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[Haedrian]

I had one of my days... And I have a few suggestions, so I put them in a group

I: Military Discipline

Currently, if you give a squad an order, any active (not sleeping/eating) dwarves will go there, unless their leader is sleeping in which case they stay around him like headless chickens.

I suggest 3 modes when turning a squad 'active' (ie not standing down)

a) Station: This is the current mode, they do things at their own pace ect

b) Battle: The Leader walks into the barracks, and all fighters in that squad go to the barracks with him. Any tasks are interrupted at once, and they answer the call. When all are there, the leader walks out to the designated area, and the squad stays with him. There they stay in formation, and never break ranks. If they're hungry/thirsty they will still stay there, unless they have rations on them. The troops will only return to their normal lives when the order has been removed, or they get so many unhappy thoughts at being kept awake, hungry and thirsty that they mutiny.

This mode is for the days when you 'NEED' to have troops at a particular location, in case for example the goblins get through your first line of defence.

c) Scramble: Dwarves in that squad will drop all they're doing, and move towards the designated area. Once there , they will fight if needs be, but then return to the station mode.

This mode is for emergencies, when you have ratmen coming up the river and you 'need' men there, and quickly.
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II: Alarm Traps

A trap which requires mechanisms to make. This trap can be placed outside the fort area. When a creature (or animal, or both, depends on setting) steps on it, it immediately pauses the game and brings you to the area where its happening.

The trap needs to be reloaded from each time it is used (to prevent spam). The trap can 'ring' when animals step on the tile, or when enemies step on the tile, or when either does.

Its main idea was to give a warning before your fort gets set on by racoons or monkeys, however its also a good thing to have in case you overlook an area during a fight.
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III : Follow the Leader

In adventure mode, your friends/spearcatchers should stay WITH you, instead of wandering off on their own and spamming your screen as lizardmen eat their heads. Occassionally one might wander off and take some men with him (especially if its a master, who wants to lead), but it should be quite rare

IV: Sound

Sometimes in adventure mode, you're in a cave with multiple passages, your friends disappear and you watch as they get beaten up by your target (Kill XXXXX). Then you spend the rest of the adventure trying to find them from the passages. I suggest instead, that they should make a 'sound' while fighting.

The sound will give an idea of where they are, and also might draw troops towards the area (in case of a planned military like in a goblin cave)
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V : Bolts can't be recovered

Sometimes bolts don't break and can be reused. Problem is, dwarves will walk into the battlefield, to pick up ONE precious bolt. It is then taken to the fort, where a marksman 'might' pick it up (instead of a stack), fire the precious one and only bolt at the target... then gets splattered against the wall. Can we remove the fact that bolts can be recovered? It causes more trouble then its worth.
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VI: Glass projectile

This is a fiendish idea of mine. The siege workshop creates a 'glass projectile' out of 5 pieces of glass. The result can be loaded and fired from catapults. It deals usual damage to what it hits, but when it hits, it breaks into hundreds of little shards which spray out a 3X3 area around the landing zone. The quality of the projectile determines how many shards there are, and how much they hurt.
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VII: Champions go off to adventure

Champions should sometimes get wanderlust, and leave the fort to become dwarven adventurers. They should pop in from time to time, perhaps with a present or two, or they might return after a short time fighting abroad
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VIII: Reputation

The capital should sometimes request that goods be sent to it. This increases your reputation with the nobles of the capital. A certain reputation would be required in order to get higher nobles, and the capital might decide to send rewards (resources, or trained immigrants) to forts with a good reputation
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IX: Dustbin Barrels

A barrel can be placed in the dining room and be assigned as a 'dustbin'. Dwarves will place rubbish from their meals into that barrel, and later its emptied by a dwarf with the 'cleaning' task
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X: Tantruming Dwarves

Tantruming dwarves should get happy thoughts if any dwarves they see as friends try to 'talk' to them and calm them down, as opposed to just ignoring (and getting ugly thoughts) from the tantrumer
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XI: Dungeon Master without need for coins

The dungeon master is a very useful noble, however he requires coins (and .: the economy) to be obtained. Now some of us don't like the idea of the dwarven economy (I prefer communism personally), and don't start it. Can he have different requisits instead?
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XII: Work faster with nobles

Lower end nobles should give a bonus to speed/workspeed when in the presence of other dwarves. The other dwarves would work faster due to fear of punishment, or wanting to make a good impression with the noble
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XIII: Finishing jobs

Currently, a dwarf continues his job for as long as he doesn't fall hungry/thirsty/tired while doing it. This often causes a lot of litter on the ground as he drops whatever he's carrying, or wastes time when he travels near the edge of the map to recover a comrade, then falls tired and walks back to the fort.

