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[Eagleon]

Haha, I don't. That's their problem.   I love esoteric simulations like that. In fact, my idea of an ideal game would have to have systems with complexity close to the real world, and the possibility to change and experiment on them. </nerdout>

[Maximus]

If you're that into realism, it begs the question... why don't you do something real?   :p

[Bask]

Eagleon cancels Do something real: Too insane.
But in a really good way, of course.
 

[ October 25, 2006: Message edited by: Bask ]

[qalnor]

quote:Originally posted by Maximus:
<STRONG>If you're that into realism, it begs the question... why don't you do something real?    :p</STRONG>

Unfortunately the law frowns on drowning hookers in my workshop full of iron-green glass or I would definitely never play dwarf-fortress again.

[Frogman]

quote:Originally posted by Solara:
<STRONG> Or take the more common examples, gunpowder and the pyramids. And all of this was way, way before medieval times anyway.</STRONG>

I spy with my little eye a flaw in your examples!

Referring to Wikipedia's articles on Gunpowder and the Middle Ages, we find that that the middle ages are commonly said to start with the eradication of the West Roman Empire in 476 CE, but the earliest account of gunpowder is "Classified Essentials of the Mysterious Tao of the True Origin of Things" - a Chinese book from circa 850 CE.

Yep, that's all! Carry on!

[w]

quote:Originally posted by Solara:
<STRONG>People from ancient times were way more advanced than we give them credit for. The Greeks came up with atomic theory</STRONG>

Well, in that there was one Greek guy who postulated that maybe stuff was made of tinier, similar stuff, and eventually you might get down to tiniest stuff, and he called this hypothetical tiniest stuff "atoms".

To refer to this philosophical guess as "atomic theory", with the implications that that carries today, is, at best, misleading.  

Especially in the context of arguing how scientifically and technologically savvy the ancients were.

[Solara]

Well okay, Arawak went and had a meltdown, so I guess I'm done here. I only like participating in discussions, not hissy fits.

I assume after he made that post he destroyed his bed and slaughtered the family dog.     :roll:

quote:
To refer to this philosophical guess as "atomic theory", with the implications that that carries today, is, at best, misleading.  

And fine, but that still doesn't answer my question of what the randomly generated fantasy universes our little dwarves are building their fortresses in have to do with our history.

[ October 26, 2006: Message edited by: Solara ]

[w]

quote:Originally posted by Solara:
<STRONG>that still doesn't answer my question of what the randomly generated fantasy universes</STRONG>

Sorry, I didn't mean to give the impression I was trying to address anything like that.

I'm not commenting one way or another on the main topic of the thread - just on that one little tidbit specifically, that's all.

[Gauteamus]

one silly thought struck me while playing with a room full of gem windows..

If the game allowed glass to be coloured by metal impurities or otherwise, and we also were allowed to add more gems than three to any selected window, small animated pixel movies/sequenses could be made. Right now, with 3 possible pictures and say 5 colours (white/blue/red/green/green glass/clear glass?) it is a far way to go to the intro movie.

6 colours should actually be quite enough for some great movies, but how about being able to put more gems than three into a window to allow for longer sequenses?

[ December 22, 2006: Message edited by: Gauteamus ]

[darknight]

I'd like to correct one small detail. As a fan of caves and spelunking, I am well aware of whats realistic in that reguard. And underground rivers and streams are very realistic. Also extremely dangerous. And yes, like surface rivers and streams, they do have sand in them, as well as clay and other things. I live not 50 miles from two caves that have, or did have, underground rivers in them. In fact, all limestone caves were created from flowing water, as well as many other caves. And I know of a cave in alaska, that was cut thru basalt, by meltwater from a galcier. The water was trapped by the glacier, creating a small lake with no outlet. The water found and flowed thru a fissure in the basalt. And sand carried by the water, sanded away the sides of the fissure, until the cave is now big enough to drive a car thru in places. A mountain cave in Austria was also cut this way, and now has a verticle shaft over 5,000 feet straight up and down, and so wide that people have PARACHUTED down it!

Also I dont know much about glass or glass making, but I do know a bit about pottery. Pottery was one of man's first inventions, followed not long after by glazing. And you can ask any potter that has ever worked with any glazes, that you cannot tell the color of a glaze, by what it looks like before it is fired. Almost all glazes are made of silicates for glass, and metal oxides for color, and they almost all change color when fired. And you get some very unexpected colors from the oxides used. People have been using and experimenting with these things for thousands of years now, so some colors are very common knowlege. Yet we are still experimenting and coming up with new glazes. Dwarves, with their long lives, rich histories, and hands-on experience with all kinds of ores, sands, clays, and rocks, would certainly know many basic colors of glass and glazing. Certainly more than could be easily shown in DF.

A magma river tho, that is very much a stretch, to say the least, unless they are living in a volcano, which would not be the best choice of homesteads. They could certainly find some if they dug deep enough, but they would likely be roasted long before hitting any. And getting it to the surface in any usable form or amount would be near impossible. But its a GAME, not real life. And I like my steam defenses, so I'm glad for the stretch!

[Pod]

quote:Originally posted by darknight:
<STRONG>A magma river tho, that is very much a stretch, to say the least, unless they are living in a volcano, which would not be the best choice of homesteads. They could certainly find some if they dug deep enough, but they would likely be roasted long before hitting any. And getting it to the surface in any usable form or amount would be near impossible. But its a GAME, not real life. And I like my steam defenses, so I'm glad for the stretch!</STRONG>

To give a slightly more "realistic" spin on this:

I've always imagined that in DF, when you tunnel into the mountain, you're not simply tunneling "left to right". Ie just because you make a 20square incision into the rock, it doesn't mean that it is a horizontal passage of 20sqaures length. I tend to think of it as 20 squares along a triangles hypotenuse, ie:

code:

------
\    |
  \  |
 20 \|

So by the time you've hit the magma river, you really have dug DEEP. Not only deep in a horizontal sense, but deep in a vertical, centre-of-the-earth sense.

(and the fact that it's a river can possibly be explained that on the other side of the magma river the dwarves start tunnelling back towards surface, and therefor the river is actually the massive vaults of magma under the earth being seen through a tiny crack........why it doesn't flood up is anyones guess.

[Toady One]

Yeah, I've just chalked all the weird flow behavior (the intended stuff anyway) to the amazing abilities of the dwarven engineer.  If/when Z coord stuff goes into dwarf mode, it'll start to seem more left/right up/down in a normal way, which might not be good.  If the map squares are made more connected to the outside map, so that even though things aren't seamless there is a notion that you are moving around inside the world map, it'll become even more confusing.  it's like the magma is in the center of the mountain squares on the map, but it's up in the air like some kind of volcanic vent...  and running horizontally.

[puke]

ninja magma.