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[Jheral]

One assumes it means Player vs Computer.

...or possibly polyvinyl chloride.

[Vlad]

I don't think the worlds in Dwarf Fortress are big enough for a lot of variance in tech levels since the civs aren't isolated from each other.

Knowledge should be able to spread fairly quickly from one civ to another (trading steel weapons, teaching others how to forge steel, looting steel weapons from corpses, etc.)

[skyte100]

Do it similar to how domestication works. Once you know how to make or do something that info is passed to your parent civilzation. Although I would favor limiting the initial research type of thing to just "Advanced" techniques until its fully fleshed out with new inventions and alloys(that either do or dont exist in the real world) coming later on. IE Coal Refining that allows smaller amounts of coal to be used with greater results or Steel Works that allows more refined steel to be made(either more steel for your iron or less steel for your sword or even more effective steel) progressing to clockwork mechanisms that are more advanced than current mechanics and things such as golems(side note google chrome things "golems" is  "Togolese") that operate on advanced clockwork mechanics that current dwarven technology cannot make function.

Also to the "news travels fast" type of comments, not necessarily. IE "My lord! Our caravans returned with a sword from the dwarves! It is far sharper than anything we have! They call it Steel!" So they know you have steel, they know steel is better, they know you can make it, they know you wont tell them how to make it, we know the humans are idiots, therefore humans make sad faces since the dwarves have more advanced weaponry than they do. And from there that civ would attempt to discover steel on their own, barter for the dwarven secrets, or attempt steal resulting in probable war.

No matter how it would be implemented I would recommend that technology does not progress beyond the equivalent real world Renaissance/very very very early industrial revolution. If we got into stupid advanced things then it just wouldn't be the same game. I mean as much as everyone wants to nuke the circus at least once, it would just be ridiculous.

[Vlad]

Also to the "news travels fast" type of comments, not necessarily. IE "My lord! Our caravans returned with a sword from the dwarves! It is far sharper than anything we have! They call it Steel!" So they know you have steel, they know steel is better, they know you can make it, they know you wont tell them how to make it, we know the humans are idiots, therefore humans make sad faces since the dwarves have more advanced weaponry than they do. And from there that civ would attempt to discover steel on their own, barter for the dwarven secrets, or attempt steal resulting in probable war.

I could see if a different race discovered something they might be able to keep it to themselves, but if a human civ discovered steel I think that knowledge would be able to spread to other human civs easily.

Dwarfs are also the only civ that actually isolates themselves from the rest of the world so I expect them to have advances unknown to surface dwellers.

[skyte100]

Also to the "news travels fast" type of comments, not necessarily. IE "My lord! Our caravans returned with a sword from the dwarves! It is far sharper than anything we have! They call it Steel!" So they know you have steel, they know steel is better, they know you can make it, they know you wont tell them how to make it, we know the humans are idiots, therefore humans make sad faces since the dwarves have more advanced weaponry than they do. And from there that civ would attempt to discover steel on their own, barter for the dwarven secrets, or attempt steal resulting in probable war.

I could see if a different race discovered something they might be able to keep it to themselves, but if a human civ discovered steel I think that knowledge would be able to spread to other human civs easily.

Dwarfs are also the only civ that actually isolates themselves from the rest of the world so I expect them to have advances unknown to surface dwellers.

Again not necessarily. Humans are "prone to great ambition" so depending on that civilizations "personality" they may also decide to keep their advancements secret from rivals while making a agreements with allies on it. So while elves and dwarves would be more likely to uniformly guard its secrets, humans would be widely varied if they let it out or not. Which itself would be countered by espionage and that one guy that just wont shut up about everything.

Now that a I think about it. A human diplomat or spy or something similar that is caught attempting to find those secrets would be ground for execution by hammerer. If they survive then they are beat by the fortress guards. And if they survive that then they just get locked away in a jail chain or cage until executed in a military exercise and would be treated as a "Chained Prisoner" similar to that prison wing of my current fort where I lock up all the goblins that survive invasions, ambushes, and snatches until they are needed for testing.

