Bay 12 Games Forum

I am on a completely flat map with a 2 z-level aquafer about 3 z-levels down. On the overworld map i am on an island in an ocean, but the embark area is much much smaller than the island so i don't have any ocean on my map.
There are no rivers or brooks, but alot of murky pools around

It appears that the game still knows that there should just about be only salt water around these salty marshes, as the dwarces will never get water from the murky pools (even activity zones refuse to say they're drinkable).

I Read somewhere that water from aquafers can be drunk, but they wont drink from that either (same with activity zones).

I read somewhere else that water's muddy/salty etc statuses arent transfered through a pump, yet despite setting up aquafer->pump->channel->aquafer system and a new activity zone (i.e. an artifical river), the dwarves still wont drink it, the activity zone refuses to show its drinkable again.

Any ideas what i can do? I don't want to keep losing miner dwarves that i keep ordering to undercut themselves and fall down collapsing caverns! Ok, so i could just not do that, but other dwarves have been lost doing completely valid things, getting yellow broken arm but dying of thirst.

One interesting thing though, one of my artificial rivers at one stage, very short stage, was actually drinkable. I have no idea what has changed (but something probably has changed). It was pumped up two z-levels and then channeled to edge of map where it was pumped out onto grass. I have since cut away the river back to the aquafer because framerate didnt like the massive artificial river.

Like: Speed of reloads/draw time need to be more realistic, peircing more than one organ at once is just highly unlikely, not impossible (as long as in roughly same area of body, depending on length of projectile)
Seriously, killing someone in one shot is easily possible with bows etc, but difficult for reasons of accuracy, and their minimum practical range.

Also, the idea of bows being better but more difficult (than crossbows) is good, as is inability for almost all dwarves to use longbow (could they hold it horizontaly?). Perhaps bows require more strength to draw back fully? Actually i dont know how to draw a crossbow so that might be wrong.

Why not make the game (at world generation) come up with a random set of ores, metals and alloys. They need to be a little balanced to ensure fun, but after that it doesn't matter if the harder to find stuff is crapper, because reality can reflect that. And then maybe you can buy tips off local civs, find things in adv mode etc, that give you small hints towards what's going on. This way every game would require a bunch of exploration and experimentation.

Ok so this might not make it very fun to play for people who love to just know how to make the best fortress in the world, but i personally like to not know what's going on in a game. The feeling is completely different. A game is cold and calculated once you know everything about it. Not that a finished DF could ever get that cold and calculated, but at the moment it *can* be.

What does everyone else think?