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[Egan_BW]

Too bad we still don't have a day/night cycle, or dwarves could all drink stimulants in the morning in order to get to work faster.

[GoblinCookie]

Does the game also include airflow and water currents in legends? no, because they are simple facts of life, as is the magic plant power.

If those things worked differently than they do in Real-Life I would expect them to appear in legends. 

The problem is this a computer game, not real-life.  Some things we expect to be abstracted. 

     If we're really going to chew on the optimization of everything tea-related, meaning all of agriculture, that's going to involve pretty much every major update Toady has planned: The caverns and magic are going to be heavily affected by the Mythgen release, making dwarves partly dependent on underground rivers will only become feasible if/when the Embark scenarios release allows us to embark underground, etc. The entire thread would be basically made of derails because we wouldn't be able to focus on any one thing. So I for one advocate dropping the entire agriculture angle and concentrating on alternative beverages.

There really isn't much to talk about since tea is not really that complicated a thing for Toady One to add.  He could put it in tomorrow if he was not busy doing other stuff.  Tea is really just leaves from a tree, adding it in is no different really from adding in fruit and turning fruit into wine. 

[KittyTac]

Beer is not rare. It simply isn’t. You can set up an entire fortress with permanent beer using only a small room with a muddy floor.

You can argue that this is unrealistic, but I don’t think that’s a very relevant complaint when there are dwarves and dragons and demons. The question is - does it improve the game? For detailed farm improvements, see NW_Kohaku’s masterpost I can’t currently find because I’m on mobile.

Personally, I think the plants eat magic. The magic varies by the season, which explains why crops can only be grown in certain seasons.

If the magic makes the plants grow that should appear in the legends.  Otherwise I will assume things work as they do in real-life and the game is just compensating for missing mechanics.

Does the game also include airflow and water currents in legends? no, because they are simple facts of life, as is the magic plant power.

Like I said, this would stop making sense with procgen magic.

[Egan_BW]

If legends mode contained explanations of things that exist in real life, such as erosion and hydrology, I think it would be a fine change. It's educational, it explains how the fictional world works, and it provides a contrast to those worlds where such things might work very differently. Those are things that would require an alternative explanation in a world set within the intestines of an unimaginably large beast.

[FantasticDorf]

If legends mode contained explanations of things that exist in real life, such as erosion and hydrology, I think it would be a fine change. It's educational, it explains how the fictional world works, and it provides a contrast to those worlds where such things might work very differently. Those are things that would require an alternative explanation in a world set within the intestines of an unimaginably large beast.

You'd need a entire RAW file with wikipedia in it pretty much virtually to retain that information without a legion of mantis bugs.

[Shonai_Dweller]

If legends mode contained explanations of things that exist in real life, such as erosion and hydrology, I think it would be a fine change. It's educational, it explains how the fictional world works, and it provides a contrast to those worlds where such things might work very differently. Those are things that would require an alternative explanation in a world set within the intestines of an unimaginably large beast.

The last comment Toady made on the subject was that discovering what the fundamental laws of the universe you're playing in through trial and (much hilarious) error is part of the Fun for the player. So perhaps it doesn't all need to be explained step by step. Especially as the option for more familiar universes will be there as standard.

[GoblinCookie]

The last comment Toady made on the subject was that discovering what the fundamental laws of the universe you're playing in through trial and (much hilarious) error is part of the Fun for the player. So perhaps it doesn't all need to be explained step by step. Especially as the option for more familiar universes will be there as standard.

I don't see how that's going to work though.  It is going to require a ton of exposition to describe it all to us and the game mechanics do not lend themselves naturally to exposition. 

[FantasticDorf]

The last comment Toady made on the subject was that discovering what the fundamental laws of the universe you're playing in through trial and (much hilarious) error is part of the Fun for the player. So perhaps it doesn't all need to be explained step by step. Especially as the option for more familiar universes will be there as standard.

I don't see how that's going to work though.  It is going to require a ton of exposition to describe it all to us and the game mechanics do not lend themselves naturally to exposition.

