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[someone12345]

I have an idea that may allow people to increase the number of sieges or siegers within the sieges. A new token could be added that controls how many attackers from each entity are historical figures and how many are generated, as they were in the previous version. For example:
[SIEGE_COMP:ALL_HIST] could cause all siegers to be drawn from historical populations.
[SIEGE_COMP:PREF_HIST] could cause sieges to recruit historical figures until they run out, then generate attackers out of thin air as needed.
[SIEGE_COMP:PREF_GEN] could cause sieges to be comprised mainly of generated attackers, with attack leaders, squad leaders, weapon lords, and a few regular soldiers being historical figures.
[SIEGE_COMP:ALL_GEN] could force all siegers to be generated.
I am not saying that all of these tokens have to be implemented exactly like this. But something like this would allow players and modders to choose how they want their sieges to work.

[GoblinCookie]

Sieges consist overwhelmingly of non-historical characters at the moment.  I do not think artificially increasing or decreasing the number of historical figures as a % of the attacking army will accomplish anything at all.

[Splint]

Sieges consist overwhelmingly of non-historical characters at the moment.

I know that was the case before the current version. Now I think it's the other way around, being composed of around 50% to 75% of historical figures. There's still some poofed into existence, presumably to fill out any empty slots in a squad, though. Seems you can tell if they're historicals or not if they get slotted under "other kills" or "Notable kills," as more than one hostile elf has ended up filed under the former rather than the latter.

If not, unlike before, it does take entity population into account. So you really can't expect a big siege from a civ that only has a few hundred people anymore - in 34.11 and back, so long as they had one site they'd send sieges that could number in the hundreds; I know this from personal experience, as do others. A prime example for how that worked was the 34.11 fortress defense races, who would often be reduced to just one or a couple sites vs the normal civs' possible dozens, and would still send massive sieges.

There would be lulls for a few years after driving off particularly big sieges, but otherwise they'd keep on coming.

However, it's also been found that there was a minor glitch in Army pathfinding that could seriously handicap sieges and raid parties coming to you if you weren't especially close, and if I'm not mistaken it's going to be fixed next release, unless that's the same glitch that was fixed a few v40 releases back.

On to the suggestion itself, it does allow some measure of customization, likely on siege frequency. An all historical figures force would probably be smaller lead to more noticeable gaps, especially between big fights, while ones that are composed only or mostly of generated butt monkeys would probably be more frequent (as it doesn't drain the actual entity population anywhere near as quickly.)

I support the general idea all the same, because the fighting is a big part of the game for me and it's just not as fun killing hostile wildlife as it is fighting an actual armed force.

[GoblinCookie]

I know that was the case before the current version. Now I think it's the other way around, being composed of around 50% to 75% of historical figures. There's still some poofed into existence, presumably to fill out any empty slots in a squad, though. Seems you can tell if they're historicals or not if they get slotted under "other kills" or "Notable kills," as more than one hostile elf has ended up filed under the former rather than the latter.

If not, unlike before, it does take entity population into account. So you really can't expect a big siege from a civ that only has a few hundred people anymore - in 34.11 and back, so long as they had one site they'd send sieges that could number in the hundreds; I know this from personal experience, as do others. A prime example for how that worked was the 34.11 fortress defense races, who would often be reduced to just one or a couple sites vs the normal civs' possible dozens, and would still send massive sieges.

There would be lulls for a few years after driving off particularly big sieges, but otherwise they'd keep on coming.

However, it's also been found that there was a minor glitch in Army pathfinding that could seriously handicap sieges and raid parties coming to you if you weren't especially close, and if I'm not mistaken it's going to be fixed next release, unless that's the same glitch that was fixed a few v40 releases back.

On to the suggestion itself, it does allow some measure of customization, likely on siege frequency. An all historical figures force would probably be smaller lead to more noticeable gaps, especially between big fights, while ones that are composed only or mostly of generated butt monkeys would probably be more frequent (as it doesn't drain the actual entity population anywhere near as quickly.)

I support the general idea all the same, because the fighting is a big part of the game for me and it's just not as fun killing hostile wildlife as it is fighting an actual armed force.

The majority of historical characters are not born but are promoted from non-historical characters, this is the case both in world-gen and out.  This is why I said that it would not make any noticable difference to the game to decide what % of our attackers are historical characters.  The game can and does create historical characters as required, there is no requirement that they be descended from other historical characters at all.

In previous versions armies were not drawn from actual site populations and the logic of their arrival was driven entirely by factors internal to our fortress.  That meant there were an endless supply of expendable mooks to throw at us and the enemy never figured out enough was enough.  This situation essentially continued for a while after armies started to be drawn from actual site populations because for some insane reason Toady One decided to release the game so that attacking armies ALWAYS won, leading to the goblins rapidly overunning everyone else so it was us against the goblin world.

