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[Death Dragon]

One of the things to remember about the Cisterian order is that while they had a darn lot of power, they never conceived of themselves as a corporation. The Merchant corporations in the game conceive of themselves as 'people who trade goods', and so, the monestary orders conceive of themselves as 'people who worship a deity'. I guess the only real mechanism that is necessary to get Cisterian Monks is Monks who are able to sell surplus and have mechanisms to engage in economic activity that suits their needs (like a religion focusing on merriment will try to fund bards and festivals, but might also fund mercenaries to beat their enemies, and depending on who is heading, might plan to gain funds to do this activity).

Yeah, I was basically asking how big the divide between these two entity types is and if they can act in sorta similar ways or if they are very restricted in what they are allowed to do.
The Cistercians were still a monk order, yeah, but they were very profit-oriented and, as far as I know, sent out controller people who made sure that their daughter/sister monasteries were profitable.

[Toady One]

Will fortress dwarves with the potential for evil scheming (please excuse the explicitly specific examples but necromancer/vampire being atypical villians) use retired or abandoned fortresses as a base, or is this immunized in world generation?

These are the kinds of things players i reckon could foster on site (maybe accidently) in terms of world building, as to note its quite similar to kruggsmash's illustrated youtube series. (any wondering where the inspiration for the question came there then ) Though of course the weaponization of 100's of goblin corpses from uncleaned up seiges would mean they have plenty of ammunition and maybe be able to skip to the end of their master plan of collection in the necromancer's case.

therahedwig: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7894881#msg7894881

I'm not sure what you mean by retired fortresses vs. "immunized in world generation," as those seem mutually exclusive.  Abandoned fortresses are available, and retired fortresses work like other sites generally, so all kinds of stuff can happen at either one.  Unless you meant something more specific.  We don't keep track of or use items/corpses at all outside of artifacts much at all for retired forts, so there won't be a lot going on with that specifically.

1. How will we see NPCs reacting to player plots? Say that my character decides to make a tavern their base of operations, and uses their companions to run various schemes targeting the ruler of that same city. If I get caught somehow, will people be sent to look for and possibly kill me? Could I be minding my own business in said tavern when a squad of goons burst in looking to take me out?

2. Will Night Trolls be able to partake in villain plots?

3. Say that I decide to start assassinating high-ranking authorities of a certain religion. Will this somehow effect the game world and cause other groups to show up and fill the gap?

4. If the pre-Big Wait adventure mode medical improvements make it in, what might they look like? Could there be a hospital site where you can lay on a bed and expect treatment from nearby doctors, for example?

5. Will we be able to conquer abandoned sites any time soon? Maybe it results in some sort of bugginess but I thought it was odd that you couldn't occupy sites with nobody in them.

1. This almost entirely depends on how law enforcement works post w.g. for non-player villains.  It can't be too aggressive or villains will all be folded up, but it needs to exist, or villains will be too successful.  It's hard for me to predict now how that'll intersect with the adv or fort villain experience, but that's definitely a balance consideration.  As with the adv/fort time difference, we'll see if it's possible to bridge all the gaps simultaneously or whether cludgy hacks are necessary.

2. They aren't currently involved.  There's going to be some more added to world gen in the coming weeks as we close that section off.  I'd say the odds are against now, but it depends on what gets the most traction.

3. As with the economy, there isn't a much going on in terms of passive cultural effects and so forth, especially after world gen closes off.  As a lot of the religious stuff is new, it's still on the table to be considered for addition to the post w.g. work when that begins.  This means that killing religious figures could very well disturb the spread of the religion post w.g., if we do that stuff, though in w.g. we don't have actual retractions of religion from dangerous areas, so as long as they can find a replacement, the position would eventually be filled again, often quickly, unless the overall dynamics change.  But converts would be targeted by those still active, so the "fill the gap" part might end up mattering.  Religious people are sometimes involved in plots as well, of course, and killing them would disrupt those too.

4. I imagine some simple self-treatment options would come first, and often be the most practical given how adv mode works, but yeah, use of doctors, who of course exist in fort mode, is on the table.

5. Like a reclaim?  Yeah, it's a reasonable thing and probably not hard to do, as there's already an "army controller" for it that the non-player groups use for post w.g. reclaims.  Dunno about "soon," as usual.

1. Modded instruments can have a custom description, will it be possible for all items in the future?

2. In regards to Mythgen and items: Completely random worlds probably will have some bizarrely named equipment. How will it be communicated to the player that "zbfkl"s or whatever random jumbles of letters are infact, swords? This also extends to other things: As far as i know there isn't any indication in-game that a piece of armor is shaped, for example.

3. As part of mythgen, will generated sentient creatures in high-randomness worlds wear( and will it be possible to mod) clothing and armor worn on bodyparts other than what's possible right now, where it makes sense? For example: Tail armor, Wing decorations, even actual clothing worn on the ears if the creature's ears are big enough?

4. Cursed equipment( of the unremovable variety) is a fantasy staple, will MagicGen produce stuff like this? if so, can we also expect mundane stuff that can't be easily unequipped due to whatever reason?

5. Who will villians target with their plots and schemes? Will their personality affect what they do? For example, may some villians attempt to do shady things for the benefit of their civ?

1. Death Dragon: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7897842#msg7897842
I certainly need to handle that at some point.  Item descriptions have been absolutely terrible for more than a decade.  I haven't had a clear time to move forward on that.  Just have to make space somewhere.

2. FantasticDorf: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7897900#msg7897900
Instruments are a special case, since people are used to encountering instruments with various names from various cultures, more than most other objects, in my experience (though I'm not stating a thesis here.)  And they generally aren't a life or death object.  For those, you can see in the vaults that we just call them e.g. <adjective> swords right now, generally.  I'm not sure how far we'll attempt to step beyond that at default settings.  There is a possible mixture where items get both descriptive and cultural names.  Some existing games already extend that backwards to items we just use regular names for, giving descriptive names that give way as you learn about them, and that's possible depending on the context.  But I don't intend to throw people into a complete mess.

3. This seems likely, since they'll be default playable races in fort mode, where that'll make a huge difference.  Obviously that's important for modders as well; I imagine there'll be about a zillion reasons modders will be happy with the magic release, of course.

4. As you say, it's a fantasy staple.  Also a roguelike staple.  Whether that ties into everyday inconveniences like a suit of armor being more annoying to take off will probably be unrelated issues.

5. The third part of this question is more complicated than the first two parts, since personality matters and they target anybody who isn't their friend with special emphasis on people they don't like or who have things they want or who are in their way (e.g. law enforcement.)  Altruistic acts though, or stuff with a generally larger purpose that may or may not include the villain themself, haven't really been on the menu though.  This ties back into the larger question of all of the villain stuff being enlarge-able to general espionage and diplomacy all the way over to general plan formulation toward some end without just killing people.  We're still on the villain part of this progression mainly.