Mythgenerator and other sub generators displayed in talks will the be world-generation exposition devices Toady will use, to a extent vagueness & familiarity with fantasy & real life settings fill in the blanks.

[GoblinCookie]

Mythgenerator and other sub generators displayed in talks will the be world-generation exposition devices Toady will use, to a extent vagueness & familiarity with fantasy & real life settings fill in the blanks.

That sound like it would be a Wall-Of-Text.  Plus I don't think people should even know the 'correct' myth (as in objectively what happens) at the beginning of the game; it should be hidden at least as an option. 

But facts should not be hidden.  If tea is poisonous, that fact should be known to those living in areas with tea plants regardless of the mythological reasons for it.

[anewaname]

Regarding the idea of the using herbs for medicinal purposes, it would be excellent to see a Wound Dresser going to a stockpile or to a live plant, to collect plant material for use in a poultice.

[GoblinCookie]

Regarding the idea of the using herbs for medicinal purposes, it would be excellent to see a Wound Dresser going to a stockpile or to a live plant, to collect plant material for use in a poultice.

That is related to decay of stockpiled items.  If items don't decay there is no reason to have the script for said wound dresser to actually collect plants for a specific purpose, since we can just produce the items separately and stockpile them.

[Rowanas]

Regarding the idea of the using herbs for medicinal purposes, it would be excellent to see a Wound Dresser going to a stockpile or to a live plant, to collect plant material for use in a poultice.

That is related to decay of stockpiled items.  If items don't decay there is no reason to have the script for said wound dresser to actually collect plants for a specific purpose, since we can just produce the items separately and stockpile them.

GC, it's not really related at all. At best you're quibbling.

Anewaname, yeah, it would be cool.  Adding medical herbs and whatnot (including antidotes and whatnot) to medical treatment is a neat way to tie systems together, and encourages more diverse farming.  Even tying the purposes fo plants to research performed through philosophers (medical treatises and the like) would be nice.

[GoblinCookie]

GC, it's not really related at all. At best you're quibbling.

Anewaname, yeah, it would be cool.  Adding medical herbs and whatnot (including antidotes and whatnot) to medical treatment is a neat way to tie systems together, and encourages more diverse farming.  Even tying the purposes fo plants to research performed through philosophers (medical treatises and the like) would be nice.

Individuals going off to produce the item they immediately need as opposed to simply taking it from the stockpile is very much related to item-decay; it is inefficient otherwise. 

It is also related to the main topic as well.  Tea really needs to be something made from the ingredients by the dwarf at the moment rather than us having a central set of barrel of cold tea for us to drink.  People ought to prefer newly made tea to barrels of cold tea. 

[Rowanas]

GC, it's not really related at all. At best you're quibbling.

Anewaname, yeah, it would be cool.  Adding medical herbs and whatnot (including antidotes and whatnot) to medical treatment is a neat way to tie systems together, and encourages more diverse farming.  Even tying the purposes of plants to research performed through philosophers (medical treatises and the like) would be nice.

Individuals going off to produce the item they immediately need as opposed to simply taking it from the stockpile is very much related to item-decay; it is inefficient otherwise. 

It is also related to the main topic as well.  Tea really needs to be something made from the ingredients by the dwarf at the moment rather than us having a central set of barrel of cold tea for us to drink.  People ought to prefer newly made tea to barrels of cold tea.

Is a teapot not simply a small barrel for storing tea?  And what of ice tea?  Ok, those aren't the point, but you're changing your argument from what it was, to being about cold tea. Stop it.  To be clear, your point about cold tea is valid in the context of the conversation we're having, but not in consideration of what you were trying to argue.  Item decay is such a marginal loss of goods that the effort required to gather new resources is not a meaningful consideration.

On the point he made, some goods may need to be gathered at use rather than stockpiled, like a stonemason requires stone only at the point that he makes a throne. 

[Bumber]

Is a teapot not simply a small barrel for storing tea?

The Laugh thread taught me it's a slur for a black person.