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[Granite26]

Specifically, turning stuff off should only make the game easier. Many discussions on this subject involve the argument that, if it's too easy, you should go to a site without (water/magma/stone/sand...) and/or play without building certain things (traps, farms). This is exactly backwards--it means that if I want a challenge, I don't get to play with most of the features of the game. The risk/reward curve slopes the wrong way.

Exactly how I feel

It might be good to know this information before embark, as well... maybe in the Legends screens?
Knowing your king has a fetish for nightwing leather boots might make you try and look for terrifying deserts, or knowing that the local temple demands Golden Salve may make to want to look for locations with valley herb.

Legends screen should be good for this.  It falls in with my 'you can optimize and do harder things by trying harder, but making the fort work in a normal zone without bothering with it is fine too' philosophy.  Optimizing the economy can help pay for better weapons to make the fighting easier.

Until economy is in, it should be sufficient to have the critters out there worth more for parts (hides, etc), although money is basically meaningless since masterwork mudstone goblets are a dime a dozen at your forts.  Also, alchemical components are another hard to find thing that exotic (tough) critters might have.

As for the 'tech levels' resisitance.  I think that it would be something that could be turned off if it ever happens (no indication the dev thinks it's a good idea in the first place). 

However; one of the stated goals is for random civs/races to be a possibility.  Random civs/races would have access to(aka use) different, random materials.  Leather, metals, etc.  If this is going to make sense, there should be some concept of hierarchy.  If you can work steel, you should be able to work iron.  Bronze working should require knowledge of copper.

It's a short run from there to a tech tree that can be moved along. 

One thing that I think it is important to note:  There is no indication that the long term intent is to make it possible to build a fort which has access to every possible material and feature.  Ideally (IMHO) there should be so much stuff that no single fort should be able contain it all.

Edit -> Grammer and spelling were atrocious.

[Zombie]

Specifically, turning stuff off should only make the game easier. Many discussions on this subject involve the argument that, if it's too easy, you should go to a site without (water/magma/stone/sand...) and/or play without building certain things (traps, farms). This is exactly backwards--it means that if I want a challenge, I don't get to play with most of the features of the game. The risk/reward curve slopes the wrong way.

Exactly how I feel

How can you keep saying this? If you turn off migrants or caravans, your game would get harder. Turning things off shouldn't always make your game easier, it should do whatever turning off whatever you turned off does.

There shouldn't be an "easy" or "hard" designation given to "on" or "off", unless it's on a conditional basis. In one case, turning economy off might make the game easier... But turning caravans off would make it harder.

[Sapidus3]

How can you keep saying this? If you turn off migrants or caravans, your game would get harder. Turning things off shouldn't always make your game easier, it should do whatever turning off whatever you turned off does.

I think what the logic here is as follows.

Generally in a game, as you move up the difficulty curve, more features are added. It also plays partially into the learning curve, but for example: in alot of RTS the initial levels may only have infantry and that's all you are fighting. Then as the game gets harder, tanks get thrown in.

So someone playing a hard game is going to want all the features in. If the only way to make the game hard is to turn everything off, its not going to be very interesting. It would be sad if you had to choose between an easy game with alot of fun things to do, or a challenging game where you don't have migrants, or other things that can be fun.

Granted, in some cases it can be absence that increases the difficulty. We discussed risk and reward, and how there would be some risk with using rivers (river raids). However, not having any water at all (in a desert) will have difficulties as well without any direct rewards. Perhaps the desert is its own reward because of mineral deposits. However, the desert is essentially harder because of a lack of a feature (water).

Ultimately I agree that init options should not be in to make the game harder or easier. They should be there to simply toggle whatever they toggle. Some things may happen to make the game harder, some may happen to make the game easier. Some of them just add in risk/rewards.

For example, turning off the sieges gets rid of the risk of attack. But it also gets rid of the reward of getting iron loot from the goblin attackers.

A pop cap helps you avoid difficulties of managing large forts (and can help FPS but that's a different matter), but at the same time it means you have less dwarfs to work on your projects.

Some future init options may make the game easier when turned off, but get rid of features. Some may make the game harder when turned off, but make the game easier. Some may just represent trade offs. There is nothing wrong with this.

Ultimately I don't like the idea of init options killing features. I think it would be better if there were ways in game to avoid the features. Players that don't want sieges could avoid goblin infested areas, or perhaps send tribute to the goblins to sate their greed. Players that don't want migrants could tell their mayor to turn migrants away. Don't want the economy. Maybe your military could enforce the strange communal system your dwarfs use. Or perhaps a liaison could be sent to the king, with a bribe, to hold off the tax collector. Certain things like weather, temp, and pop caps, that relate strongly to FPS, I have no guff with.

