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[ShinyandKittens]

These are just examples, not well-imagined ideas:

(Pointers are in bold)

- Trading towns, where many caravans come to use your many trade depots, and can actually trade with each other. You can then send what wealth you are able to get yourself to wherever necessary (like another Fortress.) There should be fewer immigrants, but some people who visit (e.g not sent by their homeland) may want to stay and help.

- Vaults, where the king (or queen) puts their utmost trust in you (assuming you have proven yourself trustworthy) to keep their many valuables safe. There should be large rooms and very many stockpiles to keep the treasure. Thieves should come much more often, and Dragons should generally target these places as well.

- There has been mention of roadside inns, where travellers can eat and sleep, but there should be general information given to you by the leader in charge, such as who comes and for what reasons, and how satisfied your guests are.

- There can of course be normal fortresses too. I would be sad if there weren’t.

- Small places that produce many crafts to sell for profit, especially certain commodities like silk or weapons. If not already, other places should have their own stocks and deplete them as necessary, and creating new items calculated daily based on the amount of items used and the skill of the worker.

- Many more ideas, enough to make an unnecessarily long list.

- All of these places should have a reputation based on how well they preform their purposes, such as a silk farm exporting lots of high-quality silk or a roadside inn with fair cost has comfortable beds and good food.

[GoblinCookie]

This idea is planned, it is however not an idea that makes much sense.  Hardly any settlements were ever defined perpetually by their initial starting scenario, which for a lot of them was 'gold mine'.

[Telgin]

Mining towns are indeed an obvious choice.  Doubly so for dwarves, I suppose.

Prison colonies might be another idea to add to the list, and one I believe Toady has mentioned already.  Farming towns or villages might make sense too, especially if they're supposed to be subsidiary to a nearby city or fortress.

In any case, I imagine that starting scenarios will be mostly just that - starting scenarios.  They'd define what resources you started with, maybe where you could start, how many dwarves and with what skills, and probably fairly little else.  The outpost liaison or whatever other sponsoring body would probably want you to stick to your goals, but those goals would inevitably have to change as a settlement matured.  It could be fun, though,  if you deviated from your initial goals so much that armed enforcers showed up and tried to depose the leadership.

How you'd implement any of that in game, I have no idea.  Failing to meet production quotas would be an easy one to implement, at least.

[Manveru Taurënér]

This idea is planned, it is however not an idea that makes much sense.  Hardly any settlements were ever defined perpetually by their initial starting scenario, which for a lot of them was 'gold mine'.

The way I've understood it is that it's not meant to be perpetual (they're referenced as starting scenarios after all), and more a way to tell the game what you initially set out to do. Programming the game to realize what your fortress is aimed at on it's own isn't really feasible, but having some way to differentiate different sites and what their "thing" is is still important (even if IRL it's rarely that clearcut), thus setting up a bunch of common scenarios and having the game world react to your fortress more properly that way is a good enough approach. So for example, telling the game right from the start that this fortress is a mining colony if that's what you wanted to play as, based out of x fortress, thus letting them ask for ore shipments and whatever else makes sense for that particular scenario, and possible consequences if you fail to live up to whatever you've set out to do, but still allowing you to develop into a proper fortress at some point if you so choose (thus changing the parameters and probably leading to different kind of migrants and relations with ones surroundings etc).

For the record, this is what it says about them on the dev pages for those interested:

Core76, EMBARK SCENARIOS, (Future): Embarking in dwarf mode is one of the more sterile, gameish parts of the... game, and it can afford to be spruced up. Though a full take-your-wagons-from-here-to-there style embark is probably beyond the scope of version 1, at least giving the backstory for the journey and adding various game effects and alterations to starting conditions based on it would help with immersion.

