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[Haedrian]

RE: Training Dummies

Training dummies are specific. While sparring would increase ALL the skills, training dummies increase a particular group. This is a disadvantage. Another disadvantage is that it uses resources to create, while sparring doesn't.

Ok, perhaps twice is a bit too much, mixing it up with your suggestion of quality, what about "UP TILL TWICE"? Twice gain for masterwork, 'normal' gain for normal?

I need to balance out the two disadvantages, having a large military means most dwarves will find sparring partners.

As for injuries, you're either hitting a dummy, or you're trying to dodge a piece of wood. Granted you might end up with some bruises or a few missing teeth, but breaking/losing an arm should be almost impossible.

--

RE: Children

I don't like 12 years to be honest, 12 years are a long time and most of my fortresses don't even last that long (my record is 9   ) I want them to effectivly replace immigrants.

RE: Animal Pens

Yes, I meant that they wouldn't try to move....

[Black Hound]

As long as we're talking about the nobles and the dwarven civilization at large having a greater and more sensical effect on your fortress, there should also be the option of rejecting the nobility and becoming (or trying to become, anyway) independent of the mother kingdom. Execute your nobles en masse, then get the chance to be besieged by the forces that sent you out to found the fort in the first place. Somebody mentioned in another thread, I think, that with dwarf-on-dwarf combat you could have sappers digging up from unexpected places to attack the fortress, stuff you probably wouldn't see coming from humans or goblins. The besieging force might even dig out a military outpost of their own in an outlying spur of the mountain or farther down the mountain range and set up siege machines and traps of their own there. And once you get a kingdom of your own, you could seed new fortresses out in the world, and if they become discontented with your rule, maybe they'd in turn try to rebel and become independent of you, and you could send out armies to put down insurrection. It'd all be good fun.

[Deathworks]

Hi!

I like the suggestion for improving the dwarven family, and I agree that childhood for dwarves may be longer than 12 years, although 12 years is also fine with me. But under no circumstances would I like to see it shortened. This reminds me of some tall tales or something where the guy is born already having a club in hand and slaughters the invincible army at a tender 0 years of age. No, that's not something I would like to see.

I agree that sparring dummies should be inferior to real sparring. Because that is simply the way it is. The dummies don't dodge, they don't counter-attack, hell, they do not even attack! There are a lot of situations you can't practice with dummies and the practice with them is much more single-pattern than actually having a sparring partner.

I don't think that there need be a chance to get injured when using a dummy, though. Dwarves may not be the brightest things around, rivalling lemmings in many regards, but they can do some basic movement. Have dummies as half efficient as regular sparring and require wood in their making, and the balance should be fine in my opinion.

About Social housing, I have to agree that it would be nice if we could separate military barracks from civilian social housing. I tend to have some barracks right behind my main entrance so I can easily half a standby force there should anything try to get in. But it would be rather cruel to have a poor family that can't afford a proper room be forced to rest in such a dangerous location.

I also think that, when you have the economy, it would be nice if you could gain some control about the overall poverty. Maybe linked to nobles, being able to set the rent for individual flats or change the income of specific dwarves would be nice. For instance, if you have a family with a child, you could give them a higher wage in order to support them.

Permanent farm plots would be a nice feature. It would also work very well with the plague system I described above

Extended diplomatic options would of course also be cool, though they may be difficult to implement. With a certain noble (probably in the broker vein), you could get the option to create diplomatic caravans. You would need at least one mule and one dwarf (who is designated as diplomat) and you can send them to any civilisation you have been in contact thus far. You can send offerings with that caravan and make a general request (like having a better trade representative sent with the next caravan than you would usually get or get a peace treaty). Success or failure of the mission will, of course, be based on many factors within and without your control

Deathworks

Edit: P.S.: I just remembered the other thing I wanted to suggest: Have wooden and bone bolts (along with wooden and bone arrows) be made at the bowyer's workshop rather than the craftdwarf. This would greatly help justify the existance of the bowyer's workshop and wouldn't really hurt the craftdwarf. And it would make sense in my opinion to have these tasks linked.

[ August 04, 2007: Message edited by: Deathworks ]

[mickel]

That was a lot of suggestions, and lots of them good. I especially liked the reputation bit. Having a standing in the dwarven society and expanding your influence would be really great.

I imagine if you consistently produce, say, tin mugs of exceptional quality, your fortress might become known for this fact, something which may even make it to the history?

[Black Hound]

quote:For instance, if you have a family with a child, you could give them a higher wage in order to support them.

