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[DWeird]

I'm slightly uncomfortable with the idea that my dwarves are forming maligant cliches and gangs and cults and good ol' boy networks in my medieval communist fortress.

As an ex-Soviet Union guy with a passing interest in medieval history, I'm pretty sure that cliques and gangs and cults and networks were a very prominent feature of both kinds of society...

But I guess your beef is less with whether it's accurate/realistic and more with gameplay, right?

In regards of how the relations between the groups would be handled, I'm thinking of something along the lines of:

1) A dwarf from the Fancy Pants gets assaulted by a member of the Protruding Spikes (due to a tantrum or some such).
2) The relationship of Fancy Pants with the Protruding spikes deteriorates.
3) When the relationship reaches a certain low point AND a particular dwarf reaches a certain level of unhappiness, a Fancy Pants dwarf will go and beat up a random member of the Protruding spikes.
4) So now the Protruding Spikes like Fancy Pants less. And so on.

Basically, a downward spiral that can be managed by keeping both groups sufficiently happy. Sort of like focused tantrum spirals.

A player should be able to manage his groups either by never allowing them to give a reason to hate each other, or by nipping the problem in the bud by segregating them... Or just killing off the one's he cares less about.


As for legendaries injured in fisticuffs... This'll be after medicine is implemented, which means that deaths due to injuries would be much more rare. And, really... A one-armed, one-legged, one-eyed master mason is infinitelly more cool than one with all the right parts.

Apart from the increase in dwarf-to-dwarf violence, groups could also mean more leaders running around acting as shoulders to cry on, which could mean less deaths in total.

My main interest is in providing more "fun" to large, mature fortresses which no longer have much to fear from outside. If a dwarf fails to pull a lever in time because he was pinned down by the neighbourhood gang, and gobbos manage to get in and wreack havoc on the civilians, starting a civil war in which only only the ruffians from the gang that started all this survive... It'd hair-pullingly irritating, but in a very dwarfish way.

[tsen]

Groups would be an interesting portion of increasing the depth of social dynamics.

[Urist McManiac]

I don't think it would be cool to have some sort of modern political parties (like Commies, Anarchos, Hippies, etc.) but other kinds of Groups, such as Clans, religious groups, and guilds.
Of course, there should be conflicts and other relationsships between them, but also, one faction could reach a certain amount of power, for example throug election. They would act like the mayor/other nobles and demand certain things (Example: Some religious dwarfs want to have a temple, like a mayor wants a office) and could mandat things. (The Masons Guild would mandate the construction of rock goods, to improve the stoneworker economy)

[Guy Montag]

Actually it does sound like it would have some awesome implications, especially for a large, mature fortress that has the population and time to create schizms and feuds and maybe medieval greaser-gangs of troubled youths. I think smaller fortresses should be less prone to these issues. The larger mature fortresses are the ones that get boring.

Certainly these things exisit in any society, people tend to have tiers of organizational affiliation. Guilds, family networks and religious groups would be the most accurate for the period. People tied to each other through their professions (including criminals), religion or family ties, and not so much tied by political ideology which people really had no concept of back then.

Maybe make these interactions influenced mostly by the players actions. If the player wants a huge cohesive population that may have varied smaller organizations but they are (for the most part) feircely loyal to the larger organization they should be able to.

If the player wants to drive wedges and divisions between groups and forment all sorts of internal dissent that blooms into a civil wars, religious schizms, or just plain criminal organizations breaking thumbs, it should be something emergent in the gameplay if the player wants it to happen.

Not sure HOW it could happen, per se, the player should set the social conditions to try and encourage the the way sorts of groups to interact with another. Perhaps with the mature, established fortresses, where just about every single ounce of wealth has been extracted from the mountain, the unrest will start to form because there is no work for the guilds, no pay for the workers, people have too much free time on their hands, and the economic stagnation gives way to these sorts of divisions between fortress organizations. It would be the player's struggle to keep them busy, occupied, at war with somebody else (once the army arc is done) or just encourage it and watch the fortress fall apart.

[Maggarg - Eater of chicke]

I like the ideas of big families forming clans and so on.
Hell, it might even form a class system as crushing and oppressive as the one in the UK.
Don't deny it, it's still there.

[MrWiggles]

For this idea to be really neat, it would have to be hands free, or very little meddling. I don't want to set zones for different clans. Be it family, or guilds.

