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[Sensei]

Seems exceedingly silly to have worlds where you can walk from a scorching region into a cold one in a month or two.

Most people who would consider trying it in the first place can make it from Canada to California in that time. Some people book it on foot from Texas to Canada in four. And that still doesn't qualify as superhumanly agile. I'm sure anyone who can kill a [SEMI_MEGABEAST] is fit enough for that. And there's places in the world with a 120 degree (f) temperature spread.

[Pilsu]

Would Texas even be Warm, let alone Scorching?

[Granite26]

Would Texas even be Warm, let alone Scorching?

Yes to both...

There are heat waves where people die

[Felblood]

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

So if we lose even one soldier, who has a family, we can't have a victory feast, or they will get even angrier and the city will be doomed?

A victory feast isn't intended to wipe away all the bad, it's intended to emphasize the good. Even the bereaved mate of a fallen soldier can take some small comfort in the celebration of the good that came out of their loved one's sacrifice, if they didn't die in vain.

This isn't intended to replace funerals and whatnot, if that's what you're worried about. Wakes and burials should be a completely different thing.

It might be nice to be able to pick a theme or set of spheres for a festival, so that in the above example, the band would play the national anthem, or some other nationalist tune, and the mayor's speech would be about honoring fallen veterans, or supporting the troops, etc. However, that might be a bloat to the bloat.

[Dvergar]

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
if they didn't die in vain

That would be a big if....

Urist McClumsy dodged the attack
Urist McClumsy slipped and fell
Urist McClumsy has been cut down

[Felblood]

You need to add another /quote tag, Dvergar. Sometimes the script doesn't put them in, when there should be two in a row, and you end up attributing statements to people who didn't make them.

--and even the soldier whose only accomplishment is catching an arrow, contributes something; that's kind of the primary function of the human wave, until it actually reaches the enemy.

Urist McClumsy, above, has served well as a low level tank.

[Pilsu]

You could simply make it so that anyone who lost someone important doesn't go to the party

As a bloat, one of their friends could come by and try to persuade them to join

[LordZorintrhox]

No, no, no.  An annual BIG event would be too disruptive to any fortress, at least for now as it has been pointed out events in DF have a tendency to be a little hollow right now.  If you could craft a random generator (no argument there; DF is begging to randomly generate the holidays, no matter the corniness of "Goatbowl, The Summery Bloodmoon...DAY") that made it really interesting to at least read about, it would much to the flavor.  But such things are a little ways off, and ideally would replace the party system whole-sale.  Thus the current amount of parties would not change, only their depth.

What would be far better to implement would be light holidays that just require a few traditions (as mentioned), like boat-loads of strawberry wine or twenty wooden chairs for the "Stilt Dance" or something equally ridiculous in name to replace parties.  THEN there is a national holiday your civ has, which could be hardcoded or selected from a list in the raws, at least until Toady can muster a really solid randomizer, that your fortress competes to host for the WHOLE CIV.  Make it some kind of gameplay goal, like how your fortress must meet certain requirements before noble X shows up.  The economic boom that comes from visiting diplomats and commoners buying crap from your grand mall would more than make up for the money you spent getting ready.  Also, the grander the fortress architecture and spectacle, the more they'll spend on booze, meals, and traditional gifts for the festival in question.  Might even get some permanent residents out of it if they like the fortress enough.

As soon as your first noble shows up, another tab is added to your status screen called "Festivals" and gives you either:

a list of upcoming events you can prepare for
the requirements for the King to visit your fortress and lead the celebration of the BIG annual holiday
a list of holidays your Nobles like would to celebrate/host

Come to think of it, festivals would be a GREAT way to tweak the demands and mandates and party systems so it doesn't piss everyone off anymore.  Right now, as we all know, the Nobles demand crap for their own selfish desires, and it feels a forced solution to the "I need a challenge" problem the game suffers from right now.  In reality, it would be far more fitting that these good-fur-nothin' parasites demand certain supplies and rooms so they can host celebrations etc. that increase their notoriety within the fortress and work on public relations.  I mean, if you want to get in good with the peasantry, what better way than to get them hammered on your dime?  Free beer is a sure-fire way to keep a poor civilian population used to the idea of their serfdom.

