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[WillowLuman]

We already have "Easy mode" lands.

It REALLY cannot get any easier then a No savagry forest or grassland or mountain.

Any easier then that and you are babying the player and removing core elements from the game.

What I'd suggest for making good "easy mode" would be to make those other areas harder, and leave good as-is.

[Neonivek]

We already have "Easy mode" lands.

It REALLY cannot get any easier then a No savagry forest or grassland or mountain.

Any easier then that and you are babying the player and removing core elements from the game.

What I'd suggest for making good "easy mode" would be to make those other areas harder, and leave good as-is.

Why would a peaceful forest be more difficult? It already has steriotypical fantasy wolves.

[WillowLuman]

We already have "Easy mode" lands.

It REALLY cannot get any easier then a No savagry forest or grassland or mountain.

Any easier then that and you are babying the player and removing core elements from the game.

What I'd suggest for making good "easy mode" would be to make those other areas harder, and leave good as-is.

Why would a peaceful forest be more difficult? It already has steriotypical fantasy wolves.

Like make the farming more realistic, so that food is more difficult to get, except in good areas where you can grow some things out of season or in the wrong type of soil. Not introducing more savage wildlife to non-savage areas.

[irmo]

Like make the farming more realistic, so that food is more difficult to get, except in good areas where you can grow some things out of season or in the wrong type of soil. Not introducing more savage wildlife to non-savage areas.

Like if you had to grow crops in specific seasons, and nothing would grow in winter, and then you'd have to irrigate all your farms again in the spring. Some sort of mechanic like that.

[WillowLuman]

Like make the farming more realistic, so that food is more difficult to get, except in good areas where you can grow some things out of season or in the wrong type of soil. Not introducing more savage wildlife to non-savage areas.

Like if you had to grow crops in specific seasons, and nothing would grow in winter, and then you'd have to irrigate all your farms again in the spring. Some sort of mechanic like that.

Exactly. Normal areas could have that, but you could grow out of season or skip irrigating for a year in good regions.

[teres_draconis]

I'm not sure where to mod in rain that makes you sleepy, since I don't know where the entries are that makes for evil mists and evil rain, but if that were (or is) player accessable, then it would be easy enough to just copy and change the name, syndrome and biome tags.

I like the idea of Angels instead of Demons in the underworld of Good aligned regions, with not much other than a name and description change.

I lke the idea that dwarves would (should?) need an attribute (like laziness or helpfulness) that reflects their own personal good/evil alignmenet to be attacked by surface good critters, so that Beings of Good would attack anyone who doesn't meet their personal requirements for Goodness. Consider, if you will, if You Personally were to meet an Avatar of Good (even a minor one)... would you not fear that perhaps it would smite you for your own petty (or not so petty) evils? Why should dwarves fair differently? And for those who perhaps think that additional Fun stuff should be limited in Good aligned areas, maybe put in the init files a way of controling that.. I'd put it in the same place as disabling weather, tempurature, moods and such. Maybe say something like "Dwarves Judged on Alignment  - YES/NO"...

Or perhaps coming into contact with such a Being might (over time) change such things as helpfulness and courage, though that might be a harder thing to code. (Being a modder, not a programer, I don't actually know.)

Ok, this has sparked some thought in me... I will consider it in more detail so that I can maybe add something that doesn't sound so disjointed.

The moving plant things is easy-ish, though.. simply create some animals, mod to have specific plant tissues instead of meat tissues, and (if you like) set their movements to something incredibly slow. (Check out bronze colossus and wagons to see how they work, if you need some hints.) You can make them highly agressive without making them savage. ... or quick, for that matter. I have several,  the vermin of which drop plant seeds instead of small remains, and the larger of which drops logs.  I like to use the related tiles from the plants on which they're based to give the appearance of slow moving plants.  I especially like making them bleed booze. I would like to make them change any blank soil they walk over to having grasses of that type, but I suspect that requires hard code changes. Putting in the grazing tag with a negative number fails... I now assume that that number reflects how many time units pass before a creature eats (which explains why bigger creatures have smaller numbers). Pah. If someone else figures this out, let me know, k?

[WillowLuman]

I like the idea of Angels instead of Demons in the underworld of Good aligned regions, with not much other than a name and description change.