I think integrating alot of the init options, or "potential init options," would help keep the game world consistent, and maintain the games integrity as a simulator (Many simulations that allow you to turn off things makes a distinction between simulator mode and "arcade" mode). however, I have nothing against init options or people who want/use them. I just think in some cases they aren't necessary, and integrating the options into the game could add fun new aspects.

[Rawl]

Okay Ideas for after the Caravan arc is out and item tracking is going on. Assuming things like Seasonal Irrigation is re-iterated in to the game and other nature based ideas (plants don't grow well in sand, although certain plants would) you could make an interesting life out in the desert. Imagine if you will a desert with no water or oasis like qualities, no under ground river or pool, life would be hard as you couldn't farm and the only plants are indigenous. How would you survive? Raids. Using the players ability to siege after the army arc you could send your band of merry raiders across the land to gather foods and goods. Seeing things like traders with barrels of water to trade non-hostile fortress where water is scarce to non-existent would be a blessing as well as traders bringing sand to forts that are barren of it would be great too! (I love my glass industry). I agree that my idea about adventure mode pseudo-fort might not be such a great idea, but I still like the thought of getting to play the Noble .

[Sapidus3]

I like the idea of the adventurer pseudo fort idea. However, I am sure if it is ever in the game, it will be a long time from now. And of course you might run into issues reconciling the two different game types.

I like the idea of water caravans in a dessert fortress. Even better, an entire Dune like desert world where water is the most valuable resource of them all. I can just imagine giant barrels on wheels being towed by camels. Cacti could be a water source.

I think alot of suggestions regarding caravans and trading would not require a fully functional economy or a complete Caravan arc. The behavior could be emulated by just approximating areas. However, I don't know if Toady would want to spend his time on making a system that only sort of does what it should to act as a stop gap when he plans on making a system that could do what it should.

It will be interesting when raids are first implemented. I am sure as soon as we see them we will have a whole slew of new ideas.

[Rawl]

AS far as pseudo fort went you don't get to pick where other people built their homes and shops, but you would get to help them out by getting things they need like furs and such, you could act as town police and reconcile problems between your villagers, such as Tommy Twofingers killed Urist van Dvarf's cat and you need to sort that out. You could also act as Caravaneer for your town, and of course the basics of fending off the bandits, raising the villagers against armies, and getting a band of yokels together to go find the tomb of Bomrek and kill the dragon that guards it. In this you would be more of Mundane Minkot trying to keep the unruly mob together.

Though I think once the army arc is finished the creative juices will really start to flow. I mean we tend to complain about how easy it is to fend of sieges, but imagine raiding some town one year coming back in a couple years and find that they built walls and fortifications around their town, complete with siege weapons. Did I forget to mention the traps hidden in their stock rooms? I did? Well sorry Steel Plaited champ, thought you knew about those! This could also lend itself to using tunneler teams to get in the town/city/castle of the enemy and having them react to such tactics. Dwarves coming up through a hole they dug? How about some boiling pitch to make those bearded ants think twice!

[Zombie]

Ultimately I agree that init options should not be in to make the game harder or easier. They should be there to simply toggle whatever they toggle. Some things may happen to make the game harder, some may happen to make the game easier. Some of them just add in risk/rewards.

Right, I think that would be a perfect way to look at it... They're just things to play around with so we can have different experiences. I suppose as "easy" and "hard" are subjective, it's best to not denote the options as such.

[Rawl]

Alright more ideas along the lines of races need to stand out against each other more.
When kobolds and goblins send in their thieves and snatchers does anyone else think it odd they can be rooted out by a cat or a dwarf 200 tiles away from any other dwarf? The should get a fair chance of just killing the thing that spotted them and remain hidden if they were successful. This would probably make me cry in the sense of animals dying, because I'm always butchering animals and wouldn't pay it any heed, however if a dwarf dies and I'm not told why I might be a little more suspicious. If something is there to witness this then the would be suprise gets found out (more insentive to use dogs with dwarves that venture out or doubling up on guard duties. Same should be said for ambushers, honestly what kind of ambusher gets found out by a wild groundhog?

[Sapidus3]

In terms of fleshing out the races:

Kobolds are supposed to be sulking, right? I kinda like the idea of a Kobold sneaking into your store rooms and just staying there. It would hide in a barrel when dwarfs come in. Kinda like vermin. Cause they sort of are. I think more needs to be done with them to fit into their roll better.

Someone already mentioned this in this thread, but Humans are sort of "eh." I'm not sure exactly how to make them more interesting. Part of the problem is I don't know what Toady's grand vision is for the races. Like I know its intentional know that elves consume sapient species. I'm not sure what other strange and unexpected twists for the races are in store. If anyone has a link to any information about this I think it could be helpful.

Elf's and goblins both feel fairly distinct at this point. Elf's have all of the classical fantasy baggage to help them be "cool" in addition to some unique additions that the DF world has added to their mythos (canibalism).

