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[Acanthus117]

There should also be a factor (maybe linked to how many deaths that a dwarf sees, is affected by [sees corpses, loses family, etc.]) that provides an overall advantage or disadvantage, depending on how the person obtained such factor (they flee easily due to trauma or they are unshakeable due to combat experience).

Also, what if named creatures had a natural advantage, due to their being named, and what if certain creatures (megabeasts, titans, certain underground critters) had a natural penalty to attackers due to their being big/strong/monstrous

[father_alexander]

Hi!

Nikov: I may be wrong, but you sound as if the elaborate explanations (a.k.a. background stories) were a bad thing

i think he is actually saying that a system too complex is bad because it would make everything way too complicated, that it should be a rather simple yet subtle system, simple yet effective, instead of something probably perfectly realistic but horribly complex.

ok, now, while i love the basic concept of the idea there are three things i would like to point out

-I think most of you are thinking from the point of view of a modern human, these are people from a completely diferent age, with a diferent culture and concepts. We know dwarves are religious, and much more dwarfy than humans, this would mean that dwarves would probably like the idea of the glory of a heroic death, they also would fear death much less since they believe in their gods. You should also keep the family values in mind.

-Military dwarves dont just go through physical training, military training is also about psychology, they should learn how to work as a team, to trust each other with their lives, and to sacrifice themselves for the team. And this whole idea should get stronger after battle experience, you are talking of running, when you should remember this is their home, we are not attacking yet, we can only defend, you cant escape a defence because that means death of the whole town

-finally i think the whole idea as it is now would work perfectly for civilians to avoid the old task canceling for stupid creatures 

[Deathworks]

Hi!

Father_Alexander: While you raise some good points, I think you over-estimate the need for glory. In all ages, I think, you had a mixture of professional soldiers willing to go to extremes, and hordes of canon fodder which basically stayed on the battle field only because they would be slain if caught during flight by their own lords. Given the chance to flee, they were likely to do so, I think.

Sure, they are probably not so sick as our people who have whole squads of psychiatrists sent into any town where a single crime has happened just to comfort all the civilians, but that would rather be a balance issue.

Just because you believe in an afterlife does not mean you are suicidal - how many battles in history were really fought to the death? How often did armies or parts of armies surrender?

However, I actually like your ideas and would rather build on them:

Religion: While I think you are also mixing up how many people play the game with what actually is in the game, I agree that dwarves and other inhabitants of their world are to be more religious - after all, if there are demons around that actually just slaughtered the neighboring fortress, the existence of deities seems quite likely (^_^;;

However, Dwarf Fortress religion is not a monolithic affair and we should take advantage of that: Each dwarf believes in a different deity, which is associated with different attitudes/things. A religion focused on suicide seems to be much more likely to propose fighting to the death than one focused on cowardice or wealth. And to make matters even more interesting, not every dwarf is a zealot. So, while the deity may give a bonus or malus in a certain direction, the actual amount of it could be based on the strength of the belief: A dwarf who is a fervent believer in a deity associated with suicide may get a +5 bonus (random value for illustration) for the check whether he will continue fighting. A dwarf who is only a superficial believer in that same deity may get just a +1 bonus, as his faith is not as determined.

Military: As I hinted above, fear of the commanding officer used to play a great role as well. So, if your squad was led by Urist McSlaughter who ate his dogs alive and whose hobbies include whipping recruits for no real reason, the chances of disobedience/flight are probably rather slim (unless they have a chance to silently take out McSlaughter as well :) :) :) ).

Civilians: I think that the morale system could work well for any dwarf - civilian and military. The special influences a military dwarf is subject to (read: the threat of a fatal court martial) should be enough to elevate the average soldier above the average civilian.

Bauglir: I would think that that is a balance issue. I would propose a balance that leads to the following:

85% of the dwarves would stick to reasonable fights, that is fights where there is a chance for them to survive and defeat the foe. Thus, if you intend to pick fights that will not be costly on the dwarven side, you can just draft any dwarves for the general grunts.

However, only maybe 15% would be willing to fight in extremely unfavorable situations. Making them squad leaders or forming a special strike troop around these would then allow you to have a sense of elite soldiers.

Thus, you would only have to make sure of the personalities of a small group of future soldiers (leaders and your special ops team) in order to have a functioning military.

Of course, once Urist McCoward has panicked at the sight of a ground hog, you may want to give him another job as a farmer or something, but that would be a rare thing.

