Bay 12 Games Forum
Dwarf Fortress => DF Suggestions => Topic started by: Gumbiss on October 22, 2015, 06:45:40 pm
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I think being able to construct and send out trading caravans to trade with other civilizations would be a helpful and interesting new mechanic to the game. It would add more of a sense of presence in the world and make events outside the fortress much more important, as well as adding a large new level of commerce.
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Amazing idea. Sounds like it might be hard to program in though.
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Amazing idea. Sounds like it might be hard to program in though.
Umm... not really? What sounds hard about it?
At its most basic, it's nothing more than a mechantless trade with delayed payment. Wagons can be rented from off-site if need be.
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This makes perfect sense - they send caravans to us why not us sending them out to other cities and Fortresses? We can sell them our fine goods or try to see if they will take all the junk we get from corpses or the local dump. Win/win! 8)
Of course, caravans would have some overhead - so maybe that would keep people more honest. You would want to make enough to cover the cost and still make a profit. Darn, I just shot down my own idea of selling the Elves used clothing. :'(
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Seems like a simple enough thing to implement once the rest of the planned caravan infrastructure is in place. What's the advantage of making your own caravan? And who (historically) owns caravans anyway?
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This makes perfect sense - they send caravans to us why not us sending them out to other cities and Fortresses? We can sell them our fine goods or try to see if they will take all the junk we get from corpses or the local dump. Win/win! 8)
Of course, caravans would have some overhead - so maybe that would keep people more honest. You would want to make enough to cover the cost and still make a profit. Darn, I just shot down my own idea of selling the Elves used clothing. :'(
At the moment outside of fortress mode the minor sites trade with the major sites and the major sites all trade with eachother. I would gage that the former is to be dealt with in the starting scenarios release while the latter is to be dealt with in the caravan/trader arc. In that sense we would be sending caravans out to other major settlements and they would be sending caravans to us; as opposed to us trading only with the civilization as a whole (though there is a reason to have a special civilization caravan as well).
Seems like a simple enough thing to implement once the rest of the planned caravan infrastructure is in place. What's the advantage of making your own caravan? And who (historically) owns caravans anyway?
The advantage is that you get the profit rather than the other guy. :)
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Seems like a simple enough thing to implement once the rest of the planned caravan infrastructure is in place. What's the advantage of making your own caravan? And who (historically) owns caravans anyway?
This is a good question.
I'd rather see an actual economic simulation there. If you for instance have been selling lots of rock instruments to the humans, a closeby hamlet of musicians would like a steady supply of instruments. So you basically say yes to this, and the queue starts telling your dwarves to make instruments until they fulfill them. The more caravans you'd have, the more bookkeepers and merchant you would need, and needless to say for the time of their trail, they are not there to work, and also they are unprotected unless you assigned guards.
Sending out caravans could become a very expensive thing to do, only viable in working fortresses of 140+ dwarves I suppose.
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I'm fairly certain that this has been suggested several times before and is planned.
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If you become the Mountainhome, you could send out caravans to help out other dwarven regions and make a little profit.
And if you send out 7 dwarves to start a new fortress somewhere, you should have to send them a caravan for help. Not mandatory, just to improve their chances.
But for trading, this doesn't make much sense to me. Why not just trade with the people who come and go anyway?
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If you become the Mountainhome, you could send out caravans to help out other dwarven regions and make a little profit.
And if you send out 7 dwarves to start a new fortress somewhere, you should have to send them a caravan for help. Not mandatory, just to improve their chances.
But for trading, this doesn't make much sense to me. Why not just trade with the people who come and go anyway?
I guess the only reason would be that if you trade with the other people, the other people get the profits from the trading while if you do the trading yourself then the profits of the trading are yours.
However, so are the costs. The costs however are relative, if you have an oversupply of what a caravan needs then it does you more good to turn it into a caravan than it does to have it lying about the place. If what a caravan needs are scarce however, it will never make sense to make a caravan at all.
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What I mean is the fortress produces goods. People come to the fortress to sell stuff from other lands and to buy stuff from the fortress. Why should the fortress itself send out caravans or, in other words, become yet another trader?
We need to be careful not to start the whole capitalism vs communism thing again here.
But essentially the "state" usually only needs to invest in trade when it comes to creating new routes or something, such as building a harbour and boats and sending them out to discover america.
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What I mean is the fortress produces goods. People come to the fortress to sell stuff from other lands and to buy stuff from the fortress. Why should the fortress itself send out caravans or, in other words, become yet another trader?
We need to be careful not to start the whole capitalism vs communism thing again here.
But essentially the "state" usually only needs to invest in trade when it comes to creating new routes or something, such as building a harbour and boats and sending them out to discover america.
Let us assume that the socio-economic Status Quo which shall remain nameless is in place in order to avoid any such 'thing' from happening. :)
Fortress A produces a caravan which it then sends to Fortress B to trade copper for cloth. Fortress A wants cloth and produces copper, Fortress B wants copper and produces cloth, which Fortress A wants. The fact that the two fortresses produce what the other wants means that there is a potential trade route between the two, the question here is why did Fortress A not simply wait for Fortress B to send a caravan to it?
The answer I think is what is called 'First Movers Advantage', once Fortress A has sent a caravan to Fortress B the profits of the caravan trading with Fortress B go to Fortress A and not merely the cloth from Fortress B; it can therefore get more cloth in return for it's copper basically. However once it has 'moved', Fortress B is unable to recipricate by sending a caravan of it's own to Fortress A because the result is a direct competition between the two caravans. The act of creating the second competing caravan is Mutually-assured Destruction for both parties, since once there are two caravans both settlements can force eachothers caravans to trade at a loss, since if they do not get what they want from the caravan that visited their fortress their own caravan can buy it from the other fortress anyway. Complicated isn't it? ;)
Thing is that in order to make economic sense a caravan must make a profit, that is because the resources and labour used by the caravan would otherwise be employed elsewhere by the fortress whose caravan it is. The end result of the situation above mentioned, where both settlements send a caravan to eachother is that both settlements end up paying the cost of a caravan and neither settlement can make a profit to cover that cost. This means that what drives the creation of caravans (or trading ships or river barges for that matter) is a race to 'own' as much of the trade as possible along a particular route because once you own the trade route between two settlements, then nobody can compete with you along the exact same route without the result being thedestruction of both you and them.
A settlement is thus willing to undergo the initial cost of creating a caravan as opposed to waiting for it's neighbor to do so because whoever moves first gets to 'own' the route forever, not in the legal sense but because anybody who invests in setting up a rival along the exact same route stands to ruin themselves. This means that their is a scramble to snap up as many profitable trade routes as possible, a scramble that could easily result in war; you pay the expense of setting up your caravans in order to grab trading 'territory' rather than allow others to take that 'territory'.
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How about this? A new fortress is created and people that wander nearby stay at their inn and carry news all around of the stuff they produce. Traders take note of this and stop there on their travels to buy such things and sell others that the fortress might need. Where's the need for a caravan in any of this?
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How about this? A new fortress is created and people that wander nearby stay at their inn and carry news all around of the stuff they produce. Traders take note of this and stop there on their travels to buy such things and sell others that the fortress might need. Where's the need for a caravan in any of this?
The caravan *is* the means the traders use to transport the goods safely and efficiently. It does however involve things (wagons and guards specifically) that random individuals operating in an adventure mode type setup do not simply have access too. These things have to be provided by an outside source, aka a fortress has to create a caravan at a fortress mode scale, it does not magically come into existance.
The interesting issue however is that if the goods are light enough then individuals can simply carry them in their backpacks. They are however a crucial element in the initial situation, it how the information about supply and demand gets about prior to any caravan being created. The caravan has the advantage however over those individuals because it is more secure from attacks by small numbers of bandits and can carry a greater bulk of goods. Once caravans exist they render the lifestyle of the small peddler nonviable, because the caravan meets the site's total demands for the items they have on them in bulk prior to their arrival so that they have nothing to offer.
Basically a single individual peddler can only meet a small amount of the total demand. A caravan however can meet the whole demand for the year in one go so the peddlers are not able to reliably sell their goods at a price that covers their costs. Peddlers then are sort of pioneer traders that come first and lay down the ground for the caravan that then ruins them; they will quickly prop up in the cracks whenever caravans are unable to service a settlement with something.
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This'd be so cool!
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Maybe you could also send people to other civilizations to put requests in for what you want their trade caravans to bring to your fortress, like you can with the dwarves.
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Or maybe when boats are added you can make a trading boat that you could send to civilizations also built along that river.
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Maybe you could also send people to other civilizations to put requests in for what you want their trade caravans to bring to your fortress, like you can with the dwarves.
That already exists in that the outpost liason will ask you what your fortress demands from the caravan next year.
Or maybe when boats are added you can make a trading boat that you could send to civilizations also built along that river.
The same basic system that works for caravans would work for boats. I cannot wait for boats to be added into the game, as without boats the world is kind of not really one world but a series of one-island worlds.
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Maybe you could also send people to other civilizations to put requests in for what you want their trade caravans to bring to your fortress, like you can with the dwarves.
