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[Solace]

First off, while I do have a few games under my belt, I admit to being a newbie, so I hope I don't ruffle any feathers too bad for suggesting stupid stuff.

1. Most fantasy dwarfs seem almost religious about their weapons. My dwarves seem to pick up clothes and maybe armor automatically, why not weapons too? Picking up the odd leftover military weapon would make them less squishy when something goes horribly wrong.

2. Hybrid weapons? Treecutters have an advantage there, since their tool is also a weapon, but why not axepicks, hammerpicks, or other things that exist in real life and makes scene for dwarves to possess. They could have some negative combat bonuses (act as an axe half the time and a pick half the time?) compared to 'pure' axes, or cost a bit more...

3. Somewhat less simple, but make-your-own caravan? Go out with goods you load on them, come back with more money but randomized traderish stuff. It'd be a way to make more money (especially if traders are scarce for some reason), but require a large front-end investment and a fair variety of things (traders, guardwarves, pack animals, plus the stuff). Maybe even give them "goals" to come back with, less money but you could specify they'd try to trade for; food, or wood, or metal, or whatever. Still, the whole business would be an event like the trading now, and just some abstract number crunching and waiting on the game side, so not as hard to do as making a whole new system.

4. Animal armor? Animal weapons might not make sense, but at least you could strap some steel plates to them to make them a bit less squishy. In b4 war dogs equipped with dog-leather flank protectors.

5. Rock hammers make sense to me; would be an easy way to get a basic early militia, but kinda sucky because hammers suck and rock hammers probably suck more than metal hammers. Maybe rock plate too? Obviously not very good, but better than nothing before you get your metal industry going. The main problem I have with DF is how quick you go from helpless to well-equipped.

[timmeh]

1.  You'd want to be careful with this, since you might need the weapons later.  So long as they dropped them if and when the military had need for them though, I'll all for it.  That being said, I think it would make more sense if it was small things, obsidian swords (which for some reason I've always pictures as short swords...), daggers, stuff like that.  It would make sense for a dwarf not to want to go around unarmed, but steel battle-axes are heavy

2.  I like the idea of giving miner's mattocks or something, but I think miner's and woodcutters are really the only ones that use tools right now.  That being said, you might be able to mod something like this in... I don't know how plausible it is for a weapon to have two striking surfaces though, so you'd have to ask someone with more modding experience.

3.  I think this is part of the caravan or war arc... either way, I love the idea   Depending on where you sent them, you'd have to decide how many guards to send along and such, would be an incentive to settle near other civilizations....

4.  "This is a bear.  It is wearing adamantine plate-mail."  Do want!    But seriously, this is actually a really good idea, particularly when mounts and such get in....

5.  For blunt weapons that actually makes a lot of sense.  Maybe even stone arrow-heads, although they'd likely require stone that can be sharpened, sort of like the stone sword.  Or a sling.  That having been said, the stone armor is a little less plausible.  If a full suit of iron plate-mail weight upwards of 60lb, can you imagine what the same armor carved out of granite would weigh?


Awesome ideas though

[Calvin]

1st option, completely able to mod in, and actually, picks/battlaxes are already a effective weapon as they are tools.

Although, because of the new combat rewrite, I don't know if you really wanna have hammerpicks or something.

[JohnLukeG]

For #1, I think you should be able to designate a weapon as "civilian" and it would be freely taken and carried by non-soldiers. 

What better way to make use of all those copper daggers?

[Solace]

Well hammerpicks was just an example. Axepicks seem pretty common though, and both useful and quite dwarfish. I've also seen the hammeraxe, and three versions of the halberd: spear-axe-(pick, hammer, or scythe). Speaking of, the scythe was actually a decent weapon (not the huge death's scythe, a smaller one), because it can reach around behind someone where the armor is presumably weaker... maybe an armor piercing bonus? The more short shafted version of the halberd that the English used seemed more practical to me than an axespear, though (swinging that thing must be murder). I think it was a hammerscythe (incap and then cut through armor gaps) with a spearhead on the top just because they could.

