When it comes to Toady, "sooner" is a veeeery relative term. And that only applies if he doesn't go chasing after some shiny other idea that gets his attention first, like when he decided to put the caravan arc on hold last time to make human cities for a couple years. (Not that human cities are a bad thing by any measure, but I remember taverns were 'coming soon' in 2011...)
Anyway, I think such ideas make a bit more sense as part of a "guild" of one sort or another. (I.E. a mason's guild teaching architecture.) I'm a little leery about books just instantly making people learn things through book-based knowledge beams to the brain, but having some sort of hands-on training makes a decent bit of sense, and you can basically do that in-game already. (Just construct a bridge, deconstruct it, then construct it again...) What you'd really need is a military screen-style interface for the designation of, and in-game recognition of a place of learning so that would-be architects could come visit your ditch where you build bridges.
That said, there's no reason for you not to revive an existing topic when you want to add something to it. What you've written here could easily be used to expand upon one of those threads you already linked.
That said, there's no reason for you not to revive an existing topic when you want to add something to it. What you've written here could easily be used to expand upon one of those threads you already linked.
I don't think it'll be: oh, it's "And She Sang, Urist lambemòng" a book on a legendary mason. I think I'll read it
*reads it
Skill in masonry has increased to Competent
*immediately gains 10 pounds in muscle*
I think it'll be either,
A) no skill gains from books
B) skill gains from books come in the form of being able to make new things with innovations or stuff. (read Quern, Fact or Fiction, learn to make quern.)
C) Skill gains would be percent based, so a mason with no experience cannot learn from a book. But a competent one will get a slightly better boost than an expert one.
D) Skill gains would be too marginal to be noteworthy, regular training is better.
E) Books make it possible/much easier to start a profession. Not all dwarves will start off knowing how to forge a blade, carve a rock, or make a crossbow out of a chicken.
I like this though, I was thinking about this earlier and how amusing it would be to come across a lye making guild in adventure mode.
So you put the apple ashes in the water... Boil 'em, and skim the lye off the top. Then boil it again...
done.
That's it.
You're done, you're a certified lye maker.
get out.
It's my first day!
*Urist Mcmaster grabs Logem lomlom by the right foot!
*Urist Mcmaster throws Logem lomlom
*Logem lomlom collides with an obstacle (The door)
I'd also like to see the personality of the master/founder affect academy policies.
example: More paranoid, independent and less power hungry, and cooperative founders will have fewer students and stricter signup policies. (I'm afraid one will kill me, I don't need them, I don't need to exert power over them, I hate working with large groups.)
ones that value craftsmanship, eloquence and decorum will have larger, better furnished guild buildings (worldgen only. You decide this one yourself in your own academies.) and keep their students for longer. (You can't leave until you're a legendary +5 kicker, dang it!)
Ones that dislike hard work, tradition and like leisure time and merrymaking will have more non-teaching things on campus. (World gen again)
Ones that dislike law and loyalty are likely to build... secret rooms and armories. (again, worldgen.)
I also can't help but think that some might get the money to build their academy through adventuring and raiding.
In a conversation with a headmaster:
Where did you get the money to start the academy?
I stole a bunch of weapons from a goblin pit, turns out most weapons go for 250 apiece, and dimension lumber for 5.
Also, socks, they go for about 30 apiece. So once you've acquired about 30 pairs of socks and 30 copper axes...
Wait, so this place is indirectly made from stolen axes, and used socks?
Yep.
I must leave.
Well, I'm not sure that a book alone actually helps at all, is the problem.
I mean, I have a Probability textbook from college with me that I guarantee you would be illegible to over 99.9% of the English-literate population. It takes a very intimate understanding of high-level mathematics to even approach the book, and notably over half the class of very intelligent people failed that course, and not for too much partying. Without the pressure of a failing grade looming over your head and constant trips to the TAs to learn this stuff, there would be no learning it at all, as almost nobody has the will to push through a nearly illegible tome to master what is in it on their own time.
You don't learn some things by just reading about them, you have to do them. There's a reason the bulk of a math textbook is made up of the problems you have to do, because the lessons are meaningless gibberish until you actually solve problems with them enough time that they get engraved on your brain. My 2nd grade math class mostly consisted of handing us sheet after sheet of basic math problems, and timing how long it took each of us to fill them out.
Technology is advanced on the factory floor, as they say. (Which is a large part of why I hate standard video game tech trees...)
I mean, there are some arts that really are just plain dead. Nobody knows how to make Greek Fire, for example, because it was a secret that was kept secret by never writing it down.
People have forgotten how Medieval martial arts were performed, even with detailed textbooks, and historians and reenactors argue over many details, especially when it takes a long period of actual hands-on reenactment to even get a grip of what the books were even talking about. Reenactors are basically just reinventing the whole field through use.
I'm not even that keen on having skills being learned through books, to be honest. So more importantly, what do you think of having academies that work kind of like taverns? Meaning, foreigners comming and staying in them for some time, paying fees, etc?
If anything, I would be most in agreement with a % learning rate gain with books. (I.E. reading a book gives you +20% skill experience when you train it after reading for a period of time.) That would simulate the idea that someone would be able to try out different techniques they couldn't come up with on their own without a lot more fumbling. I'd also prefer it if books were keyed to specific skill levels. (I.E. "Carpentry for Dummies" doesn't work on a master carpenter, and "Urist Ashentomb's compendium of Advanced Accounting" doesn't work on anything less than Accomplished (10), and has nothing more to teach you past Legendary 1.)
The creation of an academy shouldn't be something that a dwarf decides on their own, however. It should involve something like royal decree or recognition of mastery by other dwarves to the point that people start naturally coming to your fort just to meet the legendary weaver dwarf that crafted that artifact cat bone sock.
He's not lustful (less likely to use his inflluence to hit one his pupils)
Well, I think that would happen naturally. But I think high lust would mean: more likely to admit a member of the headmasters preferred sex. (A lusty straight male dwarf headmaster would have a little bias toward lady dwarves enrolling. even if they don't quite fit the standards...)
Also, let's talk tuition.
Well, I think that would happen naturally. But I think high lust would mean: more likely to admit a member of the headmasters preferred sex. (A lusty straight male dwarf headmaster would have a little bias toward lady dwarves enrolling. even if they don't quite fit the standards...)
Also, let's talk tuition.
That presumes a whole lot about the way that sexism and sex drive work that would fall outside the topic of this thread... (Why wouldn't sex drive contribute to a Mad Men viewpoint that women are just there for sex, and shouldn't be involved in their serious work?)
Anyway, back to the academy part, I'd prefer to see it be something more fluid and incremental than a declaration. I.E. a single dwarf passing through wants to learn from a master, then a couple more learn, then a few dwarves come to your fort specifically for that master, then you can start thinking about expanding the facilities to make it a serious portion of your fortress and having multiple instructors. (Although having royal decree state that we need more weaponsmiths or axelords or whatever in this realm if we are to survive, and therefore, you need to prepare suitable teachers within 3 years, upon which time you will receive students. To aid you in this, have this shipment of 50 ingots of steel.)
