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[iceball3]

Mainly for future consideration by the toad, feel free to pitch your own ideas. Not all of these are boat related, some applying to general inter-site interactions.

-When on an island isolated from any civilizations, make it so the parent civilization may or may not know about your fortress's existence, dependent on availability of hearsay or starting scenario.

-Allow expeditions to cross water, the amount they can cross controlled by the size and supplies available to the expedition. They will likely need a wagon to transport any boat components to shore, and a shore of appropriate roughness for the boat they're planning to deploy. You could also send an expedition out specifically to build a rudimentary dock to allow bigger boats. This would allow inland fortresses to potentially connect to the outer world whilst in isolation, though this would depend on the distance to the nearest coast. Things could get hopeless really quick when all you have is seven dwarves, many hundreds of miles away from a smooth highly savage coastline, in the midst of a Terrifying ocean, with mountains in the way...
-Setting up a coastal fortresses on both coastlines in question, with docks and boating infrastructure, and retiring them should help mitigate the above point.

-Allow expeditions of diplomats, issuing a general desired goal and the flexibility and resources they could agree on to achieve it, when discussing situations with other civilizations. Certain topics include:
--Asking about events occurring at the visited site or informing the site of specific or general events with a degree of authority above general rumoring.
--Request the general expectation of a trade channel going either way, encouraging sites to send you a caravan or to send you a "caravan wishlist" to increase the chance of giving them the items they desire.
--Declaring or requesting changes in the inter-site relations of the site in question, with a given chance to declare 'a priori' for such, or lack therof, or even lie about it. The latter two will likely cause your diplomat to be upset based on their ethics, will make other sites and civilizations trust your fortress less due to it, based on their ethics (including your home civ), and will cause unrest if your civilians catch wind of this action, based on their ethics (which means absolutely for default dwarven ethics). Anything up to and including demands at threat of war or war outright.

-Add "kill diplomat", "kill civilian", "kill surrendering", and "war no a priori", to ethics, to allow dwarves and other civilizations to react to such incidents. The first four should ONLY apply if the kill target is in any combat level at brawling and above.
--A unit voids their ethical protection in the first three mentioned ethics if:
---They initiate lethal or higher levels of combat.
---They go into No Quarter at any time during combat.
---They raise the combat level after successfully surrendering.
--They will still be affected by other kill ethics however. Dwarves can be given specific actions for combat ethical situations, and will attempt to adhere to them based on their ethics and discipline, or can be left to decide on their own.

Just a few ideas.

[iceball3]

More ideas:
-Large scale military campaigns pursued by the authorities of entire civilizations (or their constituent regional powers), allowing travelling armies to attempt to intercept en-route ones on deliberation. The scale of these would leave a lot of this combat out of the player's hands unless...
-Allowances for the expansion of regional power and influence with the fortress the player controls as the heart of such attempts, via establishing new forts with lawmen and other authoritorial presence to prevent attempts at site independence; the annexation of other pre-existing sites via politics, wealth, cultural (inspiring insurrections with your group's control being the topic), or war; or reclaiming a fortress.
--The last option may need to be balanced by causing powers (goblins, etc) to more frequently attempt to claim ousted sites they invade if there is significant infrastructure, if simply to garrison it as a defensive position in enemy territory.

-When not directly involved as a regional power, the player could still lend the option of having their soldiers sent out to join (at least tentatively) allied militaries as mercenaries, giving payment to the individuals as well as your fortress for their service and contributions.

-Likewise, via diplomatic means or general rumor spreading, allow your fortress (or regional power if applicable) to actively attract the attentions of mercenaries, both those who look to be payed for temporary service, and those like the current ones who just want a place to call their home (and get free food for it).

[iceball3]

Correction: "a priori" was the wrong word, I meant Casus Belli.

[GoblinCookie]

Great ideas!

-When on an island isolated from any civilizations, make it so the parent civilization may or may not know about your fortress's existence, dependent on availability of hearsay or starting scenario.

The parent civilization not knowing about your civilizations existence seems unlikely given that they presumably sent you there in the first place, or else where did the boats and embark goods come from?  The concept of a civilization being formed of fugitives in a stolen ship or marooned or whatever sounds like a starting scenario in it's own right. 

