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[lordcooper]

Midway through purging my fortress (once again) of the useless Noble population an idea occurred to me.

Why not make it so that the player WANTS these guys in their fortress?
I really do think DF is missing out immensely in this respect.

I'll list a few of my ideas to see what the general feeling is with regards to them.

NOTE:  Mandates should be kept.  These ideas are merely to give players a reason to keep nobles alive and happy.  Add some pros to the cons.

Duke

Spoiler: wikipedia definition (click to show/hide)

A duke is a member of the nobility, historically of highest rank below the monarch, and historically controlling a duchy. The title comes from the Latin Dux Bellorum, which had the sense of "military commander" and was employed by both the Germanic peoples themselves and by the Roman authors covering them to refer to their war leaders.

This guy should therefore have in impact on battles. 
Two main methods of implementing this have occurred to me.

1.  He's basically a kick-ass soldier.  Auto legendary champion, with say a 30% bonus or whatever.
2.  My preferred option.  He keeps the soldiers in line.  He should check in on the sparring/training drills from time to time, resulting in a slight experience bonus to those who witness his skills/receive his advice.  His very presence in the fortress should inspire dwarves to perform greater feats in battle (maybe a 10% damage bonus)

The effectiveness of these bonuses should depend on how happy the duke is and if his demands and mandates are being met.

I think weaker bonuses are called for in the case of barons and counts.

Another interesting possibility could be to invert the bonus if the consort dies, simulating a loss of morale.

Bookkeeper

As this guy is basically a glorified clerk, he should be required to spend almost 100% of his time at his desk.
Should require grander rooms, offices as promoted to treasurer/hoardmaster etc

Sheriff/Captain of the Guard

Should be essential.  The player should be prompted to instate the sheriff upon reaching 20 dwarves.
When promoted to captain, he should spend time rehabilitating/counselling jailed dwarves.  Depending on the dwarves personality, this could give a good or bad thought.

King

I quite like the kind as is.
Maybe he could occasionally grant a random dwarf an audience in his private quarters, giving that dwarf slightly increased productivity for a season.
Either that or a really happy thought "Urist McDwarf was delighted to have his work acknowledged by the King lately"

Dungeon Master

Pfft, animals...
The Dungeon Master should be responsible for captured invaders, either torturing, or possibly just keeping them fed (when this is implemented)  I'd also recommend ditching the Hammerer in favor of this dude dishing out punishment in a specially designated dungeon.  Most criminals get whipped, repeat offenders get the hammer.

Philosopher

Should consume at least 3x the normal amount of alcohol.
Dwarves get a positive thought from chatting to him.

Royal Guard

These guys should demand THE best equipment and actually follow a specific noble (player specified)

Ancient Masters

These guys should be the ultimate craftsmen.
I'd recommend an armorsmith, weaponsmith, mason and brewer.
Turns up randomly in an immigrant wave with "Ancient Master" skill in one discipline.
Uncontrollable, they should claim a workshop 'fey' style and churn out insanely great items.
You only EVER get one of each in a fortress though.
Should also have HUGE living requirements and make mandates.

[Malsqueek]

OOh! I likey!

Especially the idea of gearing up the royal guard with the duke to rush out and off some hideous beastie at the front gate.

[Pilsu]

Mandates make no sense as is

Just because the duke is a military commander doesn't mean he should automatically be perfect in single combat. Wouldn't it make more sense if he unlocked the ability to invade other settlements? At any rate, I think we'll be able to nominate him ourselves. That in itself should encourage to not slaughter him

You can't handle justice without a fortress guard so the captain is necessary. I don't see him lecturing criminals though, that's just silly.
He might be miffed for being passed over for the position of duke if appropriate

The dungeon master should have the exclusive ability to train exotic animals. As is, he just kind of unlocks it which makes little sense

A dozen guardsmen following the duke everywhere would be pretty silly. I'm going to have to object to having the best stuff too. Being effective typically isn't a priority for a unit that rarely sees combat. Higher end nobles mandating they have a uniform and higher level of skill would work though. Hopefully not a subject to the noble's whims, otherwise he'll demand wooden armor with pudding stone studs instead of something tasteful. I hear bismuth bronze polishes nicely


I don't much care for the masters. They make little sense in historically or otherwise and would just trivialize other craftsmen

[Lyrax]

I really like the idea of useful nobles.

Historically, the 'warrior nobility' was common to feudal societies.  I think that would be an easy way to make the nobility useful - tie them into combat.  Either by being better leadership (perhaps use superior squad AI when the Duke is around?)  or by being good warriors themselves (a 'knight' noble might be a welcome addition... especially if he's considered an active soldier).

If the Captain of the Guard were the permanently designated Squad Leader for all the Fortress guards, people would like him a lot more.  It would make the Fortress Guard useful (rather than a job for all disabled and permanently injured dwarves) as well as providing incentive to let good soldiers be the Captain of the Guard.

Perhaps Guards could patrol areas that are designated as 'Entrance' or 'Gate' by the player.  Maybe even allow the player to make a 'Patrol' area that FG and RG will frequent.

The philosopher might increase XP gain?  Grant XP gains in random skills?  Wouldn't that be cool?

Of course, the full use of nobility is tied to higher game functions that don't yet exist, like being able to invade other nations.

[Warlord255]

Dukes being military commanders or ex-soldiers would mesh nicely with the new training scheme.

