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[kiba]

Wouldn't it be great if a dwarf get excited for joining a very famous squad? For example, a squad that is prediomintely known for slaying monsters or single handley repelling a siege? I have a 3 units squad that did this.

Or you could get different thought or mood based on the squad he joined. For example, if a squad is known for brutal casualty rate, the dwarf that got recruited will think  "Dreaded being on the squad roster due to its reputation as cannon fodder". IF a squad have a really high survival rate despite being sent into the battle, the dwarf will think "feels lucky for joining this squad". However if a squad never involves itself into battle, the dwarf might think "angry for being so close to adventure but not touching it" or "is relieved to know that this squad will be the last to join the battle" based on his personality.

[sakkari]

I like the idea, sounds simple as it is, but what if the the same squad that repelled a siege lost all, but one; or is very mixed in how it performs?

[kiba]

I like the idea, sounds simple as it is, but what if the the same squad that repelled a siege lost all, but one; or is very mixed in how it performs?

Probably requires a bit more coding. For example, the weaker members will be unhappy as being the token red shirt or cannon fodder for the squad's more famous/legendary members due to their propensity for being killed first in battle.

If it's a mixed performance overall, it's probably get labeled as heroic death squad. Dwarves that don't mind dying while achieving glory might like this very much but dwarves who love life will be seriously unhappy.

Additional, the reputation of the squad will probably change due to changing roster and time. For example, a squad that repel an invasion ten years ago but haven't made any other significant contribution will regarded as closer to nobody rather than a heroric squad.

[GreatWyrmGold]

An important first step would be getting people to properly have fame. Then squads, gangs, etc, can use a similar mechanic.

[Itsdavyjones]

An important first step would be getting people to properly have fame. Then squads, gangs, etc, can use a similar mechanic.

For sure, but the idea is quite nice.

[FrankyPlaysGames]

Perhaps if a soldier is in a squad that hasn't really done well (like 4 deaths) they get a bad thought or something, BUT if the squad's "fame" increases while that soldier (as well as the rest of the squad) gets a happy thought like "Brought the squad to newfound glory." This can work the other way around, of course. "Gave the squad a bad reputation."

[kiba]

If a battle went particularly well for a squad, or for an entire army, there would be a commemoration on site noting their victory, like what the Thebes did at the end of the Battle of Leuctra. They built a tall tower to tell the world that they defeated the spartians.

You could even have commemoration for last stands that does pretty damn well like the Battle of Thermopylae. So you could have the famed 300 dwarves that reduced the entire globin army by half before dying, allowing the dwarven army to strike back and conquer the globins. Plus, the dwarves who die in combat might be buried on the spot of the battlefield.

So dying in battle doesn't mean your squad will be dishonored, especially if your performance is so good.

[DG]

I like this. Good idea, Kiba.

[Sheb]

It would be nice to be able to engrave slabs in memory of event and not only dwarves.

[Owlbread]

As a placeholder for a future fame mechanic that could be applied to both individuals and groups, this would work really well and I support it. This is more like a "squad reputation" mechanic anyway rather than fame. Perhaps depending on the dwarf's personality (if he's lazy, scared of fighting or otherwise doesn't want to fight) he could gain happy thoughts if he's stationed to a squad that has a reputation for sitting around doing nothing. If, however, he's itching to meet his foes on the battlefield, this will give him bad thoughts. The same principle would be applied to a squad that is known for seeing action regularly and so forth.

I also suggest that "heroic death" squads gain their reputation from gloriously or (optionally) successfully repelling the enemy in suicide missions in which all/many/the majority of their members are killed.

[Kipi]

I think this is a good suggestion. Here is how I see it could work.

*FAKE EDIT*:
Okay, this post became a wall of text. Sorry about that... 

*REAL EDIT*:
Yeah, I wrote this text after I took my daily meds, which basically make my brain work twice as efficiently. This usually means my hands can't stay up with my head, so there may be some confusion caused by my brain changing the course of idea before my hand were able to react. So, double sorry... 