Nowadays we aren't special, the AI armies attack us like any other fortress as soon as we qualify to be attacked based upon population and material wealth; they do not see their purpose anymore as being providing us with an endless supply of blood sports.  They also run out of people, especially when they have been busy fighting the other sites and armies of your civilization prior to arriving at your fortress.  Making them use non-historical characters changes nothing, the real 'problem' is that the game does not invent people as required to fill armies anymore, every person you kill historical or otherwise is one less person available to be sent against your civilization in future.

I personally like the way things work at the moment.  The whole 'your fortress is special target' thing is very annoying, it still applies with megabeasts and do I get sick of having to constantly swat megabeasts as they are drawn to your fortress like moths to the flame, while ignoring the rest of the world. 

[Splint]

The majority of historical characters are not born but are promoted from non-historical characters, this is the case both in world-gen and out.  This is why I said that it would not make any noticable difference to the game to decide what % of our attackers are historical characters.  The game can and does create historical characters as required, there is no requirement that they be descended from other historical characters at all.

In previous versions armies were not drawn from actual site populations and the logic of their arrival was driven entirely by factors internal to our fortress.  That meant there were an endless supply of expendable mooks to throw at us and the enemy never figured out enough was enough.

The difference actually kind of depends on how old your world is. I've seen armies going into battle, thieves from non-skulking civs doing their thing, and so on, and these guys were all drawn from an existing pool of people, as opposed to just plopped down from thin air. The current system is now more heavily skewed towards "Use actual people," rather than "Just make some dudes up."

Which on one hand is awesome, because now if you're playing a civ on a world overrun by elves or whoever, you can eventually gut the attacking civ's ability to fight over the course of a few years and it'll feel like you actually accomplished something. On the other though, because right now we only get "one" civ to fight, on more evenly balanced worlds we may quickly find ourselves with nothing to do with our militia and murderhalls besides fight wild animals or go after demons (some people may opt for the demons, but I personally try to avoid it.)

This situation essentially continued for a while after armies started to be drawn from actual site populations because for some insane reason Toady One decided to release the game so that attacking armies ALWAYS won, leading to the goblins rapidly overrunning everyone else so it was us against the goblin world.

If I'm not mistaken, that wasn't quite intended, and did get fixed. Although one could get that impression even now since you never hear about the victories, only if your people are being driven out of thier forts and towns/going to reclaim the same.

Nowadays we aren't special, the AI armies attack us like any other fortress as soon as we qualify to be attacked based upon population and material wealth;

Actually, player fortress are special. We design our forts in vastly different manners and produce wealth in far shorter times than other sites. (I'm being a smart ass on that one, I know what you mean. )

they do not see their purpose anymore as being providing us with an endless supply of blood sports. 

Well, before it was more that they had no choice because the world was pretty much in stasis.

They also run out of people, especially when they have been busy fighting the other sites and armies of your civilization prior to arriving at your fortress.  Making them use non-historical characters changes nothing, the real 'problem' is that the game does not invent people as required to fill armies anymore, every person you kill historical or otherwise is one less person available to be sent against your civilization in future.[/quote]

It's my understanding that the difference is mainly "born during world activity" vs "crapped out by the gods to fill out Fuckface McMacelord's squad." Genned guys aren't "real" historical figures until they leave your site, and thus don't count against the existing population. As of the current version, I think you can tell if they're "real" people or not by whether or not they get filed under notable kills or not, since notable kills are usually things like wildlife that kill dwarves and 'actual' people, vs regular attack animals that fail to kill anything and dudes who only started existing five minutes ago when they showed up to kill you.

I base that off the last couple forts I've been playtesting a mod with. Some guys are considered "notable" while others in the same squad aren't, despite having names and such themselves. The "real" people count, the "fake" ones don't, resulting in a slower depletion of the actual population, if that makes sense.

I personally like the way things work at the moment.  The whole 'your fortress is special target' thing is very annoying, it still applies with megabeasts and do I get sick of having to constantly swat megabeasts as they are drawn to your fortress like moths to the flame, while ignoring the rest of the world.

Well that's your personal taste. You've made it clear in Stagnant's thread you aren't really a very kill-crazy sort of player. But others who like military conflict to be a regular in thier game do find fault with it (myself included,) because fighting giants, werecreatures, and the like just doesn't have the same... I dunno, it just doesn't seem as interesting since there's only one of them at a time.

