarf changes jobs and tried to store an item it will constantly say: "Item is misplaced and can't be stored" forever.
Scattered items seem to only be placed on walkable paths from the edge of the map. Walls and raising drawbridges (in the up position) block the scattering of objects. This can be exploited to concentrate reclaimed items in a small area.
Floors designated but not placed in previous embark are bugged. In the reclaimed embark they block construction of new items as if they were built. To fix, remove the floor as if it was there: d-n. If possible, don't abandon a fortress with anything designated to be built to prevent this from being an issue.
Items strewn outside of the fortress may not be forbidden.
Reclaimed bins and barrels will not be used to store items. They also cannot be traded, the only option is to destroy them. (see: waste disposal)
- Many reclaimed items won't even be properly dumped, making it impossible to clean up the map without external tools.
Occasionally, the incomplete message "(dwarf) has" appears in the purple-pink reserved for death messages. Zooming to the location of the message yields a (probably) random location; no corpse can be seen on the zoomed-to tile, and no correspondence between the dwarf named and the location viewed is yet known.
If a fortress has been reclaimed several times, military alert states that call civilians to burrows may not function correctly.
Previously built slabs cannot be engraved.