That already exists in that the outpost liason will ask you what your fortress demands from the caravan next year.
Only for your own civ. You can't ask the elves for whatever giant animals you'd actually want.
It would also be good to be able to surpass the item request limit (5) by sending out multiple caravans and passing through multiple sites. Buying out a caravan's entire metal item supply to melt down is silly (and I imagine a dwarven trader would be deeply offended if they knew your intent for their crafts.)
We should be able to order our caravans to buy up all the steel bars they can, at the risk of becoming a tempting target for raiders. This would be subject to availability and negotiations.
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Only for your own civ. You can't ask the elves for whatever giant animals you'd actually want.
It would also be good to be able to surpass the item request limit (5) by sending out multiple caravans and passing through multiple sites. Buying out a caravan's entire metal item supply to melt down is silly (and I imagine a dwarven trader would be deeply offended if they knew your intent for their crafts.)
We should be able to order our caravans to buy up all the steel bars they can, at the risk of becoming a tempting target for raiders. This would be subject to availability and negotiations.
It mechanically speaking exists for the other civs too. It is just the raws are not present in the entity files; all you have to do is create a position with [RESPONSIBILITY:TRADE] for the other civs.
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This thread made me wonder about naval trade. If we have a river, we'll eventually get trade barges or something?
That would make well placed shore fortress something interesting if serving as commercial and/or military ports.
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We'd need some type of fortress-milestone for sending out our own caravans. Otherwise, we could get into the silly situation where your starting 7 repurposes its wagon/pack animals and sends out your broker to trade. I am not saying this is a good idea... just silly. So we'd want to at least be a town (have a mayor), but I'd rather set it to a barony. Sending out a liason and sponsoring trade routes reeks of nobles. Like captain of the guard, you'd get another position pop up: Trade Minister. S/he'd be like the manager for trade routes. You can select which sites to trade with, and toggle what you want from them while checking what they want in return. I don't know about anyone else, but when the dwarf liason tells me what the mountainhome wants I can't remember that crap. I usually just take a screenshot- its definitely a nightmare if I am juggling forts or haven't played in a while. A place in game to check all of this would be a god-send. From this menu you'd also select the parts needed to build a proper caravan, then mark the items for trade along with either quotas or a priority system on what to trade for. The skill of the broker you put in the wagon seat would ultimately decide your profit margin. This... would also be much simpler if currency was re-implemented. However, then you'd have to question the value of currency from different sites and also the metal-content of said coins... and that gets into currency wars alongside trade-route wars >.> Besides, what would the elves use, wooden coins? Leaves? Psh. Hippies. They don't even like using bones on a species-wide level.
Yes, yes, we can make liasons from other races appear by tweaking the code, but its still for just one site. Going on what GoblinCookie said earlier, we'd be seeking to seize that "first traders advantage" in setting up new routes with untapped sites. We also might end up trading with multiple sites of the same race, so we'd need different liasons for that. Toady also mentioned that he wants little villages of hill-dwarves to pop up around fortresses. While these probably wouldn't need a caravan (or one caravan could visit many), it would still be several distinct sites to keep track of what they need/want (trade minister). We could also send peddlers to them, possibly. Historically, these would be the bread-baskets supporting the main city with food in exchange for manufactured goods. It would be cool if we could completely supply our fort with food/cloth via these peasants, while sending out weapons, crafts, etc in exchange.
As far as setting up a caravan... that wouldn't be so hard. Our base wagon breaks down into just 3 logs, so I'd doubt we'd need more than that + a carpenter to assemble it. We might want some leather to represent the covering and a rope or two to represent the reins, though. Attach the beasts of burden, appoint a trader, attach some guards, and then load her up with goods. Tell them what to buy and where to go. Its already ludicrously easy to over-produce goods, so it shouldn't be hard to load it up with enough junk... er "valuable goods of the highest craft-dorfship" to make it profitable.
The main problem is that trade if fundamentally broken as it is. We need far too little from a caravan and can produce far too much with far too little effort. There'd need to be an over-arching total industry overhaul. Some form of reason to actually keep trade routes up. As it stands, we basically just buy a little extra food and cloth in the first caravan or two. After that, we only pick up metal items to melt down. If you already have iron and flux, you'll likely never want to trade past the first year or so. Strange-moods won't request metals you haven't smelted yet, so you wouldn't need to pad those numbers outside shiggles. Food would need to be harder to make (soil shouldn't be equal and it shouldn't last forever, soil depletion!) or dorfs would need to eat more. Crafting would need to be slowed down in either quantity or quality (paired with higher tier of quality available from trade). It is rather silly that no one seems to be a legendary ANYTHING until they show up at your fort. A year of making rock crafts later and they are legendary! Truly, in the entire 1000+ year history of my world, this is a first. There would need to be some form of supply/demand so we couldn't flood the market with stone trinkets forever. There need to be more supplies from other sites we'd want. Perhaps there could be things like spices and incense that would boost happiness tremendously- luxury goods that only appear rarely. Perhaps trinkets and items from other sites would have an inherent "exotic" value multiplier to them? Toady mentioned having special recipes for cooking that could be randomly generated and become hallmarks of taverns, so perhaps a similar mechanic could be at play for trade. Certain sites become "known" for a trade good. Think Persian Rugs becoming a hot luxury item, but on the dwarf-fortress scale. Medieval brand names, if you will. These would have much-higher values/happiness boosts to them, but only come from specific sites. Again, trade needs a huge boost if we are going to start trading with even more sites. I feel overwhelmed as it is just trading with humans, elves, and dorfs. If I am not in a metal-poor site, I ever ignore them or trade them token goods for the sake of appearances. Jumping that number up to 10 would be superfluous in the extreme for the current game.
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You can see agreements (imports/exports) from the "c"ivilization screen.
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We'd need some type of fortress-milestone for sending out our own caravans. Otherwise, we could get into the silly situation where your starting 7 repurposes its wagon/pack animals and sends out your broker to trade. I am not saying this is a good idea... just silly. So we'd want to at least be a town (have a mayor), but I'd rather set it to a barony. Sending out a liason and sponsoring trade routes reeks of nobles. Like captain of the guard, you'd get another position pop up: Trade Minister. S/he'd be like the manager for trade routes. You can select which sites to trade with, and toggle what you want from them while checking what they want in return. I don't know about anyone else, but when the dwarf liason tells me what the mountainhome wants I can't remember that crap. I usually just take a screenshot- its definitely a nightmare if I am juggling forts or haven't played in a while. A place in game to check all of this would be a god-send. From this menu you'd also select the parts needed to build a proper caravan, then mark the items for trade along with either quotas or a priority system on what to trade for. The skill of the broker you put in the wagon seat would ultimately decide your profit margin. This... would also be much simpler if currency was re-implemented. However, then you'd have to question the value of currency from different sites and also the metal-content of said coins... and that gets into currency wars alongside trade-route wars >.> Besides, what would the elves use, wooden coins? Leaves? Psh. Hippies. They don't even like using bones on a species-wide level.
Yes, yes, we can make liasons from other races appear by tweaking the code, but its still for just one site. Going on what GoblinCookie said earlier, we'd be seeking to seize that "first traders advantage" in setting up new routes with untapped sites. We also might end up trading with multiple sites of the same race, so we'd need different liasons for that. Toady also mentioned that he wants little villages of hill-dwarves to pop up around fortresses. While these probably wouldn't need a caravan (or one caravan could visit many), it would still be several distinct sites to keep track of what they need/want (trade minister). We could also send peddlers to them, possibly. Historically, these would be the bread-baskets supporting the main city with food in exchange for manufactured goods. It would be cool if we could completely supply our fort with food/cloth via these peasants, while sending out weapons, crafts, etc in exchange.
As far as setting up a caravan... that wouldn't be so hard. Our base wagon breaks down into just 3 logs, so I'd doubt we'd need more than that + a carpenter to assemble it. We might want some leather to represent the covering and a rope or two to represent the reins, though. Attach the beasts of burden, appoint a trader, attach some guards, and then load her up with goods. Tell them what to buy and where to go. Its already ludicrously easy to over-produce goods, so it shouldn't be hard to load it up with enough junk... er "valuable goods of the highest craft-dorfship" to make it profitable.
The answer to the question of making caravans scarce is not very hard to figure out. While the physical requirements of a caravan are not hard to come by, relatively speaking the personel are the scarce resource. The answer I think is connected to the next release in which we will see merceneries visit your fortress and take up residence just as they already do with AI sites outside of fortress mode. A caravan needs a staff of merchants sufficient both to trade and to load/unload the goods reasonably quickly as well as requiring an escort of guards to escort the caravan, guards which can also help out with the hauling.
The tricky part would be this, ordinery fortress dwarves refuse to guard or man caravans. Only dwarves who are presently merceneries or traders would be willing to do so, that means that in order to set up your caravan you must not only have the material requirements but also at least one merchant available in your fortress and a force of merceneries to be assigned to guard the caravan. Neither of these can simply be assigned as tasks to ordinery dwarves but arise spontaneously as dwarves individually decide to take up that line of work instead of just being ordinery dwarves.