Fortress Starting Scenarios

   Framework
      Expand framework of law, custom, rights, property and status as needed to provide a variety of scenarios
      Foundation of laws, both natural and supernatural
      Explicit standing of different citizens vs. civilization authorities
      Possible expansion of religious and family concepts to provide sufficient scenarios
   Starting scenarios
      Various possiblities that guide or govern fortress activity: frontier settlement, religious site, prison colony, mining company, military citadel, roadside inn, secondary/future palace of the monarch
      Drastic changes to migrants based on starting scenario
      Caravans/diplomatic relationships based on starting scenario
      Reclaim mechanics should be folded into this
     Generalize starting scenario relationships to every site foundation
   Hill/deep dwarves
      Ability to bring extra dwarves appropriate to the starting scenario
      Entity populations surrounding your fortress in appropriate environments, both above and below ground
      Ability to move dwarves in and out of surroundings
      Relationship with surrounding dwarves
      Ability to trade/demand food in depot or similar place with surrounding dwarves

[GoblinCookie]

Mining towns are indeed an obvious choice.  Doubly so for dwarves, I suppose.

By the year 250 don't the dwarves have all the metal they would ever need though? 

The way I've understood it is that it's not meant to be perpetual (they're referenced as starting scenarios after all), and more a way to tell the game what you initially set out to do. Programming the game to realize what your fortress is aimed at on it's own isn't really feasible, but having some way to differentiate different sites and what their "thing" is is still important (even if IRL it's rarely that clearcut), thus setting up a bunch of common scenarios and having the game world react to your fortress more properly that way is a good enough approach. So for example, telling the game right from the start that this fortress is a mining colony if that's what you wanted to play as, based out of x fortress, thus letting them ask for ore shipments and whatever else makes sense for that particular scenario, and possible consequences if you fail to live up to whatever you've set out to do, but still allowing you to develop into a proper fortress at some point if you so choose (thus changing the parameters and probably leading to different kind of migrants and relations with ones surroundings etc).

For the record, this is what it says about them on the dev pages for those interested:

Core76, EMBARK SCENARIOS, (Future): Embarking in dwarf mode is one of the more sterile, gameish parts of the... game, and it can afford to be spruced up. Though a full take-your-wagons-from-here-to-there style embark is probably beyond the scope of version 1, at least giving the backstory for the journey and adding various game effects and alterations to starting conditions based on it would help with immersion.

Fortress Starting Scenarios

   Framework
      Expand framework of law, custom, rights, property and status as needed to provide a variety of scenarios
      Foundation of laws, both natural and supernatural
      Explicit standing of different citizens vs. civilization authorities
      Possible expansion of religious and family concepts to provide sufficient scenarios
   Starting scenarios
      Various possiblities that guide or govern fortress activity: frontier settlement, religious site, prison colony, mining company, military citadel, roadside inn, secondary/future palace of the monarch
      Drastic changes to migrants based on starting scenario
      Caravans/diplomatic relationships based on starting scenario
      Reclaim mechanics should be folded into this
     Generalize starting scenario relationships to every site foundation
   Hill/deep dwarves
      Ability to bring extra dwarves appropriate to the starting scenario
      Entity populations surrounding your fortress in appropriate environments, both above and below ground
      Ability to move dwarves in and out of surroundings
      Relationship with surrounding dwarves
      Ability to trade/demand food in depot or similar place with surrounding dwarves

The problem is that what I initially set out to do is potentially anything, why would I need to be pigeonholed into a set of mechanics for you are a mining colony hence you only mine and all your people are miners?  If I want to mine, I just embark with a load of picks and then dig away at ores to my hearts content, if we can make starting scenarios that do not constrain game play in any substantial way the whole thing is cosmetic which is fine to me but does not seem to be what the devs have in mind.  The solution I propose is to make starting scenarios temporary, one you meet the requirements to complete the starting scenario you have chosen all the mechanical restrictions are lifted and you just become a regular settlement that does everything potentially but you inherit all the workers and infrastructure from your starting scenario. 

To make sense of the restrictions I think we should start by making starting scenarios *not* actually count as sites at all.  A starting scenario is actually you being a group of dwarves *within* an existing site (of whose government you remain a part of until the scenario is over), that is why you are restricted; the restrictions come from the fact you are not an independent site but a structure that is 'within' an existing site politically (but not geographically).  The parent site had something particular in mind when it sent it's dwarves offsite and that thing is the starting scenario, but once it has got what it wants you are free to become independent. 

The option still exists to operate as things presently do, this means you start off with full autonomy *but* you are poorer than you would be if you chose to play a starting scenario.  By initially adopting a starting scenario you start off far richer but submit to restrictions designed to ensure your parent site gets a suitable 'return' on it's investment. 

