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Author Topic: Arrange Dwarves by family on the unit list. (especially for pre existing family)  (Read 722 times)

Truean

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I imagine family is a pretty big part of a dwarf's life before something horrible ends it.

I've got a fort with 186 little guys running around and no real way to tell who is related to who. Sure I can go to the units menu but then that would mean sifting through 186 different entries and cross checking to make sure....

Why do this? Housing arrangements, etc. Extended clan housing sounds dwarven to me. Unless of course there's another way to do this already and I just don't know about it.

thanks for your time,
Truean
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GreatWyrmGold

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First off, how would this arrangement be? Especially with the new historical migrants, I get migrants who are cousins or second cousins or uncles or grandparents or whatever of each other. It would be even worse if two distantly-related groups had a mutual relative migrate in.

Second off, I personally find arrangement by profession to be very useful. I know there are some situations in which it would be useful to know who all is in a family unit, but there are better ways to do it (such as a family tree you can view from the dwarf's v-z screen) than messing up the units screen.
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kaenneth

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I nickname children with a short form of the mothers name.

So, in my current fort the children of my first Mayoress, are M1, M2, and M3

'Bedazzler' my legendary gemcutter/setter has children nicknamed B1, B2, B3, B4, B5, B6, B7, B8, B9, B10, B11, B12, B13, B14, B15, B16, and B17. (with their own beds/dining/etc near their mother/father)

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Truean

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First off, how would this arrangement be? Especially with the new historical migrants, I get migrants who are cousins or second cousins or uncles or grandparents or whatever of each other. It would be even worse if two distantly-related groups had a mutual relative migrate in.

Second off, I personally find arrangement by profession to be very useful. I know there are some situations in which it would be useful to know who all is in a family unit, but there are better ways to do it (such as a family tree you can view from the dwarf's v-z screen) than messing up the units screen.

I dunno, maybe I'm too used to excel spreadsheets where you can sort by column. Basically it would rock if you could switch between having them organized by profession or by family. Would be interesting if you could some how easily export an excel file of your dwarves basic information on this level.

It would simply work by having all the people in one family tree be listed together on the list, followed by the next family tree and so forth. Think of each family tree as a profession category as the dwarves are grouped in now.

I nickname children with a short form of the mothers name.

So, in my current fort the children of my first Mayoress, are M1, M2, and M3

'Bedazzler' my legendary gemcutter/setter has children nicknamed B1, B2, B3, B4, B5, B6, B7, B8, B9, B10, B11, B12, B13, B14, B15, B16, and B17. (with their own beds/dining/etc near their mother/father)



This actually might make some sense. Thanks.
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Current Spare Time Fiction Project: (C) 2010 http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=63660.0
Disclaimer: I never take cases online for ethical reasons. If you require an attorney; you need to find one licensed to practice in your jurisdiction. Never take anything online as legal advice, because each case is different and one size does not fit all. Wants nothing at all to do with law.

Please don't quote me.

GreatWyrmGold

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First off, how would this arrangement be? Especially with the new historical migrants, I get migrants who are cousins or second cousins or uncles or grandparents or whatever of each other. It would be even worse if two distantly-related groups had a mutual relative migrate in.

Second off, I personally find arrangement by profession to be very useful. I know there are some situations in which it would be useful to know who all is in a family unit, but there are better ways to do it (such as a family tree you can view from the dwarf's v-z screen) than messing up the units screen.

I dunno, maybe I'm too used to excel spreadsheets where you can sort by column. Basically it would rock if you could switch between having them organized by profession or by family. Would be interesting if you could some how easily export an excel file of your dwarves basic information on this level.
I'd be interested to hear what all you would put on the spreadsheet, but that seems off-topic.

Quote
It would simply work by having all the people in one family tree be listed together on the list, followed by the next family tree and so forth. Think of each family tree as a profession category as the dwarves are grouped in now.
Alright...that doesn't seem helpful. After all, about all dwarves except the Starting Seven are related, thanks to them being descended from a small(ish?) number of dwarves from the start of wordgen. In addition, the units screen wouldn't be able to say how they're all related with the idea you're saying. Maybe if somewhere it had a little note next to each dwarf's name that said the relationship with the highlighted dwarf...

Quote
I nickname children with a short form of the mothers name.

So, in my current fort the children of my first Mayoress, are M1, M2, and M3

'Bedazzler' my legendary gemcutter/setter has children nicknamed B1, B2, B3, B4, B5, B6, B7, B8, B9, B10, B11, B12, B13, B14, B15, B16, and B17. (with their own beds/dining/etc near their mother/father)
This actually might make some sense. Thanks.
Bluntly put, auto-assigning nicknames is about as good of an idea as auto-doing anything that requires player control to make sense.

Again, what we need is some kind of separate function to display relatonships. Changing up the unit screen isn't the way to do it.
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Torrasque666

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Or....crazy idea, i know, but why not create "clans" out of the family and restrict them all to a burrow near their work areas. Only allow those dwarves to use the workshops and eventually all of them will be of a similar profession, enough at least so that they are located near each other in the nits screen.
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You seem to be under the impression that we're playing some game other than dwarf fortress. It doesn't matter how powerful you make a creature, we will find a way to destroy it. God is dead, and Urist killed him.

Truean

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GreatWyrmGold and Torrasque seem to have fairly valid points actually. Only problme with Torrasque's idea is we don't know who the family is easily. As for a separate relationship function, that'd work too.

The issue to me, however you solve it, is how to find out who is related in some meaningful and easy way. The reason is that it seems relevant and interesting to game design. Much as floor after floor of hallways full of beds work, it just seems they're missing something to me. Years upon years; you'd think they'd want some association with ... something? If nothing else it makes for more interesting housing setups.
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The kinda human wreckage that you love

Current Spare Time Fiction Project: (C) 2010 http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=63660.0
Disclaimer: I never take cases online for ethical reasons. If you require an attorney; you need to find one licensed to practice in your jurisdiction. Never take anything online as legal advice, because each case is different and one size does not fit all. Wants nothing at all to do with law.

Please don't quote me.

GreatWyrmGold

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Torrasque was suggesting something you can do now, namely give dwarves in a family one job grouping (e.g. the Greenhilt family are all smiths, the Redcloak family are all miners, the Thundershield family are all engineers, etc).

I agree, some better system is needed for family relationships. I think a "family" screen, displaying a family tree, from which you can view the relatives, would be good. Bonus points if you can view the legends screen of various ancestors, especially if there was some way to tell, just by looking at the tree, that Urist Daggerchannel was special somehow (like having dozens of elf and goblin kills or being the general or something).
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