Bay 12 Games Forum
Dwarf Fortress => DF Dwarf Mode Discussion => Topic started by: ArmokGoB on December 24, 2022, 11:01:57 am
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I think that not being able to put them into squads or assign them meaningful work outweighs their utility as dedicated haulers/planters. I also don't think I've had a fort last 18 years more than once. I'm not a huge fan of this change to be honest.
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If they're not useful, you can always change the raws, atom smash them, or banish them from your fortress. The one upside is the chores they do.
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It works but that is a long wait, it makes sense though since they do chores now. My fort died to undead and the reclaim group was killed by an undead pike elf of some sort. The undead chased my animals around and stumbled over a cage trap (undead can jump a 1 wide channel now or there was an overhanging tree or something, oopsie) and a single survivor was a 7 year old dwarf. I maximized fps and waited a year or two before migrants arrived without running out of drinks, though it was getting close. The survivor was raised by elephants I had brought with embark points in the meantime.
The survivor is now 18 and I'm checking to see if pump operator still gives physical trait increases before I make him a dwarven martial artist and use all the many undead I have caged for training. He doesn't become depressed easily and doesn't care about anything anymore, good social traits but poor military ones, I've been putting off the barony for 11 years to assign it to him eventually, after I get around to reading up on what tasks barons can take to see if I should push it back further until a not quite most interesting dwarf status is achieved.
It felt like a long time because I didn't know it had changed and expected it at 12, and every year I kept an eye on the birth/maturation icon I would normally ignore. I was hatching emu and keas and breeding wolverines and coati so that icon was frequent.
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Did the devs gave the reason for the change? Has anything else changed mechanically ?
If they're not useful, you can always change the raws, atom smash them, or banish them from your fortress. The one upside is the chores they do.
Yeah, but iirc banishing result in the whole family leaving, killing them is a major stressor, and setting a human trafficking's network for fondling Goblins takes time
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Kinda stupid. Playing for 12 years already is a long time to not get bored or die, 18 is a massive stretch.
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That depends on how it is done. For example, Rimworld has recently added Children (https://rimworldwiki.com/wiki/Children), which go through several development stages from helpless babies (0-2) to adulthood at 18. At young age they have specials needs and activities (including tutoring), and eventually they develop skills, interests and become more productive parts of the community. Something like that could be nice.
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I can understand completely why it was 12 to begin with. That's the average age of the onset of human puberty, which biologically, makes one fertile and therefore as developed as one needs to be to no longer be considered a child.
I can also understand why it was changed to 18, which is (in some places) the age at which humans are said to be mentally developed enough to be fully responsible for their own actions, and as far as their thinking and emotional life is concerned, no longer a child.
If the cutoff point didn't affect the mechanics of the game, it wouldn't matter enough to include it in the raws in the first place, but it does. A child can't be assigned work, can't fight in the military, and can't produce offspring. For each of these 3 effects, it is fully possible for societies to consider a pubescent between the ages of 12 and 18 adult enough to engage in these activities (and you can easily find examples of places where they do, even in 2022). But, here in the US where the game is being made we've decided it's more wise to consider pubescents as not adult until they are 18. So, just guessing here, the Adams brothers decided to force the dwarves to be more American. Maybe they were worried that people would think they were making a statement about the age of consent, which it isn't, but I can understand why they'd be fearful of that.
And honestly, they are dwarves, not humans, so the cutoff could be anything from 6 to 60 and still be justifiable. But as far as gameplay goes, increasing childhood by 50% makes the game less fun, IMO. Just for fun, I increased elves to 26 because I want them to suffer 8)
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I dislike this for two reason:
- Teens playing with toy boats
- Even more child migrants than in previous versions
(The problem with child migrants is that, in masses, a strange mood is likely to strike a child and thus result in some silly woodcraft artefact. This can be mitigated by "schooling" the children in a guild hall, but that takes time and attention, and some inevitably bunk off.)
If age of consent is a concern, the valid age gap can be modified. To my knowledge, it is already very narrow for young dwarves. Or add a new condition that outright forbids marriage below 18.
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Btw this isn't just for Dwarves, but affects all the major races including Humans, Elves, Goblins and Kobolds.
I dislike this because this is going to affect world history (which will be left devoid of RL like rare events where child rulers waged wars) and gameplay wise as children will be useless for MUCH longer.