[Manveru Taurënér]

The problem is that what I initially set out to do is potentially anything, why would I need to be pigeonholed into a set of mechanics for you are a mining colony hence you only mine and all your people are miners?  If I want to mine, I just embark with a load of picks and then dig away at ores to my hearts content, if we can make starting scenarios that do not constrain game play in any substantial way the whole thing is cosmetic which is fine to me but does not seem to be what the devs have in mind.  The solution I propose is to make starting scenarios temporary, one you meet the requirements to complete the starting scenario you have chosen all the mechanical restrictions are lifted and you just become a regular settlement that does everything potentially but you inherit all the workers and infrastructure from your starting scenario. 

To make sense of the restrictions I think we should start by making starting scenarios *not* actually count as sites at all.  A starting scenario is actually you being a group of dwarves *within* an existing site (of whose government you remain a part of until the scenario is over), that is why you are restricted; the restrictions come from the fact you are not an independent site but a structure that is 'within' an existing site politically (but not geographically).  The parent site had something particular in mind when it sent it's dwarves offsite and that thing is the starting scenario, but once it has got what it wants you are free to become independent. 

The option still exists to operate as things presently do, this means you start off with full autonomy *but* you are poorer than you would be if you chose to play a starting scenario.  By initially adopting a starting scenario you start off far richer but submit to restrictions designed to ensure your parent site gets a suitable 'return' on it's investment.

A lot of people want to play with a certain goal right from the start though and also have the game respect and react to that. While you could play as a mining colony just fine without the game realizing you're a mining colony, it's not the same as the game actually treating you as a  mining colony, and more different cases such as playing say a prison would be kind of hard without the game sending you prisoners and whatnot (which is what that particular scenario would do I assume). We're probably interpreting the available info quite differently, but to me starting scenarios have come across as mostly being about changing how the rest of the world reacts to you, and not so much about limiting how you play more than indirectly (you probably wouldn't choose to play a mining colony and thus accept that there'll be some mining expected somehow from your parent site unless you actually want to mine a bunch). Not sure if that's what counts as cosmetic to you? Completing a starting scenario doesn't make much sense conceptually though, you complete your prison colony and suddenly the prisoners are turned into regular citizens? Or you finish building your temple and suddenly it stops being a religious site and no more pilgrims etc?

And a newly started fort in the current game isn't supposed to be autonomous either, there just isn't much if any gameplay yet to reinforce this idea. We're still assumed to be subservient to the mountainhome, they send their liaisons to check up on us regularly and offer to promote our standing in the kingdom when applicable etc, stuff like paying tribute is in the dev plans and there's sure to be all manner of politics and probably rebelling against your parent civ or similar down the road as well (embarking as a group splitting away from the parent civ with whatever consequences that entails is a fairly given starting scenario eventually though).

Also note that this is meant to be generalized for all sites, so us playing as a mining colony would work under the same framework as the ai mining colonys (etc) we'll eventually be able to have linked to our fortresses.

[GoblinCookie]

A lot of people want to play with a certain goal right from the start though and also have the game respect and react to that. While you could play as a mining colony just fine without the game realizing you're a mining colony, it's not the same as the game actually treating you as a  mining colony, and more different cases such as playing say a prison would be kind of hard without the game sending you prisoners and whatnot (which is what that particular scenario would do I assume). We're probably interpreting the available info quite differently, but to me starting scenarios have come across as mostly being about changing how the rest of the world reacts to you, and not so much about limiting how you play more than indirectly (you probably wouldn't choose to play a mining colony and thus accept that there'll be some mining expected somehow from your parent site unless you actually want to mine a bunch). Not sure if that's what counts as cosmetic to you? Completing a starting scenario doesn't make much sense conceptually though, you complete your prison colony and suddenly the prisoners are turned into regular citizens? Or you finish building your temple and suddenly it stops being a religious site and no more pilgrims etc?

