Bay 12 Games Forum

Even though my last suggestion is still fresh out the creative forge here I am with another one.

Instead of the HFS being a simple barren wasteland of slade and series glowing pits, I feel that it should have more diversity in biomes. And also something to differentiate it from caverns. Cant have more forgotten beasts winding up in the wrong type of cavern and getting beaten up by clowns again huh...

[BIOME:UNDERWORLD_CHASM]

This biome is quite literally the current HFS we all know. A barren hilly area of slade containing many, MANY eerie glowing pits. Luckily, this is the only biome to contain this many of those damned pits. God I hate it when ignorant fighters just dodge into these and instadie...

Only inorganic demons can spawn here, with the occasional organic demon(very rare though).

[BIOME:UNDERWORLD_FOREST]

A forest of Hellgrass and demonic trees, populated by the largest concentration of demons compared to other biomes. Also has harvestable fruits and plants, if you dare brave the clowns. All demons can spawn here. Situated over a layer of Slade Dust, basically Slade that was eroded over time by vegetation and clowns trampling it.

[BIOME:UNDERWORLD_SEA]

A great ocean of boiling lava, these oceans are bordered by beaches of Slade Dust. Don’t dip your toes in the magma, they aint coming back up.

Predominantly fire-based or fire-breathing demons will spawn here, with some exceptions to other inorganic demons.

[BIOME:UNDERWORLD_BARREN]

Basically UNDERWORLD_CHASM except without the chasms. Nothing grows here, and the land is populated by inorganic demons, though organic demons may also pop up.

[BIOME:UNDERWORLD_PLAIN]

A vast plain of flesh-based flora. All organic demons have a chance of popping up here while the rate of inorganic demons is lowest.

[BIOME:UNDERWORLD_SPHERE]
[UNDERWORLD_SPHERE_TYPE:(sphere)]

Special biomes that are connected magically to different spheres(usually evil/dark-aligned spheres). Currently, only DEATH, NIGHT, SUICIDE, DARKNESS and BLIGHT are inside. Flora are related to their biome’s sphere(eg. Miasmic Grama, a type of grass that can emit miasma-like pollen clouds). All kinds of demons can spawn in these biomes.

A few flora from the Underworld, namely [UNDERWORLD_FOREST] and [UNDERWORLD_PLAINS].

Satan’s Fan

A large, saguaro-like red tree that doesn’t produce any fruits and serves mostly to look cool and for wood. It has no leaves.

“A large red tree with vast branches and no leaves. It looks similar to a fan coral/a fan, hence its name.”

Crimson Hand

A large tree that can produce fruits, called Demon’s Fingers. These fruits can be brewed into Hell’s Elixir, the most expensive alcohol in the land(tied with all other Underworld-made wines). They can also be cooked.

“A large crimson tree with a large, overreaching crown and small spike-like leaves. It grows curious lean fruits, resembling large chilis, which drop on the floor periodically. These fruits are long and gnarled, resembling the fingers of some demons, hence their name. The tree’s branching structure makes it look like a mass of hands reaching out from the stem, hence the name Crimson Hand.”

Clownroot

A cookable root. When generated, it can appear any colour randomly in the spectrum.

“An unusually cheerful plant in comparison to the bleak red or dark tones of the rest of the Underworld. It’s small crown of red leaves belie a massive, multi coloured root with red bulbs. Some say it looks eerily similar to some self-dyed performers, colloquially known as ‘clowns’. They probably didn’t have enough alcohol.”

Boiling Cress

Can be used for...cooking?

“An Underworld relative of the Garden Cress, it’s neon red leaves feel hot to the touch. It can very seriously burn anything it contacts.”

Sootweed

Grass cover.

“A gray plant with small, rounded leaves. The leaves have the texture of ash and the flowers glow like embers in a fireplace. Leaves can be broken easily.”

[UNDERWORLD_PLAINS]

Goretree

A tree that can drop fruits that are cookable, Gorefruit.

“A large tree with large leaves, it’s crown is packed so tightly that it resembles a giant lump of gore. It’s fruits, known as Gorefruits, have an unusually high concentration of plant-based proteins, making them regrettably unbrewable.”

Flesh Growth

A weird tree that can be eaten from logs. Yeah, weird.

“A ‘tree’ that is pretty much a mass of flesh and bone. It absorbs the evil energies around it to grow and propagate itself through runners.”

Flesh Bulb

Can be harvested for 1 Meat Bulb(cookable only).

“A small, harvestable bulb of flesh surrounded by a small crown of tiny red leaves.”

Underblade Reed

Ground Cover. Can injure the feet of any dwarves walking over it without shoes/socks.