Merceneries would be attacted to an already wealthy fortress as would minor merchant peddlers of the type that broker trade with the hill dwarves. What you would be doing is collecting a sufficient group of merceneries, rounding up a minor peddler and then 'promoting' said peddler into a proper merchant with a caravan. Same thing could apply more or less with trading boats too, once boats are introduced.
The main problem is that trade if fundamentally broken as it is. We need far too little from a caravan and can produce far too much with far too little effort. There'd need to be an over-arching total industry overhaul. Some form of reason to actually keep trade routes up. As it stands, we basically just buy a little extra food and cloth in the first caravan or two. After that, we only pick up metal items to melt down. If you already have iron and flux, you'll likely never want to trade past the first year or so. Strange-moods won't request metals you haven't smelted yet, so you wouldn't need to pad those numbers outside shiggles. Food would need to be harder to make (soil shouldn't be equal and it shouldn't last forever, soil depletion!) or dorfs would need to eat more. Crafting would need to be slowed down in either quantity or quality (paired with higher tier of quality available from trade). It is rather silly that no one seems to be a legendary ANYTHING until they show up at your fort. A year of making rock crafts later and they are legendary! Truly, in the entire 1000+ year history of my world, this is a first. There would need to be some form of supply/demand so we couldn't flood the market with stone trinkets forever. There need to be more supplies from other sites we'd want. Perhaps there could be things like spices and incense that would boost happiness tremendously- luxury goods that only appear rarely. Perhaps trinkets and items from other sites would have an inherent "exotic" value multiplier to them? Toady mentioned having special recipes for cooking that could be randomly generated and become hallmarks of taverns, so perhaps a similar mechanic could be at play for trade. Certain sites become "known" for a trade good. Think Persian Rugs becoming a hot luxury item, but on the dwarf-fortress scale. Medieval brand names, if you will. These would have much-higher values/happiness boosts to them, but only come from specific sites. Again, trade needs a huge boost if we are going to start trading with even more sites. I feel overwhelmed as it is just trading with humans, elves, and dorfs. If I am not in a metal-poor site, I ever ignore them or trade them token goods for the sake of appearances. Jumping that number up to 10 would be superfluous in the extreme for the current game.
Yes, our dwarves produce far too much and consume far too little. All items also need to gradually break down as a result of use, with lower quality items breaking down faster; these are however things which have to be implemented prior to any actual world economy being implemented that involves us in any way. I rather hope that the artefact release is going to involve more than just being other than our own dwarves making artefacts independantly of us and is going to involve redoing production to increase the demand and/or reduce the production rate as well.
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That sounds so hard and unrealistic. Why won't brokers and peddlers from your own fortress go to broke and peddle? And guards and so on? I think if the king wants it, any dwarf would definitely go and trade. Especially if pay/profit is expected. These peddlers are coming from somewhere; why can't they come from your fort too? What makes your fort so special that nobody ever wants to go out and trade? And most importantly,
The peddlers that come to your fortress will leave when they are done trading, or soon afterwards. Mercenaries are either part of your fort or they're visitors that will not listen to you.
In summary,
Your idea for this suggestion is not very good, IMHO. Too gamey and hard.
And what's the problem with "you can trade too early"? You wouldn't have enough goods/dwarves to trade! You'd either be slaughtered by ambushes and mercenaries, or just plain not make a good profit.
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That sounds so hard and unrealistic. Why won't brokers and peddlers from your own fortress go to broke and peddle? And guards and so on? I think if the king wants it, any dwarf would definitely go and trade. Especially if pay/profit is expected. These peddlers are coming from somewhere; why can't they come from your fort too? What makes your fort so special that nobody ever wants to go out and trade? And most importantly,
The peddlers that come to your fortress will leave when they are done trading, or soon afterwards. Mercenaries are either part of your fort or they're visitors that will not listen to you.
Not to mention it flies in the face of
You should be able to send patrols (and, as you get more dwarves, armies) out over the world map. They could attack smaller nearby threats, such as a kobold cave, or let you know about incoming invasions.
It should depend on personality traits, not citizenship status. If they don't like it, they get stressed. If their stress gets too high they might defect (possible new crime) or just go insane. Relevant traits:
+Independence?
+Commerce
+Nature (above ground trade only?)
+Ambition?
+Curious?
+Excitement Seeking?
-Family
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That sounds so hard and unrealistic. Why won't brokers and peddlers from your own fortress go to broke and peddle? And guards and so on? I think if the king wants it, any dwarf would definitely go and trade. Especially if pay/profit is expected. These peddlers are coming from somewhere; why can't they come from your fort too? What makes your fort so special that nobody ever wants to go out and trade? And most importantly,
The peddlers that come to your fortress will leave when they are done trading, or soon afterwards. Mercenaries are either part of your fort or they're visitors that will not listen to you.
Nothing is special about your own fortress, your own dwarves can become peddlers or merceneries but what I am saying is that your mayor cannot just say to a dwarf "though are a peddler now" the same way you can appoint a broker at present. Instead, using the present system your own dwarves petition the mayor to become minor peddlers trading with the local hill dwaves and could request an initial investment of certain goods. Once you have a few such individuals in your fortress along with a sufficiant group of merceneries on your payroll you can create a caravan to send off.
The same principle applies with merceneries, they also self-recruit in the same manner. In both cases however, you can also recruit outside traders and merceneries in addition to accepting offers from your own dwarves to become those things, using the framework that is presently being developed. A wealthy and successful fortress should find a readier supploy of outside merceneries/merchants for it's caravans than internal ones.
In summary,
Your idea for this suggestion is not very good, IMHO. Too gamey and hard.
And what's the problem with "you can trade too early"? You wouldn't have enough goods/dwarves to trade! You'd either be slaughtered by ambushes and mercenaries, or just plain not make a good profit.
The game needs to be harder in lots of respects not related to the interface, being able to trade with anyone cheaply at minimum expense would make them game even easier than it already is.
That sounds so hard and unrealistic. Why won't brokers and peddlers from your own fortress go to broke and peddle? And guards and so on? I think if the king wants it, any dwarf would definitely go and trade. Especially if pay/profit is expected. These peddlers are coming from somewhere; why can't they come from your fort too? What makes your fort so special that nobody ever wants to go out and trade? And most importantly,
The peddlers that come to your fortress will leave when they are done trading, or soon afterwards. Mercenaries are either part of your fort or they're visitors that will not listen to you.
Not to mention it flies in the face of
You should be able to send patrols (and, as you get more dwarves, armies) out over the world map. They could attack smaller nearby threats, such as a kobold cave, or let you know about incoming invasions.
It should depend on personality traits, not citizenship status. If they don't like it, they get stressed. If their stress gets too high they might defect (possible new crime) or just go insane. Relevant traits:
+Independence?
+Commerce
+Nature (above ground trade only?)
+Ambition?
+Curious?
+Excitement Seeking?
-Family
Those are the traits that would cause particular dwarves to volunterily become traders. Independance, excitement seeking, disdain for peace/family and martial prowess would often cause individual dwarves to volunterily become merceneries.
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Oh, sorry, GoblinCookie. I didn't see the part where you said that dwarves from your own fortresswould spontaneously decide to become traders.
So I take back my "I don't think your idea is very good" statement.
However, my statement stills stands: any dwarf could become a peddler. They might not like it, and as Bumber said, they might defect, but it is already planned (or at least suggested) that dwarves will do harder things with fewer bad thoughts during hardships, including the first few years of a fortress. So that could balance out several things.
Becoming a guard would have the same bad thoughts as just suddenly being drafted, and bad guards would likely not guard well. (BTW, where'd the "complained of the draft" thought go? I never see it anymore.)
Seriously, any random dwarf should be able to trade/guard, but that might not be a good idea for the fortress. You need the wagons, pack animals/pull animals, goods, and a (hopefully) trained group of peddlers and guards. (BTW, why'd you say they had to be mercenaries?) So if you struck gold in your first month, you could send out a caravan, but it would likely be killed, robbed from, or not make a good profit.
As I said, it is extremely gamey to say "now you can trade." You can attempt to do very hard/impossible things in-game. Why can't this be one of them? It sort of scoffs at the player, saying, "You can't possibly handle a caravan yet." And what about those who play with a low pop cap? With skilled guards and traders, plenty of animals, wagons, and goods, you should be able to trade.
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However, my statement stills stands: any dwarf could become a peddler. They might not like it, and as Bumber said, they might defect, but it is already planned (or at least suggested) that dwarves will do harder things with fewer bad thoughts during hardships, including the first few years of a fortress. So that could balance out several things.
Becoming a guard would have the same bad thoughts as just suddenly being drafted, and bad guards would likely not guard well. (BTW, where'd the "complained of the draft" thought go? I never see it anymore.)
