When the economy/site resources go in, are we going to see more logical equipment for guards, invaders, and the like? Also, how well is the game going to handle in modded-in materials and the like?
You mean stuff they could reasonably afford or some other bug? Or you mean equipment based on more AI and siege planning? I'm not sure what angle you meant by more logical. [...]
Sorry for not being specific. I'll elaborate a bit. [...]
I think once the caravans are moving around, the guards'll start to be equipped more consistently. If site resources are in before the invaders move around, that'll likely be the case for them as well, including the thieves. So perhaps November/December, depending on how much production and supply/demand is working. Ideally if I work on caravans and site resources for a few weeks in November, there will be enough information sitting around, but it's hard to know exactly how much that's going to blow up until I try it.
Can natural skills be trained further or are they static?
Most likely depends on whether the creature has CAN_LEARN, just like the current skills.
Yeah, that's how it works. I imagine adventurers and starting dwarves might end up shafted by their overriding profiles, but I'm not sure, since I haven't tried natural skills on any civ critters.
Could you elaborate a bit on what a labyrinth is? Is it a natural element of a cavern that minotaurs gravitate toward, something created by the minotaur, or an abandoned structure created by a civilization?
God behavior is supposed to eventually be procedurally generated. Having them always punish an entire race of beings sort of detracts pretty significantly from that. Also, in Greek myth, the Minotaur was put in the labyrinth by Minos and Daedalus. Though Minos was a demigod, his measure of divinity was not related to the imprisonment, he was merely Daedalus' patron.
What type of labyrinth generator are you using? Will it be a true labyrinth (just a single path, typically boring), or actually a maze? There are circular maze types that look like labyrinths at first, after all...
How will labyrinths interact with rural sprawl? Will there be farms directly surrounding the labyrinth walls, or will there be a "protected" area around it where humans just won't go near willingly? How large? Night Creature lairs in general might be a good way of keeping sprawl down, especially if they keep normal civs away, but don't prevent embarking in DF mode... maybe using the underground fog of war system to cover their territory up.
Right now, a labyrinth is something created by the minotaur. Ideally, the mythological method would be possible, but that requires lots of things we don't have yet, so we just hand-waved them in.
It is modeled on the Labyrinth, which is a maze, rather than a labyrinth, as far as I understand how the terms have been tortured over time, he he he. So yeah, you can get lost, though in the case of ones that span Z levels we have stayed well away from the horror possible. A 40x40x4 maze unconstrained was too much, maybe more like it should be from the myth where you have trouble escaping even when you aren't being devoured, so we are a little soft on the z level changes. I let the 2 level ones float freely in some percentage of the maps, since that isn't so bad to figure out in practice.
The labyrinths are all underground and moreover outside of the village limits to avoid the irritation. They can be close, but not within the fields themselves.
Will the reimplementation of shops mean races in sites other than cities will build them, or is it only a return to the previous behavior? Will humanoid (semi-)megabeasts like giants and cyclopes have equipment naturally, or only if they steal it?
We're still stuck with the previous behavior overall with some tweaks. Setting up the other civs will be involved enough that there might have to be entire releases devoted to it, as with the human villages. Right now all equipment is taken in some way or another, so they don't actually build anything (although the tools are a bit hacky that way). We were going to do a bit more with giants and cyclopes but, I doubt we'll get there before it's time to put it up.