I couldn't decide if this belonged on the suggestion board or here, but as it's more of a question than a suggestion I'm putting it here.
Something about the concept behind DF has been bothering me for a while. The organic world-gen is great and everything, but when I think about really good, epic stories, they all take place at a time that's really historically important. Think about it. How many good novels and game-plots start with an empire in danger of collapse, or discovery of some long-forgotten power, or some other super-historical event? The more I think about it, the more I realize the answer is "almost all of them".
So then there's DF, which has the ULTIMATE potential for different possible stories. But shouldn't these stories be GOOD? I mean, if you're plopped down in the middle of a a nice, stable empire, without much going on, no wars, solid treaties, well... it'll be boring once you've depopulated the kobolds. The game is much cooler if you're starting in a time when the human-dwarf alliance is in danger of collapsing since the goblins started attacking their trade caravans, and only the elvish armies could save it if they'd just stop sending all their forces against that darn bronze colossus! (for example) I remember a powergoal where you snatch the crown from your nephew as he's being crowned king, and claim the throne for yourself... but if crowning ceremonies tend to happen once a generation or so, that's like every 15-20 years... and how many people play an adventurer for that mcuh game time?
In short, whether you're playing adventurer or dwarf mode, I think the game becomes more interesting if you're playing in A Time Of Great Turmoil. A historically significant time, which by definition means that there should be more going on in 1050 than in earlier years.
This isn't a complaint, because there are lots of ways to address this sort of thing. Here's some ideas I've had.
-The Adventurer creates the turmoil: If an adventurer starts in a stable empire, it's up to him to destabilize it. This would be the easiest to do code-wise (none needed), but of course it seems to limit the possibilties, and might make worlds less unique.
-Fixed history: During worldgen, things like wars or other destabilizing events are more "encouraged" as play-time approaches (that is, species are less likely to go to war early, and/or are more likely as 1050 approaches). This is somewhat nebluous, but seems like a good rough idea to me.
-Constant Turmoil: Enough different things CAN be going on at any given time that usually, SOMETHING interesting is happening in any given year. This would mean a LOT of detail in world-gen, and might require some sort of safeguard against, say, the elves taking over the world with an army of 2600 bowmen.
I'd be interested to hear what people think about my concern, the thoughts about how do deal with it, and other ideas.
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Topic: "It is a time of great turmoil..." (Read 1818 times)