So, I had a crazy idea a couple hours ago. What if someone (I probably don't have the skill or knowledge involved, but I'd be willing to give it a shot...) made a mod where the dorfs had to research materials and technology based on a tree (ala Civilization).
Would it be possible to:
A) Restrict materials/items until researched
B) Make a workshop (like a laboratory) that uses up un-researched material to generate "points" toward unlocking said material (e.g. if you find/buy horn/native silver, you can unlock silver on the tree, but if you don't have it to experiment on, you can't unlock it.)
C) Make a workshop (like a drafter's station) to make blueprints for new technologies (such as more effective weapons or armor or siege weapons or whatever) that generates "points" toward unlocking those items?
D) This one is sort of unrelated, but still a neat idea: Make a workshop (or mod the jeweler) to make jewelry from 1 precious metal and 1 cut gem?
Like I said earlier, I know it's a crazy idea, but I think it would be fun to push your dorfs to evolve over time.
A. There's a few roundabout ways of doing the first one, but I don't think there's really a hard-set way to prevent your dwarves from just rushing up the tech tree in the first season. I've been tossing around the idea a bit too, and I'm thinking that a very expensive plant that takes a LONG time to grow can be used as a reagent, or that it's a material that must be introduced externally, either through trading or by sieges, take a look at
Psieye's thread for a bit more info on that.
B. I'm sort of confused on what you mean.
C. Again, roundabout ways of doing it. Make your reactions generate another item that can be used as points to make a new metal/item, and make it so you can't actually mine ores for that metal. I've tried something similar, and it seems a lot more clunky than I'd like it to be.
D. If you make a custom item called jewelry, it should work. But then again, I've never really messed with wearable jewelry.
EDIT: Making books work too. Can't believe that slipped my mind, seems like one of the more straight-forward methods.