Bumber's idea is actually quite functional and has merit. The only problem with Bumber's idea is that unlike mine it does not really allow the integration of adventure mode trading goals with the fortress mode reality while avoiding the imposition of explicit classes on the player. Bumber's model can only really have the trader adventurer explicitly told by the government of his home site "go and be a trader" which while quite functional from a fortress mode perspective logically requires fixed starting classes for the adventurer. My idea by contrast allows the adventurer to go badger the site government to become part of a caravan or be allowed to become a trader as well as to be given a caravan head once he has built up a reputation as a minor trader without this resulting in a clash between how things work in both modes.
Seriously, any random dwarf should be able to trade/guard, but that might not be a good idea for the fortress. You need the wagons, pack animals/pull animals, goods, and a (hopefully) trained group of peddlers and guards. (BTW, why'd you say they had to be mercenaries?) So if you struck gold in your first month, you could send out a caravan, but it would likely be killed, robbed from, or not make a good profit.
As I said, it is extremely gamey to say "now you can trade." You can attempt to do very hard/impossible things in-game. Why can't this be one of them? It sort of scoffs at the player, saying, "You can't possibly handle a caravan yet." And what about those who play with a low pop cap? With skilled guards and traders, plenty of animals, wagons, and goods, you should be able to trade.
The reason is that as far as dwarves are concerned you do not have the right to simply order them as individuals to risk death in the wilderness since the relationship between the site government and the individual dwarves ought to be somewhat reciprical. You are taking them away from their homes, their families and friends for a period of time, depriving them of the wealth and security the fortress has built up in order to risk life and limb for the sake of other dwarves that sit around benefitting from the goods they bring back.
The reason it has to be merceneries is that ordinery dwarf militia think as the above, merceneries on the other want actually want to risk life and limb in the wilderness, that is why they left home in the first place; it also gives them a reason to exist which at present they basically do not have. It does not matter if your own fortress cannot manage to produce traders and merceneries because you can hire visiting merceneries and traders. They did however arise at random from suitable individuals in other sites to start with, you are simply being part of the world by your dwarves being able to become those things, it is not intended to always be sufficient to allow the player to reliably produce a caravan solely with their own personnel alone.
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Bumber's idea is actually quite functional and has merit. The only problem with Bumber's idea is that unlike mine it does not really allow the integration of adventure mode trading goals with the fortress mode reality while avoiding the imposition of explicit classes on the player. Bumber's model can only really have the trader adventurer explicitly told by the government of his home site "go and be a trader" which while quite functional from a fortress mode perspective logically requires fixed starting classes for the adventurer.
I'm not sure I follow here. Why does the adventurer have to be asked?
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I'm not sure I follow here. Why does the adventurer have to be asked?
Because if the sites just create traders whenever they feel like it then there is no room in the trader role for the adventurer to fit into, as the sites have already created enough traders to meet their needs. We have a clash between the two modes, while if we have individuals choose to become traders independantly and then be hired by the sites for their own trading purposes the two modes are then harmonised. The adventurer is another individual that chooses to become a trader and then takes up a trader role at one or more sites, which can eventually progress to being given full control of a caravan. If he then retires at the site, you can then play as the site and continue to have your former adventurer continue to run the caravan that he headed in adventurer mode, while if the two modes are not harmonised the adventurer simply goes back to being an ordinery dwarf.
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I'm not sure I follow here. Why does the adventurer have to be asked?
Because if the sites just create traders whenever they feel like it then there is no room in the trader role for the adventurer to fit into, as the sites have already created enough traders to meet their needs. We have a clash between the two modes, while if we have individuals choose to become traders independantly and then be hired by the sites for their own trading purposes the two modes are then harmonised. The adventurer is another individual that chooses to become a trader and then takes up a trader role at one or more sites, which can eventually progress to being given full control of a caravan. If he then retires at the site, you can then play as the site and continue to have your former adventurer continue to run the caravan that he headed in adventurer mode, while if the two modes are not harmonised the adventurer simply goes back to being an ordinery dwarf.
What do you mean by "whenever they feel like it", and why does that imply they already have enough? My method is no different than assigning to any other profession. Status as a caravan leader, likewise, is the same as hearthperson (edit: or performer, according to a new dev post) status or reputation.
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What do you mean by "whenever they feel like it", and why does that imply they already have enough? My method is no different than assigning to any other profession. Status as a caravan leader, likewise, is the same as hearthperson (edit: or performer, according to a new dev post) status or reputation.
Assigning 'professions' at present is 'whenever you feel like it'. We find any dwarf we fancy assigning to do a particular dwarf and we say 'do that job' and they do it; the problem with that situation is that it makes it very hard for an adventurer becoming a trader that is integrated into the fortress mode world unless he starts out as one and it also makes it possible to caravan spam the world with a moderately advanced fortress as you can send your whole fortress pretty much off to caravan. My idea was to have a small number of individual dwarves choose to become traders and petition their fortress for the right to access the goods that they need to trade; if you deny them the goods they become unhappy/emigrate/.
This results in a 'pool' of small traders from which you can then promote your caravan merchants from as you wish. They fact the pool is limited keeps at bay the potential to spam the world with caravans and gives the AI a chance while there is also a way for the adventurer to petition a site to become one of it's merchants initially and be given control of a caravan if he does well enough, hence giving the adventurer something to accomplish career wise as he builds up his trader reputation.
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What do you mean by "whenever they feel like it", and why does that imply they already have enough? My method is no different than assigning to any other profession. Status as a caravan leader, likewise, is the same as hearthperson (edit: or performer, according to a new dev post) status or reputation.
Assigning 'professions' at present is 'whenever you feel like it'. We find any dwarf we fancy assigning to do a particular dwarf and we say 'do that job' and they do it; the problem with that situation is that it makes it very hard for an adventurer becoming a trader that is integrated into the fortress mode world unless he starts out as one and it also makes it possible to caravan spam the world with a moderately advanced fortress as you can send your whole fortress pretty much off to caravan.
I still don't get how that makes it hard for an adventurer to become a fort trader. Sure, the code to integrate him isn't there yet, but the game does track his skills and entity positions. As it stands, an outsider adventurer that retires in a site becomes part of that civilization. The adventurer can then become a hearthperson for that civ. There is nothing that required the adventurer to start as a hearthperson, and it's unlikely adventurer roles will require any such thing.
If you send your whole fortress off to caravan, there's nobody left to run or defend it. There's also the accessibility of sites to consider. You can reach the sites nearby with just a few caravans, while the farther ones might take so much travel time as to not be worth it, especially if you lose the entire caravan. (Whoops, looks like your trade partner was under a goblin siege.)
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I still don't get how that makes it hard for an adventurer to become a fort trader. Sure, the code to integrate him isn't there yet, but the game does track his skills and entity positions. As it stands, an outsider adventurer that retires in a site becomes part of that civilization. The adventurer can then become a hearthperson for that civ. There is nothing that required the adventurer to start as a hearthperson, and it's unlikely adventurer roles will require any such thing.
If you send your whole fortress off to caravan, there's nobody left to run or defend it. There's also the accessibility of sites to consider. You can reach the sites nearby with just a few caravans, while the farther ones might take so much travel time as to not be worth it, especially if you lose the entire caravan. (Whoops, looks like your trade partner was under a goblin siege.)
The dwarf caravans are seasonal, arriving in the autumn which given that travel outside the fortress happens at adventure mode time-frame means that only about 2 months will have passed even to trade to the other side of the world. Not all fortresses *are* threatened by imminent goblin sieges and other enemies will be no problem at all since their active period does not correspond to the active period of the dwarves. We can just 'lock up' our fortress in the autumn and take over the whole world's trade effortlessly.
Granted however that you did propose the solution of having the dwarves complain/emigrate if they get given trading jobs when owing to various factors they hate such jobs. This is why I said that it was a quite functional solution if all trade was happening solely in fortress mode, the only problem with it being the coming adventure mode trading role. The problem is the integration of the two modes; which is as follows.
At the moment the adventurer can already trade with sites, the problem with the situation being the lack of an economic model to limit buyer demand for superabundant goods and lower prices as a result of various factors, the over-abundance of free sellable goods etc. Once the world economic model is in place, then there are no special mechanics needed for the active adventurer to become a minor trader. The problem is that given a model where trader dwarves are simply promoted internally there is no (realistic) way for the adventurer to become anything more than the kind of independent peddler that he can be already; once he retires at a site he goes back to being an ordinary dwarf (though perhaps a fortress guard).
If the sites can just make their own people into traders, then they would never voluntarily choose to entrust any important trading matter such as a caravan to an wandering outsider because even if they tax that outsider they have little means to enforce payment of taxes should he abscond while if they sent their own people to trade they would get the whole profit from the trade rather than a portion of it. If a site is locally short of suitable people for trading purposes all that happens is that it ends up being passively traded with by other sites with a surplus of such people, whoever they may be.
The only way things can realistically be integrated under your model is to have the adventurer explicitly start as a trader, this being the only way to integrate the two modes under that model (integrate means continuity between the status of the individual under one mode to the other). Under my model however where site traders are people who freely choose to become traders of a site and sites cannot simply command people to become trader, the adventurer can thus slip seamlessly from one mode to the other as he can choose to become a site trader in adventurer mode and then continues his work in fortress mode.