But, here in the US where the game is being made we've decided it's more wise to consider pubescents as not adult until they are 18. So, just guessing here, the Adams brothers decided to force the dwarves to be more American. Maybe they were worried that people would think they were making a statement about the age of consent, which it isn't, but I can understand why they'd be fearful of that.
Good luck with explaining why the Dwarven legal drinking age is 1 (think this + beard (https://preview.redd.it/bx7yo60l0uh61.jpg?auto=webp&s=4957610f3fe8026a1e6401e6cca666d08372b52a)) and child labor.
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This is a terrible change unless they've raised the mooding age too.
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I don't have particularly strong feelings on adulthood being 18 now, but do feel like there needs to be another intermediate stage that separates true children from teenagers. Teenagers should be able to do more work and effectively be apprentices. I imagine that's one of the many things that is planned to be done in the long run.
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There have been talk of some sort of master/apprentice relation for years, not sure when or what this mature into, but I have been doing just that with Dwarf Therapist for a long time.
I agree it would be nice to see some more intermediate stages and apprenticeship, this would make things more interesting and work as late game resource sinks. Though right now the only mechanical change I am aware off is the the addition of hauling labor (called chores, presumably for the same reason as for the age change). iirc hauling trains strength and presumably hauling task will reduce the time kids socialize so possibly we will have stronger less social kids.
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It's been put in with something to tide us over, so its perfectly acceptable but the children behaviours are absolutely not in the right place at the minute for the reasons already mentioned for it to make sense, as they are still adjusted for 10 year olds. I think its just a collateral decision of the pace of game development and it'll be tied up with a better system later, players can always set it back.
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For those who don't know how, you can set it back to 12 like in past DF versions by going in
...\YourDFDirectory\data\vanilla\vanilla_creatures\objects\
Open creature_standard.txt and change for the Dwarf section
[CHILD:18]
into
[CHILD:12]
So your dwarven child become full fledged adults in body and mind at 12.
Much more interesting for playing a generational fortress.
Not sure why this was changed, fantasy dwarves aren't human , i don't see any problem in them genetically aging and maturing faster than human until adulthood then genetically living longer after that.
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Taking into account that Kitfox Discord bans for "fantasy racism" just in case. It makes total sence to make dwarves mature at the age of 18 to prevent "fantasy pedo" just in case.
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there needs to be another intermediate stage that separates true children from teenagers. Teenagers should be able to do more work and effectively be apprentices.
Yes, Teenage status from ages 12 to 18, marked by extreme moodiness, compulsive behavior, and a refusal to do enabled labors. I like it.
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I'm against it. The twelve years threshold was a golden compromise between reality and functionality (after all, humans in ages past were supposed to act as adults at much younger age than it is today, especially when it comes to work including as soldiers). Eighteen years is too long to be usable.
The dwarves are already not comparable to humans, with their completely different life spans, and fertility ranges, so why forcing this arbitrary change? Only to appease some political sensitivities, I think, which mix life with fantasy too much to my liking.
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I've changed mine back to 12. From a gameplay perspective 18 is too long, I struggle getting multi generation fortresses going with 12 to be honest.
Also, they are born with beards, and are fantasy creatures. It's fine with me if humans grow up at 18, but for dwarves at some point you have to look at what's best from a gameplay perspective.
Another solution would be to shorten the number of ticks in a year drastically, like cut them in half, but that will likely unbalance a lot of other mechanics.
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It's fine with me if humans grow up at 18, but for dwarves at some point you have to look at what's best from a gameplay perspective.
All bets are off for fantasy races. However, for a medieval society, I would recommend 15 or 16 for humans (Crusader Kings got away with it for humans, so there's precedent for this being acceptable). Although, since it affects both body size and ability to work, I think the best solution would be to set different triggers for being able to work and being able to reproduce, alongside the physical aspects. As someone else said, creatures currently become adults, "body and mind," at their adult age.
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Changed the raws back down immediately.
It doesn't make sense from a gameplay perspective (12 years is already longer than many fortresses get played for; barring children as migrants means no migrants in most cases).
It doesn't make sense from a realism perspective -- in pre-modern societies the onset of puberty was when you started working professionally, and you were already doing a hell of a lot more "chore" work than just carrying things around -- a quarter of the labors in DF would have been partially or wholly given to older children.
