Bay 12 Games Forum

Dwarf Fortress => DF Suggestions => Topic started by: Sowelu on February 09, 2007, 04:07:00 am

Title: Should used clothing really be that valuable?..
Post by: Sowelu on February 09, 2007, 04:07:00 am

I've found thata couple years in, I always end up making a big stock of items to trade away...and then a few goblin thieves attack, and leave me with something like a thousand $ worth of dirty old smelly clothes and crummy daggers.

I can't see ANYONE wanting goblin clothes.  In fact, I can't see anyone wanting USED clothes.  Once clothes have been worn by someone, they should really be a lot less valuable to anyone else.

I could imagine the goblin-clothes price being used for shiny new clothes.  But just think what those goblin clothing items probably look and smell like!  Hideous!  Not worth using for rags!  And the humans are really willing to trade everything for a pile of that filth?  Don't they have goblins back home?  Shouldn't they want, you know, actual trade goods?

Seriously, that goblin junk should be like one or two $...if that.

Title: Re: Should used clothing really be that valuable?..
Post by: JT on February 09, 2007, 10:31:00 am

I like the idea that used clothing should be less valuable.  However, I figure used articles should only be reduced in value by about 60-80%, as opposed to being reduced by 95% or more.

Humans probably don't see as many goblins as you think, so goblin articles do have value as curiosities.  Goblins are mountain-dwellers while humans are plains-dwellers and forest-dwellers.  I'm sure there are the occasional goblin raids on isolated villages, but goblins wouldn't want to irk the humans more than that because a human versus a goblin isn't a match at all, and humans are short-lived prolific breeders like the goblins are (so goblins wouldn't win a war of attrition against them, unlike fighting against dwarves).

Title: Re: Should used clothing really be that valuable?..
Post by: The_Hawk on February 09, 2007, 10:56:00 am

While what you say is certainly true, as a practical matter it would make sieges *so* much more annoying.  It's bad enough now when you kill thirty goblins and your dwarves spend a year and a half hauling around individual narrow fox leather gloves; making them worthless would eliminate the one upshot to all that labor -- the pittance of trade value you get out of the deal.

Title: Re: Should used clothing really be that valuable?..
Post by: thvaz on February 09, 2007, 02:16:00 pm

Hauling is so annoying as it is - the same dwarf who hauled that big rock is needed to haul a little glove.

Just one dwarf should carry a lot of clothes pieces, not only one. Just like one lone dwarf shouldn't haul a big and heavy rock.

Title: Re: Should used clothing really be that valuable?..
Post by: Sowelu on February 09, 2007, 06:27:00 pm

Here's a suggestion for the item spam...treat a dead critter's clothes as refuse.  Then just don't have any refuse piles that take goblin clothes.  Would you really want to wear the clothes that someone DIED in?  God knows how long they were on that rotting corpse, or how many holes or bloodstains there are.

Title: Re: Should used clothing really be that valuable?..
Post by: PotatoEngineer on February 09, 2007, 09:55:00 pm

It's the medieval era! (or renaissance, or whatever, but at any rate, before industrialization)  Clothing was worth more than it is now, even used.