Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Timst]

I'm pretty sure that when we were at the same technology level than the one that's depicted it DF, events like harvest festival or veteran's day meant something and were celebrated.


Anyway, I thought a bit about that really nice suggestion and that's why I thought:

Parties should be implemented so the more the player put work to help the dwarves attend them, the less it will have a negative impact on the fortress.  Eg: The player never bothered to make meeting rooms? The dwarves will spend way more time finding a place to celebrate. Or, they will have a small negative thought ("Was unable to celebrate XXX properly this year").

Also, maybe the parties could be prepared by non-working dwarves? The usual suspects will include nobles (organizing the whole thing), children (preparing rooms, tables, or even decorating with unused trade trinkets), and the standard peasants / haulers (bringing food and booze to the nearer stockpiles, or directly on some tables). Maybe even "On break" dwarves could participate, after all preparing is part of the fun.
This way, the parties and festivals will still be impressive and lively, but won't delay your Giant Canal or your Great Defense Wall at its most critic point.
Soldier will only be allowed to attend parties if they're off duty, of course. But expect bad thoughts for the lone marksdwarf that's forced to wait on the snow while everyone is celebrating New Year’s Eve inside, nonetheless.

Commemorations and religious event could also happen at the site of the original event or near a symbol of the deity, respectively. Near the banks of a river (which could lead to the “Carp incident” commemoration lately, hehehe) for a deity related to rivers, for instance. Or every 3 years after a big battle, the dwarves all gather on the (roughly defined) battlefield where 6 dwarven soldiers and 38 goblins perished in what is now known as Dakust's Last Stand, and maybe the mayor will make a speech or something.

Kind of celebrations I thought of:

 - New Year's Eve / Fortress anniversary (could be a different event if the fortress was able to start at a different date). Two possibilities:
Intimate celebration => Everybody stop working the 25 (or 27, or 30, it'll need smoothing) of late winter. Not that much preparation. Families and friends will gather in their rooms and make parties of their own. Groups of dwarves will choose the nicest room they have. If they have no rooms and still live in a big barrack, then they'll probably seek an isolated place, or the usual "was unable to celebrate properly" thought. Dwarves with no friend or relationships whatsoever will either party alone on their room (probably with a bad thought) or gather in a public meeting room to party with other friendless strangers, possibly starting new relationships. Before the first migrants wave, the 7 starters will all party together, regardless of the relationships.
Or…
General fiesta => Everybody stop working the 25 / 27 / 30 and head to the largest dining / meeting room. Huge preparations, maybe one month long. Everybody talk with each other, and gain social skill. Then when it's 1st of spring, maybe they all do something special? (All drink at once with a special mug, or do something related with the specialty / symbol / name of the fortress)

- Harvest festival: well, since dwarves cultivate all year around, it's a bit hard to tell when they should organize it. Maybe at the end of Fall? It will be a low-scale festival, maybe only celebrated by farmers. Dwarves that need to eat will try different products, or maybe only meals made of plants.

 - Foreigners festival: A special event that could happen every 2 years or so, on mature fortress (and with sufficient import / export). Delegations from humans / elves / whatever race arrives at the fortress, and a festival promoting the culture of this race is held, with traditional dishes, music, etc.
While it will be awkward to have an elven festival inside a dwarven fortress, it seems fun and after all, they aren't allies for nothing. Dwarves could also try to show respect or admiration for the guest's culture, maybe by suspending all woodcutting jobs when the elves are here, or by trying to dress human clothes? At the end, there could be an exchange of gift between the local ruler (expedition ruler / mayor / baron / king etc.) and the chief of the delegation, each one offering a typical craft of his nation of similar value, like:

 “Urist McBoss, Mayor has offered a +<<Silver gobelet>>+ to the human diplomat!
Urist McBoss, Mayor has received a *Steel crossbow* from the hands of the human diplomat!”
 or:
"Urist McGreatboss, Count, has offered a +Bronze luth+ to the elven diplomat!
 Urist McGreatboss, Count, has received a ¤Feather tree table¤ from the hand of the elven diplomat!"

With caravan arc and the like, you could also try to send a delegation once in a while to allied civs, with a gift and some of your best craftdwarves, to get similar results.

