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Topics - GoblinCookie

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DF Suggestions / Menopause

« on: June 13, 2016, 11:49:55 am »

At the moment it is possible for a female of any age to get pregnant, leading to rather odd situations where human woman of over 100 get pregnant. It is quite possibly an oversight on the part of the devs and hence not in the dev plans so I had to propose it in the suggestions forum. The obvious way to do this is to simply make it impossible for female creatures that have reached the minimal age at which they might die of old age and add a NO_MENOPAUSE tag to suppress this function and allow elderly females of certain creaturetypes to reproduce regardless of how old they are. Alternatively the same track they might also be possible to add in a fertility decline age and a % per year, so the human woman gets to 30 at which point she loses say 4% fertility per year, so the odds of having babies would go down by 2% a year, so a 40 year old woman has a fertility of 60% while a 20 year old woman has a fertility of 100%, in this case menopause is simply when fertility hits 0%.

On the general topic of reproduction, the birth of children also needs some work. Pregnant woman (not animals) should go into labour as a job, stopping whatever job they were doing before and head to their bed or a hospital bed depending on availability and proximity. There should be a midwife medical labour with a high priority midwife job generated once the pregnant woman reaches the bed, the actual birth is clocked to happen a certain time later, even if the pregnant woman did not reach a bed. There would be a raw-modifiable chance of the female, the child or both dying in childbirth and the midwife's skill helping to reduce the probability of either event happening. The world generation engine would have to understand the presence/absence of midwives in a given site in order to determine adjust the probability of childbirth complications happening.

DF Community Games & Stories / The Last Dwarves

« on: April 10, 2016, 08:29:41 am »

This is my first DF Story and is based on a modded world called the Everseeing Universe, modded of course with Forgotten Realms Direforged 2.1D. I plan to play through the game, write down a log of what my dwarves are thinking in the style of a logbook and then copy up what I have written with certain changes to this forum. Here goes the title page:

Background of the Last Dwarves

In the 200 years since the calender was reinvented following the loss of the first calender in the Age of Chaos brought about ultimately by the arrival of colonists from Faerun, things have not been going well for the mountain dwarves. This is rather ironic given that it was they that the calender 200 years ago and were also the first to start to once again build established sites during the course of this Age of Chaos. 200 years ago there had been two mountain dwarf kingdoms on the Land of Neutralization, the Mine of Crowds to the north and the Wall of Gladness to the south. Now only the Wall of Gladness remains, reduced to a handful of mountain halls and refugee camps; with their last fortress gone. The howling ogres of the Thief of Tar had crushed the heroic but feeble forces underfoot but were wary to follow them into the cramped and dark tunnels in which the last free dwarves had taken refuge.

In desperation the mountain dwarves turned to their northwestern neighbors, the Learned Bushes rock gnomes only to be easily thwarted by ogre 'diplomacy'. The kind of diplomacy to involve Dark Master Lest Glumcoastal stomping into the nearest rock gnome fortress, grabbing it's negotiator in one arm and it's dictator in the other before bellowing very loadly at the ruling tribunal: "Mountain dwarves are hiding in narrow tunnels! Mountain dwarves be made to work to fill ogre bellies but bad dwarves are hiding! Learned Bushes must go bring bad dwarves to justice or gnomes be made to fill ogre bellies!". In response to this steller display of ogre diplomatic prowess the ruling tribunals of all the gnome fortresses were most cooperative and the dictators of the Learned Bushes were soon leading their armies into the caverns in search for the Last Dwarves.

Background of the Treasury of Knots

When all seemed lost King Dugem Lancedvaults of the Wall of Gladness could not accept that the end had come. A devout believer in the goddess Igril the Cave of Puzzling (and hence in Astrology) he knew that the planets were aligning for the first time in many centuries in the constellation of Armok. In the legendary days of old, before the Age of Chaos Armok had been the legendary champion of the mountain dwarf people, so how could the end of the mountain dwarves come when the stars aligned in such a manner? It had been understood by the more realistic dwarves for some time that if there was to be any future for the Walls of Gladness it would have to be far way from the ancestral homelands in the mountains of the Wall of Fights. A small band called the Yawning Gloves had made their way northwards across the Muscular Hills, between the mountain ranges of the Blameless Horn and the Finger of Society, holing in an abandoned hamlet called Robustlock. From there they reported back to King Dugem about the rich lands of the surrounding area (but somehow failed to mention the fomorian presence).

King Dugem was particularly interested in a strange, apparently magical land to the south of Robustlock that the Yawning Gloves had named the Reticent Fields. King Dugem quickly concluded that this land was the legendary field of Armok and the salvation of dwarfkind. He ordered that a secret tunnel be dug to the surface and a single wagon earlier stolen from the gnomes was filled with provision for a long journey; seven were sent aboard the wagon, all ordinery civilians since no soldiers or nobles could be spared. The group called itself the Treasury of Gnots and it's leader is a dwarf woman called Rodes Partnergirders. While the other followers of Igril goddess of the stars were eager to echo their king's talk of a promised land beyond the mountains, some objected not to the group's existance but their precise destination.

