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[GreatWyrmGold]

So, region X starts as a normal biome, but then a big war happens and it's a war biome? The terminology's probably off, but is that roughly the idea?

If so, there's a bunch of spheres that won't come up much.

[Manveru Taurënér]

So, region X starts as a normal biome, but then a big war happens and it's a war biome? The terminology's probably off, but is that roughly the idea?

If so, there's a bunch of spheres that won't come up much.

You could have some of them be there from the start of world gen and some have a chance of manifesting after a great event, such as for example the deity of war blessing/cursing the land after a huge battle that piqued its interest. Depending on the scale of the personality rewrite and what kind of info will be stored during world gen most spheres could be fit in with various events and the rest have events crafted for them that can randomly take place.

A man commiting suicide in a particular forest creating a suicide sphere land for example, or a bard travelling across a desert and being struck by inspiration, giving birth to both a legendary tale and a desert of song etc etc. The ones more affiliated with characteristics of the land such as mountains etc could be there from the start, motivated by the deity giving some extra detail into handcrafting that particular place and blessing it etc.

[Jake]

So, region X starts as a normal biome, but then a big war happens and it's a war biome? The terminology's probably off, but is that roughly the idea?

If so, there's a bunch of spheres that won't come up much.

Pretty much, yeah, though war is just one example. I'm sure we could mine all kinds of real-life local legends for inspiration; perhaps an avatar of the god in question was travelling through the region in disguise and either helped or hindered by someone they met there, or a particularly famous worshipper of that god had some connection to the region.

Neither do these sphere-affected areas have to be very large; they could be as small as a single building in the right circumstances. We could even tie this in with ghosts so the player had to deal with this sort of thing after choosing an embark site.

[Bulwersator]

@Balance - weaker side receives bonuses - perfect place for refugees.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Bulwersator: The problem is, DF isn't a basic RTS or whatever that can just go, "Hm, the dwarves have 17 axedwarves, 13 hammerdwarves, and 20 marksdwarves with a total attack of 210 and a total defense of 180; the goblins' troops have a total of 1,035 attack and 830 defense. The dwarves each get +80 attack and +50 defense." You'd need to figure out which side is weaker, and to be unable to fool it my having each dwarf come out one at a time to get the bonuses. You'd need to account for skill, gear quality, backup animals, and all of the hundreds of other possibilities that may affect one side or the other (dwarves can go into martial trances, necromancers can raise corpses for more soldiers, many mods add critters much more powerful than mere dwarves, etc). THEN you'd need to define the bonuses given. It's a pretty hard task.

Jake: While individual buildings, towns, temples, shrines, etc, having sphere effects sounds neat, but actual sphere-based biomes would still be a good idea. Otherwise, every embark in a forested biome would be more or less alike.

[Jake]

Jake: While individual buildings, towns, temples, shrines, etc, having sphere effects sounds neat, but actual sphere-based biomes would still be a good idea. Otherwise, every embark in a forested biome would be more or less alike.

I don't see that as necessarily a bad thing, as if the player can go out and find these special biomes easily every time they embark then the novelty's going to wear off pretty quickly. In fact, I'd add an init option to make some or all of them invisible when searching for an embark site, as well as a worldgen setting for how often they show up.

[King Mir]

Here's some ideas:

Courage, Valor: Giant, intimidating creatures, as these are the ones that get associated with courage. Also animals associated with courage, though I'm not sure which ones are. No area effects due to this sphere.

Creation: Add a purple mineral called "Primordial", that occurs in every level as veins in this biome. Primordial is a rock, average wieght, highest max-edge, and other varied properties. It has high value, because it's rare. Dwarves cannot, without magic, make other elements from this.

Depravity, Misery: Blood rains, some of the current evil effects go here.

Dreams: Fanciful creatures can be found here and only here.

Food: Only edible plants. Bigger animals tend to spawn here. More plants. Above ground food crops can grow underground.

Fortresses:I think creation time fortress biomes should be large settlements that are created and abandoned at year 0. Entities can move into these just like they can other abandoned sites. If unoccupied, they can be embarked upon.

Freedom: Locked doors don't work. raised bridges work like retracting bridges. Flood gates don't work.

