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[catoblepas]

Craftdwarfs like to create decorations according to their own likes. I propose that when dwarves are assigned to decorate or engrave a tomb, dining area, throne room, etc. They draw from the likes of the owner of the room, not from their own preferences. In this way, it would be more like a commission, and make more sense then having a dwarf repeatedly engrave pictures of his cat or something unrelated to the interests of their employer.

Another way that room personalization could be improved is if placed items such as chairs and beds were in some way were capable of being replaced according to the whims of their owners. An option would be available when selecting appropriate furniture to 'use any available' instead of +oak chair+. In a public area, dwarves would just grab the nearest applicable piece of furniture, when in a private area, the resident would be able to replace the furniture at will with any other available piece according to his preferences and/or monetary funds (when the economy is back). The dwarf would claim the new item, go to the the spot of the current furniture and deconstruct it. Instead of the icon disappearing, it will revert to the 'under construction' state. the previous object is no longer owned by him, but he is free to put any applicable owned items into use in reconstructing that furniture.

After the object is placed or designated, it can be turned on or off as customizable by a toggle, similar to how fertilizer has a yes/no function. This can be helpful if you don't want your dwarves taking all of your good chairs to decorate their rooms. Along with the deconstruct command and the toggle, a new command 'change materials' would be available allowing the player to change which objects are used in the construction of furniture without removing them entirely and possible having to re-designate. Objects marked as 'use any available' will not be randomly replaced by dwarves if they are in a public area, only private owners may do that.

When the economy returns, dwarves might buy furniture on commission (or have it decorated on commission) to replace their older furniture, which would further increase the personalization of each individual dwarf's home.

I thin this would be a good way to show the individuality of dwarves, as many dwarves (such as those in the military) may never develop craft skills, and will never have their personality really show through with the objects they own or their lodgings, while skilled engravers often get to carve their personality onto every square surface of a fortress (even where it would not be appropriate) What do you think?

Here is an old topic that is somewhat related:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=3281.msg51443#msg51443

[knutor]

I like this suggestion.  I wonder if it would be too easy to make a craft station build things based on the material it's block was picked from.  Marble block, so crafts from that station are always marble, if the receptacle was set to it.  Or at least, the option to set up that parameter.  Choosing from all possible rocks, would be unnecessarily tedious.  Just about 33% of all possible are present on any given embark.  The extra 66% to sort through would be cruel and unusual gamer punishment.  Yes it would require rebuilding lots of craft stations.  And blocks.  That's fun tho, and sometimes new strategy requires a rebuild.

I like personalized bedrooms.  As for other rooms, I'm not sure.  It can get tiresome just keeping the nobles satisfied.  I know I'd like to setup a Garrison, as I'm not quite sure what belongs in a Barracks.  I know what belongs in one in RL.  But here in DF its all a lil vague, too many items refer to Barracks' creation.  I imagine as more games are played and more players provide feedback a better overall balance and flow will be achieved.  But I just don't know now if I like the way of the Danger Room design.

Until the economy goes in, I have really no suggestions for individual dwarf claims.  I dislike how the game handles stuff as it is now.  There is more clutter in my meeting area than I care to see.  And I never know if when I'm assigning a soldier a specific weapon, if I'm not taking it right out of the hands of another soldier. 

Not sure how potash settings in farms can be related to an object assigned room.  Farms are painted, not assigned off an item's menu, I can't see how that would work.  That might be my inexperience holding me back.  I'm still very new here.

