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[Gloster]

This idea came to me during a discussion on books and their purpose.

One unrealistic thing that has begun to bother me is the ability of a noob dabbling armorsmith to eventually learn to make masterwork adamantine armor all by himself.
I think certain products and technologies should require knowledge unattainable by a single dwarf within a few years of trial and error. IRL technological advances in glassworking and metalworking (and many other relevant fields) took hundreds of years and incremental improvements by many individual masters, each adding a little bit of his own genius to the total sum of (dwarven) progress. So:

The model - The current production options, ranging from basic rock mugs to steel masterwork crossbows, represent the total technological knowledge of the dwarven civilization at the time. But this doesn't mean a freshly dug-out hole with seven dwarfs should be able to immediately construct everything, constrained only by materials. (e.g. computers are within the technological compass of our civilization, but I couldn't build a measly microchip, no matter how much silicone, gold and germanium you throw at me, and how long you let me dabble with it.) The construction of certain quality level goods and even some categories of goods (steel? making good, weapon grade steel is hard; adamantine? how does one work with that at all?) should require knowledge not accessible to uneducated workers, knowledge you would have to get from the outside. A dabbling worker should be able to get so far on his own, becoming, say, proficient, making average products after some training. But to achieve higher levels, he needs to learn things which it took generations to discover.

How is this done? - Skilled craftsmen posses this knowledge, record it in books and are able to teach it to others. You can try to attract them to you fortress by providing luxurious accommodation, great food, booze etc. You can buy books and manuals. Your own dwarfs can discover some things on their own through moods (moods shouldn't make instant legends, but rather move the total level of knowledge in you fort a little further).

What does this accomplish, how does it help the game? -  It adds realism, makes individual dwarfs more valuable, but mainly - it gives you goals to achieve further down the road. The system should not make the early game any more difficult then it is now - mediocre craftsmen make mediocre products for basic use in an early fort. But it makes all the advanced stuff more challenging and more rewarding once you get there.
You want to have a golden royal dining room now? Stick a dwarf in a forge with enough copper and he'll give you top quality golden furniture in two years, tops. But where do you go from there? The knowledge system could force you to get and maintain a well running fortress if you wish to construct some really epic stuff. The legendary throne room with masterful platinum statues is really valuable and rewarding if you get it after many years of improving living standards, collecting tomes of knowledge and luring in masters of the craft. If you get it in year 2, because your adequate metalcrafter happened to get a mood - not so much.

(This would be merely one aspect of a system based on material scarcity, complex farming, immigration and emigration etc., but I think it could play an important part in making the late game more challenging and meaningful.)

[Kogut]

"record it in books" I am not sure, AFAIK in medieval times this type of knowledge was kept in guilds etc. Books were too valuable to use it to record new method of tanning or similar thing.

[NW_Kohaku]

Yeah, this is the sort of thing Andeerz likes to get excited about...

Anyway, guilds were sort of part labor union, part corporation, part education and training force, and also part protection racket.

The mason guilds, for example, would jealously guard their knowledge of architecture and engineering so that if someone wanted to hire masons, they would have to come to the guild, and pay guild wages for the job.  If they controlled the information, and nobody could get masons except from the mason guild, then they could negotiate prices, and get themselves better wages. 

Reintroducing guilds into the game, as your fortress becomes more known for a certain thing would probably be more interesting to the player (as guilds set up shop as politically powerful portions of your own fortress) than simply having a few books perform the same function.

[Gloster]

There weren't all that many adamantine swords, magma smelters and goblin sieges in medieval times either, so I don't really thinks it's so relevant. It's clearly technologically possible and since dwarven societies are essentially organized around industry (as opposed to religion IRL medieval times), there is no reason they wouldn't devote this rare resource to spreading technological knowledge instead of copying bibles and histories of saints.

On the other hand guilds - why not? Having to haggle with guilds over the highest craft secrets seems like a pretty good idea.

[noodle0117]

Alternatively, they should also be able to learn how to make high-boots which my fort dwarves have forgotten how to do for some reason.

