Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Naze]

Which playing the game an idea struck me while I watched the wretched nobles gobble down my stockpiles of food. The people outside were starving but the nobles had stored up so much food in the main "hive" tower, the doors were removed and walled up, and the guards were posted...And this really made me visualize hordes of workers with axes and picks swarming the castle with anything they had, being spurred on my a radical political reformist or revolutionary, or even a religious civil war among the people...It would add a bit of realism and an interesting dynamic.

[Jetman123]

Definitely. I like this idea.

Have it related to mandates. If a noble mandates an impossible item, and someone gets beaten, then the friends of that guy will most likely go vigilante on the noble that ordered the beating.

[Shakes]

Yeah i like this idea too.

What would be good in addition to this is if killing nobles actually evoked a response from the mountainhomes. Back in feudal times and before, if a noble was killed, someone would definitely have to answer for it, whether many at their current outpost disliked the noble or not. Usually a force would be sent out by the king to come and kill or claim those responsible if the local populace did nothing about it.

This could create some interesting emergent situations where the player would have to make a decision to either let those responsible be killed or taken away, or in fact close off their fortress to the force, thus rebelling and breaking off from the main civilization and inviting seiges from them.

It would definitely be good to make the player think a lot more before just killing off that annoying noble.

On the 'in house' rebellion side of things, desperate situations such as lack of food/booze should definitely cause mass lower class rebellion if the nobles are comfortably munching away. The royal guard would suddenly become a whole lot more meaningful. Again some interesting situations could arise:
 
 - The rebellious peasants win and slaughter the nobles, meaning again a break off from the main civ. An attack from the civ would be imminent after a year or so of not hearing from the nobles (and the dwarf caravan probably not reporting back).

 - The fortress guard and nobles win. Only a handful of remaining unrebellious working class remain, meaning the nobles have to fend for themselves. Better hope theres a decent food stockpile!

The question is, what would the regular military do here? The side they take would surely win. I could see a mixed response though, with some on each side depending on the severity of the problem. Honour versus starvation. This would ensure a bloodbath.

[E. Albright]

- The fortress guard and nobles win. Only a handful of remaining unrebellious working class remain, meaning the nobles have to fend for themselves. Better hope theres a decent food stockpile!

Actually, probably not. The ideal outcome from the noble's point of view is not wanton slaughter, but restoration of the status quo. So, beat the masses back, and then a few likely ringleaders killed messily; a handful more in chains; and half-rations and double scepter mandates for the rest...

[Naze]

Rebel aligned soldiers secretly going rogue and training the underground resistance based in the massive sewer network, then loyalist peasants from there going to the nobles to rat out the resistance, lynchings at night based on rumors of treachery, beatings in dark alleys because of distrust, sounds like a chaos god's wet dream.

[Shakes]

Actually, probably not. The ideal outcome from the noble's point of view is not wanton slaughter, but restoration of the status quo. So, beat the masses back, and then a few likely ringleaders killed messily; a handful more in chains; and half-rations and double scepter mandates for the rest...

Yeah youre probabaly right. Rebellious citizens would come in shades of grey, some happily running back to their work at the sight of a little slaughtering.

@Naze cool ideas but not necessairily ones that translate well into noticeable gameplay elements.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Make rebellions simpler to enact.

Simply have it be a player option to "Rebel", and then all non-working nobles (IE, the Dungeon Master, the Mayor, the Bookkeeper, et-cetera) get the Hammer. When the caravan arrives, they freak out at what they see once they get to the depot, and try to escape - you can kill them to postpone the inevitable, or send the nobles' heads back with them to clearly say "Hammer You" to the King.

Then let the sieges come. Eventually you may exhaust their army to the point they give up and concede the territory. From thence forward, "Abandon Fortress" becomes "Mount new Expedition" and you can expand with your first fortress as a new civ.

[Shakes]

That would be going against the lack-of-direct-control aspect of the game. You could tell dwarves with no good reason to rebel to just do it anyway. And would just assume the hammerer is willing to go along with it.

 Plus why have an unnatural way to do this (ie in a menu option) when there are plenty of good in game ways to do it?

[ShadowDragon8685]

Because you, the player, are the Overlord of the fortress. And frankly, dealing with nobles is a pain, but so is engineering ridiculously complicated death-traps for them.

And if I can give a dwarf orders to pull the levers that will open the floodgates and drown the nobles, why can't I just give them the orders to put the nobles to the sword?

[Shakes]

Yeah sorry, i didn't mean in game ways that are currently there, i meant improvements that could be implemented so that certain standards have to be met with the peasant/lower class as well, or they will rebel and do the dirty work themselves. this way your actions (over the last period of time) are guiding their actions rather than directly controlling them. i just think all the little ways you could gently prod dwarves into rebellion would be far cooler than just selecting a rebellion command.

as far as dealing with nobles being a pain i agree, although im sure with some changes they can be more of an 'interesting other challenge' to contend with rather than just being an utter pain. and as i mentioned a few posts up, that in combination with global repercussions for deciding to off your noble would be great.

[DreaDFanG]

Why not just give the dwarves the ability to attack other dwarves randomly based on relationships...that way when a noble mandates some rediculess thing the guy that makes them can become pissed at the noble and eventually seek out and hurt the evil tyrant...

[Eita]

There's a reason Dwarf Companion makes dwarves butcherable.

[Drakale]

There's a reason Dwarf Companion makes dwarves butcherable.

Dwarf muffins?

Why not just give the dwarves the ability to attack other dwarves randomly based on relationships...that way when a noble mandates some rediculess thing the guy that makes them can become pissed at the noble and eventually seek out and hurt the evil tyrant...

Thats the way i really hope Toady will implement politics; each dwarf follow his own agenda and the politic/social scene naturally emerge from each individual choice.