Well, I'm thinking more worldgen academies. But I have to keep in mind dorfy academies.
I don't think it should be "like a tavern" in that you say:
Hey! I want an academy here and here! I want a masonry academy right now and Urist Momuzidek (an adequate mason, who recently immigrated and took up mining due to the lack of work.) is the headmaster!
I do like the idea that a dwarf might decide to build an academy at your fortress, when he feels he is a master (not objective, depends on confidence.) and he becomes a noble, a headmaster who still performs his labors in conjunction with teaching and headmastering, in which he then asks for dorms, dining rooms and classrooms in which to establish his academy.
The creation of an academy shouldn't be something that a dwarf decides on their own, however. It should involve something like royal decree or recognition of mastery by other dwarves to the point that people start naturally coming to your fort just to meet the legendary weaver dwarf that crafted that artifact cat bone sock.
And to go back to the academy idea, I again think it's a very good one. I'd personally love a concept like becoming the headquarters of a specific guild, and being the place that all the would-be architechts in the realm go to study advanced techniques like job cancellation traps. (What do you mean that's not a real skill?!)
On tuition:
Urist måmgoziod is appointed headmaster of a carpentry academy comissioned by a group of wealthy Scholars who bribed the duchess into the deal with a massive pile of untasty finger limes. [Ribs]
Urist måmgoziod has had several students coming to him recently and has had difficulty managing them. He asks the duchess for consent to make an academy to simplify his life. [Kohaku]
Urist måmgoziod has had several students coming to him recently and has had difficulty managing them. He asks the duchess for consent to make an academy to simplify his life. [Kohaku]
I'm not thinking that you need permissions per se for the idea I'm thinking about.
More like, you just have instruction as a part of a dwarf's possible labors, or a zone or something you can choose to set up whether anyone wants it or not. The master smith might take on an apprentice or something of their own volition if you don't explicitly forbid it. Or, you have a class on smithing for your own dwarves (teach them up to novice weaponsmith before banishing them to hauling duty or milking or something in case of moods) and some visitors start sitting in on classes for pay.
Academies, then, are simply when you actively start organizing the instruction. There isn't a formal difference recognizing when a single class has turned into a full institution with a system like that, there is simply greater demand and more classes.
It would also mean that you wouldn't have something like a limit of two academies per fortress, it's just what you actually dedicate time and space towards teaching.
Well, I went into more detail on it in the Class Warfare thread, but historically, most Medieval societies didn't actually use coinage within a single town. (Exceptions being cities large enough that everyone was functionally anonymous to one another.) There quite simply was not enough precious metal to make currency from. (And much of that currency tended to be traded to China in exchange for porcelain over the Silk Road to the point that until the Spanish started looting the Americas, Europe was literally running out of metal.)
As such, coinage was really only ever used by merchants traveling between nations and trading with people they wouldn't meet again, which necessitated a settling of accounts at every trade.
The majority of trades were done on credit, not unlike how DF used to handle trading within the fortress... and a lot of trading by people who knew they would have significant ongoing contact with (I.E. fellow members of a single community) was done without explicit definition of the values of the goods and services traded. That is, they just "owed him one".
Hence, it makes some sense to have an academy's tuition go to the fortress's coffers as a whole, and make the economy only work as the fortress relating to the rest of the world, rather than the individual residents of the fortress to each other.
One of the major reasons the economy of past versions fell apart was because haulers almost inevitably wound up as beggars nearly starving to death, yet served a vital fortress function. (Of course, something more like a salary system would help with that...)
so... Guilds will be fortress run and not independent organizations?
so... Guilds will be fortress run and not independent organizations?
Quote from: NW_KohakuWould you even consider changing the relationship that the player has with the dwarves right now (as unquestioned overlord and direct allower and denier of all things dwarves can and cannot do), so that dwarves can become more autonomous and individual, and possibly create a better simulation, while on the other hand, potentially dramatically upping the potential for Fun because dwarves are stupid and very likely to hurt themselves unless continually babysat, or perhaps more importantly, if it meant that the player had less direct control over his fortress, and had to rely more on coaxing the ants in his/her antfarm to do his/her bidding?Our eventual goal is to have the player's role be the embodiment of positions of power within the fortress, performing actions in their official capacity, to the point that in an ideal world each command you give would be linked to some noble, official or commander. I don't think coaxing is the way I'm thinking of it though, as with a game like Majesty which somebody brought up, because your orders would also carry the weight of being assumed to be for survival for the most part, not as bounties or a similar system. Once your fortress is larger, you might have to work a little harder to keep people around, but your dwarves in the first year would be more like crew taking orders from the captain of a ship out to sea or something, where you'd have difficulty getting them to do what you want only if you've totally flopped and they are ready to defy the expedition leader.
Actually, even "wealthy" people in Medieval life rarely had money on-hand. At least, cash-money - they usually had some pawnable silverware or something. Even large money transfers were done by accountants at the local monastery purely on paper.
In fact, part of why Europe's counties are such a mess is that, when gambling, nobles would often gamble their land, which could actually be fairly assessed, rather than money. This resulted in peasants frequently not knowing who was actually their lord that week, since they could have been lost to another neighboring lord over a hand of cards last weekend. For that matter, they frequently didn't particularly care, since the lord mostly only mattered when they collected taxes, and taxation was usually fixed.
we(I) seem to be using Academy and guild interchangeably. Should we flesh that out a little?
Guilds are a group of individuals with a similar profession, with teaching secondary (Think Riften's Thieves guild)
Academies are exclusively teaching. (Think Solitude's Bard's College.)
To the whole debate on skill and books: Hasn't Toady already talked about how he wants to differentiate between knowledge and skill sometime in the future?
Considering how much wealth a successful fortress can create, and how greedy dwarves can be, it wouldn't surprise me if they decided to go a little more independent, demanding actual pay for their work having he fortress share it's vast hoard of gold, silver and gems to the citizens who helped to build it! Especially if your fortress is, in fact, the administrative capital of a vast surrounding population, with thousands of deep dwarves living under them in the caverns,and thousands more living as peasants in hillocks. Maybe they'd even go for a completely coin based economy if you're wealthy enough, and accumulated enough precious metals.
Was this discussed in your class warfare thread? You really should update it , it's an interesting topic and it seems to have made you more knolwedgeable about medieval society. I'll take a look some other time
Okay. So let me try to sum this up. So I can understand
Let's just use another in game example, using a random dorf and a different founding type.
A Wealthy Noble appears at the walls of Appleaxe in year 63, he offers a few goods with a total value of 6000☼ in exchange for his Armoring/Philosophy* academy to be built. He and Ezum Eribgitnuk, a non-local legendary armorsmith, are appointed headmasters.*
Ezum's values and personality and how it influences policies:
so...
The fortress itself is the academy, rather than the academy being an independent organization, with apprentices coming and going to learn at your workshops, rather than in special areas or classrooms. The only "teachers" or "headmasters" are dorfs with lots of students?
