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[Osmosis Jones]

Not to mention drugs such as Salvia, Ibogaine, and Mescaline (mostly in South and Central Americas), as well as DMT (in the form of ayahuasca; Americas and parts of Africa), though admittedly these were more of a ritualised rather than recreational use. Things like Shamanistic vision quests, communing with dead ancestors, and adulthood trials.

[G-Flex]

Opium and tobacco (and alcohol if you'd prefer to call it a recreational drug rather than a beverage) have been used for millenia. I think marijuana has also been used for a very long time, but that could just be a memory hiccup.

Right, but keep in mind that opium isn't quite the same as, say, modern-day morphine and heroin.

Not to mention drugs such as Salvia, Ibogaine, and Mescaline (mostly in South and Central Americas), as well as DMT (in the form of ayahuasca; Americas and parts of Africa), though admittedly these were more of a ritualised rather than recreational use. Things like Shamanistic vision quests, communing with dead ancestors, and adulthood trials.

This too. Psychoactive drugs were commonly used for these practices rather than privately, as far as I know.


At any rate, the basic thing I'm trying to get at here is that you can't really think about new features from a modern perspective too much. The appropriate thing to do is attempt to research how these things were done in a similar time in real-world history as a baseline, and then speculate based on how the DF world in particular is different.

[Mel_Vixen]

Well Paleogenetics and archaeology indicate that Canabis and Hop/humulus (very close related Humulus makes only sleepy thought) are among the oldest cultivated plants and drugs in the world in mayn places even older then actual aggriculture for food.

Not   to mention drugs such as Salvia, Ibogaine, and Mescaline (mostly in   South and Central Americas), as well as DMT (in the form of ayahuasca;   Americas and parts of Africa), though admittedly these were more of a   ritualised rather than recreational use. Things like Shamanistic vision   quests, communing with dead ancestors, and adulthood trials.

IIRc All three points the vision quest, the speaking with the dead and adulthood trials are part ofthe concept "Shamanism". Since you have a godawfull number of diffrent Shamanistic tradions (in existence and extinct) you get that and many more aspects or ideas in varying degrees. The 'vision quest' isnt something that is limited Shamanism but popular media promoted that one pretty much.

[Osmosis Jones]

Also one more thing. From what I've seen on the topic, strong psychoactives seemed to be primarily used in hunter gatherer and similar tribal societies, having little to no use in larger, more settled civilisations. Of course, whether this is a true cause-effect relationship, or merely a correlation due to the otherwise resource-poor regions that tend to support hunter gatherer tribes being rich in psychoactives is anyones guess. I'm personally thinking it's more the former, but eh.

Probably the closest I've seen to regular psychoactive use in larger civilisations would be the aforementioned opium, as well as use of chewed coca leaves by Aztecs as a general stimulant, much as we'd use caffiene, with possibly some anaesthetic properties too.

That said, some people think viking beserkers were eating either psilocybe (magic) mushrooms or ergot (wheat fungus, makes an LSD precursor), so, who knows?

[Mel_Vixen]

Well for one thing alcohol is the best drug for a pre-industrialised civilisation since its not to strong, is not to addictive and can be easily mass produced and stored. Natural Drugs you tend to get in late spring over the summer and if you are lucky in fall and even then many drugs cant be stored because the substances degrade. Alcohol on the other hand is stable and can be made from just a handfull grass-seeds (or anything that sports sugar/starch) and water.

edit: Also people tend to forget that the big Monotheistic and Polytheistic religions have strong "No drugs" rules. Christianity has even multiple and drugs were associated with the devil etc.. These rules might be the cause for the modern society being reduced to Tabac and Alcohol.

Christianity has also a rule against "witches" and "sorcerers" that lead in the end to the witch trials - said persons now where on the other hand the people that did know moore or less about drugs and pharmaceuticals in general and without control by the church so exterminating them exterminated also the people with the right knowledge.

Another aspect is that regathering that knowledge is actually pretty hazardous since monkshood/wolfsbane can produce halus etc. but will kill you very easily if the mix of chemicals was in the wrong relations because the ground was to acid or the phase of the moon was wrong.

Btw. The base chemical for Lsd or "Acid" - Lyserg-acid  is something the ergot fungus does produce. The chemical just needs to be crystallized and altered though iirc. The fungus does have other chemicals like "Ergotamin" and over 30 Ergot specific alkaloids that can introduce visions. This mix makes the stuff also so dangerous if not deadly.

[G-Flex]

Well Paleogenetics and archaeology indicate that Canabis and Hop/humulus (very close related Humulus makes only sleepy thought) are among the oldest cultivated plants and drugs in the world in mayn places even older then actual aggriculture for food.

Eh, I don't see marijuana as the kind of thing that a society centuries-past would even bother controlling much, especially back then, when it was likely much weaker than it is today.

