Hi. This is my first post on this forum, but far from my first time playing DF. I love the game, and have a few suggestions which I think would make it better. In summary:
- Dwarves have birthdays, complete with cake bake-able at the Kitchen by Flour+sugar+eggs+milk.
- Kitchens now require fuel for certain tasks, such as baking cake.
- Dwarves can be vegetarian/meatitarian, gaining thoughts by eating the kind of food they like/dislike, and actively search for their favorites instead of just grabbing something randomly.
- If the Kitchen is not Fire-safe, an action requiring fuel may cause the kitchen to !!Burn down!!, causing "Fun".
- Dwarves can use several kinds of animals as mounts, and gain access to cavalry-specific attacks.
- This may have been done already in a mod, but can children inherit their mother/father's last name instead of being randomly generated?
- Gambling.
- Nobles have servants?
In detail:
Dwarves already have birthdays, so why not celebrate them? After all, dwarven culture values merrymaking. On the day of their birthday, if a dwarf is unoccupied, s/he will organize a birthday party, perhaps at the local tavern, or temple, or if no such location exists, their room. Since a birthday party is more important and involved than a regular party organized at a statue or table, it would need a proper location. They would invite their friends, perhaps acquaintances, not anyone they hold a grudge for...
Say its Urist McLucky's birthday on the 10th of Opal. She's a sociable dwarf, so she invites her friends and good acquaintances to the fortress' tavern, The Lemon of Limes. (I saw that name once playing in Adventure Mode, and I just love it.)
What are they going to do? Talk, listen to the band play, maybe Urist will sing if she's a good enough singer, or recite poetry...
the biggest highlight of a party is the cake! If a task, "Bake cake" were added to the Kitchen, requiring flour, sugar, milk and an egg or 2, Urist would be able to enjoy a delicious sweet, as well as her friends.
Gifts would be given. Urist might take the opportunity to claim an item for herself from the fortress' communal stocks-perhaps a nice cat leather bracelet? Crafts would be more important than just for trading...if the coin economy has started, she could get some birthday money instead of items.
Sounds fun, right? Urist would get a very happy thought from "was able to celebrate birthday." But what if Urist was a Marksdwarf out on patrol? What if she missed her birthday? She'd get an unhappy thought then, having been unable to celebrate her special day.
Nobles, being Nobles, would make a bigger deal out of this. The Monarch would demand a massive party, perhaps gaining an unhappy thought if the party (composed of location quality, performer quality, gift quality, and cake quality, with perhaps more factors) wasn't good enough. Sort of like how Nobles want better rooms, they also want better parties.
Let's talk about the Kitchen. Until now, dwarven kitchens are a pretty mundane affair. All the cook does is mince ingredients and combine them into a biscuit, stew, or roast. ...Roast? How can you roast something without fire?
Think about the kitchens of the medieval era. They were seperate buildings entirely, because the danger of fire could burn down the whole house. After all, kitchens needed to stew, simmer, braise...you get the point. Heat had to be involved.
There are several parts to this. Make kitchens require fuel for tasks that would require fuel, like preparing meals. They could accept logs instead of charcoal or coke, or if that sounds like too much resources wasted...perhaps logs can be chopped into kindling-like making wooden blocks, but for cooking. That's a job for the carpenter's workshop, maybe. But if the kitchen itself is made of wood or anything not Fire-Safe, there's a risky chance that the whole building, Dwarf and all, can go up in flames due to a disaster (dependent on the cook's skill, maybe?). If other flammable items are around, the fire can spread...
So, make kitchens out of stone, or gems. And if you don't want to use fuel, there's always the
"Magma Kitchen".
Now THAT's a dwarfy idea! Use the righteous power of Magma to do your cooking!
Anyway. Some dwarves may be opposed to the killing of animals. such
wimps elfish ...Vegetarian dwarves might only want to eat plants. Other dwarves may want to eat only meat and nothing but meat, thinking plants don't have enough protein or whatever. Some dwarves might not care and just eat anything they feel like. They all have their favorite foods...what's not to stop them from seeking that out? If Urist likes fonio beer, and there's plenty of it in the fortress, but she chooses to have some dwarven wine instead, why? She should know what food stocks there are.
For example, my current fortress has two righteous dining rooms with a total capacity of 80. Each has their own separate stockpiles. Maybe food stockpiles in a dining hall should be known by the dwarves eating in said hall-if they see a food that they like, they'll path to it and eat that. Ingeniously, that method can be used to decide which dining hall dwarves sit it-they'll go to the ones stocked with their favorites.
Let's talk about the military. The Goblins have their beak dogs, which sound terrifying. Historically, cavalry have been superior to infantry in many wars (excepting pikeman), because they were faster and stronger. Now, I haven't seen a goblin riding a beak dog, but they and cavalry in general should get several bonuses.
If a dwarf had a mount, which would be a trained ride-able animal (horse, donkey, etc.) then the speed of the mount should apply, with regards to the weight of the dwarf in his armor. A new skill "Rider", which determines how well the dwarf can...ride...their mount.
Several new attacks would be opened up. If Urist Gloryknight wields a spear, she would be able to perform a devastating "Cavalry Charge" attack, rushing at the enemy, aiming to impale them with their lance. Does the idea of Urist spearing a goblin through the heart astride her majestic stallion sound righteous enough? The sheer speed alone of the attack would give it a lot of damage, and even if it missed the upper body and hit, say, the arm instead, the arm could easily be torn off.
Naturally, spear-wielding enemies would be dangerous to cavalry. Unless the cavalry were armed with crossbows, like the dreaded bowman cavalry of Ghenghis Khan, or the ancient Parthians, who were able to twist around in their saddles and fire a last "Parting shot" (That's where we get the phrase from!) that would be unanswerable by the enemy.
This next one seems self-explanatory: children should inherit the name of their parents. Whether the name is patriarchal, descending through the father, or matriarchal, doesn't really matter. It could vary by civilization. I'm not saying new names should never be created, but some consistency would be very nice. Muthkat Oceanlances VI, descended from Ducim Oceanlances V, etc.
This may be difficult to code, but...gambling. Games of chance and fortune, an opportunity to win big or lose everything. Board and card games can be created (We have paper now, it should be easy to make decks of cards, decorated with the faces of historical figures, or creatures...) here's an example of a board game:
This is a well-crafted danor set. the board is made of microline. the pieces are made of red spinel and amethyst. the object of the game is to capture all of your opponent's pieces. (Danor's like checkers.). These can be procedurally generated like instruments are now.
Anyway, dwarves can gamble away their personal belongings in these games, and if they're terrible players, can give up the shirt on their back, gaining massive unhappy thoughts. It's best not to let gambling addicts (perhaps the very greedy, or those that can't control themselves) play. ...You don't have to worry about a forgotten beast breaking down your doors anymore, the fortress will die when a heavily-armed soldier loses one game too many and goes on a tantrum.
I'm not to sure about this last one, but perhaps nobles could have servants? I'm not sure what use they would be. This one's just a passing thought.
A few of these suggestions may have been made somewhere else, so sorry if I'm repeating them. Tell me what you think!
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Topic: The Dwarven Culinary Revoultion, and other suggestions. (Read 1160 times)