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Author Topic: Hidden Preferences  (Read 762 times)

dudlol

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Hidden Preferences
« on: August 05, 2014, 08:51:16 pm »

Sometimes I see something for the first time and decide that I very much enjoy it. This should apply to dwarves as well.

I propose that preferences for foreign items/materials be hidden on the dwarves preference screen and not chosen for demands and the like, but appear some short time after the dwarf in question first observes the thing. This would also make it possible for the dwarves to have preferences for spoilers without breaking any continuity from them never having encountered them.

Also certain classes of things should have some chance to start hidden and some chance to not. Things that dwarves may or may not ever see. Above Ground plants, for instance.

It would also allow dwarves to have preferences for things very difficult to obtain without forcing a player to go crazy trying to gain access to that thing. Such as rarer ores or alloys that not all dwarves may have encountered, fantastic animals they've never heard of...

I've noticed that I'm starting to talk in circles, so I'll stop it there. Thoughts?

I know this will make choosing nobles harder, since you have no way of truly identifying a no preferences dwarf, but I firmly believe that the overseer should not know whether or not a dwarf likes something if even the dwarf does not know. And you don't always know what you like, so this does seem logical to me.
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Deepblade

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Re: Hidden Preferences
« Reply #1 on: August 05, 2014, 09:27:43 pm »

That actually sounds nice. This sounds like it'd make it a bit easier to get dwarves to like foreign items and possibly get them in artifacts, which would be a reasonable trade off for nobles imo.
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Deepblade's Standardized Creature Parts, for when you're pissed about all the different types of animal products there are.

Scruiser

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Re: Hidden Preferences
« Reply #2 on: August 05, 2014, 11:32:48 pm »

Sounds like a pretty good fix.  There needs to be a way to track individual dwarf knowledge for this to work well.  Of course paranoid players will stop their dwarfs from ever seeing rare materials (i.e. adamantine handling will only be done by one miner, one strand extractor, and one armor smith).   This would also help with mods that have dozens of rare materials/
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King Mir

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Re: Hidden Preferences
« Reply #3 on: August 06, 2014, 01:30:28 am »

Sounds like a pretty good fix.  There needs to be a way to track individual dwarf knowledge for this to work well.  Of course paranoid players will stop their dwarfs from ever seeing rare materials (i.e. adamantine handling will only be done by one miner, one strand extractor, and one armor smith).   This would also help with mods that have dozens of rare materials/
You could do it without individual dwarf knowledge. Assume every uncovered object or ore on the map is known to all dwarves. Also all dwarven civilization exports are known. Everything else is unknown until encountered.

Uristsonsonson

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Re: Hidden Preferences
« Reply #4 on: August 06, 2014, 02:34:43 am »

This sounds like a good way to handle it, but didn't Toady just get done making an exception for spoiler stuff? It sounds like a pain to have to redo it so quickly. Still support though.
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Scruiser

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Re: Hidden Preferences
« Reply #5 on: August 06, 2014, 10:33:02 am »

This sounds like a good way to handle it, but didn't Toady just get done making an exception for spoiler stuff? It sounds like a pain to have to redo it so quickly. Still support though.
This would support all future spoiler material stuff,  materials that are really rare on the world map (trees only found in good regions, or sphere specific trees once they are implemented), rare items (foreign items like blowguns/blowdarts),  modded materials that are rare, modded materials that require long and difficult chains of reactions to create, modded items that are rare/nonexistent, and modded item that require long chains of reactions to create.  So it would cover all the usecases with one mechanic that makes sense from a logical/realism perspective.

Sounds like a pretty good fix.  There needs to be a way to track individual dwarf knowledge for this to work well.  Of course paranoid players will stop their dwarfs from ever seeing rare materials (i.e. adamantine handling will only be done by one miner, one strand extractor, and one armor smith).   This would also help with mods that have dozens of rare materials/
You could do it without individual dwarf knowledge. Assume every uncovered object or ore on the map is known to all dwarves. Also all dwarven civilization exports are known. Everything else is unknown until encountered.
I guess that works.  It also stops the exploity way of preventing dwarfs from developing preferences for realistic but annoying things.  I think it would need to track dwarven civilization production better before implementing this, however.  For example, right now, dwarven civilization always has steel, even when it doesn't have any iron (I can tell because some embarks the game sticks me with a steel anvil and I can't select any iron, iron ores, or iron items, but I can select steel and steel items).  The game should track reagent availability for reaction before automatically making the reaction product available to the civilization.
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Lossanity

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Re: Hidden Preferences
« Reply #6 on: August 06, 2014, 05:54:03 pm »

I imagine some migrants would have encountered many exotic objects/materials/animals! Who knows what adventures they have had throughout their lives.

I like the idea that some of the more rare, foreign, or spoilery preferences have a higher chance to remain hidden, though. Also the idea that once the fort discovers something, every dwarf discovers it too. I imagine my tiny dwarf community as being full of gossip.

"You'll never believe what the miners found last night"
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Lossanity

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Re: Hidden Preferences
« Reply #7 on: August 06, 2014, 06:23:48 pm »

Perhaps fort-born dwarves could only visibly like things that exist in the fort, maybe? Or perhaps they could inherit preferences from their relatives?

"Grandpa told me once about huge grey animal with tusks"
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Scruiser

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Re: Hidden Preferences
« Reply #8 on: August 06, 2014, 06:59:26 pm »

"Grandpa told me once about huge grey animal with tusks"
"And thus I've decided as major to mandate that this fortress make some items out of tusks.  What, the legendary boneworker has refused to make tusk crafts for me?  He must be punished!" 
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