Spoiler: This bit may seem a little ranty (click to show/hide)

Regardless, the current system is a big con to those among us who like having an enemy to fight who is a credible threat - actual weapons and whanot. Everyone else who's cool with it, don't care, or prefer it, hey. Good for them, game works fine for them.

Though personally I think it's a tad unfair that as far as conflict goes, everything but armed conflict is catered to (don't wanna bother with invaders? Move far away, use other places as a shield, or shut'em off. Don't like vampires? Reduce, remove, forget about. Necromancers? Same thing. Megabeasts? Can get rid of them too, or jack thier numbers way the hell up if you want to. Evil weather and mummy curses? Dealer's choice, ramp the numbers up or tune them down to nothing if you want to. Demons? You mean the ones I removed before worldgen? Granted part of that is adventure mode stuff, but it's still applicable.

The only thing you have no control over is how much military action you get cmpared to everything else.

Point is, to get regular military conflict, you're pretty much forced to set yourself up between whoever it is you wanna fight and everyone else, with very little wiggle room. I kinda wish Toady had held off on changing how sieges bound for your site worked at least for this version, so we could get all the same freedoms from before and all the otherwise updated stuff. I've been wanted to do a glacier fort but there's not much fun to be had in those places, be it from wildlife or enemies.

There. Just needed to get that out of my system.

Now, there's really very little to debate because this one really is heavily dependant on personal preferences and neither side will get anywhere if someone starts something. Could kinda compare it to [LIKES_FIGHTING] vs not. Those who do get good thoughts from seeing thier little soldiers/traps turn the enemy into chunky gristle on thier front lawn, those who don't just see it as dirty business that sometimes has to be taken care of; some like a steady stream of conflict, some don't, all there really is to it.

[GoblinCookie]

The difference actually kind of depends on how old your world is. I've seen armies going into battle, thieves from non-skulking civs doing their thing, and so on, and these guys were all drawn from an existing pool of people, as opposed to just plopped down from thin air. The current system is now more heavily skewed towards "Use actual people," rather than "Just make some dudes up."

Which on one hand is awesome, because now if you're playing a civ on a world overrun by elves or whoever, you can eventually gut the attacking civ's ability to fight over the course of a few years and it'll feel like you actually accomplished something. On the other though, because right now we only get "one" civ to fight, on more evenly balanced worlds we may quickly find ourselves with nothing to do with our militia and murderhalls besides fight wild animals or go after demons (some people may opt for the demons, but I personally try to avoid it.)

There are three levels here, the first level is to use people that were just made up, the second level is to use non-historical characters drawn from the site populations and the third level is to use actual historical characters.  The game used to work on the first level, it presently works on a mixture of the second and third level; the problem with the idea in this thread it has conflated the second level with the first level. 

Presently nobody is 'made up', all creatures are drawn from the site population pools of the attacking civilization.  Whether they are historical or not is obviously not of any mechanical significance to the issue at hand, especially given that non-historical characters get 'promoted' to historical ones if they manage to kill or seriously injure your dwarves. 

If I'm not mistaken, that wasn't quite intended, and did get fixed. Although one could get that impression even now since you never hear about the victories, only if your people are being driven out of thier forts and towns/going to reclaim the same.

It was 'intended' in that Toady One released a feature that was deliberately non-functional with major effects on the world.  It became inevitable that your civilization would end up being wiped out by goblins.  That was a major game altering reality, something that was not in my view forgivable in a game that is supposed to be played all the way through the eternal development process, unless it is an intended feuture.  Thankfully it is gone now though.

Actually, player fortress are special. We design our forts in vastly different manners and produce wealth in far shorter times than other sites. (I'm being a smart ass on that one, I know what you mean. )

I do not take the sites as they appear in adventure mode to be a literal depiction of what the sites actually look like.  I imagine they actually look a lot more like player forts 'really' than they appear to be.  I think there are presently invisible locked doors hiding stuff away.   

Well, before it was more that they had no choice because the world was pretty much in stasis.

It's my understanding that the difference is mainly "born during world activity" vs "crapped out by the gods to fill out Fuckface McMacelord's squad." Genned guys aren't "real" historical figures until they leave your site, and thus don't count against the existing population. As of the current version, I think you can tell if they're "real" people or not by whether or not they get filed under notable kills or not, since notable kills are usually things like wildlife that kill dwarves and 'actual' people, vs regular attack animals that fail to kill anything and dudes who only started existing five minutes ago when they showed up to kill you.

I base that off the last couple forts I've been playtesting a mod with. Some guys are considered "notable" while others in the same squad aren't, despite having names and such themselves. The "real" people count, the "fake" ones don't, resulting in a slower depletion of the actual population, if that makes sense.