One that would entail no migrant waves from your home civ until they discover you (or the other way around). If you are fugitives however being discovered might be a bad idea.  So probably best have two stranded on island starting scenarios, one where you are innocents that simply got lost and the other in which you are prisoners, the first being discovered is positive, the latter negative.  The game could round up a bunch of prisoners from an existing prison site if there are any available.

[iceball3]

Great ideas!

-When on an island isolated from any civilizations, make it so the parent civilization may or may not know about your fortress's existence, dependent on availability of hearsay or starting scenario.

The parent civilization not knowing about your civilizations existence seems unlikely given that they presumably sent you there in the first place, or else where did the boats and embark goods come from?  The concept of a civilization being formed of fugitives in a stolen ship or marooned or whatever sounds like a starting scenario in it's own right. 

One that would entail no migrant waves from your home civ until they discover you (or the other way around). If you are fugitives however being discovered might be a bad idea.  So probably best have two stranded on island starting scenarios, one where you are innocents that simply got lost and the other in which you are prisoners, the first being discovered is positive, the latter negative.  The game could round up a bunch of prisoners from an existing prison site if there are any available.

Ahh, fair enough. I imagine it could be possible to convince migrants to come from sites or civilizations who do not care too much about the attempts of your home-civilization's attempt to demerit your group's existence. Or heck, you could even attract fugitives!

I am suddenly fond of the idea of also being able to run "security prisons" in your fortress, importing criminals from other fortresses with the responsibility of keeping them contained and alive for the duration of their sentence (for sentences longer than 40 years, up to life), unburdening their original home of the food, guard, and floorspace (assuming frontier justice doesn't get the criminal killed on the spot before they even get detained in the first place).

Getting the prisoner into your fortress would be a contractual obligation to keep them, at the very extreme least, out of everyone's hair, and the ability to violate the contract by releasing the prisoners into escaping or as citizens should cause diplomatic repercussions if the civilization you made the agreement with catches wind of this.
Perhaps if a site or authority has sent you enough prisoners, they could occasional send a liaison to check up on the prison arrangements as well, to make sure they're getting their money's worth for the effort you put into keeping their prisoners alive and contained.

[GoblinCookie]

Ahh, fair enough. I imagine it could be possible to convince migrants to come from sites or civilizations who do not care too much about the attempts of your home-civilization's attempt to demerit your group's existence. Or heck, you could even attract fugitives!

If you are on a remote island then there will not really be a large pool of local migrants, if you are on a highly populated island there can be but it makes it hard to keep yourself hidden from your original civ because word will get about quickly given how small the world of DF actually is. 

I am suddenly fond of the idea of also being able to run "security prisons" in your fortress, importing criminals from other fortresses with the responsibility of keeping them contained and alive for the duration of their sentence (for sentences longer than 40 years, up to life), unburdening their original home of the food, guard, and floorspace (assuming frontier justice doesn't get the criminal killed on the spot before they even get detained in the first place).

Getting the prisoner into your fortress would be a contractual obligation to keep them, at the very extreme least, out of everyone's hair, and the ability to violate the contract by releasing the prisoners into escaping or as citizens should cause diplomatic repercussions if the civilization you made the agreement with catches wind of this.
Perhaps if a site or authority has sent you enough prisoners, they could occasional send a liaison to check up on the prison arrangements as well, to make sure they're getting their money's worth for the effort you put into keeping their prisoners alive and contained.

Basically we are talking about prison architect in DF.   

The prison scenario however is necessarily complicated to implement and very high on hard-coding.  We can have guards and prisoners arrive from our original civilization but the problem is that we need a prison.  The guards cannot keep the prisoners imprisoned unless they have a prison to keep them, that kind of implies that the guards would have to be the ones building the prison BEFORE any prisoners arrive, that would require some kind of timer that warns the player when the first prisoners are due to arrive; the guards would have to get there first with a stack of materials and a timer as mentioned.

[StagnantSoul]

Ahh, fair enough. I imagine it could be possible to convince migrants to come from sites or civilizations who do not care too much about the attempts of your home-civilization's attempt to demerit your group's existence. Or heck, you could even attract fugitives!

If you are on a remote island then there will not really be a large pool of local migrants, if you are on a highly populated island there can be but it makes it hard to keep yourself hidden from your original civ because word will get about quickly given how small the world of DF actually is. 

