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[Solarius Scorch]

I'm unsure about having a Heaven to conquer. On one hand, it is sort of expected in a fantasy land; on the other, it feels a lot like mindless repetition of what we already have (and symmetry is not always good when designing).

But whether we can do it or not, how about having some more complicated interaction with the "heavens", like being visited by angelic caravans? This would be rather interesting to have, and would provide yet another reason do build a tower (angelic goods are probably good).

[angelious]

which is why i said there would need to be a reward for building upwards

That doesn't respond to anything I said. 

In fact, much of what I said was that you shouldn't just assume an automatic reward for having done so.  At best, it opens up interactions with new, powerful, creatures that may or may not be hostile, and may or may not exist purely as a punishment for specific behavior. 

Again, you gain nothing for dealing with the boogeymen, and they exist purely for the reason of making players not travel out alone at night.

you are thinking of it the wrong way...


when you DIG DOWN. you gain access to gems,stone,ores and magma. but there are dangers like cave spiders,forgotten beasts and hfs there. aka there is a reward for going DOWNWARDS but there are also RISKS involved.


the same way BUILDING UPWARDS should have rewards for it(which is what i pointed out twice now)  AND RISKS for it (aka the heavenly invasion for one) 

[NJW2000]

In some ways, it's more like, "do we apply the same mechanic", rather than "what should threetoe call it?".

It seems that fer plot reasons, a slightly lower wealth:danger ratio might be good, though not as hard as the deepest layer...

[tahu16]

It would be fun to be attacked by a heavenly army.

it would be fun to INVADE heaven.


just imagine it. "your dwarves hear heavenly singing from above"

and then you send your 100 man strong urist mcfuckyou army to rape and pillage heaven to make it your colony

BONUS POINTS:
Make a long pipe from the HFS to the heaven thus channelling the swarm of clowns to the heavenly army.
Urist McOverseer has been ecstatic lately. He was playing God lately.

[angelious]

It would be fun to be attacked by a heavenly army.

it would be fun to INVADE heaven.


just imagine it. "your dwarves hear heavenly singing from above"

and then you send your 100 man strong urist mcfuckyou army to rape and pillage heaven to make it your colony

BONUS POINTS:
Make a long pipe from the HFS to the heaven thus channelling the swarm of clowns to the heavenly army.
Urist McOverseer has been ecstatic lately. He was playing God lately.

well great. we already created a mega project for a feature that isnt even part of the game...still that would be fun


which will win? place your bets.

[Alfrodo]

3 gold bars, a masterwork bronze statue and three artifact buckets on angels.

[NW_Kohaku]

you are thinking of it the wrong way...


when you DIG DOWN. you gain access to gems,stone,ores and magma. but there are dangers like cave spiders,forgotten beasts and hfs there. aka there is a reward for going DOWNWARDS but there are also RISKS involved.


the same way BUILDING UPWARDS should have rewards for it(which is what i pointed out twice now)  AND RISKS for it (aka the heavenly invasion for one)

Actually, that was my argument earlier in the thread. 

Again, I think attracting a few fliers to your fort is plenty interesting. Making landmarks that create some sort of notable reputation for your fort is also potentially quite interesting.  (It means you can create a solid silver warhammer over your fortress entrance, and people would actually recognize it as a monument, rather than as simply being a series of constructed walls.)

[Evil One]

you are thinking of it the wrong way...


when you DIG DOWN. you gain access to gems,stone,ores and magma. but there are dangers like cave spiders,forgotten beasts and hfs there. aka there is a reward for going DOWNWARDS but there are also RISKS involved.


the same way BUILDING UPWARDS should have rewards for it(which is what i pointed out twice now)  AND RISKS for it (aka the heavenly invasion for one)

Actually, that was my argument earlier in the thread. 

Again, I think attracting a few fliers to your fort is plenty interesting. Making landmarks that create some sort of notable reputation for your fort is also potentially quite interesting.  (It means you can create a solid silver warhammer over your fortress entrance, and people would actually recognize it as a monument, rather than as simply being a series of constructed walls.)

