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[Shazbot]

Adventurer Mode now has fat-lipped, scrawny, straight-haired, and tall goblins for me to not bother learning the names of before I give them blood and iron. Yet Fortress Mode has all of these invading goblins named right down to the lowest and least interesting invader. In addition, visiting merchants and tavern-goers are also named immediately. I kind of don't care about the names of all these raw recruits and pincushions, but a named goblin immediately catches my eye as historically interesting.

I think, at the least, invading characters should have their physical identifiers rather than their names used unless they are notorious persons or have some opportunity to declare their names. Urist McRecruit would be engraved striking down "a skinny goblin" rather than the entirely unknown name. A nameless goblin who slays Urist McRecruit (or slew things off-screen in worldgen) may declare, "I am Snaga Slitthroat, slayer of Urist McRecruit!" or other kill-bragging in the midst of combat, thereafter making him a known character to your fortress. His engravings become named, even retroactively. Additionally, your dwarves declare their prowess to the goblins invading. This may even have the effect of truly intimidating champions striking fear in the hearts of adversaries.

Taken a step further, visitors from merchants, bodyguards and tavern-goers might be nameless until they've had a chance to socialize and speak with passing fortress members. Merchants and bodyguards could duck off briefly for a meal and a drink, as well as chat. With these visitors engaging in conversational mechanics come new opportunities to spread rumors of the world to the civilization screen. Beyond the outpost liaison, merchants from various civilizations can spread noteworthy rumors to your dwarves, telling stories of dragons, wars, succession and new settlements.

Meanwhile, how do we get rumors from captives in cage traps? I'm sure the hammerer can think of a way or twenty, depending on how many fingers and toes our guest values the secret of his civilization's defenses and attack plans. The prisoner's name, the name of powerful warriors, their locations, how many soldiers are at a given site, where artifacts and prisoners are... traction benches are so wonderfully multi-purpose. Eventually you exhaust the prisoner's body mind, and have to retire release the prisoner.

I've been informed torture is off the table for dwarf ethics by word of the Toad. Let me know if that's not the case.

[ShinyandKittens]

A nameless goblin who slays Urist McRecruit (or slew things off-screen in worldgen) may declare, "I am Snaga Slitthroat, slayer of Urist McRecruit!" or other kill-bragging in the midst of combat, thereafter making him a known character to your fortress. His engravings become named, even retroactively.

Killbragging seems like a wonderful thing to see in the combat log, or even as it’s own forgotten-beast-like popup.

[Shonai_Dweller]

Not naming anyone until they meet someone from your fortress might be interesting. Or just annoying. If I'm attacked, I like to know who by. Sure most of the troops are cannon fodder, but some are famous generals, veterans of other wars, kidnapped children, people you've met in Adventurer, etc, too. Not sure what obscuring that information would gain in the long run.

Torture might be an interesting part of the upcoming questioning of visitors additions. But it's likely to be skipped this time around as it only really benefits modders. You are aware torture is against vanilla dwarf ethics, right?

[Shazbot]

Hang on, I've still got some ringing in my ears from the screams of the mermaid harvester. You said something about ethics?

I do specifically add that noteworthy foes will start with their names known, so a great general or champion will be a known force, most likely. Also, goblins leave behind goblinite armor decorated with symbols of various sites and civilizations, so a bit of detective-work will tell us where the foe came from.

[Shonai_Dweller]

Hang on, I've still got some ringing in my ears from the screams of the mermaid harvester. You said something about ethics?

Yes. Ethics. Dwarves have them even if players tend not to. You won't be able to order a dwarf to torture someone (for fun, information or as an example). Already confirmed in Fotf. Simple to edit ethics of course, but an entire torture mechanic just for modders probably isn't high priority.

On the other hand, torturing for information works both ways. If gobbos get the mechanic for torturing dwarf prisoners, it might get added this time around to be consistent. But again, only for modded civs.

[ShinyandKittens]

Not naming anyone until they meet someone from your fortress might be interesting. Or just annoying. If I'm attacked, I like to know who by. Sure most of the troops are cannon fodder, but some are famous generals, veterans of other wars, kidnapped children, people you've met in Adventurer, etc, too. Not sure what obscuring that information would gain in the long run.

Torture might be an interesting part of the upcoming questioning of visitors additions. But it's likely to be skipped this time around as it only really benefits modders. You are aware torture is against vanilla dwarf ethics, right?

There should be an option to take prisoners. Force them to speak and threaten them with your hammerer’s *Silver War Hammer*.

[Shonai_Dweller]

Not naming anyone until they meet someone from your fortress might be interesting. Or just annoying. If I'm attacked, I like to know who by. Sure most of the troops are cannon fodder, but some are famous generals, veterans of other wars, kidnapped children, people you've met in Adventurer, etc, too. Not sure what obscuring that information would gain in the long run.

Torture might be an interesting part of the upcoming questioning of visitors additions. But it's likely to be skipped this time around as it only really benefits modders. You are aware torture is against vanilla dwarf ethics, right?

There should be an option to take prisoners. Force them to speak and threaten them with your hammerer’s *Silver War Hammer*.

Well, yeah, I think that's what the questioning of prisoners update implies. Would be good if it took into account the overall military potential of your fortress. You can't torture, but you can certainly be intimidating.

[Shazbot]

Or the ethics could change. Without a mechanic to torture it makes sense to simply 'forbid' it in the ethics tokens to avoid dissonance in the game so-far written, but if a goal was to add some means of torturing for information the ethics tokens can change after the mechanic is added.

[Shonai_Dweller]

Or the ethics could change. Without a mechanic to torture it makes sense to simply 'forbid' it in the ethics tokens to avoid dissonance in the game so-far written, but if a goal was to add some means of torturing for information the ethics tokens can change after the mechanic is added.

Yes, but they won't. Toady already addressed that point.
(Ethics will, along with everything else, be more fluid post-mythgen though).

[Shazbot]

Updated OP. Lets focus on the other elements, then.

[IndigoFenix]

Would dwarves be all right with threatening to indefinitely imprison or execute a prisoner (invader or domestic criminal) unless they gave up certain information, and give them a lesser penalty or let them go free if they complied?  If such a mechanic was implemented, torture could be only a minor variation on that (an "execution" that uses non-lethal attacks instead of lethal ones).

[Shonai_Dweller]

Updated OP. Lets focus on the other elements, then.

Torture may be out for dwarf civs, It's not for anyone else. And not even for dwarves after Mythgen. Your suggestion will be just as valid 5, 10, 20 years from now.