[Osmosis Jones]

Well for one thing alcohol is the best drug for a pre-industrialised civilisation since its not to strong, is not to addictive and can be easily mass produced and stored. Natural Drugs you tend to get in late spring over the summer and if you are lucky in fall and even then many drugs cant be stored because the substances degrade. Alcohol on the other hand is stable and can be made from just a handfull grass-seeds (or anything that sports sugar/starch) and water.

edit: Also people tend to forget that the big Monotheistic and Polytheistic religions have strong "No drugs" rules. Christianity has even multiple and drugs were associated with the devil etc.. These rules might be the cause for the modern society being reduced to Tabac and Alcohol.

Yeah I was originally thinking it was more the strength issue;

e.g. it is quite possible to go very, very crazy on hallucinogens, and while in a smaller tribe you're surrounded by friends and family who can stop you flipping out when tripping, larger cultures mean exposure to people who may not be aware of your state, or even deliberately antagonize it. Further, considering these things tend to have an adverse effect on the individual's concept of property and ownership, civilisations with strict property laws would tend to disapprove.

That said, the moderating effect of the main religions is also an extremely good point, and one that I had missed entirely.


NINJA'D

[Syff]

Finally, a sensible reason to embark in a desert:  peyote.

Jokes aside, implementing drugs seems like the kind of thing that's probably a long ways off, although putting them in as placeholders and filling in their functionality later might be fine.  (like kobold bulbs/gnomeblight, valley herbs/golden salve, liquid fire, etc.) Even if the dwarves won't use them yet, being able to run a fortress of drug dealers sounds like it might be fun.

[Mel_Vixen]

[edit:]

Eh,   I don't see marijuana as the kind of thing that a society   centuries-past would even bother controlling much, especially back then,   when it was likely much weaker than it is today.

[/edit]


Heh i wouldnt say it was "much weaker" sure we have today high yield crops thanks to modern tech but our ancestors werent idiots either. Actually if you look onto ancient crops you notice that every region sometimes even every village had its own variety of a crop fine tuned for the ground climate and weather. Thus said crops could yield compareable to modern crops just only on a specific geographic locations.

You need also to notice that most homegrown canabis is actually derived from wild (its even doubtable if there is any truely wild canabis left in the world) or semi-wild forms of canabis. The high-yield stuff isnt so easy to get (or expensiv) since it gets used and controled either by the Goverment or the bigger Marketing-systems. I dont say that you cant get the powerfull stuff its just less likely then getting some of the more tame variants.

@syff: Drugs can run under the umbrella of syndroms. Along with positiv effects for syndroms they are actually pretty easy and fast to implement i think. Causing 'Visions' can work the same way as introducing dizziness or nausea.

Toady what is your opinion on this issue and how long would it take to get drugs and ethics for them? It would be nice for fleshing out thetribals and theyr more animistic religions and worldviews. Oh and unrelated to that: Can we get Overground tribes?

[atomfullerene]

I knew someone would bring up the "It's too modern" angle, and it's not entirely off the mark.  I think that one overlooked reason that recreational use of drugs was less in the past is because most areas only had a few native drugs, and those were better integrated into the culture.  So the Greeks and Romans had alcohol and opium, north Americans had peyote and tobacco, ect. 

Anyway, from a game perspective instead of "Pharmacy" you might want "Alchemist" or "Medicine Dwarf" or "Herbologist" or what have you (I think alchemist sounds the most dwarfy).  Royal physician is also a distinct possiblity.  It's definitely the case that in the early middle ages there were people who dealt in all sorts of strange and possibly medicinal concoctions. 

Come to think of it, you could add in the "medical" raws instructions to use potions that don't actually help the disease...for added historical realism, although I am not sure how fun it would be to have your doctors send off for hemlock steeped in mercury to treat goiter (or what have you). 

Another worthwhile thing would be societal or religious ethics prohibiting the use of potions with certain status effects.

[Josephus]

Come to think of it, you could add in the "medical" raws instructions to use potions that don't actually help the disease...for added historical realism, although I am not sure how fun it would be to have your doctors send off for hemlock steeped in mercury to treat goiter (or what have you). 

Pilsu had a similar idea regarding werewolf vulnerability to silver. Specifically, they aren't. Dwarves just think they are because some time in their world's history, a legendary werewolf was killed by a man with a silver sword and that image was entrenched in their myths.

It would be cool if that kind of thing made it into the game - things that your dwarves believe, but aren't actually true.

[Quatch]

Checking if one of your 100+ dwarves have (siege operator)/(weaponsmith)/(armorer) skill at (any level above dabbling)/(high level) to start (training him up)/(producing high-quality equipment) is very time consuming...

With a manager, you can do this from a workshop. There is a menu option called Workshop (P)rofile, used for setting minimum and maximum skill levels and allowed dwarves for any given workshop. From there, you can just set jobs for training or for producing masterworks, depending on what skill levels and dwarves you allowed

This works as long as you don't also use the job manager to queue your jobs. If you do, and the workshops with restricted profiles are not full of jobs, then your new jobs will be (basically) randomly assigned to them. The potential workarounds are very kludgey and outweigh the use of anything other than masonry block making on eternal repeat.