[Manveru Taurënér]

I think a better term to use most of the time would be technological refinement, since much of what would be applicable to gameplay would be refinement of current technology rather than advancing to a whole new level. (Mostly semantics I know, but it serves better to make sure people don't get the wrong idea and immediately think gunpowder/rifles!?! etc.) Scratch that, after reading through my own post I realized this is obviously not feasible xP

Something similar to what Brandon posted earlier sounds alright, although I'd add the limitation that you can't order your dwarves to commit to researching new stuff, but rather keep it something that happens naturally depending on the resources you have available, how much actual stuff you craft with them and the personality of the dwarf doing it. If you have a lot of metals available and craft a lot of weapons, you'd be more likely to have a particularly creative dwarf try to mix some other types of metals in, thus discovering a new alloy that might be both better or worse for the weapon in question. That way, having a creative dwarf go about experimenting could be both good or bad. Iff he actually manages to discover something useful it'd be a great boon to your fortress, but you'd also risk losing precious materials without learning anything and end up with sub-par equipment.

Balancing the whole system would of course be of utmost importance. Discovering new stuff would have to give enough of a boon to be of interest, without being so strong that you'd feel you have to maximize everything to stand a chance. This is something I'm a bit annoyed at with the current game regarding quality levels. It's faaar too easy to get max lvl craftdwarves to crank out loads of masterwork stuff that you often feel using sub-par equipment isn't worth it. It should be balanced to higher level equipment/technology is more of a subtle boon that's awesome to have, but hard to reach, thus keeping lower tier stuff still useful.

Losing technology is also an interesting prospect. For those familiar with Tolkien and The Silmarillion/The Children of Húrin we have there the "petty dwarves". Having  been banished and moving west they settled in the caves of Nargothrond (Nulukkhizdīn in their language), where they eventually lost much of their lore in smithcraft and mining, instead slowly delving to perfect the natural caverns of the area, until they were later driven out and hunted near extinction by the elves. Having some dwarf civs similar to this could provide a very different and challenging game, settling in caves or entrances to the underground, living off herbalism and slowly delving out homes for themselves. It'd also lend for a natural development of alternate human and elf civs, for example we could get mining elves similar to dark elves of many fantasy settings, living in the underground either in mined dwellings or withing "mushroom retreats".

Setting up distinct tech levels as someone suggested would be a good way to accomplish this, as you could link certain types of architecture and site alghorithms to the tech levels and civ in question (ofc mixing some randomization into it as well). One could then set it up to not be too mindboggingly confusing for new players, for example having a 1-10 lvl for each tech type, such as mining, masonry, farming, smithing, magic etc. Within each lvl there'd be a set of different available refinements, and different parameters needed to advance or decline. For example, in metallurgy or smithcraft depending on how you'd want to split it up, you could different metals and alloys being allowed for each lvl, as well as certain techniques granting higher quality lvls, less wasted materials, bonuses to certain attributes such as piercing for weapons, or arrow deflection for armor. To reach a higher lvl you'd need to know a certain amount of the sub-set of the current lvl, but not all, leaving room for civs that while highly skilled in smithing might lack the skill to work a certain metal, either due to lacking the raw materials or just bad luck. To spice things up a bit each "tech" could also grant some minor flavor text or similar to the item affected, or different graphics/colors if applicable.

It should also be balanced to that genning a longer world wouldn't automatically make civs reach higher tech lvls. The "cap" so to speak should be reachable withing the first hundred years, and after that you'd reach some overall equilibrium, with certain civs lower than they started, some higher. This should also provide ample material for lost fortresses etc containing old lore to find in adventure mode, or from fortress mode by paying mercenaries/adventurers to seek lost treasure.

It's also very important to balance the rate at which you can advance within fortress mode. It's obviously important to make sure you can advance your own civ at a decent pace by playing, and not just relying on world gen to randomly give you a maxed out civ for those inclined to seek such games. If one dedicates ones fortress to knowledge by building libraries, training a plethora of skilled craftsmen and trading with other cultures from far and wide, it should be possible to end up with your fortress as the hub of knowledge in the known world, with scholars coming from far and wide to research its vast libraries and young children being sent for tutilage from one of your many legendary craftsmen. This should be of course require a lot of hard work, and also attract A LOT of unwanted attention from various factions, but probably be one of the more rewarding end goals to reach.

Or, if you're more of the brute force type, just train the best military in the world, find the most advanced civ, then go and plunder their cities for knowledge and burn the remains ^^

[Silverionmox]

I'm against a formalized system of technological progress in Dwarf Fortress.