It'd be difficult for Toady to automate something like that though, how does the computer know what's a monument and what's just a collection of materials?

Perhaps the player could designate an area (like designating a barrow) and name it (the hammer of woe for example), the computer then calculates the predominant material used (thus its value) and adds it to the world history.

[NW_Kohaku]

It'd be difficult for Toady to automate something like that though, how does the computer know what's a monument and what's just a collection of materials?

Perhaps the player could designate an area (like designating a barrow) and name it (the hammer of woe for example), the computer then calculates the predominant material used (thus its value) and adds it to the world history.

From the first page of this thread:

it would be reasonable to expect a tall tower to be visible from range (ties to this suggestion). A tower should be fairly easy to detect and give the fort a reputation.

This is more interesting, though.

Toady's quote indicates the general problem, but if we assume that towers are always constructions, you could make some forms of reasonable machine extrapolation of player creations by simply counting the number of constructions above the "natural" z-level plane of a fort. 

That is, if you have 25 tiles of construction at an elevation 5zs above the designated surface level, as indicated by starting soil layers, then another 25 constructed tiles at an elevation 6zs up, 25 constructed tiles 7zs up, and so on with maybe 29 constructed tiles at 14zs up (balcony), then it would be reasonable to label it a "tower", regardless of how well the game can properly understand what it is the player is building or its intent.  A "pyramid" might be the same thing, but with 1 constructed tile at the top, 9 one z below, 25 one z below that, and 49 the next z down, etc.  (Provided it was within a certain horizontal distance, as well to make two different towers seen as two different towers... again, kind of tricky, but doable if you count something like support to see if any of the constructed tiles support one another without having to go through natural tiles, first.  Although whether it is counted as two towers in a single embark or not may be irrelevant for game purposes.)

By extension, open-air pits should be notable, as well, as measured by whether or not stone layers are considered "subterranean".  If the player excavates a whole chunk of embark down to the first cavern, that's notable as being a "pit". 

Giving players the option to arbitrarily declare a given random large contruction something other than a tower makes sense, as per Toady's comment, but the game would just be checking for the "unnaturalness" of how much you have terraformed the map before it considers letting you call something a tower or castle or great statue or whatever.

Basically, yes, it would require a combination of the game recognizing constructions above the "natural" surface, and counting things like value and possibly a vague "shape" (as in whether there is a lot of construction towards the bottom, and little on the top, or a cylindric design or a top-heavy one through sheer construction count per-z-level,) and a player designation of zone to declare what is part of one monument or another, and its purpose. 

(That is, you can declare a tall rectangular prism building with plenty of rooms as something like a castle, or as a grand hotel, or just a skyrise apartment.  Player can declare intent, but the game can still judge overall value and number of constructions to prevent players from declaring trees as towers.)

[Pwned dwarf]

what if you seal don't have some roof hatch?

[Evil One]

It'd be difficult for Toady to automate something like that though, how does the computer know what's a monument and what's just a collection of materials?

Perhaps the player could designate an area (like designating a barrow) and name it (the hammer of woe for example), the computer then calculates the predominant material used (thus its value) and adds it to the world history.

From the first page of this thread:

it would be reasonable to expect a tall tower to be visible from range (ties to this suggestion). A tower should be fairly easy to detect and give the fort a reputation.

This is more interesting, though.

Toady's quote indicates the general problem, but if we assume that towers are always constructions, you could make some forms of reasonable machine extrapolation of player creations by simply counting the number of constructions above the "natural" z-level plane of a fort. 