1. Will dogs ever be able to be used for herding or have any interactions involving herding?
Along with other things
2. like smelling for creatures/things &
3. possibly to assist in plant gathering
and hunting(in ways other than just attacking such as:
4.Retrieving the kill
5.finding prey without attacking)
or for activities like
6.scaring birds(filthy thieving Keas) away

FantasticDorf: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7897900#msg7897900

All reasonable suggestions!  Since you ruled out attacking, I'd say none of that is going in this release.  I imagine herding algorithms are pretty complicated, since it's a layer on top of flocking behavior (which we don't meaningfully have either), but some of it is do-able.

"Incidentally, Ashi's only involvement with Bunnygears was unleashing a werezebra on it, the current price of having a temple to profane. We'll improve this at a later date, he he he."
Does that mean new curses/blessings? :O

Ha, later date was more of a Big Wait reference.  The plate is overfull already for this release.

Interesting new devlog, i have two questions.

I haven't seen a megabeast ruler for a while in first or thirdhand accounts of game experience, but with things considered for the villian arc and the nessecary plotting of a demon or possibly cyclops (with intelligence and power tokens accounted) will living  in world religious icons of a cult have any importance to this new system, such as cyclops in power* building temples to themselves to expand influence or (followers/leaders/icons) somehow founding a mutual or one sided relationship with other related beings in spheres

* (after plotting some intricate steps to the throne like extortion and kidnap to be thwarted by adventurers or just plain duffing up and routing a town before settling their own monsterous government for desperate people and worshippers to migrate to)

Question no #2, i can't help but notice the parallel's to a Kruggsmash video in which he went over his mutual suprise how owl people migrated from the wild and joined one of his in world AI civilizations, with other factors like diety representation and relevant held beliefs* joining a civ that valued it and had a owlman faced god. Will factors like this reflect the outcome of how animal people are dispersed more actively?

* (owls often being a subjective representation of knowledge, though there are some other cultural variations, like saying pigs or hogs are attached to greed and excess, jackals or vultures to death and decay if you wanted a animal-headed egyptian like pantheon.)

It seems a bit of a bandying into the Law & Property arc if you ask me, the same way we took a fancy to the hilllock arc early in a strange tangental way, though adding token spheres onto particular animal people/animals is painless to achieve for the relevant effect of generating dieties that look like a particular form like mentioned in the above citation.

If I'm reading this correctly, we won't have to worry about megabeast worshippers turning into cults this arc?

Yes, for the moment, megabeasts and forces were excluded for technical reasons (prophets make prophecies which are deity-based.)  When I added the deity flag check, it solved a problem, but I was also inwardly grumpy with it, so I expect it won't last forever, though in DF that can mean anything.

I don't recall the animal people actually caring about any of that stuff; your example is more on the serendipitous side of DF stories than something planned, though animal symbolism generally is something we've thought about, and it's complicated, naturally.

The links you're creating between all of the people in the world are really fascinating. Large world Legends should be great fun to read through. How well do you think the villains system will scale down though? With a small pop pocket world, are we likely to see either no real plots going on due to a lack of links, or the opposite situation of every histfig in the world plotting against every other histfig? Or do you think it'll scale relatively smoothly?

The percentage of principle villainous actors should be relatively constant, due to the data being polled being mostly scale-independent.  The action is mostly local, which is favorable, and most links are the same way.  The smallest worlds might be missing some of the neater links, due to the geography involved and the lack of multiple market towns in the same civ (so e.g. religions have more trouble gaining hierarchies.)  Over longer times (and smaller worlds tend to have longer histories, or at least, it's more feasible for them to have them if you change the settings), the smaller worlds will have a bit of a pressure cooker effect; you even get that a bit between medium and large the way the site cap and hf cap works with the space provided.  I haven't seen any deal-breakers yet, but will certainly be open to size-based adjustments of some parameters if it ends up being ridiculous, and I haven't done many small run-throughs yet, worldgen still being in progress.

Can people "enlarge" an already existing religious infrastructure if there are more people believing in this particular god ?
And are there several "levels" of temples, like churches vs cathedrals ?

FantasticDorf: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7897942#msg7897942

The infrastructure is all smaller scale stuff, which continues to be built up in worldgen after there are temples.  What the continued building of this means post w.g. is still an open question.  Maps are a bit more finicky there, especially on a second visit, but I do have a few architectural change abilities.  Temples themselves don't change yet.

How do majority faiths in the rework retaliate to "heresy" and opposing sphere beliefs in town?

With religion being updated should we expect inquisitions in the next release? Also would we see religion mixing so some humans would believe in dwarven gods or other things like that (if its not in the game already)?

I think at most we can hope for people profaning temples and shrines of religions that they don't like. Not sure if people can dislike (and sabotage) other religions because they see them as "rivals" to their own religion in the currently developed update, but it could be using the same framework that companies use when they sabotage rival companies, so maybe. Can you maybe confirm, Toad?

Will religion have any standing to the static or variable hereditary noble positions for a requirement to holding a post/consideration of nomination?*

*- Though the latter is a slightly more fluid majority thing it would seem from our current level of information in towns, pantheons are not so clear cut as saying 'your ruler needs [RELIGION:CHRISTIANITY]' to be egible to rule as much as sponsoring a particular god higher than others.

PatrikLundell: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7899085#msg7899085
Death Dragon: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7899224#msg7899224
Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7899232#msg7899232
FantasticDorf: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7899236#msg7899236
therahedwig: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7901996#msg7901996

As I recollect, temple razing used to be quite common.  That's gone now, since it was closely linked to the old religion/temple code.  I didn't get to anything more subtle or similar, really, though there's still a note on the release, so it's possible.

On the last question, like a state religion (or some softer/etc. version of that)?  Not at this point; there's just the state actors and their infrastructure building.  The remaining note partially concerns this matter:  religious violence/etc. pointing upwards, downwards and sideways, with a bit more structure to say what defines up-down in terms of the state vs. popular religions, and sideways in terms of beliefs/values/spheres.  Whether we go anywhere with that this time depends on the unknown contours of the final bits of w.g. villain work.  We know they need to be more varied, but exactly how that unfolds relies on the movement of the spirit and/or humours as it happens.

Does the religion rewrite just apply to proper pantheons, or to any religious figure? Would elven immigrants in a human town start erecting little shrines to the nature spirit of their woods back home?

The shrine rewrite applies to them, but the prophet function doesn't yet, as mentioned above; this may change.

