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DF Suggestions / Speedy Delivery! Expeditions that take things out of the fortress
« on: September 08, 2017, 02:27:26 pm »
Since fortresses will soon have expeditions to (re)claim things from other actors in the game world, I am also thinking about expeditions to send things away from the fort.
Notably relevant is the recent dev log (9/7/2017):
Why should our diplomatic maneuvering be dependent upon thefickle RNG imperfectly efficient rumor system getting word back to the humans and when or if they decide to come by? Maybe we don't want to indefinitely hold onto some old guy's britches from an un-dwarfish cult. Maybe we don't care for how they could attract attention from third parties. (Such as an angry dragon? Although I don't think megabeasts are actually connected to the rumor network.)
For that matter, there shouldn't be any restriction on only returning items: many fortresses have spare artifacts lying about that aren't contributing much productivity. Perhaps we might be willing to part with one as a gesture of goodwill to encourage peace and trade, even and especially before some hippie arbitrarily puts in a claim on the most precious items in the fort? This might be a way to (potentially, without guarantees) work around what sounds like a slight monomania exhibited by foreign questers at our gates. It could be argued that this shades into civ-level diplomacy and whether local sites should be able to get into it. In my opinion, specific permissions/penalties can be put off until law arc, civ-level responsibilities right now are so nebulous that giving our monarch a nudge is no big deal--if we are allowed to anger civs to the point of war, we should be allowed to placate them too. And when the fortress is the mountainhome, its government (me!) controls exactly that kind of power anyway.
It should be straightforward* to flip the expedition code so that the assigned party takes the item from the fortress and leaves it in possession of an appropriate authority at the destination. All travel subject to "complications," of course, and the difference is that in this case our expedition has the vital quest item on the outward leg but not the return leg.
*I'm totally guessing. I have no idea what's involved, say, in terms of managing who "owns" the artifact during the journey.
Another item that comes to mind is the "émigré" nobles that fortress overseers love to hate. They move in or inherit, lean on their status to make demands, but have no actual place in the local government. How about giving them an escort to properly "install" them in their rightful homes? We have code for rescuing kidnap victims, so again this is a reversal of the two journey legs: outward the squad is helping a noble (and their immediate family? to prevent the inheritance trouble all over again) to some other place, on the return they are empty-handed. If the destination remains a standard location of our overall civ then the escort should be quite easy. If there's been a more drastic change of ownership (rebel factions, conquered by goblins) then it might require a difficulty check for minimum force to send. (Otherwise some players would always use a single talentless recruit and call it a small price to pay for getting rid of a noble. Although the classic unfortunate accident costs even less, so...)
Thinking even further into the future, I can see this as preparation for something like fortress-sponsored caravans in which the party both takes and brings back all manner of stuff. Maybe an intermediate step where we can plan multi-objective expeditions, i.e. first get artifact, then return it to humans, then come home? But for now keeping it to the same key items, artifacts or specially-identified individuals, would be right in line with what is already upcoming.
Notably relevant is the recent dev log (9/7/2017):
Quote
The treasure had belonged to the humans . . . . So, hey, why not bring it to the fortress? Maybe give it back to the humans to improve relations, or failing a visit from them . . .
Why should our diplomatic maneuvering be dependent upon the
For that matter, there shouldn't be any restriction on only returning items: many fortresses have spare artifacts lying about that aren't contributing much productivity. Perhaps we might be willing to part with one as a gesture of goodwill to encourage peace and trade, even and especially before some hippie arbitrarily puts in a claim on the most precious items in the fort? This might be a way to (potentially, without guarantees) work around what sounds like a slight monomania exhibited by foreign questers at our gates. It could be argued that this shades into civ-level diplomacy and whether local sites should be able to get into it. In my opinion, specific permissions/penalties can be put off until law arc, civ-level responsibilities right now are so nebulous that giving our monarch a nudge is no big deal--if we are allowed to anger civs to the point of war, we should be allowed to placate them too. And when the fortress is the mountainhome, its government (me!) controls exactly that kind of power anyway.
It should be straightforward* to flip the expedition code so that the assigned party takes the item from the fortress and leaves it in possession of an appropriate authority at the destination. All travel subject to "complications," of course, and the difference is that in this case our expedition has the vital quest item on the outward leg but not the return leg.
*I'm totally guessing. I have no idea what's involved, say, in terms of managing who "owns" the artifact during the journey.
Another item that comes to mind is the "émigré" nobles that fortress overseers love to hate. They move in or inherit, lean on their status to make demands, but have no actual place in the local government. How about giving them an escort to properly "install" them in their rightful homes? We have code for rescuing kidnap victims, so again this is a reversal of the two journey legs: outward the squad is helping a noble (and their immediate family? to prevent the inheritance trouble all over again) to some other place, on the return they are empty-handed. If the destination remains a standard location of our overall civ then the escort should be quite easy. If there's been a more drastic change of ownership (rebel factions, conquered by goblins) then it might require a difficulty check for minimum force to send. (Otherwise some players would always use a single talentless recruit and call it a small price to pay for getting rid of a noble. Although the classic unfortunate accident costs even less, so...)
Thinking even further into the future, I can see this as preparation for something like fortress-sponsored caravans in which the party both takes and brings back all manner of stuff. Maybe an intermediate step where we can plan multi-objective expeditions, i.e. first get artifact, then return it to humans, then come home? But for now keeping it to the same key items, artifacts or specially-identified individuals, would be right in line with what is already upcoming.