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[gimli]

...Who is waiting for the Army/Military Arc to get implemented finally? We're waiting for that since years now, and as I see, Toady won't even start to work on the army stuff in 2015 either. It's a shame, because frankly, that would make dwarf mode much more interesting & fun in so many ways. 

[Shonai_Dweller]

One step at a time. Previous update stopped armies from getting lost, and in the next update Dwarves are able to fight properly (apparently), so the basics are getting there.

[vjmdhzgr]

Well the last numbered update was mostly world activation and some big adventurer changes. That world activation is a big deal and completely necessary for the army arc. His next goal is to work on the tavern arc which will begin the more advanced interactions with the outside world, also quite important for the army arc. After that is starting scenarios which are just going to be useful in general. Then that's the end of the current plans. Just with those goals I'm expecting at least two years on that. The development process takes a long time and there's a lot of things that need to be done before he can work on other things. Toady can't just go "Alright we're going to do the army arc immediately! It doesn't matter if the world isn't actually activated so it's impossible for anything to happen to change most of the world so it's really just completely possible in general to do the army arc, so instead I'll just take the system from Masterwork that doesn't actually calculate anything or require any armies or really have any real effect on anything."

[Zarathustra30]

Whoawhoawhoa... v0.40 was all about putting in groundwork for the army arc.  All of the updates since have been completing features or fixing bugs.  They are taking a slight detour to implement Taverns (which are a prerequisite for mercenaries anyway) and Worldgen Artifacts (which will give actual reasons to attack other sites). Then, it is on to laying groundwork for the County Arc (Starting Scenarios), which has evolved into a requirement for the Army Arc.  Everything is connected.

[Putnam]

0.40 was 100% prerequisites for the army arc...

[darthsuegar]

We're getting there friend. They need to implement more features, fix more bugs, and implement more prereqs for the Army arc before they can ever think about it.

[gimli]

Well the last numbered update was mostly world activation and some big adventurer changes.

Yeah. Perhaps I am disappointed because I don't really care about adventure mode. I know that there are tons of prereqs for the Army Arc, and many can be found in 0.40 as well, but because of the Adv. mode focus in 0.40 + the slow development speed [nothing new in this case, it was always slow, since it's a 1 man project] and the new dev plans [for this year?]....it will take years to see any serious Army Arc features to go live....as a "fortress mode only player", I am a bit pissed, but oh well, patience is a virtue, they say. 

[Uronym]

Yeah. Perhaps I am disappointed because I don't really care about adventure mode. I know that there are tons of prereqs for the Army Arc, and many can be found in 0.40 as well, but because of the Adv. mode focus in 0.40 + the slow development speed [nothing new in this case, it was always slow, since it's a 1 man project] and the new dev plans [for this year?]....it will take years to see any serious Army Arc features to go live....as a "fortress mode only player", I am a bit pissed, but oh well, patience is a virtue, they say. 

I think the point is that Toady wants to make Adventure mode something worth playing. While Dwarf Fortress is a pretty good "city-management-defense game", it probably isn't the best. Toady's ultimate goal is to make it much more; an entire "fantasy world generator" that you can interact with through either individuals (Adventure mode), fortresses/cities/settlements (Fortress mode), or through Legends if you just want to read about it. Fortress mode is only half of his big picture, though it is the half that is considerably more developed at this point. In fact, this quote from the development page suggests that he considers Fortress mode mostly done, and that he will mainly be adding "fan-suggested improvements" once he finishes with his current four-release plan (job priorities, inns and taverns, non-player artifacts and fortress starting scenarios).

The idea for the much-neglected adventure mode is to focus on facilitating some specific roles that should be fun by themselves but especially when taken together. The named roles are for planning purposes only, not for use in the game explicitly. Dwarf mode will see a round of fan-suggested improvements as well as interaction with the upcoming adventure mode villains, raiders, etc.

Dwarf Fortress is one big feature creep, but we all hope that it will be the best feature-creeping game ever when Toady finishes it in 2030.

[Putnam]

Yeah, inns/taverns and starting scenarios are practically endgame for Fortress mode. Only thing after that would be the return of the economy, IIRC? Also, other races playable, but that's post-1.0.01.

Meanwhile, you look at the development powergoals and the overwhelming majority of them are related to adventure mode. Quite a few of them are completed now, too.