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[Salmeuk]

Salmeuk / Nijinskiy here, long time succession game player, bringing u another idea for a succession fortress~

In the past, many have suggested some kind of burrow-based fortress, wherein two sections of the map are designated as separate and isolated fortresses and each player manages a single section. This seems like a brilliant concept at first, but some issues arise:

1. the process of leaving a fortress to survive on its own for a year or so, while the other player has their turn, can be difficult
2. there is a problem of accounting, in that both fortresses share the same stocks screen
3. there is only one copy of each noble, somewhat souring the roleplay
4. the whole thing is a hassle, in terms of management, if the dwarves escape and intermingle
5. finally, what to do about splitting migrants? who gets what dwarfs?

Well, I bring to you a ruleset for a potential succession fortress for two or maybe three players!

Each player takes their turn managing an isolated clan living in a subterranean bunker. There is a central noble's burrow, which contains the manager, the broker, etc, who live there permanently, but otherwise the clans do not associate.

The rules:

The host chooses the embark, and prepares the map: two clans of three dwarves each in basic square rooms on opposite sides of the embark. Each room has basic furniture, with a tavern and general temple setup, along with 1000 food units, a pick and an axe (and anvil too?), with a central nobility space which contains the elected expedition leader, manager, broker all assigned to a single dwarf (the first noble!). All are separated by locking doorways or gates.

1. For one in-game year, you manage your burrow, your dwarves, and the nobility, leaving the other clans to fend for themselves (1000 food units from the queen help tide over your dwarves for the first years)
2. Your burrow and fortress must have locking entryways at the surface, at every cavern, and the 'Noble's Burrow'
3. Your dwarves are free to roam, dig, collect resources, and mine anywhere excluding the burrow of the other clan.
4. A central 'Noble's Burrow' will contain relevant useful nobility like the manager and broker, and trade depot. They must remain fed, defended at all times by the active clan. Access is, of course, granted to your clan, but only for the duration of the players turn.
5. Migrants are always absorbed into the active clan's population

Finally, at the end of your turn year:

1. All clan members must return to their burrow, and shall be sealed within for the duration of the other player's turn(s)
2. One-third of your total clan population (rounded down) shall be 'given' to the next player's clan, by transferring them via the nobility burrow, or however you see fit.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

This allows a totally dead clan to always have some dwarves, while also balancing migrants since many waves occur in the second year as compared to the first.

Ideally we keep families together in this transfer.

If all your dwarves perish the turn passes immediately.

OK, so that solves some of the basic problems of cross-player save management.

 Can you identify any obvious issues with the above rules? And potential problems that might halt the gameplay? Let me know!

We still have an issue of how to designate 'clan territory' and whether to gameify it. For instance, how do we decide who gets to open up the strange rock formations?

I had one idea for this: if we were to have a rule that the player must create a metal statue, showing their 'clan symbol' (which is a custom image created and shared on their first turn), and after building this statue they are allowed to claim a 10x10 square around said statue. Sort of a territorial sign, you know? This territory must be contiguous.... and since metal statues are a heavy resource investment, this would reward exploratory metal mining, and slow down players who might want to take over the whole map.

Another option is to have very specific, preset areas for each clan that are agreed upon by the players upon game start. These do not change, and instead the players are expected to share the wild resources outside their borders, while reserving those spaces internal to their clan territory as their own personal hoard. These starting clan territories would be large, encompassing entire quadrants of the map, from top to bottom z-levels.


...


Thoughts? Interested in playing this kind of conceit? This concept been talked about a lot, ever since burrows were introduced.. so I bet some of you have an idea or two. I want to see if anyone has that extra opinion or rule that might help the game run more smoothly.

[MaiseNow]

Oh man I LOVE this idea. Your concept of pre-burrowing the map to set the stage is a great plan to make sure the start goes evenly. If we can figure this out I am 100000% onboard with trying it.

As for how to handle exploration, I think a combination of your two compromises may be the way to go.

• The land is initially split evenly as possible between the clans, allowing for informal trade agreements, etc.
• A clan can expand their claimed territory by X amount if they place a metal statue of their symbol, and they can only do this Y amount of times. The amount of space and what is/isn't allowed would still need to be hammered out. But I also doubt anyone taking part in this would be greedy and petty enough to try to usurp the whole map. The cap on number of times performed is to prevent tug of war situations (see Strange Pillars/etc. below)
• There's a rule that no one clan can own more than X% of the map without all overseers' agreement. This is just to prevent any hostile takeovers.
• As for strange pillars/etc.
• First priority goes to the clan that discovers them. They must wait until their next turn, however (so, 3 in-game years if there's 3 clans) before excavating the pillar.
• Other clans may steal the priority with a statue per land claimant rules, which resets the timer with them in priority
• If no one challenges the discovering clan's priority, but then the discoverers don't excavate it on their next turn, it is free for anyone to excavate at any time

To make this easier to conceptualize, here's an example.