So, basically, either you pick your military very carefully (just the meanest fanatics) or you pick your fights carefully (always send really enough troops into battle). I think that should be okay for people.

Acanthus117: You present some nice ideas there. There is not really anything I would add besides my support for such details.

Deathworks

[Nikov]

Hi!

Nikov: I may be wrong, but you sound as if the elaborate explanations (a.k.a. background stories) were a bad thing. At least for me, the extreme level of detail is part of the great appeal of the game, which in turn makes it difficult to predict what exactly will happen.

Yes, I do think elaborate explanations and systems for combat psych is a bad thing. Dwarf Fortress is akin to watching ants with slightly more elaborate personalities. Ants do everything they do based on very simple chemical trails, insticts and reflexes. When observed from a distance, however, they appear to have a massive amount of intelligence and group collaboration. In DF, dwarves are working off a similar level of individual intelligence, just randomly picking up jobs and going about their lives, yet we begin to make up stories for each of them to explain why one dwarf hangs out around the river and another spends his breaks in his room. For that reason I think combat psych should be simple; we shouldn't look at a dawrf's thoughts and rpeferences and know automatically he will become a hero, it should surprise us as a dwarf who isn't normally brave or dutiful suddenly rises to the occasion because of a variable we cannot see or do not think to see, like being near a group of other dwarves, and make the story in our mind that he's beign urged on by his mother who happens to be in the room where he's fighting, or that hisreligion to a god of war encourages him to bravery. Instead he simply acts and surprises us, and we're left to make a much more interesting story as to why than what the computer would tell us in his thoughts screen.

[Deathworks]

Hi!

Nikov: I think we are actually in agreement, and I think there is a misunderstanding. You see, I love Dwarf Fortress because of the way the dwarves surprise me with their behavior. This is also why I love SimCity (even though I regularly get the advice to become a politician instead of a city planner (T_T) ), and why I consider SimCity Societies a betrayal and disappointment.

However, I see the elaborate system as a very great chance to get exactly those surprising results: If there are 200 factors (fictional number) which influence a dwarf's behavior in combat, it becomes impossible to predict their behavior for sure: A current crisis in the life of a dwarf may cause a usually heroic dwarf to flee while some other circumstances may cause a coward to fight that battle in his stead.

Of course, in 90% of the situations, you can estimate how an individual dwarf behaves, but isn't that what makes the surprise? If you want an otherwise cowardly dwarf to suddenly rise to the occasion, you first need to establish that he is a coward. Sure, you could just put a line in his bio that he is a coward, but if you just use the same chances for him and for others to run or fight, the player will end up ignoring that line as it is meaningless. But the real impact will be there if the dwarf is the first one to run in 20 fights, and then, in the 21st, he suddenly fights to the death, allowing his wounded comrades to retreat to the hospital and buying enough time for re-enforcements to arrive. I think it becomes more epic because you have actually seen his cowardice before and are painfully aware of it.

Deathworks

[Umi]

I agree with Deathworks, but I think we would need an easier way to see the social dynamics in the fort.  If my hero is going to bail in the middle of a battle then I want to know that before sending him out.  I'd hate to have to spend an hour before each battle making sure each of my soldiers are fit for combat.

Maybe have an optional screen of their social interactions with the other dwarfs recently, and how their mood was affected?  If it was all in one place, then it wouldn't take as long to find out.

[Kogan Loloklam]

-I think most of you are thinking from the point of view of a modern human, these are people from a completely diferent age, with a diferent culture and concepts. We know dwarves are religious, and much more dwarfy than humans, this would mean that dwarves would probably like the idea of the glory of a heroic death, they also would fear death much less since they believe in their gods. You should also keep the family values in mind.

-Military dwarves dont just go through physical training, military training is also about psychology, they should learn how to work as a team, to trust each other with their lives, and to sacrifice themselves for the team. And this whole idea should get stronger after battle experience, you are talking of running, when you should remember this is their home, we are not attacking yet, we can only defend, you cant escape a defence because that means death of the whole town

Your general statements are very interesting. I'm not a historian, so maybe my information is incorrect, but different cultures had different attitudes towards fighting. In fact, only "Warrior Cultures" generally had a desire for glory ingrained in the group, and most "ancient" civilizations didn't even have a professional standing army. Of course Toady's baseline timeframe isn't set in "ancient" times, but in the High-Late Middle Age. These times had cowardace in droves. Some Deities sound positively frightning when it comes to seeking death (at least to me), but some civilizations I've seen have such pantheons that death would have to be a negative thing, no matter how it was gained.