Led by Gul Crystalmute, Baron of Trumpetoars the followers of Enuk the Aquamarine Cover god(ess?) of war mostly (also of:earth, mountains, volcanos, fire and fortresses) denounces the king's plan, such an evidently sacred land as the Reticent Hills could not be delved by sinful dwarves and Enuk would surely pour destruction upon the Treasury of Gnats for their sacrilage and the king's hubris. Of course Baron Gul Crystalmute's words carried little sway, given that Trumpetroars, once a great fortress was now a crumbling virtual ruin populated by only a miserable group of a dozen dwarves labouring ceaseless under the name of the Immorality of Learning, which their howling ogre masters had chosen for them. Would history however prove him or the king right?

Embark Map

Caption: The blue icons on the eastern screen are the few remaining holdings of the Wall of Gladness. The scattered fortresses and hillocks in the southeast of the western window are the treacherous and cowardly Learned Bushes rock gnomes, only the fortress in the extreme south-east corner is an occupied dwarf fortress. The Thief of Tar howling ogres originated in the yellow desert that can be seen to the east and from there they built up an impressive empire, expanding westwards and conquering lots of other civilizations and not just the dwarves; the remaining forest retreats in the vicinity of the rock gnomes that are still standing are all ogre controlled. The yellow cross is the destination of the Treasury of Gnots, the surrounding pale blue patch is the Reticent Fields while Robustlock is one of the two blue hamlets to the north. The Muscular Hills are to the east of the cross and pass between the Finger of Society which is the mountain range to the east of the yellow cross and the Blameless Horn which is the mountain range to the south. The Wall of Fights is the south-eastern most mountain range on the eastern map and is where the expedition comes from.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Colour Key
No position/Captain/Militia Captain:0
Mayor/Expedition Leader:0
Manager:0
Bookkeeper:0
Broker:0
Militia Commander/Lieutenant:0
Chief Medic:0
Sheriff/Captain of the Guard:0
Hammerer:0
Baron/Count/Duke:0
King:0
Royal Liason:0
Diplomat:0

DF Adventure Mode Discussion / How the very touch of adventurers destroys property rights.

« on: April 04, 2016, 07:16:45 am »

As a result of a bug with site loading I had to scuttle my adventurer and his world, since the sites kept messing up the location of trade depots, wrecking trade

. Mainly by exploring the workings of the bug I did learn something though, what I learned is how the items and the sites actually work; it is rather interesting.

In summary, the sites architecture do not actually exist as soon as you leave the site. Instead every single time you leave the site the game recreates the site from scratch based upon the same data, since the geography is the same and the random seed is the same in theory the site architecture should be the same every time; though in practice this frequently does not work out. The geography is itself generated in the same manner I think, based upon a set of data that includes the random seed; this means that the whole adventurer mode gameworld is basically a tree with the geography at the bottom and the sites as branches coming from the geography. Then having generated the architecture it then generates the people, the non-historical population is generated based upon a seed in the same manner as the architecture while the historical population is stored abstractly and used to add the historical characters into the game.

Here is the funny thing, items do not work this way; at least certain items do not. The game keeps track of the explicit location of a set of items regardless of the sites and their architecture so the items will always appear even if (as should not happen) the site architecture has shifted; sometimes resulting in items in the middle of walls. Here is the catch, the game keeps track of the location of the items but not who owns them, whether that is an individual or a site. The catch to this is that any item that is picked up or interacted with by the adventurer or by anyone else that is onloaded becomes a special item which is tracked, with the consequence that every item that the adventurer touches become unowned; the adventurer's touch presently destroys property. If the adventurer sells an item it appears to become site property ($item$) but the moment the site reloads the item becomes unowned because it is a tracked item and while it's location is tracked it's owner is not.

Items previously sold to a site simply become heaps of unowned items the moment the site offloads meaning that you cannot buy back items that previously you sold but you can just walk away with them and it is not actually stealing according to the present mechanics

. All owned items are only owned because they do not actually exist when the site is offloaded but are generated based upon a random seed in the same manner that the architecture is. The same thing applies to private property, items are assigned owners when the site is onloaded based upon who is presently carrying the items; meaning that an object left around at a location ceases to belong to you (or anyone else) the moment the site (or area) offloads. This is the real reason why the game does not allow you travel mode with stolen items is that doing so makes the stolen items not stolen since they are tracked items.

DF Gameplay Questions / Do demons come to eat people who sleep in fortress tavern rooms unbidden?

« on: March 09, 2016, 05:18:30 pm »

It keeps happening. My adventurer sleeps in a tavern above a dwarf fortress and then some time later along come a group of demons which proceed to massacre everybody in the area, including my adventurer if he does not make a quick getaway; resistance is utterly futile as they are beyond powerful. Now this did not used to happen, it is has never happened when I merely sleep on the surface area of a dwarf fortress but only after taverns were introduced. This makes me wonder whether these demon attacks are not random but instead are some secret mechanic that was introduced to punish folks that decide to sleep in tavern rooms, similar to bogeymen for those that sleep alone in the wilderness but more secret?

