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[Granite26]

opportunity cost ftw

[NW_Kohaku]

Also, I dunno about the whole Maslow thing.  None of your dwarves are truly civilians, after all.  It's a small outpost, dwarves know they are risking death, they don't expect to be perfectly content.  And are you telling me that a beautiful site displaying the splendor of your civilization WON'T inspire a starving dwarf to press on in the face of adversity?  Yeah, he'll still go after food, but aesthetics is a higher ideal that men have risked their lives--and died--for.

Actually, this is something I specifically argue against.

You only have a tiny little outpost at the earliest parts of the game.  The starting seven don't have any time to complain, but then we wind up with such a wealthy fortress that the king or queen will want to move the capital to your fortress.  You're not just some rural podunk, you're the center of the kingdom by the end of the game. 

It makes all the sense in the world that the dwarves who arrive later on are more refined socialites, and that the early settlers who risked it all to get rich quick would expect their glorious capital city to have at least a few amenities.

Seriously, though, these are topics I worked hard on, if you're going to discuss the idea of whether or not they should be feasable, then use those threads, rather than derailing an economy thread on them:
Dwarven class systems and recreation for civil dwarves
Dwarven autonomy

[Waparius]

[ack, hit "quote" instead of "edit"]

[forsaken1111]

While hilarious, that's a mess that should not be repeated.  Coins should be nearly invisible to the player.  A dwarf should be able to "wear" them like clothes and not have to haul them like they're furniture.  One copper Kivish should not be any different from another.

I really think having different images minted to coins depending on the year adds a lot of character to the game. In my current fortress I mint a run of coins once per year and store them away in the vaults, it offers an interesting look at the fort's history (or the minter's deranged obsession with cheese, sometimes).

[NW_Kohaku]

While hilarious, that's a mess that should not be repeated.  Coins should be nearly invisible to the player.  A dwarf should be able to "wear" them like clothes and not have to haul them like they're furniture.  One copper Kivish should not be any different from another.

I really think having different images minted to coins depending on the year adds a lot of character to the game. In my current fortress I mint a run of coins once per year and store them away in the vaults, it offers an interesting look at the fort's history (or the minter's deranged obsession with cheese, sometimes).

I think the engravings and statues and maybe also decorations on pots and other things we can already do this with do a better job of it.  You can actually make a "museum" of engravings, and I've seen people do a cylindrical stack of rooms where they engrave one tile of the walls or floors for every day in the dwarven calendar every year.  That's a run of 336 images of that year in the fortress, rather than just a single image put on a stack of coins.

While maybe there's something slightly neat about having something minted on a coin and a year stamped on it, when it is a major cause of the entire economic system simply collapsing, it's time to think about functionality more than making additional details. 

I think I recall Toady even tacitly admitting this, saying that the detail of coins is too much, or at least, that he recognizes that a great many people were unhappy about his decision to put all that detail into them.

[Sowelu]

I think I recall Toady even tacitly admitting this, saying that the detail of coins is too much, or at least, that he recognizes that a great many people were unhappy about his decision to put all that detail into them.

Huge difference between those two things...

Oh well.  It's a thing that could really use some special-case code to handle without losing the detail.

[Granite26]

Well, most of the detail could be exported to a single pointer on the actual coin, and if you rewrite stacks to be pointer counts, that helps.  (Exported detail is everything on the coin when it's made, date manufacturer, material, etc)

The problem is contaminants...

Anyway, I'll see if I can't find Toady talking about why arrows can't stack.  It was pretty enlightening.  We were all talking about stacks and ways to do it, and he came on and explained what all was kept and we were like 'Wow'.  A lot of stuff is stored that's not at all visible.

[NW_Kohaku]

Well, most of the detail could be exported to a single pointer on the actual coin, and if you rewrite stacks to be pointer counts, that helps.  (Exported detail is everything on the coin when it's made, date manufacturer, material, etc)

The problem is contaminants...

Anyway, I'll see if I can't find Toady talking about why arrows can't stack.  It was pretty enlightening.  We were all talking about stacks and ways to do it, and he came on and explained what all was kept and we were like 'Wow'.  A lot of stuff is stored that's not at all visible.

Just think, there's a file in your save folder tracking every single minting of all the coins in the entire gameworld.  And all of them are going to come trickling through your fortress at some point.  If we have a larger dependence upon coinage, then that comes down to requiring the game to track all the expanded number of coins into one or two files that get loaded into memory every time a merchant thinks of coming to your fort.

[Granite26]

I get it, and it is a tradeoff, just one I'm ok with.

[forsaken1111]

Well, most of the detail could be exported to a single pointer on the actual coin, and if you rewrite stacks to be pointer counts, that helps.  (Exported detail is everything on the coin when it's made, date manufacturer, material, etc)

The problem is contaminants...

Anyway, I'll see if I can't find Toady talking about why arrows can't stack.  It was pretty enlightening.  We were all talking about stacks and ways to do it, and he came on and explained what all was kept and we were like 'Wow'.  A lot of stuff is stored that's not at all visible.

