Bay 12 Games Forum

Maybe dwarfs can get access to concrete? We've got plaster of paris now, so building plaster, and cement, aren't that far away.

2) They have English names and something like okanawu or whatever most of the stuff in above post is called

Everything there is in English, and is taken from England, Europe, the Middle East, and India. All places where English has existed for centuries. If you don't know what something means, look it up. I got everything there directly from Wikipedia, for just this reason. 

English, by the way, was created when a people of Norse and German ancestry, living on traditionally Celtic and Welsh (and arguably Roman) lands, were subjugated by a French speaking people with strong Latin ties, while books were still almost excusively being written in Latin and Greek. It's a bastard language, if ever there was one, and it's got a very long history. One of the most powerful and pervasive traits of the English language is it's ability to incorporate and adapt words and ideas from other languages, which goes a long way towards explaining why it's so popular internationally. 

An idea for a trap mechanism:

Bloodthirsty.

This mechanism has to be used as a weapon mechanism, and to activate it, every weapon slot available must be filled with an iron weapon. The mechanism never needs cleaned, but it also leaves no corpses, body parts, armour, clothes or items carried by the victim, except for their blood and any weapons carried. Everything else carried, worn, or contained within the body, is irretrievably obliterated. Whenever it makes a kill, it "gathers" any weapons from the victim that have been used to kill in the past, and uses them to replace one of it's current weapons that has less "kills", with the new weapon. These weapons may be made from any material, and may even include artifact or bone weapons.

When every single weapon slot is occupied by a weapon that's been used for killing atleast once, the next time your Fortress is seiged the weapon trap will transform into an iron man, armed with a masterwork iron longsword, and a masterwork iron scourge, and covered completely in blood, who fights on the side of your Fortress, until all your enemies are vanquished. This iron man starts unskilled, but may gain fighting skills while fighting. Once all of your enemies are dead, the iron man turns on your Fortress and will attack any inhabitants it can reach.

When the iron man is finally defeated, instead of transforming into a statue, it instead transforms back into this mechanism, and must be remade into a weapon trap. Any artifact weapons will be left behind as well, but all other weapons are lost. After that, when every weapon has been used to kill an additional time, the transformation happens again.

None of this has any meaning whatsoever, as there is now a modifiable tag for weapon size.

As in, you can now make a "greatsword" that a bronze colossus can use, or one that a human could use, or one that a Nac Mac Feegle wouldn't have any trouble handling.

There can't be many valid reasons a dwarf can't swing a dwarf-sized greatsword, but can swing a human sized longsword. And there's every reason to believe dwarfs can make them, better and of steel.

It actually would be more useful to have a tag for weapons a given culture/civ preferred, and then require other weapons the culture was capable of producing, be ordered by the player, if you happen to be playing that civ. 

Here's a complete list of the weapons I'm currently working on modding in, or modifying. I plan to get rid of humans in the game (Honestly, they don't really add a lot to an environment already extremely rich in sentients. Animal men can take up most of the human "slack", and do so in a far more evocative fashion.), and I thought I might give goblins Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Indian weaponry. Make whatever unfortunate implications of that you wish--I'm part Turkish, and a (admittedly not a very good) Buddhist. Elves (now allied with plant and tree folk) may possibly get Asian weapons, at some point in time, but I haven't progressed nearly that far. Kobolds, as well, might get Filipino weaponry.

I'm also going to add in a civilization based on primates, who will likely be arming themselves with stone aged weaponry from many different parts of the world.

