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[Mightymuffin]

I recall reading that Toady One wasn't hell bent on not adding bio-waste to DF such as excrement and urine, but he would only add it if someone could come up with a fun way for it to be included, and not necessarily "fun" in the Dwarven sense. (Although, with what I have in mind that could still be possible.)

Note: Some of this thread is based on knowledge and ideas collected from a hodge podge of threads that I have viewed and agreed with wholeheartedly yet I cannot remember their titles.

I believe that if the suggestion of more diseases other than say, cave adaptation (Which isn't a disease at all, it's a condition like sun burn) is added then could come the matter of figuring out ways to dispose of the faeces in a sanitary manner such as creating a sewer system underneath the toilets which leads into a running water supply and dissapears or breaks up, who knows. This thread isn't necessarily about the excrement itself, it's more about what it (and possibly rotten or disease riddled corpses) could do.

If left around or god forbid it got into your water supply, dwarves could easily suffer from a variety of diseases from the unsanitary conditions, possibly even cholera.

"Monom Mebantekkud, Peasant"
"Stricken with Cholera!"

"Monom Mebantekkud has been miserable lately. He has suffered from horrific diarrhoea lately. He has been vomitting blood lately. His skin has become a blueish colour lately. He admired a fine bed lately. He was caught up in a new romance lately."

"Monom Mebantekkud has succumbed to disease!"

Although I'm not entirely familiar with cholera, the possibilities for disease and fecal matter are endless, possibly putting far more use to the dissecting skills to come up with herbal medicines and making that planned profession for doctors all the more useful.

Now, I'm sure you noticed in the title I mentioned biological warfare. Well, what if any living creature besides something like a fire man or demon could be affected by disease?

Note: The following may require a few changes to sieges to make it entirely effective.

Imagine the goblin siegers arriving and then milling around your now forbidden doors.
A peasant appears in the corner of your eye and you smile devilishly as he pulls the lever and retracts the bridge above the goblin's heads and the dung and corpses rain down upon them.
An uncertain ammount of time passes and by now the goblins are stricken with a variety of foul diseases, deeply reducing their combat ability as they vomit and become stunned in a manner akin to cave adaptation. Finally, some goblins could even succumb to their diseases dependent on the severity, effectively annhilating the goblin enemies in a manner less efficient but in my opinion far more interesting than magma or cage traps.

After all, was it not true that disease riddled corpses of animals and men would be thrown in catapults at enemies during sieges? Perhaps some kind of dwarven bubonic plague could exist and if used in biological warfare, the game could harken back to sieges of human history?

The possibilities of this are endless with some of my ideas being based on the original lycanthropy/zombification disease thread: Perhaps an announcement appears and a dwarf (or dwarves) staggers in from the map boundaries from your parent civilisation, but this is no migrant. This dwarf is haggard and fetid and lets out a ghastly moan. This is a dwarven zombie, possibly even a former merchant to add to the drama and mystery.

Capturing this dwarf without letting it bite your dwarves, preferably multiple zombie dwarves, could allow you to unleash an immortal group of unspeakably dangerous disease carriers on the goblins, infecting them (provided the zombification isn't based on black magic, although this can still be possible. Magical diseases?) and decimating the goblin troops.

Although this may seem like a great deal of nonsense to go through to simply kill a few dozen goblins, isn't that the whole point of the dozens of rube goldbergesque devices and systems created by players to make goblin or maybe even for our modding players, orc killing, fun?

[Grendus]

No.

Excrement does not need to be added to the game. And diseases have been brought up, and excrement is brought up in those threads fairly regularly.

[QuakeIV]

No.

Excrement does not need to be added to the game. And diseases have been brought up, and excrement is brought up in those threads fairly regularly.

Actually i think it sounds pretty cool.

[Qjet]

I'm posting in this thread because the end of the title says "excrement could go hand in hand"

Also I'm actually against excrement. Though I do support the notion of another aspect to build for, You only get a limited selection in the size of your plumbing in dwarf fortress, that would be: Hallway size, double hallway size, triple, or even quadruple hallway sized. Kind of a limited selection for plumbing. If DF was capable of more interesting plumbing, I would support this.