On the other hand I have seen demons on the surface causing unstoppable mayhem in other contexts before. Were those demons the result of said mechanic in some way or are there are small number of demon groups wandering the world and sleeping unbidden simply sends a group of them enroute to wherever you are sleeping. Or is the whole thing coincidence and the demons are just happening to wander in, in which case either demons should be nerfed so they can feasibly be killed by the average adventurer or the demons should be prevented from wandering into inhabited sites without a special demon attack event happening abstractly.

DF General Discussion / Mathematics of Size

« on: November 01, 2015, 12:20:25 pm »

Basically speaking the whole size concept in the game has me completely stumped; a human is 70,000 units in size and a human is 6 foot tall on average. However 70,000 is *not* how tall the human is, it is the total size of the creature in ALL dimensions measured as if they were in 1D. Say I wanted to make a 12 foot humanoid, I would not simply set the creature to be 140,000, because the creature gets bigger in 3 dimensions rather than 1 dimension. Not being a mathematician (unlike Toady One) I am quite confused as to how big the 12 foot humanoid would actually be.

The way that size works at the moment is as if the creature were made of sand and every size unit is a single grain of sand. If you made a taller humanoid simply making it 140,000 then what you are actually doing is stretching the existing humanoid proportionately thinner, since as the creature gets taller in one dimension it gets thinner in proportion, so the resulting creature is 2/3rds thinner (?) in relation to it's height than it was at the beginning $:-\$ $:-\$ $:-\$ $:-\$ .

In order to increase the creature to 12 feet without stretching it, you would have to times the creatures size by 6 (?) in order to double it's height; while to make creature 3 feet you would divide it by 6. So a 12 feet humanoid is 420,000 size units big instead of being 140,000, assuming that it's proportions are exactly the same. In reality however, we have every fantasy giant's least favourite piece of mathematics, the Square Cube Law. If we simply scale the human up in proportion as we have done above, then the resulting giant will simply collapse under it's own weight and come to a sticky end; fantasy game rule book illustrators take note

.

The square cube law comes for the annoying fact that as a creature gets bigger, the surface area of the creature only increases in 2D, hence the square but the total weight of the creature goes up in 3D. Basically summarised, the height of the creature is ignored when deciding how much weight the creature is able to carry, but the height of the creature adds to the weight; only the width and depth of the creature contribute to it's weight carrying ability; so being a fairytale giant is quite a problem. To get around this, our fairytale giant has to increase both of it's other dimensions by the same amount as it's increase in height; basically resulting in a creature that 'looks vaguely humanoid' rather than a 12 foot human, but what do our giants care as long as they can actually walk?

Assuming that the creature is capable of supporting it's own weight in normal gravity on the surface then the other two dimensions each would carry half of the weight of the creature on top of their own weight (?). This means that we need to increase these two dimensions by twice the proportion of the increase in height in order, this would mean that we would have to take the final result of the proportionate increase and then X it by 4 (?). So the formula would be as follows.

6ft Human Size 70,000
X6 (scaled increase)
12ft Human Size 420,000
X4 (square cub law increase)
12ft Fantasy Giant 1,680,000

The same principle applies if we want to make a 24ft fantasy supergiant.

12ft Fantasy Giant 1,680,000
X6 (scaled increase)
24ft Fantasy Giant 10,080,000
X4 (square cub law increase)
24ft Fantasy Supergiant 40,320,000

DF Modding / What happens to prisoners held in non-dark fortress sites?

« on: October 12, 2015, 05:06:00 pm »

Does the game not actually make them appear in the site at all or are they deposited at a random location across the site area or are they simply placed like normal site members are?

DF Suggestions / Deputies and Regents

« on: October 12, 2015, 06:31:22 am »

A main obstacle to having adventurers as position holders in sites or civilizations is that position holders do not have deputies to take over if they are aboard. Adding in deputies, appointed either by the position holder or by the site to take over from leaders before their departure who are unable to presently carry out their position duties would solve that. This would make it possible for us to make all historical characters playable as adventurers in adventure mode.

If we decide to play for instance the king of a dwarf civilization we get the opportunity to assign another character to be the regent, if we choose not do so the regent is assigned automatically by the site. As a place-holder mechanic, being an adventurer is considered to automatically disqualify the king from his duties, so we do not have to explicitly code the king actually going about being king but that option is there for future development.

The regent or deputy continues to function exactly as the position-holder they replaced in every respect, until the real position holder returns to the site (or capital) and retires there. The same system also has potential in fortress mode, not only would it facilitate our position-holders going off eventually to political meetings but it would also facilitate maternity for the likes of squad leaders, captains of the guard and militia captains.