Year 100: Clan 1 digs and finds a strange pillar. They have digging rights, but are not allowed to excavate the pillar until 103.
Year 101: Clan 2 does nothing.
Year 102: Clan 3 digs over and places a claiming statue in a valid way. Clan 3 has digging rights, and is not allowed to excavate until 105.

or

Year 100: Clan 1 digs and finds a strange pillar. They have digging rights, but are not allowed to excavate the pillar until 103.
Year 101: Clan 2 does nothing.
Year 102: Clan 3 does nothing.
Year 103: Clan 1 excavates the pillar and has !!FUN!!.
(alt: Year 103: Clan 1 does nothing. Pillar is now up for excavation by anybody at any time)

The downside to this method is that it allows for greed/sabotage. There would, as stated above, have to be a limit on statue claiming and a concrete judgement on if you could re-establish a claim with a second statue. I vote no, that it's one claim per clan per whatever amount of space, and maybe clans have a limited number of valid claims available. This would reduce the impulse to waste statues on tug-of-war priority for an adamantine spire or something.

---
My clarifying functional questions:

• How would we handle big attacks? Since they're based on full-settlement wealth and population, it seems potentially unfair to ask one clan to handle a 100+ unit gobbo siege army. Of course, we know that greater overseers have done more with fewer dorfs, so I'm not terribly concerned about this, but it is something to think about. If someone gets sieged and they only have Urist McCowardly left in their clan, is he supposed to try to Rambo his way through? Would it be acceptable to bunker down and wait for the next clan's turn?
• What should we do about strange moods if they occur in a different clan's area? Leave them to potentially go insane because the item or workshop they want to claim is on the other side of the airlock? Do we allow cross-contamination but only of moody dwarves (because they will go back to their burrow once they're done)? Who gets custody of the artifacts made on your turn?
• What is the goal of the fort? Become the royal seat of power and attract the queen? Whoever makes an adamantine statue of their symbol first wins? Take over the underworld?

[Otto_K]

Are global work orders banned? You could decimate the other clan's supplies by way of global orders. Ban your own foodstuffs, and force the other team to cook all their plump helmets. Ban your own metal bars, turn the enemy's bars into toy boats

[dikbutdagrate]

In the past, many have suggested some kind of burrow-based fortress, wherein two sections of the map are designated as separate and isolated fortresses and each player manages a single section.

They're used to be this multiplayer mod for DF, right?
Well, I pitched this idea around a few times that with further exploration of DFhack, that there is a potential form of RTS strategy vs. mode, that could be highly entertaining.
Each player gets 7 dwarves, and has to wipe out the other fort. That said, this wouldn't work well for a community forum based succession fort.

For a community fort though? It could be done.

Here are some recommendations:
1.) - Use Dfhack to change which Dwarf civ is in currently in control of the dual/city site each turn.
     - Toggle the citizens of the burrow not being controlled to visitor or foreign faction status until end of the year/year (so they don't starve or whatever).
     - And also forbid all of that particular burrows supplies to forbidden, so your dwarves don't use them. 
 Or
2.) - Leverage Rumrusher's moveable void fort concept to physically move another fort on top of a preexisting one (controlled by a different playable civ). This will allow for two playable factions become attached to the same site.
     - Retire and unretire as needed, in order to hop over to whichever fort/group you want to be taking the turn.

 

[Salmeuk]

these are great ideas. I've been sitting on this for a while, and remain stupid busy irl, so I will wait to run anything atm.

Are global work orders banned? You could decimate the other clan's supplies by way of global orders. Ban your own foodstuffs, and force the other team to cook all their plump helmets. Ban your own metal bars, turn the enemy's bars into toy boats

yeah, fair. we would ban global orders which might frustrate some players sadly.. you can truthfully get by with workshop specific orders.

Here are some recommendations:
1.) - Use Dfhack to change which Dwarf civ is in currently in control of the dual/city site each turn.
     - Toggle the citizens of the burrow not being controlled to visitor or foreign faction status until end of the year/year (so they don't starve or whatever).
     - And also forbid all of that particular burrows supplies to forbidden, so your dwarves don't use them.
 Or
2.) - Leverage Rumrusher's moveable void fort concept to physically move another fort on top of a preexisting one (controlled by a different playable civ). This will allow for two playable factions become attached to the same site.
     - Retire and unretire as needed, in order to hop over to whichever fort/group you want to be taking the turn.

yeah this is a crazy awesome idea.. wow. I dunno how the game would react to changing character status so regularly. I would be afraid to introduce corruption etc

As for strange pillars/etc.

    First priority goes to the clan that discovers them. They must wait until their next turn, however (so, 3 in-game years if there's 3 clans) before excavating the pillar.
    Other clans may steal the priority with a statue per land claimant rules, which resets the timer with them in priority
    If no one challenges the discovering clan's priority, but then the discoverers don't excavate it on their next turn, it is free for anyone to excavate at any time

I like this but it seems flawed, if only because both clans would be likely fight back and forth indefinitely.