That is, if you have 25 tiles of construction at an elevation 5zs above the designated surface level, as indicated by starting soil layers, then another 25 constructed tiles at an elevation 6zs up, 25 constructed tiles 7zs up, and so on with maybe 29 constructed tiles at 14zs up (balcony), then it would be reasonable to label it a "tower", regardless of how well the game can properly understand what it is the player is building or its intent.  A "pyramid" might be the same thing, but with 1 constructed tile at the top, 9 one z below, 25 one z below that, and 49 the next z down, etc.  (Provided it was within a certain horizontal distance, as well to make two different towers seen as two different towers... again, kind of tricky, but doable if you count something like support to see if any of the constructed tiles support one another without having to go through natural tiles, first.  Although whether it is counted as two towers in a single embark or not may be irrelevant for game purposes.)

By extension, open-air pits should be notable, as well, as measured by whether or not stone layers are considered "subterranean".  If the player excavates a whole chunk of embark down to the first cavern, that's notable as being a "pit". 

Giving players the option to arbitrarily declare a given random large contruction something other than a tower makes sense, as per Toady's comment, but the game would just be checking for the "unnaturalness" of how much you have terraformed the map before it considers letting you call something a tower or castle or great statue or whatever.

Basically, yes, it would require a combination of the game recognizing constructions above the "natural" surface, and counting things like value and possibly a vague "shape" (as in whether there is a lot of construction towards the bottom, and little on the top, or a cylindric design or a top-heavy one through sheer construction count per-z-level,) and a player designation of zone to declare what is part of one monument or another, and its purpose. 

(That is, you can declare a tall rectangular prism building with plenty of rooms as something like a castle, or as a grand hotel, or just a skyrise apartment.  Player can declare intent, but the game can still judge overall value and number of constructions to prevent players from declaring trees as towers.)

It'd have to be designation based, as having the computer recognise even a 'vague' shape would be very taxing on processor power.

[NW_Kohaku]

Basically, yes, it would require a combination of the game recognizing constructions above the "natural" surface, and counting things like value and possibly a vague "shape" (as in whether there is a lot of construction towards the bottom, and little on the top, or a cylindric design or a top-heavy one through sheer construction count per-z-level,) and a player designation of zone to declare what is part of one monument or another, and its purpose. 

It'd have to be designation based, as having the computer recognise even a 'vague' shape would be very taxing on processor power.

That would be what I meant by "player designation of zone", yes.

[NJW2000]

This seems like the other thread's discussion, spilled over. I just imagined it as a nebulous, if-you-build-at-zlvl-x, counter-y-is-increased-by-x or something like that, with the higher counter y, the higher the frequeny of unexpected giant birds, rocs, dragons, flying FBs, other crazy stuff.

[angelious]

you are thinking of it the wrong way...


when you DIG DOWN. you gain access to gems,stone,ores and magma. but there are dangers like cave spiders,forgotten beasts and hfs there. aka there is a reward for going DOWNWARDS but there are also RISKS involved.


the same way BUILDING UPWARDS should have rewards for it(which is what i pointed out twice now)  AND RISKS for it (aka the heavenly invasion for one)

Actually, that was my argument earlier in the thread. 

Again, I think attracting a few fliers to your fort is plenty interesting. Making landmarks that create some sort of notable reputation for your fort is also potentially quite interesting.  (It means you can create a solid silver warhammer over your fortress entrance, and people would actually recognize it as a monument, rather than as simply being a series of constructed walls.)

that would be highly difficult to actually implement into the game.


not to mention the profit from it would be miniscule. like what would it give you? more trade caravans? more migrants??

[NW_Kohaku]

that would be highly difficult to actually implement into the game.


not to mention the profit from it would be miniscule. like what would it give you? more trade caravans? more migrants??

It's much less complicated than making new alternate dimensions.  In fact, it's not really all that much more complicated than making dining halls where the game recognizes the value of the contents of the dining hall.  (This is just 3d.)

And for profit to the player, it can be anywhere between trade caravans, tavern patrons, migrants, in-game recognition of your fortress as a mighty fortress, to luring in more rocs and dragons to exploit.  Notably, the last one has been argued as "too profitable", which means it's at once too profitable and not profitable enough for people who wanted something else.