The economy is broken, but tuition is still a way for the fort to make money. (Because a ☼Plump Helmet Roast☼ stack is worth more than entire civilizations.)
Incidentally, writing that other thread in another window...so...
The fortress itself is the academy, rather than the academy being an independent organization, with apprentices coming and going to learn at your workshops, rather than in special areas or classrooms. The only "teachers" or "headmasters" are dorfs with lots of students?
The economy is broken, but tuition is still a way for the fort to make money. (Because a ☼Plump Helmet Roast☼ stack is worth more than entire civilizations.)
More-or-less, yes.
The question is what, physically, does a teaching space actually require?
Military dwarves already have a teaching space, which is basically just an area defined by an armor stand which may or may not have further furniture. Demonstrations and drills don't really require anything beyond that.
Presumably, different jobs, if you are performing teaching activities for jobs beyond the military will involve workshops or at least tools relevant to the job. (For most jobs, however, these don't exist outside the workshop itself.)
The question is, do we need a classroom, or would we just have an apprentice sitting at a specific workshop while a master stands within one tile and invisibly does some tutoring, or have a master performing the craft while an audience observes? If we have a classroom, do we enforce a table-and-chair per student plus blackboard room designation?
So. On classrooms. Then?
A classroom would have some nobly requirements, like value, some storage, possibly? But It should depend on what's being taught.
A Blacksmith academy would need a few metalsmith's forges.
A Kicker Academy wouldn't need anything.
Academies would rely mostly on "hands on" and observation. With out-of-class reading occurring only occasionally.
So I guess a classroom for this hypothetical blacksmith academy would consist of a few metalsmith's forges for the hands on, a few chairs for the observation, and perhaps a small bookshelf, for reading.
Incidentally, writing that other thread in another window...so...
The fortress itself is the academy, rather than the academy being an independent organization, with apprentices coming and going to learn at your workshops, rather than in special areas or classrooms. The only "teachers" or "headmasters" are dorfs with lots of students?
The economy is broken, but tuition is still a way for the fort to make money. (Because a ☼Plump Helmet Roast☼ stack is worth more than entire civilizations.)
More-or-less, yes.
The question is what, physically, does a teaching space actually require?
Military dwarves already have a teaching space, which is basically just an area defined by an armor stand which may or may not have further furniture. Demonstrations and drills don't really require anything beyond that.
Presumably, different jobs, if you are performing teaching activities for jobs beyond the military will involve workshops or at least tools relevant to the job. (For most jobs, however, these don't exist outside the workshop itself.)
The question is, do we need a classroom, or would we just have an apprentice sitting at a specific workshop while a master stands within one tile and invisibly does some tutoring, or have a master performing the craft while an audience observes? If we have a classroom, do we enforce a table-and-chair per student plus blackboard room designation?
I am pretty sure this idea would be implemented soon enough given that books/learning is already in. I am pretty sure though that the basic idea of this thread is actually better done through having a starting scenario *for* an academy and having students/teachers visit from elsewhere than it is having an autonomous academy district created by outside entities because the fortress profits in the short term.
The widespread idea of the accumulation or teaching of academic knowledge as a means rather than an end in itself is basically a 19th Century idea. We now study knowledge on the rationale of our belief that it will reward us with some kind of power or technology or economic advantage. This however prior to modern times was only really applicable to vocational knowledge since technology orientated sciences had not really been developed.
So basically the districts should be districts of an academy, the academy would be a starting scenario but the same systems are there in other types of fortress. Meaning that we can choose to become an academy in a minor sense but that is not our focus.
Looks like we have a bit of a rift with "Semi-Independent from fort organization" and "fort organization"It could work like that. It could also be like the ancient greek academies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platonic_Academy) , with no real 'teachers' but more like a system where the senior (or more skilled) members teach the junior members (similar to the way military training currently works). Plenty of possibilities there.
What I initially had in mind is that a classroom was a "Room." Which belonged to an active headmaster noble. Rather than a "zone," which is dedicated. Who also required a "Library room" (If he needed an Academy library, the public one will work most of the time.) and a "dorm room" for his students. (Not a bedroom?) And possibly a mess hall room.
Looks like we have a bit of a rift with "Semi-Independent from fort organization" and "fort organization"It could work like that. It could also be like the ancient greek academies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platonic_Academy) , with no real 'teachers' but more like a system where the senior (or more skilled) members teach the junior members (similar to the way military training currently works). Plenty of possibilities there.
What I initially had in mind is that a classroom was a "Room." Which belonged to an active headmaster noble. Rather than a "zone," which is dedicated. Who also required a "Library room" (If he needed an Academy library, the public one will work most of the time.) and a "dorm room" for his students. (Not a bedroom?) And possibly a mess hall room.
I definitely think classrooms are necessary. In fact, I was thinking of academies as being completely separated from your fortress, almost like monasteries. They could even have their own mess halls and dormitories, so the students can live inside it most of the time. NW, I guess we differ a bit in our points of view regarding this, but I'd say that even if the academies are in fact integrally part of the fortress, just like Inns, the 'guests' should be able to live in it as if it were a semi-independent structure (the way taverns will have their own separate living rooms attached to them). That's my personal take on it
Well, why is that your personal take on it?
What advantage is there in such a system compared to a more bare-bones set of hands-on activities clustered around a workbench?
What, for that matter, is lost if there isn't as much game "infrastructure" in setting up complex sets of independent structures? In a system like I am describing, you could absolutely set up largely independent structures within your fortress that are dedicated academies if you so chose, just as many people set up elaborate facilities for their military dwarves, but there is no explicit requirement in the game for players to do such things for military barracks, either.
For that matter, the same can be said with hospitals... There are several components to a fully-functional hospital, but you don't need any of them to designate a hospital, or perform medical procedures, although having a specialized area for access to clean water, beds, tables, traction benches, dedicated thread containers, etc. are all good ideas to have.
I would say that a system with less "infrastructure" is possibly easier to code, and also likely better to scale than a strict and formal system. With an informal system, there's little difference between having a system to educate my own workers and having foreigners come in from far and wide to learn from my wide array of fantastic teachers but the skill and reputation of said teachers.
For that matter, you're saying "a classroom", but you're not defining what "a classroom" is in-game. Do I simply designate it as another type of zone, like a hospital is? Is it a "room" that is created by furniture, like a dining hall or study? If so, which furniture type? (Keeping in mind that rooms typically only need one piece of furniture.) Regardless of whether it is bundled into some academy designation or not, there will need to be inn-like rooms available for guests staying for classes, so wouldn't that accomplish the same goals of having dedicated housing for an academy without needing to go through the specific extra interface hurdle of specifically attaching them to some other vague designation of an overall academy-space?
All of this isn't to tear you down, but it seems like you're simply going with an idea you have in your head about what an academy should feel like, rather than what it will actually do in-game.
