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[PecosBill]

I mostly see this as an element to add for the sake of making this one story idea come true.

The basis of probably half of the movies in the "Action" section of any movie rental place is this:
* Person becomes a supreme badass
* Person retires from being a badass and just wants to live a peaceful life harvesting cabbages or whatever
* Bad guys show up and (pick one) kill his dog | blow up his truck | kill his family | kidnap his daughter | burn down his house.
* Person comes out of retirement long enough to kick everyone's ass

Clearly, this should be in the game.

I was thinking something like...

* When dwarves reach a particular age, they retire.  If there's an economy in place they may receive retirement benefits.
* Retired dwarves cannot be called back into service.  They cannot be assigned to do any work and they cannot be put into the military or given any position.
* During times of dire need, they may come out of retirement on their own.  e.g., during a goblin attack, if a certain percentage of the dwarven population has been killed, the retired Hammerdwarf may go pick his hammer back up and head for the nearest goblin on his own.

Ideally, any profession could have "emergencies" that cause a dwarf to come out of retirement, but military would be the most obvious.

Other cases for a dwarf coming out of retirement, though, might be:
* If too much work stays in the queue for too long, a dwarf who had high skill in that area may come out of retirement for a short time (because kids today just don't know the value of work and he has to show them how it's done).
* Something special about a job may bring a retired dwarf out, e.g., it's already a high value dining hall and you assign the walls to be engraved (all the dwarves stand back in awe as grandpa walks in with his engraving kit, gently shoves the young, nervous engraver aside and says, "I'll take care of this one.")
* A particularly dangerous or exotic animal showing up could bring a retired hunter out
* etc

[Josephus]

You realize, of course, that most players, rather than bother paying the upkeep for a lazy-ass old dwarf, would probably rather just throw him off a tower, regardless of whatever benefits he may provide later? After all, there are fifty year-old dwarves who can do the job he used to do much better.

EDIT: Also, I'm pretty sure the bad guys would do all of the above. And then kill his dog. They're bad like that.

[Ze Spy]

You realize, of course, that most players, rather than bother paying the upkeep for a lazy-ass old dwarf, would probably rather just throw him off a tower, regardless of whatever benefits he may provide later? After all, there are fifty year-old dwarves who can do the job he used to do much better.

What i'll do to a Dwarf that is affected by this Suggestion Quoted , but i might as well Throw That dwarf into a Pit full of Goblins and all that shit

[GRead]

It's worth noting that retirement is a very recent concept in the history of the world. It's somewhat out of place in a medieval world, such as DF. According to the Wikipedia article on retirement, Germany was the first nation to introduce retirement in the 1880's.

I could see historical figures growing tired of an occupation and 'retiring' from it to pursue another occupation that is more in line with their interests or physical condition. I'm thinking soldiers and guards getting tired of putting their lives in danger\growing too old to fight effectively. But just up and ceasing to work after they hit a certain age? In a pre-industrial society, that sounds like a good way to become a burden on the community and starve to death.

[Cotes]

I'm pretty sure that would just create the same kind of dystopian solutions to aging population as we all use on immigration.

God help us if any DF players ever become ministers or presidents... At least anywhere that has volcanoes.

[PecosBill]

It's worth noting that retirement is a very recent concept in the history of the world. It's somewhat out of place in a medieval world, such as DF.

Yes and no.

"Retirement" in the sense that you draw social security payments, etc, is a new concept.

"Retirement" in the sense that you are just too old to meet the day to day physical requirements of the military (but you can still fight) or in the sense that your arthritis prevents you from doing your job on a regular basis isn't new.  Society has been forced to deal with age forever.  Prior to a governmental concept of retirement, you dealt with your aging grandfather by having him move in with you, because he could no longer take care of himself, there was no government program to deal with him and putting him into a pit full of goblins was out of the question (in most countries).

[NW_Kohaku]

It's worth noting that retirement is a very recent concept in the history of the world. It's somewhat out of place in a medieval world, such as DF.

Yes and no.

"Retirement" in the sense that you draw social security payments, etc, is a new concept.

"Retirement" in the sense that you are just too old to meet the day to day physical requirements of the military (but you can still fight) or in the sense that your arthritis prevents you from doing your job on a regular basis isn't new.  Society has been forced to deal with age forever.  Prior to a governmental concept of retirement, you dealt with your aging grandfather by having him move in with you, because he could no longer take care of himself, there was no government program to deal with him and putting him into a pit full of goblins was out of the question (in most countries).