- You probably think of the obsidian swords as short swords because in the menu the option is "craft stone short sword". And I was soooo disappointed when I got useless wooden swords instead, after embarking next to a mountain made of obsidian and gold.

Oh, random thought, how about a structure that's a dedicated booze silo or something? My last two fortresses died because I couldn't get to an indoor source of fresh water, and while I had plenty of indoor plants I kept running out of empty barrels. Transfer booze to the silo through buckets? Mugs?

EDIT: Cage and maybe tame berserkers? Those always sound like they could be a good part of my army, if nothing else.

[leftycook]

I like the civillians carry weapons idea. maybe things such as masons can ( if made ) carry basic stone hammers whenever their mason labour is active, which would speed up/increase value of any project they worked on slightly. butchers and kitchenworkers could carry some form of large (for a dwarf) knife, metalsmiths a metal hammer. things like that. Also, a smithable item such as small beltknife, with two or three being made from a metal bar, which all civ dwarves would carry on default, but would only increase their survival instinct slightly, giving them the off chance to cut or nick an enemy on the arm, potentially enough to scare off inquisitive wildlife.

[fanatic]

1) A " civilian weapon " setting would be great. Wearing cloth charging anything bigger than a rabbit is still, if not suicide, serious russian roulette. In fact, having civilian dwarves trying to thrash anything remotely hostile that gets in range of their beloved axe has some serious Fun potential.

4) with a risk for the animal of going berzerk, it has some good Fun potential too.

5) SledgeSladehammers anyone?

[DDR]

I believe something like this is already possible with the military screen. I think you can set your [civ] alert to 'active', they'll all grab armor/weapons. I just haven't tried it, personally.

[Lord Shonus]

Just make an uniform called "general civilian" that contains one dagger, set "over clothing" and "inactive=uniformed" and put all civilians into squads with that uniform.

[madk]

1. Most fantasy dwarfs seem almost religious about their weapons. My dwarves seem to pick up clothes and maybe armor automatically, why not weapons too? Picking up the odd leftover military weapon would make them less squishy when something goes horribly wrong.

2. Hybrid weapons? Treecutters have an advantage there, since their tool is also a weapon, but why not axepicks, hammerpicks, or other things that exist in real life and makes scene for dwarves to possess. They could have some negative combat bonuses (act as an axe half the time and a pick half the time?) compared to 'pure' axes, or cost a bit more...

3. Somewhat less simple, but make-your-own caravan? Go out with goods you load on them, come back with more money but randomized traderish stuff. It'd be a way to make more money (especially if traders are scarce for some reason), but require a large front-end investment and a fair variety of things (traders, guardwarves, pack animals, plus the stuff). Maybe even give them "goals" to come back with, less money but you could specify they'd try to trade for; food, or wood, or metal, or whatever. Still, the whole business would be an event like the trading now, and just some abstract number crunching and waiting on the game side, so not as hard to do as making a whole new system.

4. Animal armor? Animal weapons might not make sense, but at least you could strap some steel plates to them to make them a bit less squishy. In b4 war dogs equipped with dog-leather flank protectors.

5. Rock hammers make sense to me; would be an easy way to get a basic early militia, but kinda sucky because hammers suck and rock hammers probably suck more than metal hammers. Maybe rock plate too? Obviously not very good, but better than nothing before you get your metal industry going. The main problem I have with DF is how quick you go from helpless to well-equipped.



1: I agree with Tim. So long as they're not hauling around half the armory with them, I hugely approve of this idea. By workdwarves are too tender.

2: Ehhhh, maybe, but I can't say I think it has a real practical value.

3: Sounds likea superb idea, but I also think that's already part of Toady's trading/whatever arc.

4: I agree wholeheartedly. Love the potential for Fun with this.

5: No armor, I'd say, but the inability to make stone weapons is something that has bugged me for a while. Maybe you could make wooden armor; at least it'd be something to protect your hide.

[Rowanas]

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