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[Grek]

quote:Originally posted by Tapper12:
<STRONG>This could work. But you have to consider that things like these could totally ruin your plans for your fortress. Accidentally running into a ruin at the center of your main road or housing area could mean you're forced to do workarounds and making your fortress really badly designed.</STRONG>

I was under the impression you could loot the place then level it if you chose to do so.

[Marx]

This would be amazing, especially if it tied into the Legends well. If the game kept track of settlements during world creation (which it might do now?) it could also make a certain number of settlements abandoned, allowing you to find them at your dig site. /edit Also by finding the settlement through Archeology it could update the Legends page, giving something like "541, contact with the settlement of (blank) was lost. In 1053, the ruins of the settlement were found by the Dwarvish settlement (blank), from the Kingdom of (blank.)" If it included details of how the original settlement met it's demise? *drool*

Equally awesome would be finding a strangely engraved wall, which when examined would say that this wall is the prison which seals in Loq'wil-tal, a legendary demon who guards the treasures of the Dwarven settlements he has destroyed, or finding a village of Troglodyte's on the river, which you then burn to the ground and pillage.

[ February 18, 2007: Message edited by: Marx ]

[Gakidou]

Similar thought: Once the new mountain setup goes in, I wonder if it will be possible to build close enough to ruins that you could fight off the zombies and claim their precious jade crafts for yourselves? (Or better yet, instead of digging your fortress into the side of a mountain, dig into one of those ziggurauts and set up shop!)

[Lee72]

Found this old thread!
Has this been discussed recently?
Finding Bones of ancient beast's while digging would be cool!

[Catastrophic lolcats]

Old indeed. It was made over 5 years ago. Some pretty powerful thread necromancery at work here. Would've been better just to open a new topic instead of digging up the bones of the deceased.

[Manveru Taurënér]

Old indeed. It was made over 5 years ago. Some pretty powerful thread necromancery at work here. Would've been better just to open a new topic instead of digging up the bones of the deceased.

"Search for an existing thread. If you find a thread similar to your idea, you can bump it to expand on the suggestion, even if the thread is old." ;P

[AutomataKittay]

Old indeed. It was made over 5 years ago. Some pretty powerful thread necromancery at work here. Would've been better just to open a new topic instead of digging up the bones of the deceased.

It's generally encouraged to dig up threads with concepts already in place in this board

That said, I don't remember seeing this one, but I like the idea.

[LHLF]

Wow, I really like this idea! It really focuses on one of the most awesome aspects of DF, which are the legends and memorials!
I'm glad that this has been bumped. 

[GreatWyrmGold]

Maybe a quick pre-historic section of worldgen, making a few ancient empires and turning their sites to ruins once history begins?
Such ruins could/would probably be re-settled by new nations.
Aaand...can't multi-task well. More later.

[DarbyMcB]

A problem brought up but I didn't check whether it was discussed or not is why they would go down there, and why it was abandoned. suggestion: to explore unknown areas, perhaps in that age it was more common to dig down further as races other than dwarves, or it's someones secret home like a wizard, or a weird hermit who lives underground, the reason they left is because they dug too deep and released something evil, or it was a smaller group of people who, after they died, didn't leave enough people behind to carry on.

[AutomataKittay]

A problem brought up but I didn't check whether it was discussed or not is why they would go down there, and why it was abandoned. suggestion: to explore unknown areas, perhaps in that age it was more common to dig down further as races other than dwarves, or it's someones secret home like a wizard, or a weird hermit who lives underground, the reason they left is because they dug too deep and released something evil, or it was a smaller group of people who, after they died, didn't leave enough people behind to carry on.

There're a lot of buried abandoned cities and ancient ruins, it could be as simple as economical change making the area unneeded ( like a lot of boomtowns for mining ). Or natural event such as Pompeii ( which I expect to be eventually possible in DF )

As to why, well, people's dug into ruins by accident more often than not

However those other things are good, and people not having enough to carry on does happens occasionally.

[Deathworks]

Hello!

I agree that it is a nice idea.

However, I don't think you need a basic change like a pre-history. Look at terran history. For instance, there is ancient Greece, some of which sites are subject to archeology. The growth and fall of a civilization like Greece is basically already part of the possibilities of World Gen. (I recall having a world a few versions back, where a human civ had been completely whiped out by wars, I think with elves, leaving ruined cities connected with roads)

The things needed to reach greater archeology would be a greater diversity in sites during world gen (like extended caverns, underground cities) for all races, so that they are not stuck with a single pattern. And a greater flux for civilizations. That is, to have the possibility to have new civilizations develop. For instance, a prophet (probably a vampire or demon) could visit a distant hamlet of a civ and convert the people there to a new faith/attitude, thus starting a new civ. Or a band of bandits could gain control of ever larger portions of land, until they in themselves become a realm and thus a civ. This way, we could have more room for disrupted lines and abandoned settlements.

