Bay 12 Games Forum

Feel free to skip straight to Reply#4 if you want to...

I'm playing a game of adventure mode with character Erid Godenlocun. hopefully this adventurer won't get murdered in the first thing he steps outside. Not sure what's going to happen in the future myself. But I will do several plays at a time and write up what happens.

I've done some edits on the first two posts. Note to self - do editing before publishing next time. x_x

Hi playing DF adventure mode on Linux for first time, Im using LNP
one problem I found immediately was some of the text that comes up when looking is
coming up behind the information band at the bottom - "here we have a marble pillar" is almost completely
block by the band giving character name, region, speed etc. How to make this better?

Also Im not sure about the ingame graphic resolution. The world is rendered a bit too big. Can I change this?

  So right now dorfs are silent to the player, so if would be nice if the vanilla game gave each dorf a limited set of short small sounds with which they can make themselves heard to the player. Maybe the sounds can be squeaky appropriately to the tiny dorf icons player sees.

the sounds made by a multitude of dorfs add up to a collective sound effect...

Throwing a party? the dorfs involved will make the happy sounds when player is focused onto location
Throwing tantrum? dorfs involved will make the angry sounds when player is focused

Running away from something or scared by something? scared sound effect.

depressed? sad sound effect.
contented? happy sound effect.

Fighting or involved in battle? battle/ fighting sound effect.


And so on...

Legends mode has a rich variety of world information that the player of a fortress or adventure may not come to know. Even searching legends mode itself a person may not read a lot of interesting stuff due to the amount of info there is. Legends mode details all things significant or insignificant, So why not take interesting info from legends and make these available in gameplay which can enrich the context of the world played in. And if teh player is curious then can go to legends mode to find out more.

This might work if it is possible to make a pattern recognising program agent that mines on the legends information. I've read a very small amount of legends info on a dragon, so I'll talk using this example. This is just a vague suggestion to get across idea I wouldn't know how to implement.

The program is built to detect possible interesting narratives, patterns and story arcs. So it would find events that match resolutions or climaxes : eg a great battle / or slaying of a great beast may be a climax,  the dying of a hero or fall of a civilisation/fort may be a resolution. The program finds relevant details that fill between these, and exposition information that comes before as well as and relevant aftermath events and puts these all in order. It could also could check for patterns and mark sub-subjects that are linked with main subject: If an ongoing menace by megabeast is main subject, and it continually attacks a settlement, there could be expanding on the details of settlement.

I wonder if it is possible to program game so that events that occur fall into patterns of narratives and story arcs (changing probabilities)



Suggesting applications :

+++ a "researcher" profession. As you play fort mode you will find artefacts : engravings, writings, objects, structures etc that have research value. You can designate these to be researched, and a dwarf with the skill will spend time at the artefact gathering information. Once job is completed you get a report of historical and background info. It could be that one of the dorfs does research, or it is actually manually done by player in fort or adventure mode.
Research may add important world related rumours to your map screen.  in fort mode you may be able to send dorf parties abroad on exploration and research expeditions.

+++ historian profession : Researchers or working with researchers These dorfs / npcs keep records of context / historical information, and can be consulted. They can publish more extensive historical book artefacts with interesting information. (profession possibly merge with researcher). Story and
historical books may have hight value or magical properties in world (after myth gen update).

+++ story tellers : These dorfs learn interesting narratives from available information, and can do story telling activities to crowds of people. People who hear stories gain further happy thoughts and are entertained. The probability that they may be taken by a strange mood and create a related artefact is increased. These is a chance that crafters who hear a story telling or read written work may create higher quality non-artefact items (possibly related).
Story tellings can happen once a season or year.

- I guess also newer story tellers may learn from preceding story tellers, so stories get handed down generations. Maybe the story may change/generalise/inflate over time possibly turning into myth and legend level stories.


Benefit? 

After uncovering legends info, these can be added to descriptions of locations. A location may receive visitors, pilgrims or adventurers if the fame of story reaches outer world. Info that reveals locations of lost artefacts may be found. Info that reveals hidden or lost secrets and powers of world may be found. Info that reveals/expands context important characters may be found (eg person X is descendant of hero Y). Possibly uncovering story may trigger further interesting chains and patterns of events to occur in fort or adventure.

These are a few ideas I could think of and the idea is legends mode can be the starting point to enrich context and narrative of both adventure and fort mode. I'm not sure how story miner can be implemented or on the effects of uncovering story.

  So if the game will be generating villains by procedural generated mechanics, I wonder if there is any requirement and viability for anti-villains.