The non-historical characters always make up the majority of the actual site's 'real people'.  There is usually only about 10 historical characters in a site, though it depends upon the historical character limit vs the site limit defined in the world gen settings.  The historical characters are included in the total site population which in nearly all instances is 95% made up of non-historical characters.

The present setup is like a movie, there are few leading actors and these are few in number to save screen time (memory).  Then there are many extras that exist to fill up the set and to provide grunts for the leading actors work.  Under certain circumstances we have 'ascended extras' where previously non-historical character become historical because he has managed to do something historically significant. 

It does not matter as far as population is concerned whether your army has a large % of leading actors vs extras.  In both cases we are drawing from the total population of actors, what we are not doing anymore which we used to do is the equvilant of using CGI to add made-up people into the scene.

Remember that the vast majority of historical characters are not born so but are actually ascended extras.  You can never run out of historical characters, if you kill all the historical characters off then you get new ones, until you run out of non-historical characters.  The population of non-historical characters increases or decreases according to abstracted population growth and food supply mechanics, generally the death-rate post-gen far exceeds the birth rate so we get a rapid plummet in the world population goes on.  I have yet to play a world long enough to see whether this tails off as the factions realise they are 'exhausted' and take a break to bring their populations up.  Funnily enough, the only intelligent creature whose population has increased since world-gen was actually kobolds because those tend not to fight wars. 

Well that's your personal taste. You've made it clear in Stagnant's thread you aren't really a very kill-crazy sort of player. But others who like military conflict to be a regular in thier game do find fault with it (myself included,) because fighting giants, werecreatures, and the like just doesn't have the same... I dunno, it just doesn't seem as interesting since there's only one of them at a time.

I do not have a problem with regular militery conflict.  It is just I am kind of attached to my dwarves (I like to draw them) and I do not want them dying off as a result of routine jack-a-mole attacks by contrived enemies who for some reason seem to think my fortress is the worst thing in existance.  If there is a grand goblin siege that is a world-historical event and some of my favourite dwarves die in it then I can fondly remember my dwarves as dying characteristically in a grand historical event.  However if we have an endless array of enemies arriving then we end up with a situation where I lose my relationship with my dwarves and I tend to feel like I have insignificant dwarves I do not care for dying in insignificant attacks that are of no consequence and carry no meaning. 

Spoiler: This bit may seem a little ranty (click to show/hide)

Regardless, the current system is a big con to those among us who like having an enemy to fight who is a credible threat - actual weapons and whanot. Everyone else who's cool with it, don't care, or prefer it, hey. Good for them, game works fine for them.

Though personally I think it's a tad unfair that as far as conflict goes, everything but armed conflict is catered to (don't wanna bother with invaders? Move far away, use other places as a shield, or shut'em off. Don't like vampires? Reduce, remove, forget about. Necromancers? Same thing. Megabeasts? Can get rid of them too, or jack thier numbers way the hell up if you want to. Evil weather and mummy curses? Dealer's choice, ramp the numbers up or tune them down to nothing if you want to. Demons? You mean the ones I removed before worldgen? Granted part of that is adventure mode stuff, but it's still applicable.

The only thing you have no control over is how much military action you get cmpared to everything else.

Point is, to get regular military conflict, you're pretty much forced to set yourself up between whoever it is you wanna fight and everyone else, with very little wiggle room. I kinda wish Toady had held off on changing how sieges bound for your site worked at least for this version, so we could get all the same freedoms from before and all the otherwise updated stuff. I've been wanted to do a glacier fort but there's not much fun to be had in those places, be it from wildlife or enemies.

There. Just needed to get that out of my system.

Now, there's really very little to debate because this one really is heavily dependant on personal preferences and neither side will get anywhere if someone starts something. Could kinda compare it to [LIKES_FIGHTING] vs not. Those who do get good thoughts from seeing thier little soldiers/traps turn the enemy into chunky gristle on thier front lawn, those who don't just see it as dirty business that sometimes has to be taken care of; some like a steady stream of conflict, some don't, all there really is to it.

Obviously if you want regular conflicts you have to place yourself on the front line; that is just realism.  The majority of settlements in any case are not going to see a siege unless things are getting really dire and the enemy has overrun the whole civilization.  This gets back to 'blood sports', what you seem to be asking is that the enemies in the game abandon all stategic reasoning simply because the player 'must be entertained' with some violence. 

You can still have a glacier fort.  All you have to do is keep genning large worlds with 300 civilizations until you end up with one with a goblin civilization that has genned in the cold frozen artic wilderness.  Then all you have to do is select a dwarf civilization and plonk yourself a few squares away from one of the goblin civs dark pits.  There we have it, a mixture of an artic setup with regular goblin attacks likely to happen.

