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[Neonivek]

Somewhat stumbled upon in Dwarf Fortress but I wanted to introduce it here

Basically this suggestion is for a world gen parameter that lets you set the time between starting a new mode, new entity, or playing an old one.

So when you abandon a fortress and try to play an adventurer. Time passes a set time.

This stops certain kinds of abuse especially if the ability to play as certain entities starts to happen.

[NW_Kohaku]

How is that time set, and what kinds of abuse are we talking about, specifically?

This suggestion is fairly vague in its goals.

Personally, I would like an option to accelerate time by going back into (pseudo-)worldgen as a game feature, to let players advance time significantly if they so choose, once we get to the point where post-worldgen simulations are capable of emulating all the events of worldgen. 

That ways, I could retire a fortress, copy a save, skip forward 200 years, and compare where my civilization goes because of the changes I wrought compared to a "clean" save from before I embarked. 

Or, for that matter, I could play as a descendant of a previous adventurer.

[Neonivek]

Here is how it works.

When you generate a world you have a setting that sets the time skip everytime you start a mode, ignoring loading and legends obviously.

So if you set it for a year and start a fortress a year passes before you actually start. Then lets say your fortress is under attack and you abandon.

You start an adventurer and a year passes meaning the fortress has long since been taken.

If the game has the ability to take control of world entities (for example the commander attacking your fortress) this means you could never do it to save your fortress as there would always be a time jump.

Allowing the ability to play set entities without the temptation to skew things in your favor.

This option isn't a replacement for a time skip ability. It is there as a balance measure.

[NW_Kohaku]

I thought that the game always had a skip to the start of the nearest year, since most of the worldgen stuff takes place at the start of the year?  (Hence, starting at the next year was the minimum period of time.)

Likewise, you "submit to the siege" if you abandon in the middle of a siege, already.

What you're talking about seems to already be what's in the game, and what's planned to continue.

I was assuming you were talking about a 10-year gap minimum or something (that players couldn't adjust) to make old adventurers die of old age or something to prevent accumulation of high-level adventurers.

[Neonivek]

It does that in fortress mode but not other modes.

As well it may not be a feature that continues because it exists out of convenience.

I was assuming you were talking about a 10-year gap minimum or something (that players couldn't adjust) to make old adventurers die of old age or something to prevent accumulation of high-level adventurers

Yeah which I really am not. As well there is no issue with a large number of adventurers.

As well this would be turned "off" normally. This is something you need to go out of your way to add to your world.

[weenog]

Accelerating time by going back to pseudo-worldgen sounds like the better way to handle that, to me.

[GreatWyrmGold]

There is actually a gap of somewhere around a month between adventurers, or after worldgen but before your adventurer, or after the fall of the most recent fortress and before your adventurer.

[Neonivek]

Accelerating time by going back to pseudo-worldgen sounds like the better way to handle that, to me.

It is but the mechanic needs to be thought through.

It would need to happen when you chose to play another mode rather then when you quit.

There is actually a gap of somewhere around a month between adventurers, or after worldgen but before your adventurer, or after the fall of the most recent fortress and before your adventurer.

Right but that is because of limitations in programming rather then intentionally.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Accelerating time by going back to pseudo-worldgen sounds like the better way to handle that, to me.

It is but the mechanic needs to be thought through.
It would need to happen when you chose to play another mode rather then when you quit.

...Huh?

There is actually a gap of somewhere around a month between adventurers, or after worldgen but before your adventurer, or after the fall of the most recent fortress and before your adventurer.

Right but that is because of limitations in programming rather then intentionally.

I doubt it. Something like that doesn't seem like something that would randomly happen as a result of coding.

[weenog]

Sounds like he just wants to push for an easily exploited change, and is setting up an argument ahead of time for why it isn't just cheap easy exploitable nonsense, but he's leaving a back door and not being subtle about it at all.  An option to just continue world generation after you've already played in the world, would work fine without all this built-in tying of players' hands.  There's nothing there that needs preventing.

[NW_Kohaku]

There is actually a gap of somewhere around a month between adventurers, or after worldgen but before your adventurer, or after the fall of the most recent fortress and before your adventurer.

Right but that is because of limitations in programming rather then intentionally.

So... you're suggesting he not make a change he hasn't yet expressed any intention of making?


Also, maybe I'm the only one seeing things this way, but I'm not sure how much changing over to an army mode and "saving" your fortress from a siege (and let's be honest - when was the last time any of us was threatened in a siege?  Push comes to shove, it's not like sealed-off areas with drawbridges are hard to build,) would exactly be some sort of undesirable event. 

It would actually be rather cool to finally tie together Fortress and Adventurer mode in some way that doesn't involve the (far more exploitative) focusing an entire fortress upon making a single set of cotton candy armor for an adventurer to loot.

Also, except in the case of a siege that actually respects the notion that a fortress can completely wall itself off indefinitely, I have trouble seeing how you're going to get an army from wherever it is to a fortress in time to intervene if the siege is already there...  It would, however, be fun to play an army on the march trying to head off invaders before they hit your fortresses.  Kind of a DF version of Missile Command.

[Neonivek]

Also, maybe I'm the only one seeing things this way, but I'm not sure how much changing over to an army mode and "saving" your fortress from a siege (and let's be honest - when was the last time any of us was threatened in a siege?  Push comes to shove, it's not like sealed-off areas with drawbridges are hard to build,) would exactly be some sort of undesirable event

Well your assumption relies on Dwarf Fortress always being an incredibly easy game that has absolutely no challenge.

The undesirable effect is a mechanic that destroys that difficulty.

An "Easy out button". Which is there if the player wants it, but with this he has a way that it isn't an Easy Out button.

Which is needed because the easy out button is actually a feature and is an easy out inadvertingly.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Has no one else been incapacitated and killed by an army of unarmed kobolds by simply being outnumbered horribly?
I don't see how an adventurer could turn the tide in a siege.

[Neonivek]

Has no one else been incapacitated and killed by an army of unarmed kobolds by simply being outnumbered horribly?
I don't see how an adventurer could turn the tide in a siege.

Simple... Play that Kobold leader.

[10ebbor10]

Oh, and just as a note. Dwarf fortress is a singleplayer game. No records, no competition. Hence there's no reason to cheat.

I don't see why we should add this. If you can't play fair according to your own rules, it's your problem. Not something that needs adding a specialized feature. (The use of which can probably be counted in single digits)