Sincerely,
Knutor

[catoblepas]

Well, the idea is that the dwarves themselves would go and take care of the furnishings themselves, you just place the requisite number of buildings in their rooms, and toggle on 'use any item' and they will furnish it according to their likes with appropriate items. This should actually make it easier on the player-the player only has to designate a table, chair etc once, and then dwarves will upgrade their rooms themselves as opportunity presents itself. (or downgrade their furniture, if the economy is active and they need the dwarfbucks) perhaps desperate dwarves would have to pawn off their furniture altogether. I think that something like this is the sort of thing that is sorely missing from the economy (when we had one) dwarves need things to spend their money on. This would also hope alleviate the tedious process of removing and replacing furniture in order to upgrade rooms, as you could give the dwarves themselves the opportunity to do it themselves. in the absence of an economy, it might be good to have some toggle on item screens for 'restrict' (dwarves cannot claim item, functions normally otherwise, unlike forbid) and 'gift' (if you want to make sure a dwarf has an item).

The other part of the suggestion would be practically invisible from a interface perspective- you would still designate rooms for engraving (or painting, mosaics, or whatever other forms of decoration might arise in the future) the only thing that would change is that in a situation where a dwarven engraver likes chickens, and a noble likes swords, you would see the engraver carve images of swords instead of chickens in the rooms you gave to the noble.

[Kurouma]

I really do like this idea, congrats on some original thinking. If something like this were in the game, a lot of the 'feel' of the economy in a large fortress would emerge naturally.

I'd also like to add the suggestion that this gives motivation to nobles' mandates - they command the production of items they actually want in their rooms, or maybe a new mandate type banning anyone else from owning items of a particular material: if dwarves own something of this type, they have to buy new ones at their own cost or risk punishment.

[knutor]

That's a good suggestion too, it would keep the micro economy from stalling out.  If that were the way of it, I'd hope the Depot would get some automation to it.  Making that 'Anyone can trade' mean what I first thought it meant.. No player involvement, any dwarf can just visit it and trade on his own, without a gamer clicking t or o, or <ENTER>.  When I first read that depot, I thought that was how it was, and that, that was where my broker noble lived 24/7.  Here I was under the impression it was more of a shop.  HA!  It really pays to replay this game, my first time through it was a huge disaster, I'm too embarrassed to even describe.  But to stay on topic.  Anything that keeps the wheels turning in the AI and dwarfs from standing around in a 'No Job' state, I'm in favor of.

Sincerely, Knutor

[Kurouma]

Hah, don't be embarrassed, we've all been there. My first few fotresses I didn't even know that you could change dwarves' labour preferences; I thought you just had to go with whatever they were when they immigrated. I got so frustrated, couldn't work out why they weren't smelting/crafting/whatever. Anyway, yes, you're perfectly correct in mentioning the independent depot trade...it was in my mind too. Both of these ideas belong to the larger umbrella idea of the dwarven economy. It's important that there be ways to flesh out dwarves' independent identities within the larger fortress so that we actually do get some source of economic dynamic. Supply and demand drives markets, and a dwarf's room is where they keep all their loot. I'd say this idea is pretty much fully formed as it stands.

[andy_t_roo]

I like this suggestion, and think that the personalization touch this would add to dwarves' rooms would help differentiate one room from another. As I think that the engraving side of this would also not be hard to implement (on engrave, search for a room overlapping the square, if you find an owner swap engrave based on the preferences of that dwarf.) 

I have changed my eternal suggestions thread vote to cover this one (from better haulage; as implementation of that would require a dwarf to be able to action multiple transport jobs at once; a major update)

[astaldaran]

This is a great suggestion--

Example of this:

1) player pushes B (build) and then B for bed..and the first selection (before all the particular types of bed) is Generic (shortcut G)..so you place that in a room and it is instantly built and
2) you can create a bedroom from it immediately. The bedroom is linked to the Generic bed place holder..and not the actual bed. 
3) The dwarf who claims the bedroom (or is assigned it) can choose any unbuilt bed to put in his room based on his preferences. Later on (maybe once a year or something) he might re-evaluated his preference and decide to unbuild it (so another dwarf can claim it) and replace it with a different bed.

so essentially if an object is built then no other dwarf will claim it but if it is not built then any dwarf can claim it in order to fill their "generic buildings"

I think this is doable--but they shouldn't constantly be checking their preferences which would cause unnecessary lag --so maybe just once a year or at most everytime they sleep in it.