Dwarf Fortress systems, again, tend more towards the bare-bones types of implementation. There isn't anything that requires specific items in a hospital, but there are emergent gameplay reasons to build your hospitals in specific ways. Is there a way to encourage an academy-like "feel" that you're looking for without just strictly demanding that players designate large swaths of the map to being largely independent of player control? Or, for that matter, is being largely independent of player control a goal in and of itself?
Maybe it came off the wrong way, but what I really meant was just that I defend several different narratives for the way certain features in the game can come about and/or work. In fact, I think what you describe as a flexible "bare bones" system like the way hospital works are fine. The way I was describing it does have a bit of a role-playing aspect to it, and maybe the way I was presenting it came off as needlessly restrictive and overcomplicated.
I just think that alternatives are interesting. I never said that you would have to accept having independent structures in your fortress. But I think the possibility of having them would be reasonable in some situations and I think it could be fun.
In fact, screw academies. Let me give you a different scenario:
Your fortress, being famous for it's prosperity and security, attracted a powerful wizard who is interested in building his lair within your halls. So it strikes a deal with you; it asks for you to build his little home (and could even ask for you to continuously upgrade it with laboratories, etc) and in exchange it would help your citizens with certain things. Maybe it would give them magical potions every once in a while, or help you to defend your fortress if needed. Being very powerful, he has no interest in becoming one of your regular citizens and submiting himself to dwarven leadership and wants to remain independent, so whatever structures given to him become somewhat out of the complete control of the player, but that's the price you'll pay to have him there.
That's how I thought of 'independent' structures within your fortress. In no way I am saying that every feature of the game needs to work this way. In fact, I'm saying that there could be several alternative for the player to build these systems. As far as it being more difficult to program, I really wouldn't know. So far the game hasn't taken many easy paths in terms of it's development, so it's not really up to us. I think Tarn and Zach could easily decide to develop systems even more complicated than what we all in the suggestions forum innocently ramble on about. DF has some crazy features, man!
Toady has floated around hte idea of negative modifiers- as in dorfs so unskilled they can't even make the basic product right. Books can either give the dorf enough skill levels to remove the negative quality chance (first 1-3?), or give dorfs a bonus to exp gained that would shorten the time they spend in the "Urist McDerp" phase. Not sure if the game can process EXP modifiers on skills though (so gain at double the rate up until you reach the cap of hte book). So a "Proficient Masonry for Dummies" would only give bonus exp until they reached proficiency in Masonry. Legendary skill-tomes could exist, but they would probably need to be very rare/only created during world gen or from a strange mood. Heh... Macabre mood from a scholar turns a legendary weaponsmith into a leather and bone bound Legendary weaponsmithing tome XD
Actually, I find that DF has oftentimes much more simple mechanics than most people give it credit for. There isn't really any math in this game besides basic addition, subtraction, and a little multiplication. Almost everything is integers. Things like hunger to eyelash growth are just incrementing every round. It relies upon things like A* and perlin noise at the more complex, which generally are well-documented and well-understood mechanics. You can basically boil the "game" part down to fulfilling the three S's, as well: Survival, Sustainability, and Stability. (That is, eliminating military threats, replacing consumable items that satisfy needs, and preventing tantrums.)
What makes it complex are the sheer number of systems that overlap one another, and create emergent gameplay mechanics. (Well, that and the severely obtuse interface, which make understanding what happens far more difficult, and therefore more apparently complex.) Hence, I try to focus upon pushing ideas towards that which most can interfere with other mechanics, and create more emergent gameplay. Complex self-contained mechanics tend not to allow for emergent behavior, while the simple reliance upon a shared physical space tends to itself tremendously foster emergent behavior. This Errant Signal video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSBn77_h_6Q), which is nominally on violence, covers topics of why physical space in games is the most powerful tool a game has for creating deep gameplay, especially emergently.
In any event, I don't mean to be harsh, but I wanted to challenge what it was, precisely, you were after in this suggestion. Abstract ideas are soft and amorphous, and can grow detailed and far more intricate with a little challenging.
If I read your response correctly, however, and what you're really after is the simple act of having a mostly-independent organization within your fortress, and the notions of training and academies are merely vehicles for that end goal, I'd again suggest you look at the way that I was suggesting social/religious/government structures behave within the Class Warfare thread.
(Of course, my personal goal of that was specifically to shift the focus of a developed fortress into managing internal social stresses while simultaniously abstracting away player control of the more mundane micromanagement as gameplay went on, rather than independent entities for their own sake. In fact, of all things, Class Warfare started as a thread about adding ceramics/kilns to the game, and then realizing that, without changes to the economy, there would be little to no value in luxury goods like porcelain to justify the difficulty of properly implementing the higher degree of difficulty the Chinese actually had in firing kaoline. Incremental pushes to improve an initial idea can eventually lead to strange places...)
In any event, what are these other role-playing scenarios you want players to wind up landing upon? If you begin from the goal, it's not hard to reverse-engineer the path it takes to get yourself to a starting point.
These are thoughts that came up when I listened to the last DF talk, when they talked about ending the v-p-l system for some classes of dwarves, which is a fascinating approach to a game like dwarf fortress. Having read a few threads with people discussing the subject, I see that some people don't like the idea of losing even more control over their dwarves, but I personally enjoy the concept.
What you're stating with bare bones academies with a dwarf simply showing a few local elves the works of carpentry, that's just a few apprenticeships, not an academy. And Apprenticeships are quite nice, too. I think academies should grow out of apprenticeships.
Another thing with this is, You still remain in control of your headmaster. (like I said earlier, he still performs his regular duties, but allots some time to spend with students.)
And you don't control any "visitor" students anyway! And you can still control your citizen students, they'll just have some class priorities, so your stonecrafter might drop making *<<*pitchblende mugs*>>* for a little bit to attend an bone-doctor course.
So, basically, if you allow an academy (we talked about this earlier, you have control of what academies are established in your fort.)
What you're stating with bare bones academies with a dwarf simply showing a few local elves the works of carpentry, that's just a few apprenticeships, not an academy. And Apprenticeships are quite nice, too. I think academies should grow out of apprenticeships.
I think that a dwarf showing a group of elves works of carpentry would be like showing works of mutilating human carcasses in a school classroom full of middle schoolers: they would be horrified. Sounds fun.
How does a semi-independent (semi independent, as in, run by its own members, but uses fortress resources and has its own space.) academy not interact with other mechanics? The whole personality thing was about mashing piles of mechanics together. And tuition caused interactions with a hypothetical economy (a broken one though. that's an entire other can of worms that we're going to solder closed for now.)
Also, that Errant signal video seems to be more about how games like to manipulate the physical world with easy to formalize spacial relationships, and have difficulty with abstract concepts like conversation, emotion and Calvinball. What does that have to do with an academy of 14 dwarves and 1 hippy sharing a forge with a local weaponsmith with a thing for barrels?
Don't lie to yourself - the way that you see the game now significantly colors the way you actually think about or do things. Playing the game by Stonesense means caring about things far different from things you care about when you play the game normally.