Squad Fame

Each squad squad should have a fame value that is linked to the specific squad. Best option would be to link the fame to the name of the squad, which can not be changed after the squad has been assembled.

Now, in my opinion, the squad fame should be divided in several categories; number of dwarves in the squad that has been killed in battle, number of creatures the squad has killed, fame of dwarves in squad (alive dwarves), quality of weapons and armor and the general efficiency of the squad.

The first part, dead dwarves, is the easy one. As the amount of dead dwarves increases, the less likely it would be that new dwarves are willing to join the squad.

The number of creatures killed by the squad should take into account the type of creatures as well. For example, a forgotten beast would give a better bonus to this value than single badger.

The fame of the squad members should also be calculated separately. Lets say that the squad has five dwarves who are legendary veterans and have slaughtered dozens of forgotten beasts, goblins, trolls and so on? Who wouldn't like to join such squad?

The equipment quality is also a thing that should be taken into account. If the squad is known to be assigned to best equipment available, any new recruits would like to join the squad.

Finally, the general efficiency. As the squad goes through the waves of enemies, this value should be calculated by using the kill/death ration as a factor. This value should also put more weight on the most recent events. For example, lets say that the squad has has kill/death ratio around 1 (50 kills and 50 dead dwarves). If the deaths of dwarves are concentrated more on the early stages, the efficiency value would be better than if the most recent fights have resulted more dead dwarves than dead enemies.

Soldier Fame

This value is calculated for each dwarf, and should be stored even if the squad doesn't exists anymore or the said dwarf is already dead.

First important factor for soldier fame is the number of enemies he/she has killed. Of course, just like in squad fame, the type of creatures should also affect the value. After all, a forgotten beast should be regarded more highly than a single kea. It should also take into account the amount of years the dwarf has served in military. A dwarf that has served only a year should have better fame than a dwarf with longer service time if both of them have same killed creature value. This could be calculated by determining the value of killed creatures and the adding the same value divided by the years. For example, two dwarves have the value of killed creatures 100. First dwarf has served in military only one year, which means his/her total value is 100+100/1=200. Second dwarf has served in military ten years, but has mostly been inactive and hasn't taken part into fights, thus having the value 100+100/10=110. This would encourage the player to use the most seasoned veterans more often just to prevent their fame ratings dropping down.

Now, the length of service should also affect the fame by itself. After all, if dwarf has a long service history, it means that he/she is doing something right to be able to survive that long. The length of service, which also affects the fame boost of killed creatures, should take into account only the time the soldier has been in squad that is not set to be inactive. The fame boost from service time per year should be low enough to not compensate the penalty it gives boost from killed creatures.

Another thing the game should track down is the skills of the dwarf. Of course, only the skills that relates to equipment (if possible) should be taken into account. After all, a dwarf should be rated better in the eyes of other squad members if he/she is skilled compared to a dwarf that has no skills.

Also, the behavior of specific dwarf should affect the fame of said dwarf. If, for example, a certain dwarf is always drinking/eating/sleeping/on break/partying when the orders are given, the dwarf should gradually get lower. At first this reduction should be a minor one, basically not affecting the overall fame much, but as time passes and the dwarf continues to fail to follow the orders, the reduction should get bigger and bigger.

Thoughts and Fame

So, how should the different fame values affect to the thoughts of dwarves? In principle, a dwarf should always get a negative thought if he/she is assigned to squad with bad (negative?) fame. In contrast, if the squad has very high fame rating, the dwarf should get happy thoughts for being assigned to such a famous squad.

There are always some gray areas in squad fame and thoughts. I take an example from a book series The Malazan Book of The Fallen, written by Steven Erikson. In the series there is a squad known as Bridgeburners. They are feared and respected and everybody would like to have them as allies. They have very high fame as they are known to be able to pull out things and acts that nobody else could do or even dared to try. Some of the most famed soldiers in Malazan empire have served in the Bridgeburners. But even when they are highly regarded, nobody sane enough would like that squad. Why? Because the mortality rate. Being assigned to Bridgeburners is basically a death sentence, though some soldiers were able to survive up to the point when the squad was dispanded.