If there are people who scheme and design bad things to happen, is there any space for people who ... scheme and do good things? or counter villains is some way? would they uncover plots?

Would opposite of villain be 'hero' or adventurer? or a character with lots of power but is good and is motivated to do good things? I guess I'm thinking of sort of character that keeps world from falling apart.

A bit of a radical idea but I'm thinking, what if you the player cannot control how the fort develops / what happens / what the dwarfs do fully, you have some effect on development of the fort but it also kind of develops on its own partly independently.

So in this case you or I the player is actually a dwarf from the first expedition. Expedition leader maybe. There is a sort of fog of war (like in the RTS games) so you only see within your line of sight (or information other dwarfs report to you). You have to give commands and plans to the dwarfs and they carry out tasks, you can visit sites and give direct commands or give dwarfs general instructions. (there could also be a progression from peasant up to king with more dorfs reporting to you)

but dorfs also may make (?minor/major?) independent decisions. The difference here is the full power you have over what happens in fort is replaced with less-absolute power. You do not at first glance have knowledge of everything going on in fort,  This could add to much confusion, tension and trouble at times of crises. (If there is an option enabled for switching characters at will you might switch to a military commander character in a siege)

and the dorfs may or may not do what you tell them. Here they may take part of the instruction from another authority (noble?) / or another collective. Eg. If a King or Queen resides in fort and you are not playing as this character, you may have less authority and say on what happens, I imagine there could be a mechanic where dorfs revolt or mutiny which could be much "fun". 

I don't think this system needs to be completely rigid (or you have the choice). Perhaps you can switch the character you see the fort through as you like (or in a more restricted way depending on options chosen). Possibly you could summon any dwarf you like to report, or you get a static view of fort periodically.

One problem I see is how good dorf AI has to be for independent work and plans. What do you think.

So the idea is you can choose to be associated with a dwarf civilisation and the civ has a number of requirements. Specific embark locations are appropriate to these needs and for a given embark location you can take on challenge of missions that cater for these needs. As you are successful in meeting the requirements you also receive rewards and motive to continue maintaining the fortress and the fortress gets more glory.

Some needs of a civilisation could be :
   - defence against other Civs and their armies (or conquest of territory)
   - cultural needs : facilities such as library complexes, markets, great halls and taverns, or iconic edifices and structures
   - economy and generation of wealth
   - food and drink supply
   - health facilities
   - administration facilities and buildings
   - population housing
   - military housing and catering, or military training and supply
   - unique needs eg (dwarfs might have need for people that craft greater artefacts)
   - strong holds and vaults, great hoards
   - trade facilities
   - housing for iconic personalities and talents of civ

So given these unique needs of a civ, missions that may be available could be...

> border, far or extreme outpost : rewards for surviving far from home, in sparse or extreme territory in order for civ to profit (eg. in rare minerals) or to expand civ borders

> diplomatic outpost : cater for liasons and nobles from ally cultures or possible allies

> hoard or vault fortress : wealth of civ directed to fort for safe keeping : all greed of other civs, beasts and thieves also gets directed

> build and maintain defence citadels close to and in direction of enemy civ :
to withstand oncoming armies of another civ eg. from a goblin civ at war with (more pronounced armies would attack these fortresses)

> healthcare fortress : dorfs that are sickly or injured are transported here for healing, Success depends on success of healing masses of injured.
these missions available near to other cities and close to warring lines.

> military barracks camp fortress : success could be in catering and training army dorfs, and sending trained dorfs for service to the civ

> make irrigation structures and greatly cultivate farmland above ground and below, grow crops, export the surplus crops to feed the population of civilisaiton

> make housing and cater for population locally (excess population from other fortresses and cities are directed to the fortress), protect the population
? > house important nobles, facilitate meetings and make decisions on running of the civ

> make great market cities,  output a required level of profit for the civ yearly
> or cultural cities, which dorfs from the civ come to visit and meet each other in, success depending on attraction of dorfs

> make superstructures, facilities and buildings that are valued hightly by the civ and civ benefits from status and attraction to these

> uphold a specific industry eg. metal smithing, gemcrafting, stone crafting (liasons could bring jobs that need to be completed and products exported)

> CAPITAL : make the current greatest fort of the civ ever that will be ruled by the emperor. all kinds of criteria.

> unique missions : hold powerful artefact, befriend / tame / slay a mega mega beast, terrain specific missions



These are a few subjects that I thought might make possible mission criteria for the player to direct the development of their fort.

A designation option, so when a rectangular area is defined, game signals dwarfs to pick up all items lying on floor within that designated area and immediately put them back in relevant available stockpiles.