If families selected apartments near each other, and in the meeting area stay with each other more. They share there communal wealth, as in maybe paying for each other rent. Nobles might be an issue as with Legendary dwarfs just taking everything.

Personally, it shouldn't be labor thing. As the dwarfs seem to be all for the well being of the fortress as a whole, and it seems to be anti dwarfy to refuse to do something. (Minus strange moods, and plan simple cowerdance which seem to get punish by players anyhow).

If I need a Hauler to learn how to smooth stone, then I don't need any upper lip from the Porter Guild and Mason Guild. And an unspoken of issue thus far, is that with Skill Guild comes wages as defined by the guild. A person working to labor, would they get to double dip?

[Vattic]

I really like this idea, families, friends and religions forming groups that are recognised by others and the legends along with their interactions with each other would be interesting. Having heard Toady say he wants the game to generate all the bad fantasy plots possible seems to add weight to this idea, heh Urist and Juliet anyone?

If it doesn't get done exactly I would still like to see friendship, families, religion and grudges worked on a lot more, drunken(sober?) fistfights should be common when unhappy dwarves have no booze and bump into one of their enemies.

I can also see this tying in with burrows somehow.

[Aspgren]

Urist and Juliet anyone?

More like Romeo and Urist. 

[Craftling]

Hmmmm... I can see the groups dissolving into: GTA Dwarf fortress stories

[Syff]

Judging by stories of arriving royalty taking issue with the tamed dragon, due to entity affiliations, we've already got this to a very minor extent.  Those stories are entertaining, so expanding on that might be nice.

There should obviously be variance in how strongly dwarves identify with their groups, as we have varying levels of religious belief now.  (Using the popular "clan" example, a dwarf might identify more strongly with one part of their ancestry than another.)

[Stromko]

What about the option of starting your fortress with ties to a specific, pre-existing organization? There's many examples in real and fantasy history of this, of gangs of criminals being sent out to colonize a land, a cult going to new lands so it can worship without interference, a Dwarven clan seeking to start its own mountain hall. You could also just have a disparate band of settlers like now, with many different associations.

As time goes on there would be a preference for migrants to also be from this same group, whatever it is, because naturally they want to be amongst their own kind. This could affect the kind of starting professions you're largely seeing, like a clan renowned for its Masons would send a lot of stoneworkers. If your fortress is renowned enough, you may even get highly skilled dwarves from this group.

As time goes on and the fortress grows larger there could be schisms within this group or new groups forming, as well as random migrants bringing in their own associations.

The real benefit I suppose of starting with a particular group association is that it helps you to "theme" your fortress. You might choose a group of dwarves that care first and foremost about having the greatest, most impressive temple to their deity. Or group of dwarves that just want to get as wealthy as possible and care for little else so long as this is achieved. Maybe your dwarves come from a military or crafting tradition, and will take great pride (and happiness) if the fortress is great at these things (comparative to its size and age).

To keep the majority of your population happy you'd want to constantly one-up yourself in that role, because the more dwarves you have dedicate to that cause the more they're going to expect to achieve. If they don't, they'll be demoraized. If they're working for their cause, they may work faster and longer to achieve it.

The flip side of group morale is that while at times they may be dedicated to the cause(s) a group stands for, if the fortress or group is failing to achieve that cause or failing to reach new heights in that cause, individuals may lose interest or faith in the group. Dwarves don't just become unhappy when their group mandates are ignored, they can also stop caring about it. But a Dwarf without a cause could be lazier or greedier or more selfish than they otherwise would be, so there's a benefit to keeping them involved in a cause they believe in.

On the other hand, a group that doesn't get what it wants can see its member become more radicalized and desperate! Yet another source of tantrums, berzerks, and general criminality, as well as new splinter groups that are more radical or have different objectives.

This whole groups thing could have cool results, but to really be interesting could take a tremendous amount of code. Some things at least seem easy, a mason's or architect's guild could be happy when the architecture wealth of the fortress is continually rising for instance. Tables or sarcophagi can have religious buildings designated off them. Religious 'nobles' can have requirements and mandates based on their deity.

Members of a group that that believe the fortress should produce really good items of some type, can be prone to noticing and appreciating items of that type. "Urist McSmith of Order of the Hammer has admired a fine hammer lately. He has sustained major injuries. He is upset about being hammered lately", and "Zuglar Zugnar of the Law and Order Society has   been angered by a mandate being broken. He has been displeased to see a criminal's punishment delayed. He has been pleased to see a criminal punished lately."