When one of those leaders gets pregnant or has a baby, we would be able to appoint a deputy from within their squad to replace their role until their babies have grown into children. This way we avoid having our dwarves spam the fortress with engravings of said military leader getting dismissed and then reappointed. The same thing applies for when the leader (or any other position) is temporarily rendered unable to perform their duties as a result of injury, but we do not wish to actually dismiss them from the position.

DF Gameplay Questions / Why were the trolls able to climb/dig into my fortress?

« on: September 20, 2015, 04:30:27 pm »

Something amazing happened in my game. While the goblins were besieging my fortress and I had my dwarves lined out at the end of the trap-lined entrance ready to 'invite them in' and then something I could never foreseen happened. Their trolls (and only their trolls) seemingly dug their way into my fortress from above, arriving it seems right in the middle of my duckpond where they started to massacre the ducks before heading into the rest of the livestock zone to attack various other livestock. I had to redeploy my dwarf soldiers to the livestock pen in order to deal with the trolls, who were then easily slaughtered because they were scattered about chasing the panicking livestock. Once the trolls had all been killed, the goblin soldiers who were nearly all mounted fled the area as fast as their steeds could carry them.

I can very much admire the cunning of the goblins, though I suspect they had intended their evil plan to kill civilian dwarves not ducks, the question is how did they manage to pull it off. It is not anything special about trolls, because two of my ducks managed to make their way back out and have now gone feral. They did not dig their way in because no AI forces can presently dig through walls of any kind, not even building destroyers. So my theory is that they simply climbed in, starting off grasping the trunk of willow tree above and then climbed down into the roots which they were able to do because the roots were exposed to the air on one side (the side that leads to my duckpond). The ducks simply climbed back up the same way and took flight while the goblins were thanfully unable to follow the trolls because they were mounted.

The reason would be that the climbing rules, for reasons that have to be with subterranean trees allow climbing from the tree trunk to the tree roots and back again as long as the tree roots underneath are exposed to the air. This limitation is supposed to prevent people from climbing down into the roots of surface trees, but surface trees whose roots are exposed inadvertantly can be climbed down into from the trunk. On the other side of the roots are a surface pond that is presently frozen over, perhaps the squares of the lake also count as open, however that the lake was frozen over means the trolls cannot have swam through the lake and then climbed through the willow roots.

Does anyone know if this theory is correct and has anyone ever encountered this issue before?

DF Suggestions / Non hard-coded Starting Scenarios

« on: July 19, 2015, 09:19:31 am »

http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/dev.html

I am rather excited by the upcoming development item that is the fortress starting scenarios. However I am also afraid that Toady One might hardcode the fortress starting scenarios rather than have them defined in the raws.

Quote from: Development page

Fortress Starting Scenarios

Framework
Expand framework of law, custom, rights, property and status as needed to provide a variety of scenarios
Foundation of laws, both natural and supernatural
Explicit standing of different citizens vs. civilization authorities
Possible expansion of religious and family concepts to provide sufficient scenarios
Starting scenarios
Various possiblities that guide or govern fortress activity: frontier settlement, religious site, prison colony, mining company, military citadel, roadside inn, secondary/future palace of the monarch
Drastic changes to migrants based on starting scenario
Caravans/diplomatic relationships based on starting scenario
Reclaim mechanics should be folded into this
Generalize starting scenario relationships to every site foundation
Hill/deep dwarves
Ability to bring extra dwarves appropriate to the starting scenario
Entity populations surrounding your fortress in appropriate environments, both above and below ground
Ability to move dwarves in and out of surroundings
Relationship with surrounding dwarves
Ability to trade/demand food in depot or similar place with surrounding dwarves

I shall have to make assumptions here as to what the starting scenarios mean or else I cannot demonstrate how I would implement the tags.

1. Frontier Settlement: Status Quo default, things basically work as they do now.
2. Religious Site: A site centred around a small group of idle priests, served by a larger number of temple servants and visited by pilgrims.
3. Prison Colony: A site with a central group of prison guards and a larger number of prisoners that have to be kept under control.
4. Mining Company: A site where there is a small group of owners and a large number of workers.
5. Military Citadel: A site centred on a group of soldiers and a roughly equal number of civilians that mantain them.
6. Roadside inn: A site where resident dwarves are a minority and entertain a larger number of visiting patrons.
7. Palace of the monarch: A site devoted to one or more civ-level position-holders. It is divided between the idle ruling family (s) which is of varying size and a number of servants that work for them.

There would only be a small number of small number of tags referring to the settlement as a whole, the majority apply specifically to classes.

[PALACE]
The settlement is permanantly tied to one or more positions that exist at a civ level in the entity file, this includes the land-holder positions. The site must be constructed within 8 squares of the site where that character is located at present. The character commutes between his land-holder site or the capital and the [PALACE] site, he spends all the seasons that the civilization is not active at the palace but during the active season he is away; this does not happen if the palace is also the capital. If the character is killed then the new position holder would arrive at the end of the active season as if they were returning. Family members of the position remain permanantly at the site and do not commute away. This would be in play for the palace of the monarch.