Factors for abandonment could certainly be different events like plagues, droughts, invasions. This latter point can be especially interesting for unfortified settlements. As a horde of hostile invaders conquer a nearby city, the surrounding villages may be abandoned as the villagers flee to the next city to seek safety behind its walls. But change can also come via commerce. If a city gets a trade connection with an interesting, new trade partner, it is likely to develop a certain pull that may drain other parts of the realm, maybe even to the point of abandonment. Likewise, if a trade partner vanishes or changes the trade route, a former booming city may turn into ruins and disappear under the sands of time.

Yours,
Deathworks

[GreatWyrmGold]

A problem brought up but I didn't check whether it was discussed or not is why they would go down there, and why it was abandoned. suggestion: to explore unknown areas, perhaps in that age it was more common to dig down further as races other than dwarves, or it's someones secret home like a wizard, or a weird hermit who lives underground, the reason they left is because they dug too deep and released something evil, or it was a smaller group of people who, after they died, didn't leave enough people behind to carry on.

Two possibilities as to how the city got there: Either someone with dwarven aesthetics put it there, or the land kinda buried it after it was abandoned. As to why it was abandoned, many possibilities. Look at the real world--plenty of dead cities from mighty empires.

Hello!

I agree that it is a nice idea.

However, I don't think you need a basic change like a pre-history. Look at terran history. For instance, there is ancient Greece, some of which sites are subject to archeology. The growth and fall of a civilization like Greece is basically already part of the possibilities of World Gen. (I recall having a world a few versions back, where a human civ had been completely whiped out by wars, I think with elves, leaving ruined cities connected with roads)

The things needed to reach greater archeology would be a greater diversity in sites during world gen (like extended caverns, underground cities) for all races, so that they are not stuck with a single pattern. And a greater flux for civilizations. That is, to have the possibility to have new civilizations develop. For instance, a prophet (probably a vampire or demon) could visit a distant hamlet of a civ and convert the people there to a new faith/attitude, thus starting a new civ. Or a band of bandits could gain control of ever larger portions of land, until they in themselves become a realm and thus a civ. This way, we could have more room for disrupted lines and abandoned settlements.

Factors for abandonment could certainly be different events like plagues, droughts, invasions. This latter point can be especially interesting for unfortified settlements. As a horde of hostile invaders conquer a nearby city, the surrounding villages may be abandoned as the villagers flee to the next city to seek safety behind its walls. But change can also come via commerce. If a city gets a trade connection with an interesting, new trade partner, it is likely to develop a certain pull that may drain other parts of the realm, maybe even to the point of abandonment. Likewise, if a trade partner vanishes or changes the trade route, a former booming city may turn into ruins and disappear under the sands of time.

Yours,
Deathworks

Yes, cities and other sites abandoned during worldgen should become ruins. I also think that an ancient, mysterious civilization is a fairly common trooe in fantasy literature and therefore shouldn't be discounted. There's plenty of places where the only idea people had of the inhabitants was pure speculation until the fairly modern era of archaeology. What do you think the chances of dwarves being archaeologey is?

[Inarius]

Yes, archaeology should be connected with "forgotten" ruins, which are the relics of destroyed sites (and forgotten sites, not appearing in legend mode, optionnal).

If artefacts could be made by other people than those made in players fortress, that could be quite interesting...

[Deathworks]

Hello!

Actually, this leads to one classic game mechanism that would need to be changed - the history knowledge of the dwarves. Currently, dwarves will know all historic events within the biome(s) the fortress lies and use that history in their art. On the other hand, they have no knowledge of their civ's history outside of that biome. With such foreknowledge, archeology is kind of pointless, as all the history is already there for the dwarves, there is no hidden knowledge, no unknown ruins.

In order for archeology to work, I think historical knowledge should be civ-linked: Each civ knows the history of its settlements, the surrounding biomes, and its people. Dwarves in the fortress share that civ knowledge. The civ knowledge is enlarged by discovered artifacts with depictions or tradegoods with such encriptions.

Oh, just imagining a dwarf picking up a buckler from the elven caravan with an important historic event from far away depicted on it and then going on to make a master work engraving of that same event in the fortress makes me shudder with joy....

Yours,
Deathworks