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[Urist McVoyager]

Not all secrets should even have towers, necessarily. A tower's mostly useful for those who want or need to isolate themselves from the living. But what if your secret is healing? There's only three ways to utilize such a skill effectively: 1. Getting yourself into major trouble on a regular basis so that you need to heal yourself, 2. Helping out a town and settling down there, 3. Setting up a lab somewhere with access to a steady stream of test subjects and exploring everything you can do. None of that can benefit from total isolation.

The only reason things like necromancy invite one to be isolated is because of everyone else's reaction to them.

[PatrikLundell]

The only secret at the moment is that of life and death. When additional secrets are implemented they may not all have the same site generation criteria (and nor does necromancy have to retain the current criterion, or even the same criteria for all sources of the secret). If you were to ask what the future criteria will be the most likely answer is that nothing is settled yet: we'll see when we get closer, and it would still be subject to adjustments.

[Max™]

Ah, I just remembered something I meant to ask!

What exactly is required for a secret to generate a tower? It seems like an animate interaction+some number of zombies is it, but I'm not quite certain yet.

The secret holder needs 50 zombies (or whatever animated critter they have) to be able to build the tower. (It's mentioned in this post and hasn't changed since.)

That explains why I didn't find anything about it, well before I started playing/posting.

I like having the visual indicator that a secret is working properly during world-gen (as opposed to just not throwing errors) without having to go dig through all the artifacts and whatnot in legends, and was also working on something where the "old hermit in distant location has seekers of knowledge trek to find them" tropes apply.

[LordBaal]

Eventually necromancers could start from cemeteries and settle in derelict towns, towers, abandoned castles... different secrets could have other things like mentioned. Towns, forest retreats, libraries, academies.

[iceball3]

I imagine that different secrets could use "thralls" (not DF thralls), "homunculi", etc as a reraisable non-hostile and rather combat ineffective creature as a placeholder to allow different kind of secret-wielding wizards in this version without explicitly being necromancy, so long as you can trick the game into thinking those creatures count as zombies for tower-creation. Not sure, though.

[Shonai_Dweller]

I imagine that different secrets could use "thralls" (not DF thralls), "homunculi", etc as a reraisable non-hostile and rather combat ineffective creature as a placeholder to allow different kind of secret-wielding wizards in this version without explicitly being necromancy, so long as you can trick the game into thinking those creatures count as zombies for tower-creation. Not sure, though.

Why would you need a placeholder magic system when magic is about to get a massive overhaul? You don't need to trick the system, just change it.

[iceball3]

I imagine that different secrets could use "thralls" (not DF thralls), "homunculi", etc as a reraisable non-hostile and rather combat ineffective creature as a placeholder to allow different kind of secret-wielding wizards in this version without explicitly being necromancy, so long as you can trick the game into thinking those creatures count as zombies for tower-creation. Not sure, though.

Why would you need a placeholder magic system when magic is about to get a massive overhaul? You don't need to trick the system, just change it.

From a modding point of view, for now, i mean. A workaround that modders can probably do presently until magic actually gets it's overhaul in a year or three.

[FantasticDorf]

There's also the fact that you could in the position of a wizard simply use normal followers, or apprentices/created servants to build whatever structures you need. 50 is a lot so a tower (themed however such which way) sounds like a end-level abode unless that rule is specifically for necromancers in their bandit camps.

[Caldfir]

Fire lances are the oldest gunpowder weapons, but they're far from the only ones which would qualify at a late medieval technology level. In order to cut off at fire lances you'd be putting the date at 1100, not 1400, so goodbye full plate armour and 2 hand swords.

I actually wouldn't mind an early medieval mode with maille armour and 1 hand swords and spears. Viking age dwarves.

Again, I said fire lances instead of later gunpowder weapons because: Toady already messed up by putting the cutoff date well after the advent of gunpowder weapons. Giving an example from the 1100s (that's also a lot easier to balance in a fantasy setting) means I've set my expectations a lot lower. 3:

This launched me into an interesting evening of research on wikipedia. 

I believe the "1400" choice was not based on gunpowder but on prevalence of cannons.  This is probably because Toady wants humans to be building tall flat walls (which is the standard fantasy-castle trope), and real humans stopped building like that because artillery chews them up.  While various gunpowder toys and weapons were available far earlier, you don't start seeing sieges decided by artillery until the 15th century.  The notable fall of Constantinople is a famous example. 

Another point to note is that De Re Aedificatoria (written between 1443 and 1452) contains a section on walls and fortifications (book iv, chap iv), with a bunch of advice on how to build nice standard curtain walls (indicating they were still seen as useful at the time), but with this little tidbit, which is arguably the starting point for star-fortifications:

In my Opinion one very
good Way of Building a strong Wall, capable
to stand the Shocks of Engines, is this: make tri−
angular Projections out from the naked of the
Wall, with one Angle facing the Enemy, at the
Distance of every ten Cubits, and turn Arches
from one Projection to the other; then fill up the
Vacancies between them with Straw and Earth,
well rammed down together. By this Means
the Force and Violence of the Shocks of the
Engines, will be deadened by the Softness of the
Earth, and the Wall will not be weakned by
the Battery, only here and there, and those
small Breaches, or rather Holes, that are made
in it, will presently be stopt up again.

