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[Erk]

The most fascinating thing about DF to me is the building emergent AI. I was thinking today about how that could be improved, and it occured to me: dwarves do not think about the future.

Well, why not have them do so?

This is a longterm future suggestion, I think, but I want to get it out of my head. Basically, dwarves should set career and life goals. Some of these goals might be public, others might be kept secret. The public ones would be viewable on the dwarf profile screen. Additionally, dwarves would have personality characteristics based on how goal-oriented they are. A dwarf would feel happy thoughts if s/he was working towards achieving one or more goals, and unhappy thoughts if s/he felt no progress had been made towards those goals; the strength and frequency of these thoughts would be determined by the dwarf's goal orientedness.

Now the fun part. On creation, every dwarf has some public goals: like noble mandates, these are probably based on the dwarf's likes and dislikes. For example, Urist might like tin, so she might have one or more of several goals:
-become some kind of metalcrafter (perhaps become a Legendary metalcrafter)
-make x number of tin objects in her life
-make a masterpiece of tin
-own something made of tin (maybe specific like a tin throne, or even as specific as a masterpiece tin cabinet studded with fire opals)
you get the idea. Some goals would be big, others small. The other fun thing is that some goals would be programmed in, but not listed in the profile. Let's call these "quiet" goals.

Working towards a goal would make a dwarf happy, so if Urist's goal was to become a legendary metalcrafter, she'd get a small happy thought every time she advanced a level of any metal crafter profession. Achieving her goal would make her very, very happy and cause her to generate an all-new, larger goal. Goals would probably have "difficulty" levels, and the potency of the happy thought would be related to how tough the goal was to achieve; whatever.

The bit i'm more interested in is the idea that dwarves autonomously work towards their goals unless the player stops them. If Urist's goal is to be a metalcrafter, she will prioritise metalcrafting jobs much higher than she would otherwise. I'd love to see flavour associated with this, like Urist hanging out in the metalcrafting area when she is On Break simply because she is interested in forges.

Even better would be some kind of mechanism of dwarves adding their own jobs to achieve their goals. So far I haven't been able to think of how to do this for a crafter withotu problems, but for military dwarves I could see them, say, picking up a weapon they want to become legendary in and training with it on their own time even though it is not their assigned weapon.

The earlier mentioned "quiet" goals would work like stated goals, except that they would not generate unhappy or happy thoughts, at least not strong ones. Thus they'd just be unstated influences on a dwarf's behaviour. If Urist's quiet goal is to eat 100 plump helmets, she'll often be seen hanging around the farms and plant stockpiles and eating uncooked plump helmets, even though there is plenty of cooked food. This sort of thing would do a lot to add individuality to dwarves, I think.

I think I've written more than enough about this for now. Any thoughts?

[Virex]

Sounds like a good sugestion. Besides the aforementioned effects of goals I think they should also influence moods. So if Urist wants to become a legendary weaponsmith and he goes into a fey mood, he'll sieze a forge, no matter what his current occupation is. Dwarfs could also make requests from time to time, depending on their goals. For example, Urist the carpenter has a goal to make the world's best crosbow, so he could request a job change to bowyer. Furfilling this request would create a hapy thought and possibly even an experience bonus to represent his dedication to making the most awsome crosbow ever.

[winner]

I like it,
should dwarves do things against their nature to achieve this goal?
say like the goal was "drink 10 drinks of water" would the dwarf actually go through with it, or would it wait until you were out of beer?

what if you used this goal system for dwarves to have wagers like the aforementioned drinking "ten drinks of water"

[wallish]

I really like the idea.  Also, if a dwarf has a life goal and is put into that field, I think it'd make sense that they would learn that skill faster.  After all, people are more enthusiastic about doing a job they love.

On the opposite end of this spectrum, though, should be dislikes.  If Urist dreams of being a master miner, wouldn't Urist hate the idea of working with trees or plants, away from all the wonderful rock?

[Erk]

I really like the idea.  Also, if a dwarf has a life goal and is put into that field, I think it'd make sense that they would learn that skill faster.  After all, people are more enthusiastic about doing a job they love.

On the opposite end of this spectrum, though, should be dislikes.  If Urist dreams of being a master miner, wouldn't Urist hate the idea of working with trees or plants, away from all the wonderful rock?

That would make sense. It might fit in with the unhappy thought of not achieving one's goal, though it would be nice if certain things were considered actively opposed to achieving the goal. For example, becoming a fisherdwarf might be in active opposition to the goal of mining 15,000 tiles of Gabbro.

[Dame de la Licorne]

This idea would really add more depth to the game, imo.  Fully supported!

[Valandor]

I'd love seeing someone get stuck with 7 dwarfs who all have the life goal of becoming a legendary fish dissector

[Draco18s]

Looks good, I aprove.

[Erk]

Some thoughts on dwarves forming new goals: this could be a huge mechanic for massive characterisation of dwarves.

First off, if a dwarf finishes a goal, s/he forms a new goal that is equal or harder. OK, cool, whatever. Mentioned already.

