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[dwarfhoplite]

In medieval times you had to work every day to make a living.

[ayoriceball]

In medieval times you had to work every day to make a living.

Considering the fact there are Minotaurs, I don't think Dwarf Fortress is based entirely (if at all) on the European Medieval era.

Besides, that's where Holy Days come from.

[Tai_MT]

I'm just not sure, it seems like this would make the game unnecessarily difficult to play.  It's a cool concept and would flesh out the world a bit more...  I just can't see how it would be implemented in a way that wouldn't completely derail the fortress and possibly cause its destruction.

Let's break this down into two main parts.

"...make the game unnecessarily difficult to play."
Good idea, badly worded. DF is already unnecessarily difficult, it's just so in entertaining ways. Holidays? Maybe not so much.

"I just can't see how it would be implemented in a way that wouldn't completely derail the fortress and possibly cause its destruction."
Like there's ANYTHING that can't cause a fortress's destruction? And everyone seems so fond of derailing stuff here...

Well, there's "necessary difficulty" and "unnecessary difficulty".  Most of the difficulty in DF comes from inexperience with the game itself.  Only through losing enough times by Tantrum Spiral do you learn easy ways to prevent them.  Only by losing enough times due to siege, do you learn competant and easy ways to combat those.  Then you've got the flooding (magma/water) of fortresses which are engineering difficulties you learn through.

What a "Holiday" in the "unnecessary difficulty" category would do, is grind your fortress to a standstill with no way prevent or work around it.  Under siege?  TOO BAD!  Need to trade with the Dwarves?  Other problems in your Fortress rely on simply learning enough to avoid them, or enough to deal with them.  A Holiday that grinds your fortress to a standstill regardless of what is going on...  Would do neither.  It would make the game unnecessarily difficult, and I can already see the threads that would be dedicated to its removal.  Unless you somehow made them "managable" or merely "flavor text", they're quite unreasonable.

I don't mind a fortress getting destroyed because of any of the preventable reasons.  I really don't.  If I failed to do something properly.  If I messed up something.  If I got someone killed who had a lot of friends...  That's fine.  Even the occasional "bad luck" moment where a FB shows up and has JUST THE RIGHT composition to murder everyone.  That's okay because it's just "roll of the dice" and it happens.

However, if your fortress gets obliterated because the Dwarves are too busy celebrating "Jabba-Wabba-Who-Ha Jangle" Day instead of manning their posts or building the walls...  Then I have to take issue with that.  If you limited the "party-goers" to simply those with the "No Job" status, then you could mitigate this a lot.  However, if it's "fortress wide" and "no way to stop it", then it's going to absolutely destroy pretty much EVERY fortress you create that's not severely trap based.  It might even destroy early fortresses you create before you ever get up PROPER defenses.  Which would, of course, lead you to building defenses FIRST in any embark, and not even trading or doing other stuff until they were up.  Which, in turn, basically wrecks the entire point of having Sieges only show up after a certain population.

Just sayin'.  If you want Holidays...  They at least have to be MANAGABLE.  If they're not...  They can be potentially game-breakingly annoying.

[ayoriceball]

Just sayin'.  If you want Holidays...  They at least have to be MANAGABLE.  If they're not...  They can be potentially game-breakingly annoying.

Agreed. They should not be nearly as common as parties, hopefully occurring on a calender every 10 year anniversary or something like that.

Or you could completely replace parties with holidays, simply to add flavor to something very bland and almost meaningless.

[Tai_MT]

Parties are at least avoidable in that if you keep dwarves busy at all times, they never throw them.  They never make friends either, so that can prevent tantrum spirals later.

[Sulz]

I liked the idea of major and minor hollidays, in such way that the dwarves would not stop to work, but have greater breaks (8x the usual) in non vital jobs (examples of vital jobs: guards, medics, feed prisioners/wounded), and the happy thought "power" be relative to how much of the holliday rituals  that would be made in the holliday period, for example, if they dint wear the red cloth pointy hats, the would not have the full happiness effect...

