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[SirHoneyBadger]

It was only a ruse in order to lure you above the trap-door, that the crocodiles may feast upon your flesh.

[Leafsnail]

It isn't. Chances are good that, by Toady considering these "engravings" now instead of later, he'll avoid having to tear down half the wall later to retrofit them.

Nah most of this stuff is just surface alterations, like hair or eye colour and unless he intend to do a system whereby each person recognizes and prefers specific hair or eye colour its doesn't have a massive impact.

Not really. The stuff like hair and eye color were all part of the complete redesign of tissue layers, bodies, and materials. Yes, hair and eye color aren't that important, but they're trivial compared to the amount of work that went into redoing that system.

And that system will have a huge impact on the game. Combat will work differently, weapons and armor will work differently, monsters like Magmamen will be very different...it's probably one of the biggest changes to the game yet (other then the z-axis).

The descriptive paragraphs that say that someone has blue eyes and a scar on their right arms aren't critical, no, but they're very neat and didn't take that long for Toady to add in along with everything else he was doing. And it's fun and interesting for him and a lot of players.

I thought the main difference was that different tissues will be tougher (so it's harder to break an arm than damage an organ, for instance).

[Rockphed]

Question for Toady:  With the new note system, can you zoom to the points from anywhere on the map, or do you have to find them yourself?  In other words, will I be able to make a note in each of my mayor's bedroom, office and dining room so I can easily find them when I need to give them to a new mayor?

[Gothmog]

Question for Toady:  With the new note system, can you zoom to the points from anywhere on the map, or do you have to find them yourself?  In other words, will I be able to make a note in each of my mayor's bedroom, office and dining room so I can easily find them when I need to give them to a new mayor?

Well, we allready do have the "h" menu so we can zoom in on selfdefined points, so I guess we could either use this or Toady could combine them, maybe, so we can zoom to the waypoints,too.

Though I personally don't think that would be necessary, because we allready have the "h" menu for zooming and for the mayor's bedroom (as you said) it's more than enough (also for the gates, the forges, the megaproject, the kitty-pit... that's what I use it for, anyways).

As for actual waypoints out in the no man's land... as soon as something interesting happens the game is going to auto-zoom there anyways, so yeah.

[Jurph]

Today's developer update stated that

Limits on squad size are still up for discussion. There's no technical reason why you couldn't just stuff 100 dwarves into a single squad (though it would rarely be a good idea), so there might not be any meaningful cap. However, there should probably be a number of problems that arise out of having such a broad number of critters under the command of one officer. These could be handled by whatever mechanics come up when an officer is unassigned, dead or not present as well. I'm not sure what we'll end up with this time.

The major problem is that a single dwarf without leadership skills and traits (more on this in a moment) is simply incapable of getting 100 willful dwarfs to do as he says.  I would say that the maximum number of dwarfs a leader can control should be determined by
- the commander's ASSERTIVENESS and ACTIVITY_LEVEL traits
- each member's COOPERATION and DUTIFULNESS traits (perhaps the mean of these?)
- the commander's Persuader, Intimidator, and Flatterer skills

So a "perfect" commander would be an expert in his weapon, 100% assertive and active, and have the ability to Persuade, Intimidate, and Flatter.  Any troops under his command would need to do their jobs out of a sense of duty (DUTIFULNESS), a sense of cooperation (COOPERATION), or because they had been persuaded, intimidated, or flattered into doing the right thing.  The commander's ASSERTIVENESS or his ability to just bug the heck out of them (ACTIVITY LEVEL) until they get the job done would make up for reticent soldiers.  I think there should be a weapon proficiency check as well but I'm not sure how to look at that.

A way to model this might be to roll each of the relevant traits or skills as a series of random draws with outcomes from 1 to N where N is the dwarf's trait value, or the dwarf's skill XP divided by (oh, say) 100.  Each season (?), every dwarf on the squad decides whether he's going to stay in the squad or abscond.  Passing at least two "saving throws" keeps the dwarf loyal.  Let's assume a failure value of (say) 25.

Example
Morul, with Assertiveness of 90 and Activity_Level of 90, is an Expert (with 7500 xp) in Intimidator, Flatterer, and Persuader.  He has been assigned to lead The Inept Pincushions, a squad of four followers; each has DUTIFULNESS and COOPERATION of 80 except for Urist, who is a 10 in both traits.