Or, if your population is too high as is, you could jack up the taxes of families who have children and discourage the horny little bastards. That seems like it would be more of an issue with the humans than dwarves, admittedly. You could tax immigrants heavily, maybe.

[ricree]

quote:Originally posted by Haedrian:
<STRONG>
I: Military Discipline

Currently, if you give a squad an order, any active (not sleeping/eating) dwarves will go there, unless their leader is sleeping in which case they stay around him like headless chickens.

I suggest 3 modes when turning a squad 'active' (ie not standing down)

a) Station: This is the current mode, they do things at their own pace ect

b) Battle: The Leader walks into the barracks, and all fighters in that squad go to the barracks with him. Any tasks are interrupted at once, and they answer the call. When all are there, the leader walks out to the designated area, and the squad stays with him. There they stay in formation, and never break ranks. If they're hungry/thirsty they will still stay there, unless they have rations on them. The troops will only return to their normal lives when the order has been removed, or they get so many unhappy thoughts at being kept awake, hungry and thirsty that they mutiny.

This mode is for the days when you 'NEED' to have troops at a particular location, in case for example the goblins get through your first line of defence.

c) Scramble: Dwarves in that squad will drop all they're doing, and move towards the designated area. Once there , they will fight if needs be, but then return to the station mode.

This mode is for emergencies, when you have ratmen coming up the river and you 'need' men there, and quickly.
--------</STRONG>

While most of the ideas on this thread have been interesting, this one change, in my opinion, is absolutely essential.  Implementing it would clear away a ton of the problems that currently plague the military, and it seems like it would be relatively easy to implement.

[Grek]

For the dungeon master, Toady said he was going to include an option to keep the economy off until he improves it.

[Deathworks]

Hi!

Names for animals

Stray animals don't have names. This makes it difficult to keep track of them, especially since you don't get any visual description like "overweight orange-black tigered cat". And cats don't get names even when they decide to become pets. Sure, they may not come when you call them, but even so, humans in real life tend to give names to cats in hope that they might actually work.

Status viewing with cages

I just had to send a seriously injured kitten to the capital and it was a nightmare. During animal selection, you can't get any information about the animal, not even the sex, so I had several entries of "stray tame kitten" to choose from. Once inside the cage, the kitten no longer showed her injured status symbols. And it seems that you can't see  the details of the caged animal either. Hooking the cage and the commands surrounding it up with the information you get via 'v' would really, really help a lot in such cases.

Battle logs in Fortress Mode

This has been bothering me for a time. In fortress mode, the battles look just as in adventure mode. I mean, you see the dwarven caravan guard walk up to that kobold thief and then a kobold leg flies that way, his hand still clutching the dagger the other way and the kobold even manages to crawl a few more tiles towards the fortress before another guard finishes him off. So, internally, the game seems to use the same combat engine, but there seems to be no way to access the detailed log.

It would be nice if the combat log was created and somehow accessible, like if you check on a creature via 'v' and check her profile, you could get an option to see her last x battle logs (that is any battles she was involved in). This way, you could also find out why some creatures are injured (was it an accident (=no log), did they meet a wild animal (log), or was it during a frogman raid and you simply didn't notice at the time (log)). I suggested having several logs stored per character, but that is, of course, a matter of preference and hard disk space. (Performance should probably not suffer since it is not active data, but rather data stored and then retrieved at player request. Sorting and administrative work would also be minimal.)

Deathworks

[Haedrian]

*adds a rock to the pile*

XXXVII: Shields

Currently there is only one type of shield. I believe there should be three.

"Small Shield": This is a very small shield, similar to a buckler, perhaps smaller. Because its so small, it doesn't encumber very much, and it is also very good for blocking melee` attacks, provided you're fast enough. However its so small that blocking arrows with it is almost impossible.

"Medium Shield": This is the current shield. Encumbered a bit, and gives no bonus nor a penalty to blocking certain types of attack.

"Heavy Shield": This is a large and heavy shield, (I'm imagining either a tower shield, or a hoplon/aspis). It is very cumbersome to carry around, and not very good for blocking melee` attacks if the target is faster then you, since you can't react as fast with it. However it is so large that blocking arrows with it is rather easy.

How I'm seeing it. If X is the bonus to block attacks granted by the medium shield

X - 30% arrows for small
X + 30% melee` for small
-
X - 30% melee` for heavy
X + 30% arrows for heavy

This is mostly to be used in adventure mode, but perhaps even a dwarf fort leader might want to have anti-archer squads or squads which go straight into the fray.

[ August 06, 2007: Message edited by: Haedrian ]