Dwarves should ideally finish their jobs, THEN see to hunger, thirst and tiredness. Obviously, dehydration and 'starving' should interrupt jobs
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XIV: Internal economy

The economy should be more realistic. Dwarves should trade coins/services WITH/FOR each other during their breaks. A dwarf might buy a plank of wood, and carve something in his free time, then sell it. A dwarf might win a bet and get some money from a fellow dwarf. Dwarves could sell their posessions to other dwarves. A black market of 'stolen' items could exist.
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XV: Drunk Dwarf

Should be a very rare thing. A dwarf goes drunk, and runs around pulling levers and moving things to random places. Guards could arrest him for disorderly conduct.
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XVI: Higher Nobles

Kings, dukes and higher nobles shouldn't mix with the lower classes. They should stay in their rooms most of the day, or visit other noble's rooms. When they walk next to a dwarf, the dwarf should bow down (lie down) until they have passed...or else.
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XVII: Warning before nobles arrive

A letter from the king/queen "I am going to send the broker ABC, he will require the following items". This helps with suggestion XVI, and is more realistic. It also gives you the chance to plan ahead for the rooms (or the drowning post).
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XVIII: Dwarven Celebrations

ALL dwarves stop for a very long break. During this break they drink, eat and visit meeting rooms. These celebrations last a few days, and are triggered when something 'special' happens (for example a champion emerges, or a siege is ended).
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XIX: Legendary Dwarves

Sometimes, legendary dwarves should become big-headed, and start complaining more then the average dwarf. I mean, they ARE legendary after all
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XX: Carpets

A new item made by clothesmakers (placed with the build menu). A decoration which gives a happiness bonus of twice that of an engraved floor of the same skill, but obviously suppresses the engraved floor's effect)
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XXI: Exit

If something 'bad' happens you can terminate the process and get out scott free. However this damages the save games. Could we have a 'quit without saving' option? Instead of having to crash the game?
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*pants* 21 suggestions.. comments?

[ August 02, 2007: Message edited by: Haedrian ]

[Dreamer]

Very nice.

About the "Finishing Jobs" one:  I've always thought it would be nifty to have a rations system.  This would make unfinished jobs less common, but I think the dwarves should still finish their jobs.  I've heard some people asking for preemptive (SP?) drinking and eating, and the best way to solve that is some way to control how much your dwarves eat and drink.

Three settings would just about do it, "Bare Bones", "Normal", and "Fat Fortress" (Not by those names exactly, of course).  They pretty much explain themselves, so I won't go into details...  But it'd be even niftier to have a setting for Drinking and Eating.

[Fishersalwaysdie]

And maybe adventurers could come by and ask you for quests.

[ricemastah]

I like most of those ideas... except the last one. If something bad happens its part of the game. You shouldn't be able to exit without saving. It ruins the experience! So your favorite dwarf just got smashed by an elephant? I'll quit and get him back! Not fair at all. Besides if you really wnated to do that you should have backed up your saves.

[Xgamer4]

Yeah, I don't like the very last one. And on XVII, if that's gonna happen we should be able to assign beds/etc to the dwarf(s) that are gonna be coming. After all, if you hear about some high-ranking noble coming you don't wait for them to get here before you prepare rooms and such for them.

[Deathworks]

Hi!

Personally, I had a few ideas I didn't find interesting:

No recovery of bolts:

The dwarves are living in a tough world where throwing away ressources is basically the first step on the road to extinction. It makes sense for them to collect and use items such as bolts if they can be used.

The problem with the current implementation is not the recovery itself, but rather the faulty handling of items like the lack of stack merging and the dwarvish tendency not to get new ammo. I think these problems should be fixed and then recovering bolts would be worthwhile and would make sense.