The odds of each good follower making the saving throws would be:
Assertiveness - 72%
Activity - 72%
Intimidated into following - 66%
Flattered into following - 66%
Persuaded to stay in - 66%
Stays for duty - 69% (Urist always fails)
Stays to cooperate - 69% (Urist always fails)

And the highest likelihood of failing all-but-one is the case where Assertiveness or Activity holds the line and the others all fail.  Those odds are about one-tenth of one percent per dwarf per (seasonal?) check.  For Urist, however, the odds of failing to stay loyal go way up.  He's a horrible follower, so his odds of failing all but one check are about one percent.  You can see that Morul could easily command a dozen followers for years without anyone washing out.

An average dwarf (50 across the board, Competent in social skills) leading average dwarves would have a tougher time.  The social skills aren't high enough to give him any chance of passing those checks, so he has to rely on traits.  All four trait checks have a 50% chance of passing for each dwarf, so failing three of the four passable checks will happen to 12.5% of his followers!  If he were assigned eight dwarves, he would be very likely to lose at least one to disloyalty each time the check was made.

Just a suggestion -- and perhaps better suited to the suggestions forum? -- but I thought it might catch other Dev-Log followers and generate some discussion.

[Tormy]

Today's developer update stated that

Limits on squad size are still up for discussion. There's no technical reason why you couldn't just stuff 100 dwarves into a single squad (though it would rarely be a good idea), so there might not be any meaningful cap. However, there should probably be a number of problems that arise out of having such a broad number of critters under the command of one officer. These could be handled by whatever mechanics come up when an officer is unassigned, dead or not present as well. I'm not sure what we'll end up with this time.

The major problem is that a single dwarf without leadership skills and traits (more on this in a moment) is simply incapable of getting 100 willful dwarfs to do as he says.  I would say that the maximum number of dwarfs a leader can control should be determined by
- the commander's ASSERTIVENESS and ACTIVITY_LEVEL traits
- each member's COOPERATION and DUTIFULNESS traits (perhaps the mean of these?)
- the commander's Persuader, Intimidator, and Flatterer skills

Good ideas, but I don't agree with you to be honest. Just take a look at the commanders in history. Even horrible and "unskilled" commanders controlled huge number of troops. Well of course, it's not wise to let a commander like that to control a huge number of troops, but it should be possible. It's the ruler's/king's/commander in chief's [IE. the player's in DF] decision, that how many troops will be enlisted under the command of a given commander.

[Aldaris]

Today's developer update stated that

Limits on squad size are still up for discussion. There's no technical reason why you couldn't just stuff 100 dwarves into a single squad (though it would rarely be a good idea), so there might not be any meaningful cap. However, there should probably be a number of problems that arise out of having such a broad number of critters under the command of one officer. These could be handled by whatever mechanics come up when an officer is unassigned, dead or not present as well. I'm not sure what we'll end up with this time.

The major problem is that a single dwarf without leadership skills and traits (more on this in a moment) is simply incapable of getting 100 willful dwarfs to do as he says.  I would say that the maximum number of dwarfs a leader can control should be determined by
- the commander's ASSERTIVENESS and ACTIVITY_LEVEL traits
- each member's COOPERATION and DUTIFULNESS traits (perhaps the mean of these?)
- the commander's Persuader, Intimidator, and Flatterer skills

Good ideas, but I don't agree with you to be honest. Just take a look at the commanders in history. Even horrible and "unskilled" commanders controlled huge number of troops. Well of course, it's not wise to let a commander like that to control a huge number of troops, but it should be possible. It's the ruler's/king's/commander in chief's [IE. the player's in DF] decision, that how many troops will be enlisted under the command of a given commander.

The key in that situation is a chain of command and an execution squad just behind the front lines, see a certain russian's famous words about the soviet army.
If you are a single squad leader directly commanding a 100, you're gonna have a tough time.

[Footkerchief]

The key in that situation is a chain of command and an execution squad just behind the front lines, see a certain russian's famous words about the soviet army.
If you are a single squad leader directly commanding a 100, you're gonna have a tough time.

Yeah, the chain of command does a lot to keep an inept commander from totally losing control.  Generally there'll still be some skilled NCOs or whatever who know how to keep the troops in line.  The commander may still have some trouble keeping his/her direct subordinates in line, which can lead to entirely different kinds of trouble.  That's why the situation Tormy describes doesn't directly apply to the squad level.

The use of personalities and skills that Jurph suggests sounds excellent to me.