Lies:
Global effects: Coffined or memorialised dwarves may come back as ghosts here. Bookkeeping works slowly here.
Interactions: Areas of darkness that spawn randomly. They are impassible, but harmless. Anyone caught inside is fine, but cannot move around. Gives bad thoughts. Fake walls that spawn randomly, and mess with path finding. Fake floors that mess with pathfinding, but any dwarf that goes on them will fall. Unlike the other two, these are dangerous.
Wildlife: In additional to normal wildlife, ghost wildlife roams the land. These aren't really ghosts, but they act like it.

Love:
Some mythic creatures and animals associated with love here.

Peace:
Mythical creatures associated with peace. These tend to be docile. Similar to current good areas.

Moon:
Ware transforming area effect. Garunteed way of becoming a ware creature. Enjoy your ware-forts.

Murder:
1 in 1000 chance that a given humanoid here will die in a given year. Nobody will settle here (except players). I wouldn't wanna stay here very long.

Salt:
All water is salty. No plantlife. No crops will grow. Rock salt is likely to be found here. Elves, dwarves, and humans won't settle here because they can't grow food. They might make tombs here, or have other sites. Bandits have no problem with it.

Silence:
You can make noise here, but it doesn't travel far. Otherwise it's hard to imagine a fort functioning without differences; nobles need to talk to work. But Noise would not carry, so you can build your bedrooms near your tree farm.

Theft: All creatures get [CANOPENDOORS]. Item not in use may magically vanish. Entities would not settle here.

Torture: Sentients get random wounds, bad thoughts. Entities would not permanently settle here, except maybe cults of Torture.

Trickery: Fey are found here. Gremlins too.

Day, Night, Twilight:
These all have perpetual time of day. This doesn't have much effect on fortress mode, except no nocturnal and diurnal animals for Day and Night biomes respectively. In adventure mode, this is a noticeable effect, particularly when entering or leaving such a zone. Bogeymen come out in night zones at all hours.

[King Mir]

Jake: While individual buildings, towns, temples, shrines, etc, having sphere effects sounds neat, but actual sphere-based biomes would still be a good idea. Otherwise, every embark in a forested biome would be more or less alike.

I don't see that as necessarily a bad thing, as if the player can go out and find these special biomes easily every time they embark then the novelty's going to wear off pretty quickly. In fact, I'd add an init option to make some or all of them invisible when searching for an embark site, as well as a worldgen setting for how often they show up.

I don't wanna embark on a site only to later find out that it has a particularly difficult area effect. Instead I wanna be able to look for the difficult effects explicitly, and embark on them as a challenge. Furthermore, the magical effects of a region should be knowable from a scouting mission. So I posit that embarking should show you what sphere and area is aligned with. In adventure mode, locals should talk about nearby sphere aligned biomes. And not so nearby ones, because magical areas like this would probably be a cause for conversation and rumor mongering.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Jake: While individual buildings, towns, temples, shrines, etc, having sphere effects sounds neat, but actual sphere-based biomes would still be a good idea. Otherwise, every embark in a forested biome would be more or less alike.

I don't see that as necessarily a bad thing, as if the player can go out and find these special biomes easily every time they embark then the novelty's going to wear off pretty quickly. In fact, I'd add an init option to make some or all of them invisible when searching for an embark site, as well as a worldgen setting for how often they show up.

I still think that there should definitely be biome-sized areas aligned with spheres. Smaller areas would be neat, too.

Jake: While individual buildings, towns, temples, shrines, etc, having sphere effects sounds neat, but actual sphere-based biomes would still be a good idea. Otherwise, every embark in a forested biome would be more or less alike.

I don't see that as necessarily a bad thing, as if the player can go out and find these special biomes easily every time they embark then the novelty's going to wear off pretty quickly. In fact, I'd add an init option to make some or all of them invisible when searching for an embark site, as well as a worldgen setting for how often they show up.

I don't wanna embark on a site only to later find out that it has a particularly difficult area effect. Instead I wanna be able to look for the difficult effects explicitly, and embark on them as a challenge. Furthermore, the magical effects of a region should be knowable from a scouting mission. So I posit that embarking should show you what sphere and area is aligned with. In adventure mode, locals should talk about nearby sphere aligned biomes. And not so nearby ones, because magical areas like this would probably be a cause for conversation and rumor mongering.

Good points and ideas. I'd like to point out that being able to locate these biomes would also be good for players who want an extra challenge.