[Gloster]

Reintroducing guilds into the game, as your fortress becomes more known for a certain thing would probably be more interesting to the player (as guilds set up shop as politically powerful portions of your own fortress) than simply having a few books perform the same function.

I don't think it's mutually exclusive. You could get some basic info from books and require guilds later, for higher levels. All in accord with the "more complexity and options further down the road" philosophy.

Other then that, what do you think about the general idea, Kohaku?

[NW_Kohaku]

Reintroducing guilds into the game, as your fortress becomes more known for a certain thing would probably be more interesting to the player (as guilds set up shop as politically powerful portions of your own fortress) than simply having a few books perform the same function.

I don't think it's mutually exclusive. You could get some basic info from books and require guilds later, for higher levels. All in accord with the "more complexity and options further down the road" philosophy.

Other then that, what do you think about the general idea, Kohaku?

I would think that guilds wouldn't want those books getting out of their own hands. 

Maybe having unsanctioned books would anger the guild, which would have its own diplomacy functions to contend with. 

In the old 2d version, guilds would set up shop in your fortress, but only about 5 would actually come, no matter how large your fortress was, and you needed at least 3 or 4 of a given labor to have a guild show up. 

If we had only one carpenter, for example, we might need some sort of intermediate step, like having a guild rep occasionally come by the tavern if you have one, and being willing to give a temporary tutoring or allowing the temporary borrowing of a sanctioned guild book.


This also gets tied up with the whole notion of skill levels, and what they mean, though.

If I was capped at rank 10 masons, and only very rarely got masterpiece floodgates, I wouldn't really care very much.

Realistically, I would want a craftsman who doesn't mood to eventually learn to be a little bit better over a much longer period of time (like a year a rank) depending on if they have something like a "strives for excellence" or "open-minded about new ideas" trait or something, as well.

I've also had some of these same arguments that became very heated in the past about how, to a certain extent, just making a working drawbridge triggered by a properly-calibrated pressure plate is a much greater feat that requires all the engineering knowledge you will need on the subject.  Higher skill simply results in making a "higher quality" version of the same working machinery. 

To an extent, skills as they stand more represent the sort of refinement that comes from a steady hand and training (a dabbling mason still makes a table, it's just that the legendary mason makes a much prettier table with smoother edges and design flourishes) than it repesents the actual acquisition of knowledge of how to build an object at all.

Going into the whole argument of having certain items we can't build until we see a book on the subject, or import a specific kind of machinery or something is generally something that creates a lot of strife and little consensus.

[IT 000]

I've also had some of these same arguments that became very heated in the past about how, to a certain extent, just making a working drawbridge triggered by a properly-calibrated pressure plate is a much greater feat that requires all the engineering knowledge you will need on the subject.  Higher skill simply results in making a "higher quality" version of the same working machinery. 

Completely off topic, but higher quality mechanics/engineer should reduce the delay between opening and closing.

----

Back on topic, in the 1400's most people were illiterate, but I do agree with your logic. Perhaps we can get an 'apprentice' system going early on, we could assign people to be apprentices to higher level dwarves. Later, once classrooms and stuff are in, we could teach our dwarves how to read and write then we can make books. Books would then be written by experienced dwarves and stored in the library zone, much like a hospital. During breaks, a dwarf could go and read a book on his current professions. If he is the most experienced (or one of the x most experienced) dwarves he will chose to write his own book if he hasn't already.

Each would have it's own advantages and disadvantages. The apprentice system would be quick to set up, however you can only have one apprentice per master. Books could teach more people quicker, but you will need to have dwarves learn to read and write books first.

The seven starting dwarves should all be literate. After that incoming dwarves (who are not doctors or nobles) are illiterate. Occasionally, a person in a tavern will show up and may offer to teach your dwarves how to read/write for a price if all your literate dwarves get killed off.

Of course dwarves who go into a fey mood could also write a book, it could be anything. A history of the fortress, a book about the dwarf's religion, heck a book on Granite or some untested !!SCIENCE!!. Any dwarf will read these books during their break and receive a happy thought.