1. You mentioned in one of your recent dev logs that soon gods will be able to do more things for mortals than just give them vampirism, were beast ism and secrets of life in death in the new villain update that will occur before the myth and magic wait. Would our player adventurers be able to receive theses new blessings or curses from the gods? And if so how would we go about receiving these new boons or banes from the gods?
2. I remember a while back you were going to release an update that allowed us to have multiple party members and pets at the start of our adventures. Is that update going to be combined with the villain update? I ask this because you haven't released it or talked about it recently.
3. Seeing as religious groups are becoming bigger players in the villain update will our player adventurers be able to join some of these religious groups similar to how we can become hearth people for rulers? And if so will we be able to receive special religious quests from them similar to how hearth people get military quests? And if so would our player adventurer gain fame within that religious group and or getting special worldly or divine rewards?
4. What sort of plots do you think religious groups will undertake? Also would the sphere of the deity the group worships affect what kind of plots they try to pull off?

So, Did you finish the tactical party combat system for Adventurer?

PlumpHelmetMan: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7898658#msg7898658
Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7898690#msg7898690
FantasticDorf: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7898692#msg7898692
therahedwig: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7898697#msg7898697

3. There's a certain squad-inflected nature to the current adventurer joining process (hearth people aren't position holders.)  Now, we'd like to get to some aspects of adventurer position holding, and that was related to this whole villain push, but we aren't yet in the position to see exactly where we'll land for this release on that.

4. And yeah, religious plots not a particular thing at this point, as opposed to being a general villain who is in a religious organization and just power-hungry and/or scheming.  This could change in coming weeks depending on the selections of additional villainous acts before moving on to post w.g.  Still have some choosing to do.

Ha ha, no, there are still several unfinished party matters.  It's been such a weird long half-year that I don't even remember what caused me to pull away from where I was on that to go to finish the villains first.  I don't think it'll take a super long time to clean up when I go back, but there'll definitely be some of that this release.  Fortunately, the greatest hurdle, of getting villains to work at all, is now done.  Another great hurdle is making fort mode investigations and other counter-villainy fun; I mean, it'll definitely be Fun, but we have the other word to worry about too, in terms of engaging and interesting choices, balance, pacing, exposition, all that, up to our admittedly imperfect standards on the latter three especially.  I think adv mode will be a little more straightforward but I could be wrong about that.

How accurately do you plan to make the map rewrite simulate geology? The 3 yards to one vertical block scale would make it unlikely for dwarves to get to magma, so I'm assuming not that accurately, but can we expect to see proper geological folds and igneous intrusions, with accompanying rock types, as well as the sorts of structures on the surface that one would expect to see due to erosion? How about glacial deposits? Would geological ages be included in the pre w.g. myth stage?

Miuramir: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7901966#msg7901966

Yeah, there'll be more tension once the myth rewrite and map rewrite are done, as I'll have more control over larger scale geology, and also stranger metaphysics to respect.  Over in no-magic land, the idea would be to get as many systems as possible into the game, but of course, we need to pick favorites.  Generally I'd lean toward the ones that create either more interesting mechanical situations in the game and/or better vistas/embark sites.  There will very likely be some basic additions on the first pass, just so I can get my sea legs (or whatever is the opposite of sea legs, since it's mostly dry/hot geology here...  magma sea legs or something); and yeah, intrusion formations like batholiths fit the bill mechanically, aesthetically and geologically, so that kind of thing is on the menu.  I haven't thought as much about glaciers, but it seems I should add tarns at some point so the game can finally have a self-insert.

If multi-tiled creatures are a thing to come someday, will we see multi-tile cage traps/other means of capturing them

FantasticDorf: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7899313#msg7899313
Real_bang (op): http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7899343#msg7899343
therahedwig: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7901996#msg7901996

When I went to take a look at the Elven civ in my world, I noticed that Elves take a lot of walks, like, I've seen humans out of a stroll, but elves go out for a stroll en masse, sometimes in big groups and sometimes I would see multiple big groups at once come by.

Is taking walks an official Elven pastime or something? Or is it just a quirk of forest retreats having the residences in the air?

Ha ha ha, lack of wells maybe?  Humans like to go to wells, and the other option might be the stroll.  We'll have to iron out these quirks at some nebulous point.

Question: With the new devlog, will there be any overlap with how holy cities/prophet mechanics can be inferred into fortress play due to how many temples are set up around the place?*

* Seems like a nice pull for a temple tourist trap, orchestrating your fortress as the spawning ground for a home-made prophet.

It seems that [POSITION:RELIGION] may be tenable for the future in playable civilisations without incurring a crash if not actually carrying gameplay i hope with the new changes too, despite the weird barely used place its in right now.

Though just to add as feedback for the devlog in general your issue around sphere competition could be alleivated by evil sphere alignment modifier's with a little bit of religious code  but this is not particularly a suggestion as much as just anecdotal to myself running w.g dark fortress goblins with negative sphere pantheons without much trouble which even if demons/dark fort leaders get some form of special religion to play Pyongyang cult of personality for the future or better tying by becoming a assigned forceful self-prophet, should be resistant enough to the outside world's good spheres.

I don't understand how religions are going to affect fort mode temples in the future. In fort mode currently, we can create a temple and dedicate it to a certain god. Is anything about that going to change with this update?
For example, can we now dedicate temples to any god and not just to the ones of our civ because of how religions aren't connected to civs? Are we going to be able to dedicate temples straight up to religions instead of to gods? Or are religious groups going to "claim" temples we built that they like?
I assume that we won't be able to assign priests to our temples in fort mode because of how priests are positions chosen by the religious group themselves, not by the fort administrators (aka the player), right?

If i were to, say, establish a temple for one of these newfangled religions in my fort, would that count towards their advancement to the next tier of priesthood?

What about deities that dont have a religion associated with them yet? What happens if i establish a temple for them?

We still cant establish a prophecy and thus a religion ourselves in any way, right? But can new prophets can crop up during play? Can my dorfs become a prophet, so i can establish their temple?

And to what extent do these religious organizations interact with civ/site governments? Irl, you have things like state sponsored or mandated religions, or bans on certain/all religions, or generally disagreements between religious believers and governments, or other faiths, that dont tolerate each other. Is that possibly coming this release as well, or will we have to wait for that?

It's on the list of considerations, for the w.g. -> post w.g. / adv / fort conversion.  In some ideal universe, the religions will be respected equally between all forms of play.  We are quite squeezed on this release now as we enter the new year, but it can certainly be considered a deficiency now until it's handled.  The fort should be able to become a holy city or have temples assigned to specific world religions rather than just deities or even have a new religion spring up from a prophet.  As Death Dragon says, the religions should be able to choose their own priests.  We haven't leaned into state religions in worldgen, but there's room for that as well, and in fort mode that makes it a player choice if the monarch isn't in an override mood (considering the player as the official will of the fortress.)  The potential story conflicts there are all interesting, and getting the player involved is even better.  But we won't know until if that's in until the fort mode work is underway.

