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[Dirst]

Whenever multi-tile creatures come up I wonder how they'd deal with the fact that most forts don't have ceilings higher than one z-level, it'd be kind of weird to make a bronze colossus crawl on all fours while it's going on a rampage. Or like, what if you just make your fort with only 1x1 entrances.

If air quality is ever modeled it might become one reason to have higher ceilings. But that wouldn't stop you making a low entry. Anyway, if you're making a fortress it's legitimate to keep it unsuitable for giant killing machines.

Presumably most creatures too big to fit in your puny door can damage the walls, albeit slowly enough that we can have an emotional scene with the civilians evacuating and the militia advancing toward the horrendous racket at the gates.

[tonnot98]

Or a bit of an unexpected fight in the top sub-level of your fort as the colossus jumps up and down until the area caves in under him.

[golemgunk]

Whenever multi-tile creatures come up I wonder how they'd deal with the fact that most forts don't have ceilings higher than one z-level, it'd be kind of weird to make a bronze colossus crawl on all fours while it's going on a rampage. Or like, what if you just make your fort with only 1x1 entrances.

If air quality is ever modeled it might become one reason to have higher ceilings. But that wouldn't stop you making a low entry. Anyway, if you're making a fortress it's legitimate to keep it unsuitable for giant killing machines.

Maybe the real reason the Lonely Mountain fell was they made the front door big enough for a dragon to walk through.

[Egan_BW]

Better to die with a giant awesome gate than to live with a tiny door as entrance to your grand fortress.

[Rubik]

Thinking about that, I can imagine players being forced to carve taller fortresses just so other certain races can come to visit without feeling opresed by the walls
All of the mechanics and/or behaviours that derive from these ideas are very amusing. No doubt Toady'd have a hard job adding them

[Calidovi]

In the devlog an expansion of the law framework and divine law were mentioned. Do you plan for the law framework of a civilization to change as time passes? If law can change, is it in the matters of the monarch or an individual site?

[Rubik]

How much can the law framework of a civilization change in time? If law can change, is it in the matters of the monarch or an individual site?

It makes sense that different systems of government have different ways of handle power and responsability

Most cases, there would be monarchies, because the monarch is a convenient figure to have, as all the powers reside in him
But theoretically, nothing stops Toady from programming a set of sliders for each politically-relevant policy, akin to the actual personality system, to have different SoG in the game
Imagine a Totalitarian monarchy trying to contact an state-less anarchyc community, sounds pretty fun

[FantasticDorf]

How much can the law framework of a civilization change in time? If law can change, is it in the matters of the monarch or an individual site?

Monarchs already do dictate a lot of small biases as to their opinions. Human (or inhuman) lawgivers in human civilisations for example with variable values and no set positions basically dictate what they like with sometimes monsterous results. Obviously the zach brothers could push the boat out a little further but most dwarves are cast the same so each monarch is only as demented greedy and foolish as the last.

I guess dictating new laws from a site would require a constitutional document or some way to abstract yourself from your parent civilisation.

[Max™]

I have had always trouble picturing how multi-tile creatures would work
Like, I suppose combat and material degradation should be reworked first for it to work, you know, only being able to atack a dragon's head when he tries to bite you, powerful enouh enemies being able to destroy walls and terraform scenarios based on their strength and the wall's material, etc.
If only those three things were added to the game, the game would enter a new level of  difficulty.
Imagine setting a long corridor-entrance in your fort, and an hydra breaks the door, and forces its head through the whole corridor, devouring your dwarves. Not only that would require new AI, but it should also reduce the hydra's mobility when atacking. There are just too many things to consider before it is added

I was thinking about that a little while ago as basically having it be a swarm of creatures as different body parts with wrestling type linkages, with the upper body parts essentially flying but being tied to the ground contact points.

Code: [Select]

Z+0
    <O   <O
               ====
  <O       <O

Z+1

      O  O
}[#]        ==
    O      O

Z+2
   \  o  o
 --:[#]DDDD=
   / o    o
With the different bits being "Dragon R. Shoulder" and "Dragon L. Forefoot" and so forth.

[FantasticDorf]

Funny i always thought it would be like this, with the 'look' giving a description of what part of the icon it is, so you could easily have 1 tile or two tiles to signify the neck/head.

 D D
DDDDDDD
 D D

Sort of make out the dragons legs at either side and its neck and tail.

[Rubik]

That was the initial idea I had about it, but to be honest, its pretty ugly.
I would be thinking all the time that that image was actually a group of dragons instead of a body part from a bigger dragon
I suppose there are many ways to do/interprete this, and it will become some actual concern once multi-tile creatures are anounced
Toady'll come up with something, thats for sure

[wierd]

It could instead be made of the OEM dos extended character set glyphs, like wagons are.

There are quite a few potentially useful glyphs for multitile compositing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_page_437

Specifically, glyphs 176 through 223.  One could paint a rough creature outline with those, with a centered singular normal creature tile to illustrate creature type painted in the middle, "super man" style.

Eg, in the case of the hypothetical dragon, it has a nice "D" painted on the middle of the body, which is made from the extended codepage characters.

[Rubik]

Another thing I dont know how will be treated is the actual requisites for ocupying more than one tile
Given that a tile is a delimited space of , how much? 2x3 metres?
A crature that is  3.1 metres tall , and of normal wide, doesnt seem to have a reason to ocupy two tiles, yet he actually ocupies more than one, technically
Another thing I have thought about this, is that big enough creatures, like giant sperm whales, for example, would have complete tiles composed of several differnt layers of skin, muscle, fat, etc. right?
Then in order to wound the enemy, you should be able to literally sever chunks of meat, creating some kind of 'tunnel' to mortally wound the enemy.
That, or you literally shouldn't be able to kill certain enemies, which I think its less funny

[wierd]

The "severed part flies off in an arc" mechanic could take on whole new significance, as a "chunk" several tiles wide flies off and crashes into something.

I expect it would be quite spectacular, and add new dangers to close combat.

[FantasticDorf]

The "severed part flies off in an arc" mechanic could take on whole new significance, as a "chunk" several tiles wide flies off and crashes into something.

I expect it would be quite spectacular, and add new dangers to close combat.

Might take a few goes to get through something particularly dense like a cyclops's or bronze collossus's arm (even sperm whale men might be mighty tough, which begs the question would animalmen need a rework too?)

The bones would be MASSIVE, the arm comes crashing off