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I don't like it ... in medieval times maturity was reached much earlier. The game does so much to get a lot of facts right, I think this is a mistake.
I think 15 is right.
I don't want a teenage state as it didn't exist historically. AFAIK you just went straight from child to adult at around 14-16.
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Certainly, this has nothing todo with Child development (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child). The question is whether they just got bent for the steam release crowd, or if they are planning to introduce any nuances in the foreseeable future (on post release timetable not on soon tm one)
If the later, I think that change to child tag doesn't make sense with how everything has been implemented for the past decade, maybe add an intermediate stage for intelligent races which will align with the American definition of 'mentally developed' and legal age.
For example: Baby->Child->Adolescent->Adult
I've changed mine back to 12. From a gameplay perspective 18 is too long, I struggle getting multi generation fortresses going with 12 to be honest.
Also, they are born with beards, and are fantasy creatures. It's fine with me if humans grow up at 18, but for dwarves at some point you have to look at what's best from a gameplay perspective.
Another solution would be to shorten the number of ticks in a year drastically, like cut them in half, but that will likely unbalance a lot of other mechanics.
True, I doubt many will see a multi generation fort.
And while I can imagine a dwarf at the age of 2 with beard at the tavern, a human children at age of 2 and 17 being equal in abilities stretches the suspension of disbelief.
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I don't like it, and see no point to it other than people who want to criticise the game making a big deal out of it if it's not 18. It's to prevent the inevitable haters, in my opinion, and to prevent liability, got nothing to do with gameplay. But hey, easily repairable, so easily ignored.
No loo(k) and being forced to use mouseover is much more annoying.
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I think overall it's an improvement since now we get chores, and I don't think I've ever played a fort for as long as 12 years anyway.
Eighteen seems a little high, though. It feels too modern. In the 1989 Disney movie "The Little Mermaid", the Little Mermaid mentions that she is 16 to let us know that she is old enough to get married. If he could lower it by 2 years to 16, I think that would be a good compromise. Mechanically it doesn't really effect me, but from an RP perspective, it feels like we are pushing modern human values onto dwarves.
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I like the idea of a new development phase between child and adult for the sentient races. Maybe don't call it a "teen", though; that sounds too modern, imo. Maybe make it "adolescent". For RP backwards compatibility, put adolescence at 12 years so the age of 12 still retains some significance to a dwarf. Let them learn a trade skill or something when they reach this age.
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it feels like we are pushing modern human values onto dwarves.
I don't mind this being implemented for the elves, who are immortal, but if they come to the dwarves and start demanding tree quotas and drinking age of 21 that is crossing the line!
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It is one line to change in the raws, so I don't feel concerned at all... It ain't the only "mending" I do anyway. In my worlds no one is immortal (to get goblin and elven necromancers) and they all live (animals too) 10k years. So I don't need to micro animal handling.
Except dwarves and humans, where I kept default ages so it feels more realistic (but I couldn't care less of an immortal goose).
Added benefit is that interesting animal men characters have a better chance to survive.
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alright...
listen guys I can understand it COULD be for legal reasons (having a game with 13 years old creature that does hard labour and have marriage and kids could make some people uneasy)
but eh, some clicks and it's reverted as before
mostly because it fucks up some gameplay mechanics and no, children doing chores can be something that makes things worse in the long run (children handling corpses or more exposed to the outside world and they are defenceless)
another thing could be lowering the percentage of children in the migrant waves and the children cap
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To all the people saying it's a simple change in the raws to reverse this:
It's important to recognize that this change affects the intended experience of the game. It is important to consider how the intended experience is affected (like how there's a separation between normal and hard difficulties, etc.), regardless of if one can make changes to the raws to make the game easier or harder. Basically, I want to consider the design implications of this change and how it is or isn't supported by the rest of the game mechanics and dynamics.
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Dwarves and goblins should be at 12, humans at 18, and elves at ~24.