And a newly started fort in the current game isn't supposed to be autonomous either, there just isn't much if any gameplay yet to reinforce this idea. We're still assumed to be subservient to the mountainhome, they send their liaisons to check up on us regularly and offer to promote our standing in the kingdom when applicable etc, stuff like paying tribute is in the dev plans and there's sure to be all manner of politics and probably rebelling against your parent civ or similar down the road as well (embarking as a group splitting away from the parent civ with whatever consequences that entails is a fairly given starting scenario eventually though).

Also note that this is meant to be generalized for all sites, so us playing as a mining colony would work under the same framework as the ai mining colonys (etc) we'll eventually be able to have linked to our fortresses.

If the world just treats you as something then this has an effect of affecting your gameplay, for instance if you keep being sent prisoners because the world thinks you are a prison then tends to mean you are tied up in being a prison.  The key problem with starting scenarios as a concept is just that, regular sites have prisons and temples, so why would we need to have a special site that *is* such a thing when we could just have all those things as a more general site?  This is when it struck me, what if I *am* a structure of a particular function *of* a particular AI site which does everything and my existence is simply part of them 'doing everything'. 

The world does not react to your being a starting scenario, the world reacts to the locations that you have in your site.  As a temple colony your temple is simply judged on the same basis as all other temples are which means when you complete your starting scenario and become a regular fortress *with* a temple the same pilgrims still keep coming.  Same with prison colonies, when you stop being a prison colony all the prisoners simply become prisons *in* your site's prisons.  The primary restriction is to begin with you are not allowed to be anything but a prison, because you are not actually supposed to be an autonomous site but simply an extension of an existing one but 'in return' you get more resources than you would if you did things as things are presently done. 

I should have said autonomous not independent .  I was talking about independence from your parent site, not independence from your civilization.  As a starting scenario from the POV of the civilization you are part of your parent site, your site government is also theirs and you are bound by their politics.  When you complete the starting scenario you are allowed (this is not compulsory) to declare yourself a full fortress which makes you into a different site government *from* your parent site and allows you to set up more structures.  For instance as a mining colony, your dwarves would have to travel to the temple of another site in order to pray but if you become a proper autonomous fortress then you can set up your own temple. 

In some cases the parent site may decide to disband you, for instance if the conditions that led to your creation are no longer present.  If that is the case you 'lose' the game and all your dwarves are taken back by the parent site, of whose population they technically still are part of.  This however does not matter much, because you can just reclaim the resulting 'ruin' with a new bunch of dwarves and you inherit all the structures in order to set up a new fortress or for a new starting scenario.

[KittyTac]

Toady does not like "losing by text message". An army or something will probably come and tell you to disband. You can, of course, resist, but then you're not part of your civ.

[GoblinCookie]

Toady does not like "losing by text message". An army or something will probably come and tell you to disband. You can, of course, resist, but then you're not part of your civ.

Resisting does not make sense at all.  You are a not a site (yet) but a structure of another site and the site which are a part of has decided to close you down since they have no need for what you are doing any more.  We actually don't have to worry about this until 20 years in the future when the economy comes along, as per your catchphrase. 

All you do is turn up at the abandoned structure that *was* your defunct starting scenario and then start a whole new independent site, or start a new starting scenario in some more valuable field.  That is why I put 'losing' in brackets, all you have to do is move in a whole bunch of dwarves into the ruins and your 'fortress' continues.  You could even move in some of your favorite dwarves *from* the original starting scenario, once you can pick your embark dwarves but the difference is that instead of those dwarves being part of their parent site until the starting scenario is over they start off as a new site government. 

If the devs are clever they even make it so that it does not look like losing at all.  The mayor of the site we are part of turns up, our dwarves leave with the mayor for the parent site, taking with them as much wealth as they can carry and then shortly afterwards a batch of new embark dwarves can move in.  Now you are in charge of a fully independent site, but with a good porton of the 'immovable' wealth of your former starting scenario and likely a good amount of movable wealth if it was of sufficiently low value that the parent site could not be bothered to take it back with them. 

You aim in any case is to become a full site but with a head-start over a blank embark along the lines we presently have, so by having been 'closed down' you actually succeeded, though you paid not in the starting scenario 'fee' but in the goods taken by the parent site when they closed it down.

[thompson]

I'd like to point out that Toady mentions laws, customs and the status of individual citizens will come along with the embark release.

