Im really not that upset about the new statues, I even said it wasnt that big a deal.
Ah. I wasn't sure whether to take the meltdown or the words more seriously.
Im just voicing my suggestions on it.
Understood. No biggie then.
I love DF, and I love its randomness....but come on...the fun of the game doesnt lie in the stockpile management or the menu interface. Am I really a pariah for pointing that out?
It was more the seeming meltdowns that bugged me. I'll happily argue pros and cons when nobody's flipping out.
On the one hand, I think this is awesome. I
would build 10,000 statues just to see what crazy things they'd make, I make tons of statues anyway. But then I'm the sort that goes around reading my engravings too.
It also seems to me you're trying to force dwarves to do things they don't "want" to do. What we see here is not just a complete lack of control but a conflict of artistic tastes. You want grand historic tableau's, but your king would just as soon fill his throne room with toad statues, and your mason likes gorillas... Artists can only draw on their own inspiration, not yours, but it may be possible to meet them halfway.
The ability base art on the theme of an object, creature, or work of art would let you narrow in on what you want without ignoring the contribution of the artist and filling the menu with thousands of legends -- just pick an object with the X. Tell her to carve something based on a certain dwarf and you might get a statue of him hugging a rat, shooting a goblin, being elected, dead(if the artist hates him enough), or threshing pigtails. It'd be a lot more interesting than commissioning Heroic Looking Dwarf Guy Statue #35.
This could also work in a simpler way for annoying things like mini-forges. You cannot order a stonecrafter to make mini-forges, just toys, but telling him to carve toys based off a masterpiece miniforge would get you only what you wanted.