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To all the people saying it's a simple change in the raws to reverse this:
It's important to recognize that this change affects the intended experience of the game. It is important to consider how the intended experience is affected (like how there's a separation between normal and hard difficulties, etc.), regardless of if one can make changes to the raws to make the game easier or harder. Basically, I want to consider the design implications of this change and how it is or isn't supported by the rest of the game mechanics and dynamics.
plus there is no real reason why this changed was made in the first place
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I don't think it's too bad but I agree a teenager status would be a nice addition so my 15 year old dwarves could do some more advanced chores and didn't spend as much time playing with toys (and also a toddler status that made them not do chores at all would be nice, though a two year old lugging boulders through my fort is pretty hilarious). I suspect the change is making way for an eventual apprenticeship system that would apply to all child dwarves though so I'm pretty patient with it.
Also, I suspect it has nothing to do with the human 'age of majority' in modern cultures and much more to do with dwarves having a lifespan of 150+ years, so having a longer childhood.
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It's to prevent the inevitable haters, in my opinion, and to prevent liability, got nothing to do with gameplay. But hey, easily repairable, so easily ignored.
Not a fan of this --lets appease the haters and everyone else can just go edit raws themselves-- sort of reasoning.
I suspect the change is making way for an eventual apprenticeship system that would apply to all child dwarves though so I'm pretty patient with it.
Also, I suspect it has nothing to do with the human 'age of majority' in modern cultures and much more to do with dwarves having a lifespan of 150+ years, so having a longer childhood.
Could be, but this was applied to regular lifespan humans as well, and unless apprenticeship system is around the corner this change coming along with accessibility release is suspect and an unwelcome change.
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I don't think I'm all that bothered by it. The fort I'm in now, because dwarves are of all ages coming in, I have a couple reach adulthood every year now. And I think my rate of growth is greater than my rate of death so far. So even at 18 to adult, the situation is sustainable.
You can still train the kids, by getting them near guilds. That experience rubs off. Because I have demonstrations at my guilds, where if kids participate they get dabbling ranks in those things. I don't know if it works for military abilities, I was going to try this later. So you can at least have the kid enter adulthood with some useable experience.
If you implemented some step between full adult and child for 'teenager' you'd need some reason for it.
1.) Baby: Gets carried around, falls down wells
2.) Child: Hauls goods, can play with toys, can gain experience watching demonstrations
3.) Teenager: Apprenticed? Can then do a limited amount of labor?
4.) Adult: normal Dwarf
That's where my thinking goes at least.
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I wouldn't mind it, if it weren't for the fact that the leading cause of death in my 16 year old fortress has been tantrumming children, that currently face no consequences for their actions under Dwarven Justice.
I'm not kidding; one 17-year-old has 20+ kills. As soon as she ages up, she's going straight into the military.
If you're going to keep them as children for so long, make them a lot less lethal and susceptible to imprisonment, beatings and hammerings.
Yes, I am advocating that dwarven children should be given a good beating if they kill my legendary miner/weaponsmith/soapmaker.
Migrants still arrive "despite the danger", and that danger isn't goblins or the forces of darkness; it's adolescents running a(r)mok.
In one of the 40 releases, I made a device that would drown newborn babies in an effort to claw back some frames. Frames are thankfully more abundant in this version on my current PC, but I have seriously considered re-implementing the device for the safety of my citizens.
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Interestingly, according to the data file most standard species still seem to grow to their adult size at 12 years, regardless of their "CHILD" age. This is probably why we're seeing reports of tantruming children punching out trolls - anyone above 12 is an adult dwarf as far as the combat engine cares.
That is a bit too silly for me, so I made a compromise and set the CHILD age down to 15. Being married with two kids and a lover at age 15 is a bit much, though historically it's been known to happen. But 15-year olds playing with toys is also unusual, though again not unheard of.
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I wouldn't mind it, if it weren't for the fact that the leading cause of death in my 16 year old fortress has been tantrumming children, that currently face no consequences for their actions under Dwarven Justice.
I'm not kidding; one 17-year-old has 20+ kills. As soon as she ages up, she's going straight into the military.
If you're going to keep them as children for so long, make them a lot less lethal and susceptible to imprisonment, beatings and hammerings.
Yes, I am advocating that dwarven children should be given a good beating if they kill my legendary miner/weaponsmith/soapmaker.
Migrants still arrive "despite the danger", and that danger isn't goblins or the forces of darkness; it's adolescents running a(r)mok.
