Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Ninjabread]

Dorsidwarf, not entirely, GC learnt that patrols are actually already implemented and how to make them.

GC, considering the debate has more or less been ended by Toady stating that assassins will be in this arc, I'll just say this; inexperienced assassins or groups of assassins should sometimes miscalculate the strength of their target, thus not always sending exactly the right number of assassins to get the job done, sometimes they should send more than was needed, other times not enough to get the job done, on account of their inexperience.

[GoblinCookie]

GC, considering the debate has more or less been ended by Toady stating that assassins will be in this arc, I'll just say this; inexperienced assassins or groups of assassins should sometimes miscalculate the strength of their target, thus not always sending exactly the right number of assassins to get the job done, sometimes they should send more than was needed, other times not enough to get the job done, on account of their inexperience.

I made the detailed assassin suggestions because I knew they were upcoming.   

Miscalculation is pretty much a given, since the numbers don't actually represent all actual variables.  They don't need to actually miscalculate the numbers, as the player will perceive them as having done so. 

[therahedwig]

I am kinda lost on why there needs to be a 'secret assassination strength', that sounds like the exact kind of abstraction that HP bars are, and DF doesn't have those for a reason...

Like, can't the sneak skill be nerfed a bit with critical failure states where the sneaker make a ton of noise and wakes up the target? Or the target having enough spatial awareness to notice someone stalking them? We have all these skills tracked in game, why not use them?

Would make a multi person assassination a lot more epic too: target notices the assassins, tries to get away, but is surrounded and thus killed. The player can intervene by noticing the npcs moving around in a weird pattern, and thus sending in a squad to take care of them.

[Ninjabread]

It's not a 'secret assassin strength', even if that is what he said, it's more the assassin's assessment of how good they and their friends are as assassins, which is secret cause if you could see it you'd know they were assassins. It's so they can weigh it against the difficulty of their mission, and decide how many resources to expend. So, if the target has several well trained and well equipped bodyguards, and is known to have a history of military service, they don't try to run in solo waving a dagger, they either get a group of friends to help out, or maybe find a way to get at least some of the bodyguards to turncoat or ignore the assassins. Also avoids an assassin army descending on some random unguarded and feeble record keeper.

I haven't seen anything in fort mode that demands a nerf to ambusher, but then we don't see all that much of it anyway until unless we start a war with the elves. Judging by adventure mode though, which probably should be what we use since we can see exactly how much we can get away with, yeah ambusher could definitely use some accidental noise making fails.

[GoblinCookie]

I am kinda lost on why there needs to be a 'secret assassination strength', that sounds like the exact kind of abstraction that HP bars are, and DF doesn't have those for a reason...

Like, can't the sneak skill be nerfed a bit with critical failure states where the sneaker make a ton of noise and wakes up the target? Or the target having enough spatial awareness to notice someone stalking them? We have all these skills tracked in game, why not use them?

Would make a multi person assassination a lot more epic too: target notices the assassins, tries to get away, but is surrounded and thus killed. The player can intervene by noticing the npcs moving around in a weird pattern, and thus sending in a squad to take care of them.

Dwarf Fortress is a computer game, which means that ultimately it is doing things using abstract numbers.  It just does not show them to the player and pretends otherwise, unlike other games that just show the numbers to the player outright as Hit-Points or the like.  To the player the assassins just got together and killed the target, the player does not see the numbers involved since they are simply a part of the assassin AI logic.

Other considerations (like sleeping) can be taken into account, but they should all be bundled into the strength estimate.  A sleeping or unconscious target has a far lower strength than an awake and conscious target.  However a 20ft giant is still considered too strong even if he is asleep for human-sized assassins to easily handle. 

Actually it might be better to keep track of the average assassination strength of the character when awake or asleep and based up which is highest prevent the assassins from killing the character either when asleep or awake.  This keeps us from putting all our vulnerable characters in highly fortified dormitories with tons of witnesses; if we do that they will attack the assassins when they are awake in a less vulnerable.

Actually we might do well to have the assassin AI weighted very heavily towards any reduction in the strength of the character against the average for the state they are in.  So if you have a heavily guarded character that temporarily leaves a secure location, the assassins will tend to strike at them at that point.  I suppose we could use this to bait the assassins into revealing themselves, but that is quite realistic actually.

[FantasticDorf]

Latest devlog indicates that repeated attempts by hired career assassins will be a thing, so a bodyguard that isn't just the fortress guards or sheriff sticking their nose in and a assignable assortee of dwarves (in their own little named squad, implicitly assigned by the monarch but not as squad leader) would be welcome.

Thats 100% more feasible now that i think about it, militia captains don't function without a assigned commander, so if you can assign bodyguards with some pseudo responsibility tags like [PROTECT_COMMANDER] perhaps a tag as basic like [MILITARY_SERVICE_EXEMPT] or [MILITARY_SERVICE_VOLUNTARY]//[MILITARY_LEADER] could complete it without actually drawing in your monarch to lead the squad involuntary as it would at the moment.

• Put aside the fighting and think about the features please, Toady typically only reads the opening detail post for ideas, i think he does not have time unless people flag it as disruptive to go over and even read your arguements for the fine points if any.

I didn't mean anything particular, but im just thinking that besides from just assigning a lot of war-animals to your king, there are instances to consider where making them exempt from battle (like the military service brackets) would make them less capable to defend themselves given that they also have a right to the best gear and protection (precedence and adventure mode prove this mechanically as often they wear full masterwork or artifact clothing and are account exempt usually), and also implicitly being a figurehead wherein you could link them to generals, so that the monarch of the present civ (however that manifests and whom if you consider dark fort demons or human lawmakers) appears with the best equipment & personal entourage when needed or can actively join in military service for a siege or a defence.