[Jurph]

I agree with Tormy that many (many!) followers have gone into battle under unprepared, unqualified, inhuman, and even criminally incompetent leaders, but think about why they did it: loyalty to an ideal (Liberty!), or an inspirational general above their commander (Napoleon), or an inspirational NCO in their platoon (Sarge), or out of a sense of duty to their squadmates, or-or-or.  The only reason bad leaders succeed is because they have good followers -- essentially hidden leaders! -- in their units. 

There are going to be many dwarves in every fortress who are, for whatever reason, unsuited to military life.  Whereas the current version allows you to turn a soapmaker into a vicious killing machine, today's modern parallel -- a Cultural Anthropology of Ceramics Ph.D. at Berkeley, for example -- wouldn't be caught dead joining the military.  If drafted, he'd head to Canada, or simply not report for duty.  If Napoleon showed up on campus and tried to convince him to join the cause, though...

Maybe there even needs to be a chain of command effect taking place: the direct commander's ASSERTIVENESS and ACTIVITY_LEVEL correspond to carrying out the basic functions of command duty, but the Skill-based checks should pick the highest-skilled superior anywhere in one's chain.  If your direct boss is an excellent Flatterer, and his boss is an excellent Intimidator, the two of them could convince you to stay in by playing good-cop/bad-cop (as long as your direct boss continues to make his saving throws for loyalty!).

Moving the hypothetical failure threshold up or down based on things like general happiness or squad unity could give you a really dynamic model -- when your military starts losing badly, your crappy conscripts flee, but the squads that have trained together since the first day stick together and become even more fearsome.

[Dwarfu]

I think you're either thinking about it too hard or trying to force it into a pre-determined model of what you think a military jughead is.

By the hammer, if several useless Cultural Anthropology of Ceramics Ph.D. at Berkeley's show up at my fortress, I'll smack em on the back, put a pot on their head and they most certainly will join the military and they will defeat the oncoming hordes or perish trying.

And it will be glorious.

And there will be tales and engravings.

[SirHoneyBadger]

Everything else set aside and unaddressed for good or ill, I do think Jurph has a good point about some sentient beings-even the anomalous dwarf-just have little or no military aptitude. If conscripted, they'll take a spear for the team, but there's probably better use to be had from them, even under the conditions of war.

Others lack the moral fiber, the courage, determination, loyalty, physical health and/or psychological state of mind, to make a useful soldier. Put that sort in the squad, and you increase the risk to the squad.

Trying to model that in the environment of the game, though, would probably be a management migrane, but this does make something of a case for talent--that some dwarfs are just naturally better at certain tasks than others are at those same tasks, no matter how much you train them, march them, exercise them, take them under your personal wing, or abuse them.

So-leaving out the walking fubars, until/unless somebody else can think of a good way to model them-maybe certain dwarfs can be natural born soldiers?

Or maybe-since we seem to be getting some version of DNA in the game-maybe coming from a longstanding military tradition (your family's fought and died for the Mountainhome since time immemorial)-could give you some kind of bonus to leadership?

[Aqizzar]

I think the only really good answer to questions like aptitude and good use of dwarves would be if they were able to choose their own jobs, or for instance enlist in the Fortress military.  But that kind of free-thinking seems way beyond the scope of what Toady's working on for now.

Really, even with the new mental stats, I have a feeling that mass conscription of otherwise unoccupied dwarves will still be the norm.  Be it by aptitude or luck, those that survive the meat-grinder of sparing with present masters or fighting off a mid-migration goblin attack will make equally useful guards compared to all other dwarves.

At least at this stage of the game, concerns like personality and natural aptitude is really overthinking things.  I know the intent is for the game to be as immersive and detailed as described, and that's great and all, but surely just making a military that follows coherent plans from the player is a greater priority than the martial proclivity and zeitgeist of your conscripts.

[Vlynndar]

'Bout motivation, the world as is stands now seems pretty focused on war. I think most/many dwarves will fighting quite normal.

[SirHoneyBadger]

'Bout motivation, the world as is stands now seems pretty focused on war. I think most/many dwarves will fighting quite normal.

Well, they're dwarfs, so yeah I think so too, but it doesn't mean all of them are good at it, though.

[Aquillion]

Question for Toady:

Do the changes to military organization mean that the Fortress / Royal Guards will be more under the control of the player now?

Just curious.  Apologies if it's already been asked, but the search function doesn't seem to let you specify one specific thread, so...