In one of the 40 releases, I made a device that would drown newborn babies in an effort to claw back some frames. Frames are thankfully more abundant in this version on my current PC, but I have seriously considered re-implementing the device for the safety of my citizens.
Yo, not as Much this?
But I have a 1 year old that beat up a giant black bear.
Because the giant black bear committed the cardinal sin
It let itself be attacked by her dog, and then took a swipe at the dog.
So she punched it. With her 1 year old baby fist. And it Ran. Far away.
No joke, I've been following this girl's family for 10 years IG now (Her mother became my baroness), and the millisecond I'm able, she's going into our premier axe dwarf unit. I feel 'Bearslayer' is destined for great things.
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I think it's funny that dwarves can't get married before they reach 18 but dwarven newborns can be lustful.
(https://i.imgur.com/cA9OQ1l.png)
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I had some minor frustrations about this change, but having read this thread I think it's just right. I actually love having kids doing chores, and playing more of an active role in the fort.
Now that I think about it, dwarves have such long lives, they might be considered "kids" until they're 30 or 40. I mean, that's a LOT more "realistic" than a 12 year old adult, in the context of the game. An apprentice system, related to guilds maybe, would be a fascinating dynamic, I hope they're considering something like this for the future!
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I had some minor frustrations about this change, but having read this thread I think it's just right. I actually love having kids doing chores, and playing more of an active role in the fort.
Now that I think about it, dwarves have such long lives, they might be considered "kids" until they're 30 or 40. I mean, that's a LOT more "realistic" than a 12 year old adult, in the context of the game. An apprentice system, related to guilds maybe, would be a fascinating dynamic, I hope they're considering something like this for the future!
Yeah. It could be.
Worth noting (and just as a reference point, I prefer something more dynamic too) that D&D Dwarves are said to mature at the same rate as humans. Then they just live longer.
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I think that not being able to put them into squads or assign them meaningful work outweighs their utility as dedicated haulers/planters. I also don't think I've had a fort last 18 years more than once. I'm not a huge fan of this change to be honest.
We need to make money now, we can't have a different world with foreign sensibilities anymore, developped in and adapted from a world where life is cruel painful and short. If we don't catter to the extremely specific wants and needs of a millenial american audience, kitfox is going to stare us down and we can't have that.
It's not selling out, it is accepting the reality of the world of today.
Boy I can't wait for the hardcoded easy mode and the option to disable dismembrements.
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I didn't even notice this in hours of playing. Though... there was a lot of kids immigrating. For me anyway the chores kids do are a frequent bottle neck so having them around has been handy. Nice seeing my fort with the next gen running about and playing imagination. Wish they got up to some mischief!
With that said it I can see this as being a minus. I haven't played a fort long enough yet for it to impact me but tacking another four long years onto getting full use out of your dwarfs is rough.
Concur with others theorizing this has to little to do with gameplay and more with politics and whatnot. It be how it be, Toady isn't on his own now. There's a publisher involved, a retailer and even another team member now. The times be changing in a big way for DF.
EDIT: That said it could be part of a larger incoming rework of kids too that just isn't fully implemented yet or some combination of both.
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reading this thread, and people's accounts of tantruming children, and waves of children creating cheap wooden artifacts, has kind of killed my interest in playing the newest version tbh.
hopefully some clarification, and or further changes to life stages, will be forthcoming soon.
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It makes more sense for long lived creatures to age slower, not quicker. Hobbits in LOTR weren't adults until 33 if I remember right... But also it's less useful as a player for a fort to have these children mooching around for longer.
I doubt this is some change forced by kitfox or 'millennials' like some people want to believe, my guess is that Tarn wants children and families to be a more significant part of the fortress simulation. So he gave them useful things to do and kept them children longer to keep the family unit together longer. Instead of being an annoyance we ignore for 12 years he likely wants us to embrace the roleplay of having children. I'm assuming this is step 1 before apprenticeships/education etc.
All that said, I have a 4 year old hauling the shit out of my rock quarry, so at this point this I have no complaints. It's better than my useful dwarves doing the hauling.
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It makes more sense for long lived creatures to age slower, not quicker. Hobbits in LOTR weren't adults until 33 if I remember right... But it's less useful for a fort to have these mooches around for longer.
A human is as long-lived as, well, an Earth human and they now become adults at 18, so that argument fails completely.