In a mining company embark you'd have company administrators and employees, and these people would be answerable to the mine's owner (who may or may not live on site). Employees could be restricted in their professions. As the site develops it will attract free citizens who establish a town near the mine, which isn't bound by the mining company's restrictions. Eventually the town will become larger than the mine and the site will gradually become more like a conventional embark.

A prison colony would be similar, except instead of sending employees the parent site sends prisoners. Once free settlers arrive a conventional town grows, and eventually you can petition to become a regular site.

A frontier site could have weaker ties to the civilization, and attract a different migrant mix, but as it develops the civilization will make more effort to integrate the new colony.

In all cases you get a natural progression towards a conventional fortress, which emerges naturally from the underlying mechanics. This is where I imagine Toady is going.

[thompson]

Also note that citizens with different legal status (free settler, employee, noble, soldier, serf, slave, prisoner, POW, etc) would be treated differently by the law. This has big implications for gameplay, especially if your procedurally generated civ tolerated serfdom or slavery.

My point, essentially, is that with the right mechanics site gameplay will vary significantly between starting scenarios and will naturally evolve due to the underlying mechanics without explicitly programming in "special case" nonsense that everyone (rightfully) hates the thought of.

[GoblinCookie]

I'd like to point out that Toady mentions laws, customs and the status of individual citizens will come along with the embark release.

In a mining company embark you'd have company administrators and employees, and these people would be answerable to the mine's owner (who may or may not live on site). Employees could be restricted in their professions. As the site develops it will attract free citizens who establish a town near the mine, which isn't bound by the mining company's restrictions. Eventually the town will become larger than the mine and the site will gradually become more like a conventional embark.

A prison colony would be similar, except instead of sending employees the parent site sends prisoners. Once free settlers arrive a conventional town grows, and eventually you can petition to become a regular site.

A frontier site could have weaker ties to the civilization, and attract a different migrant mix, but as it develops the civilization will make more effort to integrate the new colony.

In all cases you get a natural progression towards a conventional fortress, which emerges naturally from the underlying mechanics. This is where I imagine Toady is going.

That is broadly speaking my idea, but there the 'mine owner' in this case is the crucial element that *makes you* a starting scenario.  When the starting scenario is over you 'buy out' the mine owner and become an independent site. 

Also note that citizens with different legal status (free settler, employee, noble, soldier, serf, slave, prisoner, POW, etc) would be treated differently by the law. This has big implications for gameplay, especially if your procedurally generated civ tolerated serfdom or slavery.

My point, essentially, is that with the right mechanics site gameplay will vary significantly between starting scenarios and will naturally evolve due to the underlying mechanics without explicitly programming in "special case" nonsense that everyone (rightfully) hates the thought of.

Only prisoners actually need to be treated in the fashion you describe with legal status, the other statuses the game can quite happily do without.  Restricting the status of the starting scenario population artificially to only those that fit with the starting scenario so you cannot do certain things is not natural at all, but only if we think of the starting scenario as in some fashion an independent settlement. 

With the exception of prisoners the dwarves you would get sent should generally just be ordinary dwarves (they may have a status, but that should be optional) that are performing a particular task at the moment for the parent site which they are technically part of.  You are restricted for reasons of the fact that you lack the authority as the site's leader to redirect the site (off-site structure is more accurate in present game terms) workforce from the functions they were assigned by the site and to which you are the administrator *of*. 

In return you receive a steady stream of material support from the home-site but the home site also helps itself to whatever you do that has to do with the starting scenario.  The goal here is to build up your site for more general purposes and produce enough of whatever it is the main site was interested in to buy your independence.

[thompson]

I think we broadly agree then. Once laws and customs are implemented properly all fortresses could have dwarves with different legal castes, classes and so on. This feature doesn't exist yet, l but it likely will. Customs will likely be procedurally generated which could lead to significant differences in gameplay between different civs, even for the same starting scenario. Starting scenarios would then allow you to focus on building a site for a specific sub-set of the population (prisoners, miners, people fleeing religious persecution, whatever), which alters the options you have available at the start, but keep site evolution open.

In my view, starting scenarios should resolve questions like:

What is the legal relationship between your site and the parent civ. What particular obligations does each party have? What happens if these obligations are not met? At some point you should be able to renegotiate whatever arrangements were originally in place.

