Bay 12 Games Forum

This seems like a simple but immersive way of expanding booze & its quality.  I'm for it.  I particularly liked the "aged in tower cap wood for 3 years."  You could possibly have different modifiers depending on the type of wood, as well.

I don't have anything else to add right now.

I don't know what all SirHoneyBadger's medical notes to Toady were, but it would be neat if there was the possibility of, say, bleeding being a counter-sepsis-treatment, with a low probability of success.  This would open up the possibility of a lowly-trained doctor misdiagnosing a venom/specialized infection/whatever and prescribing bleeding, only to make the condition worse. 

And. . .you know. . .explosions.

So psyched for this release.

Admittedly, Toady did (at one point) say that he wanted DF to be a sort of 'cheap fantasy story simulator.'  (his words were similar to that - I didn't insert the 'cheap,' before someone wants to flame me to death).

I, personally, would like adventure mode to be a more proactive (on the player's part), sandboxy sort of situation.  Leading a band of bandits the way Capntastic talked about would be awesome.  But that's pretty much personal preference.  Still, I'd like to see what the game's like before a protagonist spotlight gets placed on the adventurer.  It may very well be that people are able to make up pretty cool stories without events being forced to happen near the PC.

The reason (as I understood it, at least) that you don't get sieged at 7 dwarfs is because why would anyone spend all the time and resources needed to muster, feed, and transport an army hundreds of kilometers just to attack a few dwarfs grubbing in the soil for mushrooms?  From an in-game perspective, it doesn't make any sense.  It isn't just for game balance.  That's why there has to be a certain amount of resources before you get ambushed/robbed/sieged.  If, in the future when the army arc is implemented, your fortress is on the way from a goblin fortress to the city they want to sack, it would maybe make sense if they decided to do a little pillaging on the way.  And quite frankly, I think that'd be awesome.

I completely agree with the sentiment.  The only problem is figuring out which figures to highlight - just an arbitrary "has killed 20 other historical figures?"  I mean, wouldn't you rather have the dwarf highlighted who had been kidnapped as a child, rescued by his civ, then died in battle after killing the goblin that originally kidnapped him?  But how would you tell a program to pick stuff like that out?

Quote from: Sunday on September 09, 2009, 03:16:42 pm

The civil part being the whole failed-mandates punishment thing.  Though the punishments even on that scale seem more criminal than civil.

You're missing the whole feudal-nobility thing. They are/make the law. Those mandates are laws being broken. A noble was often called by the name of his territory- the ruler of a territory IS the territory, in a very literal sense. (See: Hobbes's Leviathan for a way of depicting.) This is the principle behind the 'royal we' thing- they are the land and the people and the law. So, by disobeying their mandate/law, you are not just disobeying a single person, you are disobeying the law, the land, and its people. this would, in that mindset, mean that it is a criminal offense, no?

I can see where you're coming from, but civil damages (especially torts) are kind of about people transgressing a kind of law - its just that it's more of a social law than a governmental one.  But you're still transgressing against the social well being of the people.  I'll be the first to admit that I don't totally understand where the separation is between certain civil and criminal actions.  Especially because some (battery, for example) can be both.  And technically, false imprisonment is an intentional civil tort, but it's closely related to things like kidnapping/abduction, where the crime is the taking away of the person, and the civil liability only comes from holding them without their consent.  But if someone tricks someone into a building and then locks the door, it doesn't count as kidnapping.  Just misrepresentation and false imprisonment.  Only talking about US rules here - it could be very different in other countries.

Of course, we haven't even started talking about theocracies and religious prohibitions.  I recently read a Terry Pratchett book (Monstrous Regiment) in which the god is constantly putting out ridiculous Abominations (from eating grains, to the color blue).  It would be interesting to have religious rules on their own (theocracy) and also in concert with secular/feudal rules.  In the latter case you would have at least some dwarfs trying to obey two sets of (possibly conflicting) rules.

Quote

-Restitution: Reimbersing the victim
-Retribution: Punishing the criminal
-Recuperation: Stopping the Criminal from commiting crimes
-Prevention: Stopping others from commiting crimes

Well, "Reimbursing the victim" obviously isn't going to happen, and isn't likely to be too useful from our point of view.  "Retribution" is similar - I don't really care if my legendary stonemason attacked someone, I still don't want the hammerer to smash his bones!  "Recuperation" is the only one that currently works, as being in jail helps boost moral (if you do it right) and they can't cause any damage in there.  "Prevention" is one that could be added in - perhaps a well oiled justice system would cause dwarves to think twice before throwing a tantrum?

See, your talk about 'retribution' starts to bring in economic considerations - your legendary stonemason is more valuable to you than random cheesemaker #23.  Should that matter in dwarven justice?  It starts to bring in class considerations.  Much of modern law is concerned similar issues.

I'd be totally down with a legendary stonemason getting away (literally) with murder - either because of his economic worth or his connections with the fortress leader - but then having vengeance meted out by family or friends of the deceased.  Or possibly a representative 'judge' noble from the mountainhomes coming to your fort if too many cases are being decided apart from traditional dwarven notions of justice, and your dwarves are complaining.

Also, dwarven justice seems to occupy a strange midpoint between civil and criminal law.  The civil part being the whole failed-mandates punishment thing.  Though the punishments even on that scale seem more criminal than civil.

But the civil-criminal split is relatively recent, in some ways.  Back in medieval times many 'civil' crimes (debt, certain batteries, lying about products, etc.) were punishable by jail time or public humiliation.  And some borderline civil/criminal cases (assault, battery) were merely punished by damages.  Frex, there's an assault case from the 1350s where the defendant was ordered to pay damages - no fines or jailtime sentenced.

All that said, I'd be totally down to start a thread on this in suggestions, though it might not technically belong there.

Also Sandbox trees (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandbox_tree) can throw their seeds 100 meters.  Also called the 'dynamite tree' because of the sound it makes.

A couple minor quibbles:  the word 'polyglot' means 'speaks more than one language' - I'm not sure it fits in with your description.  Maybe 'expansionary polytheism' or something.

Also, I'm not really sure that religion 'evolves' from local polytheism to monotheism.  I don't think that (say) Shinto or Hinduism are 'less evolved' than monotheism.

Plus, where does animism/shamanistic stuff fit in with your worldview?

Overall, though, I think it's a cool and interesting way of looking at implementing religion.