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[Rotten]

I've always found it strange that other civilizations seem to come less than a year after you've established your fort, and after reading something Toady wrote about Army Arc, and how he'd still have artificial mechanisms to stop new forts from being squashed, I thought I'd contribute my two cents.

Basically, lets say your civilization is in a hypothetical war with the Elves, like all sane people are. Obviously your Mountainhome isn't going to broadcast that they're starting a new fort to the Elves. And even if the Elves found out about it, there's no reason they would attack it immediately- 7 dwarves and a few barrels of food aren't breaking news to a 500+ Elf civilization. Eventually, after a few years they would find out about it, by attacking dwarven caravans and raiding the countryside and such. However, if you embarked RIGHT ON the border between the civilizations than the Elves would find out about you much quicker. Same if you embarked in a named forest or a sacred mountain. That would also be more incentive to attack- "They're clear-cutting our cherished forest! Lets prance them to death!"

So, for the actual suggestion. Each world square should have several, er, importance (for lack of a better term) ratings attached during worldgen, one for each relevant (close-by) civilization. All the squares in an embark area would be added together for a total rating, and that would be shown to the player (maybe a warning after embark for high numbers too? "The Elves/Humans/Goblins/Aliens will attack you soon, you have embarked on top of Mt. SpecialReligiousPlace." Turn back? Y/N) Also, each fort would have a similar rating attached, calculated by several factors like created wealth, trade with other civilizations, accessibility from attacking civilization (if the pansy Humans would lose half their army marching to you through the terrifying swamps of kittens, they probably will attack someone else instead), etc. etc. Then the game could use both these values to roll a chance of attack every year, at whatever season the civilization would normally attack/trade with you. Also the values could be used to compute the size of the attack, as, again, if the humans DID decide to march through the terrifying swamps of kittens many would perish and die horrible, horrible lag filled deaths in the swamp, leaving less people to attack you.

Sorry if this has already been suggested, I did a search and didn't find anything but maybe I didn't search for the right term.

[Funk]

we do have pop,wreath and some other progress triggers,but there are a bit stand in.

[denito]

How about making it so that how noticeable your fortress is depends on how much above ground stuff you build?  If you want to be stealthy, keep the entrance a simple hole in the ground; otoh if you want to provoke the Elves, construct giant wooden towers several Z levels high.

[Funk]

a qiuck count of the above ground buildings once per month?
 

[AfterShave]

I like this idea. Actually, I thought about this very thing yesterday when I wondered how all those traders found my fortress far away in the white desert with a white drawbridge in a slope shutting the fortress in from everything else.

[irmo]

How about making it so that how noticeable your fortress is depends on how much above ground stuff you build?  If you want to be stealthy, keep the entrance a simple hole in the ground; otoh if you want to provoke the Elves, construct giant wooden towers several Z levels high.

How do you find an ant nest? The nest itself is underground; what you see is the pile of dirt and ants around it. Likewise, it's not the fortress itself that gets noticed; it's the giant swath of cleared forest, stone debris,[1] etc. around the entrance. Plus, if you have forges or charcoal furnaces running, you'll emit smoke.

That said, you could still go unnoticed if there wasn't anyone around for miles, or if nobody cared enough to come and investigate.

Come to think of it, building a tower of a certain height should allow you to see the nearby world map. Maybe designate the top as a watchtower, and a dwarf will go up there periodically and update your map so you can see approaching armies or caravans. Other things you could build up there: a beacon, which would let you call for help from friendly settlements; a flag, which would claim the surrounding territory for your civ and attract caravans; maybe an astronomical observatory?


[1] Yeah, I know, LOLQuantumStockpile. I'm assuming that will be fixed before it gets established as a "normal" part of playing the game.

[Safe-Keeper]

Once overland travel is in, won't you risk that your fortress is stumbled upon by armies moving across the world map? I think it'd be awesome if you had to take armies and travellers into consideration when placing your fortress: "hmm, yes, this is a good site, but it's smack on this very heavily trafficked road, everyone will know it's here. Perhaps I should place it in a more secluded spot so that it won't be taken down by a passing army before I have even moved my stuff underground".

[lucusLoC]

i actually like the original idea, enough that i may devote some time to fleshing it out a bit more. and irmo's point is well taken, population, travelers and economic activity should be the main driving force for "noticeability"

i also like the idea of a watch tower, but i am not sure how easy it will be to teach the game about surrounding elevations that could block LOS. it would be awesome if there was an actual use for that megatower.

[silhouette]

Once overland travel is in, won't you risk that your fortress is stumbled upon by armies moving across the world map? I think it'd be awesome if you had to take armies and travellers into consideration when placing your fortress: "hmm, yes, this is a good site, but it's smack on this very heavily trafficked road, everyone will know it's here. Perhaps I should place it in a more secluded spot so that it won't be taken down by a passing army before I have even moved my stuff underground".