Goblins have the whole tower and demon stuff going for them. That and the hordes of goblin armies.

Dwarfs are... Well what can I say, they are Dwarfs.

Right now these thoughts were of these races as non-playable races that serve as foils to the dwarfs in DF. If more support is added to make them primarily playable, they would need more to flesh them out.

However, on that note, it might be interesting if an outcast elf could join our society. Maybe the elf got fed up of wood and wanted to see a bit more stone. I would put him in my military and have him lead a group of swordsmen and watch him feast on my enemies. Similarly, you could have a few members of your population from other races as well. This could also create racial tension in the fort.
 

[Impaler[WrG]]

Simple things (from a programming perspective) that could be used for a scalable difficulty slider or possibly each variable is individually adjustable.  At the least a global low/med/high could be implemented which feeds into each of these.

Expedition Start points - More points allows more skill and item purchases make the start of the game easier or harder.  Starting with 2/3 and 1/2 of normal points would make for a rougher start.

Dwarf Skill Advancement - Theirs a table which determines the XP needed for each level, applying a multiplier to the table say x2 and x3 for a medium and hard slows down skill acquisition.

Bad Event frequency/Severity - This would include both attacks and other types of events (plagues, cave-ins, dwarfs being struck by lightning etc etc) once their implemented.  Doubling and tripling the number of attackers in an event would correspond to a medium and high difficulty (though ultimately some kind of enemy siege weapon should to be implemented too)

Moodiness - Basically applies an across the board happiness reduction to all dwarf moods making tantrums, depression and the nasty effects of them more likely.  Modifiers of -25 and -50 sound about right for a medium and hard setting.

Exchange Rate - Merchants currently require that they make a 'profit' on transactions typically 25%, this simply raises their expected profit margin so you get less for your own products.  Bumping profits to 50% and 75% effectively reduces the 'value' of everything you make.

[Rawl]

Exchange Rate - Merchants currently require that they make a 'profit' on transactions typically 25%, this simply raises their expected profit margin so you get less for your own products.  Bumping profits to 50% and 75% effectively reduces the 'value' of everything you make.

Or the fact that merchants might not enjoy the fact that you might be giving them the same items everytime. The player might be flooding the "market" with to many totems.
A note an an earlier comment about novice stonecrafters buying out whole caravans,
I just wiped out the dwarven caravan's supply of expensive metals and weapons with 8 crafts and a  couple of modestly built barrels with some well prepared food, the barrels averaged about 3495... That's some overpriced cat stew...

[Sapidus3]

Expedition Start points - More points allows more skill and item purchases make the start of the game easier or harder.  Starting with 2/3 and 1/2 of normal points would make for a rougher start.

Not exactly what related to your comment, but inspired by it. Perhaps some of your points need to be spend on travel. The farther away your embark location is from your civ, or the harder it is to get to, the more points are required to travel there. Cross ocean travel would be expensive. Adjusting the difficulty/slider/whatever the mechanism is, could affect the "point per mile cost."

But continuing on that comment it could also make certain items more expensive, or put a limit on how many of a given type of items you could get. I'm sure alot of people may feel that simply limiting the points can be done through self handicapping. That's not to say it shouldn't be in, but alot of people already essentially have that functionality which should make it fall a bit lower compared to your other suggestions in terms of priorities. However, perhaps certain civ flags could affect starting points. If you choose to be part of a rich civ, maybe there are more points available.

[Rawl]

Expedition Start points - More points allows more skill and item purchases make the start of the game easier or harder.  Starting with 2/3 and 1/2 of normal points would make for a rougher start.

Not exactly what related to your comment, but inspired by it. Perhaps some of your points need to be spend on travel. The farther away your embark location is from your civ, or the harder it is to get to, the more points are required to travel there. Cross ocean travel would be expensive. Adjusting the difficulty/slider/whatever the mechanism is, could affect the "point per mile cost."

But continuing on that comment it could also make certain items more expensive, or put a limit on how many of a given type of items you could get. I'm sure alot of people may feel that simply limiting the points can be done through self handicapping. That's not to say it shouldn't be in, but alot of people already essentially have that functionality which should make it fall a bit lower compared to your other suggestions in terms of priorities. However, perhaps certain civ flags could affect starting points. If you choose to be part of a rich civ, maybe there are more points available.

Rich civs could also have their downsides too, their dwarves might not be as... physically inclined as other more meager civs as they are no longer as used to the harshness of the world in their pampered Mountain Homes. The Caravan Arc might address this as well but: Perhaps prices for the things you order through the caravan shouldn't just be determined by the amount of want, but also the difficulties the caravan has getting to your fort. Trips through Hostile territories or out to less "accessible" areas might make the traders more inclined to jack the prices up than say if you lived 3 days travel from their respective starting points.