The same is true of the guilds and merchant companies; clearly, we want more out of the economy and subgroups and so forth generally in fort mode before we dive into that, but it's now staring at us from worldgen.  Generally, the countervailing force isn't just time, but also the law/customs/subgroup/etc. release, which at least in the more gnarly cases will feel more necessary as we get to the higher-res fort and adv modes (and not just w.g.)  However, I'm hopeful that we'll see some movement, especially since the current fort mode temples just aren't going to hold up as they currently exist.

Will it be possible for us to "defend" goblin civs from religion a little by modding in a position holder with Religion as a workaround? Or is it not that simple?

FantasticDorf: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7900439#msg7900439

They need to worship something.  I recall them not having competing infrastructure in the test, but I thought there was also a demon worship element before, so I'm a bit confused.  I'll check that out.  If you add a religion position, and they do worship the demon, then that would double the rate and help.  Of course, having them create their own demon prophets would also be cool, and perhaps funny since the demon is like right there, and will almost certainly not hold whatever exact belief about the destruction of the world is ascribed to them, even if they agree with it in broad strokes.

Will religion deeply affect politics/psychology ? I think of religious wars or fights or good/bad relationships based on religious differences

Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7900506#msg7900506

Yeah, since religions carry the values of the prophet, which can be different from their birth civ, and then also very different from civs where they spread, this can cause some extra value deviation where the religion is practiced.  I need to implement more drift among believers, though.  The value difference is only evident among certain people, as it doesn't capture late converts the same way, so there are some inconsistencies.

A while back now, Ultimate Ratio Regum developer Mark R. Johnson was spending a large amount of time programming in AI behaviors involving time tables for work, having farmers man the fields, guards stand guard and replace each other at the appropriate time, etc., and to have that all work out regardless of whether the player is present, absent, or appears or disappears midway through such a scene. Currently, the NPCs in Dwarf Fortress in adventure mode tend to stand around inside their homes for the most part and do nothing.

Have you considered programming in the daily lives of NPCs (in adventure mode/outside of the fortress) in terms of going to work, eating, going to sleep, etc., and if so, how do you envision this for the future? Do you think it would be difficult/straightforward/possible to make it flexible enough that every day is not necessarily the same as the last, i.e. so that it doesn't interrupt more specific behaviors that don't fall under the purview of the everyday routine (that I think are currently much more developed already)? Also, on which other features (such as the economy or other social/cultural frameworks) does it rely, as far as you can see?

I imagine the absence (mostly) of this sort of AI currently influences how you might add some things, like in yesterday's devlog about (among other things) priests converting part of a community; I imagine that currently happens in a rather abstract manner, but once AI is more fleshed out, if it ever is, I imagine you might want to make this sort of thing more visible/make it so that it 'actually happens', so to speak. (I realize it's currently just WG stuff being described in there, so it would have to be abstract anyway, but I'm talking about when this shows up in other parts of the game.) Do you think this sort of thing is something best done relatively late (risking having to rewrite many other things that were at first abstracted) or early (risking you might not have all the prerequisite systems in place for it)? (Note that I'm not asking for a specific timetable or some such, obviously I know that's impossible to give at this point.)

therahedwig: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7900592#msg7900592
Whatsifsowhatsit (op): http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7900774#msg7900774

Not only planned, but there used to be eating and sleeping scheduled in adv mode, with magically refilling food barrels.  Took it out for whatever reason (when I added real food piles?  before?  don't recall.)  So I'm definitely leaning toward late rather than early, since early already broke once, same as the fort mode economy.  In more than one way, the return of the fort mode economy is very similar to the re-addition and expansion of an NPC scheduling system.  The NPC stuff is a bit harder when you consider resources, though, if that's to work at all realistically.  It seems impossible to get right, though it might not be.  Strategy games based around trading and making outposts etc. do all the number pushing correctly to some extent, but we'd need a lot more of it, with a fort-mode level AI to the point it could almost play fort mode itself, 2000 times at once around the world at varying degrees of abstraction.  This seems a stretch.  But we'll certainly do more than the nothing we have now.

And yeah, the ultimate idea is to have a w.g. <-> post w.g. <-> fort mode <-> adv mode spectrum of resolutions for activities like conversion.  Connecting them up as the camera moves around is tricky, especially when some people pop up from abstract populations and don't quite achieve historical status (or when they do).  We've vaguely managed it for certain activities, whiffed it for others.  You can see certain small scale raids, for instance, but no razing, because local-view adv mode building destruction isn't straightforward to code.

On combat simulation, with upcoming mythgen overhaul, will properly simulating natural weapons be addressed? I refer to mechanic of parrying them being 1) possible and 2) handling such collisions sensibly.

Currently it's not possible to parry (only block or dodge) natural weapons or wrestling moves - and being able to cut someone's grabby fingers would make chokeholds by low-skill wrestlers so much less deadly (I'll assume a high-skill one will just abort the contact instead of getting hurt). With spell effects eventually added into the mix, not being able to parry some Vampiric or Freezing Touch (nevermind an ankle lock!) is going to become way more relevant. Especially if it might turn out to be a Wood-And-Metal-To-Pus Touch which specifically targets your protection and you'd rather be one copper sword short (if even that, in case of a narrow-scope Steel-to-Rust, or Armok forbid Adamantine-to-Coke) than lose that steel breastplate which saves you from becoming a poisoned, blowdart-riddled pincushion.

It also makes bite attacks work really weird in that you can only dodge a tiny coyote, despite such a move being dangerous to suicidal with real-life physics when fighting against larger creature. Killing a beast with a sword/spear lodged between its teeth is such a cliche anyway it should probably work for those with sufficient combat skills.

therahedwig: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7900716#msg7900716
PlumpHelmetMan: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7900725#msg7900725
alexsa2015sa (op): http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7900751#msg7900751

Yeah, I agree it's silly now and also has a slowly-incresing feel of priority as we consider many of the things that are coming.  I'm not 100% sure we'll address it on the first magic pass, but as the internal pressure from the game builds, things start to move by necessity.

[Toady One]

With all the work on religion will it be possible to choose what god your adventurer/s worships and at what "level"?

Random_Dragon: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7900930#msg7900930
JesterHell696 (op): http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7900947#msg7900947
Death Dragon: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7900991#msg7900991

Ah, I don't recall having changed this, but it's certainly a much higher candidate now with the other chargen bits going in this time.  Will make a note.  Seems like you should even be able to pick organized religion membership (or not) now that that works a little differently than before.

