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[Myth]

Okay, this will be hard to explain. Please, be patient.

In the game, the civilizations born, the civilizations die, the civilizations figth and the most important point: the civilizations growth. This growth can be interrupted by a bad day in the war field, by a specially angry megabeast, by a totally psycho man or anothe fun stuff in this great game.

All civilizations have a thing in common: all have the same technological level, and the same capacity to built. Obviously, his diference are clear in camps of the structures, the gobernment type and antoher ethics and laws aspects, but in the most basic form, all of the races are the same. My suggestion is abaout a necesary diference bethewn all of the nations: the knowledge an the capacity to built sistems.

Good, let's go:

-Civilizations level-

-The levels:

I'm not talking about a really rigid system with specifics characteristics of limitations for the civilizations, no, i'm talking about a flexible framework with few randomsized elements, to keep the order an the coherence in the diferents levels. Lets go the explain this:

Imagine a civilization with a serious problem to use stone: Obviously, a civilizations with this tipe of limitation is really, really poor in camps like construction or workshops. This primitive nation don't have a advanced civil or government organization system  (to keep the order and coherence) and they are totally limited to use a tribal-monarchy structure.

In a different case, a really, really advanced civilizations can use all materials, have a advanced aristocratic gobernment structure and can make complex buildings. Obviously, they have few limitations, but in general terms, are really advanced.

Obviously, the initial limitation, which will guide others to give coherence, could have elements randomsized, or be completely random. That will be decided by the community.

The primitive civilizations have the potential to be advanced, but their knowledge will not allow it. The solution? Exist a lot of solutions, but on their one, only one: Experimentation.

-Experimentation.

I'm talking abaout a new order, function or button. Basically, this function allow send a character to experiment with especific elements, like materials, objets and another work stuff. In this project, the dwarf/human/elf/goblin experiment and discover new ways to use the selected object. For example, in the case that a dwarf named Urist Thunderfart, who live in a low level civilization, experiment with metal, may find ways to use it, and slowly, with more experimentation, unlock diferent objects made of metal.

In similar cases, a nation that does not know how use the stone, can experiment with this material and  discover noew ways to built her structures. This is appiclable to all materials and objets of the game.

In the case of objets, the experimentation with him be more specific, finding new styles,new variations of the same object and another things of the same style. For example, a civilization discover a sword, and with the continous experimentation, make variants like the short sword, the two-handed and the scimitar. Obviously, all variants exist in the raws, but are locked for the primitve civilizations.

Among civilizations, not all objects have to be equal. A sword can be stronger in one, but in another it may be weaker, and have a different design. These charactertistics may be random, and if appropriate, could affect the performance of the weapon, or the resistance of the object. This point is specially relevant in camps like ornamental objets, where differentiation can make border with other nations. Diferents crown styles, diferent entities.

-Law and ethics experiments.

In the case of the gobernment system, the laws and the ethic stuff, this points turn more interesting: With the future adition of phylosophy, could discover new styles of government in discussion rooms. in these sites discuss new ideas, and the winners could be taken by the members of the community.

Of course, there is another factor influencing the acceptance of new ways of doing things in a society: The culture and love of tradition.

-The tradition: The rival of the change.

In a really really traditional society, this new ideas, this new objects an this experiment can be rejected, and slowly, the tendence to experiment turn really really poor.

In this traditional civilization, the new ideas are dangereous to the most older or closed-minded members, and he can ban this tipe of progress or ways.

Obviously, this tipe of civilizations depends totally of the ethics and personality of his members, and can fall with a generation change, a generation with a open mind.

-The clash of the worlds-

What if two different civilizations meet? Let's go to explore the posibilities of this new form of discover and progress:

-The pacific way:

Oh yes, the ideal, caused by a diplomatic, a comercial or a casual encounter by two nations.

In this case, the inferior civilization discover a new form of make things; the form of the another civilitation: They  not discover by their own, they discover thanks to other persons. The unlocked objects are limited by the form of the advanced civilization, and the laws, the ethics an the gobernment form are not exceptions.

In the case of assimilation, three things can happens:

-The local culture resist: The civilitation are really really closed, and the new ways are rejected. The nation don't change.

-The local culture change: The new culture, ways and forms be combined with the local. In this case, the culture changes, but retains its original values.

-The local culture fall: The new culture domain over the tradition; the original culture disappears.

-The violent way: Colonization and war.

In this case, the war and the colonization exerts influence over the domined civilitation, and the local culture is suppresed by new traditions, the another culture traditions imposed by the new gobernment.

This can happen:

-The old tradition survive: The old traditions survive, but only in few sides, and is prohibited by the dominant empire. The participants can be killed by the autorities.

-The old tradition disappear: The old tradition is suppresed by the new form. Is killed by the new ways and the prohibition.

The old tradition mix with the new: The dominant nation allow the old culture, and he's mix with the new.

I will continue with my idea in another post...