So, how does this relate to DF and this suggestion? Here is the point when the different categories of squad fame comes to play. A squad may have very high fame in every other aspect but normal soldier wouldn't want to join the squad, causing a very bad thought if done. Green soldiers (soldiers with no fight experience and only low skill levels) could disregard the mortality rate of the squad and be eager to join just to be able to prove themselves. Also, a dwarf that has certain mental traits (low social awareness, for example) or preferences (likes to take risks, is adventurous or has low cautiousness value, for example) would be more than eager to join such squad. And, of course, a dwarf who doesn't care anything anymore shouldn't get negative thoughts for being assigned to such squad, though some minor happy thoughts should still be possible. On the other hand, every "normal" sane dwarf with some combat experience and moderate (or higher) skills should always get a major bad thought when being assigned to the squad. And, of course, if the dwarf is removed from the squad, the reverse thoughts should be gained (a dwarf that was eager to join a dangerous squad should get a negative thought and a dwarf who never wanted to be in the squad would get a major happy though for being moved away from a dangerous squad).

Now, after the dwarf has assigned to a squad, the performance of said squad should also affect the thoughts of a dwarf. If a squad is performing badly, like lots of deaths and not many kills, since joining the squad, the dwarf would get bad thoughts for squad being not fulfilling the expectations of the said dwarf. On the other hand, if the performance of the squad is good, a dwarf should get happy thoughts. If the squad becomes legendary, due passing certain fame threshold, the dwarves in the squad would get major happy thought. And, if the squad becomes infamous (negative fame), there will be a major negative thought.

The fame of other soldiers in the squad should also give different thoughts. First of all, if the average fame level is high enough, a new dwarf should get a happy though for being assigned to squad. The value of such thought should be related to the average fame, meaning a better boost in happiness if the average fame is higher. On the other hand, if the average fame is low enough, possibly even negative, result would be a bad thought.

Secondly, if one (or more) member of the squad is very famous (fame being above certain limit), there would be a major happy thought. If there is more than one famous soldier, the value of thought is higher. And, just like average fame, if there is a very infamous dwarf in squad, the new soldier would get a bad thought.

The fame of the killed dwarf should also affect a thoughts of other dwarves. If a very famous soldier dies, rest of the squad members would get major bad thought. If the killed dwarf is infamous, the thought would be very minor or even cause no bad thoughts. In extreme case, a death of infamous soldier could give other squad members a minor happy thought (they were happy to see that lazy dwarf finally getting what he/she deserved). If a dwarf witnesses the death of famous soldier, the resulting bad thought would be even higher. If the dwarf was from the same squad, the bad thought could be close to be enough to turn the dwarf very unhappy. This also applies to the situation where player manually removes a soldier from squad; the removal of famous soldier would cause bad thoughts while infamous ones even happy thoughts.

Now, how should a squad members react to new recruit(s)? If the new dwarf is famous or has combat experience and at least moderate skills, they would get a minor happy thought, depending on the fame of the squad and the recent performance of the said squad. The higher the squad fame is, the better or more famous the new dwarf has to be to result the happy thought. If the new dwarf is very famous, the result would be major happy thought. On the other hand, infamous or unskilled recruit should cause a bad thought, depending on the recruit and the fame of the squad. The members of famous squad shouldn't like to have another green soldier among them, unless there are some relations in play. Also, not depending on the squad fame, a very famous soldier should always get at least minor bad thought when a green or infamous soldier joins the squad as well as novice and more or less unknown soldiers should get a major happy thought if seasoned veteran was assigned to the squad.

Squad Leader

Squad leader is a special case where more things should be taken into account. A famous leader could lower the penalty of caused by squad being considered as dangerous, with very famous leader this penalty could even be negated completely. On the other hand, if the leader is infamous, there should be penalty to the thoughts caused by the squad fame for new soldiers.