Again, why just rename evil things and port it to good? While good regions could be more interesting, as has been said many times before we don't need a palette swap of evil regions.

Moving plants sounds cool though. I think those aren't necessarily a good concept, but more like a savage thing. Maybe evil regions could have evil thorny vine creatures, while good could have flowers or trees?

[Neonivek]

As well "Evil Lands" are not the underworld except above ground. They have their own issues to deal with.

Heck Toady juggled with the concept of having the underworld have its own regions.

[Sonlirain]

And then someone finally modded in a good mist that transforms creatures into pastel ponies.

[Sus]

This is why we can't have nice things in DF; someone in our lovely little community of sociopaths has to demand that they be turned into "nice" things what kill you eleven kinds of dead. 

[Watsst]

This is why we can't have nice things in DF; someone in our lovely little community of sociopaths has to demand that they be turned into "nice" things what kill you eleven kinds of dead. 

I dont get the frowny face... eleven kinds of dead is awesome! But more things that kill is far better than things that make the game easier, as fortress's do tend to get stale once you've built a few things here and there. Also if people dont like the added difficulty it can be modded out.

If "nice" things are added, it should be a lot of fun when they try to kill your dwarves. As in presented in such a way that it is unique to the game. Mists nuking dwarves, rain creating crazy effects, necromancers raising the dead, vampires sneaking through your fortress. All of those have changed how people create their fortress's, where they settle, what they do, and is also great for mods. "Nice" things need to be dangerous, not easy

[NTJedi]

But more things that kill is far better than things that make the game easier, as fortress's do tend to get stale once you've built a few things here and there. Also if people dont like the added difficulty it can be modded out.

I feel if people want added difficulty for good areas they should either move to more dangerous areas such as haunted OR they can use modding to make good areas more difficult thus removing the extra work required for Toady. Obviously if good areas were made more difficult a percentage of players would complain as what we're seeing in this thread and this game doesn't need drama on the forums. 
In regards to fortresses becoming stale it's because there's NO CREATURES or NATURAL DISASTERS in the game which will break walls, tunnel thru earth, destroy raised bridges... thus allowing players to be 100% safe without risk or danger with the first underground gate. I feel so sorry for the sieges when they're unable to do anything except look at the fortress walls and gates.

[KainInt]

I think people are taking the idea of 'good' to be too literal.

What if a 'serene rain' made your dwarves unwilling to butcher animals, or fight?

Say a siege comes, and your military rushes out to fight, when suddenly a cloud rolls over, and both the siege and your military start laying around in the grass, forced into lackadaisical moods. When the effect wears off, any advantage you had by positioning or otherwise is gone, as your dwarves and the goblins rolled around in the grass, jumbling up into a random assortment of creatures, suddenly exploding into a pile of blood as the effects wear off.

A cloud comes over the trade caravan, and your broker decides to be a good guy and give away your stuff.

[Sus]

Say a siege comes, and your military rushes out to fight, when suddenly a cloud rolls over, and both the siege and your military start laying around in the grass, forced into lackadaisical moods. When the effect wears off, any advantage you had by positioning or otherwise is gone, as your dwarves and the goblins rolled around in the grass, jumbling up into a random assortment of creatures, suddenly exploding into a pile of blood as the effects wear off.

Or, say...
"Phew, that Titan is finally almost finished..."
> It is raining invigorating elixir!
"FFFFFFUUUUUUUU..."

P.S. Watsst, the frowny face is mostly ironic. 

[Radiant_Phoenix]

Having wandered over to take a look at the (old) design goals, it appears [GOOD] and [EVIL] regions (and possibly [SAVAGE] and [BENIGN] as well) are supposed to be replaced with [SPHERE:*] at some point.

When this happens, I would presume that the 'easy' regions would be those that have either little alignment at all, or those with spheres your individual play style gets along with -- e.g., if you tend to make a big, active military, a strong [SPHERE:WAR] alignment region should make that easier, and with it your game, but if you don't make much of a military at all, the local sites would be more likely to crush you with armies than normal.

Thus, for a more difficult game, try to kill diplomats in a [SPHERE:HOSPITALITY] region, or declare war on a [SPHERE:VICTORY] region, but if you want an easier game, do that in a [SPHERE:MURDER] or on a [SPHERE:SUICIDE] region, respectively.