[Splint]

I do not take the sites as they appear in adventure mode to be a literal depiction of what the sites actually look like.

They appear the same way when you reclaim world-gen forts. As to your hidden doors, there's sometimes parts of forts/hillocks that have no access, but those are usually residential areas. I learned of this through rather unfortunate experience in adventure mode.  hell, in one fort I found a whole huge section of fortress by accident while expanding my catacombs, set up in the same semi-centralized manner, with no connections to the rest of the fort. It was nothing but apartments.

It was 'intended' in that Toady One released a feature that was deliberately non-functional with major effects on the world.

He rushed it out was the problem. It seemed to work fine when he released it (which was what everyone thought at first,) hence the issue. And it didn't affect just goblins, any attacking armies always won while playing fort mode. But hey, only human. Shit happens like that sometimes.

I do not have a problem with regular military conflict.  It is just I am kind of attached to my dwarves (I like to draw them) and I do not want them dying off as a result of routine jack-a-mole attacks by contrived enemies who for some reason seem to think my fortress is the worst thing in existence.

Alternatively, they're trying to snuff a stronghold and/or seize the immense wealth that often builds up under player supervision compared to world-gen forts, or the guys attacked because "Hey, look! Some random shitheads, let's kill'em and take thier stuff! " while going to pick on some hamlet or something, only to be shown the error of thier ways in the form of horrible maimings and most of thier friends dying.

If you have adamantine in particular, there's suddenly incentive for anyone to want you dead so they can take it. Attack frequency ramping up because of finding the stuff would certainly give me an incentive to look for it.

If there is a grand goblin siege that is a world-historical event and some of my favourite dwarves die in it then I can fondly remember my dwarves as dying characteristically in a grand historical event. 

That's a sentiment I can't exactly fault. Dying in battle (especially a particularly epic battle,) or of old age are the only acceptable outs for my soldiers, which generally means I turn off vampires so they don't get murdered in thier sleep.

However if we have an endless array of enemies arriving then we end up with a situation where I lose my relationship with my dwarves and I tend to feel like I have insignificant dwarves I do not care for dying in insignificant attacks that are of no consequence and carry no meaning. 

Most players do stop caring about the majority of thier dwarves, at least to such a great extent, especially after they have 50+ (simply because there's so many,) and instead keep thier focus on thier founders and soldiers/craftsmen who impress them in some manner - producing artifacts that have value to them, killing some big beasty or enemy leader, attaining legendary status, stuff like that. And people being killed by random shit is par for the course in a general setting like DF's.

I lost a founder because he got stuck in a tree (don't activate soldiers who moonlight as fruit tree pickers kids,) and someone else was killed by a random giant flying squirrel. The most likely thing to kill a dwarf seems to be vampires, followed by were/forgotten beasts, then regular animals, with the lowest cause of death being enemy attacks. At least that's the impression I've been getting from a particular thread. And obviously that doesn't include the inevitable fatalities of construction accidents of various sorts, inattentiveness to supplies, and something like a troll going on a rampage because someone forgot to plug a hole in the wall to the caverns.

In the far future of the game we may have to worry about disease, famine may be far more of a problem, and other stuff like that, far more than even the most malevolent enemy race.

Obviously if you want regular conflicts you have to place yourself on the front line; that is just realism.

It also handicaps the degree of freedom the player has in where they set up a fort, which in a sandbox game is kind of a dick move (in my opinion anyway.) Someone shouldn't be forced to toss out a dozen otherwise good worlds just to get enemies right next to the type of area they wanna settle. I shouldn't have to keep settling in forests or grasslands between my civ and literally everyone else possible in that direction when I want to settle on a tundra or along savage mountains on the far side of that area.

You seem to be arguing on principle (which I can't fault in a broad sense, but it basically amounting to stuff I've seen elsewhere of "It's too gamey/simulationist! Must be immersive/realistic!") People forget that not everyone is going to agree with that sentiment, and may feel some "non-immersive" elements are needed as a concession to gameplay to make sure everyone's at least partly covered and don't have a reason to complain.

I wasn't saying "INVADERS IGNORE EVERYONE ELSE BECAUSE I DEMAND ENTERTAINMENT," I was saying "an option of some sort for people who would rather fight other organized people, not zombies/animals/werecreatures/megabeasts, and without my choice of embarks being handicapped to "where the enemies are."" Since everything else is already covered either in world gen settings or the int. settings. Just like with almost everything else that can conceivably show up to kill you.

