Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Shinziril]

I remember something from a community fortress where the invading goblin army had cave crawler mounts that had been tamed by the leader.  Once they captured the leader the mounts stopped appearing.  So they're used for that, at least. 

[Footkerchief]

Which situations in adventure/dwarf mode are (currently) pulling from real populations, and which ones are just spawning random creatures of the associated type of the given civ?  Meaning that they are either a historical figure, or they represent some actual member of the parent civ's actual current population of creatures. 

Ones that are potentially up in the air are:

• diplomats (dwarf mode)
• traders (dwarf mode)
• guards (adventure mode)
• bandits  (adventure mode)

Diplomats are historical, and I'm pretty sure that bandits (or at least bandit leaders) are too.  I think you can find bandits in Legends even if you've never encountered them in Adv Mode.  Traders and guards are spawned.

Do the creatures that historical figures tame get used anywhere?

As mentioned above, they're used in attacks on your fortress:

Getak Twigracks was a human warlord ruling the town of Spoongrizzle. After four peaceful years, he decided to make a journey to a nearby mountain range called the Belted Tooth, and in the manner of the legendary stories, he managed to tame the giant eagles that lived there. Eight years later, he traveled west, befriending the jaguars that lived in the hills there and bringing some back for his personal menagerie. Many more years drifted by, and the aging warrior thought perhaps he would be able to live out the end of his life in harmony with his many beasts. However, this was not to be -- because I forced a human assault on my fortress with a debug command. Several squads of foot soldiers came, as well as a group of trained jaguars running along with them. Getak was escorted by his personal guard, all riding giant eagles. The seven dwarves milling around by the wagon put up a modest defense.

The elves still have a great advantage in the use of beasts, but there can be a bit of variety now. As in fortress mode, the historical dwarves can now take advantage of certain underground beasts (not that you fight dwarves yet), and the goblins should have a greater variety available as well.

[Cruxador]

It should be nice if the dungeons under the castle would have some prisoners for you to free.

And public hangings on the market.

Hopefully that sort of thing will come in when we get the revamped party code.

Will there be an active way in which we can engage in diplomacy, something like sending out envoys akin to the ones you receive.

Unless I'm mistaken, that's intended to be part of Army Arc, which will come after the current Caravan Arc. We're probably looking at a year or two for completion of Caravan Arc (though if Toady keeps adding tons of stuff to releases, could be really long). We don't know when during Army Arc that particular feature will be added.

[Dareon Clearwater]

With thieves down in the sewers, is there any consideration being given to literally underground black markets?

It would be a little bit boring to go down and find a market stall in a sewer room with a few prickle berries and a rope reed amulet at the same prices as on the surface, but if the civilization had some material taboos in place that prevented legal sales of certain things (Gnomeblight or whip wine, for instance), that would be flavorful even if the prices weren't any different from what they are in the next civ over, which sells gnomeblight and whip wine like it ain't no thang.  Actual supply and demand making higher prices for black market whip wine in The Purple Shafts would make it worthwhile to play a smuggler hauling barrels from The Brazen Balls.

[Jiri Petru]

Now this might be an interesting question...

How are prices determined?

I mean in the new economy, of course.

EDIT: Or is there no new economy yet? I might have lost track of it.

[piecewise]

this is not a suggestions thread, those are not even remotely concealed.

First one and second one, yeah, more suggestion then anything, though I actually assumed that something like them might be in the later versions (considering they're in most other text games). The third one isn't a suggestion at all, at least I can't see where the suggestion is.

[Neonivek]

Sometimes it is impossible to ask a question without it also being a suggestion.

Besides I've seen actually suggestions asked.

[G-Flex]

Now this might be an interesting question...

How are prices determined?

I mean in the new economy, of course.

EDIT: Or is there no new economy yet? I might have lost track of it.