I'm probably one of the very, very few players who actually builds multiple vertical shafts to compact my fortress vertically, rather than spreading out the fortress in a bunch of huge, clunky rectangle rooms specifically because players only view one floor at a time, and the digging tool favors rectangles. Central staircase designs are a direct artifact of the current interface.
If you change that interface, you change the way that players approach the game. How? You'll have no idea until after you do it.
We rely almost entirely upon hacks and micromanaged tweaks to make the game work in its current state - if we are ever going to get a game that works properly, Toady needs to start work on understanding how the player should be controlling their dwarves... And right now, Toady really doesn't have an earthly clue. He can't even give a committal answer on how much autonomy or direct control players even should have over dwarves in general.
[...]
The case of the eyelashes is an especially egregious case of a fetishism for simulation without practical interface - if nothing in the game interacts with that mechanic, if the player can never see it, if you can't even notice whether that mechanic is even there or not, why, exactly, is it there, eating up memory and processor time every single tick counting down to the next time when the hair will grow another millimeter? (And it was bugged, and nobody ever even knew it until memory hacks revealed it over a year after it was coded in! Toady never even bothered testing or figuring out a way for anyone else to test it.)
This is the perfect case example of what not thinking about the interface will produce - a perfectly useless mechanic that merely exists to eat processor time. That's why thinking about the interface at every step along the way is the only practical way to code a game.
Sure, with the Academy needing rooms, space isn't shared. Does forcing students to dine in a communal fortress mead hall "add depth?" does making them use oft-used communal carpentry workshops "make the world come alive?
What you're stating with bare bones academies with a dwarf simply showing a few local elves the works of carpentry, that's just a few apprenticeships, not an academy. And Apprenticeships are quite nice, too. I think academies should grow out of apprenticeships.
Well, if the focus of this thread really changes completely to "independent organizations", I may as well start a thread with a different premise to discuss this issue. I'm not entirely sure if I understand where you want me to go from here. I've given you the wizard example, and the example of wealthy influential people comming to your fortress.
So, to go back to your previous idea about headmasters having personalities that make them arbitrarily reject 20% of applicants, but maybe more if they're cruel or something... How does the player see this? How does the player know that one applicant was accepted because she was a pretty girl, and another was rejected for being an ugly guy if the player isn't constantly hovering over everything that headmaster does? (Because players won't.) Why would players care, so long as tuition is being paid, and they can't control the operations of the academy directly, anyway? What sorts of systems outside the academy, itself, would be impacted by whether a girl was "pretty" or not? If players can't tell it's happening, what's the point of it being there at all?
Hence, you have a system where personalities either don't do anything but make up bloat, or you have them confusing players by occasionally making their dwarves take massively detrimental behavior for no apparent reason or way for the player to fix the problem for lack of any good means of interacting with those mechanics other than to just start murdering their own dwarves if their personalities don't fall within pre-defined limits.
The well-trained dude gains his skill through experience and experimentation.Well, if the focus of this thread really changes completely to "independent organizations", I may as well start a thread with a different premise to discuss this issue. I'm not entirely sure if I understand where you want me to go from here. I've given you the wizard example, and the example of wealthy influential people comming to your fortress.
I'm trying to press you to refine what it is you actually want, and asking you to try looking into alternate means of accomplishing the same goals. Criticism refines an idea.
You said you wanted specific stories to be produced from these sorts of systems, so I have to ask, what stories do you really want? I'm not talking about a wizard just saying they want to move in, I mean, what sort of things are players going to get to do with these situations that they couldn't do otherwise? I could functionally create something like an independent wizard by just having a really elaborate noble housing unit right now. What's the interaction the game has with the player that changes when this system is introduced?
Right now, the only significant change I can see with the base idea is that you can train usually difficult-to-train skills (but presumably only if you already have someone well-trained, which seems a little chicken-or-egg...), or have a different name on what is basically the same tavern. How do you differentiate an academy from a standard tavern?
Well, if the focus of this thread really changes completely to "independent organizations", I may as well start a thread with a different premise to discuss this issue. I'm not entirely sure if I understand where you want me to go from here. I've given you the wizard example, and the example of wealthy influential people comming to your fortress.
I'm trying to press you to refine what it is you actually want, and asking you to try looking into alternate means of accomplishing the same goals. Criticism refines an idea.
You said you wanted specific stories to be produced from these sorts of systems, so I have to ask, what stories do you really want? I'm not talking about a wizard just saying they want to move in, I mean, what sort of things are players going to get to do with these situations that they couldn't do otherwise? I could functionally create something like an independent wizard by just having a really elaborate noble housing unit right now. What's the interaction the game has with the player that changes when this system is introduced?
Right now, the only significant change I can see with the base idea is that you can train usually difficult-to-train skills (but presumably only if you already have someone well-trained, which seems a little chicken-or-egg...), or have a different name on what is basically the same tavern. How do you differentiate an academy from a standard tavern?
QuoteHence, you have a system where personalities either don't do anything but make up bloat, or you have them confusing players by occasionally making their dwarves take massively detrimental behavior for no apparent reason or way for the player to fix the problem for lack of any good means of interacting with those mechanics other than to just start murdering their own dwarves if their personalities don't fall within pre-defined limits.
Well, I feel that it shouldn't be a "bloat" feature like eyelashes, but something at least moderately interesting and a bit more major. Behavioral patterns should affect... behavioral patterns. Personality probably shouldn't cause a doctor to do absolutely nothing because he "doesn't give two s**ts about the dwarf with an easily treated wound lying next to him as he sips amaranth beer from a +copper goblet+." (It does though, and it's hilarious and I love it.) But it should at least have some effect on gameplay. Be it tuition, wanting to bone all of his students, or racist prerequisite policies. (Sorry you can't join, you have to be a dwarf of this civilization.)
What does establishing a Barony do for you?
What benefits does the player have with becoming a mountain home?
And okay, I see the problem with the semi-independent thing now.
Players will still want to maintain control over their dwarves, so making it an "independent organization" would make players frustrated that their dwarves end up all killing themselves because they all signed up and ended up not producing food for 6 months...
Failure should always be the fault of the player.
*puts fingers in ice water.
About the personality problem, I think that there could probably be a way for the game to provide feedback to the player about these things. Something like being able to see statistics on these buildings that would give you some informational paragraphs:
"In this hospital, patients are often neglected due to chief medical dwarf Urist McPsychopath's unempathetical tendencies"
or
"In this academy, applicants are very often rejected due to headmaster Urist McHardass' distrustful nature"
and even
"In this tavern, patrons are often dissatisfied with the service due to inkeeper Urist McAnnoyingface's rude behavior"
Or something along those lines.