You mention military training, but training isn't the same as combat. Modern soldiers are trained with those same aspects and STILL run away from the enemy occasionally. (It's generally an organized retreat nowadays, but that is only because it is firmly recognized that organized retreats are the safest way to run away. Some still aren't organized, especially in less-trained 'soapmaker' kind of drafted armies that some modern nations field)

Training SHOULD effect the chance they will break and run in a non-organized fashion. Maybe a special "discipline" stat that has them follow the lead of their squad leader instead of individual stats. Also the "kill cowards" could be a cultural flag that some societies get, and some don't. (Kind of a society-based crime system. I think that is planned somewhere...)

[father_alexander]

Well i think here you have two important factors wen it comes to cultural interpretation of war and death applied to dwarves.

First of all the setting of the story is a world that has a lot of fighting and wars, due to demons, goblins and other races. And dwarves in particular seem to me like the more warlike culture from the three "good" mayor races (dwarves, humans and elves), they also appear to be proud yet in a brute way, while you would expect an elf to insult you, you would expect a dwarf to beat you up with his hammer/axe.

Second, its the whole idea of diferent religions, yes, as you say kogan there where some "warrior cultures", the best example i think, would be the vikings, they believed that they had to die in battle to go to heaven where they would be welcomed with a feast, however i think there is also an important factor wen it comes to dwarves. They have many gods, each with their particular characteristics, and i think this is a really important factor, somone who believes in the god of peace should at least get an unhappy feeling from being in the military, but someone who believes in a god of war and glory, NEEDS to be in the military, and would in fact send himself into suicide attack without worries (you should look up what the therm berserk means for more info on this subject, its pretty interesting)

That said, there is also something else i noticed, wich i didnt mention in my other post due to time issues, i see a lot of talking about escaping or refusing to fight, but little about confidence, charisma, anger and fear.

There is something that bothers me a little about df and its the lack of leder positions, we have the mayor but it dosnt matter how charismatic or skilled he is, he does little interaction, and here comes the role of the military command.Its not just about causing fear in the soldiers, as i said before, its also about trust, if a soldier feels attached to his commander he will probably follow any order, even wen it means death, and not only that, he should fight in a more comfortable way, knowing that his leader is watching his back and would not risk his life for nothing, speech is an important thing here too, a good leader should know how to raise the spirits of his troops.

And here comes another subject, confidence, if a soldier has confidence that they are going to win, or that they are the last hope, or they hate their enemy for whatever reason (cultural and historical events could play a major role on this subject) they would fight in a diferent way, with confidence they will be colder, knowing what they do, fighting with better technique, while in anger they would be maybe stronger, more resilient, even more intimidating, but they would pay much less attention to how they are fighting, making it a lot easier for an enemy to take a lucky shot.

Finally comes fear, someone scared of their enemy would not only run away, in some cases they might stay, but fight with less security, wich means less effectivity, the contrary should be possible too i think, sometimes after suffering so much they may loose all fear making it impossible to really scare them.

In the end i think an escaping soldier should be something REALLY strange, something you see once in a long long while, an extreme, kinda like a tantrum. On the other hand i think soldiers should change their way of fighting according to their emotional situation, making them stronger, smarter or weaker depending of battle. I think their emotional situation should change based on, a little bit of their own personality, their superior, their religion, and the legal punishments (wich in my opinion, the player should choose, if you want a violent culture you would make the punishment for escaping death, while if you think they should be peacefull maybe they wont get punished, and all the options that are between those two)

 

[Deathworks]

Hi!

Father_alexander: (I have already responded to some of your points a few posts above)
I would still say that your view of having fleeing soldiers as a very rare occurrence does not really fit in with how people react. As I said, I don't think you will find too many historic examples of armies fighting to the death with 0 deserters. Quite on the contrary, as far as I know, keeping your soldiers in line was a major problem.

However, I do agree that charismatic leaders and the like should have an influence.

Deathworks

[father_alexander]

well there are two details

first of all, sure they wont fight to death, but you should think of the conditions, its not like they all simply ran away from the fear, they either surrender, or run away under the order of retreat, wich is a completely diferent matter.

a whole army or even half an army breaking out of line and escaping is something i never heard of, sure there are some deserters but again, wen you take in count these armies where of hundreds of soldiers, a few soldiers dont make much. But a retreat is still an order from a superior to escape combat, its a tactical decition, its not just uncontrolable fear to the point that you HAVE to run away even wen you know its not for the major good, its wen you think the whole situation, and feel like the best decition is to save as many soldiers as you can and use them again, in fact it has been used as a military tactic many times.

and actually there where cases of 0 survivors, maybe a few prisoners taken by force, but take for example the case of the siege of masada (wich is actually quite similar to the situation a fortress would face since we are not attacking, we are defending) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masada

Then you have for example the case of the viking at the bridge, and various other last stands.