That way, it would default to a certain "immersive" manner, while people would be able to adjust thier amount of conflict to thier liking in thier own games without having to fuck around with populating the world with nothing but hostile/OP races (who will fight eachother more often than you,) or finding places where the enemy has nobody else to attack but you.

There wouldn't have been at least one thread complaining about the matter if those people were satisfied with the way things are on the conflict front. Your personal preferences dictate nothing's wrong, and that's fine. But other people disagree and it's because of thier own preferences.

However, this may ultimately prove irrelevant next release, since part of the issue may be an at-present unresolved bug in army pathfinding causing the shortage of armed conflict which I think is slated for mending next release (which is probably just a month or two away! )

[GoblinCookie]

They appear the same way when you reclaim world-gen forts. As to your hidden doors, there's sometimes parts of forts/hillocks that have no access, but those are usually residential areas. I learned of this through rather unfortunate experience in adventure mode.  hell, in one fort I found a whole huge section of fortress by accident while expanding my catacombs, set up in the same semi-centralized manner, with no connections to the rest of the fort. It was nothing but apartments.

Worse, I once started in once of those isolated apartments with no way to get out except travel mode.  There is a bug in the game that sometimes does that.

He rushed it out was the problem. It seemed to work fine when he released it (which was what everyone thought at first,) hence the issue. And it didn't affect just goblins, any attacking armies always won while playing fort mode. But hey, only human. Shit happens like that sometimes..

Goblins do most of the attacking, hence goblins overall tended to take over the world as a rule.  Dwarves cannot attack in the unmodded game (I modded it in) because they have no defined wealth requirements for a siege. 

Alternatively, they're trying to snuff a stronghold and/or seize the immense wealth that often builds up under player supervision compared to world-gen forts, or the guys attacked because "Hey, look! Some random shitheads, let's kill'em and take thier stuff! " while going to pick on some hamlet or something, only to be shown the error of thier ways in the form of horrible maimings and most of thier friends dying.

If you have adamantine in particular, there's suddenly incentive for anyone to want you dead so they can take it. Attack frequency ramping up because of finding the stuff would certainly give me an incentive to look for it.

You can always come up with a reason why you are special if you put your mind to it.   

That's a sentiment I can't exactly fault. Dying in battle (especially a particularly epic battle,) or of old age are the only acceptable outs for my soldiers, which generally means I turn off vampires so they don't get murdered in thier sleep..

I have yet to see a dwarf vampire. 

Most players do stop caring about the majority of thier dwarves, at least to such a great extent, especially after they have 50+ (simply because there's so many,) and instead keep thier focus on thier founders and soldiers/craftsmen who impress them in some manner - producing artifacts that have value to them, killing some big beasty or enemy leader, attaining legendary status, stuff like that. And people being killed by random shit is par for the course in a general setting like DF's.

I lost a founder because he got stuck in a tree (don't activate soldiers who moonlight as fruit tree pickers kids,) and someone else was killed by a random giant flying squirrel. The most likely thing to kill a dwarf seems to be vampires, followed by were/forgotten beasts, then regular animals, with the lowest cause of death being enemy attacks. At least that's the impression I've been getting from a particular thread. And obviously that doesn't include the inevitable fatalities of construction accidents of various sorts, inattentiveness to supplies, and something like a troll going on a rampage because someone forgot to plug a hole in the wall to the caverns.

In the far future of the game we may have to worry about disease, famine may be far more of a problem, and other stuff like that, far more than even the most malevolent enemy race.

The random accidents are kinda memorable.  As for the dwarves, the key is to remember them by their last names not their first. 

It also handicaps the degree of freedom the player has in where they set up a fort, which in a sandbox game is kind of a dick move (in my opinion anyway.) Someone shouldn't be forced to toss out a dozen otherwise good worlds just to get enemies right next to the type of area they wanna settle. I shouldn't have to keep settling in forests or grasslands between my civ and literally everyone else possible in that direction when I want to settle on a tundra or along savage mountains on the far side of that area.

You seem to be arguing on principle (which I can't fault in a broad sense, but it basically amounting to stuff I've seen elsewhere of "It's too gamey/simulationist! Must be immersive/realistic!") People forget that not everyone is going to agree with that sentiment, and may feel some "non-immersive" elements are needed as a concession to gameplay to make sure everyone's at least partly covered and don't have a reason to complain.

I wasn't saying "INVADERS IGNORE EVERYONE ELSE BECAUSE I DEMAND ENTERTAINMENT," I was saying "an option of some sort for people who would rather fight other organized people, not zombies/animals/werecreatures/megabeasts, and without my choice of embarks being handicapped to "where the enemies are."" Since everything else is already covered either in world gen settings or the int. settings. Just like with almost everything else that can conceivably show up to kill you.