Just think, there's a file in your save folder tracking every single minting of all the coins in the entire gameworld.  And all of them are going to come trickling through your fortress at some point.  If we have a larger dependence upon coinage, then that comes down to requiring the game to track all the expanded number of coins into one or two files that get loaded into memory every time a merchant thinks of coming to your fort.

There is a file tracking every single decoration, engraving, contaminant and sewn image for all items in the game world too. I don't see how coins are super more harder, especially if it just pointed to their minting year for the image rather than tracking that specific coin.

[NW_Kohaku]

There is a file tracking every single decoration, engraving, contaminant and sewn image for all items in the game world too. I don't see how coins are super more harder, especially if it just pointed to their minting year for the image rather than tracking that specific coin.

You pay the price cumulatively for each of those.  Engravings need to be tracked, or else they wouldn't exist at all - the decoration is their entire existence.  There's also not all that many engraved tiles outside of your fortresses, and they don't get shipped to your fort all that often, either.  Coins could still exist without an image on them.  And again, we still have dozens of other things that still do, and don't have the serious drawbacks associated with putting these things on coins.

In fact, if we absolutely have to keep the detail, it would be nice if every single "minting" of coins would just keep using the same image as the minting before it, up until the year change at most.  Having every single stack of coins in a year have a different set of images on it is kooky.  Then, they could at least have several thousand coins all pointing to the same image and year.

[forsaken1111]

I'd be fine if each minting within the same year used the same image. In fact it would be really nice if we could choose that image.

[Granite26]

In fact, if we absolutely have to keep the detail, it would be nice if every single "minting" of coins would just keep using the same image as the minting before it, up until the year change at most.  Having every single stack of coins in a year have a different set of images on it is kooky.  Then, they could at least have several thousand coins all pointing to the same image and year.

I think you're right here.

[Unfrozen Caveman]

Also, I dunno about the whole Maslow thing.  None of your dwarves are truly civilians, after all.  It's a small outpost, dwarves know they are risking death, they don't expect to be perfectly content.  And are you telling me that a beautiful site displaying the splendor of your civilization WON'T inspire a starving dwarf to press on in the face of adversity?  Yeah, he'll still go after food, but aesthetics is a higher ideal that men have risked their lives--and died--for.

Actually, this is something I specifically argue against.

You only have a tiny little outpost at the earliest parts of the game.  The starting seven don't have any time to complain, but then we wind up with such a wealthy fortress that the king or queen will want to move the capital to your fortress.  You're not just some rural podunk, you're the center of the kingdom by the end of the game.

The game ends?  It seems that most players give up on forts long before the king shows up do to boredom, Fun, or low FPS.  You're suggestions on psychology, class, and autonomy seem geared mainly toward mid and late game.  I think it's important to make note of this. 

It makes all the sense in the world that the dwarves who arrive later on are more refined socialites, and that the early settlers who risked it all to get rich quick would expect their glorious capital city to have at least a few amenities.

Totally. 

[NW_Kohaku]

The game ends?  It seems that most players give up on forts long before the king shows up do to boredom, Fun, or low FPS.  You're suggestions on psychology, class, and autonomy seem geared mainly toward mid and late game.  I think it's important to make note of this. 

It doesn't end, but there are different stages of fortress growth. 

Early fortresses are forts in their first year or maybe two, depending on how quickly the player can get it together.  Early forts have few dwarves that have to take on multiple jobs, because you're trying to get the starting 7 to do everything the fort needs, or you only have about 20 and you haven't really gotten a military started, and you basically have a disorganized mess, trying to add in ad-hoc workrooms, storage piles, bedrooms, and generally trying to do everything at once all in a rush to get things done before the first ambushes hit. 

Late fortresses have your fort population at or near whatever you've set for a cap, and have lasted at least 4 game years.  They're pretty much in their final form, with all your major industries in their specific niches of your fortress, bedrooms for everyone, all your important construction squared away.  Late forts tend to take on vanity projects like magma cannons or megaprojects, while ambushes and even sieges are of little threat to you, so you go hunting FBs, megabeasts, and may just breach the HFS for extra Fun.

Mid forts are just in between the two.

There is no "end of the game", but there still is "late game content", of a sorts, where you can have things like the monarch come to your fortress, or you can upgrade from your mere "legendary" dining hall to a magnificent mini-megaproject dining hall with waterfalls and statue gardens and a zoo, and putting the king and queen in a solid gold palace.

The thing is, early game is hard and and represent desperate times to just fend off starvation or overwhelming military threats.  Late game is where you've hit a stable and prosperous equillibrium, and not much but FPS, HFS, or maybe a particularly nasty FB syndrome is a threat to you.  Late game content is lacking because Toady is focused primarily on the early game.  Things like Class Warfare are attempts at making the Late Game become something different, where you replace the early game frantic rushing to get your critical infrastructure in place, in the late game, you have to have some sort of other internal troubles or pressures to distract the player, and give them something to do between FB attacks.