What is the diplomatic status of your site? Are you on good terms with your host civilization? Will they send caravans? Military aid? Tribute? A siege?

Who will migrate to your site? Why? Are they subject to any restrictions? Are they permanent or temporary migrants? What do you need to do to attract a different migrant mix?

Are you bound to the laws and customs of the parent civ? What happens if you attempt to break with tradition (legalise cannibalisation, for instance)? Can you declare independence? What will the host civ do about it?

Who is administering the site? Is it a noble, pioneer, fleeing convict, cult leader, wizard, democratically elected mayor? Will the parent civ attempt to intervene in site development to steer things in their preferred direction? What will they do if they don't get their way?

Embark scenarios could define different initial states for all these question, while the player determines how things go from there. The same underlying mechanics apply to all sites.

[Azerty]

I think we broadly agree then. Once laws and customs are implemented properly all fortresses could have dwarves with different legal castes, classes and so on. This feature doesn't exist yet, l but it likely will. Customs will likely be procedurally generated which could lead to significant differences in gameplay between different civs, even for the same starting scenario. Starting scenarios would then allow you to focus on building a site for a specific sub-set of the population (prisoners, miners, people fleeing religious persecution, whatever), which alters the options you have available at the start, but keep site evolution open.

We already have a distinction between visitors and citizens, and nobles were exempt from the Economy. More castes could be useful, such as POWs, slaves, prisoners and outlaws. It would keep with the pre-1400 legal system in Europe and elsewhere.

[GoblinCookie]

I think we broadly agree then. Once laws and customs are implemented properly all fortresses could have dwarves with different legal castes, classes and so on. This feature doesn't exist yet, l but it likely will. Customs will likely be procedurally generated which could lead to significant differences in gameplay between different civs, even for the same starting scenario. Starting scenarios would then allow you to focus on building a site for a specific sub-set of the population (prisoners, miners, people fleeing religious persecution, whatever), which alters the options you have available at the start, but keep site evolution open.

In my view, starting scenarios should resolve questions like:

But why do we have dwarves with different legal castes at all?  Why are we creating discrimination and restrictions for the player just for the sake of it?  The only legal distinctions that have to exist are between prisoners of various types and free dwarves. 

What is the legal relationship between your site and the parent civ. What particular obligations does each party have? What happens if these obligations are not met? At some point you should be able to renegotiate whatever arrangements were originally in place.

The legal relationship is that of a site of the parent civ.  There is no reason for the civ to treat some sites differently to others legally speaking. 

What is the diplomatic status of your site? Are you on good terms with your host civilization? Will they send caravans? Military aid? Tribute? A siege?

Your diplomatic relationship is defined by your actions in the game.  Obviously you start with a good relationship with your civilization, or else you would not exist. 

Who will migrate to your site? Why? Are they subject to any restrictions? Are they permanent or temporary migrants? What do you need to do to attract a different migrant mix?

If nobody was willing to migrate to your site, you would not exist.  Why would you have control over what migrants you get, that would be determined by the wider situation in the world?

Are you bound to the laws and customs of the parent civ? What happens if you attempt to break with tradition (legalise cannibalisation, for instance)? Can you declare independence? What will the host civ do about it?

Who is administering the site? Is it a noble, pioneer, fleeing convict, cult leader, wizard, democratically elected mayor? Will the parent civ attempt to intervene in site development to steer things in their preferred direction? What will they do if they don't get their way?

Embark scenarios could define different initial states for all these question, while the player determines how things go from there. The same underlying mechanics apply to all sites.

Of course you are bound to the laws and customs of the parent civ.  Whether you are allowed to legalize cannibalism would depends upon whether sites have been delegated those powers, independence will depend upon the laws of the parent civ again.  What the host civ will do again will depend on the nature of the host civ and it's leader. Still no need for starting scenarios in any of it is there? 

If you are ruling an actual fully developed site, the people in charge of the site are the mayor and possibly a baron/count/duke.  The positions in charge of starting scenarios would be the positions corresponding to the 'locations' within a regular site which the starting scenario legally and politically speaking *is*.