But on the other hand, you may get more merchants or protection for armys passing through.
If your allied with the humans and you build right on/beside their road then i doubt goblins will come seiging when your fortress has a lot of traffic from armys and such.
Prehaps if your so close to a certain civ you may get merchants more often or better items as they dont have to risk the trip. (ild also like to see goblins and such being able to ambush enemy caravans, giving the message when e.g. fall comes around and no dwarved caravan has arrived "The dwarven caravan has been ambushed on the way here, there will be no trading this year..." or somethin like that.

[Draco18s]

wreath

Wreath?  I didn't know pine bow rings were tracked in the game.
(What a typo!)

[RAM]

Yes, I like the idea of it affecting traders and attacks, I think that being discovered should have a huge effect on calculations, once you are discovered by traders then that civilisation has pretty much found you. And the information will probably spread to other civilisations pretty soon...

[zwei]

The way i see it, there is no need for abstraction, what about scouts actually entering map and, well, scouting?

Basically: Scout enter map, he then chooses Exit map tile and proceeds to walk to it.

He will be stealthy and will not unstealth to initiate fight: he will also try to avoid dogs and other "stealth detectors".

Should he find something interesting in his los, he will investigate it (=move to it and look at it) and eventually draw conclusions:

Finding trampled saplings/dirt. ("somebody was in here recently")
Finding post-battle junk and other items lying around (bones, chunks, clothing and armor) will give strong "somebody might be settled nearby", in case of battle derbis "we have to send larger scouting party"
Stumbling upon construction - different types, dyfferent conclusions: bridge does not necesarily mean there is civ site nearby, but bed/stockpile/workshop is strong suspiction.
Finding actual civ unit will prompt Scout to follow it untill he sees more, should he follow him to fortress entrance where he can see chained dogs and others, it is civ site, allright.

Basically, what you would expect from scout.

Scouts will be more frequent when you are close to settlement. When scout leaves with strong suspiction, he might return (with small group, with ambush party ...). If scout gets "missing", lots of this can happen: less scouts, more scouts, scouting party, depending on civ from which he was. (elves might send more scouts, humans larger party, goblins might not care)

Also, "misunderstandings" can happen: scout can enter map where you are just ambushed by goblins and see only goblins (and maybe Kivish Woodcutter corpse) and figure out that there is Golbin tower nearby. Season later: !SIEGE! "Oh, you are dwarves? Not goblins? Say, we are at peace, right? Nevermind them, we will be on our way."

---

Important new features:

 * Hidden doors, stone doors above certain quality can be designated and "hidden", looking just like stone to someone who does not know it is there and who fails "stealth detection" roll.
 * Stone walls made to resemble undug rock, ditto for floodgates and floors.
 * Hidden levers.

[jfs]

scouting?

+1
All of it.

[Rotten]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The way i see it, there is no need for abstraction, what about scouts actually entering map and, well, scouting?

Basically: Scout enter map, he then chooses Exit map tile and proceeds to walk to it.

He will be stealthy and will not unstealth to initiate fight: he will also try to avoid dogs and other "stealth detectors".

Should he find something interesting in his los, he will investigate it (=move to it and look at it) and eventually draw conclusions:

Finding trampled saplings/dirt. ("somebody was in here recently")
Finding post-battle junk and other items lying around (bones, chunks, clothing and armor) will give strong "somebody might be settled nearby", in case of battle derbis "we have to send larger scouting party"
Stumbling upon construction - different types, dyfferent conclusions: bridge does not necesarily mean there is civ site nearby, but bed/stockpile/workshop is strong suspiction.
Finding actual civ unit will prompt Scout to follow it untill he sees more, should he follow him to fortress entrance where he can see chained dogs and others, it is civ site, allright.

Basically, what you would expect from scout.

Scouts will be more frequent when you are close to settlement. When scout leaves with strong suspiction, he might return (with small group, with ambush party ...). If scout gets "missing", lots of this can happen: less scouts, more scouts, scouting party, depending on civ from which he was. (elves might send more scouts, humans larger party, goblins might not care)

Also, "misunderstandings" can happen: scout can enter map where you are just ambushed by goblins and see only goblins (and maybe Kivish Woodcutter corpse) and figure out that there is Golbin tower nearby. Season later: !SIEGE! "Oh, you are dwarves? Not goblins? Say, we are at peace, right? Nevermind them, we will be on our way."

---

Important new features:

 * Hidden doors, stone doors above certain quality can be designated and "hidden", looking just like stone to someone who does not know it is there and who fails "stealth detection" roll.
 * Stone walls made to resemble undug rock, ditto for floodgates and floors.
 * Hidden levers.

Wow, just wow. That's a lot more detailed than my original idea! Sounds like it would be really fun too, trying to disguise your fortress entrance and certain levers will make a section of the mountain open up into your fortress entrance... That would be so cool.

[lucusLoC]

@zwei

i like it, but it sounds like it would be more for the army arc at this time. that is ok, since it actually seems pretty well though out.

what can you come up with as far as tower LOS?