There is also another point, we are using real life armies as examples, sure its hard to keep 1500 soldiers in line, but wen you have two squads of 20 people you know wen someone is trying to run away. Im looking for info on the subject of desertion in old time battles, but i cant seem to find anything really, i find data about desertion in modern battles, but those are pretty diferent cultures and situations.

[Nikov]

As I said, I don't think you will find too many historic examples of armies fighting to the death with 0 deserters. Quite on the contrary, as far as I know, keeping your soldiers in line was a major problem.

Masada, where the only survivor was a woman and her two children who hid under the bodies of a mass suicide. Also the Germanic invaders into Rome were not prone to retreat. Their women were kept in the rear echelon and while a tactical withdraw to strike again was encouraged, your own wife would kill you if you ran past her. And then she'd kill her children and kill herself before being captured by the Romans. Additionally it is recorded that their formations, being organized by families and clans, made a point not to outfight their leaders as this was considered impolite. However if their leader dies, and you didn't fight to the death, your wife would kill you, etc. Really, really hardcore guys.

Yeah, so I'd like to also point out that not having an overly complicated system but keeping that system hidden does wonders to perceptions, and no we don't agree on all key points except the ones you disagree on overtly with me on. A 200 point system of pros and cons would be excessively complicated, require tracking too many events and variables and possibly start chugging the CPU during a large, intense fight. It would also render the gameplay unpredictable as a dwarf with an obscure character trait you didn't notice turns out to be a haemophobe. Same with a hundred, or a fifty point system. Personally I would prefer it be little more complicated than Rome Total War and its prodgeny; plus morale for being rested, near the squad leader, charging fresh into the enemy, watching the enemy rout, etc. Minus points for losing a combat, taking casualties, being under missile fire, etc. Add to this a few 'angry' 'dutiful' 'self-disciplined' or 'adventurous' bonuses or penalties, and you have enough, in my opinion, to have easily understood mechanics with the occasional wild card result.

[lordnincompoop]

I'd think that if a dwarf ran into a creature that killed all his family members, he'd try to kill that creature no matter what.

And if a person has experienced enough trauma, eventually that dwarf should be numbed, and would be more willing to do suicidal things and run away less, having nothing to live for (and for the same reason, would not fight as much?)

[Nikov]

I'd think that if a dwarf ran into a creature that killed all his family members, he'd try to kill that creature no matter what.

Also, yeah. Dwarves need to begrudge non-civ members, and those grudges need to be paid in blood.

[Deathworks]

Hi!

I am not a military specialist, and I am not even sure whether that part about the Germanic tribes wasn't from the rather interesting bello gallico. However, there are a few things that struck me.

1. If flight was unthinkable, why would the women stand ready to kill any deserters? That does not make sense, unless some of the fighters would be prone to flee despite their orders.

2. Just for finding an example I did a quick wikipedia research for a hint of what the Roman army thought about that subject. I found these nice things under Roman legion

Major punishments

    * Fustuarium — a sentence for desertion or dereliction of duty. The legionary would be stoned or beaten to death by cudgels, in front of the assembled troops, by his fellow soldiers, whose lives had been put in danger. Soldiers under sentence of fustuarium who escaped were not pursued, but lived under sentence of banishment from Rome.
    * Decimation — a sentence carried out against an entire unit which had mutinied, deserted, or shown dereliction of duty. One out of every ten men, chosen by lots, would be beaten to death, usually by the other nine, who would be forced to live outside the camp and in some instances obliged to renew the military oath, the sacramentum.

If desertion was unthinkable, how come that the Roman military had mechanisms to deal with it? You don't install punishments for things that will not happen. And personally, I think the dwarven military is somewhat comparable to the Roman military as far as having non-noble masses and a noble leader.

I am also wondering about your statements about dwarven culture:

 

First of all the setting of the story is a world that has a lot of fighting and wars, due to demons, goblins and other races. And dwarves in particular seem to me like the more warlike culture from the three "good" mayor races (dwarves, humans and elves), they also appear to be proud yet in a brute way, while you would expect an elf to insult you, you would expect a dwarf to beat you up with his hammer/axe.

