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[Ovadya]

I've had some experience dealing with communities of gamers and (a little admittedly) online-game communities. Here are some observations I think might transfere well to DF.

The biggest problem I've seen with game progression in DF is that with the HUGE detail available the trade off was that the game didn't scale well once a fortress grew beyond a certain point. Massive stockpiles become unmanagable, trudging through lists of dwarves looking for that -one- broker dwarf, wasting a full ten minutes for a task that should take 10 seconds. DF is littered with hundreds of these types of scaing problems.

I know in the dev thread and suggest threads have "Ease of Use" as an issue and also a "End game" isssue listed. However I think this does qualify as a separate suggestion, dealing with both but with a different mechanic in mind.

Alright... DF scales poorly (not-a-diss) in two areas, items and animals. Now the best way I've learned to deal with scaling issues is to take a hint from economies and create unitary gradation and heirarchies of groupings.

Ok, now that I don't feel like I wasted money on my new thesaurus let me high-light two examples from each sections.

First Items

The two items that honestly pile up the quickest are stones and barrels of food (In my forts atleast... I always overplant). Now after a while a fort stops dealing in 1 and 10s of stones and more in 100s and 1000s of stones, maybe even 10,000s of stones. After a certain number of total stones that are actually items in play (not used), the game should trigger a switch-over to a separate counting system, which allows all current stones in play to be gathered in groups of 10 or (if there really is that many 100). Stone piles like these take on a new name of "A Mass of ### Blocks/Rocks/Barrels of Wine". Probability in mining switches over to make producing these masses 10 times more difficult. Carrying is twice as difficult or as long. Workshops store a Mass of Rocks until all are used up or production is switched out for another mass of rocks.

Second Item

The Organizer could be allowed to create groupings of items to be referenced as a single "item" later on. Lets say you want to create suits of armor to be stored individual in recruit's barracks. Task the organizer with "Assembling the Following..." then set the list of items and the organizer will collect and the item becomes movable and wearable as single item with all the collective effects. Same thing could be applicable to tools if, say, you wanted to keep all those wooden arrows together without the dozens of trips and multiple stockpiles normally required... just create an assembly of arrows and your done!

First Creature

Dwarves could really use scalablity. Lets say we want to control groups in sizes of about 5... Decent workable number. All your dwarves once a mayor is reached can be assigned to "squad" like labor crews led by a foreman who now acts as the "preference" of the group... setting the labor preferences and army preferences on him will automatically effect the rest of the group. An easy addition to this would be to allow the grouping of work crews under divisions of labor. All the work crews of hunters/gathers/farmers/brewers/cooks can have labor/rest/recall orders issues from a single head of food management.

Creature Second

At some point, if a player really focuses, vast herds (say that to yourself -really- fast and imagine calling someone that ) can develop of wee little dogs and annoying horses. Well at some point the numbers grow so large that all non-pet herd/pack animals randomly select a alpha "Male" to be the center of the new herd. The herd can now be slaughtered as one or trained all as one. One herd, once grown to a certain point splits in two and bother now grow individually and so on.

All in all the point is to try and reduce what the player "has" to focus on and allow concentration on prefered topics of interests instead of micromanaging the smallest details of rock removal and herd tending.

[JujuBubu]

sounds good ..
especially the work squad idea
at which point the master/apprentice idea from the "knowledge" thread could come in place,
also the highest skilled worker should be voted leader.

That also makes good use of the organizer and record keeper skills, which is at the moment stuck to one dwarf ( and to be honest, quite a nice way to train cheaply to double legendary )
as in my oppinion every work squad leader would need a meager office

depending the items and animals I would prefer not to make stack items, but to hand the micro- management over to the dwarfs, meaning more clerks and actual working animal caretakers.
This would need the new buildings : storeroom and stables which. storerroom is effectively a
stockpile++, which can store .. say 10 items per tile, but needs a organizing dwarf assigned to it.
stable is just the same as a cage, but animals will breed there. and opposed to a pit will not stampede into freedom as soon someone is foolish enough to open the door

[vanarbulax]

While I like the idea of organizing things more easily I always want the to be an option to focus on any individual thing. While large lists of things can get annoying one of the strengths of dwarf fortress is you can micromanage whenever you want.

I think things like suits of armour while currently a hassle I think this can be solved much easier if army dwarves assemble and claim their own set of armour and armour rack (like in req 18). I do agree with restacking though, I agree with a job of someone who just goes around and organizes everything into the most efficient stockpile (e.g collecting spare bolts and stacking them into bundles and putting them in stockpiles).

I like the idea of organizing stones into a mass but in the same way that you organize individual seeds into a seed barrel. You should be able to stack them in something like a cart, group them to a certain limit (preferably by type of stone) move them and then use them individually (possibly an option to expand the menu from just "a mass" to show each stone. The dwarves should then take as many stones as they need individually instead of going through a whole mass for each job, bulk jobs should instead be achieved by a simple box when you want to enter the amount of times a job should be performed (req 82) (e.g. Forge iron short sword [20] then forge silver chain [7] then forge iron short sword [25])

You should not just mine out "a mass" it should mine individual stones which need to be grouped and grouped stones should be carried in a container such as a cart.

I do like the idea of forming working squads as long as you have the option to go into the individual level if you want (for example a group of kitchen dwarves but you can modify who cooks and who butchers). This could also add master/apperentice stuff and more management positions.

I like the ideas of herds (again as long as there's still and option the examine all the creatures in a herd). This should go along with the animal care profession. A profession should let a dwarf go around organizing animals into herds, assisting in breeding them and move the herd as a group when needed.

[Granite26]

Work squads is pure gold.  Especially if the cost for it is a noble (guild leader mayhap?)

Also could start scheduling shifts, so that 5 dwarves and 3 workshops becomes viable

[Killy]

My suggestions regarding item management are

1. Nameable stockpiles

2. the stocks menu gets a line where you can enter some sort of regular expressions to narrow your search. ("everything made from metal and has 'narrow' or 'large' in its name", "everything in 'dining room booze stockpile 2'" , ... )

3. more one hit options in the stocks menu like 'select all' 'reverse selection' 'dump all' 'melt all' 'move to stockpile 'A Stockpile',...

4. [z]oom to item does not leave the stocks menu by default and can you can get back to the stocks menu with [space].

5.A 'stocks' menu for a single stockpile is accessible with 'k', hover over the stockpile, 'enter'

6. The units menu could benefit from similar improvements.

And I also like the squads idea.

[Granite26]

I'd almost like to see the merging piles and wheelbarrows(sic) added before too much of this.  It would give us a better idea where the gaps really are in management