Is it possible for two religions to claim the same city as their holy city?

FantasticDorf: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7900950#msg7900950
Death Dragon: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7900991#msg7900991
Killermartian: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7901774#msg7901774

Yes.  We some additional group/state-level mechanics to make it really feel that way in a dynamic and responsive way, but the temples and highest priests can be there and there's some passive back-and-forth in the infrastructure and conversion counts and some interpersonal stuff.

1. Seeing as investigating villainous plots will be a new activity in the villain fleshing out update I am wondering how easy or hard it could potentially be to discover said plots. In the examples you have given the player finds out about the plot dealing with local troubles but will it also be possible to learn about plots by just walking around in town ease dropping on people? For example could you learn about a plot being conducted by the civilization's spy master by just hanging out around the castle in the center of town?
2. With religious structures getting more variety will we start seeing monasteries on the side of major roads outside of a civilization site?
3. On a similar note will smaller civilization sites like hamlets and hillocks now have the possibility of including small religious structures like shrines?
4. Currently one special purpose some religious structures can have is being a catacombs, with all the new kinds of religious structures will new kinds of religious structures with special purposes come into being possible? If so can you name a few.

1. FantasticDorf: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7902564#msg7902564
Hopefully they will exercise better tradecraft, but yeah, the idea is for there to be some evidence, enough to work with.  This is neither 100% planned nor entirely clear.  But we can make an effort, as usual.

2/3/4.
PlumpHelmetMan: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7902569#msg7902569
Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7902604#msg7902604

Yeah, though it's all in the wg -> post wg -> adv pipeline, so I haven't settled all questions.  Monasteries aren't necessarily on major roads; they are simply placed like other sites as it stands, near to their benefactor's site currently.  The little structures should be almost everywhere, though as for what a shrine *is*, well, fortunately that's part of post wg or even adv, so I haven't had to decide yet, heh.

We just have the monasteries and shrines as truly "new" stuff, and they house monks and serve as well-like sites of take-a-stroll worship, respectively.  At least I hope to get the adv mode walkers out there doing their bit.

If we are moving past the bulk raiding/interactive civ screen arc, will you be keeping it synchronized and updated with other features you are working upon for villians onwards?

Figuring that right now we can't actually see rumored areas and sites like kobold caves unless they are revealed in other ways explicitly (answers varying from, using advanced world parameter to cheat viewing the cave, using a hearthsperson adventurer to explore on civ's behalf before embarking, or letting them steal a book to get a rough rumor co-ordinate even though this doesn't reveal the site after)

If its not a little bit too sly in saying, the function of a scout might be needed for the oversight if any villian in fortress mode you want to do anything to disrupt or break the agent network amongst your own dwarves can just hide in a lair or shrine and become untouchable while it spreads all over corrupting your population.

therahedwig: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7903546#msg7903546
FantasticDorf: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7903574#msg7903574
Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7903647#msg7903647

As well as I ever do, though I've tried to be more dedicated to the wg -> post wg -> adv -> fort order of implementation within a single release recently (as in like a year or two?  I don't recall when that started to become the pattern.)  In this particular case, that means that when we get around to adventurers investigating and also being villains, they'll be allowed to use all of the new post wg "army controller" types for companion orders, and also we'd like the fortress to be able to use these as well.  If there are odd cases that don't work out, I'll try to note them.  Generally, this means your forts and adventurers will have the opportunity to be both craftier and fouler than previously, at your discretion.

Is any form of sincretism planned soon either in form of outright melding of religions (of the same god or otherwise) or in the form of inclusion of some elements of a religion in others?
I mean, the number of resurrecting sun-gods that have their birthday on the 25 of december in our world is surprising.
And in your example of insignificance from 12/13/18 Current Development feed:

Take these two religions, the Romantic Faith and the Adorable Creed, founded within five years of each other a century ago in the same dwarven fortress by two different prophets of the birth god Zefon. Each has only a single priest, the aged dwarf prophets preaching their own version of Zefon, but they've had impact throughout the area

Wouldn't the (chance of) melding the two prophets efforts have the potential of generating interesting emerging stories?

On the other hand:
Will there be any form of heresy included? Centrifugal forces inside religions, due to doctrinal or power sharing issues or both? If yes, will there be he chance of escalating and composing conflicts in it, getting to a reconciliation or to genocidal violence, or any point in between?

Syncretism in particular is blocked by the structural issues that are going to be handled in the post-Big-Wait laws/customs/property/subgroups/etc. push.  The data structures right now cannot handle partial linkages and inheritance(-ish) mechanics, which is exactly what syncretism requires to keep the memory footprint under control.  We'll be able to do language drift and hybrid law codes and all sorts of neat stuff as we tackle the structural rewrites.  Right now, even the village/bandit/etc. entities gobble up unwarranted amounts of real estate since they can't build themselves from existing data (beyond certain special cases.)

The prophets currently spring up whether they have an existing organized religion or not, so they can both be an evolution of whatever religion they had (though it isn't treated that way), or a new set of beliefs that might directly contradict the beliefs of otherwise-unrelated religions that worship the same deity.  None of this is currently detected or utilized, but it is also sitting right there with a note for this release, so we shall see if anything transpires.  The various pushes in this release have created a lot of straightforward additions that still somehow run into framework problems down the line, so I have to be careful while also plucking as many of them as I safely can.  As you can see for the last months of dev logs, there has been quite a bit of plucking, but there's also restraint; this form of restraint is just invisible when it happens.

With the upcoming (ha) release of the Myths and Magic update, do you have plans to implement better awareness/simulation of body changes for magically altered creatures? As of right now, the only hint of symptoms given from magical effects are on the description screen, and usually hardly do it justice.

For instance, if a creature's body size changes because of a magic effect, can you expect to see a prompt such as 'everything seems to get smaller/larger' in the action log?

This seems like a prudent suggestion, yeah.  I don't have a specific plan for handling it yet.

1. Can you expand some more on how vermin-sized creatures/pets work as of now?  I know you can move cave spiders into a specific room in fort mode and they'll keep existing there and spinning webs. But does that already happen in adventure mode? Do they unload with the rest of the site, or can you catch cave spiders and start them spinning useless webs in your wooden tower already? Will it be different for the spiders you start adventure mode with if you get that sort of vermin pet? Your important trained spider. What about other sites like catacombs that keep track of the items you've left in them?

2. Is a vermin pet going to attack in any circumstance, on your shoulder or off, and does that mean assassins can now let a poisonous spider into a room if NPCs don't also have pets that can attack such a small creature? Can your pet-caused deaths be tracked to you as a crime, or through syndromes made by pets you own? If you dump a bunch of barrel penetrating vermin into a shop will it be recognized as the new industrial sabotage crime since those items are otherwise tracked for thefts kind of? If a cleaning ability is modded on to a vermin will it activate it, either on the ground or not? What about, say, raising the dead?