[LOW_STRATEGIC_VALUE]
The settlement is considered of low value as a target, which means that the site will not be attacked by enemy armies unless it is within 8 squares of one of their own settlements or there are no remaining sites left to attack. This would be in play for the prison colony and roadside inn.

[DEPENDENT]
The settlement is not expected to mantain itself independantly. It recieves an annual dump of goods during the active season in order to cater for it's needs; the value of this dump is adjusted by the population of the settlement. The dump is deposited at the fortress trade depot and will always arrive unless there is no other accessible settlements of the civilization left. This would be in play for the prison colony, palace of the monarch and military citadel.

[ISOLATION_COLLAPSE]
The site is not capable of constituting a viable civilization alone. This means that should there be no remaining sites that do not have this token in the civilization then all these sites will immediately turn into frontier settlements and all dwarves will lose their class status. This would be in play for the prison colony and roadside inn.

[MINOR_SETTLEMENT]
This site cannot enter into trade or political relationships with minor settlements (such as hillocks or mountain halls) and will never have landholder positions (such as barons). This is in play for the prison colony and roadside inn.

Then there are the tags that partain to the specific classes.

[RATIO:?]
Working like caste numbers do at the moment, this determines what % of new immigrants to the site will be of the different classes.
OR
[POSITION_FAMILY]
Membership of this class is defined by having a family relationship to the [PALACE] site's ruling position, who automatically belong to this class. This applies to the ruling family of the palace of the monarch.
OR
[FOUNDER]
The first dwarves to arrive in the fortress automatically belong to this class. This applies to the owners of the mining company.

[POP_LIMIT_CAP:?]
This means that the total number of a given class will not exceed a give % of the total population cap, excess will leave with those without positions being favoured. Applies to the prison guards of the prison colony, the civilians of the military citadal and the residents of the roadside inn.

[DISLOYAL]
Members of the class have no loyalty to the site government at all. If the site comes under attack, they will ignore all [CAN_SPEAK] enemies that are not [OPPOSED_TO_LIFE]. Applies to the prisoners of the prison colony.

[IDLE]
Members of this class will not do menial work, exempting only work directly involved with the positions they hold. If not holding a position they are referred to by their class name rather than by their professional name. Applies to the priests and pilgrims of the religious site, the prison guards of the prison colony, the soldiers of the military citadel, the ruling family of the palace of the monarch and the patrons of the roadside inn.

[SEASONAL]
Members of this class only appear during a particular season, spending the rest of the time at the location that they migrated from. In this special case it is the season with the largest number of this class that counts towards population limits, including for [POP_CAP_LIMIT] not the total for all seasons. This applies to the pilgrims of the religious site and the patrons of the roadside inn.

[FIXED TERM:?:?:?:?]
Members of this class are only resident for a particular time limit, randomly determined between the limits defined. After they have spent this amount of time at the site then they will leave the site permanantly. Applies to the prisoners of the prison colony

[RUNAWAY]
If members of this class find themselves with no [JAILOR] class individuals watching them and a means to get to the map edge that does not involve coming into visual range of any [JAILOR] class individual they will try to escape. If they succeed then they will still count as members of the site for population limit purposes but the recapturing of the individual happens independantly, if they are recaptured they are returned to the site. This applies to the prisoners of the prison colony.

[JAILOR]
Members of this class are instumental to controlling others. This applies to the prison guards of the prison colony.

[FORCED_LABOUR]
While doing labours, members of this class will freeze unless under the supervision of a [JAILOR] individual. This applies to the prisoners of the prison colony.

[PIOUS]
If not presently engaged members of this class will pray far more often than normal dwarves. This applies to the priests and pilgrims of the religious site.

[BARE_NECCESSITIES]
Rather than choosing the most valuable item that will meet their need those of this class will select the lowest value item instead. This applies to the prisoners of the prison colony.

[CIVILIAN]
Members of this class cannot be assigned to squads. This applies to the pilgrims and priests of the religious site, the civilians of the military citadal, the patrons of the roadside inn and the prisoners of the prison colony.

[NO_POSITION]
Members of this class cannot hold positions. This applies to the pilgrims of the religious site, the patrons of the roadside inn and the prisoners of the prison colony.

[ESCORT]
When members of this class migrate to the site they come with an escort of guards that do not join the fortress but leave once their charges have arrived safely. This applies to the prisoners of the prison colony. The guards have the [JAILOR] token until they leave the fortress.

[BRINGS_PAYMENT]
Members of this class bring payment with them whenever they arrive on the map, payment they then deposit in the trade depot of the fortress if they can. This applies to the patrons of the roadside inn.