I think the spirit of the game is better served by focusing on quirky individuals and societies rather than putting everyone on a forced march towards the same destination, on pain of extermination.

There might be room to introduce new options/items (and those will, necessarily, not be present at the game's start and perhaps won't ever be available in a particular game), but those should be exceptional events, not a given, and the fruit of the laboriousness and cupidity, craftdwarfship and rivalry, determination and rivalry of specific individuals and groups rather than available for everyone who drags the research slider far enough to the right. Individual wizards might achieve great power, but when they eventually die, their achievements might live on, but their power does not.

I'm not against tech (Civilization is practically built around it, for example), but for this game it's a distraction rather than an enhancement.

[skyte100]

I'm against a formalized system of technological progress in Dwarf Fortress.

I think the spirit of the game is better served by focusing on quirky individuals and societies rather than putting everyone on a forced march towards the same destination, on pain of extermination.

There might be room to introduce new options/items (and those will, necessarily, not be present at the game's start and perhaps won't ever be available in a particular game), but those should be exceptional events, not a given, and the fruit of the laboriousness and cupidity, craftdwarfship and rivalry, determination and rivalry of specific individuals and groups rather than available for everyone who drags the research slider far enough to the right. Individual wizards might achieve great power, but when they eventually die, their achievements might live on, but their power does not.

I'm not against tech (Civilization is practically built around it, for example), but for this game it's a distraction rather than an enhancement.

I see your point and I see where you are coming from. But would you support it if it is has enough variety? IE the technological advancements be procedurally generated like the world is and the types of techs that are in the world depend on the worlds history and civs and can change depending on how the world is played?  So essentially no 2 worlds "tech trees" if you want to call it that(which I dont) are the same and even when 2 worlds that have many of the same technological possibilities would have the technological history play out the same.

Of course even here there would be points in my version of the idea where technology converges partially (refining techniques i mentioned achieve the same result but may differ wildly in how it is performed based solely on the availability of resources) or completely (civs with similar needs and resources come to the same invention solution or another one steals the invention) or start off at the same spot but diverge (ie. dwarves and humans both discover the serrated discs at the same time. The dwarves decide they would be perfect for the traps of today and humans realize they are weapons in their own right and invent Chakrams).

That do anything for you?

[RenoFox]

The biggest problem with tech trees in any game is that inventions are already programmed into the game, and they are merely unlocked as game progresses. This brings up the situation that at some point "science is done", there's nothing left to invent, and it's time to fire researchers and recycle laboratories.

I like the systems for secrets and taming knowledge and thought about how randomly generated improvements would fit in it. A moody dwarf inventing the secret of weighted/serrated swords would seem nice at first, but longer worlds would still end up with every civilization using the super-hyper-duper-swords because they are simply the best. I think this kind of (adjective) items would work best if they could be made only by the dwarf who invented them, making them forever special like the Stradivarius violins.

Unfortunately, I just can't see advancing technology as a part of DF. Either you'd wait for the dwarves to invent things you know they will, or you'd be endlessly upgrading items to +1 variations of themselves.

EDIT: Rambling pipedream about how cool rare swords would be:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Imagine that you walked into a tavern, and saw another adventurer with a rare sword produced hundreds of years ago. A forked sword by Urist McHanzo, one of only 97 of its kind he made before being killed by a magma crab. Basically a common soldiers semiartifact, it is rare to see one outside the military of the fortress that produced them. Actually seeing one is enough to make any aspiring adventurer consider just how far he'd be willing to go to obtain it.

[Scoops Novel]

I think the answer here lies in generation based around the surrounding conditions. Different places, different resources and different cultures will encourage certain forms of development and reject others, which should be reflected in the game. I would like to add that the local denizens, sapient or not, should factor into this. If we cant come up with more inventive ideas for weaponizing monsters then Armok will deal with us personally. On that note, it should not be purely based around the advances themselves, but the culture that springs up around those advances.Who discovers them, how they are discovered, and the reaction to those advances should have a lasting impact, let alone it's later use.