[Rubik]

Although the whole idea looks appealing and very interesting (Being able to have dwarves flash the ´´experimenting with knives´´ to discover new methods of crafting looks neat)
I don´t really see how the idea of cultural changes can work with the actual value system we have, at least, without adding some kind of peer pressure/thinking to all the races, something that would be very hard.

Besides, Everything you say would need a very deep psychological support from the dwarves, specifically sociology in-game. Something that, while I´d love to have, I won´t think we will for some time

[LordBaal]

This indeed is a very interesting topic. Myself touched it a few years ago and currently I'm looking over all my posts to create a great unified thread of personal suggestions.

This is what I thought about back then:

Anyway, and I realize it's a little off-topic, but as The Great Toad closed that thread without me having the chance to participate, what I was really thinking by developing tech, at least at first, was "simple things" like for example. Let's say you start at year 0. You pick any dwarf civ and the materials you start with are limited to cooper pikes and axes for example, as you starting with only knowledge of mining cooper.

Let's say your dwarves are mining around and each time the put their pike in a tin deposit a chance of they becoming aware of that being a valuable metal increase, until some dwarf take a rock of it, melt it and sees that is good. You discovered tin!

Other example would be that you play a few years into that fortress and along comes a human caravan with tin items, then if you melt them with cooper you "discovered" bronze. If no one else have such metal in the world yet, that would give you an edge over the other civs, specially once the world is fully active and you can send armies outside.

The same could be true not only for mining knowledge, but for wheelbarrows and other machinery too for example.

As for making such things a tad more random and letting you not to discover everything so quickly, new/old jobs as inventors, alchemists, architects, engineers and such could be made/reworked a tad. For example part of an alchemist work could be going around taking duped rocks randomly and taking them to it's lab, trying to melt them to see what they give. Each time he does so with a rock that actually have some metal on it he/she has a chance of discovering that this rock is an ore for the metal, the chance might be low to slow down the "discovery of things", or depend on the alchemist ability, I don't know. Other things the alchemist (or metalworker, or inventor, I don't know) would do is taking small amounts of things a mix them up in several ways, ending up for example, in discovering steel by "mixing coal and molten iron". Things like this could be managed by random chances on other civs and sites to show external progress too. Hell, there could be inventors discovering the exact same things at the exact same time on different civs and races on opposite sides of the map.

Other example could be a mechanic that gets a mood like state and take some materials, go into a mechanic workshop, and after a few months come out with the prototype and blueprints of a pump, then your fortress is now allowed to build pumps. Then your fortress could trade such mechanical devices with other civs, or at least the knowledge on how to do them. Maybe you could even have a list of things you would like to haver or need, like "how to drain the water", "how to shoot pointy stuff", and you order your inventors to work on it, having several degrees of chances of success depending on things like skills of the guy working on it and available materials. Preferably you should control if it's shared with X or Y race or civ, or if it's only for your civ, in order to try to "keep things under control". But of course thievery does happens on dwarf fortress already...

Going back to the first example. Let's say you are the first to discover how to make bronze, you send an army to the near goblin civ, but they kill your army, besiege your fortress and kill your civ off before you where able to trade/communicate the knowledge on how to make bronze. Unless they spare some of your guys with the knowledge life and put him to work for them or something, then bronze making knowledge will be lost unless (more like "until", actually) rediscovery by other civ.

Of course more complicated, advanced stuffs would be harder to reproduce or invent, so for example the knowledge of how making bronze would be something simple compared on how to make siege equipment or steel. What I'm trying to see on how to program this into a game, is some how assign knowledge tags or tokens to things like being capable of mining X ore, or making Y machine. In such way that those tokens could be assigned to specific characters (or whole civs) and could be lost, gained, traded and sought after and have different "values" which will indicate which ones are more desirable or harder to attain.

As this, let's suppose that only a guy in the whole word knows how to mine adamantine. Then the entity with the token of "knows to mine adamantine" could have a really high value and be sought after by "bad" civ that wants to conquer the world (giving also a good line for an adventurer as in kidnap that guy and bring him to me alive or protect this guy and escort him to the security of X "good" civ).

This could apply to almost all actions in the game, such:
"Knows how to tame Gigant Eagles"
"Knows how to revive the dead"
"Knows how to make goblets"
"Knows how to cure snakebites"
...

For simple things like "Knows how to make cheese", the knowledge token could still apply, but such simple things could be widespread way faster, becoming general knowledge in only a few years. The same rules as now still apply to jobs, as for example merely knowing how to make cheese doesn't make you good at it, practicing a lot would, just like now where your dwarves have basic knowledge on how make everything, but only specialize on a few things.

So, if you start on the year 0 you might have an almost stone age civ, but depending on luck, traits of the race (I know the only playable race are dwarves, but mods allow you to play as other races so...) and more luck, by the year X the dwarves might have most if not all common techs like cheese making.

As for this whole idea, it's mostly of "innovation" within the things we already have (which is a ton) and thing we will have in the future, not including new things. I'm sure this would be a lot of work (and rework) and toady could come up with something better or most awesome.