Well, the difference from your noble to my wizard is that he's a separate entity from your fortress. He effectively owns property in the fortress, so you're not his landlord (he doesn't rent his room like your other dwarves,and in his cases has different obligations and ties to dwarven authority than your nobles). Lets say he owns a deed to his house. So, if you want to remove or destroy the buildings that compose his residence, you would be breaking the law and making him (and possibly other people) angry. That's one difference. In fact, that's very much a class warfare/economic system issue - the concept of private land ownership. Nothing that complex to add in game, I think, just the concept of people getting mad and even being able to appeal to dwarven law if the land that they have legally aquired is taken from them.
Tolkien fantasies really engulfed some of these concepts, and particularly the hobit society seemed to be very law-abiding and bureaucratic (in fact, they were probably Tolkens take on the english), and things like contracts and propery were mentioned quite a bit. These are fun ideas to think about for medieval fantasy games.
About the academies. Well, the title of the thread is no coincidence. I really thing that, at least in a "bare bones" sort of way, they should very much work like taverns. Some clear differences, obviously: for starters, they would have different kinds of visitors. Scholars will be their main focus, although specific academies for other sort of practices could have highly skilled artisans visiting them. The focus of taverns is to serve/sell booze and provide entertainment to your guests and dwarves. An academy's main focus is to provide an enviroment for scholars to study and share their ideas.
Hence, if you're going to add these things, you need to add mechanics whereby they actually do something interesting, like mandates are actually interesting, so that they are actually notable to players. If I have these semi-independent deadweights, what's to stop me from just setting up some percentage of food and booze from dropping in their end of the fortress that I never bother to check up on? Where's the storytelling opportunity of just setting up a designated class area and then letting someone else run it without me having any reason to look in? What does it DO that is INTERESTING?
This isn't a "you're stupid and wrong, stop talking," it's a challenge to come up with something that players would actually want to do in the game.
Well, the wizard example geve a few of those answers. Let's say semi-independent individuals could have a few freedoms that your dwarves don't generally have. They could constantly travel (since you can't tell them what to do, and it wouldn't be much of a bother aanyway), so they could go on adventures and business trips, and come back with different personal items, etc. Maybe they could even give you gifts, every once in a while. Like, if they get wealthy and resourceful, they could give gifts to your dwarves or your fortress. Maybe they aquired some artifacts and decide to donate them to your fortress.
Let's say a rich, exoctic merchant decides to set up shop in your fortress. That would be an interesting premise. He enjoys the protection, prestige and maybe strategic location that your fortress provides. But, as he is a merchant and deals with money, he wants to remain financially independent from you. And since you arranged a contract with him, once you provide him with his own personal space it would be (legally) complicated for you to simply throw him away. So, with the merchant there, you would get wealthy visitors that would want to come and visit his shop, and maybe since they are already there they could also decide to pay a visit to your tavern.
The merchant could go on periodic trips to collect exotic items, maybe have personal deals with traders, etc. He employs personal guards who would probably either live in your tavern or in the merchant house's many rooms. Besides having fun observing him making his personal business, we would profit from the exchange seeing that the merchant would make occasional or periodical donations to the fortress, as a way of paying tribute for you letting him stay there.
OK, so how is this represented to the player in-game in a way that they can actually tell there is a difference?
I mean, given current game interface capabilities, what is the visible difference to the player between a dwarf at a dining hall, a visitor at a tavern living area, and a scholar studying and sharing ideas in a classroom? Presumably, they're all smiley faces randomly hovering around a room filled with tables and chairs, so... difference where? Sure, there might be changes in skill levels of visitors you can't control, but that hardly matters if you can't get them to do anything useful for you what with them not being under your control.
Again, this is why I really have to press for how this sort of thing becomes a physical space problem. Physical space problems, which generally boil down to terrain manipulation, resource/labor management, and logistics problems in DF, are the only things players can see, understand, and manipulate properly enough to make good gameplay out of them.
Because of that, unless you want to start campaigning for interface changes to make other things actually visible to the player, (good luck with that, we've been trying for basically a decade on that front,) you have to make academies somehow reliant upon the logistics of items or people to be interesting. For an example, consider how making magma forges so useful alters player behavior by giving every player a very good reason to either build a fortress that stretches down 100 z levels or else try to figure out a way to shuttle magma from the bottom of the map to the top. That's an interesting problem.
What problem does an academy force a player to solve, besides simply designating some space and filling it up with desks, chairs, and beds?
Well, the wizard example geve a few of those answers. Let's say semi-independent individuals could have a few freedoms that your dwarves don't generally have. They could constantly travel (since you can't tell them what to do, and it wouldn't be much of a bother aanyway), so they could go on adventures and business trips, and come back with different personal items, etc. Maybe they could even give you gifts, every once in a while. Like, if they get wealthy and resourceful, they could give gifts to your dwarves or your fortress. Maybe they aquired some artifacts and decide to donate them to your fortress.
Giving gifts to the player isn't really interesting because the player doesn't actually need anything they can't produce for themselves in infinite quantities, already. (In fact, a large part of the point of Improved Farming is just to make things actually SCARCE in fortresses for once...)Let's say a rich, exoctic merchant decides to set up shop in your fortress. That would be an interesting premise. He enjoys the protection, prestige and maybe strategic location that your fortress provides. But, as he is a merchant and deals with money, he wants to remain financially independent from you. And since you arranged a contract with him, once you provide him with his own personal space it would be (legally) complicated for you to simply throw him away. So, with the merchant there, you would get wealthy visitors that would want to come and visit his shop, and maybe since they are already there they could also decide to pay a visit to your tavern.
The merchant could go on periodic trips to collect exotic items, maybe have personal deals with traders, etc. He employs personal guards who would probably either live in your tavern or in the merchant house's many rooms. Besides having fun observing him making his personal business, we would profit from the exchange seeing that the merchant would make occasional or periodical donations to the fortress, as a way of paying tribute for you letting him stay there.
Same problem. Trying to make something interesting by giving the player things that supposedly solve their problems doesn't help because the player doesn't have any problems they need any help with. Dwarf Fortress is too simple and easy a game already for outside help to be of any value. (You heard me!)
This is why it's better to work on making a new problem for players to solve, rather than trying to bait players with some sort of solution to problems they're already solving without the new solution. (Again, I created Class Warfare just to create the problem vanity items can solve.)
And yeah, for a lot of these things we're discussing here to work (especially for currently practically useless vanity-industries like beekeeping and ceramics), a function economy that works out supply and demmand and properly raise or lower the price of products should be in place. I have no idea if Toady will be able to or have the interest to develop an economic system like this.
If you really wanted to, you could just start a fortress, dig up a hole on the side of a hill, have the dwarves bring seeds inside and close them in with a wall. Then you can dig down til' you reach the aquifier and boom, water. Make a small farm and a food stockpile and watch your fortress be imprevious to anything forever. Add a few beds in there and they will never even throw a tantrum
Toady acknowledged those problems already... especially the farming thing, and the weak sieges. We'll get there eventually, and the game will get harder and goods more scarce. Having this in mind, I think my suggestions aren't that pointless and unfun.
I think it's a bad argument to even mention that in topics like this. It's fair to say that all my ideas are made within the assumption that the game's difficulty problems will be eventually fixed.