That way, it would default to a certain "immersive" manner, while people would be able to adjust thier amount of conflict to thier liking in thier own games without having to fuck around with populating the world with nothing but hostile/OP races (who will fight eachother more often than you,) or finding places where the enemy has nobody else to attack but you.

There wouldn't have been at least one thread complaining about the matter if those people were satisfied with the way things are on the conflict front. Your personal preferences dictate nothing's wrong, and that's fine. But other people disagree and it's because of thier own preferences.

However, this may ultimately prove irrelevant next release, since part of the issue may be an at-present unresolved bug in army pathfinding causing the shortage of armed conflict which I think is slated for mending next release (which is probably just a month or two away! )

Ultimately we are talking about a limited amount of development time.  There has to be something concievably wrong with the game before it is a decent claim to be made on said time, being forced to settle on the front lines in order to get a constant amount of attacks does not sound like something that is wrong with the game; people complaining seem to be simply people who are annoyed that there is not enough blood sports for them to watch.  Especially when the game already gives them that option as they can choose to settle right next to a goblin dark fortress, which means we are now onto "but I want to also settle on a terrain of my choosing".

Then I tell them that they can already keep genning worlds until I get a goblin civilization that is on terrain of their choosing.  Which makes the complaint less one of actually not getting what you want and more one of having to work at it.

[Splint]

Goblins do most of the attacking, hence goblins overall tended to take over the world as a rule.  Dwarves cannot attack in the unmodded game (I modded it in) because they have no defined wealth requirements for a siege.

I don't think progress triggers matter for stuff you aren't in control of, just when someone will try to attack the player's site while they play. I've run across dwarven armies before (and at the time, there was a battle going on between the dwarves and a mixed human-goblin-dwarf army that made it impossible for me to tell who was who.) And they do act offensively in world-gen, So dwarves can and do attack, it's just irrelevant to those playing as dwarves.

I have yet to see a dwarf vampire.

Then you probably use smaller worlds with fewer vampire curses, or have just been obscenely lucky. On a medium world, by the time you hit 50-80 dorfs you'll probably have at least one roaming around if you left the curses be, since I see stuff about vampires usually in populations around that area.

Ultimately we are talking about a limited amount of development time.  There has to be something conceivably wrong with the game before it is a decent claim to be made on said time, being forced to settle on the front lines in order to get a constant amount of attacks does not sound like something that is wrong with the game;

That's irrelevant to the sandbox aspect of the game. It's not really a sandbox if you're forced to do something, now is it? And if there's no war on, there's also technically not a front lines anywhere, just a greater likelihood of bandits picking this place to bully over that place.

people complaining seem to be simply people who are annoyed that there is not enough blood sports for them to watch.

I really wish you'd stop using insistent terminology on things. If you must call it that, then so what? Apparently Armok demands blood be shed, and if there's nothing to kill, then it's hard for blood to be shed, which leads to worlds getting destroyed.

There's also the fact that many players go to great lengths to train competent soldiers or build complicated traps intended for use against groups of hostile people. What purpose do either have when there's usually nothing but largely harmless animals to worry about now?

Especially when the game already gives them that option as they can choose to settle right next to a goblin dark fortress, which means we are now onto "but I want to also settle on a terrain of my choosing".

Some people already do that and still don't get attacked. And what's wrong with wanting to be able to choose where to set up in, you know, a sandbox-type of game?

Then I tell them that they can already keep genning worlds until I get a goblin civilization that is on terrain of their choosing.  Which makes the complaint less one of actually not getting what you want and more one of having to work at it.

Alternatively, they have to throw away otherwise perfectly good worlds as they pile up trying to get a "perfect" one, which for many people is rather frustrating, to put it mildly. Because they have to sit through world gen, hope to god the goblins don't die out, that they build their sites where the player wants to go... It's not "Working for it," it's a luck-based mission if there ever was one, and depending on the world size and history, a very long and boring one at that.

Now, I'll reiterate, the intent is an option to improve things for players that are not of your mindset. Option.

[Ribs]

At it again already, lads? Don't mind me, though: just passing by

I have yet to see a dwarf vampire.

You don't play the game much, do you? I see one in most of my playthroughs (and that's in dwarf mode). You'd actually have to get out of your way not to have ever seen one by generating odd, very short worlds 100% of the time.

[Splint]

At it again already, lads? Don't mind me, though: just passing by

I have yet to see a dwarf vampire.

You don't play the game much, do you? I see one in most of my playthroughs (and that's in dwarf mode). You'd actually have to get out of your way not to have ever seen one by generating odd, very short worlds 100% of the time.

