Bay 12 Games Forum

Dwarf Fortress => DF Suggestions => Topic started by: ThePaladin on April 27, 2008, 12:45:00 pm

Title: Separate chronology
Post by: ThePaladin on April 27, 2008, 12:45:00 pm
Now that we have dynamic names of ages, woudn't it be obvious to make a separate chronology for each age? There would be no "absolute" year 1 or 100, the year would be named according to its age and its number from the beginning of the age. E.g. Age of Demon, Year 101
Title: Re: Separate chronology
Post by: Cajoes on April 27, 2008, 02:39:00 pm
Or have the length of the ages determined by the world generation?

DF at the moment has, what, the age of myth, the golden age and.. we'll frankly I didn't really watch the generation screen that much. But it would make sense that the age of myths ends when people stop worshiping every little fluffy wambler that tilts along and finally form some decent settlements and roll up a empire. Starting the golden age, which ends as soon as these hits their peaks and begin to decline..

Of course, the process of producing a playable world is a delicate one, I recall reading in Toady's notes that even minor tweaks to say, gobbos, have massive sociopolitical ramifications. And not long ago we had entire continents covered in human villages for some reason. Still, dynamic chronology sounds fun.  :)

But the thing with ages is that they are in fact set in advance, mainly for time keeping purposes and people with dayplanners.

Title: Re: Separate chronology
Post by: Align on April 27, 2008, 03:29:00 pm
this is already in if you look at the older dev logs

[ April 27, 2008: Message edited by: Align ]

Title: Re: Separate chronology
Post by: ThePaladin on April 27, 2008, 10:22:00 pm
I have a reason not to believe you. Looking at the latest war logs I don't see any change of the age name, only a year. And there are no "jumps" of the years. It seems to me that an age with a new name just continues the old chronology... Correct me if I am not right.
Title: Re: Separate chronology
Post by: ThePaladin on April 27, 2008, 10:26:00 pm
quote:
Originally posted by Cajoes:
<STRONG>Or have the length of the ages determined by the world generation?

DF at the moment has, what, the age of myth, the golden age and.. we'll frankly I didn't really watch the generation screen that much. But it would make sense that the age of myths ends when people stop worshiping every little fluffy wambler that tilts along and finally form some decent settlements and roll up a empire. Starting the golden age, which ends as soon as these hits their peaks and begin to decline..

Of course, the process of producing a playable world is a delicate one, I recall reading in Toady's notes that even minor tweaks to say, gobbos, have massive sociopolitical ramifications. And not long ago we had entire continents covered in human villages for some reason. Still, dynamic chronology sounds fun.    :)

But the thing with ages is that they are in fact set in advance, mainly for time keeping purposes and people with dayplanners.</STRONG>



Now they are not set in advance. Toady has added dynamic age naming. See in Toady's notes, there is also a cool screenshot http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/imgs/age_end.png

[ April 27, 2008: Message edited by: ThePaladin ]

Title: Re: Separate chronology
Post by: Cajoes on April 28, 2008, 02:20:00 am
quote:
Originally posted by ThePaladin:
<STRONG>
Now they are not set in advance. Toady has added dynamic age naming. See in Toady's notes, there is also a cool screenshot http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/imgs/age_end.png

[ April 27, 2008: Message edited by: ThePaladin ]</STRONG>


I was referring/thinking about ages in general. Not ages in particular. Seeing as I have no idea how ages work in DF. - And it was four/six hours past bed-time, giving me a 10% penalty to coherent thought. Thanks for the link!

Title: Re: Separate chronology
Post by: Align on April 28, 2008, 11:07:00 am
Ah, you mean that the year counter resets for every new age, my bad. I dunno, I like being able to see the total age of a world at a glance.