Changing the requisits for the Dungeon Master:

Personally, I don't see a reason for them to change. You didn't say "coins don't have anything to do with him" but rather "if I want him, I have to do something I don't like". Part of the game fun is that many decisions have both downsides and upsides. You are asking to have a downside removed for no other reason but that you don't like it. Personally, I don't think that is in the spirit of the game.

Exit:

As was said before, that suggestion goes clearly against the spirit of the game. I have encountered a lot of things I didn't like, but you simply have to accept that and try to minimize the damage. If it gets too tough to bear, abandon the fortress.

Well, since you said various suggestions, I would like to add a few of my own:

Crop Plagues

I think there are already considerations about this, but I just came up with a more or less complete system, which I want to share.

Crops planted in fields have a certain chance to get infected with a crop-specific disease/infestation. If the field has been planted with the same crop during the last season as well, the chance of infestation should greatly increase, and if there was a field that had the same crop during spring, summer and autumn, the chances of infection in autumn should be really high.

An infected crop will not yield any fruit and the seed will be lost. The tile will revert to no-seed status after the normal growth time of the plant.

Regularly (every day, for instance), the infected tile checks all tiles within a 4 tiles radius, only blocked by unmined or rewalled walls (doors and floodgates or not hermetic, after all). If there are any non-infected crops of the same kind within that area, they have a certain chance of getting infected as well.

If you check 'q' a field with any infected tiles, you will see that it is infected. However, there will be no automated warning message.

An infected field will be noticed by a farmer (not a dabbling or novice - I mean, how many of us could identify a crop disease on first sight) who sees an infected tile. This will create a warning message and automatically remove all sowing designations for the affected field (if it is spotted in spring, the designations for spring, summer, and autumn will be deleted) so that no seeds are wasted.

Any seeds of that crop planted in an infected field will have a 90% chance of being infected. This will only be removed by removing the field (destroying or flooding it). Other crops can be planted normally in such a field.

The agriculture noble has the same ability like a farmer to identify infected fields. In addition, the noble will spend most of his/her time walking around all your fields, so having that noble increases your chances of identifying plagues before they destroy all your seeds.

The numbers here are just examplatory, but I think they are good guesses. I think it is important that the disease can jump over one or two unoccupied tiles in order to avoid exploitation. This is also why doors or floodgates should not be able to stop diseases. Varying crops and having different, unrelated farms should be the only solutions.

The system aims to simulate that mono-cultural agriculture is really vulnerable to diseases. This is why foresting and so on varies their plants so as to minimize the damage from diseases and avoid things like the Irish potatoe famine.

If players have huge fields with just one crop, a plague is likely and will cause them major trouble (remember, you also lose the seeds!). But if the player varies the crops making use of everything that is there, plagues are unlikely, and even if they do occur, they will only affect a small portion.

Of course, the prime candidate for the first disease would be plump helmet (^_^;;.

Legendary not XP bound

Personally, I think legendary status shouldn't be experience bound. Instead, a dwarf should only become legendary if he/she

* creates an artifact, regardless of what kind of mood it was (artifacts still yield massive XP boni unless it is possession)
* creates a certain number of master pieces (should be a lot so as to make legendaries rare)

Legendary status doesn't give attribute boni since it is no longer linked to XP. It still grants the economy advantages and may also change certain social interactions and so on.

I simply find it silly to have all those legendary miners and engravers running around. (I think in my latest fortress, I already have a legendary miner even before playing a full year, no artifact involved... (^_^;; )

Deathworks

[Haedrian]

quote:No recovery of bolts:

The dwarves are living in a tough world where throwing away ressources is basically the first step on the road to extinction. It makes sense for them to collect and use items such as bolts if they can be used.

The problem with the current implementation is not the recovery itself, but rather the faulty handling of items like the lack of stack merging and the dwarvish tendency not to get new ammo. I think these problems should be fixed and then recovering bolts would be worthwhile and would make sense.

That's what I meant. Make them non recoverable FOR NOW, then when everything is solved, make them recoverable

quote:Changing the requisits for the Dungeon Master:

Personally, I don't see a reason for them to change. You didn't say "coins don't have anything to do with him" but rather "if I want him, I have to do something I don't like". Part of the game fun is that many decisions have both downsides and upsides. You are asking to have a downside removed for no other reason but that you don't like it. Personally, I don't think that is in the spirit of the game.