I hadn't thought of it until now but vermin are kind of overpowered in adventure mode even before this release if they're actually tracked. But I guess that's why turkeys and chickens are always around. They're very helpful always scratching in the mud. Saving lives. But if someone slipped the monastery cats some beer and they all passed out the Most Holy Sky is going to be getting replaced pretty regularly. Then Sherlock Holmes will show up and notice that the snake literally has your name on it, foiling your perfect plot.

3. Will you be able to milk a purring maggot? I guess there's more work involved in making it so you can actually get purring maggots in the first place, since they don't work right now. But if you got them, the milk is right there. Not to mention the other animals you can presumably milk.

3a. Will we be able to milk our cows? Not as important as the purring maggot, because anybody could run off with that cow, but you're going to be protecting that maggot right on your person most of the time.

4. Since adventurers are getting some medical stuff, would starting with a pet cave spider instead of, say, a sword give them one-up on bandaging themselves? I'm going to need that if I'm scratched to hell from fighting while dizzy after catching all these cave spiders

5. To expand on an old question: since we already have the carpenter's workshop in adventure mode anyway could we start making cages and caging up animals we already own? Could we dedicate an area as a zoo in our sinister bandit fort, since all these nice adventurers will be dropping by to stop us now?

1. They are subject to item rules (sadly for them), but they are also stored as a vermin event if they are freely roaming.  I'm not sure how that interacts with save/load; badly I expect.  I suspect vermin-sized pet owners should keep them nearby or in a safe spot.  You can drop them and pick them up from the ground, and it maintains their pet status, but offloading them is trickier, if they aren't in a container.  It would be nice if they could run around the home when you are away, but that'll have to be a specific fix.

2. A pet on the ground...  maybe gets to do the sting/bite code?  I don't recall the vermin event querying the pet status.  Fort players might have observed this (or not, as the case may be.)  If so, ha, yeah, it will be a perfect crime currently.  I don't think they can use any interactions...  they are soulless, as I recollect, which is another sad comment on the current DF cosmology, especially coming from a former rat keeper who certainly recognizes that vermin-sized critters can have different personalities etc., and considering that future additions will surely require souls to be in birds etc., if only so magic users can fly off in them or whatever ends up going on.

3. I haven't added any farming jobs to adv mode yet, though we have a whole arc for that sitting around someplace.  We've only very slowly added the elements of a peaceful living sim game to the adv mode side of things, and remain shamefully behind.

4. This seems to be the case, though you might need to wait a long time to get the thread (I really have no idea how the timers carry over, assuming you have to watch your spider locally and can't leave.)

5. Getting closer!  I haven't added new designations or reactions, but with pets going, things slowly begin to make more sense until they happen.

I assume the villain network map in the devblog is a new one we can export from Legends, right?

How extensive is the Legends data for villaneous goings on? Is it all accessible from Legends Mode and exportable to XML? Will we be able to check which corrupt officials brought about the downfall of our fortress in between games, or is some of the Hidden Fun permanently Hidden?

Also, come Fortress mode implementation, will firing of position holders for corrupt behaviour be simply left up to the player to implement, or will authority figures amongst the dorfs decide for us? Can nobles like barons be stripped of their rank by the mountain home in a similar way (in worldgen and within a player fortress)?

Finally, in the devblog you mentioned that:
"Earthhells tried to get her mother the militia commander to join up, but she was having none of it and never trusted her wayward daughter again."
Is that an actual thing (grudges/bad relationship forming due to failed corruption bids) or just a story embellishment?

I found it interesting how Aban tried to convince many of her familly members to crime, maybe because her familly mostly got on board, or maybe because Aban received no backlash at all from her familly. Thus, I would like to ask:

Can talking people into crime go wrong in the sense of screwing up relationships? So a friend or familly member may not be talked into crime after a bad conversation, as their relation has turned stall due to it.

Yes, my goal is to only include pictures that are exportable (since the process of producing them might as well be kept around), and that's been true of the logs for this release so far, though I'm not happy with them, as usual.

Hmm, I think it's all historical.  Any scheme formed between two or more people is an event.  There might be some initial decisions that are only logged in the internal intrigue structure, which, even if it's XML exportable (to-do when w.g. villains are done), only has the latest state.  You'll certainly be able to find the fort mode corruption moments, with date stamps to amplify your shame; I imagine my challenge will be to stop the often-psychic engravers from carving them everywhere before the plot is uncovered.

The player is the official will of the fort, so the current plan is to let you handle intra-fort firings, as an expedition leader/mayoral act.  Capricious actions or actions from the mountain home are out of your control.  We'll be flexible if it's not fun, though.  In this case, it's hard to say whether more or less power will be the better road, perhaps even a mixture depending on the act.  We haven't added w.g. hammerings for treason yet, when we'll need to decide what that "punishment exempt" tag really means.  Can the monarch override that for villainous acts of a certain level?  It's not defined as it stands, though clearly you want to be able to do something (official, not just a magma accident.)

Death Dragon: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7906624#msg7906624

Yes, relationships have additional variables now (trust, love, fear, loyalty, etc., different from reputation but sometimes uncomfortably similar - WIP as usual), and that includes various negative mixtures beyond "grudge".  I tried to embellish the story as little as possible, though I didn't want it to read entirely like a series of legends entries, of course.  In this case, the villain's mother still loved her daughter, but the trust was gone.  It's a nascent system, but we can now get different interpersonal behaviors from these mixtures.  I'm looking forward to where it's going, anyway.  Loyalty, trust, love and fear all sound like good story material, he he he, and we've only had really binary versions of them to this point.

Do the guildmasters have generated position titles too? If so, are they based on the type of guild?

They can have I think up to four positions, with different responsibilities, with some variation in number and name, but it's not super interesting.  I only did a cursory search for historical examples at this point, and they were mostly boring, variations on dean and alderperson and treasurer and that kind of thing.  In the push forward, I've been resistant to link them up to the languages (as that stuff really needs to change), so it remains more or less like the random bandit titles (i.e. lackluster.)  But that only makes the potential future brighter by comparison, he he he.

From the latest devlog:
"Lomoth, fond of scheming and idly wishing to become wealthy and powerful ..."
"Aban was an extravagant sort, and given to flights of fancy, so ..."
"... Earthhells was able to play on her father's bond of love as well as his greed."
Will these bits of explanation be listed in the information in legends mode or did you only get them through your debugging tools?

