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Yes, too much value is gained from spoils of war.  There should be more emphasis on crafting your own goods.

123 (65.4%)

Yes, but it's unbalanced on purpose so that you can worry about more important things if you choose.  It's a design decision.

37 (19.7%)

No, the trade system feels balanced just fine as it is.

24 (12.8%)

No, in fact they aren't valuable enough, and I feel like I should earn more for fending off intruders!

4 (2.1%)

Total Members Voted: 188

Voting closed: December 08, 2009, 10:03:30 pm

[KenboCalrissian]

I'm curious about the general opinion of foreign clothing and how it balances out with trading.  Just recently, I bought every single usable item from a human caravan using every single item I had available for trade.  The only things I didn't buy were their crafts and large clothing/armor, and there were even a few exceptions among those for melting down.  Here was the rundown on my exports:

3% from crafts by my dwarves (pretty much just rock mugs worth dirt)
2% from foreign clothing reworked by my dwarves with gems
95% from narrow and large clothing, collected from goblin sieges/one elf ambush.

I look at these numbers and think there must be something wrong with the balance here.  Especially considering that at worst I'd lose maybe one or two dwarves and eight war dogs (most of the time, it's not even half that), it feels like I just got away with murder.  So in my case, there's practically no reason to craft anything at all - I pretty much do it only because I don't want my dwarves to befriend each other, so I assign craft jobs to keep my idlers at an absolute minimum.

On the other hand, I also find these conditions preferable because I'm trying to build a huge castle (we're talking at least six z-levels and very wide dimensions), so the less time I need to spend worrying about what to craft for the next trader, the better.

Of course, my economy didn't get like this overnight either.  I'm getting these results from a fortress that's currently on its 13th year.  Prior to that, there was significantly more management of crafting to make sure I got what I needed from the caravans, because at times there were serious threats like lack of seeds or mood-fodder that I absolutely needed the caravans for.  So in a way, I've earned access to near limitless funds for little investment as a reward for keeping the fort alive for so long.  Perhaps the system was designed this way on purpose.

So, what do you think?

[sonerohi]

This might be fixed a bit in the next version, what with weapons being able to break and armors subject to degradation.

[zchris13]

It only takes me 2 and a half years to get to that point.

[Frogeyes]

Crap. I accidently voted for the wrong one.

I agree it's imbalanced, though. A sensible solution (on the surface, anyway, I don't know whether it'd be easy to implement or not) would be for races not to buy stuff that doesn't fit them, so you could sell goblin weapons but not clothing or armour (actually I personally try to play this way anyway).

This would mean that maps without a chasm or magma, armour would pile up like raw stone, but whatever. Maybe you could burn it or something.

[Tahin]

Yes, clothing that is the wrong size, covered in dirt and blood, and full of holes from crossbow bolts should be pretty much worthless to traders.

I think the simplest answer to the disposal problem is to have items left outside be damaged over time. Metal armor should rust, cloth items should rot, etc. Also, corpses should keep their clothes on until they're specifically stripped, and pyres should be constructable, onto which items and bodies can be thrown and then lit on fire.

[buman]

Unfortunately there is no neutral option in the poll. I believe that the raw value of the spoils of war should be less but that rare items or extra high quality items could be found on occasion, such that would provide real value to the player.

If you kill the goblin elite who lead the raid maybe he could have a high quality unique sword or artefact on rare occasion.

[Fetus4188]

It is imbalanced only because the game as a whole is incomplete and imbalanced.   The spoils of war should be great, because the risks and cost of war are great.  However in it's current stage DF doesn't require you to supply armies and due to the gobbos being stupid, there isn't much risk.

[Angellus]

It only takes me 2 and a half years to get to that point.

1 and a half is long for me, this is nearly immediately.
I would like to see more powerfull attackers, so that you have to lose more dwarfs. The Death:profit ratio is way off to profit.

[KenboCalrissian]

Maybe there are other threats that could be introduced that could make it more difficult.  Perhaps inclement weather that could make gathering items more difficult, like a sudden storm or a hurricane that deals more damage than the occasional unhappy thought?  I also think megabeasts could stand to be a little more common.  In my time playing I've only seen one, and it was a stupid hydra that threw itself into a channel it couldn't get out of.  Very anticlimactic for the first time fighting one of these things... and that masterwork leather hydra armor was great profit.

A sensible solution (on the surface, anyway, I don't know whether it'd be easy to implement or not) would be for races not to buy stuff that doesn't fit them, so you could sell goblin weapons but not clothing or armour (actually I personally try to play this way anyway).

I think this may be too extreme, but what if you add the caveat that they will accept any clothing that your dwarves have reworked so that it's considered one of theirs?  This has several of impacts on the game.  This draws more emphasis on your craft markets, since encrusting and/or sewing images becomes necessary, but it also tempts players into causing war with either the humans or elves since large clothing is common between humans and elves and you could fight one to get goods for the other.  Perhaps you could even be allowed to craft your own clothing of different sizes for the purposes of trade?  It wouldn't have any effect on dwarven clothing because that falls under the "worked over by your dwarves" caveat.

[Warlord255]

Even though I staunchly refuse to trade off goblin clothing/armor, I still get annoyed by this because it inflates your fort's Imported Wealth - a number some might want to keep down to prove their self-reliance. I made a suggestion a while back to have a separate listing in the Stocks screen - "Spoils of War".

Goblin armor is also a terrible hauling hassle, which the container corpse system (Is it going in next version? I can't remember.) will fix somewhat. The inflation from GCS items is another problem, and I think that material should be much more limited.

The "Fourth iron ore" thing is nice in some ways, as it provides a potential benefit, but having to use all that fuel up to acquire one bar makes it not worth the effort unless you're on a magma map. Maybe if, instead of using one fuel bar for each fragment of the iron bar, the smelting job collected enough items to add up to one bar and then used one fuel to melt it all down. It could round off just above the amount needed and store a fragment for the future, as well.

In short, it's an annoying problem, and a relatively easy one to fix before going into the Caravan Arc for an economy overhaul.

[Soadreqm]

Yeah, it is a bit irritating. I expect it's one of those things that'll get fixed in the Eventually Arc. Maybe there will even be some use for old rags, or you'll be able to quickly and easily haul all the goblins and their stuff away into a mass grave and forget about them. In the Lord of the Rings, the standrad goblin disposal procedure was to drag them all into a pile and burn them. And items left lying on the ground definitely should degrade over time, depending on material.

[Jude]

I definitely think it shouldn't be that way. Why are bloodstained, presumably mangled goblin clothes worth so much? Can the GCS silk really be salvaged from them or something?

[Lyrax]

I end up forbidding most/all of the gobbo clothes because there's just too many of them, and they mess up my game.  The 'auto-forbid' option works wonders here, though.

[Kanil]

Goblin leftovers pay for most of my trades...

That being said, if they didn't, then masterpiece prepared meals would, or decorated ammo, or some other cheap exploit of the trading system would.

[nil]

Clothing that doesn't fit should only be worth the same value as the cloth its made from, with bloodstained clothing worth even less (or alternatively, make it so you can salvage cloth from clothing; maybe put that in at the same time burning old elf armor for fuel is implemented.  Also, only elite invaders shpuld have gcs silk.  For a quick fix, focus on that last one--in my experience 90 percent of the value in spoils comes from that silk.