[Atarlost]

The first thing to do to make post-philosopher nobles not get sent straight to the death chamber is to do a sanity check on demands and mandates.  They should not be able to demand or mandate anything you can't produce with materials you have (including ores that have been discovered but not yet mined) Beatings should allways be limited to yellow or lower injuries (mustard for CNS) and the hammerer completely removed.  Once the risk of a noble making an impossible demand, having a dwarf with lots and lots of friends, and plunging  the fort into a tantrum  spiral is eliminated the risk of allowing nobles to live is small enough to consider not killing them on arrival.  If the mandate/demand system isn't fixed it doesn't matter what nobles do for me.  They do more harm than good. 



None of the pre-philosopher nobles need changes except the application of the demand/mandate limit to the mayor.  The DM has useful labors enabled and can skill up.  Starting with a level or two in all his enables skills or having faster skill gain would help, but isn't strictly necessary since he doesn't make mandates or demands anyways. 
The philosopher doesn't do anything except make friends and pull levers.  Feeding an extra mouth is not a hardship by the time he shows up. 
The mayor would be helped by the institution of term limits to prevent his non-export mandates from filling your fort with crap.  The appointed nobles except currently the sherrif all do important jobs and can be assigned labors on the side. 
The sherrif would be fixed by making it not mandatory to keep him unappointed to prevent nobles from having random dwarves killed. 

[Shurhaian]

The dungeon master enabling exotic training, rather than doing it all him/herself, is a gameplay compromise. Since keeping him from faffing off to do something else random requires micromanagement with workshop profiles, it's fairly difficult to ensure that's what he'll want to do. Also, it would require some substantial rework of the workshop queues. (You would NOT want your training orders cancelled just because the wrong dwarf picked it up... arguably, they should also be reworked such that material tasked for hauling can be reappropriated for actual work anyway; especially for autogenerated orders like butcher/tan.)

The baron/count/duke being hereditary nobility makes sense. But having the presence of such a noble inspire the military, at least in training, also makes sense.

Being able to assign a noble royal guards, in much the same manner normal dwarves get assigned trained animals, would be nice. As would being able to assign heroes and nobles animals, for that matter.

I believe I remember seeing on the dev page or somewhere that sanity checking for mandates is in the works. That alone will make nobles far, FAR less randomly deadly.

Mind, I also remember reading that the Hammerer only came into mandates if the fortress guard didn't get to it in a timely fashion, and the only reason to keep the fortress guard understrength is if the jail is full, because summary beating is only administered if there aren't enough restraints... so his deadliness can be limited. I do think the hammerer should stick around - it'd especially make sense if more serious crimes get implemented(outside of insanity/tantrums). He is basically the fortress's executioner; being hammered is not NECESSARILY fatal, but you might as well plan for it to be.

I'm not so sure the CotG should be the commander of ALL fortress guards, but having a separate military administration page for the FG and RG would be nice. If the RG becomes assignable to a noble, it's not necessary so long as you can still get to their weapon prefs in the main military screen(with all unassigned RG preferring to shepherd the highest ranking noble like unassigned animals follow their trainer, perhaps? But with more of a tendency to go and spar), but being able to group the FG sensibly and place them at certain locations would be a nice touch.

I'm not sure how to keep them from just being used as de facto military. Maybe they can't be arbitrarily stationed, but have to be at specific places - the jail, the barracks, meeting areas(zones or room-designated), the trade depot. Also, they WILL go off-duty to spar on their own time. That would keep them from being the lynchpin of a defense(they wouldn't be reliable enough), but if there were a way to issue a call to arms during a siege, megabeast attack, or ambush, they could still be stationed at, say, the trade depot(which in many defensible forts is the first thing invaders will encounter), and would be more likely to stay there while the hostiles are (known to be) on the map.

I also don't agree with having the CotG lecture criminals. The only thing I can see as making sense would be to have the CotG and FG issue minor beatings to imprisoned dwarves, and I don't want that happening until imprisonment is a bit more kind(dwarves will be brought booze, dwarves can sleep properly, etc).

I do find it a good idea that the bookkeeper eventually want better quarters and office. Especially office.

[profit]

The best way to deal with a hammerer is have NO captain of the guard and Lock the hammerer inside of his room with 5000 drink and 1000 food.  He will be perfectly happy and he is one of the oldest dwarves in my fort.

[Dakk]

DF needs a stablished monarchic hierarchy still, it'd be easier to do it all then. Right now barons have no link to dukes apart from being nobles aswell, same with kings.

[Lyrax]

...Being able to group the FG sensibly and place them at certain locations would be a nice touch.

I'm not sure how to keep them from just being used as de facto military. Maybe they can't be arbitrarily stationed, but have to be at specific places - the jail, the barracks, meeting areas(zones or room-designated), the trade depot. Also, they WILL go off-duty to spar on their own time. That would keep them from being the lynchpin of a defense(they wouldn't be reliable enough), but if there were a way to issue a call to arms during a siege, megabeast attack, or ambush, they could still be stationed at, say, the trade depot(which in many defensible forts is the first thing invaders will encounter), and would be more likely to stay there while the hostiles are (known to be) on the map.

Sounds good to me... They could be a sort of 'last line of defense' at the trade depot and meeting area.  The game already has the ability to designate an 'entrance' or a 'gate' area, so that's why I suggested using that... but a Trade Depot is something the AI is already trained to find and it is very commonly vulnerable.  A 'call to arms' of sorts would also be very useful.

[Bricks]

I believe all nobles are meant to be useful, the idea being that you tolerate their obnoxious tendencies for whatever benefits they bring.  More and more the case in the next version.

[Shurhaian]

That's rather the point, though. As of this moment, none of the mandate-issuing nobles contribute anything of value(unless the mayor is also appointed as something useful). Aside from "the challenge", and maybe immigration penalties due to their deaths, there's really not much reason to keep them happy.

[Grendus]

While I'm not sure I like all of your specific ideas, I think it would be very nice if nobles actually did something useful for a change.