Before we begin, note that you invited this upon yourself. According to the holy texts of Flame Warriors, your chagrined sarcasm invokes retribution and thus, I shall undertake the task of dueling with you! Have at ye, you pompous hound and prepare to be whipped.
No, actually, I'm just bored, but for the sake of boredom, let's discuss the semantics of "easy" in this situation. Thus, let's keep this civil if you choose to respond for some reason. If it helps, I'm being as serious as a tomato. So, without further ado, let us begin.
I will now hopefully illustrate the reasoning behind why constructing a mechanical, relatively automated, bridge-dropping, anti-migrant system is not comparatively easier than digging a hole in the wall with a door with the resultant need for military-assigned control. To do this, I will first summarise the argument we currently have until now, to the best of my knowledge and this will include resultant definitions as well as explanations for potential assumptions needed further on. After that, I will do my best to illustrate your argument for the bridge-and-lever system. Then I will discuss my hole-in-the-wall system. I will then explain the reasoning and close with an astute observation.
The American Heritage Dictionary defines "easy" as "capable of being accomplished or acquired with ease; posing no difficulty" just to make it clear. Thus, in example, attempting to read a German newspaper when one is a vegetable is *not* an easy task. However, attempting to breathe *is* an easy task for the average person. Another example, to further clarify: Trying to defeat piracy is *not* easy. Dying *is* easy. I hope that clears things up if the term "easy" wasn't clear.
Now, onto the assumptions that we face in this discussion. Firstly, we can safely assume that the thread opener, cbfog, has a relatively new fortress based on his statements of, "a few minutes ago one of my dwarves was seized by a mood and crafted a pure platinum anvil covered in spikes worth 600,000* which more than doubled the wealth of my fort and took it over a million" and "this would make me happy except now there's going to be tons of dwarves beating down my doors". From the first statement, we see that his fortress value prior to the artifact was less than 600,000*, something significantly low and difficult for a long-term fort unless one were doing nothing but running a hippy hideaway. This is enforced by the fact that he states that he discovered a "huge deposit of platinum" and he had been, in fact, "[making] crafts and [encrusting them] with cut gems which needless to say was making a good deal of wealth for my fort." Considering how expensive platinum is, especially embroidered with gems, it would be a significantly young fortress for it to be worth that amount. In addition to this is the second phrase, where we can see that based on common player demographics, a player typically stops caring about how he can feed immigrants when he breaches a certain number, commonly 100 dwarves. 100 dwarves is staggeringly easy to reach, commonly before the third or fourth year. A good estimate is enforced by cbfog's phrase, "now that I think about it I guess I'm less worried about not having enough resources and just more dreading trying to wrangle 100 or so of the guys" which poignantly states that he is most likely significantly below 100 dwarves, probably around 20 to 30, if you'll let me place a bet. All this points to the fact that he has a very young fortress.
Second assumption. Cbfog is a relatively inexperienced player. This is relatively simple to point out as he posed a question considered ridiculously impossible by more experienced players, that he was worried about food production for new migrants. Furthermore, not attempting to besmirch the good man's name, but he considers one million fortress wealth to be incredible in nature. Indeed, a million is a good number, but for veteran players, that feeling subsides dramatically. Now, we can compound the evidence with the fact that he lost his entire military to goblins. This is a difficult feat to achieve if one has tangled with the green foes once before as it only takes one defeat to hopefully learn the lesson of military equipment and training. However, suppose we consider that cbfog is indeed a veteran player who hasn't actually reached one million in fortress wealth and never really ever had such tremendous losses when confronted with goblins time before. I'll then pose the question, what then, separates him from any other new player, other than length of time played?