If the killed dwarf is the squad leader, there should be bonus or penalty to the thoughts caused by the death. A famous squad leader being killed should give even worse bad thought than normal soldier does, while a very infamous squad leader should give even better happy thought compared to the death of very infamous soldier.

The fame of squad leader is specific for each dwarf, which is carried over even when the said dwarf is moved to other squads. It should also be separated from the general fame of the dwarf, since a good soldier may be a bad leader. The leader fame should be calculated by the performance of the squad while the said dwarf was in charge, mostly by using the time the dwarf was in the position and kill/death ratio of the squad during that time. This is calculated by taking the start fame of the squad (from the moment the dwarf was appointed as the leader), the end fame (from the moment the dwarf was removed from the position) and divided by the time he/she was in charge. The result value is then added to leader fame of the specific dwarf.

So, besides affecting to new recruits, how does this affect the thoughts of squad members? First of all, if a dwarf with high leader fame gets assigned to squad leader, the rest of the squad will get happy thought. The leader fame and the current squad fame should both taken into account when determining the value of thought, of course. A very famous squad shouldn't get as good happy thoughts than normal, more or less unknown, squad does. On the other hand, if the leader is infamous, there would be unhappy thoughts.

To make things a bit more complex, if the famous leader has basically no combat experience, the resulting thoughts should be bad instead. This would simulated the situation where the soldiers are complaining that they got a leader who is just trying to climb the political hierarchy ladders by being assigned to "easy" positions, being most probably just a loose weight when/if a real situation comes up.

The leader fame should also have a wider impact. If the majority of the leaders the specific squad has had have been infamous, the less likely anybody would like to join the squad, even if the current leader isn't infamous. On the other hand, if the squad has a history of famous leaders, the dwarves would be more willing to join the squad. If the current leader is infamous, the penalty should be far greater than a famous leader brings to infamous squad.

Leaders and Revolts

To make things more interesting, a infamous leader could make the squad members to revolt, though not immediately unless the new leader is very infamous. This chance of revolt should also be related to the personalities of the soldiers, certain type of dwarves being more prone to revolt than others. When the revolt occurs, there are three different things that can happen:

• The leader is overthrown from the position, replaced by the most famous soldier in the squad.
• The leader is murdered by the soldiers and the most famous soldier becomes the new leader.
• The revolting soldiers just leave the squad.

The revolt occurs when at least one dwarf get annoyed enough to the current leader. When this happens, every other soldier must decide whether they join the revolt, stay neutral or are against it. This is determined immediately and there is no return once done. The personality of the dwarf is the key factor, though the fame of the leader has a slight affection as well as the fame of the soldier. A famous soldier is less prone to revolt than unknown soldiers. The revolt will also cause the fame of the soldiers that take part in it to sink, in all cases (except those who are basically legendary heroes) to become infamous. The squad fame will also sink, after all nobody wants to join a squad that is known to lack discipline. If the leader survives, he/she gets a major penalty to leader fame as well.

Besides the fame penalties, a revolt is also considered as crime. If the leader is overthrown, and survives, the dwarves that took part in the revolt gets punished. The dwarf who was the trigger of the revolt will get a major punishment, like beating or very long jail time, while rest of the revolters will just have to spend some time in jail. If the same dwarf (or dwarves) are part of more revolts than just one, the punishment gets more severe each time.

If the revolters leave the squad, they are considered as deserters. The punishment is a bit worse than in overthrow, the leader of revolt being always sentenced to beating while others have only a slight chance to that. In principle, the beatings shouldn't be so bad that the punished dwarf dies to it, unless they have taken part in several revolts.

If the leader is murdered, the dwarf who triggered the revolt is always beaten to death. The others will also receive a beating, though they should survive from it. Of course, if there has been several revolts by those dwarves, every one of them should die to beatings.

The difference between neutral soldiers and soldiers that oppose the revolt is that only the opposing dwarves will report the crime. Neutral dwarves are just that, they don't take either side.