If I want to keep a fort of communists, I shouldn't take a penalty that I can't tame exotic creatures. The requisits don't make much sense. I fail to see the link between making electrum and taming pets, and forging coins

quote:Exit:

As was said before, that suggestion goes clearly against the spirit of the game. I have encountered a lot of things I didn't like, but you simply have to accept that and try to minimize the damage. If it gets too tough to bear, abandon the fortress.

My argument is this. People can do it, so why not make it easier?

[Deathworks]

Hi!

Okay, then I misunderstood you on the bolts.

Dungeon Master:

If Toady figured that the Dungeon Master was a capitalist, your communist fort is simply out of luck. I think the money requisite is linked to the Dungeon Master and the concept of a dungeon in RPG terms is very much linked to greed and treasure hunting. So, I don't find it odd to have the Dungeon Master as a requirement to be there treasure chests with money.

Exit:

Ahem, you are talking about people crashing the game in order to avoid the auto-save. Most people would simply call that cheating. Of course it is possible in many games, but does that mean you should make it an official feature?

Talking about cheating, I was wondering if something could be done about immigration. Personally, I think the way immigration rates explode in the current version is too extreme. Having smaller immigration waves that do not tripple your population in one fell swoop would make the game much more interesting, I think. Actually, I think it would be best if immigration was a reward that you could earn by having a really well-running fortress. Without immigration, the game is quite difficult. I checked . So, if there was only little immigration and only granted if you are doing really well, people wouldn't talk about drowning immigrants but rather think up ways how to attract more of them to bolster their insufficient working force. But that is just my taste of playing.

Deathworks

[Pitchblack]

I find no problem with these except for the last one. and about the thing about marksdwarfs grabbing a precious bolt going firing it then getting smashed into the wall, what if crossbowdwarfs had "secondary weapons", so that the situation becomes like this- goblins run at the marksdwarf squad, the dwarfs fire taking some of the goblins out, the goblins rush in only to meet the shortswords of the marksdwarfs as the two sides engage in conflict.

[Haedrian]

Because in general (even in real life), if you don't specialise, you end up with poorly trained 'jack of all trades'

Plus ranged weapon users would wear light armour (to be able to move around effectivly), and the weapons they'd have was to get them out of trouble, but NOBODY would ask archers to charge as melee users unless they were desperate.

I'm talking about the marksdwarf bug in which they pick up a stack of bolts. Whether the stack contains 30 bolts, or 1 bolt makes no difference. Nobody SHOULD send marksdwarves into battle with 1 bolt.

[Captain Mayday]

quote:Originally posted by Haedrian:
<STRONG>I'm talking about the marksdwarf bug in which they pick up a stack of bolts. Whether the stack contains 30 bolts, or 1 bolt makes no difference. Nobody SHOULD send marksdwarves into battle with 1 bolt.</STRONG>

That's a stack issue. Toady is going to get around to fixing that, if he hasn't already.

[Deathworks]

Hi!

Maybe it is mentioned somewhere, but since the search function here seems somewhat reluctant, I wanted to ask this here:

Is something done about the first anvil?

Think about it, it is currently rather ridiculous:

In early spring seven dwarves arrive with one or more wagons and mules, sent by the dwarven empire.

In late autumn, a trade caravan with mules from that empire arrives, previously scheduled to do so in order to help those seven dwarves.

In between, a single metal smith arrives, obviously also sent by that empire, carrying his anvil all by himself through 100km or so of wilderness. And he isn't even tough or strong!!!

I believe it would make much more sense to have the anvil either included in your original equipment or being sent using the help of the caravan. They could have been ordered by the empire to deliver that darn thing without asking you for refunds, after all.

Of course, making acquiring an anvil even without having one possible and then abandoning the free first anvil would also be an approach.

But the current version really feels odd. Just imagine that average Joe-dwarf, breaking through the undergrowth with a full-sized anvil on his back; no water or food for the last few days, and he keeps crawling towards the fortress ... And no one ever engraves that heroic deed.

Deathworks

[Vendetta]

quote:
VIII: Reputation

The capital should sometimes request that goods be sent to it. This increases your reputation with the nobles of the capital. A certain reputation would be required in order to get higher nobles, and the capital might decide to send rewards (resources, or trained immigrants) to forts with a good reputation

I think this should tie up to production and trade mandates.  Currently noble mandates are just "because I say so", whereas this could make them a useful and functional part of your fortress (and might help dissuade people from chasming Nobles)

[Haedrian]

*sighs* I did it again...