TL;DR: The year 1400 cutoff was probably chosen because Toady wanted there to be castles, and people stopped building like that around that time because of cannons. 

[MrWiggles]

My understanding is that star castles/forts werent designed strictly because of cannons but because it also divides up, and precludes the least amount of blind spots for the defenders.

[FantasticDorf]

Without meaning to be rude to anyone, its always going to be a case in which individual people will push towards a narrative that suits their idea of the game, such as trying to find some way to implement cannons on some edge cases that the technology 'might' have been loosely considered those times.

But that's just what you get from a very creative and supportive fan base that just wants to help. 

[Hapchazzard]

1. Will the law rework include the inclusion of more advanced 'factions within factions'? What I mean by this are things like royal houses, trade companies, ambitious common interest groups, popular movements, religious cults, etc. Factions which do not necessarily control independent land on their own, but have (sometimes significant) influence within their country, their own political interests and the potential to try and topple/secede from the current government if they find it justified enough through rebellions, coups, etc. Or is this slated for a much later release?

2. Similarly, will the embark arc include an overhaul on territorial/titular claims? Right now they seem quite clunky, with every single faction claiming half the world.

3. Will the creation myth update bring any changes to early world-gen? Right now, there's this awkward 'Year 1' where most major factions and cities are inexplicably suddenly founded, with no history prior to that.

4. Is there a plan to change the timeframes in fortress mode? It seems kind of weird that one of the greatest forts in the world gets constructed in a few years, and usually lasts no more than a decade before falling into ruin, while there are a bunch of random minor hamlets/hillocks that are over a millennium old.

[Valtam]

1. Will the law rework include the inclusion of more advanced 'factions within factions'? What I mean by this are things like royal houses, trade companies, ambitious common interest groups, popular movements, religious cults, etc. Factions which do not necessarily control independent land on their own, but have (sometimes significant) influence within their country, their own political interests and the potential to try and topple/secede from the current government if they find it justified enough through rebellions, coups, etc. Or is this slated for a much later release?

2. Similarly, will the embark arc include an overhaul on territorial/titular claims? Right now they seem quite clunky, with every single faction claiming half the world.

3. Will the creation myth update bring any changes to early world-gen? Right now, there's this awkward 'Year 1' where most major factions and cities are inexplicably suddenly founded, with no history prior to that.

4. Is there a plan to change the timeframes in fortress mode? It seems kind of weird that one of the greatest forts in the world gets constructed in a few years, and usually lasts no more than a decade before falling into ruin, while there are a bunch of random minor hamlets/hillocks that are over a millennium old.

Almost none of this has been discussed or even planned yet, and will certainly arise when the corresponding 'arcs' or features are approached, such as the case with the law rework.

1. It would be the idea to have this kind of factions, there have been mentions of planned religious groups with their own agendas, and all of the stuff mentioned there could be plausible. No timeline or specifics yet.

2. As soon as we get to the Embark Scenario update, we might have answers on this.

3. I assume that awkwardness would dissappear (or at least mitigate) as soon as we get some ideas of the actual origin of our generated world. If you have seen the screenshots for the Standalone Myth Generator that Toady and Threetoe have been using as of late, then you might see that some worlds spring from different options, and we might possibly get a new nomenclature (or maybe brand new ages to boot!)
Again, we haven't had any specifics, but this seems to be the most approachable green question.

4. Plans and suggestions have been mentioned from time to time, to eventually merge the Adventure and Fortress Mode timescales to make sense in an unified universe. However, what you mention is less of a time constraint, and more like the mark of "losing is fun" situations and plenty of missing features. Right now there is no way to dramatically alter the way a small hamlet looks and works for different factions and civilizations, so it looks like they stand the same through the ages, in contrast to fortresses that are more fleshed out and have plenty of stuff going on within them, so they seem to change a lot more through the ages. As soon as property and law become more elaborate, we might have other things happening to these hamlets.

Once again, this is all two or three releases away, so my best guess is to wait and see how it unfolds.

[CptAWatts22]

1.Can villages/hamlets grow into towns?
2. If yes, what makes that happen?
3.Can a group that is not part of a CIV become part of one or create their own?
4.Can an adventurer become a lord of a CIV by claiming the rulers town as his?

[Shonai_Dweller]

How long does it take for a kidnapped child to 'turn goblin'?
Presumably someone on the forum already knows the answer to that one...

Do dwarves know this? Or will the option to go rescue a child still be available after it's far too late?

If a squad find a kidnapped child which is now pretty much a goblin, will they kill it and then head back to report? Bring it home in a cage for its parents to deal with?

Also, can you 'rescue' kids even if their parents aren't at the fortress? What happens then? The phrase Out of the Frying Pan into the Magma springs to mind...