Personalities are still unreadable, just since I've been interface-lazy as usual, though there's a question as to how far legends should go sometimes.  Certainly there's a different point to be made about displaying the reasons for specific actions, and I have plans to log more of those before the release.  In general, the newer historical events are capable of logging reason/circumstance pairs, and I've been patchy about always including them, but that sort of exposition is kind of the point of the whole exercise so I'll continue to work on it.  I'm also working on a new expandable historical event structure so we can optionally dump much more data into a given event without blowing out the memory for the generic event case (where we sometimes have a million sitting around, so every bit is important) or having to store it in a history "collection" like a battle (which possesses too much overarching structure, though it would be a somewhat feasible solution); I haven't selected a first example yet but this is very likely for this release as well, as some of the events aren't displaying enough data now with so many tangential actors possibly involved.

1. Will sufficiently successful schemers and network-builders sometimes try and weasel their way into positions of official power? For example, the blacksmith in the latest story trying to become the 'royal goldsmith' or something like that, and having direct access to more powerful people, as well as opening doors to further advancement.

2. Assuming that villains will try and hoard artifacts (if their beliefs are appropriate), how will they store them if they don't have some kind of 'lair' (castle, for example)? Again, let's take the blacksmith as an example - if she stole some artifact sword through her network, would she just plop it down in her small house and forget about it?

3. Is any kind of simple economic stratification planned for the villain release? Nothing impressive, as I realize that the bulk of the more complex work is reserved for the law arc, but at least having affluent people have more impressive abodes, clothing, etc. It would somewhat tie into the villain system - i.e. impoverished folks being more susceptible to paltry bribes, villains working their way up into a more ostentatious lifestyle, nobles having nice homes in cities, castles/fortresses being various levels of extravagant based on the prestige and wealth of their holder, etc.

4.There were mentions of there being a setting for the 'bleakness' of the world. I can see how such a setting would affect the magic of the world, but will it also significantly affect the non-magical components of the world as well, such as civilizations being harsher and more xenophobic, people in charge tending to be more ruthless and amoral, natural savagery being higher on average, etc.?

1. This does not currently happen at this exact moment.  However, it's on the very top of the list for the coming finalization of w.g. villains.

2. If they don't have some kind of lair, yeah, post w.g. they'll just be in the ridiculous "artifact holder" position which is already a problem.  Lairs, or at least part-time hideouts, will probably be popular for this reason among others.

3. PatrikLundell: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7907166#msg7907166

The only bit I have to add to this is that certain nobles are more inaccessible currently to w.g. villains by virtue of their position.  This is something, and not entirely insignificant, but PatrikLundell is correct on the larger point, and also I'm not sure how even my one example is going to survive contact with adv mode without adding entire guard/admission behaviors and etc. etc.  It might be one of those things that doesn't make the post e.g. -> adv jump, which we are trying to avoid but which are sometimes inevitable (due to stuff like needing entire guard/admission behaviors.)

4. Yeah, in the working formulation we've been talking about with the three or so sliders, that's how it would be.  As with advanced parameters currently though, I suspect very strongly that any "magic" or "tone" or "randomness" sliders will be reserved for quick "now!" world gen, and in actuality, these will not just be multiple subsliders but whole schemes of how raws are loaded and tweaked etc., in the way we've been discussing in some previous posts.  The value randomizer currently used for humans and goblins can easily be linked to whatever tone/bleakness setter(s) we have, and something like that seems necessary to obtain the right feel on the highest settings.  My working examples for max bleakness have always been universally terrible, anyway; the more settings you flip to extremes, the less varied the output will be (aside from the randomness setter, naturally), but sometimes you want a mood, one way or the other.  Though of course, other juxtapositions can also be fun and should be supported to some extent if you go for advanced params.  I am hopeful, anyway.  It's a complicated step for the project, but that's what the Big Wait is for.

1. Will religious art commissioned for temples just be art depicting the past actions of a deity or any scene involving them?
2. If our bone carving adventurers create figurines depicting a deity would followers of that deity recognize the art in question as religious?
3. Would pieces of art depicting a deity be more valuable trading wise in a holy city dedicated to that deity?
4. With prophets being able to convert large portions of civilizations will religions themselves gain their own sets of values like civilizations have? This could make for some good religious civil wars.

1. In the fort?  Like context-sensitive stuff?  The DF engravers are notoriously self-centered, but it's been a reasonable suggestion for it to work differently and better.

2/3. I haven't changed this, and as I recall it doesn't matter at all.  There are certain value checks vs. image, but I think it's mostly at the civ level, and mostly pretty old code.

4. Yes, the religion always inherits the values of the prophet, and the values of the prophet almost always have one to three significant deviations from their birth civilization's value set (and they might be founding a religion away from home, depending on what all has happened.)  I haven't yet created much tension using this fact, but it's there to be used and should also begin to matter organically now that there are more religious actors in the world.

Does the (currently largely aesthetic AFAIK) value system play any role in how likely an NPC is to become a villain? For instance, I'd think a character whose values tend towards extremes might be more likely to engage in villainous behaviour.

Putnam: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7907814#msg7907814
therahedwig: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7907834#msg7907834
FantasticDorf: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7907836#msg7907836
PlumpHelmetMan (op): http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7907865#msg7907865

On the one hand, values play a key role and are in fact the source of a majority of the villains as it stands, I think.  People that value cunning and power in some measure, mainly, as basic intrinsic villains.  On the other, I haven't explored more nuanced villainy that might arise when someone is in opposition to the larger cultural values, because that would have to express itself in a more value-specific way than our current villains.  That would be cool, of course, it's just a bit more than we can easily support with the current levers we have to pull for most values.

Will there ever be such things as a rebellion? Say the citizens of a civ are upset about the way the ruler/high ranking official acts, could the civilians forcibly replace him/her? If so could adveturers join them?

PlumpHelmetMan: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7907944#msg7907944
Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7907946#msg7907946
PatrikLundell: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7907991#msg7907991

Yeah, to add to these observations, I think the main issue is that you can't easily support an insurrection with an eye on replacing the government with a specific person or persons who is not you.  If there's an occupation, you can kill the occupying soldiers, and that should lead to a rebellion and the removal of the occupation force (if that's working.)  You can also take over a site yourself.  But there needs to be a tighter system with more actors in play.  Incidentally, this is quite involved with the current material, which is perhaps why the question came up.  We'll see soon if villains in w.g. add this to their toolbag (too many options to get to everything!) and if so, it'll push forward to adv/etc. most likely.

I wanna sneak in another question because I saw an interesting documentary about the cistercian monk order some days ago:
The cistercians were (and still kinda are, I guess) a monk order in medieval Europe who started out as very strict, chastely, self-contained monks, but as they expanded more and more, they started producing a surplus of resources, which they then exported and sold for profit, instead of just being self-sufficient. They eventually turned into a profit-oriented megacorporation that spread "franchise" monasteries to almost all of Europe and made so much money that they could fund the Knights Templar, leading to the Second Crusade. (Most of their wealth originates from the fact that they exploited cheap labor, but that's a whole other topic.)