- Love day (equivalent of valentine’s day) : Married couple will spend some time together, and single dwarves will actively search for their other half. Maybe also a bonus roll for "breeding", possibly leading to a baby boom some months later. A very low-scale celebration, with almost no impact on the fortress activity.

- Children could also throw a light celebration for their birthday, with their friends, simbling and parents (again, good thought if nice birthday, bad thought if the workaholic parents didn't thought of wishing him/her a happy birthday).

I also saw a lot of good ideas above, like the celebrations or commemoration for disasters, artifacts-related events, military victories etc.
I think that kind of stuff could add a lively and emotional feeling to the fortress, as well as having some benefits (using otherwise useless items (instruments, mugs etc), providing jobs to children and nobles, strengthening the influence of concepts like deities or allied civs in the game…). Will you mind if I had a suggestion to the eternal voting list and link it to this thread?

[Sensei]

There's no logical reason...

You, sir, are an elf.

[Misterstone]

I say go for it, but of course there are so many other more important things that need to be done this will probably be on the list until 1.0 comes out.

[LordNagash]

So basically you guys are saying "I don't want anything out of the ordinary to happen during the year, I just want to endlessly stockpile food and booze.  Nothing must interrupt me as I play Legos by building my fortress exactly according to plan.  Don't add anything to shake me out of my wealth-hoarding comfort zone!"

Come on, guys, it would be fun!  It adds detail and humor to the game!  It makes sense too, and gives all those historical events and deities an actual affect on fortress mode and game play.  Talk about empty- what is the point of having all these historical events if they affect anything beyond appearing on crafted objects?

Anyway, I didn't say this would have to make MORE parties, necessarily, just that it would change the nature of them a bit.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but you /are/ talking about a community where people routinely make sure their fortress has no meeting halls so people don't have parties at all.

Anyway, I like this idea. Maybe some of the reasons for festivals would be a bit stupid at the moment, but as the game gets more detail they could get very interesting.

I mean who doesn't want a world where there used to be a festival where dwarves celebrated the founder of the civilization, but the new jealous king has forbidden people to celebrate the event? You could have dwarves observing the festival anyway, either quietly or very defiantly, and you could have other dwarves (especially the nobility) reacting to it depending on their own feelings on the matter.

[Dvergar]

Maybe irrelevant but...

Just would like to point out that in the field of sociology it is agreed that holidays came to be only after there was an evolved "city-state" type government in place.  Civilizations such as the Rome used holidays (more than half the year were holidays) to appease its citizens (while taxing them heavily).  Holidays have historically been tools of the governments.  Even religious ones.

[Craftling]

While your fortress only has a few members celebrations should be fairly minor...
But when the fortress get bigger SO DO THE PARTIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Timst]

I say go for it, but of course there are so many other more important things that need to be done this will probably be on the list until 1.0 comes out.

Well, I don't know. Of course this is not really important, but there's plenty of the code already implemented (parties, meeting / dining rooms, liaisons / diplomats and the fortress ruler meeting with them, instruments, and even music is currently worked on by Toady), so I guess it will be way easier to add it into the game that, say, boats, or conveyor belts.

Edit : Ok, added a suggestion. Currently #162.

[Pilsu]

I really see no reason for a "Foreigners' Day." That's just silly

<Whatever> Days don't work on a very fundamental level unless you want to make years real time. <Whatever> Festivals work much better due to the lack of a concrete time frame. Even if the fort is in a region warm enough for year round farming, having a traditional annual festival still isn't out of character. Also, cramming the year full of frivolous gunk will just serve to make the parties as tedious as they are now

Time is obviously handled in a way that mucks up a lot of systems but regional size also contributes. Seems exceedingly silly to have worlds where you can walk from a scorching region into a cold one in a month or two. Maps really shouldn't range so much in temperature so one could at least pretend it's just a chunk of a region. Otherwise it's hard to justify the festivals taking place at the same time everywhere or caravans getting anywhere timely

Setting up a plain feast type festival wouldn't cut into the work hours very heavily. Would need better handling of cooking and general meal times & day rhytm as groundwork though, otherwise half the fort will be sleeping while everyone else dances and has a good time. Either that or slaves away grinding some stupid socks. Evenings in general need to be break time so it'll be less random and thus, less annoying

[Timst]

Well, of course "xxx's day" is just a name when it come to DF, it will at least extend over a week.