“A vicious plant with thin, sharp leaf blades. They are razor-sharp and can easily pierce flesh.”

[UNDERWORLD:SPHERE]

Each Underworld Sphere biome will contain 1 unique tree, 3 unique grass-type plants(serve similar functions to cave moss and grass), and 3 special plants(harvestable/interacts). Below are a few examples:

Miasmic Grama

Occasionally releases bursts of miasma into the air, which acts as normal miasma.

“A small, purple ground cover plant, a denizen of the Death Sphere biomes. As a form of reproduction, it releases large clouds of purple pollen into the air, which unfortunately causes all of the same effects as actual miasma.”

Duskbalm

Can harvest Dusk Balls from this plant, which can be brewed into Black Broth.

“A curious vine-like plant, from it’s end sprouts a large black bulb which seems to attract light instead of emitting it. Staying near to it makes one feel uneasy; regardless, the dwarves brew it just fine. A native of the Darkness Sphere biomes.”

Blight Bloom

Can cause sickness in those with open wounds that walk on it.

“A seemingly diseased, rotting bloom that spreads deadly pathogens around it, using its pollen as a hitchhiking device. A denizen of the Blight Sphere biomes, it’s sickly yellow leaves and dull brown petals fit in perfectly with the rest of the putrid plants.”

Sparring in Adventurer mode would either occur with your companions(soldier companions with weapons) or with soldiers.

For the former, you can ask your companion to spar, after which they will (usually) draw their weapon and start the spar. Just like fortress mode, all of your attacks(and their attacks) will be “lightly tapping the target”. Sparring stops when you leave a certain range(5-10 tiles) or ask the companion to stop sparring. Such sparring is a great way to train your skills. Will not occur if your companion is impatient enough.

For the latter, soldiers of any kind(barring those who don’t really care about their life anymore, they act the same as soldiers currently) will ask you to spar with them to assess your abilities to see if you are good enough for their companionship. Such a value would likely be determined by the amount of hits you score on the soldier divided by the amount of hits the soldier does on you. If you impressed them, they will join you; if not, they decline your offer and ask you to train more before asking them again.

As the title says, dwarves can play chess games, either of the real world variety or proc-genned themselves. Dwarves could play these on the floor with other dwarves in taverns, or on tables with multiple seats. Playing games would give dwarves happy thoughts. Also, during wartime with another race (eg. Elves), there might be anti-elf(or whatever race is warring) games and stuff made, which would probably include things like the famous “Pin the arrow on the Elf”.

It seems that tweak make own is unable to convert wild animals or semi mega beasts, as the latter appears to be considered animals rather than full sentients(similar to training them) and mega beasts just become hostile, not changing anything. Is there a way to make the tweak makeown command remove the megabeast/wild animal token and replace it with a profession token(peasant probably)? It seems that merchant professions are changed into traders through the code, so I wonder what the code for removing the megabeast/wild animal tag would look like.

I’m sure all of us love slaughtering elves, maybe the occasional humans. But has one actually though of what these mean diplomatically? Sure they bring sieges and ambushes which are easily dealt with with traps, but what about the civilisation as a whole? Maybe those elves were crucial allies in a war with a goblin civ. They may be weak tree-huggers but they make good meat shields to distract the gobbos.

It just feels like fortresses have far too much autonomy. A fortress can sustain itself basically indefinitely, without the interference of any home civ. The only meaningful things they do would be to send migrants and trade caravans. In fact, it is quite common that fortresses don’t even prioritise the needs of their home civilization(training lords to fight the goblins) but instead do seemingly artistic and useless things(see: Stupid Dwarf Trick, Megastructure). And while I cannot deny that such things are not good for dwarf fortress(they look cool and make for a great read/look), I feel like some of the actions players do might warrant a little...ramifications from the home civ. Like deposing of a king using an atom smasher or seemingly neglecting the civ’s interests for its own.

Every now and then, the Mountainhomes may give you requests to supply the other sites(since yours is so productive anyways) with materials, ranging from food to goods to armour and even animals(provably a max of 10 or so). The player receives this information from the liaison when he arrives and has the option to accept or refuse. Accepting makes it so you have to offer the goods necessary to the dwarves caravan within a year or the request will be considered unfulfilled. If the caravan leaves early/does not come/does not have a chance to trade the request will be extended by another year. If you refuse, however...

The mountain homes will not be happy. At first all that happens is that the Liason seems somewhat annoyed but complies, chalking it up to some shortage of goods or something. However, the more times you refuse, the more upset he will get until they just stop coming allthogether. Things will start happening, such as migrants no longer arriving, caravans not coming, taxes being levied on goods, etc etc.

