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[Majestic7]

quote:Originally posted by Pacho:
<STRONG>It just seems really weird being able to change the composition of things that couldn't be changed unless the mountains were actually dwarf-made.  The starting items are simply what you bring to the new environment, not what you make the environment out of.
The socio-economic advantages/disadvantages I think are a good idea though.</STRONG>

Well, it seems equally stupid to start a mountain colony with no information or research whatsoever on what is inside the mountain. I mean, is it really worth it to start digging huge tunnels if there is only common types of rock to be found?

If some sort of dwarven magic (geomancers?) is put in later, that would be the explanation for such advantages.

[Abyssal Squid]

The complaint isn't that you'll have some inkling of what you'll find in the mountain, it's that it makes no sense to have direct control over what is inside.  Especially, spending points (money, essentially) that would otherwise be spent on booze to fill a mountain with diamonds is pretty bizarre.  Having a vague mineral report, similar to and displayed alongside the biome report, when selecting a site sounds like a sensible addition once there's something to report.

[bbb]

um... as i said before.. the values can't be linked/interchanged directly as they operate on different scales

for example.. a mountain of gems worth less than an iron plate armor (1000 pts each!)?

they could have a system that sort of works like stars!.. advantages have -ve points, disadvantages have +ve points, etc.. and you must balance points so result is never negative

in fact.. you could start off with feature.. then after broadly customising the mountain/surrounding area... extra left over points (or even one of the attributes) can be used to manipulate the number of dwarves, the number of equipment points then available, etc

eg 1 attribute point means say 100 equipment pts (cost rising exponentially)

etc
etc
etc

call it magic if you want.. imagine some nutter magician(s) blasting/terraforming the mountain before you head there. we are not talking about real detailed stuff... just broad themes... maybe a mountain gets more ore.. at the expense of more enemies or worse agriculture.

[grendel]

Oy.

Rather than *changing* the mountains, each mountain could have a number of pregenerated properties that are known to the dwarf kingdom because the King's scouts and prospectors have checked the places out and marked them as potential sites for settlements.

The king could then charge money or what have you for the charters to each mountain, with better mountains costing more and really crummy mountains costing less (or perhaps the king will even give you the rights to settle there for FREE because it's so miserable).

How's that?    :p

[ October 08, 2006: Message edited by: grendel ]

[odd2k]

quote:Originally posted by grendel:
<STRONG>Oy.

Rather than *changing* the mountains, each mountain could have a number of pregenerated properties that are known to the dwarf kingdom because the King's scouts and prospectors have checked the places out and marked them as potential sites for settlements.

The king could then charge money or what have you for the charters to each mountain, with better mountains costing more and really crummy mountains costing less (or perhaps the king will even give you the rights to settle there for FREE because it's so miserable).

How's that?     :p

[ October 08, 2006: Message edited by: grendel ]</STRONG>

That's the only realistic suggestion so far in this thread. Dwarves can't magically terraform a mountain, so that would qualify as meta-gaming. The whole point of the fortress part of the game is to control/order your dwarves and not much more than that.

Still, about the whole buying property from the king thing: Shouldn't the king rather be funding your journey in his best interests, and want you to settle in the best place possible?

[Mud]

quote:Originally posted by Abyssal Squid:
<STRONG>The complaint isn't that you'll have some inkling of what you'll find in the mountain, it's that it makes no sense to have direct control over what is inside.  Especially, spending points (money, essentially) that would otherwise be spent on booze to fill a mountain with diamonds is pretty bizarre.  Having a vague mineral report, similar to and displayed alongside the biome report, when selecting a site sounds like a sensible addition once there's something to report.</STRONG>

I totally agree with this.

Having direct control over what's inside the mountain makes no sense. There's plans, in the far future, to create an
editor tool that presumably will allow you the generate a mountain with whatever properties you want,. So though customization is definitely something that's planned on, adding it to "select site" screen just doesn't fit. I also think that having mountains with widely varying properties, which could probably have more specific purposes than the current "sandbox" mountain where the only (economic) property that varies greatly is the amount of wood. I've definitely had some fortresses where some resources were abundant or scarce, but enough searching tends to reveal enough of any resource to meet demand (though currently getting those resources to stockpile can be tricky). Having to import certain resources, or having focused mines concentrated on returning specific resources or goods to the king, or filling certain roles within the kingdom, would add a great level of depth to the game. There's also the issues of adamantine, which honestly shouldn't really be in every fortress. Adamantine mines should be very specific endeavors, undertaken at the rare locations adamantine should exist, (instead of in every single mountain,) and possibly have more focus on getting to the adamantine quickly, being able to slay the demons guarding it, harvesting as much as possible and exporting it to a more secure location before a catastrophic attack destroys the fortress. Of course, this is probably all long-term stuff, and I'm not even sure if it'd fit into the version 1 development/current core or not.

Of course, it wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing to be able to either spend points or simply choose for free some other characteristics of your colony and the dwarves in it than you currently can. Being able to buy stats for your dwarves might be interesting, and being able to either buy or choose some special characteristics, for your colony, such as how it's run & regulated, what sort of arrangements it has with foreign powers or what sort of items are designated to be imported could add some depth. Something along the style of Fallout's talents might work. Of course, adding something that's too complicated, or gives you a highly unrealistic amount of control, shouldn't be included. Party setup already takes a pretty long time.

[Capntastic]

I like the idea of having to pay a nominal fee of starting points to colonize a somewhat better location.   And, while you'd have to pay maybe 25 starting points to settle a heavily wooded, peaceful, and all-around nice area, you'd probably get extra points for volunteering to risk your lives on a spooky place full of monsters.   It'd would very much help give a benefit to taking the latter.

Again, I will say that the idea of paying points to 'magically' change the composition of the inside of a mountain doesn't sit right with me at all.

[grendel]

quote:Still, about the whole buying property from the king thing: Shouldn't the king rather be funding your journey in his best interests, and want you to settle in the best place possible?

Maybe, maybe not. Here's a hypothetical situation:

1) The Dwarven homelands are so overpopulated that there is absolutely no shortage of settlers for the available mountains. Every location is bound to be settled sooner or later.

2) The King doesn't get any direct benefit from settlements except for trade, as they are completely autonomous and owe him no tribute.

In this situation, your success or failure is completely meaningless to the king. If you die, the king loses nothing [as your fortress is self-governing], and settlers are bound to go take the land back sooner or later anyway.

The only way for the king to profit in this scenario is to charge gold for settlement charters, or else found Royal settlements that owe allegiance and services to the crown.

[ October 08, 2006: Message edited by: grendel ]

[Rondol]

I was actually about to mention the "royal settlements" thing, where perhaps you get extra starting points but the King will make mandates which the caravans bring word of to you, giving you a year to complete before the next caravan arrives, demanding that you hand over the previously mandated products and telling you of what the king wants you to make him next. They could be BIG ones too, scaling up as you have more production capabilities, so at first he might only ask for 10 crowns of any material while later on he may demand 300 electrum scepters of "+" quality or greater. Penalties for not complying may range from the caravan bringing less goods to a dwarven army knocking on your door.