[RECIEVES_PAYMENT]
Members of this class are paid a fixed allowance of goods from the fortress stockpile, an amount determined by the highest skill they have. They can only take from the stockpile an amount of goods equal to the value of the allowance they have been given. They are given an allowance upon arrival and again at the beginning of every season. Allowances do not carry over from month to month, those who have a great deal of allowance left at the end of the month get an unhappy thought. They can however spend their allowance on coins if they are available in the stockpile, coins can be returned to the stockpile to regain the stored allowance. This applies to the workers of the mining colony.

[BOUGHT]
Membership of this class can be bought. Provided that the individual of another class has enough personal wealth (including coins) to pay the ownership price, which is determined by the total wealth of the fortress then he/she can hand over that personal wealth to the fortress in return for becoming a member. It is implicitly assumed that what they are buying is something worth having and is superior to their previous class. This applies to the owners of the mining colony.

DF Gameplay Questions / Why does my civilization's caravan not arrive?

« on: July 11, 2015, 09:06:36 am »

It is now the third month of autumn and I do not get the impression that my civilizations caravan is going to arrive. Last year it did not leave the map with all it's wagons and items because I accidentally destroyed the wagons when they got stuck in the trade depot unable to unload their goods due to a bug. I was trying to get them to use the new depot that I built next door by demolishing the old one but that is not how it works.

During the early autumn there was a megabeast on the surface wandering about. I have since killed said beast but during the first month of autumn the beast was present; does the presence of a beast on the surface prevent caravans from arriving or is the cause of the problem the situation last year?

If the latter is the case then there is little point in continuing playing. If the former is the case then I am just unlucky and the caravan should arrive next year; so in that case another question.

Can I move all the items to the depot by using the dump command and then buy the items off the caravan?

DF Suggestions / Economic regulation ideas

« on: June 28, 2015, 10:40:36 am »

This is another thread in my series of economic ideas. It follows on from the two earlier threads.

Dynamic consumer demands
Labour motivation idea

These ideas function to disrupt the present economic order that works so perfectly at the moment. Dwarves gradually develop new demands as their basic needs are met and dwarves are not always motivated to work as hard as they possibly can. While dwarves are still quite happy to work for free, how hard they work depends upon social integration, as a fortress's wealth grows and it attracts a larger and larger number of immigrants, there are more and more dwarves but few friendships among them. The problems of labour motivation are trivial for the initial group of dwarves but becomes a major nuisance as your population rapidly increases through immigration.

Because demands now tend to increase as existing demands are met it is also now potentially neccessary to restrict consumption of scarce resources in order to keep demand for those items under control so that a few lucky dwarves do not end up depriving their peers of said resources. This problem also increases over time because as demands for abundant resources are easily met the demands that are not so easily met will tend to pile up. Since labour is the main limiting factor for wealth, this issue and the one above will tend to reinforce eachother in a vicious circle, idleness reduces productivity, which means that fewer demands can be met, which causes unhappiness, which causes idleness.

The 'Economy' then is not percieved of as a 'thing' but rather as a set of emergant problems to which the player is offered a set of solutions all of which have their own drawbacks.

Dwarves do not laze about, they procrastinate
Dwarves that are struck by idleness for whatever reason do not laze about in the dining hall. Instead they travel off to do whatever job it is that they should be doing, occupy the space (the worshop or designated object), with all the resources needed and they sit about doing nothing. They clock a certain amount of time doing nothing and then they finally get to work. The reason for doing this is that idleness is more annoying/destructive since another job with the same labour activated cannot simply snap up the workshop/raw materials and replace them. It also allows for an idle dwarf job to be logged into the system for those interested in the matter.

Procrastination is infectious but so is hard work
If a dwarf is presently procrastinating it increases the likelyhood of other dwarves procrastinating if they can see them doing so. Similarly the presence of other dwarves presently working reduces the procrastination clocks of other dwarves in the vicinity (so they procrastinate for less time). Social relations matter in both case, the greater the relations between dwarves is the greater the effect and if dwarves actually hate eachother then the effect is inverted (seeing your enemies working hard makes you lazier). This creates a dilemma for the player, do you design things so that dwarves work side by side and can potentially benefit from the infectious nature of hard work or do you isolate all the workshops to keep procrastination from spreading from one dwarf to another.

Motivational dwarves
The simplest method to deal with procrastination is to have other dwarves deal with it. This is done by the motivation skill and job, the dwarf with motivation labour active seeks out a dwarf that is procrastination and speaks with him. This can drastically reduces the amount of time the dwarf spends procrastinating. The more skilled the motivator is, the faster the dwarf gets to work, personality matters here as more likable/charismatic dwarves are better at motivation inherantly. As with the previous entry personal relations matter, a dwarf is more motivated by another dwarf he likes and can actually be caused to spend more time procrastinating by a dwarf he hates. There is a bogy skill that opposes motivation called intransigence, the more time a dwarf ends up procrastinating having been motivated the greater gain of this skill there is. The drawbacks of using this method is that motivational dwarves are not doing other work and can be tied down by intransigent dwarves, also motivational dwarves can themselves procrastinate and tie other dwarves down, potentially creating a chain of dwarves procrastinating about motivating eachother at worst.

