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Yes, please give us Vikings and Ninjas and Knights.

Yes, but only if it doesnt take too much work.

Maybe better to only make one civ, as close to vanilla DF humans as possible.

Maybe better to only make one civ, as close to MDF humans as possible.

No, I dont like it because it doesnt fit a procedually generated fantasy world.

No, I dont like it, because... (please post the reasons)

[Meph]

moseythepirate: Wouldnt the water in the bucket freeze instantly? human goes to well, fills bucket, stands on "aboveground" tile, water frozen?

[Guthbug]

The workaround I used was the following:

Dig down into a hole, don't channel out the roof so it's still underground. Channel one hole in the floor and then a hole out underneath. Use dfhack liquids command to fill it with water. Use it as a well.

Water with "aboveground" will freeze, whether it's 30 levels down or 1 level down, but water in an underground room will not. And the humans go in, get a drink, clean off, then leave, so it's not a major issue with cave adaption. But it's problematic in that an underground well is not thematic.

[Arcvasti]

The workaround I used was the following:

Dig down into a hole, don't channel out the roof so it's still underground. Channel one hole in the floor and then a hole out underneath. Use dfhack liquids command to fill it with water. Use it as a well.

Water with "aboveground" will freeze, whether it's 30 levels down or 1 level down, but water in an underground room will not. And the humans go in, get a drink, clean off, then leave, so it's not a major issue with cave adaption. But it's problematic in that an underground well is not thematic.

Instead of DFhack, why don't you just use a bucket and a pond zone.

[Emperor]

I assume that mandates of a noble will end automatically when the noble dies, so, do you know any reliable, tantrum-less way to dispose of noble? The baron is getting in my way for far too long.

[Guthbug]

The workaround I used was the following:

Dig down into a hole, don't channel out the roof so it's still underground. Channel one hole in the floor and then a hole out underneath. Use dfhack liquids command to fill it with water. Use it as a well.

Water with "aboveground" will freeze, whether it's 30 levels down or 1 level down, but water in an underground room will not. And the humans go in, get a drink, clean off, then leave, so it's not a major issue with cave adaption. But it's problematic in that an underground well is not thematic.

Instead of DFhack, why don't you just use a bucket and a pond zone.

You could, but only one person will try to fill it. You have to make like 10 different zones in order to get 10 different people to all haul water. And the water evaporates faster than one person can usually fill. It's just a weird game mechanics thing.

[Guthbug]

Town design is very important as humans. You can't just dig holes in the ground like all the other races. You have to plan building structures and such.

I've been using sort of a "Wild West" city layout with a main street and buildings along the side, but in a larger fort that becomes unmanageable. All storage is done underground in "basements".

Other designs I've tried:

Motte and Bailey (works well but gets very crowded very quickly)
Roman Villa (the buildings also form the walls)
Various castle designs (just haven't gotten this to work well so far)

Essentially, you need a place to create a burrow and run when an invasion strikes. I use a fortified tower for that purpose with dogs on a restraint outside so that the invaders will path to within musket range.

Right now I restarted and am working on an actual city. I have four districts planned and started and the city itself is sprawling out over 80% of the map. I have a dedicated military squad with ranged weapons who follow a patrol route around the city perimeter and eliminate wildlife. No hunters needed.

I have not been able to efficiently use guild halls and merchant stalls before this city. I kept trying to have a "market" where all the stalls were located, but they were too far from their respective needs and sell items.

This time, I have divided the city into 4 districts: agricultural, smithing, tailoring, and government. The city is arranged around a central fortified tower (3 levels). There are no exterior walls. This design is working much better and I'm about to start paving all the grassy areas within the city limits. It is modeled after the Hanseatic League city "Lubeck".

[Meph]

Lübeck is pretty ugly, if I may say so.

[Guthbug]

Lübeck is pretty ugly, if I may say so.

Never been there, but I found an old map of it from when it was dominated by merchant guilds so I thought it'd work pretty good as a base design.

I haven't seen much of big European cities. I've seen Middle Eastern cities, American cities, and Central and South American cities but not much of European, and none of the Asiatic nations.

[moseythepirate]

moseythepirate: Wouldnt the water in the bucket freeze instantly? human goes to well, fills bucket, stands on "aboveground" tile, water frozen?

Really? I can't say I've noticed, though admittedly that that particular fort is in a tropical environ, and I never needed to worry about cave adaptation in my previous aboveground forts. And easy fix, though. Just make the adjacent tiles underground too. BA BAM. Water liquid, human hydrated, and they won't stick around long enough to be cave adapted.

In regards to balance, I think that fish need to have a lower value. That fort there has an embark on a river, and with three food shops working full time selling it, I have pretty much infinite money, and am still catching fish faster than I can sell them. Fish being a limitless source of money is fine (I don't see how that could be changed, anyway), but they should be cheaper.

Also, just as a comment, it seems like the Orc merchant is really useful...I've been able to outfit my squad with full Ashland Glass and Ebonglass armor and weapons, with my Master Armorer and Legendary Weaponsmith courtesy of the Dwarf Teacher. Admittedly, when I can't just make infinite licenses, the balance will change significantly.