I vote no, that its one claim per clan per whatever amount of space, and maybe clans have a limited number of valid claims available. This would reduce the impulse to waste statues on tug-of-war priority for an adamantine spire or something.

which you addressed here. I think this claiming system would work, and I like these ideas but it seems a bit complex for what I was imagining you know? like, too many rules.

tbh, the geodes are so dangerous, and lengthy excavation is generally the  only safe option, it might be best to leave it up to the clans.

ultimately, the statue claiming idea is interesting but kinda cheesy, and after some more thought, a mechanic better suited to some kind of single-fortress challenge mode. as you say there are contingencies that would need to be agreed upon, whereas I want the rules as simple as possible, with as little room for disagreement etc

The land is initially split evenly as possible between the clans, allowing for informal trade agreements, etc.

OK. but this is great way to phrase it, and very simple. Perhaps each player selects a quadrant at game start..


Yeah. Ok. here is the final idea for how to separate the clan populations:

1. Game embark is shown to both players. Coin flip decides first pick, and each player then selects one quadrant of the map (for a 3x3 it could be 1/3 of the map)
2. Setup occurs as previously described, situating 3 dwarves in each clan and one dwarf as middle manager (hehe) in the nobility complex.
3. Player who picked second will play first.

So, how to divide the map?

Players can build as tall as they want, or all the way down to the first cavern layer's topmost point, whatever z-level that happens to be. This territory, from heaven to first cavern layer, is 'owned' by the clan and is inaccessible to their competitors.

Beyond that, all other map spaces are open for mining, woodcutting, building, whatever you want. HOWEVER, since each clan is forced to retreat all dwarves into their clan complex at the end of the year, these spaces will be thus be seen as places for mining, hauling, but not for storing goods - since any items left in these spaces are absolutely free game for the other clan. and any tracks or hallways might be used to their advantage.

So you want to crack a geode, hmm? Better dig quick and make sure you can haul all that precious obsidian and adamantine back to your clan hall  before the year is up, or your competitor can just take your spoils for little effort!

This would encourage things like, building minecart tracks to make sure you collect your mining rewards, and sabotaging the tracks of opposing clans to delay.
Each clan could leave traps in the 'neutral' space. Making it a difficult or dangerous thing to go mining outside your territory.

Finally, what if we applied 'unreveal' at the start of every player turn? Thus hiding any trap rooms, hiding cavern combatants, and sort of bringing this notion of fog of war to the competition.

How would we handle big attacks? Since they're based on full-settlement wealth and population, it seems potentially unfair to ask one clan to handle a 100+ unit gobbo siege army. Of course, we know that greater overseers have done more with fewer dorfs, so I'm not terribly concerned about this, but it is something to think about. If someone gets sieged and they only have Urist McCowardly left in their clan, is he supposed to try to Rambo his way through? Would it be acceptable to bunker down and wait for the next clan's turn?

fair. I think bunkering would be fine, I mean, asking a clan to suicide against a siege is not fun imo.

However, if we were to add a meta game layer the whole situation.... hmmm.....

What should we do about strange moods if they occur in a different clan's area? Leave them to potentially go insane because the item or workshop they want to claim is on the other side of the airlock? Do we allow cross-contamination but only of moody dwarves (because they will go back to their burrow once they're done)? Who gets custody of the artifacts made on your turn?

huh. big issue tbh. we could disable strange moods but that isn't very fun.

Cross contamination as you put it, seems like the fairest method, but a bit difficult as you could easily mix the populations or trade items inadvertently... I wish there was an easier way to retcon the saves until your clan received the moody dwarf.

What is the goal of the fort? Become the royal seat of power and attract the queen? Whoever makes an adamantine statue of their symbol first wins? Take over the underworld?

 I agree that there should be some over-arching theme or challenge for both clans to compete against. rushing adamantine for your suggested goal might lead to some silly metagaming moments however

A point score system, perhaps, meant to simulate the competing egos of the two fortresses.

So, for example:

 a successfully defeated 'Siege' - 2pts
 train a weapon master - 2pts
 successful mood - 1pts
 megabeast kill - 2pts
 forgotten beast / titan kill - 2pts
 raising a grand temple - 2pts
 raising a grand guildhall - 2pts
 
and so on. What do you think about this? Too complicated / unfun? what other point scores might be fun to implement?

Regardless, thanks for the feedback, I will incorporate any further suggestions for the final game post (whenever that occurs).

Two dwarven clans settle on either side of a single mountain, without noticing. Soon, competition for natural resources sets in, leaving the two clans in a desperate and sometimes violent rivalry. Or perhaps they work together, arranging various trades, fighting against siegers, cavern invaders?