• If the leader is overthrown, and nobody reports the crime, the dwarf who replaces the former leader is accused. In this case the game will wait for player input before carrying out the justice, allowing the player either ignore it completely or change the dwarf who will be punished. The dwarf who ends up to be sentenced receives the punishment of participant (not the leader of revolt), but reduced. It could be that, if the dwarf who is going to be punished, is considered neutral, he/she will report the true criminals to avoid the punishment.
• In case of desertion, each deserting soldier will be punished. If there is more than one who deserts, and nobody makes the report, then each deserter receives the normal punishment and nobody is declared as the leader of revolt. If only one dwarf leaves the squad, he/she will be treated as the leader of revolt in terms of punishment.
• If the infamous leader is murdered, there are two different cases; one of the soldiers reports the crime or a civilian is witnessing it and makes the report. If the only accusation is made by civilian, then the murderer is treated like normal dwarf in case of murder crime. If one of the soldiers makes the report, then the punishment is dealt as described earlier. If nobody reports, then nobody gets punished. In that case, the fame of each soldier sinks considerably, though not as much as if they were found guilty. Same applies to squad fame. If the penalty causes the fame of one of the neutral soldiers to drop too low, perhaps making him/her infamous, the soldier may step up and make the report. This chance should be affected by the fame of the revolting dwarves, personality of the neutral dwarf and possible relationships.

To make things even more interesting, it could be possible that a soldier doesn't report every dwarf who took part in the revolt, basing on the fame. Perhaps they could think that "Okay, he took part in the revolt, but he is so famous that perhaps I could just forget his part in all of this".

Of course, if a soldiers is famous enough, the punishment could be reduced from the standard. In extreme case, where soldier is considered as local hero, he/she could avoid the punishment completely, though only once. This could help to avoid the situations where player accidentally assigns a very bad squad leader, resulting one of the legendary soldiers getting killed (or crippled so badly to become completely useless).

Fame and Civilians

Just like dwarves get happy thoughts from talking to friends/relatives, a dwarf should also get a happy though when speaking to famous soldier. The more famous soldier, the better happy thought. Also, this could be extended to take the squad fame into account as well, though in that case it should be either one or other. Perhaps the game could compare the personal fame and squad fame, choose the higher one and base the happy thought to that. Of course, personal fame should result better thoughts.

Also, if a civilian was rescued by famous soldier, there should be a happy thought that is better than if normal dwarf would do the same thing. After all, who wouldn't prefer to be rescued by famous hero?

There could also be a minor bad thought if a famous squad was disbanded. How bad the thought is could be related to the fame of the squad, the mental traits of the said civilian as well as the preferences.

[GreatWyrmGold]

That is a lot, but it's no Wall of Text. A WoT is when there's no big divisions.

Looks like a good idea, but I only read through the first section thoroughly.

[Adrian]

This entire idea is brilliant.

But it does raise me the question of how a squad's performance should be measured.
Would the brutal mathematics of kill/death ratio suffice?
And should a squad of redshirts receive more fame for killing a FB than a squad of legends?
Should a soldier missing an eye and an arm become more famous than a unharmed soldier for killing the same creature?
Should the entire squad become famous if a one Urist singlehandedly killed a FB?
What if only one or two Urists are doing any work and the rest of the squad are couch potatoes?

[Kipi]

Would the brutal mathematics of kill/death ratio suffice?

No, there are other factors that should be considered, though the kill/death ration is the major one. For example, injuring the enemy enough to make it flee should also be considered. While the enemy wasn't exactly killed, the squad performed well enough to make the creature flee.

Another thing that should be considered is the amount of times the squad actually took part into fight. Each fight that at least one squad member took part in should be considered as one, each ambush, siege and thief being counted separately. In other words, even if the squad is toggled multiple times between active and inactive during the siege it's still counted as one fight. I think the game already tracks each siege, ambush or thief as separate "event", so this shouldn't be a big change.

In case of wild animals, everything that happens between the first order given to the moment the squad has no active orders are considered as one event.