And, I like my idea a Foreigner festival, or something to celebrate the cooperation between the race. The specifics can be different too (I was just giving examples when I talked about gift exchange or woodcutting suspension). But if everyone reject the idea of a elven party in the fortress, I can understand.

Also, I keep thinking that the reason why people don't like the current parties (the fact that they happens randomly and make dwarves stop working) can be reduced (if not suppressed) while parties could have way more useful effects. If a party has no negative effect on a fortress production, it doesn't matter whether there is one or six festival per years.

But I agree with you, regions doesn't look at all like regions, they just look like plain square world, with both poles and every weather and biome in. And yes, time is not realistic. It works well for many, many things and explain why digging through hard rock is so fast, but it cause some activities (mainly eating, drinking and sleeping) to be completely screwed up. The problem is that there is no other way to do this... if days were to take something like 30 minutes RL, seasons will take forever to end, letting alone years (180 hours RL !).

[Felblood]

I think it's the name "foreigners day" that offends more than the concept. Personally, I see diplomatic activities like this as something different than a festival proper. Maybe, every hundred years, on the turn of the century, all your trading partners meet you highest ranking official, to foster peace and co-operation. --a difficult task, if two of your allies hate each other, but maybe you could even do some good. Alternatively, once the world map is open to us, we could be able to call peace talks between our warring friends, as often as we could get them to come. The new meeting system, might make this possible.

I suspect that the new meeting system will also make parties better and less hazardous to dwarven survival. Time will tell.

Since the year is too short, and nobody trusts the generator to cook up holidays, maybe the player should be given the power to declare festivals. This saves the tyrannical slave drives from having to let their dwarves slack off, while giving us a weapon against the dreaded tantrum spiral.

Imagine this: The goblin threat has been beaten back, but a lot of good, venerable dwarves, with lots of friends, have been killed. The city is on edge, and if one of those bereaved soldiers tantrums, it could mean the end for everyone.

Wait til the bodies are good and buried, and then declare a great Victory Feast!

Dwarves eat and drink more, and take the time to hunt down the really good stuff. Everybody parties. If there isn't enough room at a party going on, start a new one. Pretty soon every dining hall is full of happy dwarves.

There are some issues with this proposal, I do concede, but the ability to sacrifice resources and production for a boost to happiness is too potent a tool to discard out of hand.

Feasts and festivals should be burrow based, so that certain people can be exempt. i.e. you wouldn't want the medical staff to take the day off, for the victory feast, as they'll need to tend to the wounded.

This also opens up some avenues, whereby the existing parties can be nerfed. If truly huge festivals are player invoked, the impromptu parties of the dwarves don't need to get so large. Currently, there is a serious risk that a party will consume the entire fortress for half a year. If your growers get pulled in, there's a chance you could all starve to death. Most of this goes back to the weirdness of time, but the fact is, parties are just too big and too long.

It's not perfect, but I think you're making a mistake to reject thisd idea so flatly, without considering all the possible implementations.

[Haven]

I'd say that being able to pull dwarves away from a party would be useful. After all, the sentries didn't just abandon the walls to go party, though I imagine shifts were set up to let everyone celebrate a bit, as would be useful to a DF player as well. I also do like the idea of parties as anti-tantrum weaponry... Should help when things get harder.

[Granite26]

I think some of that may be alleviated in the next release

[Rowanas]

But if everyone reject the idea of a elven party in the fortress, I can understand.

Au contraire. I would really like to invite all the highest ranking elves to my specially built "party room". Now, if Urist McBaron would be kind enough to pull the confetti lever, the show can begin...

[Pilsu]

I'd be pretty insulted if my spouse for life died and the village decided to throw a feast over it and play upbeat music. More reserved occasions are in order lest you agonize the ones who lost someone

[Timst]

Yes, hence the difference between "festival", "party", "holiday" and, for your example, "commemoration".

Parties shouldn't be standardized, they should be different depending on what is it about, just like Christmas is different from Halloween which is also different from Valentine's day.
And of course, ingame-generated events should be categorized ("death of a famous dwarf", "creation of an artifact", "military victory" etc.), so they won't heavily drink on the death of the mayor (well, maybe if he was really hated..), and won't throw in a funeral party to celebrate the harvest.