Bay 12 Games Forum

Shouldn't unused armor go into an armor stockpile instead?
Does it lose durability when it's put into any stockpile, or just a refuse pile?
And most of all, it should be possible to salvage damaged armor by melting it down and forging a new piece. (With some conversion loss.)

I still have a question about our knowlegde system: Is it planned, that eventually we unlock technology ingame by researching these topics, similar to a tech tree?

If so, that would be amazing for long time forts dedicated to the preservation and advancement of knowlege, similarly to how Monasteries operated in the early middle ages.
You could even start with a modded civilization, bear men for instance, and see them progress from semi savages to one of the most advanced civilizations on the world.

This would make the ongoing world more interesting too: Dwarves may start with the knowlege to make steel, but what if humans can catch up? Depending on the nature of the tech system, you (new civilization) may start by unlocking knowlege throug building a library, which unlocks the other scholars, which lets your civilization unlock all the technologies eventually.

You'd think that your dwarfs, integrated citizens or modded civs would marry on their own accord once they find a suitable partner.
After all citizen husbandry allows your settlement to thrive without immigration and grow on its own, but you still have to get them to adulthood, before your new generation can contribute meaningfully to your society, so it's not like your organically grown citizenship is super OP. As far as I know, there is no dwarven eugenics program yet.
Which has to do with the scarcity of married couples.
But when the common solution is to lock two citizens into a room until they are ready to wed, something seems off.
In my experience settlers marry on their own hilariously late into their lifespan. The only saving grace of the current system is, that your citizens then bring a child into the world each year, regardless of how old they are. This makes their family trees branch like crazy, but the rarity of marriage in general makes it so that there are usually only a handful, massive families in a given fortress.

That's when we breed relatively long lived species like dwarves. Species with a shorter lifespan might run into trouble finding a lover before they die of old age. This means we could potentially get a single family, that dies out after the second generation for lack of possible partners.
In my eyes, this means that marriage and childbirth mechanics will have to be reworked at some time in the future.

My proposed solution would be this:
- Your citizens may actively seek potential spouses, eliminating the need for marriage prisons.
- The courtship period has to be shortened down significantly. A 30-40 year courting process can be cut down to 2-7 years.
- To not flood your fort with children each year, the married couple should get less likely to have additional children for each child beyond the second one.
- Fertility should decrease with age. The fertility of a married couple may reach 0% after they pass 50% of their species lifespan.

This should have the following intended effects:
- You no longer have to coerce your settlers into having a family. This lets you focus your attention elsewhere.
- Instead of a few massive families, you have many small to medium sized families, with the occasional large one.
- The higher amount of families prevents the lack of possible partners, offering more choice.
- While citizens no longer give birth until they die of old age, the overall amount of children will be higher.
- This enables dynasties to properly emerge. You could have an adventurer become a noble, or even forming a royal bloodline.

Optionally, humans last names can be made inheritable, for easier identification of family members. This behaviour could be handled either at the civ or species level.

Well for now I'll circumvent this by editing in the fix that removes the tag from the animal people, but leaves meandering animals and giant animals intact. Figured this may give the hunters and fishermen/dwarves more time to return to safety, if a dangerous giant animal is spotted.
At least it takes longer to travel from the edge of the map to the center, where the overworld portion of the fort is located.

Edit: The fix was surprisingly painless. My Lion men are moving as quickly as they should, which has greatly accelerated daily life in the fortress. Lions and giant lions are still meandering about, so I have lots of time to raise the drawbridge.

Hmm. Dwarven fortresses should be heard. The masters of magma, alcohol and fun need something that ends with a bang.
Maybe the Florentiner Marsch can do it justice?
It starts enthusiastic and you strike the earth, then it grows loud, like a battle against goblins, then busy like the subsequent melting of their goblinite. Then it becomes quiet as your activity shifts underground and has a loud finale as you inevitably breach the HFS.