Never forget that Dwarf Fortress is primarily intended to be a simulation, not a game, as Toady stated on multiple occasions. Personalities might not be controllable by the player, but they are visible (even if it is hard to get a general overview) and they have an effect on the rest of the simulation, which is plenty enough to be a good mechanic, given what DF aspires to be. Conversations might be invisible, but they probably have an effect on other stuff, so they're not useless or bad.
Judging ideas based on how good of a game they might make is not a good idea. The question is whether they make a good simulation.
I haven't read much of the discussion. I'll just try to come up with an idea.
(1)
I don't care how skill bonuses or stuff like that are implemented. Important is how that knowledge is distributed.
An academy is probably closed to the outside (or maybe that can be tied to the headmaster or whatever), meaning that people need to enroll with the academy before they get access to knowledge.
"Getting access" need not (and should not) be hard coded. We have a justice system for that purpose. Being caught in the academy library when you're not allowed to be there earns you a beating, jail time or whatever. Sneaking into lectures is a crime.
Maybe the academy could be a place for certain circles sworn to secrecy on certain topics.
The player can try to put knowledge (whether it be books or capable people) they don't want to become general knowledge into the academy. Securing the academy (and thus knowledge) becomes a task. We could even get players making dwarves professors to shut them up.
(2)
You talk about how the player cannot influence personality. With the coming knowledge about philosophy this could be changed, if philosophical ideas are able to influence personalities. Having a philosophical faculty giving lectures gives the player the ability to form how the dwarves operate.
(3)
This one just ties in with migrants and taverns and stuff. Have a well known academy and people interested in the topics discussed there come to your fortress.
(4)
Basically the same as (3), only different. I have no idea how, though.
Again, the point of what I'm saying isn't to be mean or say the ideas are all stupid, it's to push you to refine them into more coherent ideas.
Solving problems that already exist isn't that interesting, because there are generally already easier methods of solving those problems. Even with a harder game overall, if there's a simpler method of achieving the same goals, players aren't going to generally perform those tasks. (For example, why use bees when farms are so much faster and easier?)
It's more interesting to create new problems that require solving with more novel means, which is why I think noble mandates are actually a good model to base it off of.
Besides that, if you make the actual as-it-plays-out mechanics of an academy interesting in its own right, you don't have to make it functionally useful for anything. Again, you don't really do anything in The Sims, but people enjoy playing it, anyway for the creativity they can express, and the stories it can tell.
The problem is, how do you get this idea to tell a good story? How do you design the mechanics of instruction such that interesting stories are played out in ways the player can see, or the player is challenged to perform tasks that are interesting puzzles for the player to solve?
What you've done so far is lay down a couple of vague scenarios the game sets up, but you've discussed nothing about how it actually plays out for the player, or how the player interacts with it. A noble saying they want an academy is not a player interaction or an interesting puzzle the player is solving, it's just the set-up to that puzzle. What is the actual thing the player DOES? What is the actual in-game problem they are actually solving? So far as you've explained it, an academy is nothing but a couple arbitrarily designated rooms that don't do anything at all but give a merchant an excuse to throw more resources at players. What work is the player expending for this? What makes one academy design good and another academy design crap, and how is that within player control?
Again, things like security are interesting problems when talking about taverns. Taverns require your fortress to be open at basically all times of year, so it complicates defenses. Further complicating defenses are things like "spying" traps or the possibility of theft. The security thread (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=150706.0) relating to taverns introduces interesting problems and solutions. These are problems and solutions within physical space, which are labor management and terrain manipulation problems.
Where are the similar problems presented to the player in an academy?
Saying "I want classrooms" is not a practicable idea, it's just a random thought. How are they implemented, and what change in playstyles do they demand of players?
Academies would probably be a 'vanity institution' for the player unless certain other features are implemented. Namely, the introduction of a progressive tech-tree (or forest), where the player is able to facilitate technological advancements by having things like academies in their forts. Also, if we're having actual armies in the game, military academies could be an effective way of educating your commanding officers in military science. Another use for them could be the training medical doctors without having to puroposely injure your citizens.
Plus, things like academies (just like things like hospitals, taverns and most industries) will always be entirely optional. They facilitate the payer's lives in some ways and give them more options, but you don't need them to have a functioning settlement.
I can think of another feature that would make having academies a good thing for the player: not having prestigious learning centers could drive your skilled dwarves away from your fortress. Let's say there are other world-gen academies around the world. Your skilled, home-brewed dwarves, such as administrators, poets and legendary craftsman get invited to these foreign institutions and have no reason to not go. So they start petitioning to take their leave, and get annoyed if you deny them. Having an academy could be a way of keeping your talented people happily working for your fortress and not wanting to leave for places where their talent is more needed.
Finally, let's talk about the mechanics of academies then, and the challenges they could bring to the player.
I don't believe they (challenges) should necessarily come out of classrooms: classrooms are just rooms where scholars discuss things amongst themselves and give lectures. To me, they could work just like the way military training works in barracks. You have a room set up with some chairs (if that), the people being taught sit and the lecturers walk around the room. You don't even necesssarily need a strict teacher-student relationship thing (as I mentioned with the platonic academy), and the students could have different lectures being simultaneously taught in the same classroom, and even give a lecture right after recieving one.
A really fun challenge would come from having your occasional "Socrates" in the academy. Having an institution with a lot of discussion going between intelligent members, where wise bearded people philosophise all day could brew radical ideas. Maybe dwarven students would slowly, aside from getting better at whatever skill they are trying to develop, begin having a change of heart when it came to their ethics. You would slowly see some dwarves graduating into tree loving elves (madness!), or crazy slavery apologists (something unthinkable for dwarves). So you'd have your other citizens begin to denounce some members of the academy for "corrupting the young", or maybe even corrupting dwarven culture itself and unless you take drastic measures it could lead to disaster. What do you think of this idea?
I'm just going to quickly say...
Spies.
Spies Everywhere.
A spy could enlist in the academy (It in this case, would be an elf who says he's from a retreat, but actually hails from the dark pits.) and steal stuff, kill dwarves, and other unsavory stuff.
So, a vampire like system of rooting out spies could be necessary to keep from getting dead dwarves, missing mugs, and stolen steel.
I think you missed my last paragraph
About the immigration aspect, I was thinking of something like your legendary artifact making carpenter got invited to have a seat in the queen's royal academy back in the mountainhomes. Being a member of an academy doesn't mean that he never works and spends his entire time teaching, either. Just dedicate part of his time in there with the other members of the academy, and write the occasional thesis.
About the immigration aspect, I was thinking of something like your legendary artifact making carpenter got invited to have a seat in the queen's royal academy back in the mountainhomes. Being a member of an academy doesn't mean that he never works and spends his entire time teaching, either. Just dedicate part of his time in there with the other members of the academy, and write the occasional thesis.
Alright, after thinking for a bit on the subject, I believe there may be some ways to add interesting complexity to this system.