I'm getting tons of ideas, since I have a 30 minute bus journey each evening... here they are

XXIV: Mutiny

Currently the 'worst' that can happen is for an angry dwarf to go bezerk, and try to kill anything/one that moves in the fortress. However an angry dwarf (a legendary one) might instead decide to gather a group of followers, and attempt to take over the fortress (all go bezerk at the same time).

They might decide to attack nobles (seeing them as 'leaders')or just destroy things at random.

Something like this should be rare, but it might be the final blow when you have a fort full of sad dwarves, and a legendary one (who is seen as a leader) goes miserable.

XXV: Kobold Assassins

Aside from kobold theives, there should be kobold assassins. These should try to sneak in and take out a noble or two, or 'important' (legendary) dwarves.

Armed with light armour and a crossbow

XXVI: Apprenticemanship

Children currently just run around, play or start parties. Instead they should pick a job (usually their parent's job) and follow the dwarf who has the most skill in that job. They then become apprentaces, receiving 1/5th of the XP from anything s/he does. Once they mature, they'd already have a good footing in a job, something a bit more obviously done then just allowing them to run around playing, seeing that the survival of the fort depends on workers.
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XXVII: Dwarf infighting

Dwarves in a bad mood might start fights, or make enemies, receiving negative thoughts each time they see them, and getting jeolous if somethign good happens to that other dwarf. If they're happy, they might try to make peace, but if the mood stays bad, it might lead to physical fighting
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XXVIII: Farms kept between years

Farms plots should 'dry up' when winter comes, but they shouldn't be cleared. Instead data like how much the field is used is kept, and the field might become infertile. This encourages the player to crop rotate, or to leave it fallow between years, or to fertilise the fields.

Complement's Deathwork's idea for crop plagues.
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XXIX: Prioritise Building

The job manager should allow you to prioritise a building. Once this happens, the dwarves will make sure that everything which is needed for the best functioning of this building happens.

For example, a carpenter's workshop is set as priortised. The dwarves look at the next 5 things to be built, and find out that they all need wood (surprise surprise), so all woodcutters will start chopping wood (as opposed to doing other tasks), wood hauling is done very quickly by other dwarves, the best carpenter avalable (not sleeping or so) is kept in that building, and the dwarves work to ensure that clutter is kept to the smallest degree.

Obviously this drains all other buildings, so it should be used in emergancy situtations (such as the whole fort dying of hunger).
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XXX: Animal Pens

A large area could be marked as an animal pen, all animals are taken in there and kept there until they are taken as pets, trained, or butchered. The animals that are kept in pens could be changed by the player, so if you want dogs running around, you can have them.

This saves a lot of traffic problem, and might be a bit lighter on the CPU
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XXXI: Dwarven Families

Currently most of the time you get immigrants.

This suggests that Immigration should be rare, almost stopped by the first 3 years. Instead, to get civilians, you should 'breed' them. Dwarf gestation period and maturity time should be changed. So within a few years, you'd have the dwarf children of the adults you brought with you, working instead.

This gives the opportunity for a lot of things to happen. Firstly it would compliment XXVI well, but would allow for family names, family property, family honour (and the like), family tradition...

For example a family would all have its nickname as "Smith" since the family has been metalsmiths for generations. Family feuds (or even just friendly competition) could exist between families...
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XXXII: Cavalry

Adventurers could buy a horse (or a pony depending on the size), and increase a 'riding' skill. For the beginning riding would just increase speed, and horses wouldn't be able to be used to go up/down stairs or into caves (but useful for ruins). In the end they'd allow the adventurer some defence against attacks, and a bonus if s/he uses a type of weapon (example a spear+ cavalry charge = painful).
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XXXIII: Snacking

A dwarf should be able to have a waterskin and a bag assigned to him, and keep rations of food and water similar to a soldier. Obviously it wont increase their mood much, and 1 meal in each 3 has to be a 'proper' meal (in the dining room), but it would keep dwarves working instead of crossing half the fort to take a sip of something or other
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XXXIV : No sleeping in barracks

I don't like civvies sleeping in the barracks, perhaps an option to turn it off should be present?
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XXXV: Training area

Two new items:

1) Training Dummy.
Is made by a carpenter from 3 pieces of wood, a shield and a set of mechanisms. Placing it anywhere allows soldiers to 'fight' it. This increases the weapons skill (twice the normal gain due to sparring), and there is no chance of training injuries.