[Buttery_Mess]

I like the idea of technology tracking, because it allows for technology to be forgotten too; the "Wisdom of the Ancients" sort of thing. The way I see it, a more complete version of DF would also model cultural changes over time, of which technology is but a subset. I suppose that at some point the brothers Adams are going to hash out a mechanism for procedurally generated creation mythology, drawing from real-world examples. I can certainly see something like stealing fire from the gods to play a part in that. It could be established that the knowledge of working still could have been gifted to the Dwarves from the Thunder God or whatever. To have something like that- something that would add rich detail to the world in a way that I think that Zach and Tarn love- you'd need to have technology tracking.

No-one likes medieval stasis, but I've found it quite rare in fantasy works. I'm not sure it's necessary as a gameplay feature, but I'd definitely enjoy seeing technology tracked as a means of enhancing the generated setting.

[Neonivek]

I always wondered if you ever thought of implementing a "research system", where some things became available as certain dates or entities invent/discover/develop them?

Honestly I absolutely do not want a sort of research system in the game if only because not only does that not actually occur in real life as depicted (it is a videogame invention that is usually meant to extrapolate things) but it also misrepresents what research is actually for and the social and political reasons behind it.

Basically I think technology should be a social invention in the game done with a passive system and not one that is actively interacted with by the player.

[Silverionmox]

It must offer meaningful choices to the player. If researching more is always better than not researching, then there is no meaningful choice for the player to be made and it's of no use in the game.

[Neonivek]

It must offer meaningful choices to the player. If researching more is always better than not researching, then there is no meaningful choice for the player to be made and it's of no use in the game.

Not necessarily. These do not necessarily matter.

There is no meaningful choice between living and dying and there is no meaningful choice in aesthetics as there is no mechanical benefit benefit.

Yet another aspect is: What is research?

[PersonGuy]

I will give some examples of various gunpowder weapons that where made before and during the 1400s firstly just to start my post have a gander at this en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breech-loading_swivel_gun if toady only includes technology before 1400s breech loading swivel guns are perfectly within that limit being a invention of the 1300s and from all accounts was quite fast firing when used by a experienced crew and was a very effective anti infantry weapon with the ability to fire cannonballs(These wouldn't be nearly as powerful as other kinds of cannonballs i wouldn't think of them taking out a good stone wall but taking out things like doors and assorted small structures and wooden constructions and large creatures such as trolls and elephants) and grapeshot.

Second we have the  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwacha‎ a weapon from the 1400s that is very capable of firing a hail of arrows or rockets a fair distance with fair accuracy and would likely be effective against goblins and elves with their fairly light armor there are earlier accounts of rocket launchers en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_launcher but rockets in themselves are perfectly within the time limit.

 Thirdly this en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_(projectile)‎ there where explosive cannonballs as early as the 1300s and explosives like grenades and various charges where some of the first gunpowder weapons to ever be made and as gunpowder corning has already been invented by the 1400s they should be fairly potent en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_artificial_non-nuclear_explosions.

Fourthly The arquebus first appeared in the 1400s and there where a fair number of accounts of their use by contemporary armies en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arquebus‎ www.ukrainian-firearms.han.ks.ua/historical_facts.htm‎ the handguns that existed before the 1300s had very few effective applications also muskets famed inaccuracy was mainly due to using a bullet significantly smaller then the barrel which was mainly the case in many eighteenth century conflicts where the flintlock which had a significantly faster rate of fire compared to the matchlock the reason for this was to compensate for the build up of soot in the barrel from repeated firings which was something that wasn't a major priority in the design of contemporary matchlocks which was the reason for the tighter bullets which provided longer range and more accuracy at least compared to the guns that used bullets significantly smaller then the barrel also Napoleonic style flintlock musket had high quality ammunition that gave them good range.

Fifthly flame throwers en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamethrower‎ they appeared well before the 1400s.

In summary gunpowder weapons that appeared before the 1400s Grenades, Bombs, Cannons, Rockets, Handguns, Rocket Launchers, flame throwers, and Breechloading Cannons and weapons that appeared during the 1400s mainly consist of improved designs of the previously mentioned weapons and the arquebus and that was the time corned gunpowder pretty much near completely replaced older serpentine powder.

EDIT

I forgot to include the Ribauldequin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia which was a weapon that was fairly common in armies through out the late middle ages.

EDIT

Also why i included things from the 1400s is because of some confusion i had over what i have heard about a the technology limit toady set from some said nothing beyond 1400 giving more or less a technology limit of the fourteenth century others have said the 1400s which means that fifteenth century technology is the most advanced we should expect to see.