[RabidAnubis]

There could be more than one economical system when it comes to making dwarf rooms, but this one seems to be pretty well done.

[Waparius]

The other part of the suggestion would be practically invisible from a interface perspective- you would still designate rooms for engraving (or painting, mosaics, or whatever other forms of decoration might arise in the future) the only thing that would change is that in a situation where a dwarven engraver likes chickens, and a noble likes swords, you would see the engraver carve images of swords instead of chickens in the rooms you gave to the noble.

Unless you get a freethinking, narcissistic engraver who'll put his chickens anywhere he wants, nobles be damned, because he's an artist.

[Deimos56]

The other part of the suggestion would be practically invisible from a interface perspective- you would still designate rooms for engraving (or painting, mosaics, or whatever other forms of decoration might arise in the future) the only thing that would change is that in a situation where a dwarven engraver likes chickens, and a noble likes swords, you would see the engraver carve images of swords instead of chickens in the rooms you gave to the noble.

Unless you get a freethinking, narcissistic engraver who'll put his chickens anywhere he wants, nobles be damned, because he's an artist.

I'm willing to bet this would be tied to a personality trait. The ones related to independence and respect for authority in particular.

[knutor]

I've never played with the old economy type that was in older versions of DF. 

Did the Nobles, or leaders ever request Treasure Rooms?  Seems very odd that this request isn't made, it certainly would go a long way into explaining the quality filters in the stockpile options.  But I imagine a Treasure Room would mainly hold coins and large gems.  That is one room, I am very surprised isn't a designated option of a coffer or chest.

Glad to hear it.  I sometimes don't have many interaction with other gamers, being old like I am and enjoying gaming, not many folks here in the home, appreciate them.  So it pleases me a lot to hear others struggled at learning too.  Its almost as if this game was translated into English from another language.  Just look at how many menu choices represent Floodgate, x, l, f.  If only it had a bit more abbreviation consistency it would be less confusing and more like Physics for the Arts Majors.

Sincerely,
Knutor

[Veylon]

This sounds like a great idea. There ought be a lot of commission work and internal trade in large fortresses. It'd give the idle something to do besides mill around, if nothing else.

I've never played with the old economy type that was in older versions of DF.

Basically, there was a Store building. A dwarf would claim the store, grab a bunch of stuff from the stockpile and try to sell it, usually without success.

Dwarves would get paid every time they finished a job and would use the pay to rent rooms. Fancier rooms cost more. What often happened, though, was that you'd have hordes of homeless dwarves who couldn't afford a place sleeping in the hallways outside fabulous gold-plated rooms that were empty because no one could afford them. Supply and demand simply didn't exist. Then there was the issue where dwarves got stacks of coins from the stockpiles and broke them up into individual coins and then left them anywhere and everywhere.

[GreatWyrmGold]

You need to be able to select items that can be claimed. Otherwise, you'll have dwarves claiming the +<<*gold thrones*>>+ and stuff set aside for nobles and important dwarves.

[coolio678]

this idea is a little out there, but maybe there could be a way to allow dwarves to decorate their own rooms. Say you set up a bed, and you could then set the size of the room, and have options like
allow claim:C
free decorate:D

allow claim would allow a any dwarf who doesn't own a room to claim it.  Free decorate would let a dwarf grab any furniture (you can set a materail/ value cap on it, most likely) and urist mclandlord will happily go off to decorate his room with all the nice chairs, cabinets, socks, chests, and engravings of his choice. urist will place chair next to tables if they have one, and cabinets next to walls. Also, if an engraver isn't busy, they could assign urist mcchisel to carve the nicest images of the previous militia captain getting slaughtered by goblins. If the dwarf dies, or you personally evict him, the engraver will smooth out all the walls again, and everyone will haul back the furniture, minus the bed.

It''s probably difficult to program, but it could be kind of nice to see dwarves arranging their furniture how they like, using their favorite materials.