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Author Topic: Everyone Else in the World Lives in Squalor  (Read 1377 times)

Haiphong

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Everyone Else in the World Lives in Squalor
« on: June 21, 2024, 10:27:32 am »

I wasn't sure which forum to post this in, since you can only really notice in Adventure Mode but I think it's just something about the world...

In our own Fortresses, we generally try to move people into rooms as fast as we can with at least a bed, and anyone who's wondered about living on the Surface has probably pondered individual housing...

But have you seen how the Elves and Humans live? Elves just sleep in trees and complain about getting rained on. I've never seen an elven building, though I've heard they exist...

And Humans just all pile into large empty houses, usually with no beds or furniture at all.

Dwarves seem to at least make rooms, but still no beds.

I figure it's just avoiding unnecessary work in coding and World Generation as the game is still in "development." (I think that means something else in Dwarf Fortress, I say that with love). I also figure that if you had to have a house for even every other family in this game... It would get annoyingly hard to deal with rather quickly.

I don't know... I just have been wanting to say something about it. Any thoughts, anyone?
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aSpatula66

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Re: Everyone Else in the World Lives in Squalor
« Reply #1 on: June 21, 2024, 10:36:28 am »

Many towns and fortresses do have beds, it's just that poorer settlements will have less beds available in their stockpiles. Most hamlets and hillocks are lacking beds and forest retreats never have beds. Most members of elven civilizations value nature enough to not care about being rained on.
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Ziusudra

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Re: Everyone Else in the World Lives in Squalor
« Reply #2 on: June 21, 2024, 12:31:48 pm »

There's also a time element, it can take a strangely long time for even a wealthy site to populate rooms with furniture, but older dwarven fortresses will hav beds and cabinets in the bedrooms.
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Quietust

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Re: Everyone Else in the World Lives in Squalor
« Reply #3 on: June 22, 2024, 11:46:28 am »

In older versions of Dwarf Fortress (0.31.12 and earlier), Humans lived in houses containing a bed, a table, 3 chairs, and a "magic barrel" of food that would refill itself every night.
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Mungrul

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Re: Everyone Else in the World Lives in Squalor
« Reply #4 on: June 24, 2024, 03:31:34 am »

In older versions of Dwarf Fortress (0.31.12 and earlier), Humans lived in houses containing a bed, a table, 3 chairs, and a "magic barrel" of food that would refill itself every night.

I love this little historical detail, thanks Quietust. Of course, this begs the question could you steal the magic barrel, and if so, did it continue to generate food?
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Eric Blank

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Re: Everyone Else in the World Lives in Squalor
« Reply #5 on: June 24, 2024, 01:06:26 pm »

IIRC it just replaced any items or creatures that were generated to be there. That meant creating clones of people if you killed them or recruited them.
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Haiphong

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Re: Everyone Else in the World Lives in Squalor
« Reply #6 on: July 01, 2024, 01:09:11 pm »

That's some interesting info, friends, thank you for replying!

The elves sure do seem to complain enough about the rain, but maybe that's just because elves love to complain so much. I wonder if it would cause a lot of grumpiness if you made them playable and never built beds or roofs for them?

That info from Qietust is really cool, in particular! I guess I can see why it left (probably caused trouble in world generation if people had infinite food), but I wouldn't mind seeing it come back in the future if it works out balance wise.
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aSpatula66

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Re: Everyone Else in the World Lives in Squalor
« Reply #7 on: July 01, 2024, 01:18:47 pm »

Values vary per person so some elven citizens may not like nature and therefore would get bad thoughts from being in the rain.
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Dwarfu

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Re: Everyone Else in the World Lives in Squalor
« Reply #8 on: July 21, 2024, 05:47:17 pm »

In older versions of Dwarf Fortress (0.31.12 and earlier), Humans lived in houses containing a bed, a table, 3 chairs, and a "magic barrel" of food that would refill itself every night.

The good old days...
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