Bay 12 Games Forum

I was looking at Meph's recent graphical attempt for the UI over in the dwarffortress reddit group and it came to me suddenly: Why isn't the loading of the wagon/s before we embark, not its own stacking mini-game?  I'm going to cross-post the idea here, so if you're not a redditor, you won't have to sign up.

By playing around with even an ASCII variation of this mini-game, new Players would get a kind of tutorial about how the basic fort layout functions in first place as well as allow the wagon to be a 5 z-level starter concept for what will afterwards be much more.

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I've had many dwarves either tied up or caged due to the justice system, or restricted to the hospital due to injuries who have a bad thought about not being able to pray to their deity.  A thought came to me: Why not add the ability to "counsel believers" by adding the ability to commune with a deity every time a dwarf talks to a priest of their deity?  It could be tied to the "giving water" mechanic which already applies to both prisoners and wounded.  Furthermore, regular conversations with priests of a correct pantheon would help idle dwarves to get another boost to their moods by allowing that to be a chance to "commune with their gods" as well.  Preists talking among themselves would be a mutual benefit, which would explain why monasteries and the like even exist in World-gen.

Preists as authority figures could be used to be cried on as well as provide religious counseling, which would make an administrator preist that much more valuable to a Fortress community.

I'm of the opinion that an "opposed to life" member of a musical/ dance troupe might not be such a bad thing - it would certainly become an interesting encounter in Adventure Mode, where everyone's getting along fine playing thier instruments and having a grand 'ol time, when an adventurer strolls by outside and suddenly there are drunks and other patrons rushing out of the doors, fleeing the zombie drummer who has suddenly gone berzerk inside.  The adventurer may be returning from completing a quest, for instance, or helping bring a recently freed child to their parents.  Having this pop up out of nowhere makes the game seem much more dynamic and alive: not knowing if that tavern you're seeking to sleep in might be harboring a dead musician ready to do what the bogeymen outdoors would otherwise do...  !!FUN!!

This part of the Smallworld Dwarfopoly game.  "The Bloodlines" mini-game charts the emergence of whole lineages of dwarves from one civilization: The City builders of Tun Kab.  Vanilla DF has no rhyme nor reason when it comes to naming its dwarves, making the following of lineages very difficult.  So I will be using the following rules to simplify and clarify who is related to whom over the course of the emerging history.  I'm putting this in a separate thread so as not to cause as much confusion. 

Rules for individual names:

Rules for Clan names:

Clan prestige and the three classes of Nobles: The Royalty, The Nobility and The Gentry

Infamy: The military path to Prestige

Wealth: The golden path to Prestige

The Clergy: The religious path to Prestige

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My attempts at getting a Dwarfopoly world have seemed to often break the game program time and again.  Instead, I've elected to use a heavily populated (200 civ) pocket region with 40 caves in it.  With most of every embark square taken by one civilization or another, there should be constant warfare and adventure hooks being produced by the RNG each and every in-game year, which should make the world much more dynamic and chaotic.


There are 40 caves in this world that will be the sites of the future temples for the Dwarfopoly section of the game.  Much like the other two, this will be a succession adventurer/fortress building game.  However, first comes a couple separate games used to build up the history of SmallWorld: "The City" and "The Bloodlines".  "The Bloodlines" is what I had going in the second Dwarfopoly game, involving naming strategies based on families.  However, "The Bloodlines" will be in a separate forum thread linked to this one so it isn't as confusing.  Who knows? perhaps we can get mate888 to provide his excellent family crests again.  Those were awesome!

Dwarves in SmallWorld build Hamlets, Towns and Mead Halls, much like humans do, mining the earth for minerals, but living above it as well as below. While the Goldenbasis District is a 2x2 embark because it will be the seed upon which the rest of the City is built,  all other Districts will be 1x2 or 2x1 embarks: each fulfilling a specific role.  The roles and placement of each new district will be decided by poll and discussion, while the current district is being built, and will be hosted on the "City Planning" thread.  According to their purposes, each District will have one or more end goals, which will be discussed in further detail in the "City Planning" thread.
  Each District will be permanently retired if its end goals are met or every single dwarf in it has died.  There may be sections of The City where none currently live except for the ghosts of the unhappy dead and whatever dark creatures decide to make it their home.  However, some may be bustling metropolises, filled to bursting with hundreds of industrious workers.  So be it, this is The City.

End goal: to spread into every section of of the 16x16 District map.  By the end, The City will be comprised of 127 seperate Districts.  Once The City has completed the end goals of it's final District (or its residents have perished in the attempt), this portion of the SmallWorld game will be completed and the Dwarfopoly game can begin.