If the squad has active schedule, then everything is counted as one event, except special events (sieges, forgotten beasts, ambushes, megabeasts, thieves and so on).

These are some things I was able to think of, there could be more or the ones I mentioned could work differently than I thought.

And should a squad of redshirts receive more fame for killing a FB than a squad of legends?

Basically, yes. I didn't think about this when I wrote my previous post but surely the skills should affect the fame reward. After all, which one is more impressive feat: a squad of peasant, who have no idea which end of the spear should be towards the enemy, kills a FB or a squad of ten legendary dwarves who are strong enough to carry a platinum minecart filled with slade boulders and are tough enough to walk through hallway of upright spear traps, loaded with adamantine spikes, without getting any injuries?

Also, perhaps the equipment should also have an impact to fame gain? After all, it's a lot easier to kill a FB with adamantine battle axe than with wooden crossbow used as club. Basically, the more impressive it is, the more fame should be rewarded.

Should a soldier missing an eye and an arm become more famous than a unharmed soldier for killing the same creature?

In short: yes and no. The important question is, was the soldier injured during the fight or before? If the injuries were already there, then I would say the fight (and win) of injured dwarf is more impressive, thus should net a larger fame.

There are lots of things that could be considered when comparing injured dwarf and unharmed dwarf if the injuries are received during that specific fight. In fact, I wouldn't do a direct comparison, instead use a standard value which is affected by certain factors. How difficult the enemy is? If we are talking about some random kea, then any serious injury should reduce the fame gained. After all, it's not impressive if a dwarf gets mauled by creature that should be very easy to kill. On the other hand, very difficult opponent (FB, for example) should give a huge fame bonus if the dwarf survives unharmed. But then again, it's far more impressive if a dwarf receives almost lethal injuries, fight lasts very long time and the dwarf still survives it, when compared to a fight where the dwarf is never injured but lasts only few ticks.

In principle, everything that determines how epic the fight is should also determine the fame. Most probably the formula would be quite complex.

Should the entire squad become famous if a one Urist singlehandedly killed a FB?

Basically yes, though the fame bonus shouldn't be big. After all, the civilians are generally more aware of the deeds of whole squad instead of every single soldier. This bonus should care how many of the squad actually took part in the fight.

What if only one or two Urists are doing any work and the rest of the squad are couch potatoes?

The squad would be famous just as famous to general public as a squad which has ten evenly active soldiers. The difference would be that the first squad would have two very famous soldiers and eight unknown, even infamous, soldiers while the second squad would have ten somewhat famous soldiers.

Of course, if there are only two soldiers who actually take part in fights, those two would eventually get bad thoughts due the laziness of the rest of the squad. In time this would become quite problematic, forcing the player to take action. And almost nobody would like to join the squad, even if the squad by itself is famous and there are two heroes in it, as there are eight soldiers who are infamous. This problem can be solved by removing some or all of the infamous soldiers from the squad, which basically removes the penalty caused by the dwarf being infamous.

The revolt system could also be expanded to cover normal soldiers as well. Perhaps certain soldiers would eventually get annoyed enough to arrange "unfortunate accident" to remove a infamous soldier from the squad?

[kiba]

How about a rescue fame?

For example, 3 dwarves were caught in the open, got injured, but got rescued by a squad who mopped up the preps. Naturally, rescued thoughts will be associated with it.

If a dwarf got rescued by his father, than the dwarf will think "got rescued by papa wolf", or "got rescued by mama bear" if it's his mom.

You could have dwarves who actually think the opposite of happy about rescue squad due to his hatred of authority, or is conspiracy minded, or he got a grudge against one of the rescuer.

The more famous a rescue squad, the more suspicious some dwarves will be, although that will only be a small part of the population.(After all, what if the rescue squads like to arrive at the last minute so they can repeat rescue fame) The rest see it as simply straightfoward good deeds done.

You could have specific fame for killing kobold thieves or rescuing children from the hands of globin thieves.