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At the moment the adventurer can already trade with sites, the problem with the situation being the lack of an economic model to limit buyer demand for superabundant goods and lower prices as a result of various factors, the over-abundance of free sellable goods etc. Once the world economic model is in place, then there are no special mechanics needed for the active adventurer to become a minor trader. The problem is that given a model where trader dwarves are simply promoted internally there is no (realistic) way for the adventurer to become anything more than the kind of independent peddler that he can be already; once he retires at a site he goes back to being an ordinary dwarf (though perhaps a fortress guard).
A peddler with a lot of goods to sell is essentially a merchant. If your adventurer can have a wagon and haul a lot of products around, he'd be able to sell them to the site. How's that different than being a trader?
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The dwarf caravans are seasonal, arriving in the autumn which given that travel outside the fortress happens at adventure mode time-frame means that only about 2 months will have passed even to trade to the other side of the world. Not all fortresses *are* threatened by imminent goblin sieges and other enemies will be no problem at all since their active period does not correspond to the active period of the dwarves. We can just 'lock up' our fortress in the autumn and take over the whole world's trade effortlessly.
That's only the current state of the game. Armies have been converted to real map movement, caravans are due at some point in the near future. AFAIK, megabeasts and ambushes don't have "active periods", and dwarven active periods are meaningless if players have control over the caravans. I also mentioned bandits, which you're more likely to run into the longer the route (unless you're allowed to micromanage a longer route around.) Likewise for the fort, turtling will be nerfed by digging invaders. Fun must happen.
The problem is that given a model where trader dwarves are simply promoted internally there is no (realistic) way for the adventurer to become anything more than the kind of independent peddler that he can be already; once he retires at a site he goes back to being an ordinary dwarf (though perhaps a fortress guard).
Caravans could be handled like military squads, with specific positions (leader, caravan guards, etc.) If there's something that fort mode can't handle, it can be restored later from historical data.
If the sites can just make their own people into traders, then they would never voluntarily choose to entrust any important trading matter such as a caravan to an wandering outsider because even if they tax that outsider they have little means to enforce payment of taxes should he abscond while if they sent their own people to trade they would get the whole profit from the trade rather than a portion of it. If a site is locally short of suitable people for trading purposes all that happens is that it ends up being passively traded with by other sites with a surplus of such people, whoever they may be.
Isn't it you who is proposing to entrust random mercenaries to guard the caravans? An adventurer that retires at a site is not necessarily a wandering outsider. An adventurer trader in adv mode must be trusted on his merit, because he has proved himself in some way.
The only way things can realistically be integrated under your model is to have the adventurer explicitly start as a trader, this being the only way to integrate the two modes under that model (integrate means continuity between the status of the individual under one mode to the other). Under my model however where site traders are people who freely choose to become traders of a site and sites cannot simply command people to become trader, the adventurer can thus slip seamlessly from one mode to the other as he can choose to become a site trader in adventurer mode and then continues his work in fortress mode.
There's no reason why a retired adventurer couldn't start as a trader, then be told by the overseer to do something else. The same is true for the reverse.
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Ah! I think I see your position now, GoblinCookie! (Correct me if I'm wrong.) You don't like how the overseer can just say "you are a butcher" or "you are a soldier" or "you are a cook" (I think) but even worse is being told "you are a merchant now go out into the wilderness." But keep in mind that dwarves are extremely lawful and loyal, and right now any dwarf can be told to do anything. So you don't see much of anything wrong with the suggestion of "send out caravans" but you do see a problem with the idea of just assigning dwarves professions.
So correct me if I'm wrong, but I think perhaps you should start another thread, enveloping all the jobs you don't want to just be 'assignable'. Perhaps a cat-loving dwarf shouldn't just be told to be a butcher, or a nature-loving dwarf to cut down every tree, or a scaredy-cat dwarf to go bravely defend the fortress. They will simply refuse.
However, I would be against that suggestion, because as I have said, dwarves are very loyal and lawful. If told to do something, they will do it. They might get a bad thought, but only in the rarest of cases would they actually refuse. Of course, some jobs might create more stress than others, and depending on the dwarf's views on the subject at hand, lawfulness and loyalty, and their resistance to stress, they might just stop doing it. If they are a merchant, they might either return home without any profit, or even just abandon their fortress and live in the nearby hillock.
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A peddler with a lot of goods to sell is essentially a merchant. If your adventurer can have a wagon and haul a lot of products around, he'd be able to sell them to the site. How's that different than being a trader?
He is, but the problem is that he is not integrated into fortress mode; mechanically he can trade provided that there are not so many caravans active that all demands are already met, (okay that assumes the realistic model of limited demands that has not been implemented yet). The problem is that there is presently no way to have his trader status continue after retirement as it were, as he never was anything formal at all in the game mechanics.
That's only the current state of the game. Armies have been converted to real map movement, caravans are due at some point in the near future. AFAIK, megabeasts and ambushes don't have "active periods", and dwarven active periods are meaningless if players have control over the caravans. I also mentioned bandits, which you're more likely to run into the longer the route (unless you're allowed to micromanage a longer route around.) Likewise for the fort, turtling will be nerfed by digging invaders. Fun must happen.
Remember that not everybody is threatened by megabeasts and ambushes Bumber.
If the game does not define an active period, then the player will simply create their own based upon how long it takes to saturate the market. There is little point of talking about the 'current state of the game' without being able to point to any concrete development plans to change things.
Caravans could be handled like military squads, with specific positions (leader, caravan guards, etc.) If there's something that fort mode can't handle, it can be restored later from historical data.
That is my idea too.
Isn't it you who is proposing to entrust random mercenaries to guard the caravans? An adventurer that retires at a site is not necessarily a wandering outsider. An adventurer trader in adv mode must be trusted on his merit, because he has proved himself in some way.
There can be no adventurer mode trader if the market has already been saturated by caravan spam, since there is nothing left to buy and sell which has not already been bought or sold.
I propose we enlist random merceneries not only in order to limit the number caravans but because we need something for merceneries to actually do that regular militia dwarves cannot do.
There's no reason why a retired adventurer couldn't start as a trader, then be told by the overseer to do something else. The same is true for the reverse.
Indeed, the retired trader adventurer could be laid off if it is more profitable for him to be employed doing something else. Adventurers are allowed to retire in sites other than their home site though, which means we need there to be a reason why a site would hire an outsider to become their trader rather than simply migrating in someone with trader skills. It is clearly inefficiant to have adventurer traders when you can simply send your own dwarves off to trade and keep all the profits.
Ah! I think I see your position now, GoblinCookie! (Correct me if I'm wrong.) You don't like how the overseer can just say "you are a butcher" or "you are a soldier" or "you are a cook" (I think) but even worse is being told "you are a merchant now go out into the wilderness." But keep in mind that dwarves are extremely lawful and loyal, and right now any dwarf can be told to do anything. So you don't see much of anything wrong with the suggestion of "send out caravans" but you do see a problem with the idea of just assigning dwarves professions.
So correct me if I'm wrong, but I think perhaps you should start another thread, enveloping all the jobs you don't want to just be 'assignable'. Perhaps a cat-loving dwarf shouldn't just be told to be a butcher, or a nature-loving dwarf to cut down every tree, or a scaredy-cat dwarf to go bravely defend the fortress. They will simply refuse.
However, I would be against that suggestion, because as I have said, dwarves are very loyal and lawful. If told to do something, they will do it. They might get a bad thought, but only in the rarest of cases would they actually refuse. Of course, some jobs might create more stress than others, and depending on the dwarf's views on the subject at hand, lawfulness and loyalty, and their resistance to stress, they might just stop doing it. If they are a merchant, they might either return home without any profit, or even just abandon their fortress and live in the nearby hillock.
I definately do not have a problem with dwarves being assigned to do jobs in general but the question here is: why do we have adventurers at all?
Since adventurers do something that site dwarves never do, namely leave their site area it follows that the reason we have adventurers is that they unlike the other site dwarves are willing to go off beyond their site. We cannot have the "you do X" system of the fortress mode work too well or else the adventurer would logically be crowded out completely, since why send a small group of unreliable adventurers to kill the dragon when you send 50 militia dwarves to do so and unlike the adventurers they bring the dragons treasure horde back to the site.
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Remember that not everybody is threatened by megabeasts and ambushes Bumber.
If it's happening away from your fort there's nothing you can do about it but add more caravan guards. (And still, Fun will find a way.)
If the game does not define an active period, then the player will simply create their own based upon how long it takes to saturate the market. There is little point of talking about the 'current state of the game' without being able to point to any concrete development plans to change things.
http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/dev.html
It's all there under "Adventurer Role: Trader". Digging invaders is under "Improved sieges". Anything missing is part of the suggestion.
There can be no adventurer mode trader if the market has already been saturated by caravan spam, since there is nothing left to buy and sell which has not already been bought or sold.
I propose we enlist random merceneries not only in order to limit the number caravans but because we need something for merceneries to actually do that regular militia dwarves cannot do.