With the current way monastic orders and corporations are implemented, would it be possible for a monastic order to develop itself into something similar to a corporation, or are they two separate types of entities that make use of different types of tools and actions? Mainly, what I'm asking is, could a monastic order become a profitable producer of goods and expand to other locations similar to a corporation?

In the last devlogs I only saw you mention monasteries needing funding by other factions to expand, so I'm not sure if you at all planned for this to be possible. There's something to be said about keeping them as separate, distinct entities. It would be less realistic, but probably more game-like. But I guess it would make sense if for example a monk order who worship the god of wealth would somehow also be a wealth-accruing business.
I know this mostly doesn't matter until we actually have the economy update, but there was a bunch of work done on these kinda entities in the villain update.

therahedwig: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7908017#msg7908017
Death Dragon (op): http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7908709#msg7908709

Yeah, therahedwig's point on motivation is the important one.  Here, the monks don't engage actively in account building activities, and they aren't generally position holders (if I recollect, being a monk and a position holder in some other entity are mutually exclusive, but I might be wrong.)  Now, if we tracked the regular economic activity and impact and resources of subgroups, we could do more here.  The merchant companies and guilds are special examples which have small placeholder mechanics to build entity accounts on top of member accounts.  Not sure quite what else we'll get as I finish up the villains.

With the new embezzlement system, what happens if I have a civilization that does not have any money to embezzle?  Do they steal imaginary money or does the system switch to embezzling other valuable goods or does no embezzlement happen without actual money?

Everything is imaginary here, as there's just not enough data (whether that's regarding currency or goods or services/acts), so it defaults now to changing an "account" number, which can be leveraged for a few things.  Whether that represents currency or favor or power of some kind isn't yet well-defined; it's more freely exchangeable than anything would be in real life right now, a too-permanent too-fungible representation of what was gained by abusing the power of the position (which, depending on the listed responsibilities, is assumed to have power over something valuable, on some axis of value.)  Simulation disasters will ensue as more structure is added, but that's all for later.  But yeah, if a modded civ has no CURRENCY set, it'll still have corruption issues provided it has corruptible positions.

In terms of corruption, are the histfigs already capable of mechanisms like nepotism/cronyism/simony where someone gets into a position due being family/buddies/benefactor of a power holding histfig instead of the usual route? Or does that require a bit more rules about how positions are obtained in the first place?

FantasticDorf: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7908046#msg7908046

Yeah, there'll be a bit more, but yeah, we're also just making up loose placeholder rules at this point, so it's important not to overstep.

[FantasticDorf]

Thanks for the replies Toady, phew this was a big one, lets hope the new year coming in can see some excellent DF releases.

1. They are subject to item rules (sadly for them), but they are also stored as a vermin event if they are freely roaming.  I'm not sure how that interacts with save/load; badly I expect.  I suspect vermin-sized pet owners should keep them nearby or in a safe spot.  You can drop them and pick them up from the ground, and it maintains their pet status, but offloading them is trickier, if they aren't in a container.  It would be nice if they could run around the home when you are away, but that'll have to be a specific fix.

Putting them on your shoulder to have a parrot friend to talk to, or eating them as a quick/life-saving snack not withstanding i guess right?

[Death Dragon]

Thanks for the answers. The villain update just keeps on sounding better. The adventure mode squad stuff, improvements in the structure of legends mode, more army controller orders for both modes. Can't wait to see what spies will do to player forts.
I love the fact that religions have the values of their prophet. Sounds like it could eventually fuel some good stories. Spreading a religion of the worthlessness of nature into elven territory or some fanatic guy spreading the glorification of war, disguised as a religion to the god of wealth.

Yes.  We some additional group/state-level mechanics to make it really feel that way in a dynamic and responsive way, but the temples and highest priests can be there and there's some passive back-and-forth in the infrastructure and conversion counts and some interpersonal stuff.

There's a word missing here. I assume it's supposed to mean "We need some additional..."?

[Mordmorgan]

]So are Pews, Prayers Mats, and Priests (to replace or work with the entertainer) coming with this release?

[FantasticDorf]

So are Pews, Prayers Mats, and Priests (to replace or work with the entertainer) coming with this release?

Questions directed at Toady in lime green please  unless you're just asking rhetorically or to other people in the thread.

[Mordmorgan]

So are Pews, Prayers Mats, and Priests (to replace or work with the entertainer) coming with this release?

Questions directed at Toady in lime green please  unless you're just asking rhetorically or to other people in the thread.

Sorry, only my 2nd post in 7 years. Thanks for the help. 

[Inarius]

Thanks for the replies ! Now a new question :

About magic, how do you plan to manage spell duration between adventure mode and fortress mode ? (i mean, spell which will last days/weeks/hours, for instance)

[KittyTac]

Thanks for the replies ! Now a new question :

About magic, how do you plan to manage spell duration between adventure mode and fortress mode ? (i mean, spell which will last days/weeks/hours, for instance)

Probably time dilation, much like everything else. Say, "Magic Missile" takes 5 seconds to cast in advmode, but it takes a few days on the calendar to cast in fortmode. But since everything else also moves many times slower (including whoever/whatever you are casting the spell on), the delay won't feel overly long or short.

[voliol]

Thanks for the replies ! Now a new question :

About magic, how do you plan to manage spell duration between adventure mode and fortress mode ? (i mean, spell which will last days/weeks/hours, for instance)

Probably time dilation, much like everything else. Say, "Magic Missile" takes 5 seconds to cast in advmode, but it takes a few days on the calendar to cast in fortmode. But since everything else also moves many times slower (including whoever/whatever you are casting the spell on), the delay won't feel overly long or short.

I imagine some spells can't be dilated though, you can't have a curse being shortened just because the cursed enters your site, unless you have some anti-curse field set up, of course. Some spells will have to rely on in-game ticks for the duration (as do combat moves, I imagine these are more instantaneous ones), and some on actual in-game time (curses, long rituals, very gradual transformations/corruptions).

[JesterHell696]

Thanks for the reply Toady.

[Untrustedlife]

So, can players/adventurers join the villain organizations?

[KittyTac]

So, can players/adventurers join the villain organizations?

It's been answered, yes.

[Shonai_Dweller]

So, can players/adventurers join the villain organizations?

They can be villains with the new party system as you'll have access to villainous commands. But remains to be seen if you'll actually be able to join an existing villain's scheme.

-- edit
Unless Kittytac knows better? Quote on that?