More importantly, new goals can be spontaneously formed by several kinds of experience in a dwarf's life:
trauma
Urist's friend dies, and she forms a new goal related to her friend's death. Some examples:
Friend was killed by Mog Bloodwater, a goblin spearman. Possible goals formed include:

• Kill Mog Bloodwater
• Kill (medium number) goblins (or maybe specifically goblin spearmen)
• Kill (small number) goblins from mog's tribe
• Become a speardwarf
• Destroy (number) spears

etc. Alternatively, if Urist was a metalworker, her goal might become to create 50 statues, and all her statues would  be statues of her dead friend. Many more possibilities exist.
Further, if her friend died some different way, Urist would form different goals, eg. to become a Proficient Swimmer if he drowned.

Masterpiece defacement/theft
I love this idea. So, Urist has become a Legendary metalcrafter. Then, a kobold thief steals her masterpiece tin goblet! WTF! Urist forms a goal related to this. It might be the goal of killing kobolds; it might be a goal of keeping a kobold in a cage in her apartment (Armok only knows what she'd do with it); it might be a goal of building more masterpiece tin goblets to replace that which was lost, although that is a bit dull. More are possible, needless to say.

Similarly, say Urist is made a masterpiece engraving. Then, furniture hauler Uvash Carvehate builds a statue on top of it. Urist may, through goals, form a vendetta against Uvash. Perhaps she creates the goal of defacing/destroying two of Uvash's masterpieces, or locking Uvash in a cage, or - and here we get nuts - what if Urist formed the goal of starting an illicit relationship with Uvash's spouse? I think the mechanics of that kind of thing are nearly in place, here.

Some other possible influences that could spawn new, complex goals include:

• Having a child or new sibling or spouse, or starting a new romance
• Surviving a serious injury
• Being in a cavein
• Being imprisoned for a long time
• Coming into possession of an artifact item (One Ring style goals welcome!)

Another thought I had was goal-related relationships. Simple enough. If Urist's goal is to become a legendary metalcrafter, she might change her relationships to other dwarven metalcrafters of significantly higher level. Specifically she could be either Jealous of them, or Admiring. Essentially, if she was friends or at least a positive aquaintance with the crafter before, she becomes Admiring when that crafter begins to achieve the things Urist only dreams of. If she didn't know the crafter, or didn't like them before, she becomes Jealous. How exactly this influences her behaviour could be a big topic in itself.

[winner]

I think personality would dictate the goals they'd form in response to events

say a friend drowns

one goal is to learn to swim
the other is to avoid water
a third is to make a bridge over the water

and I bet crises would change personality a little

[Techhead]

Would be better yet if their personality profile was only used as the base for the probability of certain paths.

Unfortunately, most of the paths would have to be added in by hand somehow, either via raws or via the hardcodedness of the data folder.

[Erk]

Unfortunately, most of the paths would have to be added in by hand somehow, either via raws.....

They probably would be, and you've just described how the mechanism could be made easy for toady and fun for everyone else.

[Quift]

check out the game Crusader Kings, Deus Vult for tips and ideas on coding and layout of these suggestions.

eventdriven on a mtth (mean time to happen) scale, with probabiltiy affected by hidden fatcors (such as previous events) and charachter traits. Al in al this creates an image of charachter development and individual goal setting for the AI. The game does this for about 2500 AI simultaniously which is rather cool.

[Jamuk]

The bit i'm more interested in is the idea that dwarves autonomously work towards their goals unless the player stops them. If Urist's goal is to be a metalcrafter, she will prioritise metalcrafting jobs much higher than she would otherwise. I'd love to see flavour associated with this, like Urist hanging out in the metalcrafting area when she is On Break simply because she is interested in forges.

Even better would be some kind of mechanism of dwarves adding their own jobs to achieve their goals. So far I haven't been able to think of how to do this for a crafter withotu problems, but for military dwarves I could see them, say, picking up a weapon they want to become legendary in and training with it on their own time even though it is not their assigned weapon.

This is an amazing idea, and it would also help with the economic suggestions made in other threads.  My main problem with the idea of a dwarf economy is that it is run by the player, meaning it has no purpose other than being "cool."  This would make an economy truly possible as the dwarves would make their own decisions on how to best make money and achieve their goals.  They then would perform those actions, leaving less work for the player as he would focus on projects and his goals while the dwarves would maintain their own happiness.

[korora]

The bit i'm more interested in is the idea that dwarves autonomously work towards their goals unless the player stops them. If Urist's goal is to be a metalcrafter, she will prioritise metalcrafting jobs much higher than she would otherwise. I'd love to see flavour associated with this, like Urist hanging out in the metalcrafting area when she is On Break simply because she is interested in forges.

Even better would be some kind of mechanism of dwarves adding their own jobs to achieve their goals. So far I haven't been able to think of how to do this for a crafter withotu problems, but for military dwarves I could see them, say, picking up a weapon they want to become legendary in and training with it on their own time even though it is not their assigned weapon.

This is an amazing idea, and it would also help with the economic suggestions made in other threads.  My main problem with the idea of a dwarf economy is that it is run by the player, meaning it has no purpose other than being "cool."  This would make an economy truly possible as the dwarves would make their own decisions on how to best make money and achieve their goals.  They then would perform those actions, leaving less work for the player as he would focus on projects and his goals while the dwarves would maintain their own happiness.

I agree, and we've been discussing how to make dwarves autonomous (among other things) here. I also love the idea of goals based on happy/sad events, particularly weighted strongly toward childhood events.