At least this time it's limited to minor strawmanning and fairly civil compared to last time.

And I'm fairly certain that's what he does for worlds, or he really has been so lucky it isn't fair.

[GoblinCookie]

I don't think progress triggers matter for stuff you aren't in control of, just when someone will try to attack the player's site while they play. I've run across dwarven armies before (and at the time, there was a battle going on between the dwarves and a mixed human-goblin-dwarf army that made it impossible for me to tell who was who.) And they do act offensively in world-gen, So dwarves can and do attack, it's just irrelevant to those playing as dwarves.

They attack armies in the field for certain.  However they never go on the offensive in the sense of attacking enemy sites during wars; it is one of the things I noted ages ago while playtesting the game.  I tried giving the dwarves progress triggers and I began to see dwarf occupied sites appearing in world. 

Then you probably use smaller worlds with fewer vampire curses, or have just been obscenely lucky. On a medium world, by the time you hit 50-80 dorfs you'll probably have at least one roaming around if you left the curses be, since I see stuff about vampires usually in populations around that area.

I never play using smaller worlds, I always play the largest possible world with 300 civilizations, 2500 sites and 70,000 historical characters nowadays my memory can handle it..  Dwarf vampires are rare and there is a reason why that is, where vampire curses come from.  Playing a smaller world (actually with few sites) would make the situation worse as vampires and their victims are all historical characters, the total number of historical characters the memory can handle does not go up as your world does.  The more historical characters per site there is, the more historical characters there will be in your dwarf civilization, thus the greater chance of a dwarf vampire migrating to your fortress. 

Vampire curses come from individuals profaning human temples which are unsuprisingly found in human cities.  Human cities however tend to be inhabited mostly by humans, so the majority of vampires in a game tend to be human.  Elf vampires are fairly common because elves living in human cities is not uncommon, however dwarves are very disinclined to move in large numbers to non-dwarf sites hence very few dwarf vampires. 

So it is your being unlucky not my being lucky. 

That's irrelevant to the sandbox aspect of the game. It's not really a sandbox if you're forced to do something, now is it? And if there's no war on, there's also technically not a front lines anywhere, just a greater likelihood of bandits picking this place to bully over that place.

The long-term idea of the game is to reduce the degree to which it is a sand-box.  Much of this seems to be annoying to certain people who long for the days when the game was a sand-box and things happened to us not based upon what was actually going on in the wider world but in order to provide us with yes an endless supply of 'blood sports'. 

I really wish you'd stop using insistent terminology on things. If you must call it that, then so what? Apparently Armok demands blood be shed, and if there's nothing to kill, then it's hard for blood to be shed, which leads to worlds getting destroyed.

There's also the fact that many players go to great lengths to train competent soldiers or build complicated traps intended for use against groups of hostile people. What purpose do either have when there's usually nothing but largely harmless animals to worry about now?

What happens, (especially when the military arc comes around and entombing is not an option) to those of us that jumped by 50+ goblins in the 2nd year and have not managed to build up any kind of army worth anything?  They would get destroyed. 

The reason you build up traps and armies is because there might be an attack on your settlement at any time based upon world-gen stuff you have no control of, not because you know for certain that next year the goblins will turn up.  There is inherantly a fixed yearly % of being wiped out, something which you want to reduce as quickly as possible. 

Some people already do that and still don't get attacked. And what's wrong with wanting to be able to choose where to set up in, you know, a sandbox-type of game?

Lucky them, they have more time to build up their forces for when war does break out. 

Alternatively, they have to throw away otherwise perfectly good worlds as they pile up trying to get a "perfect" one, which for many people is rather frustrating, to put it mildly. Because they have to sit through world gen, hope to god the goblins don't die out, that they build their sites where the player wants to go... It's not "Working for it," it's a luck-based mission if there ever was one, and depending on the world size and history, a very long and boring one at that.

Now, I'll reiterate, the intent is an option to improve things for players that are not of your mindset. Option.

Because to put things simply, this is a zero-sum game.  If these people get what you want then Toady One is by the very nature of the kind of demand that is being made is required to make a whole new sandbox mode for people who want the game to be a sandbox.  That uses up development time that could be spent developing other aspects of the game and fixing bugs, includings aspects and bugs that are directly related to warfare.  Creating a sandbox mode does nothing to improve the game in other respects.

The game does not give you a perfect guarantee that you will get the perfect embark spot that has everything that you want.  That is just the kind of game that it is, the kind of game where you define the exact conditions of your sandbox and exactly how much attention you will be getting from enemies is not the kind of game we are playing.  If Toady One creates such a game then it will compete with the game we are actually playing.