For one, I remembered this thread I started when I was playing adventurer mode a lot (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=122376.0), and think it can be applied similarly to academies. That is, students need to take time off or have a diversified curriculum. For workers, this means something like only having their class time once a week before going back to their jobs. For full-time guest students, they'll probably expect to get a well-rounded curriculum. (And they may not necessarily want to visit unless they can get a full, or at least mostly-full classical education...)
This means that, rather than having everyone just sit in one big class and players forgetting about it, you need to have multiple classes as well as dormitories and other accommodations. Crime potential should be an incentive to keep general, tavern, and academy living spaces separate.
Further, classes should have some means of interfering with one another. I suggest something like the noise system that was removed from earlier versions. Classes might generate noise or create some sort of visual disturbance such that segregating them is required to avoid problems.
Further, each class should take up resources. Woodworking classes would need workshops to train their students, while more esoteric training that doesn't involve crafting things would take up paper. This generates a need for logistics to keep the classes supplied.
Dormitories could also require a desk or at least a communal area with a desk so that full-time students do "homework" of a sorts for certain classes. Access to libraries for several other classes also make good sense.
All of this combined should create a nice bustle of traffic between classes, dorms, and dining halls that would generate interesting logistic puzzles for the player.
Alright I have some input on this idea if you will have me. Side tangent first however, I don't think personalities should go. It is a part of what makes the game unique.
Now then on to the mechanics of my idea for teaching and learning. The first portion is that you need to remember that most skills in this game are practical, and not engaged with a higher learning aspect. A master and apprentice mind set is probably what needs to be done.
A dwarf teacher that is skilled enough can take on students for your academy or guild hall. You assign him similar to how you operate your military, you set up a "class" with him at the head and assign him students. So for instance you have a master carpenter, and want him to train 2 students. So you assign him to the "class" as the teacher then pick 2 dwarves for him to teach. Similar to how the military works no with demonstrations the teacher will schedule one and his students attend for the lecture. You assign him a workshop for him to teach at and set up a schedule similar to how the schedule works for the military right now. So you could say this month you teach while this month you do not. You will also select what subjects you wish to teach, the menu will display what is required to teach, such as an assigned workshop, in this case a carpenters shop. Now this would mean while the class is in session the shop could not be used for other orders.
For resources you set up how much can be used per season for teaching. So say you only want the teacher to use ten logs a season, you set the menu to that and when he teaches he will only use 10 logs. Now you could let them use more logs for a faster rate of learning but that would mean more resources used. A student can make a wooden chair for instance while this is happening, so it could be sold. But it would not be of a major quality.
Books would be an additional resource to help speed up teaching but you can do without if need be. But you would want to try to have a copy of a book for each student as less books means less speed of teaching. Now the books should not become personal possessions but the student may buy a copy for his own use for the future, that he can read when on break or something if he so chooses, but it would not give him a skill gain if he already "graduated".
A larger class means the teaching is a bit slower and the students do not gain as much experience compared to a smaller class size, but it would take more time to train each student one on one than it would be to teach all of them together.
As for foreign students wanting to come to be taught by the teacher. A message would appear to be asked to be added to the class. The student would like to graduate within two years lets say, and in reward you get a reward of reputation, favor with the foreign country, along with goods or services, or to tell their friends and family to come to train at your fort. This would work like the current diplomat system does for elves for instance. A foreign student who ends up extremely happy in your fortress during his stay also has the chance to ask to stay permanently, which could in turn mean his family also moves to your fort.
A teacher can only teach a student up to a certain level, so eventually the student would graduate and get a happy thought from it, same with a teacher. This would also open up a new relationship such as teacher and student, which can be positive or negative based on the personality of both. The dwarf could hate the teacher but still graduate for instance.
That is for practical skills that do need to be trained physically. Theoretical skills like architecture or higher learning skills like doctoring would follow a similar setup. You assign the teacher and his students. In this case they would consume different resources, like architecture would need paper or the doctors would need a pig and thread. A military tactics class could want figurines and paper.
Setting up these classes would be designated as a zone. Adding in chairs and tables would help along with a blackboard. But a hospital training area could want beds and traction tables for added learning speeds.
Adding more to a class will improve learning speeds but a student can only learn so much, so no sticking a dwarf in the class until he is legendary, maybe cap the learning at professional. This should also include making learning skills slower so you can't brute force your way to legendary within a year.
Now a headmaster noble could be used to help speed up teaching as he would do paperwork that the dwarf teaching would have to do instead. He could also help manage the time better or even be needed to access this system at all, just like you need a militia commander to even start a military.
So this system would mean that it takes time away from other projects that the teacher could be doing like producing doors to teach a class, so slower production ques. But the reward could be 4 new well trained carpenters as the bargain along with additional happy thoughts.
I understand if I am rambling a bit in these points, but my main thoughts were to set up a system using existing mechanics somewhat.
Alright I have some input on this idea if you will have me. Side tangent first however, I don't think personalities should go. It is a part of what makes the game unique.
A dwarf teacher that is skilled enough can take on students for your academy or guild hall. You assign him similar to how you operate your military, you set up a "class" with him at the head and assign him students. So for instance you have a master carpenter, and want him to train 2 students. So you assign him to the "class" as the teacher then pick 2 dwarves for him to teach. Similar to how the military works no with demonstrations the teacher will schedule one and his students attend for the lecture. You assign him a workshop for him to teach at and set up a schedule similar to how the schedule works for the military right now. So you could say this month you teach while this month you do not. You will also select what subjects you wish to teach, the menu will display what is required to teach, such as an assigned workshop, in this case a carpenters shop. Now this would mean while the class is in session the shop could not be used for other orders.
Now a headmaster noble could be used to help speed up teaching as he would do paperwork that the dwarf teaching would have to do instead. He could also help manage the time better or even be needed to access this system at all, just like you need a militia commander to even start a military.
So this system would mean that it takes time away from other projects that the teacher could be doing like producing doors to teach a class, so slower production ques. But the reward could be 4 new well trained carpenters as the bargain along with additional happy thoughts.
Further, the point of all this is to train foreign visitors, which means they'll be leaving the map.
Well one of the things I am basing these idea upon is dwarves in an inactive squad will drop everything to go do independent training. The system would work similar to that but the teacher would do something like the military organizing the demonstration at random. So if you have a lazy teacher then he would not teach as much, same thing with a dwarf who is lazy going on break constantly.
I like where you're going with the sliding scale of speed - consumption.
But I keep in mind the "tavern like" aspect of this.
As in, dwarves kinda randomly go there, and vistors might show up to study there. I don't think I like the idea of shouting at a dwarf "HEY YOU FAT CRAPSACK, THESE ARE YOUR STUDENTS NOW!"
Well..
I don't really want academies to be something you just up and say "ENGINEER, POOT ACADEMY HERE!". They should be at least sort of special to have around. Like an artifact.
You should have SOME control over the classes, teachers and overall quality of education. But I don't think it should be a subsidized academy.
(Refer to long discussion regarding semi-independent organizations)