I am suddenly fond of the idea of also being able to run "security prisons" in your fortress, importing criminals from other fortresses with the responsibility of keeping them contained and alive for the duration of their sentence (for sentences longer than 40 years, up to life), unburdening their original home of the food, guard, and floorspace (assuming frontier justice doesn't get the criminal killed on the spot before they even get detained in the first place).

Getting the prisoner into your fortress would be a contractual obligation to keep them, at the very extreme least, out of everyone's hair, and the ability to violate the contract by releasing the prisoners into escaping or as citizens should cause diplomatic repercussions if the civilization you made the agreement with catches wind of this.
Perhaps if a site or authority has sent you enough prisoners, they could occasional send a liaison to check up on the prison arrangements as well, to make sure they're getting their money's worth for the effort you put into keeping their prisoners alive and contained.

Basically we are talking about prison architect in DF.   

The prison scenario however is necessarily complicated to implement and very high on hard-coding.  We can have guards and prisoners arrive from our original civilization but the problem is that we need a prison.  The guards cannot keep the prisoners imprisoned unless they have a prison to keep them, that kind of implies that the guards would have to be the ones building the prison BEFORE any prisoners arrive, that would require some kind of timer that warns the player when the first prisoners are due to arrive; the guards would have to get there first with a stack of materials and a timer as mentioned.

Or they could show up and demand/request a certain amount of stone blocks, and also you to designate an area of flat land so big X so big X so tall for them to use.

[GoblinCookie]

Or they could show up and demand/request a certain amount of stone blocks, and also you to designate an area of flat land so big X so big X so tall for them to use.

They in this context is surely we?

[StagnantSoul]

Or they could show up and demand/request a certain amount of stone blocks, and also you to designate an area of flat land so big X so big X so tall for them to use.

They in this context is surely we?

Thought the guards would be from your civ, like the outpost liasion, but stay around beating up prisoners brought along yearly/seasonally?  And after a certain time the prisoners could be released into your fort, depending on how brutal the guards were they may not care about anything.

[GoblinCookie]

Thought the guards would be from your civ, like the outpost liasion, but stay around beating up prisoners brought along yearly/seasonally?  And after a certain time the prisoners could be released into your fort, depending on how brutal the guards were they may not care about anything.

Ah, you have a different vision as to what the prison scenario would consist of.  You see the prison starting scenario as being a 'normal fort' along present lines, fed by ex-prisoners, the prison being secondary to the gameplay.  On that model the prison itself can simply be generated on initial embark since it is secondary to the fortress.  I personally do not like the idea of simply being a passive bystander to brutality controlled by the AI. 

I see the prison scenario along the lines of having different citizen statuses with labour restrictions, though the guards/prisoners will need a lot of special tags they would be citizens and their tags would be reusable to represent other citizen statuses.  The citizen statuses would be restricted, guards would refuse to do menial work and the prisoners would refuse to do fighting stuff, plus they would make a break for it as a special mechanic.

The problem is that we have to already have a prison in order to safely employ the prisoners as labourers (aka not keeping them in cages) in order to build the prison.  That means we have to either be able to employ the guards as menial labourers initially or have a third group of 'builders' that show up to construct the prison.  I favor the option of initially having no prisoners at all but a mix of guards and builders.  The guards protect the builders against attacks/enemies while the builders have no labour restrictions at all; but they are there on a contract which lasts only a given number of months, at which point they will emigrate.  The prisoners turn up shortly before their contract ends and can be assigned cells, presuming you have actually built any; the rest of the game is basically like Prison Architect in DF. 

[StagnantSoul]

Thought the guards would be from your civ, like the outpost liasion, but stay around beating up prisoners brought along yearly/seasonally?  And after a certain time the prisoners could be released into your fort, depending on how brutal the guards were they may not care about anything.

Ah, you have a different vision as to what the prison scenario would consist of.  You see the prison starting scenario as being a 'normal fort' along present lines, fed by ex-prisoners, the prison being secondary to the gameplay.  On that model the prison itself can simply be generated on initial embark since it is secondary to the fortress.  I personally do not like the idea of simply being a passive bystander to brutality controlled by the AI. 