Caravan spam and market saturation is a separate issue. It has nothing specifically to do with adventurers.
The point of mercenaries is that you don't have to train or equip them.
Indeed, the retired trader adventurer could be laid off if it is more profitable for him to be employed doing something else. Adventurers are allowed to retire in sites other than their home site though, which means we need there to be a reason why a site would hire an outsider to become their trader rather than simply migrating in someone with trader skills. It is clearly inefficiant to have adventurer traders when you can simply send your own dwarves off to trade and keep all the profits.
You're assuming they have access to someone with those skills. The adventurer is, in effect, that migrant or mercenary they are looking for.
I definately do not have a problem with dwarves being assigned to do jobs in general but the question here is: why do we have adventurers at all?
Player interaction with the world.
Since adventurers do something that site dwarves never do, namely leave their site area it follows that the reason we have adventurers is that they unlike the other site dwarves are willing to go off beyond their site.
There are dev arcs devoted to changing this.
We cannot have the "you do X" system of the fortress mode work too well or else the adventurer would logically be crowded out completely, since why send a small group of unreliable adventurers to kill the dragon when you send 50 militia dwarves to do so and unlike the adventurers they bring the dragons treasure horde back to the site.
Because adventurers are dispensable. If you fail you're down 50 dwarves, their equipment, you get nothing, and now you're defenseless.
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If it's happening away from your fort there's nothing you can do about it but add more caravan guards. (And still, Fun will find a way.)
This transforms the situation how?
http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/dev.html
It's all there under "Adventurer Role: Trader". Digging invaders is under "Improved sieges". Anything missing is part of the suggestion.
That is kind of the point; there is supposed to be adventure mode trader role, which complicates thing that would otherwise be simple. If all we had was fortress mode, then your basic concept of just creating caravans using our ordinery dwarves+materials+animals would work just fine since we want the whole market demand to be met simply by the sites themselves without the need for any external element since there is no such element.
Caravan spam and market saturation is a separate issue. It has nothing specifically to do with adventurers.
The point of mercenaries is that you don't have to train or equip them.
There cannot be any adventure mode trade if the sites have already saturated the market without any adventurers being needed at all; that is why it is quite important to restrict the supply of trader individuals to a number that the sites cannot simply create an overabundance of.
Merceneries have to be trained or equipped by somebody else, why would that somebody else train merceneries at all? When merceneries settle down at a site, why would they not simply be treated as ordinery migrants with weapons skills, what is special about their role that justifies them continuing to be 'something different' even if they have been at a site for over a hundred years (can happen).
You're assuming they have access to someone with those skills. The adventurer is, in effect, that migrant or mercenary they are looking for.
Those merceneries were trained and equipped by somebody else. Why did that somebody else train and equip them as anything other than regular fortress dwarf militia?
Player interaction with the world.
If the player can do everything the adventurer can with just ordinary fortress dwarves, then there is no need for adventure mode in order for the player to interact with the world at all. In a broader sense, there is no reason for sites to tolerate and support adventurers at all, since they can do everything that they can more reliably.
There are dev arcs devoted to changing this.
Indeed, the question is how should those arcs be implemented. I believe that those arcs should be implemented the player in the fortress interacting with individuals carrying out adventure mode roles as opposed to simply have fortress dwarves doing all those roles themselves.
Because adventurers are dispensable. If you fail you're down 50 dwarves, their equipment, you get nothing, and now you're defenseless.
Adventurers are no more dispensable to the sites that created them than any other dwarves. Indeed they are normally extremely valuable dwarves with plenty of valuable skills; why would create 50 adventurers that all get killed off seperately rather than just creating elite 50 soldiers that work together? 50 elite soldiers is going to far much better against the dragon than a whole raft of individual adventurers, indeed pretty much no dragon would actually survive such a confrontation.
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Ah! I think I see your position now, GoblinCookie! (Correct me if I'm wrong.) You don't like how the overseer can just say "you are a butcher" or "you are a soldier" or "you are a cook" (I think) but even worse is being told "you are a merchant now go out into the wilderness." But keep in mind that dwarves are extremely lawful and loyal, and right now any dwarf can be told to do anything. So you don't see much of anything wrong with the suggestion of "send out caravans" but you do see a problem with the idea of just assigning dwarves professions.
So correct me if I'm wrong, but I think perhaps you should start another thread, enveloping all the jobs you don't want to just be 'assignable'. Perhaps a cat-loving dwarf shouldn't just be told to be a butcher, or a nature-loving dwarf to cut down every tree, or a scaredy-cat dwarf to go bravely defend the fortress. They will simply refuse.
However, I would be against that suggestion, because as I have said, dwarves are very loyal and lawful. If told to do something, they will do it. They might get a bad thought, but only in the rarest of cases would they actually refuse. Of course, some jobs might create more stress than others, and depending on the dwarf's views on the subject at hand, lawfulness and loyalty, and their resistance to stress, they might just stop doing it. If they are a merchant, they might either return home without any profit, or even just abandon their fortress and live in the nearby hillock.
I definately do not have a problem with dwarves being assigned to do jobs in general but the question here is: why do we have adventurers at all?
Since adventurers do something that site dwarves never do, namely leave their site area it follows that the reason we have adventurers is that they unlike the other site dwarves are willing to go off beyond their site. We cannot have the "you do X" system of the fortress mode work too well or else the adventurer would logically be crowded out completely, since why send a small group of unreliable adventurers to kill the dragon when you send 50 militia dwarves to do so and unlike the adventurers they bring the dragons treasure horde back to the site.
There is a distinct difference between player and NPC fortresses at the moment. Frequently dwarves in other fortresses will stay as lye makers for all of their lives! That almost never happens in player fortresses. Player fortresses thrive from the player input, but even the player cannot expect everything. And now this is going to the "why adventurer":
Because there is a need for Fun.
Players like to play roguelikes, and they like the ordered chaos that is the DF world they just generated. Adventure mode gives you a chance to actually go see that titan (and hopefully slay it), to go see the capital and talk to the king, to drive off ambushes and bandits. It is more "in the world" than dwarf mode, because you can move around the world.
However, just like any other person, you might be drafted into being a caravan guard or merchant. Depending on what you, the player, want, you might not like this, and could possibly run away. Now wouldn't some other people do the same? They will, so:
Sites will have a higher chance of losing merchants, (expensively)-armored guards, expensively-bought trade goods, and the food that the merchants and guards needed, if they draft people into those jobs.
So naturally if someone just walks up and volunteers to do it? Of course they can be a merchant/guard.
And what about if you don't want to be part of a caravan, just a peddler? Supply and demand have not reached an equilibrium, because of the many dangers associated with bringing a wagon laden with precious goods all over the landscape. So certainly one man/dwarf/elf could go into the wilderness, kill some beasts, and sell their corpses for quite a lot of gold, then use that gold to buy, say, a bunch of silk. Then go over that hardy, desolate mountain range, across deep rivers, and through thick forests, where few wagons can make it, to the human town of Seraelophual, where nobody has ever figured out how to make silk.
See? Trader adventurer, here we come! And we didn't have to neglect dwarf mode players, either!
EDIT: fixed weird quote hijinks
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If it's happening away from your fort there's nothing you can do about it but add more caravan guards. (And still, Fun will find a way.)
This transforms the situation how?
You can't use fort layout and traps, you don't have control, you will incur losses. You will not take control of the entire world's trade effortlessly. And with digging invaders your fort will be left defenseless if you try the turtling strategy you mentioned.
That is kind of the point; there is supposed to be adventure mode trader role, which complicates thing that would otherwise be simple. If all we had was fortress mode, then your basic concept of just creating caravans using our ordinery dwarves+materials+animals would work just fine since we want the whole market demand to be met simply by the sites themselves without the need for any external element since there is no such element.
You keep mentioning meeting "market demand", but the specifics are only a thing that exists in your head at the moment. It's not a flaw in my model, it's an issue in of itself that would affect every profession if such a system were improperly balanced.
There cannot be any adventure mode trade if the sites have already saturated the market without any adventurers being needed at all; that is why it is quite important to restrict the supply of trader individuals to a number that the sites cannot simply create an overabundance of.
Why do you presuppose the sites have the means to saturate the market? Maybe some sites have a skilled labor shortage due to living in a world where people are dying all the time.
Merceneries have to be trained or equipped by somebody else, why would that somebody else train merceneries at all? When merceneries settle down at a site, why would they not simply be treated as ordinery migrants with weapons skills, what is special about their role that justifies them continuing to be 'something different' even if they have been at a site for over a hundred years (can happen).
It's like you're asking why somebody would train and equip bandits. It's because that somebody is the bandits/mercenaries. Mercenaries are visitors who can be hired for coin. If they settle permanently at a site, they're not mercenaries anymore.
Those merceneries were trained and equipped by somebody else. Why did that somebody else train and equip them as anything other than regular fortress dwarf militia?
See above. They trained themselves because they didn't have/desire the opportunity to be trained as a fancy militia.
If the player can do everything the adventurer can with just ordinary fortress dwarves, then there is no need for adventure mode in order for the player to interact with the world at all. In a broader sense, there is no reason for sites to tolerate and support adventurers at all, since they can do everything that they can more reliably.