You can just chock it up to some built-in Dwarven cultural expectation that the nobility will see to frivolities that Dwarven culture surely demands.  Then it makes a lot of sense why Nobles will simply lose it when their demands aren't met: if they don't deliver on the merry-making, they are weak and may even get demoted.  It would be part of the noble identity, with a lot of social pressure behind it.  Fuck it up, and anyone would go nuts.

Might even have nobles still demand their favorite things from time to time, to ensure that the common folk can buy them gifts, which they would do in thanks for the the most entertaining Stonemirror festivities last week.

If revolutions were implemented, having a noble legally ousted because "Autumnbracelet was less than entertaining this year" would just be so dwarven.  Of course, a revolution or tar&feathering (ooo, we should have that!) takes way more time out of your calender than a simple festival, and the general chaos could involve strikes.

[Pilsu]

Well optimally these annual festivals would take up break time so don't entirely discount small community feasts

Still, pretty good

[Rowanas]

Plus, do you guys not know about wakes? The Irish and Scottish were the first to practice them with alcohol and dancing, and so should dwarves. If a dwarf lost someone to the military they should be extra happy that his day of death is celebrate with the biggest binge on the calendar.

[Felblood]

Zorintrhox, it's going too far to say big parties would be too disruptive to the fortress. Giving everyone not performing time sensitive tasks a couple of gamedays off is going to hurt production, and throw a few precision systems out of whack. So not everyone is going to use this, and most will only use it as a weapon of last resort, but if it doesn't run too long, and it can be confined to specific burrows, it should still be useful enough to be worth having.

The player should be able to choose a theme or something for his party (like "food and gratitude", to celebrate a caravan of food that saved your fortress, etc), but the dwarves themselves should name it. If it goes really well, it could become a tradition, with dwarves starting regular parties on that date, every year. Holidays like this could be adopted by religions, and spread around the civ, or just peter out over time.

[LordZorintrhox]

Does anyone mind the little bump?  This topic seems too lucrative to let fall by the wayside.

The player should be able to choose a theme or something for his party (like "food and gratitude", to celebrate a caravan of food that saved your fortress, etc), but the dwarves themselves should name it. If it goes really well, it could become a tradition, with dwarves starting regular parties on that date, every year. Holidays like this could be adopted by religions, and spread around the civ, or just peter out over time.

Oooo, I like that.  Kinda has an organic feel to it, and the player gets an accomplished "I'm important to history" rush.  I hadn't thought of the time scale involved; a few days really isn't that long at all in game time.

What festivities in general could use is a way to cancel them in an emergency without de-designating the room; at least an auto cancel for all ambushes and sieges.

Still say festivals would be a cool way to spice up the mandates system.

[Felblood]

Activated soldiers shouldn't be able to attend the party itself, and troopers should cancel their carousing any time they are called to duty.

That way you have to stand down your army, to give them a party, but you can pull it back together if you need part or all of it.

Should dwarves who can't attend a party, due to work, war or whatever, get an unhappy thought? I know I used to hate working late on major holidays, and dwarves seem like the type to get jealous, of the fun everyone else is having. On the other hand, it seems like that would make festivals really dangerous.

Maybe dwarves that are hardworking, or dedicated, can ignore such penalties, making them better choices for scramble teams and medical professionals.

[Granite26]

Well, the 'legendary dining room' thing has it's merits.  Dwarfs that can't get into the fun SHOULD have a negative thought, but it shouldn't be so bad that it's dangerous, especially if you're cycling your troops and pampering your fort.  It's only if you're kicking them in the shins too often that things get dangerous.

[neek]

I hope the whole positive thoughts/negative thoughts gets much more rewarding; it'd be nice that negative thoughts could mesh with the personalities, and certain personalities would become less efficient at their tasks when unhappy. This would be good reason to keep them happy, because it means an unhappy legendary miner won't throw things, he'd just be as good as a talentless miner.

Also, people who have negative social attributes should gain negative thoughts for not attending, and feel bad for attending. Just for Fun.

I like the idea of holidays; don't get me wrong. There should be anniversaries that can be noted (say, in an in-game calendar that might appear on your [z] screen). But, I'm not comfortable with ANNUAL. I'd say 2/5/10 year anniversaries. That's long enough that a party might not screw you up, but not too far off to make it impossible to witness.