Hello,
Yeah, but if he has company, and minions, can he be called an hermit?
He went hermit for a reason. Why not let players decide what that reason was and if they choose so, let them become evil mages (like necromancers in world legends).
Besides, if he is a Hermit - then why 90 dwarfs and their warbeasts come to attack him?
From what I understand, the whole point of the hermit mode is to manage to get all the required things done, in the most efficient way possible.
You try to limit to a minimum any hauling, you only farm/fish the absolute minimum needed to survive, in order to get time for other jobs, like making your defenses ready before you get attacked.
I tend to agree with Meph that if your aim is to have a limited work force, you might want to pick the race that suits you the best, and use dfhack to kill the 2 migrant waves (and whatever number from your starters).
As it was mentioned before, not everyone wants to play crazy warlocks.
I am not sure why I even have to explain that some people may have preference for different play style - start alone and build an army of minions sounds good to some of us
Bob is there, because we usually end up not being efficient enough, resulting in more and more time lost, so a pair of hand to haul and do some menial tasks is nice.
If you really want more "Bobs", you could still spawn them via dfhack, right?
I will have no other option it seems. I will explain this at the end of the post.
If we end up with extra workers (even if they were somehow limited to hauling), it would take away from the whole hermit idea, and take things more into an "overlord" route of sort.
It might be nice too, but should it still be called "hermit" mode when you are no longer an hermit?
Natural evolution of Evil Masterminds.
From lone outcasts to overlords.
Why not let people do it that way? It is about difficulty and building up, all alone in the wild that has such a a nice ring to it.
No minions for a hermit. It doesnt fit.
Bob exists because there are many ways of dying when alone, like a broken bone that cant be diagnosed/set yourself, or dodging up a wall, or down a ditch without stairs. He gives your hermit a second chance to life as well, because if you die, Bob revives you once. He is not just a minion to do labor, he has way more uses than that.
Then please at least tell me what to edit to prevent Bob being killed by undead raised by necrohermit... Can I tell Bob to become Necromancer as well? Will he then be ignored by undead? I should try that.
I think it'd kill the difficulty, personally. Where's the challenge in surviving all alone in the wilderness when you're not actually all alone in the wilderness? (Bob doesn't count, as he's probably just schizophrenia combined with selective memory loss.)
Have you played that mode for a bit longer?
Can't you see that people want this for hermit mode, and do not want to play crazy undead warlocks in normal fort mode?
You are literally the only person that requested it.
Consider adding this to an option in the poll
I second him
Besides, maybe it's just only two of us playing hermit mode...
So after another week of playing, this will be my final feedback on the mode. 14 years until I lost out of fun (mind you, I set game speed to slowest with sundial).
- Hitting rock layer spawns a lot of stones lying around that will not be picked up. Vermin keeps piling up, cats died for various reasons.
- No workers to do anything. Having a very small farm for sustenance means Bob spends most of his time farming vermin fodder.
- Cage trap reload cancellation spam. Had to remove cage traps at one point. No time to make cages or transfer prisoners to prisons.
- Sieges. After amulet spawns they quickly spiral out of control. Either doors get bashed and I loose or Pit Trap keeps filling with items and corpses, which seems to add to fortress value, which results in more besiegers on the next siege, which results in more items and corpses etc etc. This creates FPS killing feedback loop that eventually leads to !FUN!. On last playthrough my sieges increased exponentially from 7 initial invaders to 93 2 years later...
- I never managed to properly set up my defences and living quarters for hermit due to shortage of labour. I tried once to make him focus on constructing these, but he nearly died out of hunger - vermin ate all food. I tried to disable vermin in MDF launcher, but after new world was generated vermin was still happily spawning all over the place.
- manufacturing weapon traps is out of the question - the only materials available to me are rocks, wood and bones, and they do virtually nothing to later armoured opponents.
- I never actually managed to set up even small *productive* metal operation and make anything useful from it due to all of the above. Mining deeper is out of the question due to all other jobs that need doing (I plan to limit these in next fortress) and melting Pit loot takes forever (need charcoal as fuel, that means growing tree saplings/mushroom trees as outdoors becomes danger zone very soon). Clothes might be a problem if I won't get seeds/caged spiders before sealing off the fortress.
- I think next playthrough will be simply walling off entire fortress and not bother with anything else. Not sure how this applies to a Druid version (lore un-friendly, unless he becomes Cave Druid).
- Or perhaps I will spawn more Bobs with DFhack.
- Or I will mod in warlock's skeleton caste and be done with it. Seems like I will have to mod a mod, but this is the option I would like to have the most
My conclusion is that while Hermit mode starts very nicely (alone; have to prioritise), which provides high initial challenge (that is good), but lack of means of turning into full-fledged evil solitary mage surrounded only by his minions to do his bidding eventually takes joy out of the game. There is this wall you hit at a certain point, where you cannot really progress. Not sure if anyone playing hermit will ever use megabest dissection... but perhaps someone will at some point.
And finally:
DF legend-wise, necromancers usually started out alone; they gathered minions who build their black towers for them; eventually they acquired apprentices (one at a time).
So Meph, perhaps if you will be bored one day, you will consider making a stand-alone variation of Hermit/Warlocks Mode... named Necromancer Mode or something, where such ascending into powerful undead master from humble beginning will be possible... Sorry for that wishful thinking on my part
Oh well. Back to digging Pits and setting up bridges.