Rationing
Rationing is essentially done by item designation. At least one of a particular new building called a rationing board (or somesuch) need to be built ideally near to the stockpile that contains rationed objects. A ration is defined by item type, it can be a general category such as any-food or it can be a very specific item. An individual dwarf is either allowed to collect a certain amount of that item per a designated period of time or can only own a certain amount of an item. Rationed items cannot be used (they are effectively forbidden) unless there is a eligable ration of that item that can be collected but unrationed items can be collected freely, not counting towards the dwarves ration at all *unless* that ration is based upon how much of the item they own. In order to work the rationing board must be manned, this probably not best done by a position but by an ordinary labour using a generic administrator skill. Aside from the loss of labour involved in keeping it manned the drawbacks of rationing are that it cannot be adjusted in order to meet the idiosyncratic demands of particular individuals by subtracting from demands in other areas.

Punishments
Punishments come in two kinds. There are collective punishments which work roughly as mandates do at the moment, the task or job has a deadline for completion but one set by the player and there is a punishment of a particular severity attached to it. A dwarf with the relevent skills is selected at random to recieve the punishment of the designated severity. The greater the punishment and the shorter the deadline the greater the motivating effect on dwarves, however collective punishments that are due but not implemented reduce labour motivation of a fortress. Dwarves are only motivated by collective punishments if the job they are presently doing is connected to the terms of the punishment.

Individual punishments by contrast work somewhat like motivation. A punisher dwarf finds a dwarf that is procrastinating and deals out a punishment of a defined severity. This ranges from purely verbal abuse up to mutilation of a small body part. Individual punishments cause unhappyness but also greatly increase labour motivation of the punished dwarf, all witnesses and all dwarves that he tells about his punishment. Cruel dwarves punishments are more effective than less cruel dwarves punishments.

Professional Pride
This involves creating or allowing the creation of professional organisations/guilds dedicated to a particular type of skill. Members of such organisations naturally work harder since they take pride in their work and the social status it gives them. Additionally all positions work harder than normal when doing tasks related directly to their office in a similar manner. Particular skills can be manually assigned in the raws to positions, which has a similar effect. The drawbacks of professional pride is that involves creating political organisations that can become problematic and persue their own agendas which may clash with the player's. Also members are collectively upset when any jobs related to their skills are deactivated by the player, reducing the player's control over production.

Wages
This involves first designating items as commercial items, similar to rationing. Two buildings must be constructed, the bank and the shop which must both be manned in order to work. The bank is set to hold up to a certain reserve of currency, dwarves will automatically haul an amount of coins equal to the defined value into the bank. Wages are set at the bank, each type of labour is given a particular wage per task, that means either an designated object harvested, a service completed or an item made. A log is kept in the bank of the personal wealth of each dwarf in the fortress, as a dwarf completes tasks his or her personal wealth goes up by the designated amount. The key thing here is that the amount of wealth can exceed by far the total amount of coins actually in the bank, because the coins only appear in the hands of dwarves when they are taken out and spent. Dwarves do not like it however when they cannot withdraw because there are not sufficient reserves in the bank to do so.

Prices are set at the shop. The dwarf takes money from the bank and then buys a particular item that is designated as commercial but does not have an owner. The bought item is then retrieved by the dwarf from the stockpile, it is his private property now but it remains a commercial item. The shop itself has a certain cash reserve, anything above this goes back into the bank's cash reserve by means of haulers. Commercial items belonging to dwarves may themselves be sold to the shop for money which removes their private property tag or they may equally be exchanged for another commercial item of lesser value and a dwarf may independantly trade commercial items with other dwarves (or potentially adventurers). Dwarves naturally do not like their private property being de-commercialised by the player even though it still remains their private property.

In order for wages to work to motivate dwarves it is needed that said dwarves demand a commercial item that they cannot acquire by normal means or rationing and that they cannot presently afford to buy. As long as the dwarf is 'saving up' for said item they will not suffer from procrastination except in extreme conditions, but as soon as they have enough to buy all the items they want money no longer motivates. The dilemma is that in order to get the maximum value out of money as a motivator items demanded by the maximum number of dwarves must be sufficiantly expensive that they have to save up to buy them but this involves depriving dwarves from using said items, causing unhappiness. Also there must enough currency available in the fortress bank for the dwarves to be able to withdraw enough money that they can actually buy the items from the shop.

DF Suggestions / Get rid of vertical take-off and landing except for very small creatures.

« on: June 03, 2015, 03:45:47 pm »

At the moment creatures of any size seem to be able to take off and land instantly. This means that very large flying creatures can behave in a very unrealistic way, while they should be able to dive-attack their targets from above without ever actually touching the ground they should *not* be able to land and then instantly take flight again as they fancy. Instead they should have to run first, potentially risking attacks from their enemies.