Yes, even if every dwarf fort is Communist, I suspect players would start getting very Libertarian ("Those who don't work are made into Soylent Green!") if they had to start handing out disability checks and social welfare.

The problem with the historical method of handling retirees (that their family take care of them) is that most dwarves, very ahistorically, do not have families.  Most dwarves are migrants that spawn from nowhere, have no families, never get married, and die alone.  Even if there WERE retirees that had families to depend upon, it would basically just look like how children work now: they live in seperate apartments, and just use their children's bank accounts.

[loose nut]

Well, how many people have played a fort long enough for the age of their dwarves to become an issue? I know I haven't.

Anyway, I sort of have to disagree about players mercilessly culling dwarves that don't work. In a mature fort, a dwarf that doesn't show up as idle is a dwarf I ignore. It's not like I throw dwarven children in the magma to make room for immigrants either*. Though I suppose some players might do that.

*Though I am pretty tempted by the breeder crossbowdwarf I've got in a .40d fort for whom it's always "take your daughter to work day" though I guess that'll sort itself out in some siege or another someday...

[Cotes]

Anyway, I sort of have to disagree about players mercilessly culling dwarves that don't work. In a mature fort, a dwarf that doesn't show up as idle is a dwarf I ignore. It's not like I throw dwarven children in the magma to make room for immigrants either*. Though I suppose some players might do that.

Wrong.

First of all, your fort has a limit of how many dwarves it will attract based on value (or something), so you might hit a point where you get no new dwarves and the ones you have are useless, not having even adequate in the skills you would dearly need.

Secondly, why keep a number of sub-par dwarves around when can you shuffle the deck, so to speak, and possbily get a high master smith, jeweler, carpenter or mason in the next wave for which you made room by charging your suicide squads against a titan? (Worked well for me! Got pretty good medical dwarves too.)

Thirdly, most of us can't keep 200 dwarves around and have decent FPS. Much preferable to have a fewer number of elite dwarves instead.

And lastly, idling dwarves are a huge tantrum liability. They just hang around, making friends with other dwarves, adopting pets, losing their shit when pets and dwarves happen to die (in suicide squads for example).

Once you have had dozens of useless dwarves around for long enough it is almost impossible to get rid of them afterwards, because the whole fort suddenly goes into uproar because you built a few gas chambers and initiated the final solution plan. Crazy.

[FreakyCheeseMan]

Actually...

Yeah, these would only be old dwarves we'd be talking about. Dwarves who'd had time to find friends and families... if you just executed them, it could cause trouble.

[NW_Kohaku]

Actually...

Yeah, these would only be old dwarves we'd be talking about. Dwarves who'd had time to find friends and families... if you just executed them, it could cause trouble.

So make sure you wait for their families to have some really nice food at a really nice dining hall, and are all ecstatic before giving grandpa magma swimming aerobics lessons.  Problem solved.

[Cotes]

Actually...

Yeah, these would only be old dwarves we'd be talking about. Dwarves who'd had time to find friends and families... if you just executed them, it could cause trouble.

Well... You should make some uses for them though. Otherwise you can just take them out one by one (which would be pretty easy since you wouldn't have too many of old dwarves at once) and soften the melancholy blow with really cool tables.

Maybe if you could use them as teachers or something.

[FreakyCheeseMan]

I refuse to have retired dwarves until I can put them in giant, power-generating treadmills with their daily ration of booze suspended from a string five feet before their face.

[NW_Kohaku]

I also don't see a real reason to make dwarves go into retirement just so we can imitate a bad action movie plotline and make them "come out of retirement for one last mission"... especially since we already have dwarves who will literally fight until the day they die of old age (or even die on the job), like Tholtig Cryptbrain, the Waning Diamonds who had a kill count of 2341 from single-handedly holding off an elven invasion for years, and only perished due to old age.

Why should we remake the game to have a possible cheesy plotline when we already have an epic one at our fingertips?

[loose nut]

First of all, your fort has a limit of how many dwarves it will attract based on value (or something), so you might hit a point where you get no new dwarves and the ones you have are useless, not having even adequate in the skills you would dearly need.

...so...you... have them do shit until they get good at it? In a fort that's been around long enough to have a bunch of old dwarves, everyone's been around long enough to get good at something if you bother to allocate labor to them. Though in 0.31 you do get stupidly skilled immigrants so killing the weak ones is probably a (too) good strategy. But even then, such an old fort is going to be full up on dwarves.

I dunno, if dwarves retire it should be in the last few years of their lives, but dying on the workbench seems like the dwarfy way to go.