Bay 12 Games Forum

1) Increase the number of reactions available in the reactions file. Since the smelter is the only place we can really add in the ability to make stuff right now, having only a few extra slots to play with is pretty limiting. We can remove stuff to free up space but...that's not as fun.

2) Add in two new creature tags. TRAIN_WAR and TRAIN_HUNT. TRAINABLE would remain as a tab which implies both. I'd like to make some of my new creatures able to become war trained, without worrying how they'd manage to sneak up on anything.

3) Prevent DEEP stones from showing up in the trade menu from Dwarves. I added in Mithril, and while they'll never trade you a mithril bar or weapon, you can buy as much of the ore as you want. Seems a bit odd.

First off, I'd like to see every dwarf have a screen that shows their basic history. Birth date, Wedding date, child births, date of death, date of migration, born where, migrated where (maybe multiple lines of this), migrated to. You could also have specific notes for Founding Dwarves of a settlement, as well as nobles who are promoted (Baron to Count, say).

Next, it seems strange that the migrants all come in with basically no history. They don't even know the other migrants, unless they're related. So, now that migrations are tracked at a basic level, it'd be nice to have dwarves have relationships held over from previous fortresses. For example, if you get migrants from the fort your original 7 came from, there should be a chance that they know some of the migrants. They might have friends show up, and get a happy thought (An old friend arrived recently) or old grudges may reappear, giving an unhappy thought. Family members may also show up, probably giving a happy thought as well. I don't know if Toady is planning on really tracking every individual in the world, so a lot of that could be faked. Just do some random check whenever a migrant moves, and you see if anyone from his old home is in the new fortress and see if they knew each other.

Also, Migrants have to travel together for some time. Some level of interaction between them should happen, especially if the distance traveled is pretty long. I think I've had dwarves theoretically traveling all the way across the globe to get to my fortresses...long trek, especially on foot.

Since the Army arc also adds in refugees and displaced individuals due to baby-snatching, not to mention conquered sites, it might be nice to give races a level of Xenophobia. Elves, for instance, are probably a bit less tolerant of other races then humans or goblins. Dwarves...I'm not really sure. From the way a lot of players work, highly intolerant, but I don't know how Toady thinks should be. Maybe just have it a social characteristic, so it can be variable form civilization to civilization within a species. Say, give Elves a 9-40-80 rating and Humans the default 0-50-100. That way you can get some variety out of the species and we don't end up with "All humans are the same".

Which got me to thinking...why can't our dwarves make buckets out of rock? It was obviously done historically, although they did jars and jugs, not buckets. But since we don't have those in Dwarf Fortress...buckets would do.

Not a major priority, of course. And maybe this should wait until Pottery is added to the game, since things like jars and whatnot would probably be added then, which would make these make more sense.

Native terrain bonuses. Basically, Dwarves and Goblins do best in mountainous regions, humans on the plains, and elves in forests. Swamps should always give the defender an advantage...hills too, probably. I imagine you're already giving defenders a bonus anyway, but maybe that could be made a little more specific? For example, give sites features like walls, archer towers, traps, moats, etc, that all make it harder for an attacker to win. Might be interesting to decide which races do what to help their defenses. Dwarves are obviously expert trap builders. Perhaps humans rely more on walls and moats? Elves on scattered archer towers and pit traps? Goblins I could see having long walls of spikes around their towers to funnel enemies into kill pockets.

Historically, I think it was a rule of thumb that you had to have 3-4 times the number of attackers to take over a castle. Obviously, a small unwalled village is a different story.

Thinking about this sort of thing, it might also make sense in the normal combat system to give a combatant that is higher up then their opponent some sort of bonus (if they don't already get one). That way, when fighting on a slope or up a ramp/stairs, the fighter on higher ground is more likely to win. This is true in real life, after all. I've done enough real-life sword/spear fighting to know that having the high ground isn't just an expression!

The dungeon master. Since he/she is really a very cool noble (as nobles go), we should give the dungeon masters some more interesting stuff to do. For one, you should be able to designate a room with ropes and chains as a dungeon for their use. Possible things to do in a dungeon:
 - Interrogate prisoners to find out things like fortress locations, strengths, etc
 - Tame & train exotic pets (rather then just at the kennels)
 - Strange experiments on fantastic creatures that are captured, including vermin like demon rats (probably for when magic is added)
 - Possibly add in the ability for the Dungeon master to make special weapons/armor at a forge in a dungeon. Golems, perhaps?

Nobles in battle: Here is another thought on nobles. Historically, one of the few things nobles did have to go do is battle. Since combat is a very dwarvenly trait, it makes sense that with the war arc the nobles would have to show thier worth on the battle field. Maybe have the king call up the noble and his guard (at least) to participate in campaigns on the global map. Any unit led by a noble would get a morale bonus to their fighting, since they have to keep the noble alive to preserve thier honor.

Also, younger sons/daughters and consorts could also decide to join the military. They'd always require that they were in command of thier squad, and would pick thier own weapon and armor types. Again, they'd give a bonus to the squad they were fighting with.

Functional/logical mandates - I know mandates are just sort of random to give the game some flavor right now, but it would be interesting if nobles had some real purpose and logic to the mandates. For one, they should never mandate anything that can't be made with the resources you have available. If they really want something you don't have, they should create a trade mandate that requests the merchants who visit to bring items of that material/type. They would then get really upset if a trader brought the item but you didn't buy it.

For other mandates, they should make sense. For example, if you don't have your soldiers in full gear, they mandate that you make boots or whatever they're lacking. Or, if you have lots of trade goods lying around on the floor, they may mandate that you make more bins to hold things and and make everything more orderly.

Other ideas that people have?