This would work by giving a flying creature a take-flight % which rises as the creature runs but also as the creature falls. The bigger the creature is, the slower it's take-flight rises with the intended consequence that flying creatures that are large find it difficult to move between ground and air rapidly. Creatures that are small enough would always have 100% take-off and would be able to flitter between ground and air as they please like pigeons do in RL.

DF Suggestions / Labour motivation idea

« on: May 14, 2015, 05:32:04 am »

This idea is intended to build on Dynamic demands idea, meaning that it it would be introduced after or alongside it. It is also intended to be optional, controlled by the existing economy = yes/no that exists in the ini file.

At the moment dwarves are happy to work entirely for free without any payment except generic access to all the goods of the fortress. While there is no inherent problem with people producing valuable goods or performing services without demanding payment, volunteers, slaves, housewives and Toady One himself do this, there is simply no realistic basis for the 'economy' to develop beyond the present system if everyone always happy to work without any incentive to do so.

I propose that dwarves develop idleness under certain circumstances, meaning that despite not having any needs to be met they still hang about the place and do no work at the job they have decided to do. This is to be governed by a complex set of motivations such as the following.

+ Positive
There are a large number of dwarves that you know and are on good terms with in the fortress.
Being part of a special organisation built around the job you are presently performing.
The job you are doing pertains to a noble position you hold.
A dwarf you hate is better at the task than you are.
You have hard-working personality traits.
It is a job you particularly like.

- Negative.
Lots of dwarves that know and do *not* hate is better at that task than you are.
There are large number of dwarves in the fortress that you do not know.
There are large number of dwarves in the fortress that you hate.
You have lazy personality traits.
It is a job you particularly hate.

What this would tend to mean is that as the population of your fortress increases rapidly but there is also a high level of social atomisation, dwarves tend to lose their 'intrinsic' motive to work. At the same time social integration can generate problems as well since relationships between skilled and the unskilled dwarves tend to generate dependency, since the unskilled dwarf feels that the other dwarf will always do the task better than them so there is no point bothering.

DF Suggestions / Dynamic consumer demands idea

« on: May 06, 2015, 06:12:49 am »

At the moment the consumer demands of dwarves are limited and fixed. They demand food, drinks, clothing, chairs and beds but that is it. The fixed nature of the demands means that the game is hardest at the start since once things are set up for dwarves to meet all their own fixed demands, the game has essentially been 'won'.

I propose that the demands of dwarves be made dynamic, if all the basic demands of a dwarf (the one's already effectively in the game) are met then they gradually develop new demands based upon their personality; sort of similar to how noble's mandates work at the moment. Once these demands are met then new demands are created and when they in turn are met even more demands are added (and so on).

Since it would be difficult for the player to keep track of so many demands I also propose that we introduce an unmet demands screen. When a dwarf has a demand they initially try to satisfy that demand from the stockpiles without informing the player, but if they cannot do this then they will travel over to the office of a noble (so a manager, bookkeeper, mayor or baron) and inform them as to their unmet demands.

All the demands that have been logged by the individual dwarves then appear on the demands screen. The demands screen is linked to the manager so that the player can at the press of a button send a group of identical demands over to the manager without the player having to remember the demands themselves and log them in. These demands would still need to be managed by the manager using their manage work orders labour.

There is great potential here for automation. Rather than having to manually go through the demands screen in order to meet a particular type of demand, the player can instead set particular types of demand to be sent to the manager screen automatically. This can be done with presently existing demands on the screen but it can also be done for hypothetical demands, though this would require the player to manually enter them in.

By implementing this system of centralizing and automating demands, the basic framework for a future AI settlement would also incidentally be laid down. Since the greater part of the work of managing the fortress has now been automated the other necessary AI scripts can simply be tagged on to the demands automation script in order to create an AI capable of managing a settlement.

Dynamic demands are themselves also necessity for the development of a realistic world economy, since otherwise it will likely crash due to lack of demand. When combined with automation of production orders we also have the basis for further economic developments in fortress mode since dwarves are now capable of developing demands independently of the player and meeting them autonomously.

DF Modding / So it is impossible to create a custom reaction to engrave a memorial slab?

« on: April 11, 2015, 03:16:41 pm »

Just when I thought I had got the better of my elves and I realise something nasty. There is presently have no way to memorialise elves that they are unable to retrieve. It seems easy enough to give them the ability to grow themselves some slabs but I have no way of having them engrave a memorial without using the default hardcoded memorial engraving reaction. For my elves to do that they would need engraving labour which they do not have.

Does anyone know of a way to make a reaction to engrave a slab into a memorial. I can find a reaction token to exclude engraved items as reagents but no token to make the item as memorial. If it is indeed impossible as I suspect to make a custom memorial reaction then I will need to add elf engravers and so I wish to know something else.

How would I make the elf engravers engrave things into wooden items, since having them solely exist to carve memorial slabs is silly. The COVERED token presumably runs the same script as the default item decorating scripts and gives us a chance of getting an art image, since the specific adding of art images is apparantly not allowed.