Getting kidnapped pawns back?

[schnappkatze]

Is there a reliable possibility to get kidnapped pawns back, or do I have to wait if they ask for a ransom? Would I find my catpured pawns in an enemy base if I attacked them?

[Astasia]

If they are held captive there is no way to get them back without a ransom event. As a captive they might "escape" and become a world pawn, joining another faction (or the faction that captured them), at which point you might find them wherever units of those factions generate. They might also be executed.

Nothing outside your map tile is simulated, nobody out in the world exists any at specific location, they are just on a list of "world pawns." World pawns are randomly drawn from when members of that faction are needed for something like a trade caravan, a raid, or a base defense.

[schnappkatze]

Thanks for the insightful answer. Is there a way to trigger this, or is there a rule of thumb in what time frame I can expect this? Like, if a pawn was lost a quadrum ago, can I still be hopeful or is it gone?

Interestingly, I had recently a pawn who was kidnapped but stayed in my social tab because he was the husband of my other pawn. After a few days, the thought "x was kidnapped" suddenly changed to "x died" and he would be shown as dead in the social tab. So if I understand correctly, nothing off the map is simulated but the "world pawns" can still become dead? Or was this rather a bug? (it was the same pawn that the game promised me as a quest to be my pawn's lost brother who then wasn't related to my pawn after all. Maybe the pawn was bugged.)

[Hanuman]

I don't really understand how any of it works but I do know that one time, I had a pawn I captured, escape and leave the map and quite a long time later (year or more) the same pawn was part of an attacking raid again....Uli, I still remember that pawn...the one that got away :/

[Astasia]

Originally posted by schnappkatze:

Thanks for the insightful answer. Is there a way to trigger this, or is there a rule of thumb in what time frame I can expect this? Like, if a pawn was lost a quadrum ago, can I still be hopeful or is it gone?

Interestingly, I had recently a pawn who was kidnapped but stayed in my social tab because he was the husband of my other pawn. After a few days, the thought "x was kidnapped" suddenly changed to "x died" and he would be shown as dead in the social tab. So if I understand correctly, nothing off the map is simulated but the "world pawns" can still become dead? Or was this rather a bug? (it was the same pawn that the game promised me as a quest to be my pawn's lost brother who then wasn't related to my pawn after all. Maybe the pawn was bugged.)

It's very RNG, from what I've heard it can be years before you get a ransom demand, but they can also execute them a few days after leaving the map. I believe the event counts as a population increasing event, meaning it's much less likely you will get a ransom demand if your colony is above ~11 population, and much more likely if it's significantly below that.

World pawns are cleaned up occasionally to keep your save file size in check while cycling new ones in so you don't keep seeing the same ones over and over. Pawns with no relations to your colonists are sometimes just deleted with no references left, while pawns related to your colonists are instead killed off with only some basic data about them remaining.

[BlackSmokeDMax]

Originally posted by Astasia:

....
World pawns are cleaned up occasionally to keep your save file size in check while cycling new ones in so you don't keep seeing the same ones over and over. Pawns with no relations to your colonists are sometimes just deleted with no references left, while pawns related to your colonists are instead killed off with only some basic data about them remaining.

Somewhere out there, Dwarf Fortress just developed a fierce tic due to lost information out in the universe.

;)