I see the prison scenario along the lines of having different citizen statuses with labour restrictions, though the guards/prisoners will need a lot of special tags they would be citizens and their tags would be reusable to represent other citizen statuses.  The citizen statuses would be restricted, guards would refuse to do menial work and the prisoners would refuse to do fighting stuff, plus they would make a break for it as a special mechanic.

The problem is that we have to already have a prison in order to safely employ the prisoners as labourers (aka not keeping them in cages) in order to build the prison.  That means we have to either be able to employ the guards as menial labourers initially or have a third group of 'builders' that show up to construct the prison.  I favor the option of initially having no prisoners at all but a mix of guards and builders.  The guards protect the builders against attacks/enemies while the builders have no labour restrictions at all; but they are there on a contract which lasts only a given number of months, at which point they will emigrate.  The prisoners turn up shortly before their contract ends and can be assigned cells, presuming you have actually built any; the rest of the game is basically like Prison Architect in DF.

Oh I see, that makes sense as well, and could be equally cool. I would really like having a third party, non-controllable entity in my area though, just sitting there doing whatever they may, whether that be beating up prisoners, making them spar for entertainment, strapping them to traction benches, making them make licence plates/dolomite mugs, and the like, until their sentence is up and they're viable for society again, most likely petitioning to join your fort.

[GoblinCookie]

Oh I see, that makes sense as well, and could be equally cool. I would really like having a third party, non-controllable entity in my area though, just sitting there doing whatever they may, whether that be beating up prisoners, making them spar for entertainment, strapping them to traction benches, making them make licence plates/dolomite mugs, and the like, until their sentence is up and they're viable for society again, most likely petitioning to join your fort.

I can see the possibility for your site area accidentally playing host to an army camp which might include POWs, that would meet the criteria you are talking about since in that case we obviously do not command our civilizations army.  Nomadic bands could also meet the criteria for being a third part, non-controllable but site-like group. 

I have been thinking about island prisons and can see a really big problem with them.  If the prisoners are going to try to escape, which of course they have too for that starting scenario to be challenging, then we have a problem if the embark area actually covers the whole island.  In the event that the embark area does not cover the whole island the prisoners can simply run right to the board edge and then offload, becoming fugitive groups or even a fugitive site in the wilderness OR joining unfriendly existing sites that do not extradite them to us.  If the whole island is our fortress however, then where are the escaped prisoners going to go?  Toady One is going to have to give them the ability to make rafts or something but what is it is a desert isle and there is no wood?  The prisoners would have to know to steal wood FROM the prison stockpile, carry it over to the water's edge, build a raft and then depart. 

The other problem with prisons is, where are the prisoners going to come from?  Do we go down the lazy route of simply arbitrarily imprisoning folks for unspecified offenses that result in them having a random sentence.  Or do we have to model crime rates, the harshness of the legal system and the possible motivating factors that would drive the particular individuals we have as prisoners to commit crimes in the first place? The other issue is what happens if due to conditions changing (particularly an issue if we are using POWs) we simply find ourselves with no prisoners left. Under that situation we might have to have the prison closed down, resulting in the remaining guards becoming regular dwarves and the prison a regular site.

[iceball3]

Personally, I'd see to think that any fortress prison would operate similar to the normal jails, except with implicit need for permanence and the possibility of hostilities in the event of a prison break.
In such events, I figure the Captain of the Guard and the fortress guard squad they run should be responsible for it, per normal, as to not need to include automagical "even more jailers" jobs. Feeding can be handled by Feed/Water prisoners job, as per normal, or via an automatic system if the player's got that set up.

In terms of escapees, I figure that when trying to escape, or considering, even, they should consider their options, and in the event of objective hopelessness (trapped at the bottom of a smoothed out 20 story pit, in which food is dropped down via drawbridge (heuristically speaking, the prisoner will see themselves as trapped in a massive stone sarcophagus in which food and drink occasionally randomly appears), then the prisoner may submit completely to the prospect of any sort of realistic escape plan.
In the event of some combination of sheer hopelessness, or the prisoner being deprived of social contact for far too long, and poor living conditions, it may be possible for the prisoner to go insane, which would make keeping them alive a bit more difficult, to say the least.