Such unhappiness will also occur if you indiscriminately attack civilisations that are at peace or allied with the home civ, or if you happen to depose of the king through an unfortunate accident. The indiscriminate attacking does not apply to goblin and kobold civs because they are always hostile. Things like sacking the caravan through glitches like trade depot deconstructions also anger the home civ. Having merchants/guards killed DOES NOT anger them, because dwarven civs have long accepted the fact that their caravans will probably be slaughtered by FBs or other fun.

After enough refusals, the Liason will come to the fortress with a siege guard(like an adventurer persuading you to give artifacts), giving you an ultimatum: to stop refusing the requests and actually contribute to the home civ, or leave entirely. If you choose the latter, the Liason denounces your fortress as a group of the dwarven civ, effectively outcasting your group, and asks for all dwarves still loyal to the civ to follow him away from the fortress. A large portion of your fortress will likely join him, INCLUDING YOUR LEGENDARY SMITHS, SOLDIERS AND ANY OTHER IMPORTANT SITES. NO DWARF IS EXEMPT. After this, the Liason leaves with the loyal dwarves and you are formally out of your own home civ. Now they can send sieges to you, which are exceptionally dangerous because they can do things like digging and breaking bridges and walls, as well as knowing where every trap the Liason has seen is(and using a more advanced version, know where a trap is even if you deconstruct and reconstruct it). At this point, you have reached the rock bottom; there is no going back, only trudging onwards into the mire of FUN

When a human civilization reaches a certain critical mass(either through having a large amount of sites or a large enough population, maybe even both)the human civ will found a city in the center of their sphere of influence(or near a large amount of other human sites). Cities will be different from towns in that most, if not all of their land is populated with multi-floored, furnished(with actual beds and stuff) stone block houses, and instead of a central keep, the city itself is based around the “town center” an area which usually consists of a circular road and at the center either a pond or a grass patch with a tall, uncuttable tree on it. Cities will also have a lot of special features, like very large storehouses and “factory” blocks full of smelters, wood furnaces and forges, to large strip mines extending down to the first cavern layer(which is walled off). Much of the city will be encompassed by massive 5 block walls, and if the human civ in question has connections to a dwarven civ that knows about siege engines/have researched siege engines themselves, there will be ballistae inside the ground level of the walls, which will be carved into fortifications to allow them to fire out of them.

Cities will instantly become the capital when they are founded, and there will be a large influx of migrants from surrounding hamlets/towns into the city until it hits its maximum population of around 20,000. They are also the capital of innovation and many, many scholars often come to cities to ponder and write books/scrolls, as well as research new technologies. At the city center a large tower made of stone can be found. This is usually where the royalty have their quarters, from priests at the bottom to the law-giver and other high ranking nobles at the top. This building is usually heavily guarded by miltia and the law-giver’s quarters are guarded by 10 legendary lords, making killing them extremely difficult if they have already moved to a city.

Instead of open marketplaces, shop-owners own their own portions of the building where they do business. Sewers under the city are often rife with criminals and even necromantic elements, though militia occasionally clear out these sewers.

If a city is captured or razed(either through megabeasts or sieges, though the latter will likely be more common), a human civ will redirect all it’s resources to recapture or reclaim it, because it is that important for them.

Though it usually occurs in worldgen, it is possible for a human civilization to found a city during a play through of fortress/adventurer mode. If this happens, the event will be announced through a mega-message in green text. While there is no large impact in both fortress and adventurer mode, dwarves in fortress mode will feel “admiration upon the founding of a great city” which gives them a happiness boost. This occurs regardless of the human civ’s diplomatic status(even with no contact or at war).

Also, the city will always be active, meaning that even at night there will still be humans walking around and selling things and operating workshops. The shops open in the day will close while other ships will only open in the night.

Finally, cities, unlike basically every other site do not have a fixed site area; they can expand their area to a max of a 3x3 space on the world map, covering 9 tiles worth of space. Any caves/lairs/camps in the way will be completely bulldozed, even adventurer sites, where the adventurer will move into the city blocks instead. They usually expand on all sides slowly, but can occasionally expand in one diagonal direction. No sites will be near any plausible city claim areas.

We have a lot of things on worlds themselves, but what about beyond the world, in space? It would be nice to have astrological events that could change things globally.

For example, comets could occasionally fly past the world, giving a mega-message when occurring and giving dwarves happy thoughts about it.

Also, meteorites may strike down onto the world, bringing with them procedurally generated rocks/metals which range from terrible to adamantine/slade level of toughness and durability.

Just a few things that might be cool to work into the game.