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Author Topic: [Hospital] Remove the need for clean water for hospitalised dwarfs  (Read 717 times)

dth1

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This thing is bugging me since I first played this game yeaaaaars ago. It's counter intuitive. You have to instantly build a well in every fort(and that can be either really easy or terribly hard to do, depending on your embark location you can have a river and ponds, or have nothing and the first carvern 50 levels below, in evil biome, good luck building entire windmill collection on your first year to pump out some water), because if your dwarf get injured, they will die of dehydration. That's stupid. Dwarfs drink ONLY alcohol, all their lives. They are grumpy when they drink water, and yet, once they become injured, apparently it's better for them to just die instead of have a mug of ale.
I can fully understand the need for clean water for... cleaning wounds. That's perfectly reasonable.
I could understand if drinking alcohol while injured would cause the wound to heal slower. That's reasonable.
I could understand if there would be some risk of infection if dwarf was drinking alcohol instead of water while being in hospital. Totally fair.
But death due to dehydration, because your dwarf broke a leg feeling of the tree in winter and you didn't build well yet as it's your first year after embark is just plain STUPID.

Water in hospital should be PREFERRED, if there's no water, injured dwarfs should drink alcohol. Every time this happens I'm rolling my eyes so hard that I almost have to put them back into my eye sockets. It's little things like that that generally make me want to quit the game and leave. Others are children playing by the water outside in evil biome during horrible sludge rain, getting killed and forcing everyone to get out to get their stuff and getting killed as well, or at least making people terrified because they were caught in evil rain... Or children playing with dead bodies in atom smasher forcing me to kill them(because they apparently totally ignore burrows while playing) before dead bodies stop being dead, thus making parents unhappy about the whole thing... But the hospital is by far the most annoying and stupid thing I have ever encountered in this game.
« Last Edit: December 23, 2022, 07:42:05 am by dth1 »
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Shonai_Dweller

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Re: [Hospital] Remove the need for clean water for hospitalised dwarfs
« Reply #1 on: December 23, 2022, 09:28:08 am »

This is one of the early game challenges. Remove the need for water and you no longer need a well in the game at all.

So, no, disagree with removing game elements to purposefully make things easy.
The "easy" option is already in game: embark on a river.
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Salmeuk

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Re: [Hospital] Remove the need for clean water for hospitalised dwarfs
« Reply #2 on: December 23, 2022, 10:58:28 am »

I agree. instead, water should be associated with decreasing stress of dwarves via bathes and swimming for pleasure, contributing to exercise.

though for medical procedures, fresh water is a must for cleaning wounds? that much should remain. but the dwarf dying from lack of drink when surrounded by booze needs to go.

i wouldn't legitimize it as a feature of the game's difficulty when the origin of the mechanic was likely unintentional or poorly thought out. alcoholic metabolism and all that
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dth1

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Re: [Hospital] Remove the need for clean water for hospitalised dwarfs
« Reply #3 on: December 23, 2022, 01:25:19 pm »

This is one of the early game challenges. Remove the need for water and you no longer need a well in the game at all.

So, no, disagree with removing game elements to purposefully make things easy.
The "easy" option is already in game: embark on a river.
I have no problem with challenges. But this is not a challenge only. It's mostly just stupid. In game that tries to simulate as many things as possible it's really dumb that dwarfs would rather let their friend die than give them a beer when they are in hospital. I've mentioned the risk that could be added for the healing stuff, you'd still want to have a well in your fort for cleaning wounds and your wounded dwarfs to drink to avoid infections (I'd have no problem if my entire squad died to infections because they had no way to clean their wounds, it makes sense, but I'd generally wouldn't make it that punishing too), but you would no longer have to sentence your entire squad to death, because they happened to be in a fight and you don't have well and it's winter now. That's just dumb. I see no reason to defend this mechanics, "early challenge" is not an excuse for something that dumb. You can litterally have 1000000 drinks in your storage, you can have drinks storage in your hospital, but no, injured dwarfs have to die, because you have no clean water, that no one would want to drink anyways. If you really want this to be a challenge then make it so that all dwarfs drink only water and need it to survive. Make alcohol just an addition to water, not a replacement. That's the only way to make it realistic. When no one needs it on daily basis, then it's dumb and should be removed.
« Last Edit: December 23, 2022, 01:32:09 pm by dth1 »
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Resmisal

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Re: [Hospital] Remove the need for clean water for hospitalised dwarfs
« Reply #4 on: December 30, 2022, 06:35:41 pm »

If memory serves me right, boiled alcohol has been used to clean wounds in the past although it's not recommended. Why not make drinking water the standard with a heavy penalty on mood and make alcohol slow down healing processes? I agree that dying of dehydration is a bit silly and yet I like the necessity of building a well as soon as possible.
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