You can't assume direct control of ordinary fortress dwarves. If you do, then they're no longer ordinary fortress dwarves, they're adventurers.
Indeed, the question is how should those arcs be implemented. I believe that those arcs should be implemented the player in the fortress interacting with individuals carrying out adventure mode roles as opposed to simply have fortress dwarves doing all those roles themselves.
There is no practical difference, other than that you're trading availability for responsibility (stresses/needs.)
Adventurers are no more dispensable to the sites that created them than any other dwarves. Indeed they are normally extremely valuable dwarves with plenty of valuable skills; why would create 50 adventurers that all get killed off seperately rather than just creating elite 50 soldiers that work together? 50 elite soldiers is going to far much better against the dragon than a whole raft of individual adventurers, indeed pretty much no dragon would actually survive such a confrontation.
That's where you're mistaken. The average adventurer leaves a site (often a hamlet) with very little skill and hones it on the road. I'm pretty sure the hamlets are glad to be rid of them, especially if there's an small chance they'll return home someday being actually worth something.
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There is a distinct difference between player and NPC fortresses at the moment. Frequently dwarves in other fortresses will stay as lye makers for all of their lives! That almost never happens in player fortresses. Player fortresses thrive from the player input, but even the player cannot expect everything. And now this is going to the "why adventurer":
Because there is a need for Fun.
Players like to play roguelikes, and they like the ordered chaos that is the DF world they just generated. Adventure mode gives you a chance to actually go see that titan (and hopefully slay it), to go see the capital and talk to the king, to drive off ambushes and bandits. It is more "in the world" than dwarf mode, because you can move around the world.
The distinct difference is not 'supposed to be there' but is the result of memory limitations/the undeveloped nature of the game. The reason that fortress dwarves do not stay as lye makers their whole lives is that that the agriculture arc is not done yet, meaning that food is never really an issue; so fertilisers are not needed. As for the rest of your post, yes there is a gameplay reason to have adventurers but that in itself does not harmonise the two modes as one single world.
However, just like any other person, you might be drafted into being a caravan guard or merchant. Depending on what you, the player, want, you might not like this, and could possibly run away. Now wouldn't some other people do the same? They will, so:
Sites will have a higher chance of losing merchants, (expensively)-armored guards, expensively-bought trade goods, and the food that the merchants and guards needed, if they draft people into those jobs.
So naturally if someone just walks up and volunteers to do it? Of course they can be a merchant/guard.
And what about if you don't want to be part of a caravan, just a peddler? Supply and demand have not reached an equilibrium, because of the many dangers associated with bringing a wagon laden with precious goods all over the landscape. So certainly one man/dwarf/elf could go into the wilderness, kill some beasts, and sell their corpses for quite a lot of gold, then use that gold to buy, say, a bunch of silk. Then go over that hardy, desolate mountain range, across deep rivers, and through thick forests, where few wagons can make it, to the human town of Seraelophual, where nobody has ever figured out how to make silk.
See? Trader adventurer, here we come! And we didn't have to neglect dwarf mode players, either!
EDIT: fixed weird quote hijinks
If we can simply send fortress dwarves off to kill beasts and trade there will not be any trade routes left to develop nor will there be any beasts left to kill. Having the system limited by abstact personality factors is going to be confusing and frustrating to new players. If we explicitly tell the new player that this will not work, the effective result is the same as just prohibiting them from doing so outright.
The dangers thing is kind of where I was coming from though. Fortress dwarves refuse to go on long journeys over hostile terrain, this means that while it would be possible to send ordinery fortress dwarves off to trade locally guarded by ordinery militia to trade within a short distance of the fort, for instance to the local hillocks it would not be possible to send ordinery fortress dwarves to go on long trading journeys. This is where the traders/merceneries come in, they are willing to go an indefinate distance away from the fortress and the adventurer trader can simply slip into that kind of role.
You can't use fort layout and traps, you don't have control, you will incur losses. You will not take control of the entire world's trade effortlessly. And with digging invaders your fort will be left defenseless if you try the turtling strategy you mentioned.
Yes you will not be able to take over the whole world's trade effortlessly, because somebody else will have done it before you. We are not talking about the player fortress in particular here, but all sites in the world. Threats from enemies is not going to change anything, because somewhere in the world is a completely safe site that does not face any major threats from any serious adversities, that site then promptly takes over the whole world's trade.
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Yes you may not be able to take over the whole world's trade effortlessly, but only because somebody else will have done it before you. We are not talking about the player fortress in particular here, but all sites in the world. Threats from enemies is not going to change anything, because somewhere in the world is a completely safe site that does not face any major threats from any serious adversities, that site then promptly takes over the whole world's trade.
The effect of external threats is solely to move ownership of trade from the less safe to the more safe sites; that situation as a whole remains unchanged.
You keep mentioning meeting "market demand", but the specifics are only a thing that exists in your head at the moment. It's not a flaw in my model, it's an issue in of itself that would affect every profession if such a system were improperly balanced.
It does not matter what the specifics are. If the sites have been independantly able to meet all demands that can be met given the total resources available to the accessable area as a whole then the adventurer trader cannot exist.
Why do you presuppose the sites have the means to saturate the market? Maybe some sites have a skilled labor shortage due to living in a world where people are dying all the time.
I pressupose the existance of surplus value because without it there is no trade at all. If no site produces more of anything than they themselves consume then there is no trade at all for anyone and the topic is hence redundant.
It's like you're asking why somebody would train and equip bandits. It's because that somebody is the bandits/mercenaries. Mercenaries are visitors who can be hired for coin. If they settle permanently at a site, they're not mercenaries anymore.
That is not how the game works, merceneries do settle at a site and they remain merceneries. Unless merceneries do something for the site that ordinery militia dwarves do not do then that does not make any sense. They are more than just migrants for hire, they are distinct group that is quite happy to join up with adventurers that visit their site unlike regular dwarves.
See above. They trained themselves because they didn't have/desire the opportunity to be trained as a fancy militia.
To what end? Nobody particularly cares for them nor their services since they are just fancy militia in social function. When people hire 'merceneries' they are merely thinking of what one more militia dwarf is worth; the answer would be virtually nothing.
You can't assume direct control of ordinary fortress dwarves. If you do, then they're no longer ordinary fortress dwarves, they're adventurers.
Or active militia dwarves.
There is no practical difference, other than that you're trading availability for responsibility (stresses/needs.)
I propose that fortress dwarves be modelled as a seperate group to a group to adventurers but that adventurers that settle/retire at a site be able to do jobs related to the world outside of the fortress borders, which includes manning caravans. Fortress dwarves sometimes decide to become adventurers of a given type in the wider world, normally going off for a time to explore the world and if they survive coming back to become on-site adventurers with can be made us of for their functions. If the player gives them lots of stuff when they set off then they will almost certainly retire back at their home fortress, if the player does not facilitate their choice however they would end up someplace else instead.
That's where you're mistaken. The average adventurer leaves a site (often a hamlet) with very little skill and hones it on the road. I'm pretty sure the hamlets are glad to be rid of them, especially if there's an small chance they'll return home someday being actually worth something.
I do not know what you are talking about; an adventurer is usually a highly skilled warrior and can also be a fortress guard too. While they are off wandering the world on adventurers, enjoying a near 100% chance of coming to a sticky end they are putting their home hamlet at risk and depriving it of his protection. Why would they put up with this state of affairs unless as an adventurer he were willing to do tasks for them that their own core population are unwilling/unable to do.
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Yes you may not be able to take over the whole world's trade effortlessly, but only because somebody else will have done it before you. We are not talking about the player fortress in particular here, but all sites in the world. Threats from enemies is not going to change anything, because somewhere in the world is a completely safe site that does not face any major threats from any serious adversities, that site then promptly takes over the whole world's trade.
The effect of external threats is solely to move ownership of trade from the less safe to the more safe sites; that situation as a whole remains unchanged.
Having a safe site does not protect caravans through unsafe lands.
It does not matter what the specifics are. If the sites have been independantly able to meet all demands that can be met given the total resources available to the accessable area as a whole then the adventurer trader cannot exist.
If.
Why do you presuppose the sites have the means to saturate the market? Maybe some sites have a skilled labor shortage due to living in a world where people are dying all the time.
I pressupose the existance of surplus value because without it there is no trade at all. If no site produces more of anything than they themselves consume then there is no trade at all for anyone and the topic is hence redundant.
I'm not talking about surplus value, I'm talking about surplus labor and logistics. A mountain of trinkets is worthless if you can't facilitate its safe delivery.
It's like you're asking why somebody would train and equip bandits. It's because that somebody is the bandits/mercenaries. Mercenaries are visitors who can be hired for coin. If they settle permanently at a site, they're not mercenaries anymore.
That is not how the game works, merceneries do settle at a site and they remain merceneries. Unless merceneries do something for the site that ordinery militia dwarves do not do then that does not make any sense. They are more than just migrants for hire, they are distinct group that is quite happy to join up with adventurers that visit their site unlike regular dwarves.