Third assumption: cbfog doesn't have magma and is potentially playing on a mountainous map. This one is a little difficult to prove. The thread opener never really clarified what terrain he was on, whether there was an aquifier, or if there were a lot of trees. However, considering he is using lignite to smelt platinum, we can assume there is no magma. Platinum is available anywhere, just rare, even in soil. However, since according to the thread opener, there is lignite abound, then therefore there must be stone of some sort. If there is stone, then it is a rare event there is an aquifier. If there isn't an aquifier, there's then a good chance that this player is playing on a mountain, like any real dwarf. We also see cbfog mention the goblins skulking around his doors. Here we bring a psychological analysis. Why the mentioning of doors? If he were playing in a flatter terrain, the first thing one would say (and be proud of) would be walls and towers or at the very least, hatch-covers. Doors in this case would be given importance if, in fact, the main entrance to the fortress was in fact, doors, like many other common fortresses built by players. Fortresses buried inside mountains. Of course, this could all be disproved in an instant since even I can see it rests of shaky ground, but it is important to establish where the player is playing for the rest of the argument to continue. So, let's just assume that he is playing on a map with no magma and potentially no aquifier with cliffs and rocks.
There are other secondary assumptions which I will bring up later as the argument takes its course but for now, these are the important parts.
Your argument, as I see it, works like this. All the creator has to do is build two sets of doors, dig a pit between them, build a bridge over the pit, and link the bridge to a lever. When a set of migrants come, all one needs to do is lock the inner doors, designate a meeting area on the bridge, wait for the migrants to come, and then pull the lever, sealing their fate. Then you unlock the inner doors and life goes on as normal, except now dwarves are walking on the graves of others. I'll admit, it works. There's no flaw in the execution. From here, I believe the purpose of this plan is to simplify the handling of the killing of migrants. In other words, makes killing migrants "easier". Correct?
Now, my argument works like this. When a group of unneeded migrants come, the player digs a hole somewhere, militarize and command the migrants to get inside the hole, seals the hole with a door and locks it. The migrants die of thirst (simultaneously too, from what I've seen) and everyone is happy, expect for the dead dwarves, but dead dwarves won't be happy either way right? The purpose of this plan is to find an easy way to kill migrants. In other words, make killing migrants "easy".
Now, the meat of the argument. Why would one choose one method over the other? Quite simply put, remember that we are discussing cbfog's situation where he is worried that probably 60 or so unneeded dwarves will rush into the fray, gobble up everything, and make his life a living hell. We are not discussing my unique situation with a modded game where 20 immigrants came without fail every season and I had to build 8 death chambers to accomodate them. We are not discussing the times where only one or two dwarves come and thus, are easier to "manage". We are not discussing continuous, forever-lasting, migrant-murder-sprees because the player is a homicidal maniac. We are discussing cbfog's situation and potentially the situation of anyone else who wants to deal with impending migrants in an "easy" manner.
I'm going to ask you straight. Which is easier? Digging one or two large holes in the wall and putting doors on them or digging a large pit (remember the dwarven pathfinding bug), putting a bridge(s) large enough across it, linking the bridge(s) to a lever, and putting four doors around it? Also, how often do migrants come? They usually come once a year, twice at most at distinct intervals; intervals long enough for the average, nonskilled dwarf to die of thirst. I'm sure most players are aware that it takes less than a season for a noble to rot away when locked in his opulent throne room. Since we established that cbfog isn't attempting to run a continuous dwarven butchering factory through his wording that he doesn't want to deal with a huge number of migrants all at once, we can thus make a secondary assumption that the required system won't be needed for extended repeated use. After all, cbfog states his reason for genocide is that he can't currently handle the onslaught. He is probably playing like a regular player, aiming for a large fortress, which would lead us to believe that he does intend to NOT kill off his migrants since that's a prerequisite. It is also important to note that if a fortress receives notoriety for a large number of deaths (especially deaths of nobles who will likely come with large migrations), they don't receive subsequent migrants for awhile.
Suppose cbfog wants to get rid of 50-60 migrants who may or may not come. As we can see above, he can choose between simply digging holes in the walls with miners he already has and are no doubt of good digging speed or he can make a complex dwarf-only starvation device. He wants to make the choice based on "easy". He will only likely need it once or twice. Do I really need to explain which one a sane person would choose based on that criteria?