At long last I am beginning a new Dwarfopoly game.  However, This one will begin as a story-mode world that charts the emergence of whole lineages of dwarves from one civ: The Bridge Builders of Mingtutherith.  Vanilla DF has no rhyme nor reason when it comes to naming its dwarves, making the following of lineages very difficult.  So I will be using the following rules to simplify and clarify who is related to whom over the course of the emerging history:

Rules for individual names:

Rules for Clan names:

Clan prestige and the three classes of Nobles: The Royalty, The Nobility and The Gentry

Infamy: The military road to Prestige
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Sounds complicated, but it really isn't.  The world is made up of 40 large islands in the shape and position of Monopoly squares.  They are separated by a cursed sea filled with freakish weather and undead monsters.  Before the community succession game can begin, these islands must be linked together by a chain of 39 bridge forts, and the history of those bridge-forts will be the history of the world that Players will be inheriting when the game is ready to become a succession world.

Each year, the history of the Bridge-Building civilization will be updated and the links posted below.  Likewise will the family trees of each Clan be updated, along with each Clan's Prestige (click on their coat of arms for easy reference).  Finally, yearly shots of each bridge's progress will be provided.

WARNING: Do not attempt to read the entries here chronologically.  The following post's image links lead to replies I've posted in this group - it won't make much sense if you attempt to read the posts in the order they were posted.  This is a hyper-document format instead.

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Credits:

I was reading something dry and technical on Medium today about the economics of the Roman city-states and how modern economic theory didn't support it, when on an inspiration, I looked up alternatives to market-driven economies. 

Turns out, there's just one (plus "mixed", but that's like getting the soft-serve swirl of two flavors, so in my mind it's not as distinct): A "Command Economy".

So, then I looked up various examples of historic command economies and right at the top of the list was the civilization of Ancient Egypt:

So as I looked at this, more and more, I was seeing how similar the fortress (and the possible entire civ structure) of dwarf fortress resembled the socioeconomic structure of ancient Egypt.

What's interesting about this is that Command economies are there to help the greatest number of people to live and work, rather than create the greatest amount of wealth for a specific person.  The purpose of each strata of society is specifically there to make the next strata up a little more comfortable, and it's the responsibility of each strata to make sure that all the ones below them are doing their part to maintain the status quo.  At the very top of the pyramid is the Pharoh and his family, the figurehead for the entire civ. (Much like the king or queen of all the dwarves.) 

Perhaps Toady can use the Ancient Egyptian model to finally simulate the dwarven economy - each Fortress tasked with a specific series of dictated production goods based on their social standing in the civ as a whole, and likewise given authority to dictate production of goods from those below them in social status.  Each social status required to provide their types of goods to the ones next up in the social chain, plus passing along any other goods from further down that are required by their social betters.  It creates a whole system of embark-perogatives based around the social class of the site embarked from.  Furthermore, as sites are created out from the central government, any time one in a branch increases social standing, the best favored of their daughter sites would also rise to fill that vacancy, and so on down the line, allowing the authority for new sites to be embarked upon, to produce the required raw materials needed to sustain the entire system.  It becomes a self-sustaining trade economy based around direct mandate rather than the more chaotic indirect mandate for a free market system.  As such, the flavor of the game wouldn't be compromised, but merchants would be able to be logical about their demands, and the outpost liaison would function as the mother-site's mouthpiece, dictating which kinds of materials and goods are required by the Mountainhome on pain of pain.

Of course, embarks that decide to go rogue (or who either ignore or fail to meet their production quotas) would have to face the civ version of the Hammerer.  The expedition leader or Mayor's life plus all of their family both at home and else-where might be forfeit.  Or possibly, whatever social standing the Fortress had managed to obtain in the civ would be given to another site, and they'd be demoted. 

At the very bottom of the ladder are war captives and other slaves, which could very easily become a different civ flag, which is then able to be seiged and attacked by the former Mountainhome.

The benefits of being a Fortress with higher social standing are obvious: raw materials could be demanded of any daughter-embarks, to be transported to the site by the caravan as trade-goods to be taken or passed along to fulfill higher-up quotas.  Also, the expectations of each citizen in the Fortress for a minimum standard of comfort might also increase with social standing, allowing artists more time and resources to produce great works and as a site increased its social standing, so would its citizens be automatically afforded a commensurate level of respect (or secret derision/hatred) from those who are of a lower social standing in the civ.

There are other connections that such a system implies, like surnames and branches of a specific family who are "well connected", such that nepotism can be used to place high ranking nobility into military positions, or upwardly mobile marriages from one social level to another becoming a "thing", including great expenditures of luxury goods to appease the sensibilities of the intended bride/groom (a dwarf's "favorites" list seems to be appropriate material for making this an interesting variety.)

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Coding this would be much simpler, since the chronological progression of which mother group that a site was embarked from is already in the legends mode data.  Extrapolation from the original site down to the one being visited would allow the site-generator to use differing levels of specialty rooms to show both the age and specialization of each site.  If the human economy used a Europian feudal-model command economy, the results would also be quite similar in pattern if not in form.  Regardless, the flow of goods would be both logical and able to be traced from production site to market/trade depot much more easily than the more decentralized free-market supply/demand model.