I also love, love LOVE the guildhouse system, but the building is ENORMOUS, especially if you make the extensions attached (as seems intended). Since I'll be needing a lot of them, and I can't remove them without losing my investments, you end up building a lot of the guildhouses, each one of which is gigantic. Since each town is topside, space is at a premium, and this quickly becomes a sizable problem. I feel and easy solution is to make the guildhouse and extensions smaller. Maybe 5X5 for the guildhouse and 5x3 or 5x2 for the expansions.

Additionally, I can't seem to order Crates of Goodies from my own human caravans...I can only assume they haven't been implemented yet, but it's kind of weird to have a crate-opening extension for the humans they can only use when buying from foreigners.

Finally, a combat guild like the dwarf legionnaires would be appreciated. Because you spend so much time building, it can be difficult to get an early-game militia going, and the skill boost of a combat guild would be a huge help. If I might make a recommendation to my fellow human players out there, I would recommend taking some skills away from the original seven so you could make two of them competent and reasonably equipped militia. You can always train up your fellows at the University, and if you get attacked by dire crocodiles or something before you get a wall up, you won't have the luxury of a door to close.

All in all, I'm having a ton of fun with the humans. But like Guthbug said, they require a lot of planning. Protip: Tenement housing is your friend. In my screenshots in my previous post, to the left of my example wellhole (which Meph promptly torpedoed. Remember, make those well-adjacent tiles underground too!) you can see my tenement. I channeled out those rooms, roofed them over, and then used the Box select for Constructing Walls to fill in the gaps. Then, you can roof the next floor off, and so on. An easily built apartment building that can be made taller in a snap. Maybe I'll post a tutorial or something, it really is a neat trick.

[Guthbug]

I would second that fish issue. It's sort of unbalancing. If you doubled or tripled the number in one reaction (from 6 to 18) then it might seem more fair. However in terms of realism, fish are a huge export item. Fish are 40% of Iceland's GDP.

And in a human civilization with large armies, salted fish would of course be a staple. An army marches on its stomach, and many human cities would undoubtedly exist near these bodies of water.

Fishing is also only going to be viable in areas near flowing water. Basic vanilla DF has as a bug (or feature) the fact that fish do not respawn in still waters, and I assume MDF has the same issue.

Building upwards helps a lot, but that still takes a lot of space. Plus, you run into an issue that just bugs the heck out of me ... I can't see everything that's going on at the same time. I normally build my underground forts in such a way that I can see everything important happening on one level.

I built an inverted ziggurat channeling downwards and just covered up the open areas with a tile floor. Even though the humans were 6 levels underground, they still felt ok about it because all of the roofs above them were constructed.

A very large and prosperous city could quickly end up taking up all of the map on a standard 3x3.

[Guthbug]

Have any of you been able to have a functional and reliable medieval castle yet?

I can build a pretty decent castle, but all of the industry and agriculture has to be outside. Can't find room for it within.

[Meph]

You can always do 2-3 story buildings. Or embark on larger maps.

The guilds are already downsized from the 11x11 dwarven guilds to 7x7 human guilds. I wont redo the design. That would take at least 10 hours of work. Its over 100 buildings.

Good thinking on the fish, I will make it produce less money.

[moseythepirate]

That would take at least 10 hours of work. Its over 100 buildings.

Oh. I will maintain that they are too big, but that's understandable. That said, I do have some more thoughts to manage the size.

If you build the guildhouse and each extension, you'll note that there are 3x3 empty spaces on the corners. Perfect for putting associated workshops. So one could make a big building, with an entrance and stairway on one corner, and workshops related to the guild on the other corners. It could have a stockpile basement, and the floors above dedicated to apartments for your workers or simply more guildhouses, all stacked on each other. A Skyscraper of guildhouses!

[Megaman_zx]

One comment i have, which may not be able to e easily changed is that humans seem to be rather old for the time.... my fort had the youngest mother as 27, and the oldest as 56!? the fort only lasted 3 years, before it fell to save corruption, but the babies never turned to children.... based on my idea of medieval society, most women were getting married at 14-16 and having 8-9 kids.... it seems to me like baies should turn to children at age 2-3 and children to adults at age 12-13.... besides that, i had a few generic alpha bugs (save got corrupted, dont know why) and i kept trying to set up foreign human gun merchants, which didn't work because i didn't have the license, but all my worshos spawned succubus summoners?   

[Meph]

I assumed people would use the 3x3 corners for stockpiles of related materials, but smaller, normal workshops fit as well.

And the water issue is resolved. Stills can now be build next to water, and it takes water to fill buckets (for hostitals) or barrels (for your drink stockpile). It took a script by IndigoFenix, altered by Roses, proofread by Milo Christiansen and tested by me, but hey... nothing is too hard to bring you guys something as complex and difficult as "put water in barrel".

But seriously, you can now queue up 50 "fill barrel with water" reactions, stockpile it for sieges.