[Eduren]

Come to think of it, you could add in the "medical" raws instructions to use potions that don't actually help the disease...for added historical realism, although I am not sure how fun it would be to have your doctors send off for hemlock steeped in mercury to treat goiter (or what have you). 

Pilsu had a similar idea regarding werewolf vulnerability to silver. Specifically, they aren't. Dwarves just think they are because some time in their world's history, a legendary werewolf was killed by a man with a silver sword and that image was entrenched in their myths.

It would be cool if that kind of thing made it into the game - things that your dwarves believe, but aren't actually true.

Ideally, would we want these things to be emergent behaviors? It would be nice if these sort of beliefs could be traced back in the civilizations history.

[Josephus]

Come to think of it, you could add in the "medical" raws instructions to use potions that don't actually help the disease...for added historical realism, although I am not sure how fun it would be to have your doctors send off for hemlock steeped in mercury to treat goiter (or what have you). 

Pilsu had a similar idea regarding werewolf vulnerability to silver. Specifically, they aren't. Dwarves just think they are because some time in their world's history, a legendary werewolf was killed by a man with a silver sword and that image was entrenched in their myths.

It would be cool if that kind of thing made it into the game - things that your dwarves believe, but aren't actually true.

Ideally, would we want these things to be emergent behaviors? It would be nice if these sort of beliefs could be traced back in the civilizations history.

Yes, that's the idea. History and in-game myth take on a more natural and realistic feel with this sort of system.

[kuketski]

With a manager, you can do this from a workshop. There is a menu option called Workshop (P)rofile, used for setting minimum and maximum skill levels and allowed dwarves for any given workshop. From there, you can just set jobs for training or for producing masterworks, depending on what skill levels and dwarves you allowed.

This is just a matter of making the military page have an option to show more info about a dwarf than their highest combat skill.

Thanks! =) it`ll help!

but

Checking if one of your 100+ dwarves have (siege operator)/(weaponsmith)/(armorer) skill at (any level above dabbling)/(high level) to start (training him up)/(producing high-quality equipment) is very time consuming...

With a manager, you can do this from a workshop. There is a menu option called Workshop (P)rofile, used for setting minimum and maximum skill levels and allowed dwarves for any given workshop. From there, you can just set jobs for training or for producing masterworks, depending on what skill levels and dwarves you allowed

This works as long as you don't also use the job manager to queue your jobs. If you do, and the workshops with restricted profiles are not full of jobs, then your new jobs will be (basically) randomly assigned to them. The potential workarounds are very kludgey and outweigh the use of anything other than masonry block making on eternal repeat.

And,

it`ll be much more convinient to have a centralized control for all of the workshops, giving ability to set predefined groups of dwarves to work on a predefined group of workshops, not just "dwarf #112 will work oin workshop #27"(and you still need to find and remember what this workshop #27 was intended to do (train or produce)).

and

i want menu that shows:

a) what skills dwarves have (grouped by skills/labours(togglable)) coupled with dwarfs info
and
b) what labours that dwarves have enabled (grouped by labours/skills(togglable))coupled with dwarfs info

imagine wave of migrants(lets say...15 of them!), that have multiple skills, that you would consider high (for example, professional siege engeneer, when all your siege engeneers died from infection after invasion of Forgotten beast), but game mechanics considering, that there is higher skill (Legendary Fisherdwarf) simply turn off siege engeneering skill and make him fisherdwarf.

to check, if any of them is the one, you need to
a) find them in the list of dwarves or on the map
b) check their skills
c) assign them to the workshop

or imagine an other situation - all your furnace operators have different profession name - for example farmer, jeveler and wood cutter - because they all was idling and you dont have skilled furnace operator.
and on different reason they all was killed (farmer was unhappy and killed jeveler, and woodcutter was injured in the heart trying to calm him down). so you have some 3 dead dwarves(you dont know what THAT dwarves was doing). when having fort of 150+ dwarves, checking if THAT woodcutter/farmer/jeveler was the one that was furnace operating or not...

Yeah, a ton of micromanagement will fix it, but it`ll be time consuming...

or when you mass producing equipment for your army(LOTS of HOSTILES around - 1/3 of militia is in hospital, 1/3 - is noobs and the last 1/3 really needs good eqipment). you order 30 sttel shields, 30 steel breast plates, etc
but one of your armorers is training and will only produce low quality equipment.

i think that DF needs:

1) grouping workshops
2) grouping dwarves (by skill, gender, skill level)
2.1) defining a rules of auto-grouping dwarves(minimal skill level, maximum skill level, gender(putting female professional`s workshops in a safer place, so birth-giving mother can raise their childs and repopulate the fortress, yep), toughness, agility etc)
3) assigning groups of dwarfs to a groups of workshops
4) assigning job queue to a group of dwarves OR group of workshops.