Excellent!
Now just make it so that you can use reallife historical worlds (every year between [beginning of Indus civilization] and ~1500 having correct nations and characters) and you made my dream game :p
Still, non fantasy makes me a happy Dutchling 
Fakeedit: ninjad! This is a response to the UUR's earlier two posts...
An interesting idea, but I'm afraid it's not going to happen! I'm also glad to have lost the fantasy elements, I think it's stronger without. And it lets me focus on the things that really interest me for the game.
We've briefly discussed our treatment of prisoners, but what about the PC being captured? Say if you're a commander and your combat group is overwhelmed, would you be allowed to surrender and be taken captive? Will there be torture and imprisonment? If so, will treatment of a military PC be different than, say, a spy PC?
Little suggestion for this as well: Have a chance for an external prison break dependent on the PC's fame/prestige and standing within his/her nation. Maybe give an option to jump time to the end of your sentence/execution, and give an option to attempt a breakout.
As with PC torture, that one is admittedly tougher to work with. You don't quite want the interrogation to be completely stat dependent (the exception in my opinion is if it is tied to willpower). However, giving the player full control of their response to the torture would make it a bit gamey and remove the feeling of being forced to give away vital information. Perhaps combining them, allowing the player certain options depending on the current level of a certain stat, would be optimal. For example, a character receiving basic torture (possible starvation, dehydration, beatings) and having a high willpower would be able to "hold out", "give in", or "misinform", while someone receiving heavy torture (dismemberment, severe dehydration/starvation, being made fun of) or with low willpower would only be allowed to "give in".
That also brings in the idea of suicide. As we all probably know, many cultures deemed surrender a nonoption, their warriors opting to kill themselves before falling into enemy hands. Perhaps that could be an option during surrender as well.
What an interesting message! I really like a lot of those ideas. Particularly letting people be captured, tortured, etc. It would be very interesting if this was different based on the specifics of the PC/NPC, like as you say spy, military, etc. Prison breaks are in the history gen, but I hadn't yet thought them through much in gameplay terms. I would really like it if there are a lot of ways for this to happen. The jump time option makes sense, along with a lot of ways to escape. I do *not* want to make it as pointless and annoying as jail in Elder Scrolls games, for instance - I mean, given you have one life, permadeath, blah blah, you cannot reload and avoid jail (like I do in Skyrim/Oblivion), so I need to make sure a) there are a lot of outcomes, and b) not all outcomes are bad - maybe you can recruit a jailer to your side by persuading him of your cause, or escape and then you're free in the enemy castle, or that kind of thing? NPCs will definitely have a suicide option; not sure how that could work for the player character, though it would certainly give you a way out of the game rather than dying a slow and painful death...
Maybe torture could start to lower stats, otherwise there isn't a great reason to give in.
I like that idea. It would be interesting to try and balance stat loss vs information loss, as it were...
Unless we add......
MENTAL TRAUMA!
not sanity meters, sanity meters are stupid. like morality meters.
MENTAL TRAUMA!!. Hmm, maybe. No sanity/morality meters, though.
Well with heavier torture there comes the obligatory dismemberment. But yeah, I figure stat drops would also factor in depending on the type of torture. As in different stats get borked by different tortures.
I like the different stats/tortures idea; you'd also of course have potential to (maybe if you have a high unarmed combat skill?) to attempt to fight back, or escape, and maybe a possibility to try and get a message out, or find a way out of jail, etc. I think it could be a really interesting mechanic, but I'd need to make sure there were a lot of ways to escape, or try to escape, depending on the character's skills.
What are the system requirements for this game? Please don't just tell me that any old system could run it.
Any old system could run it. I mean, if you can play DF you can play this game.
I have difficulties with Dwarf Fortress if I don't edit the settings to make it so that I have at most ten dwarves to a fortress and no invaders ever. Does that mean I should steer clear of this game?
Hmm. In the future, the game will have a "slower" pace in the sense that you won't be leaving it in real-time to iterate dwarves and things; it is always turn-based, and a lot of turns will have a lot of detail, or decisions, that aren't CPU-heavy. At the moment, sprinting across open land can be a bit CPU heavy if you go particularly quickly, but I'm working on it. Either way, a modern computer won't struggle at all, but if ten dwarves is a problem, then... I really don't know, actually. If you could give it a shot, and tell me how it runs, that would actual be useful for giving me some idea of the technical requirements
Well, there are one downside - It's not ready, yet
That's a big one! 
Well, I'll definitely be following it, looks awesome.
Haha, that is one. Certainly. But thanks a lot
Oh man, this idea is damn awesome! Being able to get captured, tortured and maybe even committing suicide or being rescued. Then maybe your rescuer sacrifices himself so you can escape or something. If you commit suicide, you would play as your heir who makes an oath of revenge and do anything that damages that civilization. I could write a novel by just playing this game. I have to wait for a few years until the game reaches that kind of complexity though.
Agreed, I really like these ideas. I will 100% make sure to write jail breaks and torture and things into history generation (I hadn't been going to, but I sure as hell am now!). But yeah, years is accurate. By this summer, we should have all history generation, civilization generation, and temple/tomb/ruin/dungeon generation going, after which the next objective will likely be cities, settlements, etc. But torture, interrogation and capture are definitely now on the list!
Author
Topic: Dwarf Fortress meets The Outer Wilds? "Ultima Ratio Regum", v0.10.1 out Feb 2023 (Read 635463 times)