I think we may need more ways to interfere in Dwarven society for potentially destabilizing / tantrum-causing / violent groups to be a fun feature though. How about the ability to brand any citizen as a criminal? It's not like our nobles need a good reason to have someone imprisoned or beaten after all, so why not let the disembodied player exert a little narrative control too? Sure there's always death traps, but why set up a working justice system if you can't use it for your own management whims? I should see if there's a thread already about that actually and post my support of this idea there.

[DWeird]

What Stromko said.

I approve of most of what you said, especially the point about there being a way for individuals to become disillusioned (or whatever) with a group and eventually leaving it. This should somehow tie in with personality traits - tradition-loving dwarves would feel strong alliegiance to older groups, and other such stuff.

As far as I see it, mine is not the only "let there be groups" suggestion around (i.e.: religions, guilds and clans have been done under their own headings), and this whole topic could really do with some in-depth discussion.

There's more than one way to add a group to the game:

• Sub-civ, hard-coded: Adding in a group of some sort (guild/religion/whatever) that's guaranteed to show up once you reach certain criteria (essentially identical to nobles). This doesn't sound as much cool, but it can be a good way to make sure the player gets exposed to a cool feature that's associated with the group (for instance - a Miner's Guild that allows a prospecting labor) and yet shouldn't have access to straight from the start.
• Sub-civ, emergent: My original suggestion - certain groups should not be guaranteed to show up, put instead have a chance of popping up via interaction between individual dwarves. Clans or gangs or fellowships fit the bill perfectly here, methinks. Group emergence could be controlled by special tags - [MATRIARCHAL_INHERITANCE] would create clans along the women's bloodline's, [CRAPULENT_YOUTH] would create youth gangs, and [WANDERLUST] may create roving bands of adventurers (travel'll be in!).
• Trans-civ: A group that may potentially have holdings not only in your fortress or your parent civilisation, but in other civilisations as well. Active during worldgen. The League of Unalligned Merchant-Type Guys has an outpost in every city and allows people from any race to enter, but doesn't have cities of its own or a standing army, and isn't quite a civ. Major religions, criminal syndicates and the like would fit in here snugly. Might make the current diplomacy system messy, though.
• Emergent civ? - Things that weren't major civilisations before, but become them. A trans-civ cult gathering worshippers, overthrowing kings in a couple of lands, and establishing a trigger-happy Theocracy. Didn't even think of this possibility before I wrote up trans-civ, but the idea does make me grin stupidly, so I put it down.

Isn't a particularly neat list, but I think it'll help the discussion a little...

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Getting back to my original proposal:

Regarding relations between groups, I'm thinking that a way to show and measure the group's priorities is a must. Some groups could focus on creating wealth (guilds!), others on having wealth (criminals!), others on killing things (bands of adventurers!), yet others on political clout [special rating for officials in the group? +5 for Mayor, +10 for Baron, +1 for a royal guard] (old boy networks!), number of members (proselytizing religions!), number of members chopped off (Armok!) and maybe some other stuff.

If groups have goals, their relationships wouldn't be defined by friendliness/unfriendliness alone, they'd also be relationships of rivalry or alliance. Rivalry means that a group is trying to outdo another group, and gets happy/unhappy thoughts in regards to how well they're doing at that, whereas alliance essentially means that the two groups "merge their assests".

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There should probably be a way to designate group-only rooms, or just allow groups claim buildings and offices according to their purchasing power. Methinks designations give you more control - making sure than your favorite clan has the right sort of great hall would probably be more fun that having them pick up rooms at random.

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This is a great big wall of text, so I don't expect anyone to care about all of it - just read and respond to anything that catches your eye.

Also. Awfully belated thumbs up to Duke 2.0 for the joke wrapped in a cultural reference wrapped in a poem.

[Craftling]

What about the option of starting your fortress with ties to a specific, pre-existing organization? There's many examples in real and fantasy history of this, of gangs of criminals being sent out to colonize a land, a cult going to new lands so it can worship without interference, a Dwarven clan seeking to start its own mountain hall. You could also just have a disparate band of settlers like now, with many different associations.

So basically Australia?

[Maggarg - Eater of chicke]

Dwarven Mods and Rockers.

[Hectonkhyres]

Like...The Free Masons?  Something about a dwarven illuminati appeals to me on a number of levels.

There is no Illuminati.
...
That is all.