At present the only way to have warrior kings/queens is to typically enlist them to be a suboridinate of a squad in fortress mode, there's no history of monarchs in legends mode defeating a cyclops with a artifact war-hammer or something heroic like that.  Lest we forget the epic saga's in community suggestions. King UristMcUseless would be significantly harder to kill and easier to tolerate if they were also a grand master tactician, master weapon user despite requesting really obnoxious demands. ((and a larger assassination target))

[Cathar]

At present the only way to have warrior kings/queens is to typically enlist them to be a suboridinate of a squad in fortress mode, there's no history of monarchs in legends mode defeating a cyclops with a artifact war-hammer or something heroic like that.  Lest we forget the epic saga's in community suggestions. King UristMcUseless would be significantly harder to kill and easier to tolerate if they were also a grand master tactician, master weapon user despite requesting really obnoxious demands. ((and a larger assassination target))

My queen, off fort, has been a monster slayer in her youth. When the capitale city was attacked, she took a pike and slain two bears without breaking a sweat.
Just because every monarch is not a badass doesnt means no one is.

Edit : As for every suggestion along the lines of "I want to fight vampires in glorious combat, my legendary artifact-wielding axedwarfs are getting gutted and I cannot solve my problem by hitting it very hard", they are missing the very point of vampire gameplay.

[GoblinCookie]

• Put aside the fighting and think about the features please, Toady typically only reads the opening detail post for ideas, i think he does not have time unless people flag it as disruptive to go over and even read your arguements for the fine points if any.

  What fighting?

At present the only way to have warrior kings/queens is to typically enlist them to be a suboridinate of a squad in fortress mode, there's no history of monarchs in legends mode defeating a cyclops with a artifact war-hammer or something heroic like that.  Lest we forget the epic saga's in community suggestions. King UristMcUseless would be significantly harder to kill and easier to tolerate if they were also a grand master tactician, master weapon user despite requesting really obnoxious demands. ((and a larger assassination target))

If kings are not a military role in dwarf culture, having to enlist them as part of a regular squad to have warrior-kings totally makes sense.  Kings being warriors is basically like kings hauling stuff, it is not part of their job description but something that is done off-duty as it were.

[thompson]

So, bodyguards.

I propose they work like this.
1. Select squad orders.
2. Select the squad you intend to assign the order to.
3. Select"Guard".
4. Bring the cursor to the dwarf, animal or item you wish to guard.

The squad will then follow that dwarf, animal or item while on duty until they encounter a threat. When they see a threat they drop guard duty and engage the threat. Once all threats have been neutralised they resume guard duty.

Allowing items to be guarded permits artefacts to be protected.

[GoblinCookie]

So, bodyguards.

I propose they work like this.
1. Select squad orders.
2. Select the squad you intend to assign the order to.
3. Select"Guard".
4. Bring the cursor to the dwarf, animal or item you wish to guard.

The squad will then follow that dwarf, animal or item while on duty until they encounter a threat. When they see a threat they drop guard duty and engage the threat. Once all threats have been neutralised they resume guard duty.

Allowing items to be guarded permits artefacts to be protected.

I don't think we really need a whole squad to be bodyguards.  I think it's best to treat bodyguards separately but use some of the same mechanics. 

[Ninjabread]

I thought it would be good to have it as part of the military schedule, so at all times on month(s) x, y number of dwarves will be guarding creature z. If guards die, get hospitalised, get distracted, receive new orders, or need to go eat, drink, or sleep, another squad member with a lower priority schedule will come take their place. This would mean after setting up the schedule there would be little to no micromanagement necessary, and no new parts of the UI will be needed. The player may need a way to tag creatures as bodyguard targets so that the schedule menu doesn't get too cluttered though.

[thompson]

I think it would be better design practice to keep the number of menus to a minimum. I understand the desire for special interfaces, but as someone who develops GUIs at work it's something I feel should be avoided.

You can easily create one dwarf squads if you want security to be light. I suppose additional options in the scheduling menu would work if you need to rotate squads.

[Bumber]

It could be a special squad type under an appointed noble, like the Captain of the Guard (but with less hammerings.)

[thompson]

Actually, I'm starting to come around to the idea of having one squad carrying out multiple commands (so, the "have 2 dwarves guard this guy at all times" idea. It shouldn't be limited to guarding people: We should be able to have min x dwarves patrolling or stationed somewhere as well, while the rest are carrying out some other order. Should be a schedule only thins, and squad orders should override it.

[Bumber]

We should be able to have min x dwarves patrolling or stationed somewhere as well, while the rest are carrying out some other order. Should be a schedule only thins, and squad orders should override it.

Pretty sure you can already do this. Assign min X dwarves to the patrol route, then add a second order for Y dwarves to train, etc.

You can also give squad orders to individual positions in a squad, but I'm not sure you can easily specify "only dwarves not currently guarding" without manually checking who's doing it. (Unless it shows the current job on the squad orders screen? I don't think it does for schedules.)

Otherwise, you could have a squad alert you can switch to where X predefined squad positions are scheduled guard duty, and every other position is free for combat orders. Then you'd hopefully end the threat and switch back to default alert (X patrol, Y train) before your chosen guards decide to go on break. Actually, you could just give a squad order to individual dwarves to patrol (instead of using scheduling) while you're ordering the others to combat.