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Toady I did some more movie watching and noticed you had some of the dwarves minting coins!
So what can these coins be used for?
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Once you get a broker and a bookkeeper, or a manager and a bookkeeper (don't remember which), the economy starts up. These dwarves are nobles (purple), so their presents represents your official inclusion in the larger dwarven system. The bookkeeper doesn't come until you have some coins (a bookkeeper also lets you count all of our items and zoom to any item). Once the economy has started, non-noble dwarves have wages and must pay rent. They can also buy and sell things in stores that you set up. The stores are run by the broker/bookkeeper at first, but any enterprising dwarf can buy in to one. The stores are stocked by goods that the dwarves make. It would be too messy to have them all bring their goods to market and waste time selling them, so instead, they are paid for producing the good, which becomes state property. The store owners can buy state property at a discount, and then sell it at whatever price they like, and keep the profits. It's kind of strange, but since the laborers didn't pay for the materials they are using in the first place, it makes sense in a way for things to revert to state ownership, provided the laborers are paid in some way. The broker and bookkeeper hate being burdened by running the shops, so they eventually all pass into private ownership, so long as any of your workers has enough money to buy one. The shopkeeper isn't very burdened though... they really don't do much of anything. I think anybody is paid a small amount for moving a good to the shop. The shopkeeper just decides which goods to purchase for the shop, and how much to sell them for. All buying and selling is done on the honor system -- they just trade some coins over the the shopkeeper, in return for the object in question. Everybody actually has an "account", which is kept independent of the coins (this is a supposed role of the bookkeeper, although his/her death doesn't change anything). People do grumble if they don't have coins to match their account though, so you have to try to keep coin production up. The bookkeeper constantly hassles you to produce coins if you don't have enough, and if you ignore the mandates, the bookkeeper might become angry and throw tantrums, as usual.
This is all implemented, but is subject to some changes, since I might affiliate workers to workshops more closely, and mess with some other things.
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Thanks, that clears it up some.
What about the "price adjustments" that pop up? Do they reflect world conditions or dwarves' settlement?
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The ones in the movie were a minor bug, since the economy hadn't started. Once the economy starts, nobles will occasionally inflate the prices of objects they like so that people can't buy them as easily -- the nobles can acquire any state-owned objects they like, so they attempt to hoard them in this manner before they become privately owned. There is also a tax collector, and the royal guards, which can help them with this.
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Acquire as in theft? Or as in "able to buy anything becuase of unlimted purchasing power"
[ November 01, 2005: Message edited by: Captain_Action ]
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Well, they belong to the nobles, as a group, so they simply take what they like, according to how large their quarters are and how much furniture (chests/cabinets) you've given them. Lesser nobles demand less storage space, and greater nobles will get angry if a lesser has more than they do. Any dwarf that has achieved a very very high skill level in any trade falls in this group as well, but they don't make any demands, and they continue to work (they just don't have to worry about rent or being able to replace worn clothes like the other dwarves).
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So the nobles are honored elders, interesting. What prevents the player from "retiring" nobles? Cave-ins can and do happen you know.
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While there is the bug with the psychotic sheriff, cave-ins and and drawbridge accidents became quite popular. The downside to eliminating nobles is that they all play some kind of role in your society, and it often takes a year to get a new one (or longer). That said, it occasionally might be a useful strategy, if someone is getting really out of hand.
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Are you planning to allow the travelling merchants to bring coinage to the dwarves' settlement?
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Man, the more I hear about this game, the better it sounds...
Do the nobles have any rank themselves, or are they just identified by profession? I mean, are there barons, counts, dukes, that sort of thing? And can they pull rank on each other if there are, maybe get into power struggles? I have a feeling I'm getting into bloat territory...
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I'm not sure about having the merchants bring coins -- one of the fun half-implemented things with dwarven coins is having them have the year on them, and an image depending on the year and the metal. If the metal is one that is not used for currency (e.g. bronze), then they will be commemorative coins, much like the masterpiece detailing scenes we discussed before. This is all kind of bloating, so who knows what will be done.
There are professional nobles, guild nobles, nobles that have reached the peak in their trade, champions from the military, and then there are the standard "noble" nobles. Right now I'm using the king/queen, dukes, counts and barons. I think discussing the benefits etc. of these nobles is a bit spoily, and it's part of the core stuff I'm working on. Suffice to say, as your cave gets bigger, you get these nobles rank by rank, and your life becomes much more interesting.
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Will there be resource caravans? Maybe a caravan from a nearby mining outpost or logging village come with a bunch of resources?
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Resource caravans seem kind of strange, at least if you don't have any shortages. There are some other things that might bring this on, but I don't want to get into it too much.
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Not really resource caravans from the main part of the world, but from farther away, and you're the nearest settlement or something.
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Here's a quick thought on coinage and traders. Traders should only lug coins around if the player sells them. I don't know all the races toady will be adding to the game, but humans would most likely be only other race to deal with coins. Assumming, they have the technology for minting. Kobolds could make gold/silver covered "slugs" to cause economic chaos.
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Kobolds always have such a bad reputation. They are erudite scholars that calmly enjoy the quiet things in life.