I don't know when this is actually happening, but I remember a while back, asking Toady about materials whose real-life value is determined by things DF doesn't really simulate or care about yet (such as being pretty, or not corroding, both being examples that apply to gold), and he mentioned that for a while we'll probably have to deal with deflated values for materials like that. Aside from that, I don't remember anything, and I really have no idea how the game would accurately gauge the value of something, since it's all very context-dependent. Some materials are more valuable because they're light, for instance, or some because they're heavy, depending on what you're using them for.

[Roflcopter5000]

So, I'm betting this is going to end up getting answered by Footkerchief, but:

Will the caravan arc include changes that allow fortress mode players to dispatch their own trade caravans to certain regions?

And as a sub question, if so this would set precedent for persistent entities leaving your fort and doing things that effect the world, which would be pretty necessary for the army arc, so would I be correct in assuming that if this is the case, it would get thrown in somewhere around the end of the caravan development arc?

Also:
At what level of abstraction will the relative value adjustments of trade goods applied?

IE: Is the supply/demand of goods handled by settlement, by individual merchant, by general region, etc.

[Neonivek]

Toady now that gods are real (somewhat), how exactly can anyone even pretend to be one? How do they stop the ire of the gods? What are your thoughts on this?

Thought of using this for the Fortress talks... but It wouldn't be answered for sure.

Also guys right now do people who pretend to be gods take on their name? is your look command psychic for that?

[Kay12]

Now, what would be interesting is if a person's deeds carried over, sort of like a war crimes thing. Elves somehow capture a human city, devour them all because they cut down a tree.

I fixed your post to make sure it accurately portrays the elven ethics.

[Dsarker]

They only do that if they kill them themselves.

[Kay12]

Shouldn't be a problem, consider that many humans wear/use something made out of wood or clear glass.

[Vherid]

Now I'm sure guilds will come back eventually or so, but are there ever plans for maybe not just between guilds, but "groups" of people rather to have strife. I just watched gangs of new york again, so that is flavoring my ideas but I'm sure it would make sense for there to be fights over groups of people for whichever reason or even civil war type of deals. Or how about give people some motives to take out those nobles who are just dicks. Look at the gem cutter whos life trade and skill is useless once it's all mandated. I'd imagine he'd have a few words with that noble with his gem cutting tools. But then you have a whole gem cutting industry. Couple people maybe 5-10. Where on the other hand that noble is just doing everything for the wood crafting industry. You have this group of gem cutters quite angry at the noble, and anger with jealousy of the lumberjacks. So now you have this brawl or even lynching(Which I'm sure would be done by hammering for dwarves) occurring, and then you have a lot of FUN.

So really, will we be seeing more advanced social interactions in the future, such as ones that could potentially seperate people into groups and cause strife or even civil war.

[Caldfir]

Toady now that gods are real (somewhat), how exactly can anyone even pretend to be one? How do they stop the ire of the gods? What are your thoughts on this?
Thought of using this for the Fortress talks... but It wouldn't be answered for sure.
Also guys right now do people who pretend to be gods take on their name? is your look command psychic for that?

Right now, as I understand it, creatures with the [POWER] tag will try to take over civilizations.  Right now that's just worldgen demons in vanilla, and I don't think they really give a flip about angering the gods (on account of being demons).  The impersonation is based on spheres, so you can sometimes get impersonators that look like the gods they are supposed to be, but this is not always the case by a long shot. 

If you read the worldgen text carefully, you will note that creatures pretend to be a "manifestation" of a god, so not looking like them is fine.  For example: Zeus was most often portrayed as a human, but he manifested in many greek myths as any number of different animals, so pretending to be a manifestation of a god is actually pretty easy, as long as you don't clash with the overall principles the god represents. 

As a fun related aside, I once modded in lionmen, and gave them a savage civilization with some sphere preferences I thought would fit nicely.  I also gave dragons [INTELLIGENT] and [POWER], without really thinking much of it.  Sure enough, dragons reliably took control of lionman civs.  This kind of makes sense, since if I saw a dragon and it told me it was "the god of fire and strength," I think I would tend to believe it.