I know this are only febrile dreams of mine, but meh, what it is Dwarf Fortress but a factory of dreams and all that is good and FUN!?

This second quote from an idea I had about Total War games before they launched Rome 2

- Implement the techs on a more organic and realistic way, do away the rigid and predictable boring tech tree: I tend to feel tech development in the way it is now, using "trees", is to rigid and false. If it depended upon my choice, the tech tree and the X amount of turns to develop X tech will be gone forever, for all games. I think that as in real life, the "tech tree" should be more organic, along the lines of what you do on regular basis. You siege a lot? You get better at it, by let's say accumulating points after each siege (successful or not), once a certain amount of points are reached you get a upgrade regarding siege warfare. And so on. On the other hand building a lot of ports for example could increase your naval tech, as well as naval battles and do trade by sea.

Other way of acquiring tech would be by trade. But not in screen trade of tech. That was never part of a real diplomacy reunion, but by civil commerce. You know those guys over there have really nice agricultural tools, if you open trading with them then your people will eventually buy those tools and eventually start to copy them and produce them by their own.

And finally by conquest, if you conquer X city or nation you can get some or all the techs that this culture had and you don't (that's how Romans roll anyway). Other more specific "techs" like the Marian Reform could be combination of your actions and dates or places on the map. An example as Rome could be that you should get the gladius after fighting against Iberian troops (or anyone that have that sword) for the first time.

[Fleeting Frames]

There is tiny bit of this in game: Sometimes the dwarves don't know how to make high boots, for instance. Also, the minerals (and I think also the knowledge of animals) you can embark with depends on your civilization. Furthermore, the songs, the dances, the stories and academics have a slower progression as well.

However, in fortress mode we know the minerals from our previous games, so this would add bit of a entrance barrier to every fort.

Not necessarily a bad thing, but implementation should be done such that it is not annoying or worse, crippling.

Because of this, I imagine civilization should start out knowing how to:
Create at least 1 item that goes on your feet.
Create at least 1 item that goes on your lower body.
Create at least 1 item that goes on your upper body.
(Covering minimum clothing requirements)
Create tools for creating the above, and their base "types".

(Dwarves, for instance, need at least bone picks for getting underground and making cave spider silk clothes and harvesting plump helmets for food, as well as axes for getting woods to make beds. )

[Madmachine]

One thing that has always bugged me about Civ-style technology progression systems is that there they're essentially railroaded. You can't conduct real research come up with your own technology; you can only "research" in-game until you unlock the next shiny new toy the designers have put in the game for you. I understand that the level of abstraction in games like Civ prevents any kind of system for the emergent, player-run development of technology. However, Dwarf Fortress is the opposite of abstract: its granularity allows for the potential for new technology to emerge. Minecraft is another, albeit lesser example of a game that allows for the players to take the role of scientists and engineers in the world it has laid out.

If you want to build a dwarfputer Deep Thought, you can. The game doesn't say "lolno we didn't design that into the game". No! The game is turing-complete. YOU design the technology, not the game designers. I understand how unfeasible it would be to expect the computer to randomly-generate any kind of freeform technological history that makes any sort of sense, but I don't think it really needs to. In a sense, there is a system for the progression of knowledge already in the game: the progression of the collective knowledge of the playerbase, and for individuals players themselves.

[LordBaal]

I always thought that more natural development could be best. As you do more stuff you get better at it. Trowing some randomness into the mix.

As you siege more you get better siege equipment. As you produce more crafts you get more craft available... Some basic stuff are needed like stone tools and the bow, from there once you get mechanisms a lot of things can be done.

[Paranoid Alaskan]

One thing that has always bugged me about Civ-style technology progression systems is that there they're essentially railroaded. You can't conduct real research come up with your own technology; you can only "research" in-game until you unlock the next shiny new toy the designers have put in the game for you. I understand that the level of abstraction in games like Civ prevents any kind of system for the emergent, player-run development of technology. However, Dwarf Fortress is the opposite of abstract: its granularity allows for the potential for new technology to emerge. Minecraft is another, albeit lesser example of a game that allows for the players to take the role of scientists and engineers in the world it has laid out.

If you want to build a dwarfputer Deep Thought, you can. The game doesn't say "lolno we didn't design that into the game". No! The game is turing-complete. YOU design the technology, not the game designers. I understand how unfeasible it would be to expect the computer to randomly-generate any kind of freeform technological history that makes any sort of sense, but I don't think it really needs to. In a sense, there is a system for the progression of knowledge already in the game: the progression of the collective knowledge of the playerbase, and for individuals players themselves.

Sounds interesting. Perhaps we also add something that makes it so that ideas can also go extinct. For example, a Civ might make a mace like weapon but instead of the end being a spiky blunt object it would be a blade. Then lets say that Civ either A. Doesn't implement that idea on a mass scale and it dies out, Or B. The civ dies out and no other Civ took the idea or the Idea was destroyed. (something similar to what happened to Greek Fire or Meso-Americans ability to carve gems.)