How to abandon and reclaim fortresses in Dwarf Fortress

Dwarf Fortress brings the term ‘living game’ to a whole other level. As you play and order around your dwarves, the world around you still lives on, making decisions and progress. This is even more realised when you start to play around with abandoning and reclaiming fortresses. You can make a real impact on your generated world. Here is how to abandon and retire fortresses in Dwarf Fortress.

How to abandon or retire a Fortress in Dwarf Fortress

When you’ve set up your fortress, at any time, you can abandon it to ruin or retire it, meaning you’ll be taken out of the hotseat and the fortress will be left to its fate for you to start another journey elsewhere.

Abandoning the fortress to ruin will mean that your dwarves will leave and everything will slowly decompose and break down.

Retiring the fortress will mean that your input will cease in that settlement, and they will become independent. As time goes on, they will either remain a strong outpost, or will crumble apart.

Either of those options are available to your at any time from the pause menu.

Don’t worry if you decide to do any of those options as you can always come back. They may not be in exactly the same state, however.

Related: How to get seeds in Dwarf Fortress

How to reclaim a Fortress in Dwarf Fortress

You can unretire fortresses and reclaim ruins when starting a new game in the same world. Select fortress mode and in the bottom will be an unretire option. Now in the top right will be a list of all the ruins and retired fortresses in the game. Note that a world may have ruins already that you didn’t start.

When reclaiming a ruin, structures and buildings will remain, however items will be gone and rotting. There will also be no inhabitants. You will have a new set of dwarves, resources, animals, and a new wagon to start fresh.

When unretiring a fortress, you will jump straight back in. Any changes of differences in your absence you will merely have to deal with. People may have died, or may even have abandoned the fort themselves or embarked to start their own outpost.

Keep an eye on Gamer Journalist for more gaming and Dwarf Fortress content, such as how to cancel mining.