[GoblinCookie]

Personally, I'd see to think that any fortress prison would operate similar to the normal jails, except with implicit need for permanence and the possibility of hostilities in the event of a prison break.
In such events, I figure the Captain of the Guard and the fortress guard squad they run should be responsible for it, per normal, as to not need to include automagical "even more jailers" jobs. Feeding can be handled by Feed/Water prisoners job, as per normal, or via an automatic system if the player's got that set up.

The main difference between the normal jails and the fortress prison is that in the normal jail there is no need for the prisoners to do work to sustain the fortress.  Yes though, prisoners should exist as a citizen status that is semi-hardcoded, by which I mean that you can define the prisoner status manually in the raw but if there is no such status a default hardcoded prisoner status will be loaded in provided that your society takes prisoners. 

Where applicable AI sites should have jails in them, within which the prisoners are placed.  However these jails should have a capacity, when the civs jails are overcrowded that should be the trigger causing the prison embark scenario to become available, the AI should also be able to set up prison fortresses itself but should take a while to do so.  Once a prison fortress built the other sites and armies should send their existing prisoners to you, so they are potentially historical characters with a defined background and relationships. 

In terms of escapees, I figure that when trying to escape, or considering, even, they should consider their options, and in the event of objective hopelessness (trapped at the bottom of a smoothed out 20 story pit, in which food is dropped down via drawbridge (heuristically speaking, the prisoner will see themselves as trapped in a massive stone sarcophagus in which food and drink occasionally randomly appears), then the prisoner may submit completely to the prospect of any sort of realistic escape plan.
In the event of some combination of sheer hopelessness, or the prisoner being deprived of social contact for far too long, and poor living conditions, it may be possible for the prisoner to go insane, which would make keeping them alive a bit more difficult, to say the least.

The problem was that the prospects of a escape plan can be modified simply by placing the embark area so that whole island is covered by your fortress as opposed to leaving a small area of unclaimed wilderness on the island.  Realistically this does not change the physics of the situation at all, with guards still able to catch them and the prisoners still needing to construct rafts/boats to leave the island.  But to the AI logic the situation will be different, because none of that land actually exists when we are not there, unlike our own fortress.

Particular among the starting scenarios the prison scenario very much requires a definite loss criteria.  If enough of our prisoners successfully escape then the civ authorities would call a plug on the whole thing, causing us to lose the game and the site to become a regular default site.  We could then reclaim that site later, but it would no longer be a prison, instead having a blank starting scenario (so as present basically); the former guards would now be regular dwarves and any remaining prisoners would be shipped back to the regular site prisons.  If our prisoners successfully rebel and overthrow the guards then we lose the game, but the site obtains the fugitive starting scenario so we can reclaim it as a fugitive site along the normal lines.  The former prisoners will now make up the site population, with any remaining guards being driven out as refugees.  A third option is a 'win condition' by which all our prisoners have left and no more prisoners are sent because there is enough space in the regular jails; in that case we can choose another starting scenario and our guards become regular dwarves (or not) in the new setup.

[iceball3]

I had figured that prison sites weren't -just prisons-, but rather, nominally, a normal dwarven fortress, by gameplay and situation standards, however, with the exception of:
-Implicit specialization by the player to construct prison spaces and to buy/grow enough of their food to support prisons. This isn't strictly necessity, either way you cut it, but hinders the latter point if you don't do it.
-Contractual agreement with other civilizations or groups, or on your own auspicions (if applicable), to import prisoners.

If your prison fails spectacularly, the consequences will simply be diplomatic and monetary ones as you don't get prisoners from anyone who isn't actively trying to simply get rid of them anymore, with the included side consequences of criminals roaming the countryside from any escapees and the danger it directly poses to your dwarves. However, your fortress, position, etc still exist.

The idea I'm trying to posit is that a fortress which keeps prisoners should do so in the same manner it keeps prisoners of war from sieges, only with the added diplomatic obligations for any re-compensation it gets from taking prisoners from other sites. Failing that diplomatic obligation should be considered on the same gameplay level as breaking elven treaties to not cut wood, for instance.

I can imagine an interesting scenario being that you take a large amount of prisoners, some being high-profile political or royalty that a group would rather not martyr. A particularly bad prison break makes the sites that made these agreements  with you severely doubt your competency to oversee, prisons, and for the high profile political prisoners, a site sends out a diplomat with armed escort to make demands, potentially deliver an ultimatum if the situation is -really- bad.