What mercenaries are you talking about? They don't exist until the next version. I don't know what causes some dwarves to be more willing than others, but I suspect it's tied to personality and skills.
See above. They trained themselves because they didn't have/desire the opportunity to be trained as a fancy militia.
To what end? Nobody particularly cares for them nor their services since they are just fancy militia in social function. When people hire 'merceneries' they are merely thinking of what one more militia dwarf is worth; the answer would be virtually nothing.
Think about why mercenaries exist IRL. Keep in mind your militia dwarves will also need pay once the economy rolls out. Think about coffins, families, and tantrum spirals.
You can't assume direct control of ordinary fortress dwarves. If you do, then they're no longer ordinary fortress dwarves, they're adventurers.
Or active militia dwarves.
You can't control your militia dwarves in combat, you can only point them to the enemy. You can't do any personal roleplaying as them.
That's where you're mistaken. The average adventurer leaves a site (often a hamlet) with very little skill and hones it on the road. I'm pretty sure the hamlets are glad to be rid of them, especially if there's an small chance they'll return home someday being actually worth something.
I do not know what you are talking about; an adventurer is usually a highly skilled warrior and can also be a fortress guard too. While they are off wandering the world on adventurers, enjoying a near 100% chance of coming to a sticky end they are putting their home hamlet at risk and depriving it of his protection. Why would they put up with this state of affairs unless as an adventurer he were willing to do tasks for them that their own core population are unwilling/unable to do.
They can't all be demigods, you know. (http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Adventurer_mode#Status)
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Having a safe site does not protect caravans through unsafe lands.
That is irrelevant since the safer site can deploy more soldiers to guard said caravans against threats in a given area. The danger to caravans in general simply shifts things even more towards the safer sites.
If.
The problem is that your model for creating caravans results in that if coming true far more readily than mine.
I'm not talking about surplus value, I'm talking about surplus labor and logistics. A mountain of trinkets is worthless if you can't facilitate its safe delivery.
They are the same thing. If a small number of dwarves can produce a surplus of goods, that frees up the other dwarves to cart said goods around, guard the goods and so on. If all the dwarves in the fortress are freed up to do that, then the second problem is solved by the first problem. If the fortress has no surplus value, then all dwarves are engaged in directly producing goods and none are left over to cart the goods around so there is no trade.
No surplus value = No Trade. The same thing applies to the adventurer
What mercenaries are you talking about? They don't exist until the next version. I don't know what causes some dwarves to be more willing than others, but I suspect it's tied to personality and skills.
I take it you do not play adventure mode much. I am talking about the ones that hang about at sites saying "I have sought my fortune by offering my skill at arms at site X for X number of years". While ordinary soldiers refuse to sign up as companions, these mercenaries are recruitable.
Think about why mercenaries exist IRL. Keep in mind your militia dwarves will also need pay once the economy rolls out. Think about coffins, families, and tantrum spirals.
Paying fortress dwarves does not to alter the fundamental situation one bit. The value of a mercenary is still equal to that of a fortress dwarf, so why have them at all as a separate defined group? We need something for mercenaries specifically to do that ordinary fortress dwarves cannot do to the same extent and guarding long-distance caravans gives them something to do.
You can't control your militia dwarves in combat, you can only point them to the enemy. You can't do any personal roleplaying as them.
That isn't what control means. Roleplaying is in the mind anyhow.
They can't all be demigods, you know. (http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Adventurer_mode#Status)
How skilled they are merely exacerbates the situation, a fortress may care a little bit if a peasant-level adventurer leaves but they are going to be livid if a demigod-level adventurer leaves. Fact is that unless we constrain what fortress dwarves can do in the wider world, having their dwarves become adventurers is something they will do everything in their power to avoid.
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Having a safe site does not protect caravans through unsafe lands.
That is irrelevant since the safer site can deploy more soldiers to guard said caravans against threats in a given area. The danger to caravans in general simply shifts things even more towards the safer sites.
That still in no way makes attempting to control the entire world's trade a sound investment. They have extra manpower but not the proximity, nor the lay of the land (we'll ignore this,) nor practical combat experience, nor the incentive of those in the danger zone.
The problem is that your model for creating caravans results in that if coming true far more readily than mine.
Doesn't matter if it doesn't happen in the first place. Your method is too gamey for my standards, while failing to solve the issue for any other professions.
I'm not talking about surplus value, I'm talking about surplus labor and logistics. A mountain of trinkets is worthless if you can't facilitate its safe delivery.
They are the same thing. If a small number of dwarves can produce a surplus of goods, that frees up the other dwarves to cart said goods around, guard the goods and so on. If all the dwarves in the fortress are freed up to do that, then the second problem is solved by the first problem. If the fortress has no surplus value, then all dwarves are engaged in directly producing goods and none are left over to cart the goods around so there is no trade.
No surplus value = No Trade. The same thing applies to the adventurer
You can't go on about the wonders of surplus value, then turn around and say the fortress doesn't want the adventurer's labor. That's an illogical double standard. The adventurer frees up dwarves just like everyone else, so why wouldn't they hire him?
What mercenaries are you talking about? They don't exist until the next version. I don't know what causes some dwarves to be more willing than others, but I suspect it's tied to personality and skills.
I take it you do not play adventure mode much. I am talking about the ones that hang about at sites saying "I have sought my fortune by offering my skill at arms at site X for X number of years". While ordinary soldiers refuse to sign up as companions, these mercenaries are recruitable.
I haven't done much adventuring in DF2014 due to the broken quest system, but I'm not entirely convinced those aren't just normal soldiers willing to seek adventure. It doesn't matter anyway, because it would still demonstrate that obviously somebody cares that mercenaries exist.
Think about why mercenaries exist IRL. Keep in mind your militia dwarves will also need pay once the economy rolls out. Think about coffins, families, and tantrum spirals.
Paying fortress dwarves does not to alter the fundamental situation one bit. The value of a mercenary is still equal to that of a fortress dwarf, so why have them at all as a separate defined group? We need something for mercenaries specifically to do that ordinary fortress dwarves cannot do to the same extent and guarding long-distance caravans gives them something to do.
You ignored the rest. Mercenaries are a non-permanent, liability-free fighting force.
You can't control your militia dwarves in combat, you can only point them to the enemy. You can't do any personal roleplaying as them.
That isn't what control means. Roleplaying is in the mind anyhow.
Don't argue semantics. It does, and that's what it means in the context of my post. You put into question what the player can do with adventurers that they can't with fort dwarves. Complete control over the individual's will is the thing. Your roleplaying options suffer if your character disobeys orders and you can't do the small things like walk up to an arbitrary dwarf and throw a plump helmet at him.
They can't all be demigods, you know. (http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Adventurer_mode#Status)
How skilled they are merely exacerbates the situation, a fortress may care a little bit if a peasant-level adventurer leaves but they are going to be livid if a demigod-level adventurer leaves. Fact is that unless we constrain what fortress dwarves can do in the wider world, having their dwarves become adventurers is something they will do everything in their power to avoid.
Not if the fortress values independence and the continued honing of skills. If the fort (or hamlet under the protection of a fort) is sufficiently defended, they have no cause to detain the adventurer. If they lack the manpower, they have no means to prevent the adventurer from leaving. (Maybe they could hire some mercenaries, eh?)
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That still in no way makes attempting to control the entire world's trade a sound investment. They have extra manpower but not the proximity, nor the lay of the land (we'll ignore this,) nor practical combat experience, nor the incentive of those in the danger zone.
Britain called, and he sounds indignant; he said something about "East India" and "Hudson Bay"....
Let me be serious with you, though. I agree that global trade domination is something far beyond the grasp of a single fortress. However, the key word in that sentence is single. You've gotten me thinking; what if one were to establish a series of fortresses with the intent of achieving a global trade network for their civilization? You'd have some sites that were placed to make sure your civilization had access to every kind of plant and animal (well, their products, anyways), some sites that exist to teach the locals to fear dwarvenkind and keep them from attacking caravans, some sites that were placed as pit stops on the great dwarven highway and at least one big site that pumps out all the expensive trinkets and probably functions as your capital. Yeah, it would be a lot of work, but megaprojects are a lot of work too and people do those for fun.
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That still in no way makes attempting to control the entire world's trade a sound investment. They have extra manpower but not the proximity, nor the lay of the land (we'll ignore this,) nor practical combat experience, nor the incentive of those in the danger zone.
Britain called, and he sounds indignant; he said something about "East India" and "Hudson Bay"....
Britain didn't have to contend with sea monsters. They could wreck your ship from below, and there's nothing you could do. Every trade shipment would be an Odyssey.
Also, they British had cannons to defend themselves with. Dwarves get... crossbows. You've already been boarded by pirates before you can utilize those. Nevermind, dwarves have ballistae. The previous point still stands.
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Britain didn't have to contend with sea monsters. They could wreck your ship from below, and there's nothing you could do. Every trade shipment would be an Odyssey.
Well, they're pretty few in number. You could just hunt them to extinction.