Furthermore, let us consider this from a cost-effectiveness standpoint. Suppose that it takes him half-an-hour to design, coordinate (remember the Dwarven tendency to get themselves stuck on mini islands when channeling. Also remember that we are digging for a space large enough for a large number of dwarves to fall into.) the digging, and build the bridge-device (remember that we are assuming inexperience on the part of the player, so this might actually take longer). From that point forward, it takes 3 seconds to designate a meeting area when migrants come, a minute of waiting for the dwarves to make their way to the area, and 10 seconds for a dwarf to pull the lever. Suppose that everyone is neatly shuffled to their doom without a need for a second round. Altogether, we are looking at the initial conservative estimate of half-an-hour for construction time, followed by a minute and 13 seconds every time a new batch of migrants come.
Now, let's look at the hole in the wall scenario. It takes at most 20 seconds to designate an area to be dug, considering all we need is a hole in the ground. Maybe two for insurance. However, let's give it a minute for any other unknown factors that might arise during the digging. It's hard to imagine a fort without a spare door lying around, but let's say there isn't one. Thus, another minute for the door to be made. Every time a batch of migrants come, it takes 6 minutes (counting the player's inexperience with dealing with squads and that we are dealing with a large number of migrants) to assign the newcomers to the military and put them in one squad. It then takes them a minute to get to the area where they die after you lock the door. Thus, it takes two minutes for the system to be set up, and a consecutive 7 minutes every time migrants come.
Considering how conservative the estimates are, it's a fair bet to say that since, like it was established earlier, the player isn't intending to kill every single migrant forever, the hole-in-the-wall method is far "easier" than the bridge method. Of course, were the player intending to "easily" kill off migrants forever, then the bridge method would work better in the long run (it would be more cost-efficient the 5th time around).
Now, let's compare the other uses of the two methods, starting with the bridge method. It's quite evident that the bridge method can be used to kill off nobles and other dwarves who aren't migrants, something to it's benefit. However, remember that is is built outside the main entrance and it uses meeting areas as bait. Remember that for the migrant-killer to work, the inner doors are locked for an obvious reason, so that your own dwarves don't wander in and die. Isn't it clear how difficult it is to orchestrate a member of the fortress who isn't outside at the time to die with this method when it would be far "easier" to say... lock him inside him room. It is also obvious that the bridge method can be used to vanquish goblin and wildlife attacks. Let me bring up the argument of LeoLeonardoIII. Goblins and hostile creatures don't attack the fortress if there's no way in. Thus, the doors have to be unlocked. now, let me bring up an earlier post. How would you be able to possess the knowledge to predict at what time to pull the lever so that the invaders fall into the pit? Mechanisms operate at their own distinct speeds based on quality. This is highly improbable.
Now, for the hole-in-the-wall method. I'm going to say that this setup has no other use than for killing migrants. Everything else you could think it could do, can be done easier elsewhere. I guess you could use it to store dwarven bones or something, but that's somewhat silly and beyond the scope of this argument.
As we can see, the distinction is quite clear. If you managed to follow the entire article, and I applaud you if you managed, no doubt there should be no more clouds in your mind. If there are, I suggest you seek psychiatric help as arguing the principle of "ease" between a hole and a machine in this particular case is like comparing butter-y-ness between butter and a rock. Notice that I didn't even bring up the question of what if migrants appeared while you were in the middle of building the device which is a highly probable event considering the amount of in-game days needed to build the thing, or the fact that a goblin ambush could appear as the thread opener already stated is a problem.
However, as has been mentioned many times before. If you weren't designing a system based on ease or urgency and more on fun, then the bridge is the way to go.
EDIT: TL/DR;
quote:
Then again regardless of how easy it is, yes... it's bloody fun and contrived and awesome.
[ May 30, 2008: Message edited by: umiman ]
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Topic: Impending Migrant Flood (Read 2565 times)