One makes you hypothermic from bathing in it and one is pleasant to bathe in...seriously, use your head.
I meant gameplay wise. As it is, dwarves' settlements don't need heating. Perhaps washin oneself with warm water would give positive thought.
Yes. It would be a good excuse to make temperature affect happiness - a dwarf wearing a XXpig tail loinclothXX outside in winter would get miserable, wading through a near-freezing pond is also bad, etc.
Even better make temperature affect health. Illnesses + many possible treatments = fun.
I know -extreme cold- degrades clothing and causes frostbite, because of a series of increasingly disastrous creature tests I once did (oh no, my flaming creature keeps melting its non-flaming minions! let's make the non-flaming minions absolute zero so they don't melt! oh wait, they're giving the flaming master creature frostbite!). Diverse illnesses for cold would be better, though! Cold could eventually cause hypothermia, and being too cold for too long could weaken your immune system (when we get real colds and diseases), and going for a swim and then out on the tundra would lead to "Urist McLuxuriousbeard's beard is frozen solid", making it likely to snap off.
+1
Most elf descriptions, not exactly sure about DFs, include an affinity for magic in them, for the pointy eared tree huggers. Maybe the elfs could turn the spring into a magic fountain for unwary visitors to sip from. Gain Hill Giant strength. Or toss on undead, to turn them away.
I like Goomba's idea about tectonic plates during worldgen. There is a lake in Russia, that is getting deeper and deeper, as the plates gradually move apart. An inch a month or so, I believe I read somewhere. Could have been the coastline increasing. Cannot remember, its in a query for deepest lakes on earth. This represented during worldgen, could improve the marshes and swamplands, considerably. It would brings a whole new meaning to the idea of quicksand. Or tar pit. I can see these developing as a result of the inclusion of tectonics.
I also like how certain entities must require them to setup a foundation for civilization growth. I cannot see a merfolk civ lasting very long without a warm spring, especially in the winter months.
Elves could have purity magic but it depends on Toady's magic implementation. I think everyone should have more belief-based magic: anything from the forest is a great spiritual focus for elves, but only because they believe in the power of the forest (so nobody else has to use cheesy elven +feather wood amulets+ to cast magic missile, especially because they probably all sport cheesy slogans like "4:20 EVERY DAY".), so hot spring water is "powerfully magic". I'd also like "apathetic" or "skeptical" individuals to have a much harder time with magic, because they don't really think it's possible. (Dwarves would believe in complicated rituals, runes and reagents, humans would probably be the stereotypical book mages, goblins would probably need blood for their spells, kobolds would arrange stolen -gabbro mugs- into powerful magic circles that gain power the more crap is put into them...)
For tectonics, we could just have erosion take place in worldgen and start from there. Mountains wear down over time, eventually (after a LONG time!! geology is slow). Volcanoes gradually spread and solidify, so a new volcano springs up next to the old one as the old volcano eventually solidifies shut and collapses. Mountains will rise and crumble in more volcanic regions, which could "move" around (in real life it's the plates that move over the mostly stationary regions, but that requires real plates). It's hard to implement but adding a bit of erosion and a bit more excitement is exciting. And forget that lake (Lake Baikal? I only know one Russian lake), Iceland is where it's at. When I went there, we visited Žingvellir, which is one of the many places in the country on the geological boundary between North America and Europe. There's a trench filled with water that runs through almost the entire country where the plates move, I tossed 10 kronur into it. I expect they have to rebuild the bridges over it every few centuries, word is that the country grows as fast as your fingernails.
And yes, I'd like to see civs get less static about expansion and maybe have more types of small settlement - hamlets are pretty boring. Rivers are more safe to expand in, but towns should grow from little outposts and the survival chance of that outpost should depend on the savagery, nearby lairs, temperature (desert civ makes tundra outpost, entire expedition found dead with tongues stuck to flagpoles), and more (food availability, proximity to hostile sites...). It should be a challenge, so that the entire map with savagery below x on rivers doesn't fill up with hamlets upon hamlets.
I got a good chuckle from this title. leaving a fort
I don't get it