A 'training area' may be assigned from it

2) Training Pole

I have no idea what its called, but think of a bar spinning around, with bars of wood (simulating weapons) stuck to it. This is made from 3 mechanisms, and 3 bars of wood. Placing it anywhere allows soldiers to dodge the wood as it spins towards them. It increases the armour using, shield using and wrestling skills (twice the normal gain due to sparring), with no chances of training injuries (save for some bruises).

A 'training area' may be assigned from it.

Dwarves will still spar with each other in the barracks, but sometimes they might feel like training on their own, so they use one of those things.
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XXXVI: Nobles and Reputation

Tie in to VIII
If 'something' happens to a noble, the reputation should suffer a lot. An 'important' noble (duke, or so) being killed would make the capital FUME, even sending troops and a noble to conduct an investigation to why the noble died, interrupting most dwarves in their tasks and generally making you wish you could drown that noble as well.
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Do not feed the dwarf fort addict...

[Metalax]

quote:Originally posted by Haedrian:<STRONG> XXVIII: Farms kept between years

Farms plots should 'dry up' when winter comes, but they shouldn't be cleared. Instead data like how much the field is used is kept, and the field might become infertile. This encourages the player to crop rotate, or to leave it fallow between years, or to fertilise the fields.</STRONG>

Having the plots remain and store the orders for each season would be good. Infertility would partially depend on how much silt gets deposited from flooding the farm, either naturally or by design.

quote:<STRONG> XXX: Animal Pens

A large area could be marked as an animal pen, all animals are taken in there and kept there until they are taken as pets, trained, or butchered. The animals that are kept in pens could be changed by the player, so if you want dogs running around, you can have them.

This saves a lot of traffic problem, and might be a bit lighter on the CPU.</STRONG>

Unless the code is changed so that animal inside a pen don't try to path out of it this will eat at the CPU. It looks like this would be covered under the Core36 Burrows.

quote:<STRONG> XXXI: Dwarven Families

Currently most of the time you get immigrants.

This suggests that Immigration should be rare, almost stopped by the first 3 years. Instead, to get civilians, you should 'breed' them. Dwarf gestation period and maturity time should be changed. So within a few years, you'd have the dwarf children of the adults you brought with you, working instead.</STRONG>

Immigration should have some sort of cap on each wave and decrease as the population reaches a certain level.

If anything the baby/child periods should be longer for dwarves. Twelve years to adulthood seams very short for a race that has a minimum natural life expectancy of 150 years. Although this should be linked to the addition of other activities for children to undertake such as schooling, mock sparring, playing etc.

quote:<STRONG> XXXIV : No sleeping in barracks

I don't like civvies sleeping in the barracks, perhaps an option to turn it off should be present?</STRONG>

A toggle for military use/civilian use/all would be good, with sparring disabled in a civilian barracks. Perhaps a seperate toggle for permitting sparring.

quote:<STRONG> XXXV: Training area

Two new items:

1) Training Dummy.
Is made by a carpenter from 3 pieces of wood, a shield and a set of mechanisms. Placing it anywhere allows soldiers to 'fight' it. This increases the weapons skill (twice the normal gain due to sparring), and there is no chance of training injuries.

A 'training area' may be assigned from it

2) Training Pole

I have no idea what its called, but think of a bar spinning around, with bars of wood (simulating weapons) stuck to it. This is made from 3 mechanisms, and 3 bars of wood. Placing it anywhere allows soldiers to dodge the wood as it spins towards them. It increases the armour using, shield using and wrestling skills (twice the normal gain due to sparring), with no chances of training injuries (save for some bruises).</STRONG>

Twice the gain and removal of the risk of injury? That seams rather extreme for very little effort. I'd suggest half the gain from sparring along with a heavily reduced but not entirely removed risk of injury. Perhaps the quality of the components could effect both of these.

I do like the idea of being able to define a training area distinct from a barracks.