[GlyphGryph]

It has all available size plumbing needs for a fantasy sewer and excrement means building sewers that can then have monsters live in them after you ignore them for dozens of years. That alone is the reason excrement should be in. (plus then you get monsters who are attracted to it! A whole ecosystem - imagine!)

This disease idea is a good way to make sure exrement isn't just ignored, but it might go just a bit too far...

[Mightymuffin]

No.

Excrement does not need to be added to the game. And diseases have been brought up, and excrement is brought up in those threads fairly regularly.

Hold on, why so abrupt? I am fully aware that these ideas have been brought up before, I'm just putting forward my thoughts for how they can work together to be interesting and fun, and I never said that excrement has to be the most important thing to add to DF over something like improvements on the military.

[Silverionmox]

No.

Excrement does not need to be added to the game. And diseases have been brought up, and excrement is brought up in those threads fairly regularly.

And why not excrement, of all things? The dwarves are already happily traipsing about covered in vomit, slime and blood from tip to toe. They'll hardly notice it.

[Grendus]

The main reason I don't want excrement put into the game is it would essentially force us to embark in a zone with a river or aquifer for running water and something for drainage, be it a chasm, pit, HFS, or anything else that drains. I think you're vastly underestimating how difficult this would be to play with, I don't want it. That's why I dismissed it out of hand, it's not a road I want to go down. Or even look at.

[irmo]

The main reason I don't want excrement put into the game is it would essentially force us to embark in a zone with a river or aquifer for running water and something for drainage, be it a chasm, pit, HFS, or anything else that drains. I think you're vastly underestimating how difficult this would be to play with, I don't want it. That's why I dismissed it out of hand, it's not a road I want to go down. Or even look at.

You'd be forced to build your civilization next to a source of clean water! Ha ha! What a ridiculous concept.

[Mightymuffin]

The main reason I don't want excrement put into the game is it would essentially force us to embark in a zone with a river or aquifer for running water and something for drainage, be it a chasm, pit, HFS, or anything else that drains. I think you're vastly underestimating how difficult this would be to play with, I don't want it. That's why I dismissed it out of hand, it's not a road I want to go down. Or even look at.

Not necessarily. Haven't you realised that multiple items can sit on the same tile? Simply build your toilet over a small hole and let the dung just pile up indefinately. Of course, the chamber is sealed.

And if you find that to be exploitation in some way, simply make a larger room, of course, the dung would just land on the same tile anyway.

Excrement and biowaste can be very easily disposed of if you have enough idlers to clear up dung in the halls from animals or otherwise and a nice little pit or water source to get rid of the dung with.

[Silverionmox]

The main reason I don't want excrement put into the game is it would essentially force us to embark in a zone with a river or aquifer for running water and something for drainage, be it a chasm, pit, HFS, or anything else that drains. I think you're vastly underestimating how difficult this would be to play with, I don't want it. That's why I dismissed it out of hand, it's not a road I want to go down. Or even look at.

That's as simple as hauling the full bucket to the excrement stockpile, aka the dung heap. I'd assume that most dwarves, except for the nobility, would use the common facilities anyway, for which you can design sewers.

[sonerohi]

The main reason I don't want excrement put into the game is it would essentially force us to embark in a zone with a river or aquifer for running water and something for drainage, be it a chasm, pit, HFS, or anything else that drains. I think you're vastly underestimating how difficult this would be to play with, I don't want it. That's why I dismissed it out of hand, it's not a road I want to go down. Or even look at.

You'd be forced to build your civilization next to a source of clean water! Ha ha! What a ridiculous concept.

I hope you realise that eventually, water will indeed be needed for brewing and, quite possibly, irrigation. This will happen after we're able to send militiary parties out into the world though, which means that the groundwork would exist to make a canal/aquaduct.

[PaperJack]

lol brown tiles

[alfie275]

So like would excrement react with water to make sewage?

[Rowanas]

Hmm. I like that idea. Poo would mount up like a dead corpse, but mixing it with water allows it to flow (hopefully away). What happens when winter arrives though? Crap walls which melt into 7/7 sewage?