Bay 12 Games Forum

Whilst retirement is a fairly new concept, it does seem reasonable that even in the past, people reached an age where they were too infirm to work, but didnt immediately die. Sure, one bad harvest or bad winter, or bout of disease and they were done for, but it stands to reason that it occurred at least some of the time. It'd be interesting if the 'senility' described by the OP covered skill loss too. Although not everyone (even alcoholic midgets) go senile with age. A weakened immune system for older dwarves as well as lowered physical stats and recovery times, and you hopefully wouldnt have a massive ammount of elderly dwarves stacking up in the meeting halls.

Also, someone mentioned before on some none suggestion thread about them targetting socialite dwarfs, so they have more chance of getting noble positions. Whether this is the case or not currently, I dont know. However, It makes more sense to pick off dwarves in a position of power if you yourself want to take control. I'm 'happy' with them targetting skilled dwarves, it makes them a priority to deal with, if they only ever picked off useless dwarves, then deciding whether to keep them in containment (for militia purposes) and run a risk or just kill them never really occurs. As it stands, I quite enjoyed sentencing the son of an elf that killed my starting miner to pit fighting.

Mayors do.

Clearly not if he's wandering around a battlefield.

Once we get a slightly more fleshed out agricultural model, perhaps make the caverns a MUCH better place to grow underground crops? Either make underground plants produce more/mature quicker the further down they are, or if the complexity of soil types is expanded upon, make the cavern contain lots of very fertile and very rich soil. Perhaps from all the mulched up dead stuff and naturally occuring moisture. This presuposes that feeding a fortress is increased in difficulty, something we'll hopefully see in the future.

Surely then, the ammo would explode before being fired? Unless you can change the properties of an object mid game or have the ranged weapon transfor the ammo into a different object. I doubt that would work out.

So in that case, seems reasonable as an init option or a tag in the raws. Could then make the kind of one use javalins that some armies used.

I think the point made about why would dwarves have mounts, considering their culture is one that needs answering. If they live underground, mounts seem too large and unweildy, even if you make larger passage ways, you wouldnt want to be crushed up against a tunnel wall when Urist Mcnotgoodatriding screws up. Now, when armies are sent out, it makes sense that the dwarfs might use cavalry, but given the current limitations with AI tactics, cavalry wont act any different than normal foot soldiers, which is a shame.

Bohandas isn't suggesting that we lop parts of the Asci of to represent lost limbs, thats a total strawman arguement. However, one of the many arguements FOR sprites is that it is more accurate, which he is attempting to disprove with the disfigurement arguement. I agree with him, in part at least. A totally symbolic representation is clearer than a somewhat symbolic representation. The Asci isn't meant to resemble anything, I find that the complete disconection from visuals makes it easier to maintain personal imagination, whilst semi visual representations (sprites) remove a some of that.

Secondly, the sprites cannot possibly cover everything in game. Procedurally generated beasts like FBs would either have to have a stock sprite, or a sybolic representation, leading to either an unrealistic sprite, or a mixed visual scheme.

That aside, Toady really shouldnt be wasting time on what is essentially an surplus feature. The game is playable with Asci graphics, and users can swap in sprites. The suggestion/s to make Toady add in a default sprite pack seems wasteful and pointless.