MALLOT
BROAD_SWORD
ARMING_SWORD
PUSH_DAGGER
CINQUEDEA
ROUNDEL
BASELARD
DIRK
SICA
SPATHA
POIGNARD
HATCHET
DIRE_PICK
MATTOCK
ZWEIHANDER
BIPENNIS
PERNACH
WAR_SCEPTER
GLAIVE
FLAMBARD
CLAYMORE
CLEAVER
MISERICORDE
BASTARD_SWORD
CUTLASS
NADZIAK
FALCHION
ANELACE
SABER
KURZSEAX
SKRAMASEAX
LANGSEAX
BROAD_AXE
TALWAR
PALE_AXE
DOLABRA
WAR_ADZE
MILITARY_FLAIL
BARDICHE
MILITARY_FORK
MORTUARY_SWORD
FALX
SPONTOON
CROWSBILL
PARTISAN
ROUNDEHEAD
BILLHOOK
SCYTHE
TRIDENT
WINGED_SPEAR
FALCATA
THRESHAL
BEC_DE_CORBIN
KRIEGS_MESSER
FALCHION
LABRYS
DORY_SPEAR
BEARDED_AXE
TABAR_ZIN
BULAWA
PLANCON
SOVYNA
RHOMPHAIA
CHAIN_FLAIL
FIRE_STOKER
TRUNCHEON
TRIPLE-FLAIL
WAR_CLAW
ESPADA
KARABELA
RING_SWORD
QAMA
KONCERZ
KILIJ
PUGIO
BATTLE_AXE
MILITARY_SPADE
DIGGING_FORK
AKLYS
MACE
CLUB_HAMMER
PICK_AXE
ALPENSTOCK
VIRGES
WAR_HAMMER
BLACKSMITH_HAMMER
CUDGEL
MANDRILL
SPLITTING_MAUL
BELL_MAUL
BLOW_GUN
BOLINE
GRAIN_FLAIL
SLEDGE_HAMMER
HALBERD
DAGGER
STILETTO
CROW_BAR
CROW_STAFF
ALPEEN
LANCET
ATHAME
GREAT_MACE
MORNING_STAR
AWL_PIKE
SCIMITAR
SCOURGE
BULL_WHIP
SGIAN_ACHLAIS
SGIAN_DUBH
BUIKU
LEUKU
OYSTER_KNIFE
SKINNING_KNIFE
SHAMSHIR
FLYSSA
DUSSACK
FRANCESCA
BROGIT_STAFF
YATAGHAN
KHANJAR
TWYBIL
DOLOIRE
BULL_WHIP
QUIRT
NAGAIKA
SCHIAVONA
PATTA
KATARA
ARUVAL
NAGNI
KHOKRI
PRUNING_KNIFE
REAPING_HOOK
SLING
ARBALEST

 

Seems alright, at first glance, TolyK. 

The point is that you could reduce specific stones to a generic "gravel", which would then be useful for whatever purposes gravel can be put to. You could always use the stone for something else, ofcourse. If you chose to assign your star rubies to gravel duty, that's your problem, and the gem qualities of the stone would be lost to all of the sledgehammering.

Giant ammonites would be Fun... Sea Monsters with armour on.

Speaking of shells: Abalone are nutritious, delicious, and expensive. Their (large) shells are even more valuable, for carving purposes, and are extremely tough as well--much moreso than almost all other shells, war ammonites notwithstanding . They'd make for a very nice resource, and you might even be able to cobble together some quite decent armour from them. Bucklers too, perhaps.

And, suppose you filled two of them with lead, and put a handle on? Under the current version, you'd have a powerful mace.

Housing has always been a challenge for me, too. It's expensive, but what I've found to work well is to set up enough of those cheap bunk-houses to accommodate 100% of my population, and then start building regular (no electricity) houses, so that people have something to earn. I then strategically place decent (again, no electricity) apartment buildings close to my main centers of commerce/industry. When enough people have moved where I want them to move, I start cutting back on the bunks.

I also intentionally do my best to ignore mining, unless it's gold. Leftover iron and bauxite mines are great to fall back on, if I really get into an economic crunch, and oil is well and good, at the end of the game, but pineapple, coffee, sugar, and other processible produce are where the sustainable money's at.

Mines also create a lot of pollution, and I like to avoid much of that, because tourism can be sustainable and profitable, too. If the tourist trade doesn't work out, I can always fall back on fine furniture (things to fall back on are good). 

I try hard to feed my people well, too, with an eye on variety. That really seems to go a long distance towards increasing overall contentedness, if not happiness.

Crime is easy to put down--unrealistically so, really, it's never been a big problem. I almost wish it were, that I could better live out my Caribbean Voodoo Batman fantasies. Quite a lot of caves in the Caribbean... Education and literacy I find is very important, and I find big benefits in "home growing" atleast my highschoolers. The better to teach them the national language I've created for them.
Medicine is more of a challenge. Most, if not all, of my college-educated citizens, imported or otherwise, end up here, and I make sure all my most educated folk are payed very well, and have access to atleast newspapers. Citizens of 'San Presidente' are ofcourse taught that other languages are fine too, if you happen to like reading words that will give you cancer.

I tend to avoid too much electricity, atleast for most of the game. It's a hassle, and I don't always even need it, unless I decide I want hospitals. The palace is solar-powered, in addition to several large underground generators. The people are aware of this, and it helps tie into the whole Cult of the Sun President/Cult of the Bat Loa I've got going. Religion is a good thing. I also don't bother with an enormous military. All firearms are confiscated at the docks, and end up in my private arsenal, so why should I pay good money teaching my citizens that guns exist, or the particulars involved in employing the soul-poison my bodyguards' crossbows are tipped with? (everybody calls it soul-poison, but it's really just botulism) Apparently, the rebel camps don't come with smorgasbord, either, since the few rebels I produce always seem to get hungry and go back home. Fat and happy are my peasantry.

My personal bodyguard, however, are always the best paid folk in the Carribean. If I could, I'd make diamond pinky-rings and gold-plated remote-control brain grenades a standard part of their Armani uniforms. Keeping me alive and in power is what's putting their kids through the luxurious secret underground college-prison I built for them, and may someday even let them out of.