Inspired by this, I checked the raws for what they actually say about the dwarves (who are "stout creatures who like drink and industry" according to the standard description on the status page without any word about war):

Let's see, the religion spheres are:

Code: [Select]

[RELIGION:PANTHEON]
[RELIGION_SPHERE:FORTRESSES]
[RELIGION_SPHERE:JEWELS]
[RELIGION_SPHERE:METALS]
[RELIGION_SPHERE:MINERALS]
[RELIGION_SPHERE:MOUNTAINS]
[RELIGION_SPHERE:WEALTH]

Mmmmhhhhh, no war there.

Their ethics are also quite interesting, allow me to make a selective quote to preserve space:

Code: [Select]

[ETHIC:KILL_ENTITY_MEMBER:PUNISH_CAPITAL]
[ETHIC:KILL_NEUTRAL:ONLY_IF_SANCTIONED]
[ETHIC:KILL_ENEMY:ACCEPTABLE]
...
[ETHIC:TORTURE_AS_EXAMPLE:UNTHINKABLE]
[ETHIC:TORTURE_FOR_INFORMATION:UNTHINKABLE]
[ETHIC:TORTURE_FOR_FUN:UNTHINKABLE]
[ETHIC:TORTURE_ANIMALS:UNTHINKABLE]
[ETHIC:TREASON:PUNISH_CAPITAL]
[ETHIC:OATH_BREAKING:PUNISH_CAPITAL]
...
[ETHIC:SLAVERY:PUNISH_CAPITAL]
...
[ETHIC:MAKE_TROPHY_SAME_RACE:APPALLING]
[ETHIC:MAKE_TROPHY_SAPIENT:SHUN]

So, while dwarves do have capital punishment and apply it to treason, they will not allow torture or slavery, and more interesting, will "SHUN" making trophies of sapients. Unless I am mistaken, that means that they actually do not like goblin bone earrings.

Just for fun, here are the same ethics from the human entry:

Code: [Select]

[ETHIC:KILL_ENTITY_MEMBER:JUSTIFIED_IF_GOOD_REASON]
[ETHIC:KILL_NEUTRAL:JUSTIFIED_IF_NO_REPERCUSSIONS]
[ETHIC:KILL_ENEMY:ACCEPTABLE]
...
[ETHIC:TORTURE_AS_EXAMPLE:ACCEPTABLE]
[ETHIC:TORTURE_FOR_INFORMATION:ACCEPTABLE]
[ETHIC:TORTURE_FOR_FUN:APPALLING]
[ETHIC:TORTURE_ANIMALS:SHUN]
[ETHIC:TREASON:PUNISH_CAPITAL]
[ETHIC:OATH_BREAKING:PUNISH_CAPITAL]
...
[ETHIC:SLAVERY:ACCEPTABLE]
...
[ETHIC:MAKE_TROPHY_SAME_RACE:ACCEPTABLE]
[ETHIC:MAKE_TROPHY_SAPIENT:ACCEPTABLE]

Interesting, isn't it? They accept slavery, torture (unless for fun or against animals), and even making a bone earring out of your own fallen, not to mention your enemies.

As I stated in another thread, the dwarves of Dwarf Fortress are probably much more humane than you think due to what players have done to them.

Deathworks

[father_alexander]

Uhmm, first of all, the whole having punishment for crimes that where unthinkable is a rather... silly, way to give proof that it was not like that, take for example the vatican, its "unthinkable" for them to rape little children, and well, there we go! also they had punishments, that dosnt make it "usual", just something that could happen.

Not liking torture does not make you a pacifist, it could easily be said that they like honorable fighting, that does not make them butchers, and the idea of slavery, is again something that has nothing to do with beinf peacefull or not.

Also, other than the goblins did any other race have anything to do with war? and "  [RELIGION_SPHERE:FORTRESSES] " counts a bit as war for me, the idea of a fortress is to defend yourself, ergo, you expect an enemy and a battle, also, what i said was talking about the general idea of dwarves, wich is not just df, its also tolkien and other fantasy, i think dwarves are much more proud of their "dwarfhood" and showing that they are stronger, wich makes escaping from the battlefield something a bit contradictory for them. Something like showing, they need to show more wealth , more and better gems, better technology, and also more bravery.

They proabably are more humane, but being "good" or "humane" does not mean that they wont fight, or that they will get scared, on the contrary, they are capable of the sacrifice for a major good, and to defend their family and friends