[knutor]

The death of a King or Queen should produce a fixed holiday event.  Since the days of the game are not easily tracked however, I can't see this ever being reproduced accurately.  As it would only fall, in a season, to be nearly correct, ea year.  How do you propose the actual day be represented?  With a harvest season or something else?

Sincerely,
Knutor

[Starver]

I'm pretty sure that days are tracked.  Twelve months of 28 days each...

[knutor]

I'm pretty sure that days are tracked.  Twelve months of 28 days each...

Well then this is the perfect skillset for those unused skills.  I'm all for it.  Wasn't Toady asking for suggestions for what to do with them unused skills, awhile back? 

Eureka!

Sincerely,
Knutor

[Veylon]

There could be a limit of how many holidays there are in a year and/or have some be major or minor. We've got Christmas, New Years, and President's Day, but we don't celebrate them to the same extent. Maybe the smaller ones give a Happy Thought if the Dwarf is able to celebrate them and nothing if not and the larger, more important ones give Unhappy Thoughts if the Dwarf can't.

Alternatively, there could be events that are only comemorated some years. A great Dragonslaying might only really get attention once every ten years or on particularly round anniversary.

In any event, it ought be possible to cancel or postpone festivities in case of Siege or whatever. There also ought to be a way to see what holidays are coming up so that appropriate materials can be provided for the celebration.

Also, the player should be more involved and not just have holidays happen. You could look up legendary figures and create a celebration in honor of their achievements on the anniversary of when they happened. It'd be neat to have a big feast in honor of your own fort lasting ten years or drink to the memory of your last fort being obliterated.

[tilly]

I dont like this idea. I'd hate to be caught in a desperate situation where i needed 4 animals to be slaughtered at once and 4 barrels of ale on the double be inturupted by a holiday and the dwarves not get to it in time and all start starving and dieing.

[traylorpark]

I love this idea! A holiday or a cultural festival would really make the game world and history feel so much more alive (and interesting). I like the idea that these dwarves had their own personalities and culture. That's a world I want to explore.

I'm not understanding this "the fortress will be destroyed" perspective. There are many ways to do this and keep the level of desired user control.

Perhaps the Mayor or the player, could be alerted to the fact there there is an upcoming holiday/festival.
The player can then decide how much time and resources they want to put into this event, ranging from zero (and don't ask again lest you wish to be jailed) to full on fortress bonanza. There could even be priority variables as well, such as: Stop partying if we are attacked.

The game world would so much more immersive and interesting if this could be implemented.

[penguinofhonor]

Footkerchief is practically a robot now. Soon he will be fully integrated into the forum software.

I definitely like the idea of holidays, especially as they could be used to flesh out other aspects. Religious holidays, national holidays, fort-specific holidays, birthdays. Different scales, possibly conflicts. Imagine if a noble wants a craft made, but your top craftsman is celebrating one of his religion's holidays and has to delay it. That'd require some more detailed noble impatience, but I think it'd add loads of depth.

[Urist McDagger]

Footkerchief is practically a robot now. Soon he will be fully integrated into the forum software.

Aww. Come on. He's just trying to keep the forum from being cluttered and it being hard for Toady to see more than the same three suggestions. He at least deserves credit for that, yeah?

I definitely like the idea of holidays, especially as they could be used to flesh out other aspects. Religious holidays, national holidays, fort-specific holidays, birthdays. Different scales, possibly conflicts. Imagine if a noble wants a craft made, but your top craftsman is celebrating one of his religion's holidays and has to delay it. That'd require some more detailed noble impatience, but I think it'd add loads of depth.

This. This would add so much to the game. Just imagine first starting a fort and having to capture an FB to use as a sacrifice in the Festival of Shutters in three days.

[Neonivek]

Just because something is unavoidable it doesn't mean it is unnessisary.

The issue is right now is that for a game meant to "simulate" the dwarves behave a bit more closely to robots and a lot of the players actually strongly prefer it that way.

Which is fine but I thought we were trying to move towards Dwarves actually having free time, throwing huge parties, and even full blown holidays.

I mean... if you can't plan around the fact that your dwarves have lives... then you deserve to die from that siege that happens during "Dwarf Day"