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They are also quite inedible, which is why everyone hates them.
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Those people should play Stumpy-Wumples, and learn tolerance. Like Joshua.
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quote:
Originally posted by Aquillion:
<STRONG>They are also quite inedible, which is why everyone hates them.</STRONG>
Not so. Get yourself a ring or amulet of poison resistance and chow down on a few kobolds - you'll get intrinsic poison resistance in no time.
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WHERE'S THE SPOILER ALERT!?!
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I ordered one, but it didn't arrive in time. You know what these cowboy outfits are like.
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I do. I can go around the block and buy red alligator boots for eight hundred dollars, but I haven't yet.
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Here's a few questions that kinda relate to the topic.
Is it possible to over fish the surface river? What about the underground river(s?)?
Do dwarves have water closets? Will we need to carefully craft "flushing" mechanisms to carry the unmentionables away?
Is possible to hear the underground river through the rock?
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A good miner can avoid drowning your cave, but I haven't done any kind of detection of hidden areas stuff. Dwarves should probably have some ability in this regard when it comes to mining or locating cave features.
You can over fish the rivers in the sense that you run out of fish for the season after a while. Animals replenish over time. If you over-log, fewer animals will come around.
There is currently no potty.
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Why not have a new bonus for highly skilled miners, that when they dig, they can put their ear to the wall and knock on to listen for "echo" or something, to find stuff like rivers, caves, resources, etc etc etc.
Also, is there some sort of hauling skill in? Or maybe something that they grab an wheelbarrow and transport stuff with it? Cause hauling one rock at a time when mining a huge area might be ineffective when you have LOTS of jobs that needs doing...
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I was wondering, how many dwarves can fit in a single map square?
We already know that clothing can wear out (Damage or use?). What about beds, tools, and doors?
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We were thinking about having mules that are able to haul stuff around... they'd have to be cave mules or something. We were thinking about wheelbarrows as well, but the haul jobs have to be associated to particular transport piles or something -- writing code to make people haul multiple objects to multiple locations that actually works well and fast is a hard problem.
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Clothing wears out with use. Item damage is a one of the required things. There is no limit on the number of creatures in a square, although only one of them can be standing. There is a bloat to add a system whereby it records the order grounded creatures were stacked and if there are a lot in a square the lowest ones start to get crushed based on the size of each one. So a dragon could let lots of little dwarves play on its belly, but the opposite set up might be traumatic
Other objects were slated to wear with use, but that doesn't happen yet. There's also a vague notion of objects made of certain materials rotting out of a number of years. It's programmed, but games usually don't last long enough for it to matter.
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Heh heh. I can just imagine it; give a horse huge milky eyes, a bioluminescent tongue, and needle-sharp teeth, and you have yourself a cave mule. *shudders* Wouldn't want to be the one to have to put a bit in its mouth.
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quote:
Originally posted by Toady One:
<STRONG>So a dragon could let lots of little dwarves play on its belly, but the opposite set up might be traumatic</STRONG>
i DO hope that will be a possible thing to accomplish, now you've mentioned it.
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So the dwarves can burn trees in their forges, what about coal? Also will lava be a hazard and a source for forges?
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About trading, will one be able to import fun stuff, like heat generating gems, or extremely volatile potions?
And here is a really good question... You can buy bears... can you buy dragons?
Having a pet dragon would be cool :)
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Captain: yes to everything (and it's all done this time). Dig deep and you will find things.
I haven't done magic yet, so I'm not sure in the end what magical objects will be in and what won't be. I was thinking that the elf traders have to be more interesting though. There are some things in for magic items, but nothing sort of run-of-the-mill that dwarves can pump out with ease. I have no idea to what extent that stuff will go in.
Once I put the dragon attacks back in, a pet dragon is technically possible, but it is a convoluted path.
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Is metal recycling possible? If some were-critter shows up, can I melt some silver coins into arrow heads?
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Yeah, you can melt down items. I think some bits are lost in the process.
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What happens to a dwarf's loot after he dies?
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If he has a tomb, it is all moved to his tomb (except for essential tools, which aren't owned). If not, I think it all reverts back to the fortress, and the dwarf is buried naked in any free placed coffin you've not specifically designated as somebody's tomb. Later I suppose I could have key possessions placed in the coffin as well, or some any kind of weird traditional rites... who knows.
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In the first movie were you choosing your dwarves' starting skills?
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Yeah. Subject to many changes...
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About magic:
Will DF be "low magic", like magic isn't seen and is generally not believed in, or everyone and their uncle has a magical trinket. Somewhere inbetween, perhaps?
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I'm not sure how it will end up. Right now it is pretty "low magic". I don't know if DF will digest some of my plans for magic from other games or if those will stay separate. In the first release, there probably won't be much beyond certain items that your dwarves can create and use.
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Oh, and the various tortures your dwarves can be subjected to by the forces of darkness.
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will it be possible to trade with some enemy races, or, will trading with say, goblins and kobolds, be out of bounds?
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You can trade blows.
X
Is the xmas toad busy coding still, or is it total break?
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I did a little bit, but it's impossible to work here... too many peoples doing too many things.