Thought I'd pitch in with some input on the recent versions, aka, time to enrage people with my 'extreme' views and overblown ideas! YAY!
~ Nymphs, Monkeys (all their various incarnations), Parrots, Leprechauns, etc etc, absolutely need to be flagged as 'hostile animals' for turrets/guard animals. I have nymphs walk past entire legions of guard animals, ignoring them entirely, run inside my fort, grab an item, then run out untouched with a mithril or similar item, while defenses and guard animals ignore them entirely. Trying to catch them with military is a feat in futility, especially Nymphs, who are INCREDIBLY fast and practically impossible to corner before they escape. I understand the need for thieves and similar to punish people being 'lazy' for protecting their precious items, but this is just irritating to no extent. Almost as bad as when you embark, hit u to see what's on the map... and see 12+ monkeys swarming your wagon and attacking everything in sight. >.>...
~ Harder farming, seems still, too easy. Underground feels right for the time it takes, but above ground I'm noticing fields growing in 1 month rather than 2, and even at 2 months, 5 fields above ground supplies 140+ dwarves with an over abundance of food, no need for honey, meat, cheese, gathering, hunting, or fishing at all. You can argue 'use less farms then!' - but 5 fields is not really a lot for such a size fort. I'm not sure if it's possible, but perhaps add some kind of limiter to 'harder farming' that limits the amount of 'farm plots' (counted by square-size) allowed on a map. I know this suggestion is futile, as many will just say 'don't make so many then to make it hard!' - not the point I'm trying to make.
~ Less Solid Stone. This setting causes Chalk, a valuable flux, to 'melt' when dug making an embark with it on and with chalk, absolutely horrible. I don't see the reason to make chalk vanish, when it's a flux? An oversight? Unless this was fixed in 3.0, but I read no notes about it.
~ Warlocks, like has been said, are WAY too strong in their new incarnation. Their decay spell is absurd and impossible to counter act, their bone armor and general nastiness from spells/raising dead makes them not a challenge, but a giant, horrendous pain in the side that can't really be countered barring just locking your doors and waiting them out. I THINK if the 'decay' aspect was removed, they would be just right for difficulty - definitely some nasty customers, but not a giant annoyance that makes you turn them off to avoid silly deaths you can do little about.
~ Did I mention, I HATE NYMPHS?! Rargh!
Time for some positive feedback/suggestions on current, and upcoming additions.
~ The addition of 'wall destroying/climbing' siegers, is EXTREMELY needed. As I discussed before (and got ranted at for discussing it...), walls make you practically invulnerable with some form if ingenuity and engineering. A simple 1 deep wall around the edge of your map negates sieges entirely. Many argue to not do this, yet even with a simple barrow and a 'fort' in the middle of my map to hide my dwarves in, walls still, give that same invulnerability. This future addition/change depending on how it's done, should really throw the game on its head and make people have to think how to protect themselves more actively instead of relying on passive defenses, while still useful, will not be 'god mode' so to say. Especially so if its possible to make material of walls and such, account for how quickly damage is done. Wood walls obviously, are flammable and should easily be crumbled, yet walls of Candy, should be near indestructible (who has enough candy to build their entire wall system out of, though?!
).
~ The additional possibility of internal threats from corpses, diseases, etc, is a very intriguing addition. I've always found that survival by 'forsaking the outside world' too simple. You don't NEED caravans for anything, and once you have a few migrant waves, just breed the rest inside sealing yourself from the world beyond, and unless you intentionally breach hell or similar, you're practically playing a dwarf sim. Mind you, this is a bit extreme as yes, you can argue you shouldn't lock yourself away - but even with sieges, you really never think 'is my fort inside well defended with traps, doors, and such, just in case those warlocks raise my crypt against me?
~ The talk of a 'secret' that can spread vampirism and similar sounds horrifyingly overpowered, yet... actually could be INCREDIBLY beneficial. Think about it. With the fix (I assume it's fixed? Haven't had a vamp yet - but read a patch note on it) so vampires can drink booze and not have the 'slow down'... imagine your entire fort of vampires? They don't sleep, they don't eat, they're tough as hell, fast as hell, super efficient military. Of course, they would likely try to eat caravans - but lock your 'mayor' away before the vampirism gets him, and have a 'feeding hole' to feed him, and have an airlock system to allow vampires to haul to/from the depot, but never touch your mayor so he can peacefully talk to diplomats without making them a munchie. Whalla. Super efficient vampire fort of doom.
Don't get me wrong - this sounds like a very fun little challenge to try, and there may be some negative I can't see yet. Has anyone tried this by classic means since the fix? Killing a vampire in a well so his blood taints it, then forcing dwarves to drink it? As I recall, the only issue was the slow down due to not drinking booze, if that's fixed... *strokes chin* I got a fun stream to do.
Either way, I'm very excited to see the break through with dfhack allowing so much more to be done, and can't wait to see what is added! If I'm not gonna get my head ripped off by people (and meph!) - I might try to pitch in more ideas now that more is possible (still not sure where the limit lies, though).
P.S.
What happened to the 'men'? Ink Men, Leaf Men, Sweat men, a friend was talking about a tale of horror playing MW and an inkman wiping him out, and I realized - I haven't seen any of them in over 30 embarks for a good, long while now... I assume they got removed?
P.S.S
Can Evil/good biomes finally be altered now? I remember talk of evil/good caverns, races that spawned specifically from such environments, and many other 'unpleasant or wonderful' events that was planned, but couldn't be done... can they be done now? (yes, vague, more so speaking to Meph